Robert Crais - Chasing Darkness

Jonna stepped away from the Neon. She wasn’t supposed to go into the house until he got out of his car, and didn’t. Her lips moved as she studied the Dodge. She was singing again. Da-da-daa, da-da-daa.

The three sniper teams would be on him with telescopic sights, ready to rock if a gun appeared. If any of them saw a gun, that shooter would touch off a.30-caliber round traveling at 2600 feet per second. We didn’t want him dead. We wanted him alive, but that’s the way it would be if he made the wrong move.

The Dodge swung in a lazy arc and parked directly between Jonna and me. Levy got out, no more than a car length from her and two lengths from me. His coat and pants were wrinkled, as if he had been sleeping in them.

Pike sighed a whisper.

“Perfect.”

Jonna did not return to the house. She should have immediately gone inside, but she didn’t.

She said, “How did you find me?”

Levy responded as if this was the most natural moment in the world.

“You had me worried. Why didn’t you answer?”

I slipped from the trees, and he didn’t hear me until I was directly behind him.

I said, “Worried about what, Alan?”

He stumbled sideways so dramatically I thought he would fall, then spun in a panicked circle. I held up my hands, showing my palms and taking a step back.

“Don’t have a stroke. Everything’s cool. How’d it go at Leverage?”

When he realized he was still alive, he pulled himself together. He glanced past me to see if anyone else was coming, then at Jonna, then up and down the street. Frightened.

“The meeting got canceled.”

“Good. We have a lot to talk about. Jonna, why don’t you go inside, give us a chance to talk?”

Jonna said, “No.”

Levy glanced at Jonna with bug eyes. Jonna had moved closer. She was staring at him, and I didn’t like the way she was staring. Marx wouldn’t like it, either. The snipers would have a more difficult time with Jonna outside.

Levy said, “I can talk to her alone. You didn’t have to wait.”

I edged toward Jonna, trying to put myself between her and Levy, but Levy backed away. He hooked his thumbs on his belt under his jacket. I didn’t see a gun, but the shooters would be on high alert.

“Yeah, I did, Alan. My new best friend here, Jonna, and I have already talked. I know what happened.”

Levy glanced at her again and continued backing away.

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course you do. Killing Lionel Byrd.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Alan, please. I caught you in one lie when you drove up. You told me you never met this girl, but you asked her why she hadn’t answered, you told her she had you worried.”

“I didn’t say anything like that. You must have misheard.”

Jonna said, “Yes, you did.”

I took a step after him, trying to keep up the pressure. I wanted Levy focused on me, not her, and I was still trying to get between them.

“Here’s what’s going to happen-you can pay me to keep your filthy little secrets, or we’ll go to the police. I’m thinking two million dollars, one for her, one for me. Sound good?”

Levy glanced up and down the street again as if he sensed the police were watching and knew he was being recorded.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t understand why you’re trying to do this, but I’m leaving-”

He suddenly veered toward the Dodge, and then Jonna said something that stopped both of us.

“I taped you, Alan.”

Fear played over his face as his eyes bulged.

“The day you gave me the pictures of the dead girls, I had a tape recorder under my shirt. I gave it to him. I let him listen.”

Jonna pointed at me. She had never mentioned a recording, had not given a recording to me, and the police had not found such a recording in her possessions. I wondered if she knew she was lying. I wondered if she believed it.

“Go in the house, Jonna. Alan and I will work it out.”

She didn’t go into the house. She moved toward him.

“Two million dollars isn’t enough.”

Levy wet his lips. He looked from me to Jonna, then back to me, and his hands went back to his belt.

He said, “How much do you want?”

We had him with those words. Alan Levy had demonstrated knowledge and awareness of the pictures by negotiating with us. We had him, and Marx would now be issuing commands to effect the arrest, but then Jonna said something else.

“There isn’t enough.”

Jonna took a knee as if bending to tie her shoe, then came up like a sprinter out of the blocks with what we would later confirm was a rat-tail file she had palmed when she stumbled into the tool rack in the surveillance van. She went for his neck, hitting him so hard she knocked him backwards into the Dodge and onto the ground.

Everyone had been so concerned Levy might kill Jonna, it never occurred to us she would kill him.

The shooter teams crashed from their hides, but they were far away and unable to shoot with the three of us clumped together. Pike burst out of the trees. I grabbed Jonna from behind, but she had wrapped herself around Levy, stabbing him in the neck and the face and the head. I caught her arm to pry her away, but that’s when I heard the popping, and then Joe Pike shouting.

“Gun!”

Levy had a small black pistol pressed deep into her belly and made a high, keening sound as he shot her. He pulled the trigger as fast as he could.

Jonna suddenly stepped back. I pushed her aside, then moved for the gun, but Levy had already dropped it. He was holding the bloody rag of his neck with both hands when Pike slammed into him.

Jonna stumbled backwards, sat down, then burped a red mist. I tore off my shirt and pressed it onto her belly as the SWAT guys swarmed over us.

“Hang on, Jonna. Hang on. Keep breathing.”

I don’t think she saw me. Her mouth was set in the determined line, but something in her eyes had changed. The seeds of anger were softer. I’m not sure, but I like to think so. I hope so.

Jonna Hill died as the paramedics arrived.

THE SANTA Monica sky was incandescent with shoreline haze, filling Alan Levy’s backyard with light so bright the swimming pool sparkled. City Councilman Nobel Wilts and Chief Marx were standing beside me at the edge of the rose garden. Thirty-two varieties of roses had been carefully removed and heaped in a pile on the far side of the yard. They would not be replanted. When the city finished its work, the roses would be discarded.

Marx waved over Sharon Stivic, who was the chief coroner investigator overseeing the recovery.

“How much longer?”

“It’s a big hole. You have to be careful with the soil. We don’t want to miss something important.”

The bodies were found using a gas sensor that detected the unusual concentrations of methane generated by decomposing flesh. A side-scanning sonar had then been employed to determine the exact locations, and now members of the medical examiner’s office were scraping away the soil.

Wilts said, “Gotta be his wife and kids, right?”

Marx nodded. The sonar had defined their shapes and sizes.

“Won’t know for sure until the identification, but yeah-it’s an adult and two children.”

“Jesus Christ, I met the woman. I’m pretty sure I met her. It was a while ago.”

Wilts scrunched his face, trying to remember whether he had met Alan Levy’s wife or not, but finally gave up. He mopped his brow, then scowled at the sky.

“Fuck this. I’m getting out of the sun.”

We watched him walk to the house, which was swarming with criminalists, detectives, and reporters. Levy’s street was crowded with so many news vans, coroner vehicles, and gawkers that I had parked three blocks away. None of the newspeople had showed up when Yvonne Bennett was murdered, but Yvonne had not been a downtown attorney who had murdered his family-Yvonne was only a nobody who had once protected her sister.