The Prophet (Ryan Archer #2) (20 page)

We have your kids
.

* * *

Webb was seated at his desk. The blood had drained from his face. Rosemary and Archer stood facing him.
 

“We have your kids,” Webb repeated aloud for the tenth time.

“Please stop reading that,” Rosemary said.

Archer looked ready for war. His body was tense. He was ready to spill blood.

Webb turned in his chair and looked out the window. He had tried to reach Karla but she wasn’t answering her cell. His calls went straight to voice mail. Both Archer and Rosemary tried also, but got the same results.
 

“I’m running a trace on the number,” Rosemary said. “But I would guess it’s not going to help. The call was likely made from a pay phone or a disposable pay-as-you-go cell.”

Webb didn’t reply. He was running through a mental exercise designed to quiet his thoughts. He was trained to handle the worst types of stressful situations imaginable. Unfortunately, his training hadn’t included scenarios where his wife and children were abducted.
 

“Archer,” Webb said at last, in a tone that was uncharacteristic of him. “We have to do what they say. You have to back off.”

“That’s not an option,” Archer said.
 

Framed photos of Karla and the kids stood on Webb’s desk. His eyes were streaked red. He stood up and began pacing, arms folded over his chest.
 

“This is new territory for me,” Webb said. “This business has suddenly turned very personal. I should have done a better job of protecting my family.”

Archer’s thoughts flashed to Smith for a moment. He could relate.

“Silas Sawbridge,” Archer said. “Who is he and what are we dealing with?”

“How can we know with any certainty that this has anything to do with him? We haven’t confirmed anything tying the church to the cell numbers or the tags from the Mercedes. It’s all still pure speculation.”

“The bullet casing I found in the road,” Archer said. “Any word on if they were able to lift a print from it?”

Webb nodded. “Yes, they lifted a print. And it matches one of the two men from the Mercedes. But still no IDs for either of them. There’s nothing in the domestic database, and the FBI is waiting to hear something from Interpol. But so far, nothing.”

A phone rang outside Webb’s office. Rosemary hurried to her desk to grab the line. She put her hand over the receiver and leaned into the doorway.

“Jimmy Cloud on line one,” she said.

Webb put him on speaker.

“How are you this morning, Jimmy?” Webb said.

“I’ve got some amazing news, Tom.” Jimmy’s voice was shaky. “You won’t believe it. It’s a miracle!”

Webb looked at Archer. Archer’s face looked like it was carved from stone. He stared hard back at Webb, unblinking.

“I’m thrilled to hear that, Jimmy. What’s the good news?”

There was a pause, Jimmy catching his breath, fighting back tears.

“Tatum is alive. She’s here with me, and she’s safe. You can call off the search, Tom. Everything is okay. I can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done.”

Webb’s eyes widened. His brow wrinkled as he waited for a reaction from Archer.
 

“That’s fabulous, Jimmy,” Webb said. “Please tell me how you found her.”

“There will be plenty of time for that later,” Jimmy said. “Right now I just want to spend time with my daughter. I hope you understand.”

Archer was shaking his head slowly back and forth.

“Of course, Jimmy. Take care, and I’ll talk to you soon,” Webb said.

Then the line went dead and they heard dial tone.

“Holy shit,” Rosemary said, standing in the doorway.

“That’s bullshit,” Archer said.

“What the hell was
that?
” Webb pressed a button on the phone console to end the call.

“Call Shay,” Archer told him. “Ask her when she last spoke to Jimmy.”

“What are you thinking?”

“Something about the sound of his voice,” Archer said.

“I agree.” Rosemary was nodding, leaning against the doorframe holding an iced decaf coffee.
 

“If Tatum is safe with Jimmy, why would Silas Sawbridge feel the need to send us a message by way of Smith and your kids?” Archer asked.

Webb thought for a moment, held up a finger, and nodded. “Exactly,” he said. “There has to be more.”

“Call Shay DaVine,” Archer said.

Webb nodded at Rosemary. “Get her on the line.”

A minute later, Rosemary returned. “No answer,” she said. “I left a voice mail asking her to call back ASAP.”

“Why would Jimmy make that call?” Webb asked. “Do you think Tatum is safe?”

“That’s the wrong question to ask right now,” Archer replied.

“Okay, what’s the
right
question?”

“Is
Jimmy
safe? I’d bet not.”

They heard Rosemary’s phone ring again. She rushed to answer it.

“Has to be Shay returning her call,” Webb said.

Archer waited and listened.

Rosemary hung up the phone and walked in looking like she’d seen a ghost.

“Tom,” she said.

Webb was fussing with paperwork on his desk. He glanced up at her.

“Send the call in here,” he said.

“That was the LAPD,” she said.

He stared at her. “And?”

“They found your wife,” she said.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Archer parked in the gravel at the edge of the driveway. There was a police cruiser parked on the road. The front door was open. Archer felt a tightening in his belly. He didn’t want to walk in. Didn’t want to see what he was about to see. He paused at the door and turned to stare at the sun for a beat. Closed his eyes and took a moment to center himself and clear his mind.
 

There were two cops inside. Archer was familiar with both of them. Fiore and Weiss. Archer spoke briefly with them, then asked them to give him a few minutes. The officers went outside to wait at their car.
 

Archer stood at the dining room table and sucked in a deep breath. Smith’s home had indeed been tossed. There was broken glass on the floor and shelves had been stripped from the walls. There were holes punched in the drywall using a bat or some other wieldy object. He walked to the patio. Slid it open and stepped onto the deck. Stared down at the steps leading to the backyard, his eyes tracking across the slope of the grass to the tree line below. He nodded to himself.
That’s where they came from.

Archer went down the steps and stood on the cement pad where the bottom step ended at the yard. Turned and glanced back up, wondering how many of them had come to do the job. Imagined them moving single file up the steps to the deck and pausing long enough to cut the hole in the glass. Then his focus returned to the lawn and the trees. As he followed the slope of the lawn, he glanced at the neighbors’ homes on either side of Smith’s property. Might anyone have noticed anything out of the ordinary that morning? Surely the cops had already knocked on doors and asked the standard questions.
 

He stepped into the trees, watching the ground, careful to avoid contaminating any physical evidence. The ground was dry, covered in pine needles and dead leaves. He was hoping for some good solid footprints but the ground appeared too dry and hard for any recent impressions to have been left behind.

A narrow trail cut through the trees and opened at a clearing that bordered a wood panel fence. One of the wood panels hung askew, and Archer squatted to have a look through the gap. Beyond was an A-frame house with a slab patio in back. He glanced side to side to imagine which direction the perpetrators had entered from. But he decided not to burn any more calories on this for the moment. He returned to the house and climbed the deck and stood in the patio door. Again, his belly twisted.

He stood in the bedroom and felt the muscles in the body begin to cramp as the fury inside became superheated. The bed had been stripped. The mattress and box spring were thrown across the room, the bedding cast aside, and yes, he noticed the blood on the sheets.

He’d been informed that the emergency responders had found her in the dining room, but that she had apparently been forced to crawl from the master bathroom. There were streaks of blood on the shower door and on the floor leading to the edge of the bedroom carpet. She had raked herself along on her elbows, one painful effort at a time. They had first assaulted her in the bedroom, then beat her unconscious in the shower.

Archer had seen enough.

* * *

They had moved her to ICU. Archer took an elevator to the seventh floor and a nurse pointed him in the right direction. The rooms were closed off by curtains on a long rod. He stopped at the nurses’ station and a black woman in her fifties frowned and stood up, glancing down the hall at a cop posted outside Smith’s room.

The woman had taken one look at Archer in his jeans, T-shirt, and boots, and probably decided that he matched the typical description of a husband or boyfriend who might beat the crap out of his loved one. She clearly was hoping the cop might discourage the visit. Archer shook hands with the cop and stepped around the curtain.

His heart lodged in his throat. Smith was nearly unrecognizable. Her face was bruised and swollen, eyes swollen closed, nose smashed and swollen out of proportion, lips swollen and cut. She was asleep. He hoped the doctors had fed her enough meds to let her dream the next few hours away. There was no reason for her to be awake.

Archer stood at her bedside.
 

“Hey, babe,” he said, then coughed to clear the lump from his throat.

Her eyes were closed and she was breathing through a tube. He brushed her hair with his fingers. Gently touched her face, the warm flesh of her cheek. The coloring of the bruising was awful. He could see the prints where a fist had made contact. People were going to die because of this. He had already decided.

Archer had never felt so powerless. Well, only one other time. And that occasion had involved a woman also. But that pain had been entirely different.

He held her hand. Squeezed it. Wouldn’t allow the tear in his eye to escape, because then the floodgates might open and he couldn’t afford to feel that way right now. He needed to channel all his emotions into rage so that he could track down the people responsible for doing this to Smith and make them pay.

“What happened, baby?” he asked in a whisper, knowing she wouldn’t answer but hoping the universe might in some way be able to connect her brain waves to his and send him a message. “Tell me who did this to you.”

Smith continued to sleep.
 

Archer listened to the rhythm of the machines. He stared at her, remembering how stunning she had looked earlier that morning lying nude among the tangle of bed sheets. Then he kissed her mouth and backed out of the room.

He had work to do.

* * *

But first, he took a detour.
 

Again, he knew better. But the impulse was too strong. He turned off the highway into the same gas station he had turned in at dozens of times, scolding him, lecturing himself that this behavior was pointless and self-torturing. And yet again the temptation was overpowering and he turned back onto the highway and made the turn into the entrance at the private school. He had never made two trips so close together, and he knew it wasn’t wise.
 

They were not in courtyard this time, so he strolled around, walking down the terraced landscaping and taking a seat on a cement bench. He didn’t always see Maya. Only on occasion. It was always special, and always took his breath away. It was best he didn’t always get the reward, because then the pull would become too strong and he would never be able to stay away. There were children in the distance laughing. He closed his eyes and listened.
 

Archer sat in the warmth of the sun for a long moment, a conflicted, tortured man, doing the best he could and failing most of the time. He should never have begun this ritual. Nothing good could ever come of it. It was too dangerous to his heart.
 

Then he stood to leave. The laughter of the children sounded closer now. He followed the paved path up the steps, hands in his pockets, his mind racing forward to the work ahead of him. He was not yet out of the courtyard when a door opened to his left and a teacher appeared, surrounded by eager, enthusiastic students. The woman spotted him, and Archer stopped breathing. It was Maya.

She appeared confused at first, and then a question formed in her eyes, but she didn’t speak. Archer didn’t know what to do. She had never seen him there, and he had no idea how he would even begin to explain himself. His first impulse was to run away. His second impulse was to walk right up to her and kiss her hard on the mouth.
 

He simply froze.

Then Maya smiled. The smile he had remembered in his dreams every night for the past two years. She looked angelic.

Then Archer simply turned and walked away.

* * *

Before they let him see his wife, Tom Webb was led into a glass-walled office and offered a cup of coffee. He declined the coffee. An LAPD detective named Pruitt shut the door and walked him through the events of the morning. It had begun with Karla leaving the house to take the kids to school, and ended with them finding her alive and unharmed in an old Catholic cemetery after receiving an anonymous 911 call.

“She’s fine,” Pruitt assured him.
 

“Then let me see her,” Webb pushed.

“I understand,” Pruitt said. “I’d be the same way. But this is more complicated than simply reuniting the two of you, because … um, she’s clearly been very traumatized by her experience this morning.” He spoke as sensitively as possible.

“What do you mean?”

Pruitt paused, touching a finger to his lips. “Give me one minute.” He stepped out of the office and returned a few moments later with an academic-looking man with white hair, dressed in pressed slacks and a blue button-down shirt.

Again, Pruitt shut the door.

“This is Mike Townsend,” Pruitt said. “He’s a shrink from UCLA, but does lots of work with the city. He’s very good, and I think you need to hear what he has to say about your wife.”