Campbell (42 page)

“You don’t think that defending ourselves is a good use of money?” Connor shouted through the phone. Tal bit his tongue and reminded himself that he didn’t want Connor to know that he knew who was likely responsible for their kidnapping, which had most certainly
not
been a good use of money.

“It’s not happening, Connor. You’ve asked for a half a million dollars this week. There are hungry kids out there. Cut your losses.”

“A week with that fucking communist bitch and you think—”
 

Tal knew he’d make it about Lucy. “I’ve thought about this for a long time. There are better ways for us to operate—”
 

“You’re done,” Connor said with finality. “You’re done here.”

The line went dead and Tal pulled himself out of bed, knowing that it would take at least a day for Connor to make good on his threat. It wasn’t much time, but it would have to do. He dressed and bounded down the stairs, but found the house empty. A short note on the kitchen table explained.

Gone to the office with Lucy. Back later.

Under different circumstances, Tal would have found himself refreshed by Leah’s note and pleased that they were both making an effort to get to know one another. However, he doubted that was the case, and the unknown reasons for them going anywhere together made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He wasn’t left with much time to work through his concerns, however, as a loud knock on the
 
door drew his attention. He looked through the peephole to see Bull staring in at him.

“We’re fucking exhausted. Open the door.”

Tal did, and he and Zoey, bags in hand, staggered into the foyer.
 

“Where are we sleeping? We almost got creamed by some sort of fruit truck ten minutes ago because I was half asleep. We need to rest,” Bull said, flopping down on the couch.

“We’re dethroning Connor. Soon,” Tal said, avoiding eye contact with Zoey. “Probably in the next day or so.”

“Do you have your proof?”

“Nope, but we don’t have time for that. He’s out, Rika and I are in.”

“Who?”

“My second.

“Tal, where’s your bathroom?” Zoey asked quietly, her eyes dark as she peered around his house.
 

“There’s one just down the hall, second door,” Tal replied.

When she vanished and closed the door, Bull’s expression darkened. “Where’s Lucy?”

“She’s out with my cousin.”

Bull raised his voice, and Tal knew he had the same concerns that he did. “Why is she out with your cousin?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Tal said, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his pyjama pants. “I woke up and found a note saying they were out. At my office. I can call there. I have to go to Rika’s house to finalize a plan for this Connor thing—”
 

The look on Bull’s face was not reassuring. “You need to calm down and think here. Do you trust your cousin?”

A calmness came over Tal, as he realized with certainty that he did trust Leah. “Yes.”

“Why would she take Lucy to your office?”

Tal reached for the phone and dialed the studio. No one answered. He wasn’t surprised. “I don’t know. Lucy’s an adult—”
 

“Lucy’s had a mental breakdown. She’s not exactly in the right mindset to be making good decisions. Get me a coffee, and we’ll go find them.”

“What’s going on?” Zoey emerged from the bathroom rubbing her eyes.

“Zoey, go get some sleep. I’m going to…Tal and I have some things to do,” Bull said gently.

“There’s a room off the pool, down the hall. You can sleep there,” Tal said, as he grabbed her bag and led her there. She looked relieved when she saw the bed.

“I…I’m not used to Bull’s hours,” she admitted. “And I’m a little homesick. I just…I just need a nap.”

Tal nodded, feeling her exhaustion in his bones. “We’ll wake you up in a bit.”

He closed the door, and immediately the phone started ringing.

“Tal, someone came for us,” Rika said, her voice clear. “Now, we shot them—”
 

“Come over here, please,” Tal said, hoping his voice echoed her calm tone. “We need to move fast.”

“On our way.”

Tal started the coffee and shook his head at Bull, who had his coat on, ready to go.

“Can’t go now. Lucy and Leah, they’re on their own—” He ducked as a window smashed. “You good with a gun?”

“We can’t just leave her—”
 

“She’s tougher than you think. Leah’s tougher than I think. They’ll be fine.” Tal nodded towards his father’s office. “Wherever they are, it’s probably safer than here.”

Bull begrudgingly followed Tal into his office, and his eyes went wide as a bookcase was pushed aside and to reveal a rather extensive gun collection.

“This used to be a wine cellar,” he noted. “I don’t really like wine.”

“What’s happening here?”

“I cut Connor off financially about an hour ago, and he told me I’m out. I assume he’s going to try and kill me so I don’t continue to be a problem.” Tal spoke with a calm decisiveness he wasn’t sure he had in him.
 

“Oh.” Bull eyed a large assault rifle. “So you like guns, huh?”

“I hate guns. I hate them more than anything except dying.” Tal reached for a revolver. “Which I’m not prepared to do right now.”

“I’ll take the closest thing you have to a hunting rifle,” Bull announced. “And if anything happens to Lucy, I’m going to shoot you with it as soon as we’re done. Somewhere painful.”

Rika, flanked by seven of the biggest kids Bull had ever seen, arrived about ten minutes later, her young children in tow.

“Where’s the safest place for them?” she asked, a frown on her face. “I should have gone to San Fran this morning, Tal.”

“We probably all should have,” he admitted. “But this will be over quickly.”

“One way or another,” Rika grumbled, looking around, her eyes settling on the broad man posing with an assault rifle. “Who’s that?”

“That’s Lucy’s second, Bull.” Tal smiled at her kids. “Can you girls be quiet?”

They both nodded.
 

“They can go with Zoey, Lucy’s—”
 

“Girlfriend,” Bull declared, shooting Tal a dark look. “She’s sleeping down the hall.”

Rika nodded and took them out of the room, leaving Tal alone with more testosterone than he’d ever encountered in one place.

“So we need a plan,” he told them. “We need to take Connor down.”

One of the kids, who made Bull look like Tal in comparison, said gruffly, “You think he’s coming here?”

“I think he’d want to make sure the job is done,” Tal replied.

Rika’s companion nodded. “Then you find out where he’s landing, and you get there. Fast.”

“I’ll go,” Bull said. “I want to do it.”

“Get in line,” another of Rika’s companions said. “Juan was like a brother to me—”
 

“He almost killed the most important person in my life,” Bull roared.
 

“Can we not fight about this?” Rika said, more gently than most in her position would have. “First, we need to take him out, and then we can decide who he fucked up worse.”

Tal glanced at himself in the mirror by the door. All the memories of his father preparing for his own death flooded back. The canned goods that had lasted over seven years. The gold from the safety deposit box. The two months he’d spent meticulously teaching Tal and his brothers the lessons that should have taken a decade to properly be absorbed.

Always trust your gut.

“Bull, you and two of the Mexicans go.” Tal said authoritatively to the crew Rika had brought with her. “You have two seconds to decide who. Rika, go get a gun, and call who you need to call to take the phone lines down. I don’t want him being able to call anyone.”

She nodded and vanished to Tal’s office, and he turned to face Bull and the two largest, angriest looking kids from Rika’s group.

“You’re going to Van Nuys airport. Don’t take a direct route, shoot first and ask questions later. Do not shoot Connor. Fatally.”

“Okay,” Bull nodded, picking up the rifle he’d lent him. “I have your number.”

“The phones won’t work, but I’ll be here,” Tal said decisively. “Go.”

***

The studio was larger than Lucy had imagined. Leah grabbed her hand and squeezed it as she waved to two armed guards at the front gate from her Jaguar.

“Connor sent me to pick up some stuff and check in on things,” she said brightly.

“Who’s she? She kind of looks like—”

“She’s in the space movie.”

“There’s a problem with the phones. We’re working to have it resolved,” one of the guards said. “Power’s still up though, so no problems with shooting. What’s your name?”

“Laura Black,” Lucy said, without missing a beat and smiling as the guard wrote her name in a book. “I’m from—”
 

“She’s from Seattle,” Leah interjected. “She’s got the same measurements as the girl—”
 

“The one with the lion?” The second guard winced. “You’re still doing that scene?”

“We’ve got it figured out now. It won’t happen again.” Leah winked. “Come on now, don’t scare her!”

The three of them chuckled. “How’s Bauman?”

“Home, snoring away,” Leah said with a sigh, as she pulled away from the gate. “This war….”

“I hear we’re winning!”

“Of course we are!” she shouted back. “Back in a bit.”

“What do you do here?” Lucy asked curiously as she rolled up the windows.

“Everything lately. When politics became more important than movies, I got the toy that none of the boys wanted anymore.” She reached into the backseat and handed Lucy a beret. “Keep your face off the security cameras. I don’t know who’s watching. There’s been so much bullshit flying lately that I’m surprised they let me in.”

“Why are you doing this?”

Leah pulled into a parking spot with her name on it. “I’d like to sleep at night.”

Their first stop was a third-floor office with Leah’s name on the door, full of movie memorabilia and electronics, the newest Lucy had seen in years. She stood in the doorway, tense as Tal’s cousin rifled through her desk.

She was fairly sure she could handle herself with Leah, as long as it was a fair fight. She hadn’t expected her to pull a gun.
 

“I’m not going to shoot you, you ass,” Leah muttered, laying the gun on her desk as she passed her an envelope. “Here. I had them developed. I wasn’t supposed to look, but I confronted Connor about it.”

They were the same pictures Lucy had been sent. She looked quickly then dropped the envelope on her desk. “What…” Lucy stammered, her mind racking

“Connor told me a lovely story about how Campbell had abducted my cousin and he’d managed to grab Lucy Campbell’s twin so we could negotiate and get him back. Imagine my shock when Tal called and said he was with you, and he was fine. He should have called earlier.”

Lucy had asked him not to call earlier. Her heart thudded in her chest.
 

“Why? What would have—”
 

“Because I wouldn’t have helped Connor kill him if I’d know,” she said simply. “I would have stopped it, however I had to. Your brother was a nice guy. A bit misguided, but a nice guy.”

Lucy lunged over the desk and grabbed the girl, pinning her to the floor. “You fucking bitch,” she hissed, her hands around Leah’s throat. “Fucking idiotic—”

“If you kill me, you’re never getting out of here alive,” she gasped, fumbling for the gun. “And even if you did, Tal would never forgive you, and this will never end.”

Lucy released her throat , but remained on top of her. “Do you have any idea the problems you’ve—”

“Yes,” she wheezed. “I know exactly the problems I’ve caused, and I’m trying to make them as right as I can. See that over there?” She nodded at a simple cardboard box. “His things are in there, if you want them. I saved them.”

Lucy grabbed the gun off the desk and stood, cautiously aiming at Leah. The girl was physically weak, but Lucy had gained new respect for her. She knew that, for Tal, Leah would have done exactly what Lucy had to get Cole back.
 

The box had her twin’s old hoodie, boots and jeans in it; his wallet with some tattered Canadian money, and her mother’s wedding band, which he’d always worn around his neck on a chain. Even from a distance they smelled like him, and Lucy was overcome with emotion.

“You asked why I’m doing this. You brought Tal back.” Leah said, sitting up and rubbing her neck. “We’re as even as—”

“As we could ever be,” Lucy replied, sliding her mother’s band in her pocket. “Where did he…?“

Leah nodded and stood, accepting the ruler of Campbell’s hand to steady herself.
 
“I’ll take you there.”

The two girls walked silently over to a small prop shed about ten minutes from the main building in a bit of lawn, and Leah removed a key from on top of the doorframe and opened the door.

The smell of blood and death was overpowering. They both gagged.

“I thought someone would have cleaned this up by now,” Leah whispered, pulling a string and lighting up a bare bulb to reveal a great deal of blood splattered against the wall. “Connor was supposed to—”
 

“Where is my brother?” Lucy asked, her fingers tracing the blood on the wall as tears streamed down her cheeks. “I…I need to take him home.”

“I don’t know.” Leah took a step outside the door to get some air. “Connor knows. I didn’t ask. I didn’t…” Her face screwed up as tears streamed down her face. “I never wanted to be a part of any of these games. I just wanted to make movies, and live my life without any more death, and now, it’s just…” She wiped her eyes. “It doesn’t stop. It’ll never stop.”

Lucy took a step outside and drew a deep breath. “He’s gone…he’s really….”

The last person she expected to find comfort in was Leah Schmidt. Leah wasn’t naturally warm, and it was a challenge for them both, figuring out how to properly react. She held Lucy though, stroked her terrible haircut, and did her best to calm the gut wrenching sobs the girl was emitting.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…” she whispered. “We can’t do this here though. Not with you looking like him, and whatever is happening with Connor and Tal. We’ve got to get out of here. Tal, he’ll be wondering.”