Turning Angel

  Logan processes this slowly. “I see. So basically, I’m here to make this all legal after the fact.”

  “That’s right, Don.”

  Logan looks at me. “What are you here for?”

  “For the unexpected,” Kelly says.

  The chief chuckles softly. “I don’t know if we’re the Three Musketeers or the Three Stooges.”

  “The winners write history,” I murmur. “We’ll know which we are after this is over.”

  “Aw, hell,” says Logan. “We don’t even know if Marko will take the bait.”

  “He’ll take it,” says Mia.

  “How do you know?”

  She smiles in the gathering dusk. “Wouldn’t you?”

  Kelly laughs. “She’s got you there.”

  Chapter

  39

  “She’s been in there awhile,” says Chief Logan.

  It’s full dark on Lindberg Street, the location of Alicia Reynolds’s parents’ house. Mia disappeared inside an hour ago, after calling Alicia and saying she had to talk to her about a matter of life and death. Logan, Kelly, and I have sat huddled in Logan’s Crown Vic all that time, trying not to let second thoughts sway our plan. Logan and I are in the front, Kelly in back. The Reynolds house is forty yards away.

  “You don’t think Marko could be hiding in the Reynolds’s house?” Logan suggests.

  “That’s a scary thought,” I reply, “but no.” I change positions, trying to keep my feet moving. They’ve been burning badly for the past twenty minutes. If Mia doesn’t emerge soon, I’m going to have to get out and walk around a little.

  “If Marko was in there,” Kelly says, “Mia would have switched on the transmitter.”

  “You’ve got a lot of confidence in her,” says Logan.

  Kelly nods. “Girl has her shit together.”

  Earlier tonight, when Logan tried to tape the transmitter to Mia’s inner thigh, she shook her head and said, “Marko’s hands will wind up there, I promise you. He’s that kind of guy.”

  “Then where?” asked the chief.

  Kelly picked up Mia’s handbag, pulled a knife from his pocket, and slit open the inner lining of the bag. Then he slipped the transmitter into the lining. While Logan stared, Kelly took the duct tape from him, made a loop of it, and neatly sealed the slit he’d made in the bag from the inside. He made Mia practice switching the transmitter on and off through the lining until she could do it smoothly by touch alone. Mia seemed encouraged by Kelly’s professionalism.

  “Where do you think Marko’s hiding?” Logan asks, peering at some approaching headlights.

  “Lots of possibilities,” I answer, not taking my eyes off the lighted window on the side of the Reynolds’s house. “He could be staying in an empty house up at Lake St. John. He could be in an empty building downtown.”

  “Plenty of those.”

  “He could be at somebody’s deer camp. He could be at one of the other empty factories, like Cyrus. The bottom line is, without somebody like Alicia, we’d never find him.”

  Logan nods. “So, he’d be stupid to take the bait.”

  “Or arrogant,” Kelly says.

  “Good point.”

  My cell phone rings. I snatch it up before it can ring again. “Hello?”

  “She’s on the phone with him!” Mia hisses. “She’s got a special phone for calling him. I think we’re leaving straight from here.”

  “Any idea where you’re going?”

  “No! Have you got the tracking device on the car?” Mia sounds panicked.

  “We didn’t know which car you were taking.”

  “Hers, I think. Shit, I don’t know! She’s coming. Don’t lose us!”

  She hangs up.

  “Which car?” asks Kelly.

  “She thinks Alicia’s, but she’s not sure. They’re leaving soon.” My heart thumps against my sternum. “Marko’s still here. Jesus.”

  “Put the tracker on Reynolds’s car,” says Logan, visibly tense.

  “Not until we know for sure,” says Kelly.

  “It’ll be too late then!”

  Kelly shakes his head. “I’m gonna wait.”

  “If the girlfriend sees you, it’s over.”

  Soft laughter. “Nobody’s gonna see me, Chief.”

  Kelly gets out of the car and quietly closes the door. When I look out my window, he’s vanished.

  “Where’d he go?” asks Logan. “I don’t see him.”

  “He’s there. Just be glad he’s on our side.”

  Logan leans over and begins fooling with something. The seat between us is littered with gear: walkie-talkies; the receiver for Mia’s transmitter; and some of Kelly’s gear, including a subnote-book computer. Lying on the floor in front of the backseat are a carbon-fiber sniper rifle and an MP5 submachine gun like the one the Asian boy was carrying last week. Both weapons are fitted with night-vision scopes.

  “What are you doing?” I ask Logan.

  “Making sure our radios are on the same channel. Sometimes it’s the simplest thing that kills you.”

  The light under the Reynolds’s carport goes on.

  “Here they come,” I say.

  Alicia’s white RX-8 is parked under the carport. Mia’s Accord is in the driveway. Marko’s girlfriend walks into the carport and stomps around to the driver’s door of her Mazda. She’s obviously pissed off. Mia walks out behind her, much more slowly, and opens the passenger door. She glances in our direction, but she doesn’t seem to be in distress.

  “Reynolds could lose us in that Mazda,” Logan observes.

  “Kelly’s got it. Just wait.”

  The RX-8 backs quickly out of the driveway, then peels up Lindberg Street, its motor whining as it heads into a large subdivision lying between us and the Highway 61 bypass.

  “Where’s Kelly?” Logan asks.

  The door to my left jerks open and Kelly leaps in. “Stay fifty meters back,” he says. “Don’t get in a hurry.”

  Logan wants to hurry, I can tell. He keeps the Mazda’s taillights in sight, which makes sense to me.

  “If you can see her, she can see you,” Kelly says calmly, reaching over the front seat for his computer. “Trust your gear.”

  I wouldn’t trust the local police department’s gear, but this stuff belongs to Kelly.

  “Have you got them?” Logan asks, barely slowing.

  I look into the backseat. Sitting sideways so I can see, Kelly pulls up a city map on his screen and studies it. “Got ’em. Slow down, Chief.”

  Logan lets the taillights ahead wink out.

  A red dot on Kelly’s screen moves along the streets of Montebello subdivision, moving toward the bypass. The dot turns onto the highway and accelerates.

  “Where are they?” Logan asks nervously.

  “Bypass,” I answer. “Now they’re turning onto Montebello Melrose Parkway.”

  “Headed downtown?”

  “Looks like it. Lots of houses before they’re downtown, though. Woods, too.”

  The red dot sweeps down the long curving lanes that cut through the thick forest between the bypass and downtown Natchez. It passes Melrose, an antebellum plantation purchased by the federal government and turned into a National Historical Park. This part of Natchez is thick with mansions, as many wealthy planters’ estates abutted in the vicinity.

  Logan accelerates along the parkway. We pass a modern bank sited in the midst of the forest, then climb a hill and pass Melrose.

  “They’re on Main Street,” Kelly says.

  “Not really,” I tell him. “That’s the Main Street extension. They’re not actually downtown yet.”

  “They’re slowing down,” says Kelly. “Stopping now.”

  “Where?” asks Logan.

  “Can’t tell,” I say, thinking furiously.

  “They turned into blank space on my map,” says Kelly.

  “Ardenwood, maybe?” I suggest.

  “Fuck,” Logan curses, and suddenly I know I’m right.

/>   “What’s Ardenwood?” asks Kelly.

  “Sixty acres owned by a complete nut,” says Logan. “Son of a bitch. We’re in trouble, Penn. Mia’s in trouble.”

  “Just get us there. This makes all the sense in the world.”

  “What’s Ardenwood?” asks Kelly. “What the fuck are we headed into?”

  I close my eyes and try to summon what I know. Ardenwood was a majestic Greek Revival mansion built by one of the wealthiest planting dynasties in the pre–Civil War South. One of the few to remain in the hands of its original family, it stood pristine through the war, Reconstruction, decay, rebirth, and then the modern city of Natchez growing up around it. A decade ago, the property fell into the hands of an heir who didn’t care to live in it. An eccentric lawyer from Mobile, he preferred to let the house stand unoccupied, slowly rotting away along with its priceless contents. Last year, on a calm Sunday morning, a column of smoke began rising from the center of town. By the time the fire department arrived, a quarter of the mansion had been consumed. A crowd of hundreds gathered to watch it burn, some with tears in their eyes, others cursing the man who had let this jewel of history be destroyed for no reason. Annie and I were part of that crowd. Caitlin was out of town. All that remains now is a dangerous shell patched with plywood against the rain. That and some frightening rumors.

  “A fucking nightmare,” Logan grumbles, filling the vacuum. “It’s an old mansion sitting on sixty acres of woods and pasture. It burned last year, and the absentee owner blamed a prowler. He’s booby-trapped the whole goddamned place since then. He’s got shotguns wired to the doors, spikes in the yard, crazy stuff. He’s even got night-vision equipment up there. He said he’s going to take care of any future prowlers himself.”

  “I think Marko Bakic is more prowler than he could handle,” I murmur.

  “The guy stays over in Mobile most of the time,” Logan says. “That’s one good thing.”

  “For his sake, I hope he’s been there all week.”

  Logan slows the Crown Victoria, and I look left as we pass the road that leads into Ardenwood.

  “I see it,” says Kelly. “Christ.”

  The front acreage of the property is ten feet higher than the back, but behind the dark mass of land, a hulking black skeleton rises from between oak and magnolia trees. I can just make out the Greek Revival facade: huge Corinthian columns and an immense white capital.

  “Keep driving,” I say. “Kill your lights and park in the median.”

  The median here is forty feet wide and shaded by oak and pecan trees. We’re at the edge of downtown proper, but to an urban dweller this would look like deep woods.

  Logan parks, then sweeps our radios, the wire receiver, and the tape recorder into a black satchel. While Kelly grabs his weapons and gets out, I concentrate on walking without falling down. We cross the road, climb the berm we saw before, then hunker down under a large pecan tree. Logan passes out the radios.

  “Now that we know where they are,” he says, “how do we play it?”

  “I’ve got to move up to the house to cover Mia,” Kelly says. “You two stay here and monitor the receiver. I’ll have an earpiece in my walkie-talkie, but you don’t call me under any circumstance but one.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The girl needs saving. We’ll use two codes: ‘Red’ and ‘Blue.’ If I hear ‘Blue,’ I’ll try to extract Mia without harming Bakic. If you say ‘Red,’ I kill him.”

  “Understood,” I say.

  “Got it,” says Logan. “Why hasn’t she switched on her transmitter?”

  “She will,” says Kelly. “She’s got it down.”

  He leans his sniper rifle against the pecan tree and shoulders his MP5. “Either of you know anything about the interior layout of this place?”

  “There are usually four rooms on the ground floor and four upstairs,” I tell him. “You should find a big central hall downstairs with a wide staircase, then another staircase somewhere else for the servants. I don’t know how much of the interior remained intact after the fire. Even if the stairs are still there, you might not be able to put any weight on them.”

  “That’s better than nothing.” Kelly gives us both a questioning look. “The codes?”

  “Blue for extraction,” I answer.

  “Red is dead,” says Logan.

  Kelly nods. “Dead as a hammer, Chief.” He gives me a grin, then turns and starts to walk away.

  “Hey,” I call after him.

  He turns and looks back.

  “Don’t let anything happen to that girl. She’s pure gold.”

  Kelly smiles. “I saw that right off. Don’t worry.”

  “Take care of yourself, too.”

  He waves, then turns and races off under the trees.

  Chapter

  40

  Logan peers at me, his lips pale in the dark. “I’m serious about those booby traps, Penn. The owner’s lawyer informed the department so we’d be aware of them. Fire department, too. He was covering his ass in case of a lawsuit.”

  “Fuck him. It wasn’t any prowler that burned this place. It was an electrical fire. He let everything rot, and fire was the result.”

  “Yeah,” says Logan.

  As I walk over to a tree trunk to lean against it, a sharp squawk makes me jump. Then the sound of music floats through the dark. Coldplay. Then the music fades and Mia whispers to us through the receiver: “Alicia just went inside. I’m in the car. She took my cell phone and told me to stay put. She said you can get killed wandering around this place. That’s why Marko chose it.”

  “She needs to stop talking,” Logan says. “Marko might be watching her right now.”

  “That’s not why he chose this place,” I think aloud, looking through the trees at the dark ruin. “This is just like Sarajevo. That’s why he chose it.”

  “Locals don’t even think about this house anymore,” Logan muses. “They pass it every day, but it might as well not be here.”

  “Here she comes,” Mia whispers. “No Marko.”

  “He’s there,” I murmur. “He’s waiting for you.”

  “This is dangerous as hell,” says Logan. “It could go really wrong for that girl. Is she even eighteen?”

  “Yes.”

  “Come on, Mia,” says a childlike voice—Alicia’s voice. “He’s waiting, you know?”

  The sound of footsteps crunching in wet gravel crackles from the receiver.

  “Are you recording?” I ask.

  “Every word.”

  “This is bullshit,” says Alicia. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but this is bullshit.”

  Mia doesn’t reply.

  “I know you want him for yourself,” Alicia goes on, her voice warbling with fear. “Well, you can’t have him.”

  “I already had him,” Mia says. “That’s not why I’m here. I’m just trying to keep him from spending the rest of his life in jail.”

  “You’re a liar.”

  The crunching stops.

  “They’re walking around the house,” says Logan. “On grass. We’d have heard the porch.”

  “Right here,” says Alicia. “Boost me up.”

  “Through the window?” asks Mia.

  “You see me, don’t you?”

  Wood scrapes against wood. The girls are climbing through the window. Then I hear a clatter of heels on hardwood.

  “Mia!” cries a male voice. “So glad to see you, baby!”

  The East European accent is unmistakable.

  “Give us some space, Alicia,” Marko says.

  “What?” Anger now. Uncertainty with it.

  “Disappear for a while.”

  “But—”

  “Go.”

  The silence after this command is chilling, but then the sound of light footsteps comes to us.

  “Not that way!” Marko snaps. “I’ve told you a hundred times. Go sit in the front room and watch the driveway.”

  “You’re a bastard, you
know that?”

  “I know this. That’s why you love me.”

  More footsteps, slowly fading.

  Marko chuckles softly. “So, we’re alone finally. What’s the big news about Coach Anders?”

  I hear a soft, sliding sound. Mia padding around the room in her running shoes? “This place is wild,” she says. “Gas lantern, huh? That sheet on the window keeps people outside from seeing it?”

  “Just like back home,” Marko replies. “What’s the deal, Mia? What about Wade?”

  “He’s recanted his story.”

  “What’s that mean, recanted?”

  “He admitted that he lied for you. He told the police that you weren’t at his house on the afternoon Kate died. The police are looking for you now.”

  A long pause. “Is that so?”

  “Yes.”

  To ensure that Marko couldn’t learn the real truth of the situation, Logan called Wade Anders and warned him not to take any calls from Marko. Logan told me Anders sounded scared shitless on the phone.

  “How do you know this?” Marko asks.

  “From the guy I babysit for. Penn Cage.”

  “Ah, Mr. Cage. I heard Cyrus fucked him up pretty good.”

  “He did. I saw him. But what about the police, Marko?”

  “It’s no big deal. I was changing my name anyway.”

  “Changing your name? Are you leaving town?”

  “That’s right. Leaving tonight.”

  “Are you going to come back and graduate?”

  Marko laughs wildly. “Too late for that, baby.”

  “No, it’s not. If you took your exams, you could still graduate with the rest of us.”

  “Can’t do it.”

  “But Cyrus is dead now. And Penn said the Asians are dead or gone back to Biloxi. What do you have to worry about now?”

  “Cyrus has homeboys. The Asians are a gang. They believe in payback.”

  “Is that really it, Marko?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean…where were you that afternoon? For real?”

  “What afternoon?”

  “Don’t give me that. The afternoon Kate died.”