Contract to Kill (15 page)

After verifying the curtains were closed, he focused on the wall next to the door and found a dual light switch. He chose the switch with more handprint grime.

“Harv, eyes.” Nathan turned off his NV before flipping the switch.

He grimaced at the sight of Toby leaning back in the chair as if merely passed out from drinking. Seeing the scene in shades of green through the NV scope didn’t reflect the true hideousness of the crime. Color added shock value. Especially red.

Directly below Toby’s battered head, a perfectly round pool of blood saturated the carpet.

“I don’t see Mara. We need to clear the other rooms down the hall.”

“Let me do that, Nate.”

“We’ll both go.”

“Nate . . . ”

“Both of us
.
”

They found Mara in the first room. Harv turned on the light.

They were greeted by pink. Lots of pink. Like the living room, the room had been crudely searched. The floor was a mess. A crib sat in the corner with a paper butterfly mobile hanging above.

Nathan felt his stomach churn.

Mara’s skin wasn’t flawless anymore. Her face had taken some hard blows.

She lay on her side, the back of her head caked with fresh blood. Beneath it, a dark pool had soaked into the mattress.

Nathan checked for a pulse.

Nothing.

“Looks like they were expecting a baby girl.”

“Nate, man, I’m really sorry . . . But we have to keep moving.”

He took a final look and burned the image into his mind, where it would never be removed. Ever. Stealing Mara’s life was the filthiest act of theft. It could never be returned to her. He kicked a lamp shade, sending it into the paper mobile.

“We’ll get him, Nathan. Count on it.”

Looking for Toby’s cell phone, they quickly checked every drawer, closet, shower stall, and cabinet. Like the living room and the baby’s room, every square inch of the apartment had been tossed, even the bathrooms. The toilet tanks were open, and the lids placed on the countertops. Nothing was broken, just moved aside or on the floor. It was clear Mason and his cohorts didn’t make much noise during their search.

“They have his phone,” Nathan said.

Harv didn’t say anything.

Nathan tried to imagine Toby’s and Mara’s last minutes. They’d probably held out for as long as possible, thinking they’d be saved by two white knights from First Security, but their rescuers didn’t come back. Nathan forced the corrosive thought aside. Now wasn’t the time for useless blame or finger-pointing. Toby and Mara were dead because Mason was a cold-blooded asshole. It wasn’t more complicated than that.

They returned to the living room, and Nathan put Harv on hold. They held perfectly still, listening for sounds. The muted buzz of a neighbor’s television coming through the wall closely matched the volume of the refrigerator’s compressor hum.

“Holly, status? Do you hear any sirens?”

“Not yet.”

If Toby had a pet, Nathan detected no sign or odor of it. Cats tended to hide, but there definitely wasn’t a dog in here. He stepped over to the window, cracked the curtains, and looked down to the street below.

Returning his attention to Toby, he saw the man was dressed only in cargo shorts and a plain white T-shirt. Two holes next to a curved scar on Toby’s scalp oozed blood.

“Harv.” Nathan nodded toward the kitchen. The contents of Toby’s wallet sat on the counter next to his car keys, including eighty dollars in cash. “If he had an electronic access card for work, they took it. At least they don’t have our business card.”

Harv approached Toby’s body. “Nate, this man isn’t dead. He’s still breathing.”

“What! How’s that possible?”

“I don’t know, but he may not have much longer.”

“We’re taking him to the ER.”

“Wait. You know what that means.”

“We’re already all-in.” He gave Toby a quick examination. “Some of his fingers are broken, and his skin is abraded under the cuffs. They beat his face to a pulp. It’s obvious he gave up his cell phone under torture. That’s why it isn’t here. We need to know what else he told them. We—”

A low-pitched woof rattled the window.

Nathan recognized the sound and rushed to the curtains.

“ID,” Harv said, joining him.

Incendiary device
.

“Toby’s Sentra.”

“Are you guys seeing this?”
Holly asked.

“Affirm. We’re on our way down. Start the sedan and be ready to go.” Nathan immediately noticed the rear passenger compartment of Toby’s car already glowed. In another minute or so, the entire vehicle would be fully involved. “Why torch Toby’s car?”

“A diversion?”

Nathan nodded.

“That car fire actually helps us.”

Nathan couldn’t hide the tightness in his voice. “Helps us? How the hell does it
help
us?”

“The fire department is already scrambling, and they can usually arrive quicker than the police or an ambulance. They’re all first responders and they might have an EMT with them.”

Nathan didn’t mean to sound incredulous, but it came out that way. “So we just leave him here?”

“At the risk of sounding callous, yes.”

“Harv, even if we leave Toby’s front door wide open, there’s no guarantee the firefighters will see it in time or assume the open door is connected to the car fire. We need to transport him.”

“If we take him down to the sidewalk, there’s no way they’ll miss him. Nate . . . we can’t stay. We have to clear the area.”

“Shit, Harv. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’m just
really
pissed off right now.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Harv said.

Nathan pulled his knife and cut the plastic bindings securing Toby’s hands and feet, then grasped him under the armpits while Harv picked up Toby’s legs. Together they hauled him off the dining room chair.

“This guy weighs a ton,” Harv said.

“That might be the only reason he’s still alive. They probably used subsonic .22 rounds again.”

They moved him through the door onto the walkway.

Just ahead, a door on the opposite side of the stairwell opened and a young woman in a bathrobe stepped out. She approached the rail and stared down at the blazing car. She hadn’t seen them yet, but she would soon enough. The entire wall of the apartment building was bathed in orange light.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” Nathan said.

She looked at them and covered her mouth. “What happened to Toby?”

“Please call 911 and request an ambulance. I think he may’ve been injured from the explosion down there.”

Without saying another word, she backed into her apartment.

Toby’s butt scraped along the stair treads as they hauled him down. At the bottom, they laid him on the sidewalk where he couldn’t be missed. Flames now roared from the Sentra’s blown-out windows. The rain wasn’t going to help much. IDs contained their own fuel and burned hotter than most fires.

Toby’s eyes opened for a few seconds, and he turned his head.

“Harv, he’s awake.” Nathan bent down and spoke softly. “Toby, it’s Nathan.”

Toby’s mouth moved soundlessly, his eyes fluttering closed. “Med hall . . . ”

“What’s that?” Nathan asked.

“Med . . . ”

“I don’t understand you, but you’re going to be okay. Did you tell Mason about us? Toby?
Toby!
Shit, he’s out.”

“Nate, we gotta go.”

“Did you catch what he said?”

“It sounded like ‘med hall.’” Harv nodded toward the other side of the street. “People are watching us.”

“Fuck ’em,” Nathan said.

“Nate . . . ”

“Okay, okay.” They walked at a brisk pace along the sidewalk. “I’m ready to burn BSI to the ground.”

“A few bad people doesn’t make the entire company bad.”

“I don’t like being in reaction mode. We’re going on the offensive.”

“We will, but let’s get through the next few minutes first.”

Nathan issued a dismissive grunt and pictured himself in Mason’s shoes. His primary concern would have been finding out if Toby had told anyone what he’d witnessed on the soccer field. He’d obviously beaten Mara as well, and he hoped she’d denied him the satisfaction of breaking her.

By the time they reached the corner of the next street where Harv had parked, the entire neighborhood was awake. Dogs barked, and people stood on the sidewalk with cell phones held to their ears.

They both heard it then: the distant cry of a siren.

Nathan wasn’t too worried about the woman they’d seen on the second-floor walkway; it hadn’t been brightly lit up there. If questioned, she could give the police a general description of two big men carrying Toby—not terribly useful. Wearing ball caps, they’d also kept their heads down.

When they turned the corner at the end of the block, Nathan felt a certain amount of relief upon seeing Harv’s car. They’d be clear of this area in the next twenty seconds.

Getting in the backseat, he asked, “Do you think Toby or Mara caved?”

“It’s hard to say. They went at Toby pretty hard, but Mara didn’t look as bad. She could’ve given us up before they got rough, or they might’ve used her against Toby. There’s no way to know until we talk to him.”

Holly pulled away from the curb. “Are they alive?”

“Mara’s not, and Toby’s hanging by a thread. Mason shot both of them in the head multiple times.”

“Nathan, I’m so sorry.”

“You aren’t going to say I told you so?”

“Of course not,” she said.

Nathan felt his cell vibrate. He pulled it from his pocket and read the name.
Karen
. A name from another life—from his time with Mara, when he’d first met Toby. Why would she be calling? Especially now?

“Karen?”

“Nathan, I think there’s someone in my front yard. The floodlights just came on!”

“How many blinking red lights do you see on the master control unit?”

“I don’t know. I think I saw two. I’m looking out the window.”

“Stay away from the windows! We’re on our way. We’ll be there in three minutes. Which zones are blinking red?”

“The front yard.”

“Who else is there?”

“No one. I’m alone.”

“Karen, don’t question me right now: I want you to activate the panic feature on any of the keypads. Do it right now. Keep your phone with you, and put it on silent mode. Get into your emergency hiding place as fast as you can, and clear your recent-call list.”

“Nathan—”

“Hide
now
!” Nathan yelled. “And clear that call list!”

CHAPTER 15

Rain pelting off his cap, Mason walked at a good clip down the residential sidewalk. If anyone happened to spot him, he didn’t want to look like a burglar. This neighborhood had no apartments or condos, only single-family homes on small lots.
Boring boxes full of boring people
, thought Mason. Aside from an occasional porch light, most of the neighborhood remained dark because the streetlights stood several hundred feet apart.

The address he wanted was the next house on the right. He slowed and looked for motion sensors mounted on the eaves. Detecting none, he angled across the lawn, heading for the front door.

Mason inwardly cursed when four floodlights snapped on. He must’ve stepped through an IR beam or triggered a hidden motion detector, something he should’ve anticipated. He left his gun in his waist pack and ran across the brightly lit yard.

Karen felt panic tighten her skin. She’d never heard Nathan sound so intense. Dressed only in underwear and a T-shirt, she bolted through the dark house to the kitchen. She jammed the red button on the keypad controller three times in quick succession. The result was instantaneous. The entire house erupted with an ear-piercing electronic shriek—like a hyperactive ambulance siren. And the front and backyard ignited with additional blinding light. To avoid being seen in the bleed light invading the house, Karen crouched below the level of the countertops and crawled over to the kitchen island.

“Holly, stop and switch places with me.”

Without bothering to pull to the curb, she braked hard in the middle of the street and climbed out. Five seconds later, Nathan floored the accelerator.