Robert Crais - Chasing Darkness

When Pike brought Jonna out to his Jeep, I called Bastilla. The only number I had was her cell, but she didn’t answer. She was probably still angry, but she might have been working. Either way, I was glad she didn’t answer. I left a message.

“Ivy Casik’s real name is Jonna Hill. She is Yvonne Bennett’s half sister. Call Pike. She’ll be with him.”

I left Pike’s number, then locked Jonna’s house and joined them at the Jeep. I gave him the keys.

“The police will need these. I left word for Bastilla and gave her your number. They’ll be calling.”

Pike was going to hold Jonna and her mother at a safe location until we reached Marx.

Pike said, “You sure you don’t want me along?”

“I’m good. I’ll see you in a bit.”

I watched them drive away, then glanced at Jonna’s house. I studied it for a while, then considered the sky. The canopy overhead was empty of clouds or birds. I wanted something to be there, but the sky was a milky blue desert. I slipped into my car, studied the cell number Alan Levy had given to me, but I didn’t want to speak to him over the phone. I called his office instead.

“Hi, Jacob. Is Alan there?”

“I’m sorry, no. Did he ever get back to you? I gave him your messages.”

“Yeah, we spoke, but I need to find him again. He isn’t in court, is he?”

“Oh, no. He cleared his calendar when all this started about Mr. Byrd. He hasn’t been in for days.”

“Ah, okay.”

“I could page him again.”

“No need. Listen, is he working at home?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Cole. You know Alan. He might be writing a brief or doing research. He’s hard to keep up with when he gets like this.”

I hung up, then called a real estate agent I know who has access to the property tax rolls. Six minutes later I had Alan Levy’s home address and was heading toward Santa Monica. It was afternoon when I arrived. I shouldn’t have gone, but I did. I should have waited for the police, but I didn’t.

The address brought me to a large two-story Cape Cod home three blocks from the beach in a lovely residential area. It was a family neighborhood with curbed sidewalks, kids on skateboards, and a hybrid in every drive, but it was also near the beach in Santa Monica, which meant the families were rich. I parked across the street. Two kids roared past on skateboards and a woman who was probably someone’s housekeeper stood on a nearby corner. Gardeners worked at several of the houses, but the Levy residence was still. A gate across the drive hid the garage, so I couldn’t see if Alan’s car was at home or not. This time of the summer his kids would be out of school, but I couldn’t tell if anyone was home. Maybe they were away at camp, but maybe they were splashing and grab-assing in their pool, and Alan was splashing with them. Or maybe he was crouched inside the house, watching the street through a gap in the shades.

I took my gun from beneath the seat, wedged it under my shirt, then strolled up the sidewalk. My phone vibrated as I reached the curb, but it was Bastilla. I ignored her.

The front door was large and heavy as a coffin lid. I knocked politely, then rang the bell. No one came, so I climbed over the driveway gate into a spacious backyard featuring a beautiful pool with used-brick decking and a lovely rose garden. No kids were splashing. Levy’s family wasn’t enjoying the breathtaking summer day. A single leaf floated in the pool. The water was so clean it might have been floating on air.

I walked along the back of the house, rapping on glass sliders and French doors, but nothing and no one moved.

“Hey, Alan, it’s Elvis Cole. Anyone home?”

Not even a housekeeper.

I went to the garage. The garage door was down and the side door was locked. I didn’t want to waste time picking the lock, so I returned to the French doors. I broke a pane, reached inside, and let myself in. I should have been holding my gun, but I put it away. I didn’t want to scare his children. They might be inside, sleeping. Maybe all of them were sleeping.

“Is anyone here?”

I stood just inside the door, listening, but the house remained quiet. I called out still louder.

“Mrs. Levy? I work with Alan. Jacob told me he might be home.”

My voice echoed as if their home was a cave. No magazines or DVDs littered the coffee table; no toys or video games cluttered the floor. The rooms were large and beautifully furnished, but lifeless in a way that made my scalp prickle.

“Hello?”

I crossed through the family room into the living room, then crept through a formal dining room as cold as a mausoleum. The table was lovely, the chairs lining its sides perfectly placed as if they had not been moved in years.

The dining room led into the kitchen, then the pantry. You have kids, you have food, but there was no cereal, no Pop-Tarts, no snack bars. The shelves were lined with cans of Dinty Moore beef stew. Only the stew. Empty vodka bottles lined the floor. The cans and bottles had been placed in perfect rows with their labels out, each label perfectly aligned. My underarms grew damp as I backed out of the pantry.

The refrigerator was loaded with take-out containers, soft drinks, and more vodka, but no juice or milk, no peanut butter or eggs. I took out my gun and held it along my leg, but knew I wasn’t going to find anyone. Not Alan or anyone else. Not anyone alive.

My cell phone hummed again, as loud as a swarm of wasps. I didn’t check. I muffled it with my hand, trying to hear past the swarm into the hidden reaches of the house. My breath grew shallow, and I wanted to crash through the door or dive out the window. I wanted to get out of this terrible house and into the light like a boy running from bees, but I didn’t.

I trotted the length of the house. I had moved quietly before, but now I moved faster, hitting each door with the gun up and ready. I checked the master bedroom, then Alan’s home office, where the walls bristled with citations and plaques. I jerked open doors, checked closets and bathrooms, then ran up the stairs three at a time. I was terrified by what I expected to find, but pushed harder to find it.

The children’s bedrooms were on the second floor-everything perfect and neat, but somehow even more frightening than the rest of the house. Posters of fading celebrities and forgotten bands decorated their walls. Computers several generations behind the current models sat on their desks. The toothbrushes in their bathroom hadn’t been used in years.

I almost fell as I ran down the stairs, racing back to the master bedroom. The master bath told the same story. The men’s products had been recently used, but the women’s products were dry and out-of-date, and no soiled female garments were waiting to be cleaned.

My heart punched hard in my chest as the silence roared like the ocean. It roared even louder as I ran. I ran back through the house and out the French doors and all the way back to my car. It roared until I realized my cell phone was vibrating again. Bastilla was trying again. This time I answered.

JONNA HILL sat in a pleasant beige room in the Mission Area Police Station at the top of the San Fernando Valley. She was as far from the eyes and ears downtown as Marx could hide her. It was a comfortable room with patterned wallpaper, where rape and abuse victims were interviewed. The feminine surroundings supposedly made it easier for victims to talk. We were watching her through a two-way mirror. She was alone now, toying with the cap from a water bottle. Jonna knew we were watching. Bastilla and Munson had spent almost two hours questioning her, but the pleasant surroundings hadn’t helped. Jonna admitted nothing and refused to implicate Levy.