‘Sounds like bullshit, you ask me,’ Moon said.
‘I didn’t ask for your opinion, Moon. I asked you who the hell this guy is.’
‘Was,’ Ritter corrected him. ‘Some hotshot who thought he’d got the chops. Seen a million of ’em. Don’t worry about it.’ He was still pissed off at Moon for opening his big mouth.
‘Says here he was a major,’ Finn said.
‘Major pain in the butt,’ Moon chuckled. ‘I never did like officers. Who cares why the fucker was there? Maybe he knew Brennan.’
‘Yeah?’ Finn said. ‘And maybe you’re a cretin, Moon.’
‘Can’t be, on account of I ain’t never been to Crete,’ Moon protested.
‘It doesn’t matter any more,’ Ritter said. ‘We handled it. That’s what we do, right?’
‘A man like this isn’t someone I need on my case,’ Finn said, pointing at the iPad screen. ‘You’re definitely sure he’s dead?’
‘As disco,’ Moon said.
‘Forget him,’ Ritter said quietly. ‘He’s history.’
‘He’d damn well better be,’ Finn replied. ‘Because we have some other business to deal with, and I don’t need some meathead getting in the way this time.’ He slipped a blank card from his pocket. On the back of it was written a name and an address in Crosbie Heights. He handed the card to Ritter. ‘This needs to be done quickly and quietly. She can be knocked about a little, but I need her able to talk. Got it?’
‘Who is the bitch?’ Ritter asked, peering at the card.
‘It’s sensitive. She works for my wife.’
Ritter frowned. ‘So?’
‘So, Angela had her staying at the goddamn cabin that night. She was there.’
‘When we …?’
‘Uh-huh. When we took care of Blaylock. Damn woman videoed us and managed to sneak right out from under your noses. How’d you suppose that happened, huh? It’s just luck that the evidence is in safe hands. But we have to make sure there are no copies. That’s why I need her alive. Got that?’
Ritter didn’t need to ask whose safe hands the video evidence was in. He showed the card to Moon, whose eyes glittered. Right up his street.
Finn shook his head, reading Moon’s expression. ‘Not you. She knows your faces. I can’t afford for anything to go wrong.’
‘Nothing will go wrong,’ Ritter said.
‘That so? She already got away once.’
‘Don’t make me beg, boss,’ Moon whined.
‘You heard me,’ Finn said, casting a warning look at each of them in turn. ‘Get one of your guys to take care of it. The sooner the better.’
Ritter currently had upwards of twenty men working under him virtually full-time to run McCrory’s enterprise. He often thought about taking on more, as it was growing so fast. He rasped a hand over the stubble on his head as he reflected for a moment on who to give this job to. ‘Joey Spicer,’ he said.
‘Spicer. He good enough?’ Finn asked warily.
Ritter nodded. ‘Oh yeah.’
‘Then call him right away. Tell him it’s worth three thousand bucks bonus.’
‘Spicer’ll want five for something like this,’ Ritter said. ‘Burglary gone sour, that’s easy. Kidnapping, that’s something else. He’s gonna want to take a partner along.’
Finn waved his hand impatiently. He’d have doubled it to ten in an instant. ‘Hell, make it seven-fifty. I don’t care if it’s two guys or twenty. I want her in front of me and talking by tonight.’
‘What happens to her afterwards?’
Finn shrugged. ‘Hell do I care? Feed her to the dogs. Give her to Moon. Do whatever you like with her. As long as she disappears. Understood?’
Chapter Thirty-Three
Erin had been home for a couple of days, with nothing to do but anxiously wait for something to happen. She didn’t even know what that something was.
Officially, she was off work for a week, laid up with some kind of summertime virus. As the story went, she must have caught it before the weekend, forcing her to return early from the lake cabin. Angela had been sympathetic, wishing her a speedy recovery. ‘I don’t know how long I can manage without you, though. Things are crazier than ever around here.’
Erin couldn’t stop fretting over the dilemma. She didn’t want to lose her job any more than she wanted to let Angela down – but how could she go back to work there, after what had happened? She didn’t know if she could look Angela in the eye. Worse, what if the mayor put in an appearance at the Desert Rose Trust offices, as he sometimes did? What would Erin’s own reaction be if she found herself face-to-face with him in the same room? Would she give herself away? Would he twig? And if he did, then what?
And on it went. The torment of waiting and wondering. Long hours dragging by. Day merging with painful slowness into night and back into day. Still no news – and Erin’s fear and frustration were preying on her more and more as she wondered what the hell the cops were doing.
She couldn’t sleep. The thoughts that kept her staring at the ceiling into the small hours were still with her in the morning. She kept replaying the interview with Chief O’Rourke and Detective Morrell in her mind. Surely this thing couldn’t just blow over as if it had never happened? Surely something had to be done about it? The situation couldn’t go on the way it was.
It felt like being under house arrest. She couldn’t focus enough to catch up on any work at home, couldn’t go out for her daily run along the Newblock Park Trail that flanked the Arkansas River. The only time she’d ventured any distance from her house was when she’d taken a cab to go and collect her Honda from the repair shop. On her way home, she’d stopped at a Kmart for some groceries and a cheap cellphone to replace the one she’d given O’Rourke.
Now, with nothing else to distract her agitated mind, she’d finally been reduced to watching this crass afternoon talk show. Some peroxide four-hundred-pounder was crammed into a studio chair dithering on about her lawsuit against the food manufacturer who’d victimised her by maliciously tempting her to stuff her face with too many of their products: ‘Look what they did to me!’
Erin sat staring at the talking heads until she couldn’t bear the inane babble any longer and launched herself off the couch. Camomile tea, she thought. Better that than Valium for soothing raw nerves.
Her kitchen was tiny, but neatly organised with everything within reach exactly how she needed it to be. All her utensils and cutlery were stored in the column of drawers under the small worktop. A row of shiny steel saucepans dangled from hooks on a little rail above. She turned on the kettle, which had exactly enough water in it for one person. While waiting for it to boil, she fetched down a stoneware mug from the cupboard in front of her and set it on the worktop. Picked up the little pot in which she kept the camomile tea bags. Dropped one into the empty mug. The kettle was coming to the boil by now. Its chunky plastic rocker switch automatically clicked itself off as it reached temperature. She lifted it off its base and poured the steaming water into the mug. As the homely aroma of camomile filled the kitchen, she reached towards the drawer to get a teaspoon to stir it with.
She didn’t register the man’s presence behind her until his black-gloved hand had clamped over her mouth, stifling her scream.
He drew her back against him, clasping her against his chest. She smelled the thin, rancid leather pressed under her nose. She struggled and tried to twist her head so she could bite his fingers through the glove, but his grip was like spring steel. He pressed her hard against the kitchen unit, trapping her tightly between his body and the column of drawers so that she couldn’t move, couldn’t turn or lash out backwards with her feet or elbows.
Then a muffled cry of fear broke from her lips as she saw the syringe he was grasping in his other gloved hand. It was a standard medical syringe with a protective plastic sheath over the needle and increments in millilitres marked along the length of its transparent barrel. The plunger was drawn back about a quarter of its travel and there was a
pale, straw-coloured fluid inside. With his thumb he flicked the protective sheath away to expose the long, thin needle.
Erin struggled wildly but couldn’t break the man’s grip. He was taking his time. Enjoying the moment, knowing he was far stronger than she was. He pressed the syringe plunger, just far enough for a tiny squirt of the yellowish fluid to squirt from the needle’s tip.
She watched, powerless, as he brought the needle closer. It was pointing at her neck. She could see a minute drip of the fluid quivering on the end of the needle. In another moment or two, he was going to inject the whole contents of the syringe into her.
She knew then that the man hadn’t come to kill her. If he’d wanted to do that, he could have snapped her neck already, or stuck a knife in her back before she’d even known he was there. He was going to drug her. Knock her out. Take her away and …
McCrory was behind this. He and his men were going to kill her. But not before they’d tortured and raped her. And when she was dead they were going to dismember her and dispose of her remains just like they’d done to the man in the cabin.
Her mind swam with horror. She felt faint and sick and her legs were shaking so badly that she might have collapsed if the man hadn’t been pinning her against the worktop.
The needle moved closer.
‘Hold still, darlin’,’ the man’s grating voice chuckled in her ear. ‘I just might poke out one of those pretty li’l eyes of yours by mistake.’
It was his mocking, jokey tone that made Erin focus. The icy grip of terror melted into white-hot fury that anyone could do this to her. She wasn’t going to be anyone’s victim. Not here, not in her own home, not today or any day.
With a shout of rage and effort she managed to rip an arm free. Grasping his gloved fist, she tried to push the syringe away from her. She was terrified the needle would puncture her wrist or forearm.
‘Feisty, aintcha?’ he rasped in her ear. ‘Won’t do ya any good.’
He was right. The syringe kept coming, inch by inch. Erin wasn’t strong enough to resist him. This was going to happen and there wasn’t a thing she could do to stop it.
Then she realised. One chance.
Her untouched hot drink stood on the surface in front of her. A wisp of steam was rising from the mouth of the mug.
She let go of the man’s hand and reached out and grabbed it and dashed its contents back over her right shoulder. The boiling water had been cooling for less than a minute. She felt its scalding sting on her neck and ear.
But the yell of pain behind her told her that most of it had splashed right into his face.
‘Fuck! Fuck! Oh, you bitch!’
He staggered back a step, his grip on her slackening momentarily, the syringe suddenly wavering in his other hand. Erin twisted and wriggled and managed to rip herself away from him, knowing he’d quickly recover from the shock.
She could see him properly now. He was a large man, solid and stocky. White, forties, ugly features made uglier by the twisted grimace of pain and fury and the livid scald like a birthmark across his right cheek and forehead. The burned eye was already beginning to swell shut. He stood between her and the door. Escape wasn’t an option. Not yet.
Darting an arm across the worktop, she unhooked a saucepan from the wall-mounted rail. She gripped the handle with both hands and swung it at his head with all her might. There was a hollow clang. She felt the impact shiver the handle.
But the blow only enraged him even more. He lunged at her with the syringe and the needle scraped on the steel of the pan as she managed to shield herself with it. Jab, block; jab, block. She was reacting on pure animal instinct. No time to think or even breathe. It was simple survival.
‘You ain’t got a chance, bitch,’ he sneered. ‘I’m gonna stick you with this. You’ll stay conscious maybe twenty seconds. Long enough for me to stick you with something else, and you’re gonna feel me do it.’
He lunged again. Erin was quick, and the syringe stabbed into the worktop where she’d been standing a fraction of a second earlier.
‘See what you made me do?’ he said, staring at the bent needle. He hurled it away, reached under his jacket and whipped out a knife. ‘Reckon we’ll just have to do this the hard way, now won’t we?’
He came at her. She dodged him again. Suddenly, she had a line of escape past him. She flung the saucepan at him, and it bounced off his chest and crashed to the floor. In the time that he flinched from the impact, she raced for the door, slamming it shut in his face as he came after her.
In such a small house, it wasn’t a long run across the hall to the stairs. She went sprinting up them three at a time, heading for her bedroom door. He came bursting out of the kitchen like a mad bull and started up the stairs in pursuit, clutching the knife.
Erin crashed into her bedroom. The Springfield nine-millimetre was in its holster on the nightstand.
The man’s thundering footsteps had reached the top of the stairs as she unsnapped the retaining strap on the holster and ripped the pistol clear of the leather and tossed the holster aside. At the same instant, she was swivelling on the balls of her feet to face the doorway and bringing the weapon up to bear in a solid two-handed grip.
He was already inside the room when he saw the gun in her hands. It was too late to stop. He charged at her, betting on getting to her before she could fire.
Erin squeezed the trigger.
The gun went click.
The gun went click, because in her panic she’d forgotten to jack a round into the chamber.
But now there was no time. Two hundred pounds of savage intent came rushing at her faster than she could get the weapon in battery.
Erin threw herself across the bed, rolling over the top of her quilted cover. Her feet hit the rug on the other side at the instant she managed to yank back the slide on the gun, released it and felt the distinct smooth metallic snick as the action scooped the top round off the magazine follower and drove it up and forwards into the chamber.
The man had been about to launch himself across the bed at her. He saw the purposeful look in her eye and hesitated just a split-second too long.
‘Always shoot to kill,’ her father had taught her. ‘Half these sumbitches are on drugs. You gotta put ’em down hard.’ Erin didn’t want to kill anybody, not even someone about to kill her, not unless she had to. She aimed low and squeezed the trigger a second time.
The gun’s ear-bursting report drowned out the man’s cry as the bullet punched into his leg a couple of inches above the knee. The shot instantly disabled him. His leg buckled and he went straight down, hitting the floor with a heavy thump. The knife flew out of his hand as he went to grab his leg with both hands, writhing in pain, blood pouring out over his fingers.
She leapt over him, raced out of the bedroom and went pounding back down the stairs. At the bottom, she remembered to decock the pistol before thrusting it into her pocket. With trembling hands she grabbed what she needed from the hallway: jacket, car keys, purse.
She was halfway to the front door when she thought about the syringe. Evidence. She burst into the empty kitchen. The saucepan she’d flung at her attacker was lying on the floor, next to the shards of broken mug and the puddle of spilled camomile tea. A couple of feet away lay the syringe with its bent needle. Most of the straw-coloured fluid was still inside it. She quickly wrapped it inside a sheet of kitchen roll and dropped it in her purse. She could hear the man thumping about upstairs, and his cries of agony.
Erin burst out of the house and sprinted towards her little yellow Honda Fit parked in the dusty driveway. She glanced around her as she ran, and saw another car parked fifty yards up the street. A blue Ford Taurus she’d never seen parked there before. There was a man in dark glasses sitting at the wheel. He was reclined right back in his seat with his face turned upwards, as if he was dozing.
Erin didn’t give him a second look. She dived into her Honda, stabbed the key into the ignition and went wheel-spinning backwards out of h
er driveway. The little car lurched to a halt, then she threw it into forward drive and hit the gas. She narrowly avoided colliding with an oncoming saloon that she hardly even registered as she sped off up the street.
She didn’t care where she was headed, as long as it was far away from here. She drove like a maniac, overtaking everything in front of her, ignoring the horns that blasted at her. Several miles and several more near-misses had gone by before the dizzying, palpitating adrenaline rush took over completely, hitting her so hard that she couldn’t hold the wheel any longer in her shaking hands. She swerved to the side of the road. After several gasping heaves, the tears came flooding.
And with them the realisation. She couldn’t ever go home again.
Chapter Thirty-Four
On its approach to Tulsa International, Ben’s plane swooped down over a vast landscape of vivid green hills, forests and sun-scorched swathes of flat prairie. From his window he got his first glimpse of the city from above: home to near half a million inhabitants, a gleaming modern metropolis of towering skyscrapers and criss-crossed highways, parklands and housing developments and industrial zones that spread far and wide along the banks of the broad, stunningly blue waters of the Arkansas River.
Within thirty minutes he was through arrivals and getting his bearings. He changed some euros for dollars, then picked up a Starbucks and sipped it while studying a map that told him he was just five miles northeast of downtown. From there, he made his way to Alamo Rental and selected a grey Jeep Patriot. It was a practical and sturdy vehicle, not too ostentatious or distinctive. Roomy enough to sleep in if he had to. But mainly, he chose it for its dark-tinted windows. Those would fit in with the plan he’d already worked out in his mind. He rented it for a week, which might turn out to be more than he needed, or might not.
The day was going to come when his name would be blacklisted by every car hire company on the planet, but seemingly it hadn’t come yet. He’d just have to try extra hard not to destroy the Patriot.