They're Watching (2010) (38 page)

I could barely comprehend his words. "But we were just starting . . ." I was choking on my own breath. "To get it right again."

I couldn't get any further. I turned to the wall. My fists were against my face, and I was trying to compress my chest, my body, trying to harden myself into an insensate rock. If I didn't crack, if I didn't sob, it wouldn't be true. But then I did. Which meant it was.

I tilted forward, one wrist cuffed ridiculously behind me. His hand was warm on my shoulder. "Breathe," he was saying. "Just one breath. Then another. That's all you have to do right now."

"I'll find them. I'll fucking find them. You gotta get me out of here."

"We will. We'll figure this out."

But I already knew how that evidence would come back: The electronic voice had broadcast the plan. You're a pretty troubled guy. Maybe you'd hurt her, too.

"It was all because of a CD I took from them," I said. "A fucking CD cost her life. Why did I think I could . . . ?"

"We can use that to get to them. Do you know what's on it?"

"No, I have no idea."

"Do you still have it?"

Tears fell, tapping the floor and Verrone's boots. I blinked hard, blinked again, trying to see through the warped veil, trying to determine if what I was seeing was real.

The little cursive logo by Verrone's laces.

Danner.

I stopped breathing.

Through the doorway, DeWitt was still on the phone, his enormous boots, no doubt size eleven and a half, propped up on the desk. My eyes went to the white pebble wedged in the tread of the heel. Then to that Timex on his right wrist. My left-handed intruder, in front of me all this time.

My shock registered almost like panic, and it was all I could do to keep from shouting out. And then I came through it and landed in a nest of cold rage.

I sucked air until my heart stopped hiccupping and the tingling in my face diminished. I did my best to order my thoughts, to reconstruct how everything must have gone down. These men had kidnapped Ariana and dropped a stun grenade in my lap. When they'd found only a replacement CD in my car, they'd hauled me here--wherever here was--to get me to tell them where the real one was or whom I'd given it to. And once they figured out I wouldn't talk because I was worried that might put Ariana at further risk, they'd disposed of her as they'd planned all along. When they stabbed her in the neck, they had me locked in this room. Which made them the only people who could ever alibi me.

Had they plucked a few hairs from my unconscious head and planted them on Ariana's body? Who had punched the blade through her throat? Who had held her down?

Verrone was leaning forward, his cheek close to mine. His hand stayed on my shoulder, rubbing in tight little circles. Concerned friend, fellow widower. "Do you still have this CD?" he asked again.

It was all I could do not to turn my head and rip a hole in his face with my teeth.

"You said you'd talk to us," he prodded gently. "You've got nothing left to lose now anyway. Let's nail these fuckers."

His dialogue was right out of central casting. As my eyes darted frantically around, I realized that the interrogation room itself seemed like a stage set. It felt legitimate because it looked like every TV and movie police station I'd ever seen. The big two-way mirror, the white lights, the desk crowded with case files--they were running a movie on me. Which meant, with my life on the line, I had to play my role without letting on that I'd figured out I was inside a script.

Verrone tilted closer. "Now, do you still have that CD?"

I tamped down my rage, worked up the lie. "Yes," I said.

"Where is it?"

I looked up at him. I could smell lunch on his breath. I could feel the pulse beating at my temple. I was having trouble keeping fury from my face, but he couldn't know that it was anything more than grief or shock.

I had to get free. Which meant I had to get both of them to leave.

I struggled to come up with dialogue to fit the scenario. "There's an alley by campus where I work," I said. "Where the guys who killed my wife parked a Honda with a duffel of cash in the trunk. You have that location from the investigation report?"

"Yes."

Another lie--I'd never given the cops the precise location.

"The northern wall is brick," I said. "About midway down the alley, ten or so feet from the ground, there's a loose brick. The CD is hidden behind it."

He rose swiftly. "I'll get it."

"It's a long alley. And you have to use a chair or something, which'll slow you down. You might want me to go with you to show you where."

He hesitated. "No way the chief'll let us take you out into the field. Especially in light of the news you just received."

"Okay, but it could take a long time. You'd better find it fast so we can use it to snare the motherfuckers who killed my wife."

We were close, my gaze unwavering. He bunched his mouth, that almost handlebar mustache bristling as he assessed my face. His eyes were murky brown, as unyielding as flint. Did he know I knew?

He rose. "Okay," he said to the two-way mirror, addressing whoever was listening behind it. "I'll take DeWitt, too, so we can get this done quicker." He looked over at me. "Hang in there. A shrink's on the way. If there's anything you need, we'll see to it when we get back."

He walked out, closed the door. A moment later I heard another door open and close.

I pressed my ear to the wall. Traffic sounds. Distant, but not six stories away. Overhead, the air conditioner cycled room-temperature air, contributing nothing but white noise to keep me from hearing outside sounds.

I'd read once that a broken elephant can be leashed with a string tied to a stake in the ground; it believes it is trapped and never dares to challenge the perception.

I tugged at my handcuff, testing the bar. The bolts securing it to the wall were substantial, impressive. Crouching on the metal bench, I gripped the bar, squatted, and gracelessly managed to get both feet against the wall on either side of my hands. Leaning back, I shoved until the pressure sustained me above the bench in a strained float. My legs ached, the edge of the bench biting into my hamstrings, and then the bar ripped from the wall with a tired thud, and I flew back, landing hard on the floor. The wind left me in a grunt, my breath screeching, my shoulder blades on fire.

No approaching footsteps. No one barging in from the adjoining room.

I slid my handcuff off the curved end of the security bar and stood. The bolts had gone into the plaster and one wooden stud, but there was no metal or concrete beneath the wall as there should have been. Holding the bar, I approached the giant mirror. So much color on my face. A purple mottling across my right cheek. One eyelid blue and blown wide. The edge of my mouth cracked and red. A bruise on the side of my neck. I leaned closer to the mirror, noting the dark dot at the center of that bruise. A needle mark. How long had they kept me drugged?

I recalled how DeWitt and Verrone had made sure to address their colleagues in the observation room there, behind the two-way mirror: Okay, we got him, thanks. You recording? A nice touch, to leave me believing I was being watched.

I swung the security bar at the mirror. The bar bounced back hard, as I'd expected, and glass rained down around me, winking in the light.

Beneath the mirror was not an observation room but solid wall. The clinging shards broke my reflection into fragments.

A string and a stake in the ground. A security bar and a mirror.

The door to the adjoining room was closed but unlocked. Bracing myself, wielding the bar, I stepped out into darkness and fumbled for a light switch. I clicked on the overheads and dropped the bar in disbelief.

I knew this place.

Aside from the desk, the poster, and the clock--the sliver of room visible from the bench to which I'd been chained--the room had been largely emptied.

The last time I was here, from outside peering in, I'd spied DeWitt's desk. Now it had been moved across the floor to put it in view from the interrogation room. The venetian blinds were closed. To the left of the doorway was nothing but a few discarded computer cords, a capsized paper shredder, and a large copier shoved into the corner.

Torn from a key ring, a glossy valet parking slip lay on the floor:

This June, Be Afraid.

This June, There's Nowhere Left to Hide.

This June . . . THEY'RE WATCHING.

I trudged to the desk. There were my things, neatly collected in the plastic tub. With trembling fingers I pocketed them. Then I dug through the mess around the in-boxes. One of the crisp manila folders fell to the floor, spilling its contents. I stared down at the fan of blank paper. Then I riffled through the other files, my consternation growing as I realized that all the folders on the desk were filled with nothing more than blank copy paper. The top drawer held stacks of unused pads and manila folders. But beneath them I found a handcuff key. With great relief I freed my wrist.

The file drawer held a revolver. I stared down at it like it was a coiled snake.

I was numb, overloaded, moving on autopilot. It was almost as though I was directing myself from outside my body. When I turned away from the drawer, the gun was shoved in my waistband.

Stumbling across the room, I opened the hatch on the paper shredder and tugged out a clear plastic bag filled with crosscut scraps. It was probably useless, but I wanted to leave with something. As the front door swung open under my unsteady hand, that brass placard flashed into view: D O NOT LEAVE ANY PACKAGES WITHOUT SIGNATURE. D O NOT LEAVE ANY PACKAGES WITH NEIGHBORING BUSINESSES.

I staggered out onto the second-floor hallway of the Starbright Plaza.

Nighttime. It seemed impossible, but all was normal in the real world. Down the unlit hallway, I could hear people working late, voices on phones, selling, selling, selling. Flatware clinked in the cafe below. In the parking lot, streetlights dropped glistening mercury onto the roofs of sleek cars. A not-quite-rain left everything dusted with dew.

Halfway down the stairs, clutching the bag of shredded paper, I stopped. Jerry's warning from last week played in my head: Printers, copiers, fax machines--everything's got a hard drive now, and people can get at 'em and know what you've been up to.

I ran back up. When they'd cleared out the place, they'd left the unwieldy copier behind. A beat-up Sharp, some years old. Nothing in the tray, nothing facedown against the glass. I swung open the plastic front and peered among the mechanical insides. There it was, an innocuous-looking beige rectangle. With a straightened paper clip, I poked the release hole and extracted the hard drive. Then I jotted down the copier's model number and fled.

What was waiting for me? Had the arrest warrant for Ariana's murder already been issued? How else had the world changed since that stun grenade had gone off in my lap?

Clearly DeWitt and Verrone and whoever else Ridgeline comprised had planned to hold me long enough to get the CD back and ensure an airtight frame for Ariana's murder. Then they'd turn me loose to whatever remained of my life, and I'd be snatched up by primed Robbery-Homicide detectives and put away for killing Keith and my wife.

No car. My wallet, empty. I'd sent them to that alley in Northridge because it was a good forty-minute drive before they'd arrive and be reminded that there was no brick wall. That left me time to drive home and get cash, a checkbook, and the list of defense attorneys Ariana had compiled for me, then disappear before the real cops closed in on me. I could regroup in a Motel 6. Watch the news, build a case to clear my name, get a lawyer, negotiate turning myself in. The revolver handle pressed into my stomach, cold and reassuring. Maybe there would be other options, too.

With the copier hard drive in my pocket, the bag of shredded documents in hand, I stumbled off the bottom stair onto ground level and out in front of a dry cleaner, the lights out, plastic-wrapped shirts shimmering on the carousel like dormant ghosts. As I hustled past the glass shop next door, the sight inside brought me up short. Lined on wooden racks and hung on the walls were endless mirrors. No doubt the one I'd shattered upstairs had been bought right here, a simple prop carried upstairs by Laurel and Hardy, the workers I'd spotted during my last visit. Ariana's words returned to me yet again, my eyes stinging at the thought of her: A misinterpretation, a white handkerchief, and a few well-placed nudges. How easily they'd knocked me off course, a tap at a time, until the world in my head no longer matched the world outside. My palm was flat against the cool window, my quick breath fogging the glass. Fragmented reflections stared back at me, bruise-faced and stupefied.

Shaken, I staggered on my way, cutting behind the valet stand into the cafe. The patrons regarded me with polite unease, and the waiters made eye contact with one another. I could only imagine what I looked like.

The place was emptying out for the night. The bartender was putting the well bottles to bed. And yet the clock upstairs had shown eight-thirty when I'd left.

"What time is it?" I asked a silver-haired gentleman in a booth.

A glance at his weighty watch. "Eleven-fifteen."

They'd kept me unconscious for hours longer than I'd been led to believe. Had they needed the extra time to put the final touches on the fake interrogation room? To find an opening to transport my unconscious body from the rear alley, up the fire-escape stairs, and through that metal back door with the shiny new dead bolt? Or to drag Ariana to Fryman Canyon? Maybe they'd killed her before I'd even regained consciousness.