A Killing Rain (18 page)

“Maybe we should ask the man himself,” Joe said. “What about it Mr. Outlaw? You still want to be a hero?”

The kitchen fell quiet as Austin’s eyes shot to her. His lips parted, but nothing was coming out, and Louis could see the humiliation in his eyes.

“I’ll go,” Louis said.

Susan looked at him, stunned. “No, they’ll know. Your hair is shorter, your skin is lighter, your features...” Her voice fell to a whisper. “It won’t work.”

Louis turned and left the kitchen.

“Susan,” Joe said. “They mistook Louis for Austin once.”

“That was in a porch light,” Susan said. “In the rain, from five houses away. They also saw Austin in the park in broad daylight
—-”

Susan stopped suddenly, her eyes flicking up to the kitchen doorway.

“Oh my God,” she whispered.

Louis stood in the door wearing the butterscotch
coat, black scarf, and fedora.

“I’ll go,” Lou
is said again.

They wired him. Louis stood in the kitchen, bare-chested, arms outstretched. Joe was taping the thin wire to his back, smoothing it against his skin with the tips of her fingers. Then he felt her clip the recorder to the back of his belt, next to his holster. In front of him, Wainwright was securing the wire to his chest, running it over his shoulder.

Less than thirty minutes ago, the killer had placed a
second phone call. After Louis had given him the number to the mobile phone, he had been given instructions.

Come alone in a regular car. No cop cars. No helicopters. No questions.

Wainwright had been the one to suggest the wire. At first Louis had wondered
why. Kidnappers didn’t usually exchange pleasantries during a drop. In fact, they were seldom seen at all. But this didn’t feel like an ordinary kidnapping
for ransom, and if these guys wanted something besides money then maybe there was a chance for some discussion.

“How does this work?” Louis asked.

“You’ll have to turn on the recorder yourself,” Wainwright said. “Feel for the switch.”

He found
the button at the small of his back and turned it on and off a couple of times.

“Try not to move around if they’re talking to you,” Wainwright said. “We won’t be able to hear them.”

Susan came to the kitchen doorway, arms crossed. “Why isn’t he transmitting to a receiver?” she asked. “Why can’t you listen to what is happening?”

Joe glanced at her. “He’ll probably get out of range of any standard receiver.
We’ll
never be able to pick him up if we can’t stay close.”

“Then why record at all?” Susan asked.

‘To get solid evidence,” Joe said. “If they’re dumb enough to talk to him.”

Louis met Wainwright’s eyes. There was another reason, he knew. If he got killed out there tonight, and the killers just
left him there as they had all their victims so far, at least the cops could listen to his murder afterward.

Louis looked into Susan’s eyes and he suspected she somehow had come to the same conclusion herself. She turned away, heading toward the bedroom.

Wainwright held out a bulletproof vest. “You know we can’t protect you under these conditions,” he said.

He looked eighty years old right now, his white hair limp and uncombed, fatigue and fear clouding the blue eyes. Wainwright was ex-FBI
, and like Joe he was willing to invent new rules when the game got tough. He had once killed a child abuser in cold blood. But he knew risking Louis’s life was beyond any boundaries.

Louis took the vest and strapped it on. He grabbed a long-sleeved T-shirt off the chair and pulled it on. He saw Jewell coming toward him with Austin’s fedora and
butterscotch coat.

“Wait,” Susan said, coming back from her bedroom. She walked to Louis, holding a small purple bag.

“Sit down, please,” she said.

Louis started to protest, but then she unzipped the bag and pulled out a small bottle of dark brown make-up. He realized she wanted to darken his skin. Austin’s face was dark brown, his own more the color of sand. She was halfway between, a rich medium brown.

Louis sat down and she poured a few drops of makeup on her fingers and rubbed it onto his face. His eyes flicked up to Joe, halfway expecting to see a smile, but he didn’t. She was watching intently.

He closed his eyes, listening to Susan’s shortened breaths, smelling the faintly medicinal scent of the makeup, feeling the desperation in her touch.

“Susan, please hurry,” he whispered.

He felt her paint something on his eye brows, then she backed away, looking at him.

“That’s as dark as you’re going to get, I’m afraid,” Susan said.

He stood up and Jewell held out the hat and coat
. He pulled on the coat and walked to the mirror near the door to put on the hat.

His hands stopped midway as his reflection came into view. The thought was bizarre, so out of place for the moment
.

Jesus...
he looked like his mother.

“Thought you might need these, too,” Jewell said.

Jewell was holding out a pair of night vision glasses.

“Good idea,” Louis said, throwing the strap over his shoulder.

“Chief,” someone called from the door. “Phone’s installed in Mr. Kincaid’s car.”

“You know how to use one of those phones?” Joe asked.

“How hard can they be?” Louis asked.

“It can get complicated. Especially when you’ve got other things on your mind.”

“I’ll figure it out. Can you trace the caller?”

“Yes, but it takes a long time,” Joe said. “Especially if they’re using a mobile phone, too. Our systems haven’t caught up to the technology.”

“Can you tell where I am from it?” Louis asked.

“
Only generally, and that’s if you have a signal.”

“There’s a chance I won’t have one?”

Joe nodded. “Yes, if they take you too far out of the city, which we’re pretty sure they’ll do.”

Wainwright held out a police radio. “Take this. It’s on the sheriff’s office frequency. They have the widest range. As long as you stay in or around the county, they’ll be able to pick you
up on this. But don’t use it unless everything goes to shit. They might have one just like it.”

“I don’t know if I agree with that, Chief,” Joe said. “Use your secure frequency. Let Louis tell us where he’s headed.”

“If they’ve
got one of these, then they can listen to anything,” Wainwright said. “They’re smart.”

“Ellis is a high school dropout,” Joe said.

Louis grabbed the radio from Wainwright and stuck it inside his coat.

“Stop. Both of you.”

The room fell quiet. Louis saw Susan watching them. She was leaning against the wall, the sleeves of her red sweater hanging down over her hands. She looked exhausted, scared. And grateful.

“Louis,” Wainwright said, “I’m asking you one more time to wait for the
FBI. I can have them here in an hour.”

Louis looked up at the clock on the mantel. He had to be at the
corner of Main and Seventeenth in nineteen minutes. “We don’t have time. Where’s the money?”

Jewell thrust out Austin’s purse. Louis took it and went to Susan.

“I promise you,” he said, “if it’s possible, I’ll bring him home.”

She put her arms around his shoulders and pulled him close, holding him tight for only a few seconds. Then she drew back.

“Be careful,” she said hoarsely.

Louis’s gaze moved to Austin, who was waiting near the front door. He had the urge to say something, but now wasn’t the time. And what was the point? Everyone here knew Austin should be the one heading out into the night to make the trade for his son.

“Louis,” Wainwright said suddenly. “I want you to take someone with you.”

“I can’t. They said alone.”

“In the trunk, Louis. Or the back. I want someone there if the shit hits the fan.”

Louis glanced around the room. His eyes stopped on Jewell.

“You game?”

“Yes, sir.”

Wainwright nodded. Jewell hustled into his coat and started toward Ben’s room to gather his things. Louis walked out the door.

The street was dark, all street lights and porch lights turned off at police request. The cops had cleared the area of extra patrol cars and reporters. The street was empty, eerie in the mist
.

Louis stood on the porch while Jewell crept to the driver’s side of the Mustang.

“Louis.”

He turned to see Joe behind him.

“I didn’t want to say it inside but I think Chief Wainwright is right. This isn’t a normal kidnapping.”

“I know.”

“Take this,” she said, holding out a small gun, snug in an ankle holster.

“I already have two,” Louis said. “Mine and Susan’s.”

“You can never have enough.”

Louis took
the gun, taking one last look up and down the street. He walked to the car.

Jewell slipped
into the backseat as Louis got in. He told Jewell he could pull down the backseats and crawl into the trunk if and when he needed to. Jewell didn’t reply, but Louis could hear him messing with the seats as he started the car and backed out of the driveway.

A few miles down the road, he saw headlights in the rearview mirror and he knew it was cops, and that they would follow him
as long as they could. A few blocks after that, those lights disappeared, replaced by two more. It went on like that as Louis crossed the causeway onto the mainland and reached Main and Seventeenth. Then all the headlights disappeared, but Louis knew the cops were still close.

He parked away from the streetlights, and turned off the headlights. He looked up at a clock on a nearby bank. He was two minutes early.

Louis pulled the goggles from his pocket and held them to his eyes. He turned toward a street light. The lens filled with a sharp greenish glow and he pulled them quickly away.

“You’re not supposed to look at the street lights with them, sir. They’re for total darkness,” Jewell said quietly from somewhere in the back.

Louis put them down on the seat. Another minute passed. Louis glanced at the phone then picked it up. A light went on. He put it back in the cradle.

The clock on the bank now read 11:32.

“Sir,” Jewell whispered from the back.

“
Yeah.”

“Do you have any heat in this car?”

Louis rested his elbow on the window, his hand over his mouth. “Sorry. It’s dead.”

“Going to be a long cold night,” Jewell said softly.

They were far from Fort
Myers now, long ago leaving behind the strip-mall neon of 41 South, moving down past Naples, making the turn eastward where the road took on its old Indian name of Tamiami Trail. They had lost their police tail miles ago, the cops backing off when Louis steered the Mustang onto a deserted stretch of highway. They were moving away from civilization now and heading into the vast empty gut of the Everglades.

Louis had seen a sign for Collier Seminole State Park, so he had a vague sense of where they were. Somewhere way south, where the bottom of the state spread out into the islands of Florida Bay like a tattered flag. Where the reassuring lights of the pretty, pricey retirement towns blinked out
. Where the night sky grew huge and dark and the only thing between you and the end of the world were a few fishing outposts and thousands of mangrove islands.

The calls on
the mobile phone had been coming in at varying intervals. Sometimes the voice would direct him to make a turn at a certain landmark. Other times, the order would be to just pull off the road and wait until the next contact.

That was what was going on now. Louis had pulled off the road and the Mustang was idling. They were somewhere southeast of a town called Belle Meade.
Tamiami Trail was rain-slick and deserted, not a headlight or landmark.

The drone of the wipers was interrupted by the phone.

“Keep going till you hit 29. Go north till you see a sign for the James Memorial Scenic Drive. Take it to the end and turn left. Go five-tenths of a mile and go left. Go to the dead end and wait.”

The phone went dead.

Louis felt Jewell stirring in the backseat and heard the rustle of his map.

“Where we going, Jewell?” he asked.

“We’re heading into something called the Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve, sir. The scenic drive looks like the only road in and no other out.” There was a pause. “No wait. I’m wrong, sir. It looks like there’s one other road coming out -- Miller Boulevard. Tell the chief to wait where Miller Boulevard comes back out onto Tamiami.”

Louis called Wainwright to tell him the directions.

“We’re gonna have to back off, Louis, or they’ll know you have a dozen cops on your ass,” Wainwright said. He clicked off.

A couple miles later, Louis saw the turn for 29 and headed north. It was still raining, light but constant, and the Mustang’
s headlights were two flat beams penetrating the misty darkness of the two-lane road. The only sound was the beating of the rain and the drone-scrape of the wipers.

Louis spotted a sign for James Memorial Scenic Drive and turned. He could make out a scattering of small houses and trailers but they soon fell away. After they passed a gravel quarry, the road turned narrow and
rough and then there was nothing.

He picked up the phone a
nd hit a button to dial. No signal.

The Mustang hit a teeth-jarring pothole, then another that almost jolted the wheel out of his hands. Louis jerked the wheel
back and slowed.

“Shit
. You okay, Jewell?”

“Yes, sir.”

Darkness. No lights behind or above. Louis flicked on the high beams. A grotesque tunnel of arching trees came to life in the light. Louis had to struggle to keep the Mustang in the middle of the narrowing road.

Miles more. Then, something ahead. A wall of trees. They were at the end of the scenic drive. Louis slowed and turned left
. The road got worse. He couldn’t chance taking the Mustang over twenty miles per hour.

“Jewell,
you
better get down,” Louis said.

Jewell wedged his body down behind the seats. Louis watched
the odometer. At exactly five-tenths of a mile, there was another road. No signs, just another narrower gravel path leading into the darkness.

He turned and crept forward. The high beams picked up a yellow metal sign. CAUTION. ROAD DEAD ENDS AT CANAL. NO WAY OUT.

The Mustang crawled along. The road ended. Louis shoved the gearshift into park. He sat back, letting loose his grip on the wheel. The rain beat a tattoo on the Mustang’s cloth top. Steam rose off the engine, curling into the weak beams of the headlights, floating on the light until it was washed away by the rain.

Louis rolled down his window, but he saw nothing. He started to roll it back up and stopped.

Two small white lights moving in the distance. They seemed high off the ground. Truck lights, maybe. But he didn’t see any road. Hell, there could be five roads out there right now and he wouldn’t see them.

“They’re here, Jewell.”

There was no sound from the back. But Louis could feel the press of Jewell’s body through the seat.

Louis reached down to make sure Joe’s ankle holster was secure. He patted his side for Susan’s revolver. The
Glock was on the passenger seat.

The headlights were coming right at the driver’s side door, growing larger and bouncing like the vehicle was coming over rough ground. The lights grew brighter with each second. Louis put a hand to his eyes as
the sound of an engine pricked his ears. He was sure now it was a truck, maybe one of those souped-up monster trucks.

The grind of a four-wheel drive and then the lights stopped about thirty feet from Louis’s door.

Louis jerked the Mustang in reverse and tried to back up, intending to bring the Mustang headlight-to-headlight with the truck to even out the visibility, but he was stuck. The rear tires spun, kicking up mud.

The truck’s engine roared loudly as a warning, lurching forward and stopping. Louis shoved the Mustang back into park.

He was a sitting duck, lit up like a Christmas tree.

He heard a door slam above the truck’s engine, and a man’s voice that was lost in the wind.

Louis drew a thin breath, and glanced down at the Glock lying on the passenger seat.

He picked up the night vision glasses and looked out the window, hoping to hell they couldn’t see exactly what he was doing. There was a glare, but he could see
a man who looked like Byron Ellis standing by the driver’s side.

“Get out!” the man shouted.

Louis set the glasses down and picked up his Glock. He moved across the front seats and out the passenger side, holding the Glock down at his side behind the folds of the coat. He knew the shift in weight would alert Jewell to where he would be.

He reached beneath
the coat and flipped the switch on the tape recorder. Then he crouched, the Mustang between him and the idling truck. The headlights of the truck were so high that its beams shot over the top of the Mustang, stretching deep into the darkness behind him. The man outside the truck turned on a flashlight and moved it over the Mustang windows.

“Where’s the boy?” Louis shouted.

“Take off the hat. Let me see your face.”

“Where’s Benjamin?”

“Take off the fucking hat and stand up.”

Louis tossed the hat and rose slowly over the roof of the car. He squinted into the glaring misty rain but could see nothing. He heard a different voice, but it was hard to make out
. The other man answered, but it was inaudible to Louis.

“Come around the car, Outlaw.”

“No. Show me the boy,” Louis said.

“We’ll take you to him.”

“No.”

Again, the second voice. Louder this time, but still muted. Agitated. Angry. But still Louis could not tell what he was saying. Were they arguing?

Footsteps. Sucking sounds in the mud. The flashlight beam was moving.

Louis raised his
Glock, bracing his arms on the roof. “Stop. Stay where you are,” Louis said.

“You shoot me, the boy dies.”

Metallic sounds. More sloshing through the mud. Louis felt the Mustang jiggle, Jewell moving inside.

“I got
the money. Just give me the boy!” Louis yelled.

The beam of the flashlight was still. The second voice: “What the f
uck are we waiting for?”

“Shut up. Get the money, Outlaw.”

Louis reached into the front seat and grabbed Austin’s purse. He held it up for them to see.

“Show me Benjamin.”

“Put the money in front of your car, in the headlights. And don’t throw it. You throw it, we kill the kid.”

Damn it.
They were trying to draw him out. This had nothing to do with the money.

“I see the boy first
,” Louis said.

Louis felt the Mustang move and saw Jewell in the
backseat. He made a discreet motion for him to stay down.

It was quiet for a few moments and all Louis could hear
was the soft sprinkle of raindrops across the fabric roof of the Mustang. And he heard the next few words clearly.

“Get the kid,” the man said.

Footsteps going back toward the truck. A creak of something opening that didn’t sound like a truck door but something smaller, followed by the bang of a lid slamming on a box or a metal chest. Dear God, what had they been keeping him in?

Footsteps coming back.

The flashlight swung left.

Ben was crouched in the mud, his small body washed with white light. He was dirty, his jacket and jeans mud-caked, and his glasses crooked on his nose. He had duct tape across his mouth. The man was clutching the shoulder of Ben’s open jacket.

Ben was alive. As much as he had hoped for this, Louis hadn’t expected it.

“Take the money to the front of your car and set it down.”

Louis knew he couldn’t shoot blind. And he couldn’t depend on Jewell getting a clean shot if he missed.

“Put the fucking money in front of the car!”

If he stepped out there now, he was dead. Everyone was dead. Unless he could get them to release Ben first. Then, even if they did take a shot at him, maybe Jewell could somehow get Ben out of here.

“Maybe this will make him part with his money,” the second man said. A glint of silver appeared at Ben’s throat.

Benjamin tried to struggle but the man clamped him against his hip, the knife under his chin.

“All right!” Louis shouted.

He moved toward the front of the car, the bag in one hand, his gun in the other, his body tense, braced for a shot he prayed would hit the vest.

The one man had the flashlight, and the other held Benjamin. Louis was playing the odds that there wasn’t a gun trained
on him at the moment. He moved into the Mustang’s headlights and dropped the bag on the ground.

An explosion shattered the air, and he felt a sledgehammer to his chest, spinning him to his right. His
Glock went off in reaction, jarring loose from his hand. A second bullet hit him high in the back, sending him reeling against the car. He fell against the Mustang’s headlights, unable to get his breath, his legs crumbling under him. He dropped to the mud, fighting to get out of the light, back around the tire, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t even draw a breath.

“Go see if he’s dead!”

Glass shattered and more shots rang out, this time coming from inside the Mustang. Jewell.

Susan’s gun. Under the coat.

But he couldn’t get his hand inside, couldn’t find the grip of the .38, still couldn’t get a breath.

Bullets riddled the door of the Mustang and Louis ducked into the mud, crawling behind the front tire. He wrenched Joe’s gun from
the ankle holster.

A roar of noise. Splattering mud. Then quiet.

He craned his neck to look up, blinking at the darkness. The truck was gone. And so was Ben.

Louis dropped his head, pain surging through him. His eyes brimmed with hot tears, his hand circled so tight around Joe
’s gun his knuckles were white.

Damn it. Damn it.

So close. They had been so damn close.

He heard heavy breaths. And someone running.

Louis’s head shot up, the gun pointed at whatever was coming at him.

“Sir?”

Louis ran a sleeve across his face and tried to stand up. When he couldn’t, Jewell put an arm under him and helped him. Louis leaned against the car, hand to his chest. He felt Jewell’s hand on his arm, steadying him.

“They’re gone,” Jewell said. “I chased them on foot as far as I could but I got in some mud, then just swamp. They got away...I don’t know.” Jewell took a deep breath. “I don’t know how, maybe some access road.”

“Ben?” Louis whispered.

“Gone, sir.”

Louis closed his eyes.

“Sir, you okay?”

Louis nodded, wincing.

“You had to do it,” Jewell said.

“I should’ve handled it another way. I should’ve done something else. I should’ve...”

“There was nothing else you could do,” Jewell said, pointing to Austin’s purse on the ground. “The money was our only leverage and they didn’t even really want it. They wanted you.”