Jan Burke - Nine

“Where are you?”

“Driving back from northern San Diego County. Where are you?”

“At your house.”

“My house?”

“Is he okay?” John asked from the backseat, suddenly sitting forward. Alex realized he hadn’t been paying attention to anything he said until he heard Chase’s name.

“Yeah,” Chase said, “I got worried, because Uncle John wasn’t answering, and, you know-I thought maybe something had happened to him.”

“He’s right here. You want to talk to him?”

“Sure-but, I wanted to ask, do you think I could stay here tonight?” He added quickly, “I could sleep on the couch, or the floor-whatever.”

“I don’t think your parents would like that much.”

“They’re out of town. My mom flew to New York. That’s where my dad is now.”

“They still probably wouldn’t like it.”

“Okay. I understand.”

Plain and simple. No anger, no whipped pup, no guilt trip. Any of those, Alex later told himself, he could have resisted. “Listen, Chase-what if they call home, and you aren’t there?”

“I never answer their phone. But if they call my phone, to check up on me, you mean? Call forwarding. I’ll get the call on my cell phone.”

“You have a separate line-never mind, I should have guessed.”

“So that wouldn’t be a problem,” Chase said.

He could hear the hope. “I’ll tell you what. Talk to your uncle John and ask him what he thinks. Up to him.”

He handed the phone back.

“Chase?” John said. “We’d love to have you stay over… Sure, I’m sure. He’s just like that sometimes. You’ll get used to him… You warm enough?”

Ciara said, “I didn’t know you have a nephew, Alex.”

“My brother’s son.”

“Well, that would fit, since he’s your only sibling.”

He glanced at her and saw her blush, and knew she was belatedly remembering department gossip. “What about you? I know one of your sisters lives with you. Any nieces or nephews by other members of the family?”

“Yes,” she said. “Two nephews-my brother’s children. But I don’t see them very often. They live in Texas.” After a moment, she added, “My sister Laney can’t have children, and I’m past trying to hit the snooze alarm on my biological clock.”

“Ever thought of adopting?”

“Sure. But this job is a little tough on family life. Maybe if I screw this up and get busted back to uniform, I’ll find some big old deputy, marry him, and start taking in strays.”

“Hell, go back to uniform now,” John said, having ended his call in time to shamelessly eavesdrop. “Being in Detectives can’t be worth all that. It’s not making you happy.”

“John, we’ve talked all afternoon, so I’ll assume you aren’t saying that because I’m a woman, or because you think I can’t find true happiness without doing housework or finding a man.”

“No, nothing to do with that. And from all Alex tells me, you’re a fine detective, better than most. And he tells me you worked your ass off and put up with all kinds of attitude to get to where you are.”

She smiled. “Alex said all that?”

“John, damn it-” Alex said.

Ciara laughed. “Don’t get mad at him. As for the job, I don’t think I could leave it in the middle of all of this excitement-could you, John?”

“No,” he admitted. “But it will be the FBI’s inside a week, mark my words.”

“You think so?”

“Right now Sheriff Dwyer is trying to claim that there’s no proof that the victims were brought to his jurisdiction under duress. All the FBI has to do is figure out where they were before they came to L.A. County, show that there was a struggle, and the sheriff will have to cooperate.”

“Don’t get your hopes up on that count,” Alex said. He told them about his conversation with Hogan.

“Okay,” John said, “but that just delays the inevitable. The public won’t understand the lack of cooperation. They’ll think the FBI ought to look into murders of people on the FBI list, period. One opinion poll ought to do it. I hear the Times is conducting one, so you may be working with federal agents soon.”

“An opinion poll, huh? That or another body, I suppose,” Alex said.

“That seems more likely,” Ciara said. “After all, there are ten possible victims, and we’ve only found three-and unless the FBI stops adding people to its fugitives list, our vigilantes will have three new targets to go after as soon as replacements are named to those three spots on the list.”

Their pagers went off simultaneously.

“Sorry,” she said to Alex. “I jinxed us, didn’t I?”

Castillo del Chapulínes Resort

Near Oaxaca, Mexico

Tuesday, May 20, 4:32 P.M.

The man who called himself Majors jerked awake when the cold water came rushing down on the back of his head. This sudden movement produced sharp pain in his wrists and ankles. He could see only water and bright whiteness. He was dazed, but the pain brought the beginnings of a rough focus with it. His scalp hurt, too-he was being pulled up by the hair. As his face was brought up into the gurgling flow of water, he panicked, thinking he would drown, but the pulling continued, so that he was bent like a bow, back from the stream of water still rushing from the bathtub spout.

He could not open his mouth to let out the scream that was caught in it-a wide band of duct tape had been wound over it, wrapped around his head. He could hardly breathe. Then the water was turned off and the grip on his hair released. He fell forward, twisting his face just in time to avoid smashing his nose on the porcelain bathtub. He took a nasty crack on the chin, though. He wondered, vaguely, if it broke his jaw.

Disoriented, he lay unmoving for some minutes before he realized that he was hog-tied, naked, facedown in a bathtub. A glaringly bright light shone on him, making him squint. His shoulders, thighs, and back ached with the strain placed on them, and it seemed impossible to relieve the pressure on the points where the wire bit into his flesh. He was bound as the young man with the scars must have been at one time, with strong wire around the wrists and ankles.

As these things became clearer to him, his nostrils flared with his labored breaths.

“Don’t hyperventilate,” he heard a mocking voice say. There wasn’t a trace of the German accent now.

He struggled, felt the renewed bite of the wire, then held himself as still as he could.

One of them was laughing.

He tried to move his head, to see their faces, although he knew who they were. Or who they had said they were. He had just managed to angle his neck so that he could peer over the edge of the tub when he saw it.

A video camera. The red light that indicated it was recording was on.

He began to tremble.

“Oh, yes. We know who you are,” said the one who had called himself Emil. The golden angel. How stupid he had been to lower his guard around them.

No use thinking like that now. He had to get himself out of here.

For a moment, despair nearly overwhelmed him. Then he thought of Slick. Sooner or later, Slick would be back. And so would the others. Or a maid or someone would come in.

As if reading his thoughts, Emil said, “We won’t be disturbed. I’m quite sure of that.”

They walked away.

He started to weep and managed to stop himself only when he realized he would not be able to breathe if his nose became congested from the tears.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed before they came back, or even how long they had been in the room before he became aware of them. By then, the pain was so intense, his mind wholly belonged to it.

They were doing something with the camera. The bright lights went out.