Chris Mooney - The Killing House

‘It will take my people at least two hours to arrive. Baltimore PD would be quicker.’

‘Agreed. I’m assuming you’ve already culled someone from your vast network of contacts.’

‘A homicide detective.’

‘Is he discreet?’

‘He is, and he’s good with sharing,’ Karim said. ‘But to ask him to go inside the buildings and take a look around without a warrant is a tricky business.’

‘Tell him you’ve come across information from a credible source that one or more missing children are being held there. Say “missing children”. That will give him probable cause to enter — and it will garner a faster response.’

‘Any sign of our lady friend?’

‘Not yet.’

Karim gave him the address of the house in Cape May.

‘Malcolm, before I let you go, your passenger… has he seen you?’

‘He’s unable to see much of anything in his condition.’

‘Make sure he doesn’t see your face,’ Karim said. ‘I can’t afford for him to connect you to me.’

Marie Clouzot hosed off the blood from William Jenner’s body, watching the bright pink swirls circling the drain before disappearing. Her life’s work had just disappeared too.

Well, not all of it, she reminded herself. The clothes are gone, but at least I still have the ashes.

Knowing this brought a small measure of relief. But the clothes… they were irreplaceable. It had taken years of hard work and sacrifice to collect them, and now they were gone. No more wonderfully blissful evenings spent sitting in the chair with her bourbon, no more evenings or weekends spent dressed in the clothes and matching jewellery.

Thinking about it brought on a fresh round of tears. She should have gone back to retrieve the garment bags and the jewellery. Mr Jenner would have offered to help; they could have done it in a single trip.

Brandon had absolutely forbidden it.

We’re not driving around with a trunk full of goddamn evidence, he’d said. The evidence needs to be destroyed, he’d said. We’re shutting down the operation, Marie. Call Jenner back and tell him to set fire to the house right now or so help me God I’ll go in there and do it myself.

She’d said no, of course. Brandon pulled over to the side of the road, leaned over the seat and screamed at her with such ferocity that she thought the car windows would shatter. He had even come close to hitting her. Gripped with a terror she hadn’t experienced since her awkward and terribly painful teenage years, she called Jenner back and told him to set fire to the house. Hearing her speak those words had temporarily mollified Brandon — or so she’d thought. When he started in on what they would be doing for the remainder of the night, she decided to send Mr Jenner a text message, telling him to grab the big laundry liner from the master bedroom’s wicker basket and use it to collect the ashes.

When Brandon saw Mr Jenner coming out holding the laundry sack, she thought he was going to reach over the seat and strangle her.

Instead, he gripped the steering wheel with both hands, squeezing it. He relaxed his grip when Jenner entered the car. Brandon drove away, but not to the printing press. He wanted to make a point and had taken her here, to the building for the old car detailing service, to send her a message.

Now the garage’s interior glass door swung open and Brandon stepped out, lugging a big, rolling suitcase. It held clothes and enough money to start a new life anywhere in the world. Brandon had packed it in advance, in case the day came when they had to drop everything and run. And that day had arrived. This was the message he wanted to deliver to her. It was time to go.

Brandon walked by her without saying a word. She felt an eerie calmness settle over her as he placed the suitcase in the trunk of the Mercedes. Then he worked William Jenner inside a fresh body bag. After he zipped it up, she hosed off the plastic to rinse away any lingering blood.

‘I called the hotel and spoke to the brokers,’ she said.

Brandon carried Mr Jenner to the Lincoln and dropped him inside the trunk. Marie kept hosing down the floor.

‘I told them we ran into a small complication,’ she said. ‘They agreed to wait two more days. That gives us enough time to — ’

Brandon slammed the trunk shut, harder than he had to, and whipped around to face her. ‘The man you shot in Colorado? He isn’t dead, Marie.’

‘Oh yes he is.’

‘What happened there is all over the news,’ he said. ‘I’ve been reading about it on the Internet. The cops found Theresa Herrera and parts of her husband. That’s it, no one else. You realize what that means?’

‘It means they haven’t found his body yet.’

‘He’s alive, Marie. He’s alive and he somehow followed you here and he took — ’

‘No,’ she said. ‘You weren’t there. I shot him. I saw him go down. He’s dead, end of discussion.’

Brandon, not having another fight in him, waved his hands in surrender. ‘Okay, fine, he’s dead. You killed him, and the cops haven’t found his body yet. But you did tell me this guy was working for someone else.’

‘The man I killed came there alone. No one followed me back to Baltimore.’

‘And this guy, in case you’ve forgotten, was working for Ali Karim, who owns a security company. Rico’s mommy hired him to find her son. Maybe it would have ended there if you hadn’t decided to start shooting.’

Marie dropped the hose.

‘You killed one of Karim’s employees. What do you think, that he’s just going to forget that? Pack up and call it a day?’

‘Then where are they? What are they waiting for? They didn’t follow us here, you said so yourself.’

‘I don’t know, Marie. But I do know this much: it’s time to leave Baltimore.’

That’s what you think, Marie said to herself, and stormed off to the Lincoln. Don’t forget, Brandon, you owe me your life. I’ll take away yours before you take away mine.

Each local and state police department was responsible for meeting a certain monthly quota of speeding tickets to line a city’s coffers. A highway at night offered patrolmen and state troopers the best opportunity to catch the most fish. Hidden by darkness, patrol vehicles parked on a median strip underneath a bridge could aim their radar guns down a highway without being seen — a problem for most drivers, as their vehicles didn’t contain the necessary equipment to detect radar.

Fletcher had installed two highly advanced and illegal items in the Jaguar: a scanner that would alert him to the use of radar guns, and a radar-jamming system. He had both units running as he drove across I-95 North. At his current speed, he would make it to Cape May, New Jersey, in good time.

Movement inside the backseat and then a sleepy voice croaked, ‘I’m gonna be sick.’

Karim’s warning came back to him: Don’t let him see your face.

Fletcher pulled into the breakdown lane. It took a moment to decelerate and come to a full stop.

His passenger was yanking hard on the door handle, trying to get out.

‘I need to open the door for you,’ Fletcher said. ‘I also ask that you close your eyes and keep them closed until I inform you otherwise. You have my word I won’t hurt you. You don’t have to be afraid of — ’

‘Yes. Yes, now please.’

Fletcher, having already tucked away his sidearm in a seat compartment, stepped out of the car and made his way around to the other side. He opened the door, about to reach inside and help Santiago out, when the young man darted away.

Santiago stumbled barefoot down a slope of dead grass, then cartwheeled and collapsed. Fletcher raced after him, wondering if Santiago were trying to escape. Then he saw the young man push himself up on to all fours and start vomiting.