The Nightmare Thief (15 page)

“For the party?”

“Course, the party. Nothing’s free.”

Evan sat on a creaking Naugahyde chair. She was beginning to think she’d come on a wild goose chase. Either that or Mrs. Ratner was part of some super-kinky underground scene Phelps Wylie had secretly belonged to: Old West Swingers.

Pepito snuggled against Mrs. Ratner’s side, button-eyed and snarling.

“Hush, baby. Mama’s talking.” She peered at Evan through her cat’s-eye glasses. “Before I sign any contract, we nail down the details. Are we talking about the whole act, or just the puppet show?”

Evan didn’t know whether she was supposed to be buying or selling here. Much less what the product was. She hoped it didn’t involve sock puppets that fit over anybody’s private parts.

“What options were you considering?” she said.

“Two hours means the gunfight, the trial, and the hanging. Half a day means the entire jail setup as well as the rope tricks and the puppet show.”

“Mrs. Ratner, I have a confession.”

“Save it for the party. That’s what the gallows are for.”

What the
hell
kind of party? “Okay. But …”

“I know you just want somebody to handle odd jobs and cleanup at the venue, but you ought to seriously consider my entertainment package.”

Evan couldn’t help herself. “Does
any
body?”

The woman stood up, rocking forward a few times to gain the momentum to hoist herself off the sofa. “I’ll get the flyers.”

If she came back with pictures of herself lap dancing with a pony, Evan was going to dive through the window. She’d throw the growling dog through first, to break the glass, then jump out after it.

Her phone buzzed. Checking the display, she saw it was her contact at the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department, Detective Lilia Rodriguez. She answered quietly, one eye on the hallway where Mrs. Ratner had disappeared.

“Evan, what have you gotten yourself into?” Lily said.

“Nothing but investigative journalism. Why?”

“Ruby Ratner. There’s a long jacket on this one.”

Evan’s stomach dropped. “Tell me.”

“Assault, armed robbery, grand theft auto,” Lily said. “By the time we get to the conviction for mayhem, we’re talking about real prison time.”

“Mayhem?”
It was a common-law felony, generally involving physical mutilation or torture. “We’re talking about Mrs. Ruby Ratner of San Francisco. Lady’s about sixty, walks like she’s got arthritis.”

“No. We’re talking about Ruby Junior.”

“Who’s that?” Evan glanced at the dog. Pepito stared at her like an attack mop.

Lily said, “Mrs. Ratner Senior is the mother of the guy I’m talking about.”

“Guy?”

“Yeah. Ruben. Nicknamed Ruby Ratner, Junior.” Lily rattled off the phone number Evan had given her, along with the address. It was the same one.

“I’m at the house,” Evan said. “Quick, tell me about the son.”

“Ruben Ratner, age thirty-three, white, five foot eight, one-forty. Ex-con. He’s on parole for his last prison stint.”

“Parole since when?”

Mrs. Ratner shuffled back with some cheap flyers. “Who are you talking to?”

Evan tried to smile. She reached for the flyers. Mrs. Ratner held on to them.

Evan tugged harder. “Thanks.” She pulled them from Mrs. Ratner’s hand. “Sorry, got a call from a friend.”

“What did I hear you say about parole?”

Evan kept the phone line open. “It was nothing.”

The woman adjusted her cat’s-eye glasses. She lifted her nose to get a better look at Evan. “Who are you?”

“Mrs. Ratner, I think you’re under a mistaken impression.”

“You a cop?”

“No.”

“You got a warrant?”

“I’m not a cop.”

“Then get out of my house.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She was already moving toward the door. Her skin goose-bumped. She looked back, and saw Mrs. Ratner reach into a gingham pocket. She came out with a pearl-handled revolver. It didn’t look like a prop from
Hang ’Em High.

“Off my property now.” Mrs. Ratner whistled. “Pepito, Mama needs help.”

Evan slammed open the screen door and was down the front steps and out the gate, past the insanely spinning plastic windmills, before Pepito could launch his stubby legs off the sofa. She ran to her Mustang, got in, stabbed the keys at the ignition a few times before she got it started, and over-revved it down the street. In the mirror she saw the little dog rush after her, yapping.

She didn’t stop until she was a mile down the road. She pulled over and picked up her phone again.

“Lily?”

“Not involved in anything?” Rodriguez said. “What just happened?”

“I think I’m on to something.”

“Yeah, Ruben Ratner. He’s seriously bad news.”

Evan looked at the flyers crumpled in her hand. “So where is he?”

P
eyton bit her thumbnail. “Everything seemed normal, until the shooting started.”

Autumn crossed her arms. “Not exactly. The plan was changed a couple of hours before the game began.” She glanced at Kyle. “Right?”

“That’s right,” Kyle said. “I was supposed to show up at Candlestick Point with the rest of the game runners. Instead I got the call to pick you up.”

“Why you?” Jo said.

He considered it. “Because Coates had to get the speedboat. And because I have a commercial driver’s license.”

Jo looked at Autumn. “Who are you guys? Why are these hijackers after you? What’s their goal? Because it sounds like they planned this very thoroughly.”

Kyle kicked pebbles with the toe of his boot. “Her daddy’s got megabucks.”

Autumn glared at him, and her eyes seemed to brighten with pain and alarm.

Gabe said, “Anybody else here have deep pockets kidnappers can empty?”

Autumn said, “My dad’s a hedge fund manager. Dustin’s dad is a lobbyist in Washington.”

“Excuse me for being intrusive, but how rich? How powerful?” Gabe said.

Autumn’s shoulders rose.

“I’ve served in countries where kidnapping is the equivalent of grabbing cash from an ATM without having to wait in line. But in America, generally you need at least eight digits in your bank account before a kidnapper will think it’s worth risking the federal prison time. So?”

“My dad arranged this weekend. He’s done Edge Adventures scenarios himself. Everybody knows he loves this stuff. It’s because of him.”

She looked around at her friends. Her eyes were shimmering. Then she turned away and hid her face, staring at the river.

“So what’s the kidnappers’ plan?” Gabe said. “Grab you, stash you in a barn up in the back of beyond until your dad ponies up the cash?”

Peyton hugged herself. “Who cares? Somebody has to climb back up to the road and flag down a car.”

Jo looked up the side of the gorge. “Not that way.”

“Why not?”

“Retracing the fall line’s too steep and slippery. And, like Kyle said, Von’s up there and his partners are coming,” Jo said. “We do need to contact help. But we have to do it safely.”

Peyton wiped her nose. “But somebody’s going to be looking for us, right?”

Gabe turned, a tight expression on his face. “The wrong people.”

Peyton made a
no, stupid
face. “The police. Forest rangers.”

Dustin said, “How come you think that?”

“The guys who picked us up from the beach in San Francisco weren’t the real Edge Adventures guys.” She looked at Kyle. “Right?”

“I never seen them before,” he said.

“So the real Edge guys, they’ll be looking for us.”

The river whispered in the background. She looked wired and hopeful.

“No,” Autumn said.

“Why not?” Peyton said.

“Because the hijackers got rid of the team from Edge.” Autumn looked at Kyle. “Back at Candlestick Point you kept calling, and they didn’t answer.”

Kyle stared at her. He had an intense gaze, his eyes a hard brown with an almost golden ring around the edge of his irises. His gaze wasn’t a thousand-yard stare, but it was depthless.

“She’s right. They’re toast,” he said.

Peyton shrank into herself and worried her bracelet again. Autumn’s eyes seemed haunted. A weighted silence pressed on them.

“But we didn’t show up at the hotel,” Peyton said.

Autumn said, “We aren’t scheduled to check in yet. Nobody’s looking for us.”

“But …”

“Peyton, why would anybody search for us in the Sierras? The game’s supposed to be in the city.”

Jo said, “How long will it be before somebody in San Francisco knows something’s wrong?”

Autumn looked stricken. “None of our families expect us to call until the end of the weekend.”

“You mentioned a hotel.”

“The Mandarin Oriental. But if we don’t show up, they’ll just cancel the reservation.”

Lark said, “They wouldn’t call the police. That’s for sure.”

Peyton looked helpless. “Won’t somebody?”

Autumn turned. Her face was angry, and she looked fed up. “We’ve been abducted. Don’t you get it? They figured a way to grab us so nobody would notice.”

Peyton said, “You mean nobody knows where we are?”

Jo shook her head.

Gabe raised a hand. “Help me understand what happened earlier. You went to the beach at Candlestick Point.”

Kyle picked up a stick. “Yeah. Then this new gang showed up, wearing ski masks.”

“They hijacked the Edge Adventures team and then hijacked your group.”

“That looks about the size of it,” Kyle said. “I thought the trip up here was another twist in an evolving scenario. Coates kept switching things up at the last minute—I figured this was just another curve ball.”

Gabe held out his hand. “Give me that stick and get yourself a bigger one. Get seven bigger ones.”

He took out his buck knife.

“What’s that for, Chief?”

“We’re not going to sit here unarmed. We’ll carve spears.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Kyle ambled toward the trees.

Jo said, “They ambushed you at Candlestick Point. Why not grab you on your way to class at USF? Why grab everybody on your birthday party weekend?”

The wind swirled through the gorge. It was beginning to feel chilly. Jo was beginning to feel chilled emotionally again.
Why take the whole party?

Autumn’s hair haloed in the breeze. “Because the police were informed it was a game. They wouldn’t interfere.”

Gabe and Jo both gaped. Simultaneously they said, “What?”

“That’s how Edge runs mock abductions. They call the cops beforehand, so nobody tries to make an arrest.”

“You gotta be kidding me,” Jo said.

Autumn hunched into herself. “It made perfect sense at the time.”

And it had horrific implications. Jo glanced at Gabe and could tell that he was thinking the same thing.

She saw why the hijackers had grabbed the whole group to begin with. But with Autumn under their control, why hang on to the extra captives?

There was no reason to keep all of them around. They had been taking them into the wilderness to get rid of them.

The kids were out of the frying pan, for the moment. But they were skirting the edge of the fire. She didn’t want to state things so baldly, not yet. But she needed to convey her sense of urgency.

“Nobody knows where we are except us and Von. And if Von climbs the hillside up to the logging road, he’ll flag down his buddies or contact them by phone.”

Autumn’s shoulders rose and dropped. “What do we do?”

“We have to contact the authorities.” Jo looked at Gabe. “Somebody has to go for help.”

Gabe stepped forward. “We’re in a survival situation. So listen up. I’m going to tell you about SERE.”

“What’s that?” Dustin said.

“Survive, Evade, Resist, Escape. It’s the military’s survival training. And you’re about to get a crash course.”

 

 

“Out,” Haugen said. “I’m driving.”

Unhappily, Stringer climbed from behind the wheel of the Volvo SUV. Haugen stalked to the driver’s side, clenching and unclenching his fists.

“Get in the back,” he said. “Sabine, you ride shotgun. Log on from my phone. Hook up the laptop.”

He jumped in and accelerated away from the truck stop, tires squealing.

The Hummer had wrecked. Friedrich was dead. Von had escaped but didn’t have control over Autumn’s group. They were stranded at the bottom of the gorge, but not fenced in.

He pushed his foot to the floor and raced up the highway, accelerating past eighty, eighty-five, ninety. Sabine reached over and flipped on the headlights.

“We’re still on schedule,” she said. “Reiniger’s plane won’t land for another hour. We have the initial video and the photos of the Edge game runners. Nothing has changed.”

“And when Reiniger demands proof of life?” Haugen said.

“He won’t. Not yet. He’ll be in shock.”

He slammed his palm against the steering wheel. “This should not have happened.” He glanced in the rearview mirror at Stringer. “Why did nobody predict that these college boys might mount an attack?”

From the sour look in Stringer’s eyes, Haugen knew he was reading the implication accurately: Why didn’t
you
predict it?

Sabine tried to stay calm. “Von is maneuvering into position. All he needs to do is get close enough to see them. He can pin them down. One shot, they’ll hear the echo and dash back inside the limo. They’ll cower.”

Haugen glanced at her. “Get Von on the phone again.”

“Why?” she said.

He shot a hand out and grabbed her around the throat. “Now.”

Quickly, silently, she grabbed his forearm and dug her nails into his flesh. Hard.