Chris Mooney - The Killing House

From his seat Fletcher had a clear, unobstructed view of the motel. He had started in on his third cup of coffee when the disposable cell rang.

Fletcher brought the phone up to his ear as he watched a black Cadillac Escalade with tinted windows pull into the motel parking lot.

‘Are you inside the motel?’ M asked.

‘Ground floor, Room 7.’

She hung up. Fletcher watched her step out of the SUV holding a different gym bag. She had changed her appearance again: a black motorcycle jacket with jeans and black boots. The New York Yankees baseball cap she wore low across her face covered most of her hair, her eyes hidden behind a pair of aviator-style sunglasses.

She disappeared inside the motel. If the FBI had her under surveillance and had managed to follow her here, they would make their move now. They would surround the motel and go in armed. Fletcher left the money for the bill on the counter.

Outside, he moved to the back of the diner and then threaded his way through parked cars and dumpsters until he reached the alley next to a bait-and-tackle shop closed for the winter season. He watched the motel from the alley. If anything happened, he had plenty of avenues of escape.

Minutes passed and no vehicles entered the motel parking lot.

His phone rang and he didn’t answer it.

Fletcher’s well-honed instincts told him she hadn’t been tailed. But the FBI had found her townhouse address, and, for all he knew, they had also found her. For all he knew, she had been apprehended and Alexander Borgia had offered her a deal: give him up and Karim would be spared prosecution. For all he knew, she had taken the deal in order to protect the person she loved and trusted the most.

Unlikely, yes, but not outside the realms of possibility. Fletcher had survived all these years by living by one simple law: trust no one. He did not know M, and he did not share Karim’s ability to trust. There was too much riding on this next part.

His phone rang again and he answered it.

‘Where are you?’ she demanded.

‘On the bed you’ll find clothing that I purchased for you. I had to estimate your sizes, so you’ll forgive me if they don’t fit properly. After you put them on, I want you to dump your clothing inside the bathtub and turn on the water. Hold the phone up to the water so I can hear it running.’

‘You think I’m working with the Feds?’ She sounded more confused than angry. ‘You think I have some sort of GPS or tracking — ’

‘A man in my position has to be very careful. I’m sure you understand.’

No answer.

She had hung up.

Fletcher did not call her back. If she didn’t call him back, he would have to move on without her.

He’d give her ten minutes.

Six minutes later, his phone rang.

‘I changed into the clothes you left,’ she said. ‘The clothes I wore here are in the tub. Listen.’ He heard running water and then she came back on the line. ‘What’s next?’

‘Leave everything inside the room — wallet, car keys, gym bag.’

‘There are things I have to give you from Karim’s lawyer.’

‘Leave everything on the bed. Call a cab and come out wearing nothing but the clothes I purchased for you.’

‘Where am I going now?’

‘To the Clarion Inn on West Elm Street. Wait for me inside the lobby.’

‘How do I know you’re coming?’

‘You don’t,’ Fletcher said, and hung up.

He memorized the makes, models and locations of the cars parked in the motel lot and alongside the road. The cab came fifteen minutes later. M stepped out of the motel wearing the clothes he had purchased for her — sandals, bright blue fleece-lined sweatpants and a matching sweatshirt. She couldn’t run in sandals.

The cab pulled away. He left the alley and walked around the boulevard, watching the motel. He ducked into several shops. Slowly he made his way through the back streets around the motel and kept watching. Nothing changed, nothing happened.

Finally, after an hour of surveillance, he went back to his room.

M had dumped her clothes inside the bathtub and filled it with water. He sorted through them and went to the bed. She had laid out the items very neatly — her car keys, a leather wallet with a money clip that could easily fit inside a pocket, and a compact SIG SAUER. The package from Karim’s lawyer was sealed. Fletcher opened it, found ten thousand dollars in cash and a new pair of contact lenses that matched a passport and Washington licence for Francis Harvey. The handwritten note Karim had included contained all the necessary information to access an account set up at a Cayman Island bank.

Inside the gym bag he found a netbook computer and a CD tucked inside a jewel case.

Fletcher removed a pair of headphones from his backpack and connected the audio jack into an RF Bug Detector. The palm-sized unit used by the government could detect phone taps, hidden cameras, eavesdropping devices, cell-phone bugs and GPS trackers in a range up to 9GHz.

Fletcher scanned the items left on the bed. They were clean.

He placed the car keys inside his pocket. Everything went inside the backpack, except the contacts. He put those on in the bathroom.

Fletcher collected the recorder he had placed underneath the bed. He plugged the audio jack for the headphones into the recorder, turned up the volume and pressed PLAY. He heard Emma White moving through the room and then listened to their phone conversations. He heard her slip out of her clothes and he heard her run the bathwater and call the cab. She didn’t call or speak to anyone else.

Fletcher hung the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the doorknob and left the motel, slipping on his sunglasses. When he reached the Cadillac Escalade, he discreetly checked the outside for a GPS tracker. The bug detector did not go off. Next he checked the interior. The bug detector did not go off. The car was clean.

The hotel where he’d sent M had a parking lot in the back. Fletcher pulled into the nearly empty lot and checked to make sure he had an escape route. There was a road near the dumpster. He parked, left the engine running and loaded the CD into the netbook.

Four video files had been burned on to the compact disk. The first one was footage from the treatment room. Fletcher skipped it for the moment, wanting to watch the video taken from the security camera positioned inside the garage.

Boyd Paulson walked across the driveway, heading for the BMW. He popped the trunk. Then a figure appeared from around the outside corner of the garage. Boyd had turned to the sound and was shot in the head.

Fletcher paused the video. Then he clicked through each frame, stopping when he had a good view of the shooter’s face — not the woman from Colorado but a man. The woman’s partner, Fletcher suspected. The man was roughly the same size as Boyd — five foot ten — but he was wider. Fatter. The left side of the shooter’s face… something was wrong with it. Fletcher couldn’t see anything specific. The man was too far away from the camera, and there wasn’t enough light.

Fletcher found out on the third video, the one showing the fat man rushing into the treatment room and apprehending Dr Sin at gunpoint.

The man had been in some sort of accident; what remained was a face drawn by Picasso — a jagged, scarred mess of severed nerves that resulted in a sagging eyelid and a permanent crooked grin. He bound Dr Sin with zip ties and carried Nathan Santiago out of the room.

The final video showed Santiago being loaded into the backseat of the Lincoln. The disfigured man made a return trip inside the house. He came back with Dr Sin and placed her gently inside the trunk — gently because the man knew the woman was a doctor, and he needed her to remove Nathan Santiago’s organs. If that was true — and Fletcher suspected it was — the disfigured man and his partner, the woman in the fur coat, were holed up somewhere.