Robert Crais - Hostage

Outside, Dreyer called, “You coming out?”

“I’m okay.”

“Wait out here. The Sheriffs are sending detectives.”

“Dreyer?”

“What?”

“You ever notice, a refrigerator is like a white coffin standing on end?”

“Jesus, would you just come out?”

The refrigerator came open without effort, empty and strangely clean against the squalor of the trailer, no soda, no beer, no leftovers, just white enamel that had been lovingly polished. This refrigerator, Mikkelson would later testify, was the cleanest thing in the trailer.

A thin metal door was set in the top of the box; the freezer. Her hand had a mind of its own, reaching out, pulling the door. Her first thought was that it was a cabbage, wrapped in foil and Saran Wrap. She stared at it, stared hard, then closed the doors, never once, not once, tempted to touch that thing in the freezer.

Mikkelson left the trailer to wait with Dreyer in the hot night air, the two of them saying nothing, waiting for the Sheriffs, Mikkelson thinking, Let them touch it .

Friday, 11:40P.M.

Santa Clarita, California

GLEN HOWELL

Howell took three rooms in the Comfort Inn, all at the rear of the motel with outside entrances. Marion Clewes had the woman and the girl bound hand and foot in one room, tape over their eyes and mouths. Howell had checked to make sure they were secure, then went back to his own room even though the place smelled of cleaning products and new carpets. He didn’t like being around Clewes.

Howell was sitting on his bed when he received the call from Ken Seymore, his heart trying to jump out of his nose as he heard that Walter Smith had been removed from the house.

“Did the cops go in? What the fuck is happenin’ out there?”

“No one went in, it was just Smith coming out.”

“He just walked out?”

“They carried him. He’s fucked up. One of the pricks in there must’ve beaten him. They took him out in an ambulance.”

Howell sat silent for a moment, thinking. Smith out while his kids were still inside was a problem. Smith in the hospital where they’d pop him full of dope, get him high, that was a problem, too.

“Did anything else come out of that house?”

“Nothing they’re telling the news pool.”

Howell hung up and immediately phoned information for the Canyon Country Hospital’s phone number and address, then called the hospital for directions off the freeway. He found the location in his Thomas Guide to double-check the directions, then he used his cell phone to call Palm Springs.

Phil Tuzee answered. Howell filled him in, then waited as Tuzee talked it over with the others. It was Sonny Benza who came back on the line.

“This is fuckin’ bad, Glen.”

“I know.”

“He have the disks on him?”

“I don’t know, Sonny. I just heard about this two minutes ago. It just happened. I’m going to send someone over.”

“Find out if he has the disks and see if he’s been talking to anyone. That won’t be good if he’s talking. His kids are still in that house?”

“Yeah.”

“Sonofabitch.”

Howell knew they were all thinking the same thing; a man desperate to save his kids might say anything. Howell tried to sound hopeful.

“They say he’s fucked up pretty bad. I don’t know that for sure, Sonny, but if he’s unconscious he can’t be talking. The press pool out there is talking a concussion with possible brain injury. They make it sound like the guy’s in a coma.”

“Listen, don’t tell me anything you don’t know for sure. I wipe my ass with rumors. You just hold your shit tight out there and take care of this.”

“It’s tight.”

“That’s why those pricks let him out, he’s hurt? Maybe we’ll get lucky and the fucker will die.”

“Talley talked them into letting him out.”

“You know something, Glen? That doesn’t sound like your shit is tight. That sounds like the fuckin’ wheels are comin’ off. Do I have to come out there myself?”

“No way, Sonny. I got it.”

“I want those goddamned disks.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t want Smith talking, not to anyone, you understand?”

“I understand.”

“You know what I’m saying?”

“I know.”

“Okay.”

Benza hung up. It was their call; they had made it. Howell picked up the hotel phone and called two rooms down.

“Come over here. I got something for you to do.”

Friday, 11:52 P.M.

TALLEY

Talley checked the time, then took out the Watchman’s Nokia and checked its charge. Crazy thoughts of holding a gun to the doctor’s head flashed like pinwheels through his mind. Smith knew who was behind this. Smith knew who had his family. Talley paced the mouth of the cul-de-sac, his thoughts kaleidoscoping between Amanda and Jane, and Dennis Rooney. Maddox and Ellison had the phone again, but Dennis refused to answer their calls and had taken his own phone off the hook. Talley sensed that Dennis was working through something, but Talley didn’t know what.

When the phone rang Talley again thought it was the Nokia, but it was his private line.

Larry Anders said, “Chief? Can you talk?”

Anders’s voice was low, as if he were trying to keep his words private. Talley lowered his own voice even though no one was near.

“Go, Larry.”

“I’m with Cooper here in the city planner’s office. Man, that guy was pissed. He didn’t want to get up.”

Talley took out his notepad.

“First tell me about the cell number. You run that yet?”

“I had to get a telephone for that. It’s unlisted, so the cell company didn’t want to release.”

“Telephone” meant that Anders had to get a telephonic search warrant.

“Okay.”

“The number is registered to Rohiprani Bakmanifelsu and Associates. It’s a jewelry company in Beverly Hills. You want me to try to contact them?”

“Forget it. It’s a dead end.”

Talley knew without hearing more that the cell number had been cloned and stolen. Since Bakmanifelsu hadn’t yet deactivated it, he hadn’t yet discovered the pirated activity on his account; the number had probably been cloned within his past billing period.

“What about the Mustang?”

“There’s nothing, Chief. I ran wants for the past two model years. We got sixteen hits for cars that were still unrecovered, but nothing green came up.”

“Were any of them stolen today?”

“No, sir. Not even in the past month.”

Talley let it go.

“Okay. What about the building permits?”

“We can’t find any of that, but we might not need’m. The planner knew the developer who opened York Estates, a man named Clive Briggs. It used to be nothing but avocado orchards out there.”

“Okay.”

“I just got off the phone with him. He says that the contractor who built the Smiths’ house is probably at Terminal Island.”

Terminal Island was the federal prison in San Pedro.

“What do you mean, probably?”

“Briggs didn’t know for sure, but he remembered the contractor. The guy’s name was Lloyd Cunz. Briggs remembers because he liked the guy’s work so much that he tried to hire him for another development he had goin’, but Cunz turned him down. He was based in Palm Springs, he said, and they didn’t want to take any more long-range jobs.”

“The contractor came all the way from Palm Springs?”

“Not just the contractor. He brought his crew: the carpenters, the cement people, plumbers, electricians, everybody. He didn’t hire anyone locally. He said it was to keep up the quality of the work. Three or four years later, Briggs tried to hire Cunz again and learned that he’d been indicted on racketeering and hijacking charges. He was out of business.”