Rick Mofina - In Desperation

What the-?

Four sheriff’s cars had materialized.

Two large deputies entered, their shoulder radios squawking. They were pumped.

“Can you tell us if you saw anyone using the pay phone out front in the last few minutes?”

Sheldon craned his neck, seeing the other deputies unrolling police tape around the area by the phone. What’s up with that? A knuckle knock on his counter got his attention.

“Hey, skip, eyes front! Did you see anybody on the phone?”

“Yeah, some guy, bought gas, driving a shit box Cherokee.”

“What color and year?”

“White, 1990s I would guess.”

“You’d guess?”

“What’s going on?”

The second deputy was taking notes and talking in his radio as the first continued questioning Sheldon.

“Did the phone guy use a credit card?”

“Cash.”

“Any chance you got a license plate?”

“No. Why? What’s this about?”

The deputy pointed at the security cameras. “Those work?”

“Yes.”

“You going to volunteer your tapes, or do we need to get a warrant?”

“I, uh…well, I have to call my manager.”

“Do it now.”

Across the city in the FBI’s Phoenix offices, Jack Gannon and Cora demanded to know what Hackett and the task force had learned in the wake of Galviera’s call.

It was a major break.

They’d put the call through to this meeting room where Cora had taken her polygraph exam. Gannon checked his watch. Some twenty-five minutes had passed since Cora had spoken to Galviera.

It seemed like a lifetime.

They’d been here, waiting alone behind the room’s glass walls while in the outer office agents worked with quiet intensity on the break. Hackett returned head down, concentrating on his BlackBerry.

“What do you have?” Gannon asked.

“We know he called from a pay phone at a gas station.”

“You must know where.”

“We do but we’re not disclosing that now. We’ve got people on-site investigating.”

“Are you going to tell us?”

“You’re media, Jack.”

“Come on. This is the closest we’ve ever been.”

“No. We want it off the airwaves because we think these guys monitor police chatter on radio scanners. Everything’s still hot right now.” Hackett’s phone rang. “Excuse me.”

When they were alone again, Cora, overwhelmed by the polygraph and Galviera’s call, contended with her emotions. Gannon put his arm around her. For twenty years she’d lived with the burden of believing she’d murdered a man and destroyed so many lives.

“I’m so sorry for everything, Jack.”

“Now you know the truth-you never killed anyone. You did the opposite, Cora. You gave comfort to a dying man. The San Francisco guys didn’t charge you, or arrest you. That’s a good sign. You can’t rewrite all the mistakes you made in your life-no one can.”

She nodded.

“All this time, I believed I was being punished for my sins, and maybe I was. But it’s strange how once I told everyone what I’d done, Lyle’s call came, like a karmic connection. Maybe now I’m closer to getting Tilly back than we’ve ever been.”

“Let’s hope so.”

“I feel it, Jack. It’s what Lyle said to me on the phone. His exact words were, ‘I’m going to see Tilly soon.’ I think it means he knows where she is.”

“Maybe not.” Hackett had returned and had been listening.

“Why not?” Cora asked.

“It could mean the cartel is luring Galviera with the promise of seeing Tilly. And there’s another key consideration.”

“What’s that?” Gannon asked.

“The cartel may also know that you were present when Eduardo Zartosa was murdered in San Francisco. If so, they may be planning to exact revenge. It’s what they do.”

Cora swallowed hard.

The security cameras at the FirstRate Gas Station had recorded Lyle Galviera in a ball cap and dark glasses, buying gas. They’d also captured clear pictures of the Arizona license plate on his Cherokee.

Within an hour those pictures were circulated in citywide and statewide alerts to all police and media. Within two hours, the FBI held another news briefing. They asked the public to help locate Galviera, or his vehicle, or the other suspects, to aid in the investigation of Tilly Martin’s kidnapping.

The appeal yielded few solid tips.

As the day gave in to the evening, Cora and Gannon returned to her home in Mesa Mirage, where she made a short statement to the news crews waiting in her driveway.

“I’m praying we’ll bring Tilly home and I beg anyone with any information to call police. Please.”

Exhausted, Cora went to Tilly’s room. She held a stuffed polar bear in her arms, looked out the window to the stars and asked God for mercy.

Tilly, I love you. Wherever you are, Mommy loves you .

Somewhere in Metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona

P it-a-pat pit-a-pat pit-a-pat.

Stones tapped and popped against the car’s undercarriage.

Where are they taking me? We’ve been driving for hours.

Tilly had a bad feeling with the new kidnapper, the younger guy. The way he stared at her had creeped her out. All the more reason for her to keep trying everything she could to get away from her monsters.

With a few deep breaths, she’d gathered the strength to resume working on her bindings. Her captors had paid no attention to them. The tape was still secure but she had been loosening it.

Again Tilly twisted her aching wrists against the tape until they were numb.

The car slowed, then stopped.

Weight shifted and doors opened, followed by low talking. Then she heard the rattle, clank and shuffle as they began unloading the car and carrying items away. Tilly was overwhelmed with a sense of finality.

What’s going to happen? What’re they going to do to me?

Footsteps approached. A key was inserted in the trunk and it opened to the night and something moved swiftly toward her, leaving her no time to react as her head was swallowed by a sack.

Hands lifted her from the trunk, her feet found the ground. Dirt, sand and small stones bumped under her sneakers. She sensed the still air of a vast, remote place before she was escorted like a blind person to another location.

They had not gone far when they stopped.

“Step up,” one of the creeps said.

Tilly raised her foot, feeling a step, then she found a smooth floor as they entered a structure. She was overwhelmed by the smell. It took her back to a school trip to ghost towns near Casa Grande. The decaying buildings were filled with birds’ nests. The walls were layered with “sun-cooked bird shit,” as Dylan Fuller had called it.

Now as they moved along, Tilly listened for anyone else who might be inside, anyone who could help her.

She heard nothing but creaking, dripping and the echoes of her own shuffling as they entered another area. Here Tilly sensed a dim light through the bottom of her hood as it was pulled from her head.

Standing there, she took stock of the room. It was as large as her classroom but illuminated by a naked bulb hanging like a noose from a pipe and wired to a car battery. The light created ominous shadows, for the room was abandoned, neglected. Paint peeled in sheets as if the walls were diseased. Tiles had fallen from the ceiling. At one end she saw a series of huge pipes horseshoed from the floor for about three feet before bending back into the floor like upside-down U’s as high as Tilly’s waist.

A mattress was pushed near one of the big upside-down U’s.

Tilly saw a chain.

Handcuffs.

The creep Alfredo nudged her closer. He wrapped the chain around one of the pipes, looped one handcuff around the chain, clamped the other on Tilly’s wrist, then snapped it shut on her.