Incriminated (20 page)

“He said what now?”

Lucy glanced over at Maya, who apparently couldn't believe what she was hearing on the cell phone. “Maya! I need to hear this, too. Put him on speaker.”

“. . . plus there's the fact that this
fancy
smartphone has been switched on this whole time, so we probably need to get rid of that, too,” John-Michael was saying as the phone's speaker kicked in. His voice sounded flat, resigned, dull. It felt totally at odds with the magnitude of what he seemed to be saying, which made Lucy wonder if maybe she'd misunderstood.

“Excuse me, you're saying he had a second cell phone?” Lucy asked, incredulous. “'Cause if he had a second
goddamn
phone then we are screwed six ways to Sunday!”

“Yeah,” John-Michael admitted. “Yeah, we may as well just accept it; the shooter's people are going to know by now that he didn't finish the hit, for whatever reason. Look, we're headed your way on foot now. If you leave in about
a minute we should meet up somewhere far enough away from the shooter's car that if some other car happens along, they won't see the two cars together.”

Maya interrupted, “You've got the rug? And the plastic wrap, and all the dead guy's stuff, his gun and everything?”

“We got it all,” John-Michael confirmed. There was a wry chuckle. “We're going to be hitting a whole bunch of Dumpsters tonight, I'm pretty sure.”

Lucy released a trembling breath. She turned the key in the ignition. Then she was driving Paolo's Chevy Malibu at a steady thirty miles per hour around the tight bends, back toward the spot where they'd last seen the boys parking the hit man's Oldsmobile.

Beside her, Maya seemed quiet and thoughtful. Lucy couldn't understand how she did it. If it wasn't for the distraction of having to drive, and rather cautiously at that, in the dark on such a high, twisting road, then Lucy knew she'd be going nuts. She felt a raw, itching sensation, as though a nail file was being rubbed gently against the insides of her hands and wrists. A constant irritation that made her want to scream and twist in frustration. And it was slowly building up. With things the way they were, however, there was no way to release her feelings, at least not as violently as she needed to. It would totally freak Maya out, for one thing.

“What if the shooter told whoever he talked to on that second phone that he was about to go into our house?”

Lucy tensed. “I . . . uh, no, actually . . . What d'you mean?”

Maya spoke slowly, considering each word. “It means that there's a potential witness out there. That's a best-case scenario.”

Lucy scarcely dared to ask. “And the worst?”

“And the worst,” Maya said softly, “is that the guy who's been trying to call the
smartphone
, is the same guy who Mr. Shooter was about to call right in front of us. Remember? To get help with the four teenagers he'd gotten all trussed up like chickens.”

“Oh jeez,” Lucy breathed. “In which case we're finished.”

“Unless we hit back first.”

It took several seconds before Lucy was able to grasp what Maya was saying. Lucy was sure there was something wrong with Maya's icy calm. What kind of person could be so cool under such horrific pressure?

“I don't . . . what are you saying, Maya?”

Maya rubbed the back of her neck with one hand. “Just a thought. We should probably discuss it with the guys.”

When two minutes later they rolled to a stop by the side of the road, the boys dropped the rolled-up rug into the trunk of the Chevy and Paolo swapped into the driver's seat, giving Lucy's hand a quick squeeze before she moved into the back with John-Michael. As before, Lucy didn't respond.

Abruptly, Maya said, “What are we gonna do about the second guy?”

Lucy watched Paolo and John-Michael exchange a
wary look. “Yeah,” Paolo admitted. “We've been talking about that.”

“Good,” Maya said firmly. “Because it's a major hole.”

“Hole?” Lucy asked uneasily.

“In our story,” Maya said. “Think about it: we're hoping that the cops find this guy's body and assume it's a hit-and-run. They've got a body in the road, a massive blow to the head, blood on the asphalt. The dead guy's car is
empty
, fingerprints all wiped. So what do they conclude? One hit-and-run car and another one with some kind of fly-by-night thief? Or the hit-and-run car who also happens to be the thief?”

“Either one works,” Paolo agreed.

Maya nodded. “Sure. Until someone comes forward and says that he or she talked to the dead guy when he was still alive in Venice Beach.”

Paolo appeared to think for a second or two before he replied. “Not an issue. The shooter could have done his thing, then driven here afterward.”

Maya shook her head and said vehemently. “No, it
is
an issue.”

“A hit man's buddy isn't going to talk to the cops,” he objected. “He's probably a hit man, too.”

She took a deep breath and then exploded. “We don't know for a fact that he is a hit man, and even if he is a hit man, that fact is not necessarily known to the cops, and even if it
is
, the cops might be dirty, and even if they aren't,
the existence of a potential witness against us, Paolo, that is something I know is gonna keep me awake nights, even if the guy doesn't involve the cops but instead decides to come looking for us himself!”

Behind them, a car approached. They all ducked down low and waited until they'd heard the car pass. It didn't appear to slow down. Once the car's taillights had disappeared around the bend they'd just taken, Paolo started the car hurriedly. He began to drive. “We've got to find a way off this road. We're just too prominent here.”

“You're right,” John-Michael said. “The cops will want to interview anyone who was on this road tonight. All someone needs to say is that they saw a Chevy Malibu parked nearby.”

“What do you suggest we do then, Maya? Since it's obvious you've thought it through so much better than the rest of us?” Paolo insisted, his attention on the road ahead.

Calmer now, Maya said, “Whoever called Mr. Shooter on that second cell phone is going to be wondering why they didn't get the confirmation call.”

“What confirmation call?” Lucy asked.

From the front passenger seat, Maya gave Lucy a sympathetic look. “You know. The one where he tells
whoever
that the job is done.”

“Oh,” Lucy managed to say, barely suppressing her disgust.

“Assuming that whoever it was on the call had anything
to do with the hit on Lucy,” replied Paolo.

“Will you just accept it, man?” John-Michael said. “That's our nightmare scenario, so obviously we have to take it into account.” He looked across at Paolo. “Okay, Paolo? Can we please agree?”

Paolo, however, seemed to be miles away. It took a couple of prompts from John-Michael before he responded, and even that was reluctant and noncommittal. “I guess.”

Lucy noticed that John-Michael was staring at Paolo with a measure of frustration. So, he'd also picked up how strangely detached Paolo was choosing to be, all of a sudden.

“We should tell them about the bag,” John-Michael said. The tone of his voice made the hairs on the back of Lucy's neck stand up. There was an unmistakable hint of threat.

Paolo winced, but he didn't turn around. He didn't say a word. When Lucy looked at John-Michael, he shifted back to the other side of the passenger seat, avoiding her eye.

“What bag?” said Maya curiously.

“Yeah,” Lucy said, more insistent. “Tell us about the bag.”

“We found a canvas duffel bag in the shooter's car. Cash,” John-Michael said. He spoke slowly. “A lot of it. We're thinking half a million at least.”

“You counted it?” Maya asked, baffled. “When?”

“We took a quick look before we transferred the bag to the trunk of the Chevy. Each roll looks to be about twenty grand.”

Into the taut silence that followed, Maya whispered,
“En la madre
.
”

It was suddenly crystal clear why Paolo was so distracted.

“A half million dollars? You're thinking of keeping the cash!” Lucy cried, lashing out with a foot into the back of Paolo's seat. The car swerved for a second and Paolo swore loudly.

“Lucy, Lucy.” John-Michael gripped her forearm. “We already made it look like the shooter's car was robbed anyhow. We had to—or else they'll wonder where his phones are, his gun. The shooter's people will assume that the thieves took the bag with the money.”

“And then what?” Lucy grunted, pulling free of him.

John-Michael shrugged. He didn't look nearly as relaxed about the idea as his words suggested. “Then I guess whoever has a claim on the money comes looking for anyone who might have committed the robbery or the hit-and-run.”

“But what are the odds they ever find us?” Maya said pensively. “We've seen, like, two cars drive by. The Chevy has been in the dark the whole time.”

Lucy could see with a sudden and dreadful clarity where Maya was going with this. She tried to swallow. “No,” she said very quietly. “We've got to go back. We have to put the bag back in the shooter's car exactly how you found it, leave the cell phones, leave everything.”

“We can't leave those things,” Paolo snapped. “They could lead right back to us. The money,
maybe
, we could
leave. It was underneath a rug in the trunk so someone who was just stealing whatever they could lay their hands on inside the car might not notice it . . . but the cell phones, Lucy, and the goddamn weapon? They have to go!”

“Stealing cell phones is a knucklehead move even by your standards, King,” Maya said, exasperated. “Cell phones can be traced.”

“Which is exactly,” Paolo said between clenched teeth, “why we're going to destroy them.”

“This is awful,” breathed Lucy.

John-Michael immediately moved to her side and put one arm around her shoulders. “I know, Luce, but we're gonna think it through, all of us. Together. We're gonna come up with a solution. We're not gonna let anything bad happen to you.”

Lucy wanted to shake his arm away again. She was on the verge of tears. Something terrible was definitely going to happen to her, whatever her friends did. Fear was building inside, all mixed up with a horrible sense of vulnerability. She recognized both. Her recently dredged-up memories of Tyson Drew's death were stirring into the mix. If she went to the authorities with what she knew, she risked being killed. The witness protection program would be her only hope. But she couldn't talk about any of it, not while the atmosphere inside the car was dense with such pigheaded determination.

They talked about solutions but didn't seem any closer to one. Lucy felt her insides squirm like roiling snakes. She
was afraid that they were about to take an even darker path than any of them might have imagined was possible. People lost their way, in times like this. They got lost so bad they never found their way home.

“Give me the guy's other phone,” Maya said. “I want to see it: the smartphone.” John-Michael took the object from his pocket and handed it over the front seat to Maya. Her fingers moved nimbly over the keypad. “Hmm. Classic hackable password. Huh.” She paused, shocked at what she found. Within the next two seconds she was shaking with rage and disbelief.

She turned to face them in utter dismay. “Are you guys actually this stupid?”

The other three stared at her. John-Michael sputtered, “Maya, what is your problem?”

“
FoneTrackr
?” she said, eyes bulging. “Why didn't you mention right from the beginning that his phone was running that app?”

John-Michael gave a helpless shrug. “I have no clue what you just said—I have an iPhone.”

“This brand of phone has an app you can use to locate and manage any of its devices from a remote location. This
smartphone,” she pronounced heavily, “has been GPS-tracked
the whole time
. What did I tell you about cell phones? So, the other guy? He already knows that Mr. Shooter went to Venice. He knows he parked near the house. He knows he stalled awhile in Malibu Canyon. And now,” she finished, “now he knows where we are, too. Paolo, stop the car. We gotta go back.”

Anxiously, Lucy said, “Go back? I thought you didn't want to go back.”

“To replace the money, no. But now we have to,” Maya said shortly. “Right away.”

“Maya.” John-Michael struggled to stay polite. “You gotta explain why you want to go back.”

“Seems pretty obvious to me,” came Paolo's voice from the front. “The second guy is coming for us.”

“For us, or for the cash,” agreed Maya.

“Good,” Lucy said. “You're finally seeing sense. Put the money back and let's get out of there.”

Maya continued to check the phone. “There's a voice mail,” she said, putting the device to her ear.

“It must be from when that call came in,” John-Michael said, “when we found the phone.”

She listened to the message. “Omigod.”

Lucy said, “What?”

Maya played the message again, after switching on the speakerphone function.

“I'm at the house. Our friends seem to be out for the evening. You want me to wait? What is going on with your location? Why aren't
you here, man? Getting a little concerned about our special delivery. Check in as soon as you get this.”

“You hear that?” Maya demanded. “He's
at the house
. Our friends are out for the evening? That means Grace and Candace didn't get home yet. The
special delivery
?”

“The money!” murmured John-Michael.

“We have to get back to Venice!” Paolo cried. “Grace! Candace! They're in danger!”

“They are if he stays there,” Maya said.

John-Michael spoke quickly. “So we get him to leave.”

“And do what?” Lucy said.

No one answered at first.

“I can think of one solution,” Maya said mildly.

“Which is?” John-Michael said.

“Like I said to Lucy a while back. We strike back first,” she replied, still perfectly calm.

Lucy snorted. “Seriously? You want to
kill
him?”

Maya looked over her shoulder at where Lucy sat with her back pressed to the rear passenger seat. “No—I don't want to kill anyone, Luce. But I don't want a dude with a gun to hang out at our house, waiting for Grace and Candace and eventually us. I'd do pretty much anything to stop that from happening.”

“You're not shooting him,” Paolo warned.

Maya observed bluntly, “I'm the only one who knows how to handle a gun.”

Sardonically, Lucy said, “So, this is what's happening right now, is it? We're driving back to Venice and shooting
a guy. Well, I gotta say, this sure has turned into an interesting evening.”

“We're not going back to the house,” Maya said. “There, he has the advantage over us. He can lie in wait. We're going back to where we left Mr. Shooter, Mr. Hit-and-Run Victim.”

Lucy shook her head. In the wildness of her eyes, Maya caught a glimpse of desperation. “Okay,” Lucy muttered. “This isn't making any kind of sense.”

“The second guy is at our house—probably,” John-Michael said. “Or at least he was when he made that call. We have to get him away from there.”

“Exactly,” Maya said. “I say we lure him to the Oldsmobile. When he sees the car, and his dead friend, he might believe he finished the hit on Lucy, then started to drive home or wherever and got taken out by the hit-and-run.”

“Really,” Lucy said skeptically. “He's gonna believe that? He's not gonna wonder what his friend is doing driving around in the
middle of goddamn nowhere
?”

“Maybe he's disposing of a body,” John-Michael said. “I mean—
we
were.”

“The thing is,” Maya said, “the guy doesn't have a clue what happened to his friend, apart from that he was at our house. He knows he left the house—I'm gonna assume he thinks his friend was alive and well when he did.”

“Why's he gonna come running?” Lucy said. “Didn't he ask, on the message, if he should wait at the house?”

“That's why we have to lure him away,” Maya agreed.

“Send a text,” Paolo blurted. “Something vague. Like ‘need help with the cash.'”

“No,” Maya said decisively. “Let's go with John-Michael's idea. Let's imply that Mr. Shooter is out dealing with a body. Maybe more than one.”

“Good point. He was about to kill all four of us,” John-Michael said. “If his buddy gets the chance, I'm sure he'll finish the job.”

“Okay,” Maya said, typing on the phone's keyboard. “How's this?
All done. I got some heavy lifting to do. Could use some help. The package is safe with me.
”

“It's good,” decided John-Michael.

“Yes,” Paolo said. “Send it right away. And then we need to call the girls. Stop them from going home.”

“Oh, how's that gonna go?” Lucy said.
“Hey, Grace, Candace, don't go home, m'kay? There's a killer on the loose.”
She took a huge breath.
“Or, hey, you know what, guys? We could call the frikkin' police!”

“And say what, exactly?” demanded Paolo, furious.
“Yeah, so, we, like, totally killed this guy who was in our house with a gun and everything, but we decided to make it look like he'd been hit by a car up in the hills, and, like, now he's sent this real salty dude to kill our friends so, like, could you kind of take care of all that for us, m'kay?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Maya could see Lucy seething, arms crossed tight across her chest. “You believe you could actually shoot someone? Until he's dead?”

Paolo exhaled through his nose. “It's him or us. And we are not the ones who started this.”

“I'm not okay with going to prison for killing a guy who tied up me and my friends and threatened us with a gun
in our own house
,” John-Michael said. “That's for damn sure.”

“You can't be sure that would've happened,” Lucy shot back. “You both
could
have gone for Stand Your Ground.”

“Lucy, nothing's been
sure
since that dude walked into our house,” Paolo said in a harsh whisper. “That was then. This is now. Things. Change.”

Silence. Maya took a few breaths. Paolo was right—their options looked bleak.

“Lucy,” John-Michael said soothingly. “We're
all
scared. But we have to deal.”

“Let's get this clear now,” Maya said to Paolo. “How far to where you left the car?”

“Six or seven minutes,” he replied.

“We have to act fast,” she said, watching the screen of the smartphone. “The other guy will get the message. Hopefully he'll start out for Malibu Canyon right away.”

Lucy leaned against the window and looked over at Maya. She seemed vague and lost. “This all happened because of me,” she muttered.

Maya closed her eyes, turning to face the front of the car. If she'd followed up on her suspicions about Ariana, this might have been avoided. She might have been able to persuade Lucy that her rehab buddy was a spy and gotten
her to kick Ariana out of the house a week earlier. Then she wouldn't have known that Lucy had finally gotten to the point of questioning her own memories of the night of Tyson Drew's murder.

If only the offer of investment from Alexa Nyborg hadn't happened when it did. But Maya had to admit that the investor's offer had entirely consumed her attention, from the minute the prospect had entered her life. She should never have spied on her friends. She should have acted sooner on her suspicions of Ariana. She shouldn't have let her work take absolute control of her life.

Why was everything going so horribly wrong? It was so unfair, Maya wanted to cry. All she'd ever wanted was to work hard, to create something extraordinary, and to make enough money that she and her mother would never again be under the thumb of a person like Dana Alexander. And she had worked—like a slave. Almost every waking minute she was either in school, studying, or coding.

But for what?

To end up going to prison for conspiracy, at best? Or even worse—to be killed by Dana Alexander's hit man?

Maya drew a ragged breath. There'd been a ton of bravado in what she'd said about killing the second hit man. Words spoken before she'd really thought them through. And yet—there was an implacable logic to it. What other solution was there that wouldn't land all six friends dead or four of them in jail? Now they were hurtling forward
to a destination from which she knew there would be no return.

The smartphone in her hand began to vibrate. Maya read the text and looked up.

“He's on his way.”