Макс Коллинз - No One Will Hear You

“And?”

“And they did. I stopped back later to check up on ‘em. That’s when I saw... you know, the body. At the door?”

Prompting again. Oh , that body...

Polk said, “And you didn’t touch her?”

A sharp head shake. “Learned my lesson last time.”

Amari said, “What time did you see the kids?”

“Just after midnight.”

“Sure about the time, Mr. Wyler?”

Eager nod. “Checked my watch, in case I had to write up a report. On those kids?”

“Okay. When did you get back?”

“An hour and a half. Like usual.”

Amari rubbed her forehead. “So, you didn’t check back until your next round?” “Right.”

“So the killer had ninety minutes between you shooing off the party animals and coming back?”

“Sounds right.”

“You see anything unusual when you were pulling up?”

“First time or second time?”

“Second time. Checking on the kids.”

“Nothing unusual or suspicious, no. Except for the body.”

That was fairly suspicious, Polk thought. Maybe even unusual...

Rousch said, “Possible the kids saw something.”

Amari asked the security guard: “Did you get any of their names?”

“The kids? No.”

Polk asked, “They have a car?”

“Oh yeah — black and shiny. Looked fast.”

“Make?” Amari asked. “Model?”

“Well, I think it was a convertible. Foreign, maybe. Japanese?”

Amari was studying Wyler. Maybe deciding whether to pistol whip him or not.

Polk said, “Did you get a license number?”

“No.”

So they had no suspects, and thanks to their fellow professional here, they didn’t even have potential witnesses to interview.

Amari and Rousch asked Wyler a few more questions, getting nowhere. Then they told him to wait, and he nodded, grateful to be needed by fellow pros.

As the trio returned to the body, Amari said, “We’ve got an inept if punctual security guard, and a park exhibit that’s closed tomorrow.”

Rousch said, “Point being?”

“Don Juan had a ninety-minute window for a body dump that required maybe three minutes.”

“What about security video?”

Polk said he’d check, but added, “Knowing our buddy Don Juan, either there won’t be any vid, or he found a way to circumvent it.”

Amari said, “Once you’ve checked, LeRon, grab Security Guard Wyler and give him the pleasure of a ride to a real honest-to-goodness police station.”

Polk shook his head. “What do you think we’re going to get out of him? He’s a dipshit.”

“Is he? Or is that an act? Either way, he’s the tie to two of the bodies in this investigation... and that earns him the right to be interviewed for real. Sweat him. Keep him there all day, if you have to. But find out whether he’s an idiot or just a good actor.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Polk said dejectedly. “But if this guy’s acting this stupid, he’s too good for reality TV. He needs his own series.”

“Don Juan has his own series,” Amari reminded him.

Carmen Garcia did not feel safe.

Doors locked, alarm system set, lights on, TV too ( some stupid infomercial) , but alone and on her couch, cell phone at her ear (ringing, ringing, ringing) and not feeling safe at all ...

On the coffee table before her, laptop open, the innocuous if suggestive file name with its small black letters somehow screamed at her.

Finally Harrow’s voice came: “Carmen, what do you need?”

“You , I’m afraid... Don Juan e-mailed me again.”

“Another video?”

“Another video.”

“Sure it’s from him? You didn’t—”

“I did look at it. Started to. It’s from him.”

“I can come right over.”

“Could we do it at the office?” She didn’t want to stay here a second longer than necessary.

Harrow said, “I don’t think we should sit on this till eight, do you?”

“No. I meant go in a little early.”

“Early, like... now?”

Quarter till three. No one in the place except... me .

“Early like now,” she said.

“Okay. I think that’s a good call. I’ll round up everybody, and inform UBC security.”

She threw on a sweatshirt, jeans, and running shoes, and prepared to go out into the night, or anyway the early-morning dark. Not that she was afraid of the dark — the dark didn’t kill women — but the monster who knew enough about her to send a video to her personal e-mail certainly did.

The others on the Killer TV team, with their former cop status, were licensed to carry firearms. But Carmen was not former law enforcement, so she went into the kitchen and selected (to tuck away in her purse) the biggest kitchen knife from a cutlery set she’d purchased on another sleepless night watching infomercials.

In fact, when she switched off her TV, Billy Mays was smiling and shouting at her. That Mays was still hawking stuff on the airwaves, long after his death, creeped her out. She wondered if any of Wendi Erskine’s infomercials were still airing...

Her only stop on the way to the office was at a convenience mart for a cup of coffee — too early for drive-thru latte. At nearly three a.m., the freeway was weirdly user-friendly, and the streets of Los Angeles, particularly the downtown, were all but deserted.

Even as she neared UBC, her eyes kept returning to the rearview mirror. She supposed she was just being paranoid, but was it paranoia considering what she’d been through? Was it just caution?

Like most people her age, she had never considered the fragility of her own life. That was before Kansas. Now she knew better.

She pulled her Prius up into the UBC parking ramp. If a parking garage could be naturally unsettling, being in an almost-empty one was worse — and not long ago, Don Juan had left a body on the UBC doorstep, and could certainly get in here and kidnap someone, and...

... and that , she thought, was paranoia.

Empty garage or not, she drove to her reserved parking space on the third level. She got out, saw no one else around in the concrete chamber, locked her car, and started the walk halfway across the garage to the elevators.

She strode quickly, her heels tapping on concrete echoing like machine-gun fire. Under one arm was her laptop, her purse (with butcher knife within) thrown over that same shoulder. In the other hand was a pepper-spray mini-canister, finger on the trigger.

Security lighting was minimal and most of the garage remained shrouded in darkness, a breeze whipping through to help hurry Carmen across.

Then, breathing heavily, as if she’d just run the hundred-yard dash, she found herself at the elevator, pushing the button.

The elevator doors whispered open, and a voice just behind her said, “Carmen...”

She whirled and saw only a blur of black leather jacket and black hair. Bringing up the pepper spray, she was about to trigger it when she realized the figure was Billy Choi.

Her coworker held up his hands in surrender and turned his head away, figuring out that he was on the pepper-spray precipice.

“Sorry, Billy.”

“Talk about close calls,” Choi said.

“I’m so sorry...”

The elevator arrived and they stepped on, Choi pushing their floor.

“It’s okay. You got another video and you’re edgy. I get that. But let’s work on that itchy trigger finger.”

She beamed at him, relieved she hadn’t hurt him, glad not to be alone.

He grinned at her. “Jeez, don’t you know my voice by now?”

“I thought you were Don Juan.”