Michael Prescott - Last Breath

Hyannis turned. “Yeah?”

“Got a question for you. Out of left field, kind of. It’s got nothing to do with this.”

“Okay.”

“You ever hear of anything called the Four-H Club? I mean, not the actual club, but…” Tanner let his words trail off. He could see from Hyannis’s face that the man had heard of it, and what he’d heard, he didn’t like.

“Walk with me,” Hyannis said. Without waiting for a reply, he stepped away from the cordon, putting distance between himself and the small crowd of spectators.

Hyannis stopped near Tanner’s squad car. The light bar threw flashes of red and blue on the detective’s gaunt face.

“Where’d you pick up that expression?” Hyannis asked.

“Friend of mine.”

“Another cop?”

“Well, yeah. Not Sheriff’s. LAPD.”

“Your friend is in trouble,” Hyannis said. “He’s not supposed to be mouthing off about that. We’re trying to keep it contained within the task force. Tell him to shut the hell up.”

“It’s not a him, and she wasn’t mouthing off about any task force. She got an e-mail.”

“What?”

“She got an e-mail message that said something like, ‘Welcome to the Four-H Club.’ She thought it was weird-”

“Oh, Jesus Christ. She on duty now?”

“No, she’s home, I think-”

“You know her home number?”

“Sure, I called her twenty minutes ago.”

“Call her again. Right now. Tell her to wait in her home. Don’t let her go outside. Then call him.”

Hyannis thrust a business card into Tanner’s hand. In the pulsing light Tanner read “MORRIS WALSH, DETECTIVE III, LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT.” Below it was a phone number with a Parker Center prefix.

“Tell Walsh what you told me,” Hyannis said. “But call the woman first. Go on, do it.”

“All right, but what’s going on, anyway?”

“Maybe nothing-a prank. I hope so. Call.”

Tanner had a cell phone in his car. He was digging it out of the glove compartment when Chang asked him what Hyannis was so worked up about.

“The Four-H Club,” Tanner said. “Mean anything sinister to you?”

“Nope.”

“Me neither. But I have a feeling it should.”

He dialed C.J. Osborn’s number, praying she was home.

Adam stopped fighting her when the phone rang. C.J. felt him stiffen, listening. For a moment the chloroform-soaked rag was taken away from her face, and she could breathe again without inhaling the soporific fumes.

On the fourth ring, her answering machine in the living room picked up. She heard her voice come over the speaker, saying, “Hi, this is C.J. I’m either out somewhere or soaking in the tub. Leave a message and make my day.”

The cheery voice seemed unreal to her, like the voice of a ghost-her own ghost.

Or am I the ghost? she wondered blearily.

A beep, followed by Rick Tanner’s baritone, urgent and breathless. “C.J.? If you’re there, pick up. This is important. You may be in danger. No joke. I talked to a detective-”

“Shit,” Adam hissed, springing to his feet and pulling C.J. upright. “Come on.”

Her ankles were taped together. She couldn’t walk, couldn’t see. But now she knew she hadn’t been blinded, only blindfolded with more of that damn duct tape. A strip of the stuff had been plastered across her eyes, the adhesive snagging her eyebrows and eyelashes. To blink was painful; she felt her lashes being plucked by the tape each time they pulled free.

Adam hauled her forward, while with one hand he fumbled at the clasp securing the mouth throttle. He pulled the gag away, and she could talk again.

“What the hell…?” she gasped. Her mind was still blurry and slow. “Adam, what the hell…?” It was all she could think of to say.

“You have to talk to him, tell him everything’s okay.” On the answering machine Tanner’s voice continued, saying something about the e-mail message she’d received. “He’s a cop, isn’t he?”

She didn’t respond, not out of stubbornness but simply because she couldn’t get her brain to work.

Adam shook her. “ Isn’t he?”

“Yes,” she managed to say.

“Damn it. I don’t want him coming over. Not this soon. You tell him you’re all right. Whatever he’s worried about, it’s a false alarm.”

Tanner’s voice was close now. Adam must have hustled her to the end table beside her sofa, where the phone and the answering machine rested. He knew where the phone was, of course. This had been his house too.

“You try anything clever,” Adam said, “and I’ll kill you right now, C.J., I fucking swear I will.”

Her head cleared a little. “What are you gonna do, chloroform me to death?”

A press of cold metal against her chin. “This is what I’ll do.”

It was the muzzle of a gun.

For a moment she was back in Ramon Sanchez’s converted garage, facing his ancient revolver. But this gun wasn’t ancient. She knew it wasn’t, though she couldn’t see it. Adam would never buy anything cheap and old. He liked shiny new things. He paid top dollar. And he kept his toys in good working order-she smelled lubricant on the gun barrel and knew it had been recently oiled.

“Now I’m going to pick up the phone,” Adam said, “and you’ll talk to this asshole. I’ll hear every word the two of you say. Got it?”

“Got it,” she whispered.

Tanner was saying that he and his partner would be right over, and then his voice was cut off as Adam lifted the telephone handset from its cradle. An instant later C.J. felt it at the side of her face, the handset tilted so Adam could listen in.

“C.J.?” Tanner was saying. “Did you pick up? Are you there?”

“I’m here. Rick.” She was surprised at how normal she sounded. “I’m, uh, I’m glad you called.”

“Did you hear any of what I just said?”

“Not really. I was in the, um, the other room. Sorry.”

“It’s about that e-mail message-”

“E-mail?”

“The message you got. The Four-H Club.”

“Oh. Right. The e-mail.”

“Are you okay?”

“Fine. I’m fine. Look, I feel kind of, you know, silly about that whole thing. I mean, I don’t know why some stupid message would, um, would get me all worked up-”

“I don’t know why it would get Detective Hyannis worked up either, but it did.” Tanner’s voice crackled over the receiver, taut with tension. “He turned a lighter shade of pale when I told him about it. Insisted I call you ASAP. Then I’m supposed to call a Detective Walsh, who works Robbery-Homicide in Metro. Name mean anything to you?”

“Uh, not really. I mean, well, he’s a D-three. Handles all the hottest cases.” C.J. felt the handgun’s muzzle press harder against her skin. She forced a laugh and hoped it didn’t sound hysterical. “Sounds like Detective Hyannis picked up on my paranoia. Maybe it’s contagious.”

“I don’t think so. Hyannis isn’t the type to overreact. If he says there’s a problem, I’m inclined to believe him. You planning on going out tonight?”

Adam whispered in her ear, “Say yes.”

“Well, yes, actually, I am.”

“Might be better if you stayed put. My partner and I will come over.”

“I’m way out of your jurisdiction.”

“Don’t worry about it. Just give me your address.”

Adam’s voice again, so low and close it might have come from inside her own head: “Tell him you have to go to the junior high.”

She had forgotten all about that. “You know, I really can’t hang around. I’ve got this, you know, community-service program to go to. I help run it every Wednesday night. I need to be there.” She was babbling.

“This is more important,” Tanner said impatiently.