Bug Man Suspense 3-in-1 Bundle (45 page)

“
everything changes.
You think that's what he was telling me? ‘I protected you during the day, but I'll kill you at night—go home before I “—switch personalities'?”

“It's definitely possible. He's showing signs of acute psychosis in other ways.”

Her expression suddenly changed. “Nick, I just thought of something: We need to get out of here—it's almost dark. If I'm right about this, we don't want to be here when LaTourneau comes home at night—especially when you've got your face plastered across his mirror.” She reached for the photo of Nick.

“Wait,” Nick said. “Leave it there.”

“What? Why?”

“Detwiler stopped here two days ago. If he put the picture up then, LaTourneau has probably already seen it. It won't do any good to take it down now.”

“But maybe he hasn't seen it yet.”

“We have to assume that he has—and if he's seen it once, I want him to see it again.” He picked up a towel from the floor. “Do you have a lipstick on you?”

46

“This is insane,” Beth whispered.

“This is a
hunch
,” Nick replied. “That's different.” He attached the cable from the satellite telephone to the laptop computer. “Let's just hope both batteries hold out. We only need an hour, but the way my luck's been going lately, I wouldn't count on it.”

It was almost eleven o'clock now. Nick and Beth sat in the boat in an isolated spot near the center of the Lower Nine. At this hour the neighborhood was completely abandoned; there were no sounds at all and the water was completely still.

“Why would Turlock come all the way out here?” Beth asked.

“Because a body is hard to get rid of—even the body of a boy. That's what this whole thing has been about. Turlock and Detwiler wanted to kill a few people—so why didn't they just shoot them? Because then they'd have bodies with bullet holes, and then people would start asking awkward questions. So they killed them out here—they made them look like natural deaths, and they used the water to cover up any forensic evidence. Now Turlock has a boy to get rid of—a boy who lives in the Lower Nine. Why wouldn't he get rid of him the same way?”

“It seems like a long shot to me,” Beth said.

“That's all I've got left,” Nick said. “Turlock said the boy wasn't with him—so where is he? I'm betting Turlock stashed him somewhere here in the Lower Nine. It makes sense: It's remote, it's quiet, and it's J.T.'s home—the natural place for the body to turn up later.”

“But Turlock would have to get around the same way we do—by boat.”

“That's what I'm counting on. I know the DEA has a boat on the Lower Nine—the one Detwiler was using to follow me. If Turlock needs a boat, he's likely to use the same one. That's the good part: I've got that boat tagged.”

Nick took the satellite phone and dialed an access number, then opened the GPS program and waited for the map of colored dots to appear.

“Have you decided what you're going to say to Turlock yet?”

“I'm going to tell him everything we've figured out—about the courthouse, about his little vendetta, about the way he's been using LaTourneau. I'm going to tell him that he only has one option—to turn over the boy and cut his losses—not to make things any worse for himself than they are now.”

“Do you think that will work?”

Nick paused. “No. He knows there's no way to cut his losses. He's in too deep—he's guilty of multiple murders already. He's counting on the fact that I won't be able to prove anything. He'll never release the boy—he'd be a fool to, and he knows it. He's just buying time.”

“Nick,” she said gently. “Then why are we doing all this?”

“Because I'm buying time too,” Nick said. “If Turlock hasn't killed J.T. already, then I don't think he will—at least not for a day or two. He knows that if he does I might do something desperate, and he doesn't want to risk that. My threat to go to the media bought J.T. one more day of life, that's all. That's what I'm hoping, at least—we should know in about an hour.”

“But if Turlock won't let him go anyway, what's the point?”

“I don't need him to let the boy go—I want him to lead me to him.”

Nick held his breath as he watched the monitor, waiting for the downloaded data to appear. He let out a sigh of relief when the image shifted, revealing an additional dot.

“Bingo,” he said. “Maybe my luck is changing after all.”

“What is it?”

“J.T. is alive.”

“How do you know?”

“The DEA boat is moving—look at the dot. Turlock is the only one with any reason to be out here at this time of night—and he has no reason to be out here unless he's heading for J.T.”

Beth looked at the screen. She saw the flower-petal pattern of multiple dots where the boat had been docked for the last two days—then one additional dot marking a location somewhere in the Lower Nine. The text display beside the dot read 11:00 CST.

“But that doesn't tell us where he's going,” she said.

“No—but it tells us which direction he's headed. All we'll do for now is head in the same general direction—that should put us just a short distance away. The GPS unit will broadcast his next position at midnight—by that time he should be with J.T. and waiting for my call. When the computer picks up that signal, we'll know exactly where he is—and when Turlock leaves we can get J.T. out of there.”

“I hope you're right about all this,” Beth said.

“So do I.” Nick set the laptop on the bench in front of him. He started the engine and quietly motored deeper into the Lower Nine.

Turlock pulled his boat up alongside the abandoned house. He shut off his engine and listened for a moment, then turned and searched the surrounding area for prying eyes. He was alone, as he knew he would be. He'd picked this spot for good reason.

He rapped his knuckles on the attic wall. “Hey, kid.”

There was no answer.

“Hey, kid, I'm a friend of your buddy Nick. He sent me here to get you—he wants to talk to you.”

Still nothing.

Turlock took a hammer and pried off one of the boards that he had nailed across the attic vent. He pointed a flashlight into the opening and searched the attic's dark interior; he spotted the boy's body lying faceup halfway across the room.

He shrugged.

He replaced the board and hammered it on tight again. He looked at his watch: just a few minutes before midnight. He checked the satellite phone to make sure it was powered up and receiving a signal; he laid it on the bench in front of him. He took out his .40-caliber Glock and checked the clip, then slid it back into his shoulder holster.

He pulled the boat into the shadow of a nearby tree and waited for Nick to arrive.

47

Nick pulled his oar from the water and listened.

Nothing.

The black rooftops drifted past like great piles of coal. He snapped his fingers and Beth turned and looked at him; he held up his oar, signaling for her to stop rowing too. He let the boat slowly drift on the glassy water. It was strange: He had spent so much time in this neighborhood that he recognized his current location—he had passed this way half a dozen times in the last week. Turlock knew what he was doing; this section of the Lower Nine had been emptied of survivors days ago—no one was likely to search here again.

This was as far as he dared to go. Nick had no idea how far they had traveled or how near to their final destination they might be, but he couldn't take a chance on overtaking Turlock—that would be the worst thing he could do. His goal was to discover J.T.'s hiding place and then spirit him away—but it would work only if Turlock believed the boy was still in his possession. If Turlock realized that J.T.'s location had been discovered, he would remove the boy himself—or he would kill him on the spot.

Nick lifted the computer onto his lap and checked the screen again; according to the computer's clock, there was less than a minute until midnight. Nick had decided that he would wait for the final GPS coordinate, then disconnect the satellite phone from the laptop and make the call. He wondered if Turlock would actually let him talk to J.T. Probably—he didn't want Nick doing anything stupid. Then after the call Turlock would try to buy more time; he would request another day, and Nick would “reluctantly” agree—because the moment Turlock left, Nick would find J.T. and take him away, and after that there would be nothing to stop him from turning Turlock in, physical evidence or not.

Midnight.

A final dot appeared on the computer screen. Nick estimated the distance from his own location—it wasn't far away.

“Got it,” he whispered to Beth.

He disconnected the phone from the laptop and dialed another number.

“Turlock.”

“Let me talk to the boy,” Nick said.

“He's right here. He's fine.”

“Lucky for you. Let me talk to him.”

A pause. “The kid's asleep. Let's not wake him, okay? Kids need their sleep.”

Turlock was stonewalling. “He won't mind. He keeps late hours.”

Turlock didn't answer.

Nick frowned. “The deal was: I wait one day, you let me talk to him.”

“No. The deal was: You wait one day, I let the kid live one day. The day's up, Polchak—let's talk about tomorrow.”

“No deal. You said one day.”

“He's a good kid—real smart—I can see why you like him. We've brought the boy this far; seems like a shame to end it now—but I will, if that's what you want.”

“I need to know the boy's alive,” Nick said.

“Sounds reasonable. How about this: You call me tomorrow night at midnight—same time, same number—and I'll let you talk to him then.”

“That's what you told me last night.”

“Like I said, the boy's asleep. I can't help that. He's fine, Polchak, he's right here—I just looked in on him a minute ago.”

Nick paused to give Turlock the impression he was considering. “One day,” he said, “but that's it. No more excuses, Turlock—tomorrow night I either talk to the boy or I talk to CNN. It's up to you.”

Nick disconnected.

“What happened?” Beth said. “I thought you were going to tell him what we found out—about LaTourneau and the courthouse.”

“Something's wrong,” Nick said. “He wouldn't let me talk to J.T.”

“Why not?”

“There are two possibilities: He might just have been playing hardball—letting me know that he's the one in charge.” Nick stopped there, and Beth didn't ask him to continue; they both knew what the second possibility was.

“What do we do now?”

“What we planned to do—we wait. Once we're sure Turlock is gone, we'll go to his location and look for J.T.”

They sat together in silence.

Nick knew that something was definitely wrong—something he did not bother to explain to Beth. It made no sense: If Turlock never intended to let Nick talk to the boy, why did he come out here in the first place? He didn't need to make the trip to the Lower Nine just to say no—he could have done that from anywhere. Was it possible that Turlock was telling the truth? Did he intend to let Nick talk to the boy, but changed his mind when he found the boy sleeping? The idea was absurd; Turlock wasn't a babysitter—what did he care about waking the boy up?

There was only one other possibility . . .

Nick adjusted his glasses and looked at the computer screen again.

Oh, no.

The overlapping dots—the series of coordinates representing the time that Turlock's boat had been docked—there was something wrong with them. The text displays beside each dot overlapped too, making them difficult to distinguish—but now that he looked more closely, Nick could see it: There was a twenty-six-hour gap between two of the overlapping dots. There could only be one explanation: The GPS unit had been switched off and then on again.

Nick started up the engine and twisted the throttle.

Beth twisted around and looked at him in astonishment. “What are you doing?”

“It's a trap,” Nick said.

“Nick—he could hear us!”

“It doesn't matter—he already knows we're here.”

Nick jerked the tiller and turned around on a dime, gunning the engine and accelerating away.

“Where are we going?”

Nick didn't reply. He was moving fast, searching up ahead for familiar landmarks, dodging back and forth between the shadowy houses and black mounded treetops looming from the water. He swerved too close to an old river oak and the branches raked across the bottom of the hull like the fingernails of a giant. He misjudged a turn and the boat's right side caught the edge of a rooftop; the boat almost overturned, throwing Beth off her bench and against the port-side rail.