In the House On Lakeside Drive (22 page)

“There're a lot of questions,” Eric said. “Unraveling them is gonna take some time.”

The sound of a phone ringing got everyone's attention. It was a ringtone the little group was familiar with. “Hello?” Jesse answered, hoping he could pass for the slightly higher pitched Evan.

“This ain't Liam. Where is he?”

“Unavailable. Who is this?”

“Who is
this
?” The voice had a distinct Southern accent to it.

“Friend. What do you want with Evan Dyer?”

The phone hung up. “Shit,” Jesse said. “Too short to trace.” He looked at the Inghams and Rachel, who had stopped her pacing. “He definitely sounds Southern, and he knows Evan, but he used the name Liam. What's betting that's Evan's real name?”

“I'll tell Frank,” Eric said, rising from his seat. “Cross-reference the name Liam with a case in either North or South Carolina having to do with robbery or drugs.”

“The longer we wait here, the longer those kids are out there somewhere,” Jesse said to the remaining women. “And who knows what they're going through while we're waiting on Evan?”

The sound of Pachelbel's “Canon in D” erupted in the quiet hallway, startling the few souls left on the hospital floor. Though visiting hours were over hours ago, the nature of Evan's case allowed for some arrangements to be made to have people present, should he wake up. Rachel pulled the phone out of her coat pocket and activated it. “Hello?”

“Well now. Pretty voice. Bet my friend got himself a pretty lady to go with it.” The voice was Southern. Rachel pointed at the device, mouthing the words “it's him” at Jesse, who was already making a phone call.

“Wh-what do you want?”

“I want to know why my friend didn't pick his phone up. Could have been important.”

Rachel swallowed thickly. “He's…he's in the hospital.”

“Shame. I wanted this to take some time. I don't have an endless supply of it, however.”

“What do you want?” Rachel asked again, a little more forcefully. “Who are you?”

“Oh, that's not important. The who I am bit, anyway. What I
want,
though, is my friend to hit redial the second he's out. Tell him it's a life or death call. Literally, life or death. Remember, tell him.”

The phone hung up, and Jesse shook his head again. “It's in the area, but we could only narrow it down about two hundred miles. And that doesn't mean the kids are in that range.”

“That guy gives me the creeps,” Rachel said. “What does he want with Evan?”

“I wonder,” the officer said. “Frank mentioned a friend of Evan's that went to prison.”

“You think?”

“Can't hurt to find out,” the man said as he placed his own phone to his ear.

* * *

Inside the glassed-in room a thin figure began to stir. Pale eyes blinked in the harsh incandescent light. Evan looked down the length of the uncomfortable mattress to find several tubes sticking out of him and more in his nose. An annoying beep rang out through the room, and the beep turned to a blaring alarm when he disconnected the lines from himself. He slowly shifted his slight weight to angle his feet off the edge of the bed when a wall of people in white coats came in, pressing him back against the mattress. “Mr. Dyer, you have to lie back down,” one of the doctors said, his tone no-nonsense and stern. “You need rest and to stay calm.”

“Good luck with that,” he said, letting them win but sitting up the second their hands left his body. “The boys are out there, and that bastard's got 'em…”

“Who? Who's the bastard?” The doctor stood in front of the door, acting as a human barrier.

“Man who should have died a long time ago,” Evan said, standing up. “Now, shove me down again and I'll file for assault. I am leaving.
Now.
”

“Mr. Dyer, if I have to have you restrained I shall. You are in no condition to walk down the hall, much less go after missing people.”

“You don't understand. It's me he wants.
Me
, not them. I will
not
let them get hurt or worse because you've decided to play God. If I'm what he wants, then that's what he'll get.”

The rush of footsteps drew closer. “Evan!” Rachel said, throwing her arms around the man she loved. “Oh, God, what's…what's going
on
? First the kids, then this.”

“Rachel,” Evan said, pulling away from her. “I know who has the boys.”

“They called. It's some Southern guy, the accent's obvious.”

“Wait, he talked to you?”

“Well, yes…you, you didn't answer your phone, so…”

“Oh, shit.” Evan reached for his coat. “That means he got the number from one of the kids. The thought of them anywhere
near
him…I can't. I have to go.”

“Go? Go where?”

“Babe, remember I said I made some mistakes in college?”

Rachel nodded.

“This was one of them. I had a friend, see…”

“I know. Frank told us. I know about the pills.”

“And
I'd
like to know about them, sir,” the doctor said, still standing in front of the door. “You are severely resistant to antianxiety drugs, and that is precisely what you need right now.”

“Over two years of heavy alprazolam use will do that to you. Plus amphetamines.”

Rachel's eyes grew wide. “Xanax. And Adderall.”

Evan nodded. “Adderall to focus through the work, Xanax to calm down and get my mind off the miserable life I had. I'm not proud of it. That's why I didn't want to take the job at the school—if it got around I was a recovering addict…”

“Rosa would understand. But forget that now—who
is
this guy?”

“He used to be a friend. He was my dealer. I couldn't steal from the pharmacy I worked at. I ended up owing him money. Not a lot, but enough. He wanted me to give him access to the pharmacy stock where I worked. I said no. Eventually he told me he was coming for it anyway, and one night I got a call telling me to show up and let him in.” Evan sighed, sinking back down onto the bed. “I ran there and came clean with the head pharmacist instead. When my…when he came, the police were waiting.”

“He went to prison.”

“Yes. But his family had money. They had cut him off, but they didn't want a scandal. Lawyer got him bail, and three weeks after I testified someone attacked me in my apartment. I was lucky to escape with my life.” Evan showed her the thin scar. “That's when I threw what little I owned in that old truck and ran for it. I didn't quit running until the engine died not a mile from your house.”

“Oh, my God,” Rachel said. “Was it him? In your apartment?”

“No. But I know he paid for it. I called the court once, just before I met you, to see if he'd been sentenced. Ten years, he got. But somehow, he got out.”

“He said…he said to hit redial on your phone. A life or death call, he called it.” Worried fingers ran through tangled waves of red hair. “Evan, what are you going to do?”

“I'm gonna get the kids back. Whatever it takes, I'm getting them back.”

Chapter 32

Riley was starting to get annoyed. The job was turning south fast, and the little money they had left from the initial robbery was going down the throats of these new people, people so large and imposing they made Charlie look like a rag doll. Several cases of beer had cropped up, and the Cajun spice man continually had a fifth in his hand. Riley thought it was scotch, but he wasn't sure. The food he'd bought to go around for three people was now feeding eight, and that wasn't counting the baggage in the basement.

“Could these assholes
eat
any more?” he groused to his cousin, who was leaning against a marble countertop in the kitchen. “Swear to God those brats downstairs are eating more than we are.”

“Be hard for 'em to do, seein' as we got the food up here. They're lucky they get a drink of water and maybe a couple bites of somethin'. More than we're gettin', that's sure,” Charlie pointed out. He too was getting annoyed, more with their employer than the new arrangement. “I'm not seein' the payday we were promised, Riley. Best for us to cut and run, you ask me.”

“I got too much invested in this,” Riley admitted. “Used the last of my start-up money buying food we're not eating.”

“Well, shit,” his cousin groused. “There goes Hawaii.”

“Yeah. If only Dayton had stuck to the plan, gotten our shit done first instead of jumping the gun and calling these assholes in. I mean, it
sounds
like there's a payday when you talk to the Cajun dude, but it ain't looking like there
is
one to be had.” Riley's eyes kept floating toward the door. “You know, I say if we ain't getting paid on this job, why the hell should anyone else be getting paid?”

“Thought you had too much invested in this, Riley.”

“I do. But we could always take off with those brats, or at least one or two of them, make those assholes in there pay
us
to get them back. Seems like they need 'em more than we do, you ask me.”

“Not a bad thought,” Charlie agreed. “But where we gonna stash 'em? Not like we got another roof to duck under or a room with soundproofin' and a lock.”

“I found a nice place, not ten miles from here. Passed it up before because it had an open field before the woods. It'd work for our purposes.”

“Got locks?”

“Put 'em in on the sly. Thought we might possibly need a back-up plan.”

Charlie's round face started to spread into a thoughtful smile. “I'm likin' this idea more and more. I got a few bucks left from my cut.” He glanced toward the living room, where their current employer was partaking in a bottle with their new partners. “You got a couple of blades?”

“Nicer than what you got. Took 'em off that big fellow when no one was looking.” Riley pulled the knives in question off his belt, each one having a nearly four-inch blade. They were sharp to the touch. “These should work nice, yeah?”

“Very.” Charlie leaned in. “We'll do it tonight.”

* * *

Dayton sipped the Cajun's scotch. It was bitter, and not as smooth as the vodka he preferred when hitting the hard liquor. “Not one for scotch, huh?” his drinking companion asked, grinning a drunkard's grin.

“No. I prefer vodka.”

“Russian crap.”

“Prefer the French stuff, myself. The Swedes aren't bad either.”

“Nah. Scotch, drink of kings. Never met a decent man that couldn't drink scotch.” The man took a draw from the bottle, its contents now half empty.

Dayton shook his head. “I gotta make a call,” he said, walking outside. The noise level in the house had tripled in the last twenty-four hours, and it made doing business difficult. He punched in a number and let the device ring. “This is Evan,” came the crisp greeting on the other end of the line.

“Hello, Liam. Heard you weren't feeling well. All better?”

“Where are the boys?”

“Listen to you, all worried. They're fine. Not one hair on their heads harmed.”

“I want to talk to them.”

“You can
want
a lot, but it's not happening,” Dayton scolded. “No, it's my turn. I
want
you to listen to me, very carefully.” He paused for effect. “Listening?”

“Yes,” the voice on the other end ground out.

“I want you to go back to that house of yours. I want you to wait. Someone will be by to pick you up. And then we'll talk more.”

“The kids?”

“They'll be waiting for you to follow directions. Not ever something you did well, last I recall.”

“How do I know you haven't killed them? I could just tell you to go to hell.”

“You
could,
but you
won't.
”

“No. Prove they're alive, and I'll come. No fuss. Otherwise I spill everything, and it's over.”

“I spoke to your woman. Pretty thing. Bet she'd be unhappy to get a call telling her where to pick up three corpses. What do you think?”

There was silence. Dayton sighed. “Fine. I'll have one of them talk to you. Just sit tight and wait. But be ready when we come. And Liam? Be alone. You have this troublesome habit of making friends at bad times.”

“I'll be there. If I don't hear from you in one hour, I'll assume they're dead.”

“Fine. See you.” The line went dead. Dayton sighed again.
Should have told him to bring money,
he thought.
The Cajun's payday notwithstanding, Liam still owes me over a grand from before.