The Thrill of the Chase (Mystery & Adventure) (38 page)

Mendoza rolled his head back and forth slowly, perhaps with disbelief. "We had planned to frame them eventually – it just happened sooner than expected. In retrospect, it probably would have been a better idea to just instruct them to steal Rick's car to use as the getaway vehicle. I dunno. Anyway, I phoned them immediately after the 'robbery' and they informed me of what had happened."

He raised his head to look at me, something like a trace of grim humor on his face. "Remember those broken milk bottles you found in my garage?"

I nodded. "Sure. The broken car window."

Mendoza smiled, genuinely impressed. "Exactly. I wanted to make the story sound good, so I threw that whole bit into the mix. It nearly cost me though – I never expected you to find the rest of the bottles, and I nearly blew my cool when you did. I thought I'd hidden them better. And then I had to call Harris and Thawyer again to tell them to
really
smash the window and to cannibalize the starter… just in case you caught up with them. Of course, they wanted to know why, so I had to bullshit them just as badly as I'd done to you. Fortunately, none of those three were very bright men, even if they're good at what they do."

I twisted my lips, thinking. "You're lucky Scarlotti is still in the hospital. He'd have sniffed you out faster than you could say his name."

"Now
that
, we did research," Mendoza said with a grunt, somewhere between amused and regretful. "If all went well, we knew the cops would call in either the Sheriff or a freelance detective to delve into the investigation once we'd actually done the 'crime', so we made sure that an expert like Benson wasn't going to be around. I mean, it's no secret that SPD's competence has been low for years. That's why they're talking about combining with Woolwich. Anyway, with Benson indisposed, Rick and I assumed we'd get some newbie or someone who just wasn't as good."

I grinned at him. "So you got me."

He nodded slowly. "Yeah. In the beginning – when we first found out that SPD had called you – I wasn't concerned. Aside from you being relatively unknown, a home invasion case won't exactly take priority in any department. But then you came to my house to ask me about my car, and that was when I became aware of just how competent you were. I knew I'd have to check up on you, keep you going in circles somehow. Otherwise, there was no way Rick and I were going to just walk away from the whole thing – not with it being so obvious. One missed detail could really blow the whole thing wide open. There wasn't really a way you could trace the thieves directly to us since we hadn't given them any way of contacting
us
, but just the same, I gave you that call after the murder just to make sure that you hadn't found anything after talking to the kid."

"I'm surprised they
didn't
sniff you out," I said thoughtfully. "I would have thought they would have been too suspicious and passed the job by."

"As I said, and as you discovered for yourself, they aren't the smartest men ever to walk the earth. Besides, it's the money that talks." Mendoza let his uninjured hand rest on his belly. "I had to do some searching to dig them up. All of them but the kid were from out of state, but he was staying with one of the other two for the past week or so. Not quite sure how they were affiliated."

"Uncle and nephew," I grunted. "Unfortunately for the kid, his uncle didn't let that blood tie keep him from abandoning the kid."

"Interesting," Mendoza mumbled, distracted from his narrative.

"So what happened after you called me?" I asked to redirect his thoughts. "You called after the murder to check up on my progress."

"Yeah." He grunted in pain and his face contorted for a moment. "I was obviously glad to hear that you didn't really have anything yet, but I decided that I'd made too bold a move. I was afraid that my somewhat random call might have been a little suspicious, so I reduced my surveillance of you. Maybe I was just being paranoid, I don't know. When you came into my shop the other day, I was convinced that you knew it was me, but I played along anyway. After our conversation in the diner, I knew that it would only be a matter of time until you really didtrace things back to me. Everything pointed to me – the guns from
my
shop,
my
guns,
my
car, and
my
cousin's involvement… If you'd only looked at the big picture instead of hunting for particulars, you would have figured everything out sooner."

He sighed, still staring up at the dark ceiling. "Rick called me after that last conversation you had with him to warn me that you knew everything."

I almost interjected to tell Mendoza that I actually hadn't known
any
thing at that point – I'd merely acted impetuously on an assumption that had proven fruitless. But I held my tongue and let the hunter continue speaking, more out of curiosity than pride.

"He was panicking," Mendoza continued slowly, "but I told him to stay put and that I would take care of everything. I wasn't sure what exactly had tipped you off, but I knew that I had to do something…"

And then he looked up at me in what was almost desperation – as though begging me to understand what he was going to say next. The slightest note of uncertainty had crept into his voice. "And so I acted – on a whim, and… Honest to God, Stikup, I'm sorry I had to take Ms. Fereday hostage. But what else
could
I do?"

Suddenly, I was angry again. Suddenly, I remembered just why I was here. This monster had dragged someone as innocent as my Jilly into this mess, roughed her up, and probably humiliated her deeper than either of us could know. The fury pouring through my veins made my hands tremble.

"She didn't have anything to do with this," I snarled. "She's… she's just a kid. Why couldn't you have just come after me, huh?"

He looked up at me, almost surprised. "Collateral damage, Stikup. You gotta know how to handle your enemies, and you left yourself wide open. Rick and I didn't want to do anything incriminating ourselves – you realized that yourself – so how would killing you help our situation? I realize how stupid it was now, but I was panicking almost as much as Rick. I got off the phone with him and immediately went to your office. I had no idea what I was going to do, so I waited in my car, sweating and trying to come up with something smart. You and Ms. Fereday came out before I could decide on anything, so I followed you back to her apartment. I knew then what I had to do – it was the only thing I
could
do. So I waited around the corner from her apartment until sometime after 12, waiting for her to go to bed. I guess I was planning on blackmailing –"

I spat bitter regret onto the floor, cutting him off. I didn't want to hear any more. "Dammit, I
befriended
you, Robbie. If you had just come and confessed to me, I would have made sure you got it lightly."

He laughed disbelievingly, hard and loud, then dissolved into a fit of violent coughing. "Sure, Stikup," he gasped. "As if your shaky 'friendship' with me was as important as your job – your fucking
status
with SPD. I know you've got money problems too, Stikup – and self–confidence issues."

"That's none of your business, Robbie," I snapped. "I don't take emotional advice from criminals."

He hacked out another harsh laugh and managed to prop himself up on his elbows – in order to get a good look at me. "But you did already, didn't you? If you hadn't, you wouldn't be here now."

What?
I frowned, genuinely confused. "I don't follow you."

He grunted. "Maybe you're not as sharp as I thought. If you'll recall, it was
me
who told you to live with no regrets."

Yeah, so?
As a matter of fact, I'd been thinking about that a lot recently.

It was at that very moment that Jill reappeared in the doorway, arms laden with fluffy white bath towels. She looked back and forth between the two of us, surprised to see us carrying on a conversation in her absence. I was almost embarrassed. She couldn't have picked a worse time to come back into the room, being just in time to hear me counseled by the man who had just held her hostage.

Mendoza sat up fully, cradling his injured hand in his uninjured one. He moved slowly and looked like he was dizzy; I wasn't surprised, considering how much blood was all over the floor. He smiled at Jill with an almost fatherly nature, seeming to shake off his nausea. She cringed and looked away, understandably.

"You told me that you couldn't talk to her," Mendoza said softly, speaking to me but looking hard at Jill, despite the fact that she refused to meet his gaze. "And it's not hard to see why. She's beautiful – a genuine woman – and you would worry about her safety constantly. You wouldn't want to let her down by being too busy, too consumed with work to spend time with her."

He looked over at me finally, arching an eyebrow. "But I told you that
I
would have spoken up despite the circumstances, despite the reservations. I told you to live without regrets. If you hadn't taken that advice to heart, you would have waited outside for the police to come. You wouldn't have rushed in headlong to save her. But you did, because you still have things you want to say to her."

I felt a lump in my throat, and now it was my turn to be unable to look either of them in the eye. Part of me wanted to deny the veracity of what he was saying, but I already knew it was indeed the truth. There were no loopholes. The other part of me was almost relieved – relieved because Jill was hearing this from the mouth of someone besides myself and would come to realize my concern and understand my reluctance to start a relationship.

Maybe she'll realize why I didn't say anything when we were on her steps. It's not that I'm not interested… I'm just worried about not being able to make her happy, and tonight just goes to show that she won't be safe with me.

But at the same time, I hated myself for failing to say those very things to her. I hated myself for being unable to keep her safe from harm, and I already knew deep inside that I could never protect her in and of myself. And most of all, I hated the fact that I was so soft, so trusting of everyone, and so goddamn foolish.

"Let's clean him up," I said softly to Jill, unable to look at her, knowing she was watching me with something smoldering brightly in her beautiful eyes.

To my relief, she didn't argue or say anythingfor that matter, and neither did Mendoza.

Jill crouched down beside the hunter, took his trembling arm in her own shaking hands. He bellowed in pain, and Jill reeled away from him. As the hunter breathed heavily through his nostrils, she recovered herself and took his arm again – more firmly this time. Mendoza kept his eyes firmly shut as Jill pressed the towel against the stumps on his hand that had once been functioning pointer and middle fingers.

As for me, I remained where I was: unmoving, still holding the 9mm in my right hand, pushing the hair and my fedora away from my forehead with the left, staring bleakly at the floor.

Chapter
Twenty-one

The police arrived a few minutes later, to find us sitting in utter silence.

Jill was still sponging blood from Mendoza's severed fingers when Kevin Slyder burst in through the wooden door with several more officers in tow. After that, it was a mess of activity, all of which I remembered later as a blur. They cuffed Mendoza and brought him quickly out to a squad car, Jill was forced to answer a million questions about what had transpired that evening, and Kevin Slyder – grinning from ear to ear – demanded to know just what had happened that had finally helped me put the pieces together.

The following morning, I couldn't remember if I'd actually told him in full or not. Hell, I couldn't even remember how I'd gotten home, although it was safe to assume that I'd driven myself because the Anglia was parked on the curb in front of my house when I woke. Perhaps it was just weariness that caused my forgetfulness – after all, it had been some time around four in the morning that I vaguely remembered crawling back into bed, fully clothed. Perhaps I had just been overwhelmed by everything – pride at my success, anger at my failure, confusion, lack of sleep, and the post–adrenaline fatigue.

Maybe I was just in shock.

What I
did
remember was telling Jill not to come into the office until Monday – because she deserved a good, long rest and we'd both borne enough stress to last a lifetime. By the time I'd gotten a chance to speak, Mendoza had been taken away and the police were finally cleaning up to go. She barely heard me speak, though: she collapsed onto my chest and embraced me for a very long time. I remembered feeling her sob once or twice, but then she had calmed – almost as though she had fallen asleep. I remembered having no words to offer her, just a comforting embrace and a trench coat long enough to warm us both in Mendoza's cold basement.

And then the EMTs had taken her away from me. They wanted to run a trauma check on her – just to be safe – and to clean up the worst of her cuts and scrapes. The look in her eyes told me that she didn't want to go – that she was almost scared to leave the sanctuary of my arms – but I nodded once, firmly.

You should go,
I told her with my eyes, giving her hand a gentle squeeze.
I'll be here when you get back.