Gregg Hurwitz - The Kill Clause

“Thank you. Okay. Deep breath.” She followed her own instructions. “Now, you want the bad news or the bad news?”

“Start with the bad news.”

“I got nothing and more nothing. ‘Danny Dunn’ didn’t put out. And I’m oh for twenty-three on black PT Cruisers in the area. None of the licenses checked out. Not a one.”

Tim felt his last flicker of hope gutter.

“That and the damn safety-deposit key took me all day today. Good thing I don’t have to work for a living. I’m hitting a few more banks first thing tomorrow, so we’ll see.”

Tim tried to keep the disappointment from his voice. “When you talked to Bear, did he mention why my name isn’t out to the media?”

“The service isn’t salivating at the prospect of the press. And the district office isn’t eager to follow LAPD’s nosedive in public esteem. I’d guess they’re determined to keep it in the family until they nail your ass. Let the out-of-towners take the heat for now. Plus, it’s not as though you’re a live threat to kill innocents. You’re just after them.” She snickered. “The Vigilante Three.”

“Let the animals kill each other.”

“Something like that. Or maybe they know you stand a better chance than they do at tracking down your team before things get even more out of hand.”

“Then why are they kicking down my door?”

“Tannino’s got his ass to cover. And the service’s. A lot of due diligence getting thrown around.”

“He must regret ever laying eyes on me.”

“I don’t know. Bear claims Tannino’s upset that he couldn’t protect you more on the Heidel-Mendez shooting. He knows it was a good shooting, and he knows you got hung out. He admires the way you went, Bear says, that you threw in your badge like an old-schooler. Gary Cooper all the way. But he thinks that’s what pushed you over the edge, especially after Ginny. He feels partially responsible, the dago softy.”

Tannino’s decency, in the midst of all this, moved him. But if the full-force ART entry on Tim’s apartment was any indication, it wouldn’t buy him an extra inch when the cards were down.

“I need some help, Dray. See if you can pull some cash out of our account for me. A couple grand.”

“I’ll do it first thing. Hell, I’m spending the morning running around to banks, not like it’s out of my way.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m your wife, stupid. It’s part of the deal.”

The sheets smelled of dust, and the pillow was so soft his head parted the feathers, angling uncomfortably to the mattress.

He awoke with a cramp that stretched from his neck down through his rib cage. The showerhead coughed and spit lukewarm water. A swirl of stray hairs clogged the drain. The towel was so small Tim had to strain his shoulders to dry his back.

He took his time determining that the area was clear before approaching the Acura, which was parked where he’d left it, several blocks from his old building. He drove it swiftly out of the immediate area, pulled into an isolated parking lot, and wanded the car down with an RF emitter he pulled from the war bag in the trunk in case a transponder had been installed. To quell his concerns, he took apart the wand, in case the ESU geeks had installed a device within the emitter itself, a move he might have pulled on one of his better days. Nothing.

He wasn’t surprised the car was clean-there was nothing to link the Acura to him, his now-defunct false identity, or the apartment building-but at this stage of the game, reassurance was a needed ally.

Once on the freeway, he was careful to obey the speed limit. After parking a good five blocks away, Tim crept up on the house, surveying it from all angles.

Like a dog to his vomit.

In the driveway Mac tinkered under the hood of his car, greasy rag protruding from his back pocket. Palton and Guerrera were about thirty yards up the road at the curb, looking conspicuous as hell in an ’89 Thunderbird that listed left. They were doing dick to avoid getting eye-fucked because they knew, as did Tim, that he’d be an idiot to come here. They were sitting on the house simply because most of the time, as a deputy marshal, that’s just what you did-covered your bases and tried to stay awake.

Aside from the obvious detail out front, the house looked clear. Tim withdrew and reapproached through the backyard, sliding through the rear door. The smell of stale pepperoni and fresh coffee. Blankets and bed pillow still on the couch-Mac, concerned friend with the ulterior motive. Two pizza boxes on a new Ikea coffee table. Tim stared at the impostor, probably the first of many. The master bedroom was empty. The coffee-table box sat in the middle of Ginny’s room, discarded, making all too evident that no one lived in the space anymore.

Tim found Dray at the kitchen table, silhouetted against the drawn blinds. Before her sat a canary yellow file and Tim’s boom box. A tape rasped lethargically in the player, the speakers emitting a grainy whisper that showed the recording had ended. Dray sat at an angle, hunched right as if recoiling from intense heat or bracing herself for a blow. One arm she’d wrapped around her stomach; the other clamped it tightly in place. Her face had gone white, save for her trembling lips, which were a wan red. She looked more or less as she had when she’d taken the news of Ginny’s death from Bear, the instant before she’d hit her knees in the foyer.

Just beyond the knuckles of her quaking right fist gleamed the brass safety-deposit key.

He approached on numb legs, on deadened feet.

Her head pivoted like a robot’s; her eyes pointed at him but took no note of his presence. Her hand extended to the boom box, pressed “stop,” “rewind.”

Tim turned aside the file’s vivid cover. The public defender’s interview notes were on the top. He scanned them quickly-same stabbing words.

The victim was the client’s “type.”

Client claims to have taken an hour and a half with the body after death.

He turned to the deflating fifth page, but in place of what he’d read before appeared: Client claims he was contacted at night by a man at his residence. Man was well built, blond, mustached, wore a baseball cap pulled down low over his eyes. Client knows nothing else about the mystery man.

Or imaginary friend-the PD’s annotation slyly read.

Client claims man showed him photos of the victim and maps and schedules regarding the victim’s movement from school to home. Client was to kidnap victim, then take her back to garage shack for a later sex “show.” Client and mystery man agreed on date and meeting time for “show.” Mystery man never appeared again.

Another single-sentence scrawl in the margin. Story thin, no corroborative evidence-deafness stronger route for prelim.

A prickly rage was fighting its way north from Tim’s gut, forcing itself up his throat. It emerged in a horrified exhale, something between a grunt and a cry.

Rayner had doctored the notes before giving them to Ananberg to copy-knowing, perhaps, that she’d leak them to Tim. Either way he’d never planned on Tim’s seeing anything but the expurgated version that indicated that Kindell had acted alone.

The glossy surveillance photograph underneath took Tim’s breath from his chest. A nighttime shot of Kindell, leaving his shack wearing only a T-shirt, his naked thighs stained with blood.

Ginny’s blood.

Tim stepped back violently from the table and leaned over, hands on his knees. He retched a few times, the muscles under his rib cage straining, but he brought nothing up. Sweat fell from his brow, spotting the floor.

The tape deck clicked, signaling the end of the rewind.

Dray reached out, hit “play.”

“Hello?” Rayner’s voice.