Gridlock: A Ryan Lock Novel (21 page)

The woman from LA County rolled her eyes. ‘We heard you telling him to do it.’

‘Don’t know what you’re talking about, lady,’ Ty said, the very picture of innocence. ‘I let you in the house, didn’t I?’

The two patrol officers, thumbs hitched into belts, stood there exchanging looks. Lock guessed that, especially with a cop killer still on the loose, this kind of call wasn’t exactly top of their list of places to be.

‘Ma’am,’ Lock said, to the LA County woman. ‘Kevin’s legal guardian is here now so you won’t be taking him with you.’

The woman grumbled a response: ‘I’d still like to make sure he’s okay.’

Lock met Raven’s gaze with a let’s-just-get-this-over-and-done-with look.

Raven shrugged. ‘Fine. But make it quick.’

Together she and the woman headed back up the stairs. Lock followed them, keeping a respectful distance. In the hallway, he pulled the woman back by the sleeve while Raven went into her bedroom and knocked on the panic-room door.

A few seconds later a heavy thud announced Kevin’s emergence. Raven wrapped her arms around her brother as he burrowed his face into her shoulder and neck. She stroked the back of his head as Kevin snuffled through his tears.

‘Hey, it’s okay,’ she whispered to him.

Next to Lock, the County lady was decent enough to look awkward, staring at her shoes and developing a sudden interest in some forms she’d brought with her.

Raven continued to speak in hushed, even tones until Kevin’s sobs quieted. There was the rustle of a paper tissue and the sound of him blowing his nose and then they came out of the room, brother and sister, both red-eyed.

Lock left the County woman to it and headed back downstairs, where Ty was waiting with the two patrol officers. Lock motioned for his partner to join him in the kitchen, safely out of earshot of the cops.

Pizza boxes littered the counters, dirty plates sat in the sink and the trash can in the corner was overflowing. ‘Housekeeping kind of went by the wayside last night,’ Ty said, by way of explanation. ‘Plus I was helping him with his Hallowe’en costume. Figured it would take his mind off of everything else.’

Lock put his hand on Ty’s shoulder and smiled. ‘Good work, though for now we’ve got bigger things to worry about than costumes. Like how to find a way of getting them out of the house without being followed. The press outside are mostly interested in Raven. How about you take her in the Pimpmobile, lose anyone tailing you, and we’ll RV somewhere else?’

‘Not a problem, brother. Where you thinking of heading?’

‘Maybe a cabin up near Big Bear. Somewhere nice and remote where he could pick us off one by one.’

‘Stop screwing with me, Ryan. I know you’ve got somewhere in mind.’

Lock hesitated. ‘I don’t but Carrie does.’

Back upstairs, Lock and Ty traded bemused glances. It was hard to decide who was taking more time over what to pack, Raven or Kevin. They were in their bedrooms, poring over their stuff as if it was the last they would ever see of it.

Lock knew from experience that he and Ty took slightly different approaches, Lock traveling light, and Ty, as befitted a former grunt marine, cramming as much shit into his bags as he could possibly carry, just in case he might need some of it at some point.

He knocked on Raven’s bedroom door.

‘Come in.’

She had changed into sweats. Her hair was still wet and wrapped in a towel after a long shower to wash away the smells and, no doubt, the sensations on her skin of the Twin Towers. Having spent some time in prison himself, albeit as an under-cover operative, Lock knew only too well how correctional facilities dug their way into your pores. You could smell jail on someone, and the odor lingered long after the most obvious traces had evaporated.

‘How long are we going to be away for?’ she asked.

‘That depends on how fast the cops catch whoever’s doing this.’

She picked up a fresh towel to rub away the moisture from the ends of her hair. ‘What if they don’t?’

Lock cleared his throat. ‘That’s a possibility. Your stalker’s been clever so far, but killing Stanner’s family is a game changer. The LAPD are going to give this the full court press. The task force they’re putting together is the biggest this city’s ever seen. Unless he’s already on a plane somewhere he’s going to be caught. Days. Weeks. Months. But the LAPD will get to him. All we have to do right now is keep our heads down and stay patient. So, no more meetings or gigs.’

‘And what about Kevin?’ Raven asked. ‘He’ll want to see Wendy. He needs to go to his centre. We can’t just cut him off from his friends.’

Lock walked back to the bedroom door and closed it. ‘We don’t have much of a choice. Listen, we hunker down for now. When it’s over, everyone can go back to their regular lives.’

Raven sighed. ‘Okay, I get it.’

Lock smiled. ‘Stuff like this isn’t easy. It feels like you’re being forced out of your own home. But sometimes retreating is the smartest way to go.’

The phone handset next to Raven’s bed began to ring. They both looked at it.

‘You want me to answer that?’ Lock asked.

‘No, I’m good,’ Raven said, reaching over and snatching it from its base. ‘Hello?’

Lock was on his way out of the room, eager to let Raven retain some small remnant of privacy, when he caught the look on her face, and her stiff, frozen posture.

He crossed swiftly back towards the phone’s base unit and hit the speaker button as Raven stood motionless, the handset still pressed to her ear.

A man’s voice filled the room. ‘Hey, sweetie, did you like your new dress?’

42

Lock listened, hoping to pick up some background noise – freeway traffic, a television or radio on in the background, an airport announcement – at the other end of the line. Digging out his cell phone, he texted Ty to let the cops know they had someone on the landline. As he pressed send he gestured for Raven to keep the man talking. The discovery of the dress had not been released to the media, which left only a few options. This was either a crank who was very close to the investigation or, more likely, the stalker.

Raven held up her hands in a what-the-hell-do-you-want-me-to-say? gesture, then took a breath.

‘You still there, Sarah?’ the man asked.

Raven went rigid at the use of her real name. Lock felt suddenly cold. Even Kevin didn’t use it, although he had told Ty what it was. The man clearly knew more about her than most.

‘Yeah, I’m here,’ she said.

There was a pause. Lock thought he could make out some other voices in the background but he couldn’t be sure. He walked as quietly as he could to the phone base, hoping there was a record facility.

‘Who’s there? Who’s with you?’ the man said. ‘I know someone’s there.’

Lock waved frantically at Raven to keep talking.

‘My brother. Hang on, I’ll send him out of the room.’

‘No, it’s okay. He want to say hi to me?’

Raven’s face flushed with panic. ‘It’s too late. He’s gone.’

‘Stop lying to me, Sarah.’

The bedroom door opened slowly and one of the patrol officers stepped in as the man’s voice returned.

‘That bodyguard’s there with you, isn’t he?’

Raven looked to Lock for guidance. Lock raised an open palm indicating that he would handle this.

‘I’m here,’ Lock said, addressing the man directly. ‘And I’m not going anywhere.’

‘You saw what happened to the cop and his wife. You want that to happen to you?’

‘You want to have it out with me, then let’s meet up,’ said Lock, sensing an opportunity. ‘You name the time and place. I’ll come alone. We can settle this ourselves.’

There was the slightest of pauses before the reply came. ‘I might enjoy that.’

Then there was a click, and a second later the room was filled with the sound of dial tone. Lock saw Raven’s body almost slump with relief. The patrol officer jabbed at his radio, updating his superiors about what had just gone down.

Lock stood there for a moment, then turned to Raven. Her face was ash white with fear, and her hands were trembling. ‘You okay?’ he asked her.

‘Fine,’ she said, opening the top drawer of a dresser and jamming clothes into a bag. ‘Let’s just get the hell out of here.’

A wall of lenses greeted Lock as he walked out into the front yard. Behind the photographers, two satellite vans across the street disgorged perky female reporters from the passenger seats, and a chisel-jawed male anchor elbowed his way to the front of the scrum.

Lock gave them a big smile. ‘Rather than make everyone’s life a misery, I want to let you all know exactly what’s going to be happening this morning. In a moment, my colleague is going to be taking Ms Lane’s brother to his day centre. As he’s technically still a minor, and a young man with physical and mental challenges, we would ask you to respect his privacy and that of the other students and staff at the centre.’

The male anchor with the jaw interrupted: ‘What do we get?’

Lock choked back his usual response to that question – ‘You get to keep your legs free of fractures’ – in favour of a more measured ‘Ms Lane wants everyone to know that she will not be intimidated into varying her daily routine, so she will be carrying through with an already scheduled appearance at an establishment close to LAX known as the Eager Beaver Club.’

This drew a couple of disgusted looks from some of the female members of the media and plenty of smiles from the male paparazzi, two of whom high-fived each other.

‘We’ll be leaving in approximately ten minutes, ladies and gentlemen, so saddle up,’ Lock said.

Lock walked back into the house as photographers and press scrambled for their vehicles. Ty was in the hallway with Kevin, who was toting his Superman backpack. Hopefully, no one would notice how stuffed it was for someone going out for the day. Ty clapped Kevin on the shoulder. ‘You ready, bro?’

Kevin nodded as Raven leaned in to kiss him. ‘See you soon, okay?’

Her brother wiped at the lipstick she’d left on his cheek with the back of his hand. ‘Yuk.’

Lock opened the door and Ty stepped out with Kevin. No one paid any real attention as the pair walked to the purple Continental, got in and drove off. A single car peeled out behind them and Lock texted the details to his partner. One car was easy to lose. Lock had a slightly tougher task ahead of him.

The one real advantage that Lock had was that, with Raven’s house, there was no clear view of the back yard from the front. After dropping her off at the house when they’d arrived home, he’d moved his car into the street below, which ran parallel. Then he’d knocked at the house where the woman had the Belgian Shepherd and asked her to keep it inside.

With Raven’s bags packed and most of his stuff already back in Malibu, they snuck out of the french windows at the rear. He helped Raven clamber off the deck and together they scrambled down the steep slope. At the fence he helped her over and into the neighbour’s yard. The Belgian Shepherd, jaws opening and closing, barked its displeasure from behind triple-glazed windows as Lock threw Raven’s bags into the trunk of his car and they got in.

He had to hope now that they didn’t run into one of the paparazzi’s cars leaving early to stake a pitch at the club he’d named. Pulling out on to Sunset Boulevard, he scanned the traffic behind and ahead. There was nothing out of place as he jumped on to the 405.

Lock kept scanning the traffic, adjusting his speed and changing lanes rapidly, particularly as they drew close to off-ramps, hoping to draw a sudden movement from anyone following them. Nothing. Just the relentless metal grind of Los Angeles traffic, a freeway system that ran close to total capacity, one or two accidents away from complete gridlock.

When he pulled on to the 10, which ran west towards Santa Monica, the traffic lightened a little. Then they were racing towards the McClure tunnel, Santa Monica to their right, the Pacific Ocean to their left. A couple of people were out kite surfing, and an elderly couple rollerbladed along the concrete path beside the beach, hand in hand, wrinkled brown, their speed belying their advanced years. Blue skies. Everything California perfect.

He glanced at Raven next to him in the passenger seat. She had fallen asleep, rocked into dreamland by the thrum of the car’s tires as they rolled over endless miles of blacktop. Given the setting, it was almost impossible to imagine that he was guarding a woman who was fleeing for her life from a man who had carved such a bloody trail across one of the nation’s biggest cities.

He pressed down a little harder on the gas pedal, eager to put the city behind him. The sunlight flashed in the mirror as he checked it one more time. It blinded him for a second, rendering the cars behind him as black shapes on a distant horizon.

43

Ty’s Continental was already squeezed into the double-space garage of the ocean house Lock was sharing with Carrie. He parked next to it, then he and Raven got out. The garage formed part of the house and backed directly on to the Pacific Coast Highway just past the stop light at Big Rock. Two doors opened from the garage directly into the house itself. Lock grabbed Raven’s bags and headed for the one on the left, which took them into the kitchen.

They could hear noises overhead. There was a big deck out there, visible only to the house on the right, which was owned, as far as Lock knew, by a fashion designer who was never there. There were lots of houses like that in Malibu. Places on the beach costing millions of dollars that stayed empty, except during the summer months and at the odd weekend.

From the thumping feet and shouts, Angel had found a new buddy and Kevin had quickly adjusted to his surroundings. It sounded like Ty was up there too, trying to referee whatever game they were playing.

Lock could see Carrie on the first-floor deck. She wasn’t alone either. A tall guy with a warm smile and the look of a backwoods sage was standing next to her.

Lock showed Raven to her bedroom, which was on the first floor and tucked away at the back of the house, then went to join Carrie. As he slid open the glass door leading out on to the deck, the guest rose from his chair. ‘Levon Hill from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. You must be Ryan.’