Макс Коллинз - No One Will Hear You

Maybe Harrow’s girl Jenny Blake will do better, Amari thought .

She returned to Polk’s text.

Billy Shears’s second victim, in the mom-and-pop motel in Reseda, had been made by fingerprints.

Daniel H. Terrant.

An off-duty Santa Monica police officer .

Amari’s return text was simply... WTF?

Sunday nights were hard for Harrow.

Back in Iowa, Sunday evening had been a family time for Ellen and David and him (they all led busy lives) — a quiet evening of TV, sitting around an electronic hearth.

This Sunday evening was worse than usual. He was on a second tumbler of Scotch, feeling guilty about allowing Anna into his life; and feeling guilty about not calling Anna or even texting her since the Ohio trip, instead getting the skinny from Laurene Chase.

He looked at the forty-inch flat screen, some talking head on an evening news magazine, yapping in silence. He’d put the mute on for the commercials, but the self-important commentator seemed worthy of it, too. Harrow wondered how many people muted him . That, at least, provided a momentary smile.

He thought about Ellen and David every day because it kept them alive. Yet he knew they would both want him to go on with his life. He just didn’t know if he could do that without a sense of betrayal.

He was half awake in his recliner, an expensive well-padded brown leather number, looking like a freeloading relative in sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers.

Channel surfing landed him on the ESPN Sunday baseball game. He turned on the sound and the announcer said, “That’s out number three. No runs, hits, or errors. At the end of eight, the score remains Cardinals 2, Dodgers 1.”

As a commercial took over and he muted it again, Harrow shook his head.

Would be the damn Dodgers...

On the table next to him, his landline rang and he hoped it would be Anna and feared it would be Anna...

No — caller ID announced Carmen.

“What’s up?”

“I... I need to see you,” she said.

Her voice sounded... off , somehow.

“Can’t wait till work tomorrow?”

“No. Now.”

“What?”

“Tell you when I see you.”

“Where are you?”

“Your driveway.”

He half rose and glanced out the window: Carmen’s Prius out there, all right.

“Come,” he said.

His people rarely dropped in on him, so this must be important. And he kept himself accessible to them. No gated community or tall walls with wrought-iron gates for Harrow. His Nichols Canyon address was just a nice ranch-style on a street of million-dollar homes worth a hundred grand back in the Heartland.

By the time he got to the door, she was standing there, hair tucked under a baseball cap, Survivor T-shirt, jeans, sneakers, laptop under her arm — the professional woman of the workplace suddenly a college student.

But what looked most different was her face, her bloodless complexion, eyes wide and... terrified?

He ushered her in, closed the door behind her. “What’s the matter, Carmen? You all right?”

“Not really,” she said with a weak smile.

She didn’t wait for any further invitation, just strode into the living room, Harrow trailing her. She settled on the edge of the couch and rested the laptop on the coffee table.

Her dark eyes were unblinking. “It’s him again.”

He sat next to her. “... Don Juan?”

She said nothing. Didn’t even nod.

When the computer was up, she found the right screen and clicked PLAY.

A lovely nude blonde woman (another blonde?) on the same bed as before, a bouquet of roses in their familiar vase on the nearby nightstand. Love-making already under way, the passionate but obviously drugged or drunk woman apparently enjoying the attention of her barely glimpsed male partner.

She was loud, screaming her delight, and as she reached her climax, she distorted the laptop’s speakers, as if Don Juan were killing her already...

As her passion subsided, and she lay back in a postcoital haze, the lover (back to the camera) moved off-screen, and they heard mechanical-sounding voiceover.

“I warned you this would happen,” Don Juan said. “You did not meet my request, Mr. Harrow, and now the responsibility is yours. Are you enjoying the show? Why not call this segment ‘Don Juan’s Lover of the Week’? But next week there will be a double feature, if you do not commit to airing what you’re viewing now.”

The blonde woman sat up, blinking drowsily, smiling dreamily; then her expression changed, as if a switch had been thrown, sending her into abject terror. Her eyes managed to grow huge, her mouth agape, as her attention was drawn toward the camera.

This time her scream was not of passion.

This was fright, in its purest form, a shrill cry for help that no one could hear but the off-camera killer and the helpless viewing audience of two at the laptop.

Then something blurred across the screen, in a metallic winking flash, something vaguely an arm, a hand, a blade, and the scream was cut off, literally, as blood burst from the woman’s throat, a scarlet flood, her hands going to the slice-wound, desperately trying to hold her literal life’s blood in as it sprayed through her fingers and finally dripped down to coat the camera lens.

Through the ghastly red filter, her body could be seen slumping onto the bed, in a terrible backward bow, her performance over.

The metallic voiceover returned: “Quite the little scream queen, don’t you think? Share her — and my art — with the world, Mr. Harrow, or I will be forced to share my love with another costar... and another... and another... and another...”

Don Juan faded out, and the awful red screen went thankfully black.

Carmen had shrunk into a corner of the sofa, face averted from the computer.

“Sorry you had to see that,” he said. “Cyber tip line? Does the LAPD know?”

She shook her head. “This came to my e-mail. Just came in...”

“Damnit, that’s the problem with these network e-mail accounts—”

“No, J.C. — this came to my e-mail. My account. One only my closest friends and family have. You’re not even on the list.”

He stared at her. “How in hell?”

She sighed heavily. “Guess you’d have to ask Jenny.”

“Exactly what I intend to do,” he said, getting out his cell.

In seconds he was telling Jenny Blake to meet him at the office, and to round up Chris Anderson, too.

Jenny didn’t hesitate — that it was mid Sunday evening was irrelevant.

She asked, “You want me to make the other calls, too? Everybody on the team?”

“Please. I have Carmen with me, and I need to call Lieutenant Amari.”

“Another body?”

“Another Don Juan video.”

“Which will mean another body. Okay.”

She clicked off.

My God, that kid is a cool customer, he thought .

Amari picked up after the first ring. Her voice sounded sleepy. “I was starting to wonder if you’d ever call...”

“Not social,” he said. “Don Juan sent us another video.”

“Where are you now?”

“Home, but heading to the office. This didn’t come in on our tip line — Carmen’s personal e-mail account.”

“Shit! I’ll collect Polk and meet you at UBC. Listen, there’s something else...”

“There’s plenty to talk about,” he said selfconsciously. “Uh, Carmen’s here with me.”

“I’m not talking about personal matters, you big dope. Strictly business... We’ve confirmed the Reseda motel kill as the second Billy Shears, and identified the victim. Fill you in later.”