Jeff Abbott - Fear

Sirens wailed as two fire engines pulled close in the street. Pain began to creep along his arms, his hands. He probed at the blood on his skin and his hair, felt it drying in the heat.

He stumbled backward, dug out his cell phone, punched in her pager number, frantically keyed his number for a reply, thinking, She’s not here, maybe she walked to dinner because I was late. He tried her cell phone; just voice mail.

Another fire truck roared to a stop, the fighters moving into position with practiced speed and grace, water jetting quickly from their hoses, a perfume of destruction drifting through the rain-cleaned air.

Miles dodged the firefighters, went back across the street, sat down on the curb among the crowd that had poured out of the Posada and along the street. He heard a firefighter ask a kid in a Posada valet uniform what had happened. The kid said, ‘Gas explosion, man, big huge boom.’

Not a gas explosion, Miles thought with horror as the shock cleared his head. No. Sorenson. He carried a case into her office. A case I didn’t find. The action’s loaded, he had said. A bomb, Jesus, he planted a freaking bomb in her office and I didn’t find it when I could have, this is my fault my fault my fault…

‘Sir?’

Miles raised his head. Another firefighter stood over him.

‘You okay? You’re injured.’

‘No. I’m okay. I was walking’ – he almost said to but he caught himself – ‘past the building. Suddenly it just blew.’

‘You’re cut. Come with me.’

Miles followed the paramedic, shuffling. The office building shuddered again, fire tearing upward through the remnants of roof now, spouting fresh flame into the sky. A tremendous crash sounded as the broken innards of the building collapsed. He thought of the refurbishment going on inside, the solvents, the paint, the lumber, all fueling the inferno.

A crowd – from the residential streets nearby, from the church, from the hotels – formed and he walked through the mass of people, searching for her face, listening for her voice.

I need your help. I’m in real trouble. See you at seven.

He had failed her.

Sorenson. Sorenson had done this. What else had he said? Tonight. Yes. Her house. No problem.

Her house.

He stopped following the paramedic toward an ambulance; he cut back through the crowd. He walked away, unable to look at the fire.

No one stopped him as he left.

Miles half walked, half ran to Allison’s house, ignoring the pain in his scraped hands, the ringing in his ears, the trickle of blood winding down his neck.

‘You should have died with her,’ Andy said, running alongside him.

‘Shut up,’ Miles said, throwing a punch toward Andy, who sidestepped Miles’s fist, laughing.

Miles kept running.

Her home lay up the long curve of Cerro Gordo on the far east side of the city, up a hill thick with chimisa and pinon. Cerro Gordo cut through the side of the climbing terrain, lined with adobe homes and stretches of scrub. The road went from paved to unpaved. The thunderstorm, now more rumble than rain, wandered to the east. The clouds hung low and gray, darkening the mountains, shrouds for the day.

He shouldn’t know where she lived; she would have understandably considered it an intrusion. He had not followed her or found her in the phone book; she was unlisted. But once, she was leaving after their session and when they walked out of the building a bill tucked in the side of her purse fell. He picked it up and gave it to her but saw the address, and he’d trained himself in his earlier life to memorize addresses, account numbers, phone numbers, with a single glance. He had walked by her house only once, when he knew she was at her office. Just so he would know the route. Because he feared if Andy got too loud, too insistent, that if Andy slipped a gun into Miles’s hand, guided it toward his temple or his mouth, he would need her and not find her by pager or phone before Andy squeezed the trigger.

He needed to know where to run for help.

Off Cerro Gordo, private driveways split from the main road and snaked farther into the hills. He took the driveway for the group of five houses that included hers, ignoring the NO TRESPASSING sign, walking past the open adobe gate. Hers was the second house. The road stood empty, gravel lined with scrub. He hurried past the first house, its windows black.

Her house stood dark. No car in the driveway. He ran to the front door. He gently tested the doorknob. Locked.

The house remained still.

‘She’s gone,’ Andy said from the adobe wall that lined her driveway. ‘Gone, gone, gone.’

Miles hurried to the rear of the house, following a stone path. He squatted down to study the lock. No dead bolt shot. If an alarm system wailed, he would melt back into the night.

Miles tested the knob first. The back door swung open as he pushed.

He eased inside, shut the door behind him. He stood in her bedroom. In the dim glow from a bathroom light he saw the room’s details: wicker furniture painted a soft rose, a turquoise throw rug with twisted geometric patterns, a bookcase filled with worn paperbacks, a queen-size sleigh bed. A bureau, with a mirror crowning it. The mirror was cracked from side to side, in a single fracture, and two of himself stood in the bedroom.

He walked into a kitchen. Dishes were stacked in the sink. A forgotten glass stood on the tile countertop, a swallow of soda puddled at the bottom. Next to it, a container of aluminum wrap lay open, a strip of foil dangling free in a jagged tear. As though she’d just stepped away to run an errand or answer the phone.

He went through the kitchen and into her den. The barrel of a gun eased against the back of his head.

‘Freeze,’ a voice hissed.

‘Her office is gone,’ Groote yelled into his phone. He stood at the end of Palace Avenue, watching the burning building.

‘Gone?’ Hurley spoke as if he didn’t understand the word.

‘Destroyed, burning like a goddamned torch,’ Groote said. ‘There’s a crowd, I heard people say there’d been an explosion.’ He’d driven down from the hospital to Vance’s office, stopped as the traffic snarl formed, left his car when he saw her building consumed in flames and smoke. ‘What the hell is going on?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t understand.’ He sounded dazed. ‘Allison’s office is on fire?’

‘Someone’s screwing us over hard,’ Groote said. And screwing with medicine that could help my kid, and God help them when I find them. ‘This isn’t coincidence – a patient Allison Vance worked with breaks loose and her office gets incinerated. Did you find the guy?’

‘No. His name is Ruiz. He’s violent, dangerous.’

Christ, Groote thought. He’d been in town barely an hour and the entire operation he’d been sent here to protect was collapsing. ‘I suppose we can’t call the cops.’

‘Um, we’d prefer not to.’ Hurley cleared his throat. ‘If Allison’s dead, hopefully the research files were blown up with her. That means we can’t be exposed.’

‘I don’t like it,’ Groote said. ‘Suppose she wasn’t at her office. Where does Allison live?’

‘Hands on top of head, palms up,’ the voice ordered. ‘Now, asshole.’

‘I understand,’ Miles said. ‘No problem. Calm down.’ He tensed his arms, his legs, thinking, He gets his arm close, I can yank the gun past my head, before he reacts. But if Allison was a captive, fighting might endanger her; and he couldn’t escape and leave her behind.

‘Allison!’ he yelled.

‘On your knees, prisoner,’ the voice ordered.

Prisoner? Miles sank to the brick floor, thinking, Some head shots are survivable, but not where he has the gun, right in my temple. He knew how much it hurt to be shot, the blinding pain.