Dangerous Games (29 page)

“I’ll remember that. Thank you.”

They proceeded far enough down the hall to put the worst of the range noise behind them, then took off the ear pads.

“Now we can have a civilized conversation,” Madeleine said.

Tess wondered how civilized it was going to be. Madeleine wouldn’t like hearing that Abby was in trouble. She decided to ease into the subject. “Brushing up on your shooting skills?”

“After what happened this afternoon, I felt it was a good idea.”

“Abby told me.”

“Did she? I’ve gotten rusty, I’m afraid. I became complacent. That was a mistake. You can’t let down your guard, ever.”

“The man you saw was probably just a vagrant.”

“Of course
you
would say that.” Madeleine rolled her eyes. “The voice of authority, forever offering faux reassurance.”

“There’s absolutely nothing to tie today’s incident with Kolb.”

“Then I’m just being irrational, aren’t I?”

“You may be.”

“Abby thought otherwise.”

“Abby is the reason I’m here.”

Madeleine gave Tess a shrewd look. “You don’t get along with her, do you?”

“Actually, no.”

“That’s not a surprise. I was reluctant to bring the two of you together. Oil and water, as they say. But she insisted.”

“Did she?”

“I called her after our meeting. You were right, of course—about my housekeeping staff. I’d dismissed them for the evening, right in the middle of dinner. I couldn’t have you speaking to them. They knew about Abby. Not all the details, but enough to raise questions in your mind.”

“And you didn’t want me to know?”

“My agreement with her was to keep her name out of any official inquiries. But”—her voice turned hard—“since you were so suspicious and so very uncooperative, I phoned her to see what I should do. She allowed me to set up a meeting between you.”

“That was big of her.”

“It was, you know. She took a considerable risk revealing her activities.”

“She wanted to see the official report on the investigation.”

“No doubt. But she also wanted to work with you. She’d followed the Mobius case. She thought you were the type of law enforcement agent she could do business with.”

This was unexpected. “What type is that?” Tess asked.

“Independent. A gunslinger, I believe she called you.”

“If she took me for some sort of vigilante—”

“She took you for someone who didn’t let bureaucratic rules and procedures get in the way of solving the case. She also said you had balls.” Madeleine grinned. “She can be vulgar, can’t she?”

“I don’t see what this has to do with—”

“Of course, there’s more to it than that.” Madeleine’s smile was gone. “She’s lonely, you see. Much lonelier than she lets on. Lonelier than she knows.”

“I’m sure she has plenty of friends.”

“You’re wrong. She doesn’t. No one understands her. I certainly don’t. And her line of work…well, it doesn’t encourage a person to open up to others. Trust is a luxury she can’t afford.”

“It’s the life she chose,” Tess said, noting distantly how harsh the words sounded.

“Yes, well, we all make choices, don’t we? Rarely do we see their full implications. Abby’s closed herself off to other people. It suits her to live that way—but it also pains her, I think. So, at times, she reaches out.”

“Are you saying she was…reaching out to me?”

“I think she was. She wanted a friend. Someone who would understand.”

Tess didn’t know what to say to this.

“I told her she was wrong,” Madeleine added.

“Wrong?”

“After meeting you, I was convinced you and she would never get along. I told her that whatever sort of rule breaker you might have been during the Mobius episode, you’d changed. You were no different from the police officers who wouldn’t help me when I was being victimized by Kolb’s e-mails.”

Tess wouldn’t let herself be baited. “That’s not quite fair,” she said evenly.

“Isn’t it? You’re here to complain about Abby, aren’t you? And she’s the only one who’s done anything to help me.”

“That’s the problem.” Tess forced the discussion back into focus. “She may have done too much.”

Behind the shooting glasses, Madeleine’s eyes fixed on Tess in a hard stare. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means bending the rules is one thing. Trashing them is something else.”

“Trashing…?”

“Framing a suspect with planted evidence.”

Madeleine took a moment to absorb this. “Are you saying you think Kolb was innocent?”

Tess shook her head. “He
was
harassing you over the Internet. And he
was
following you and taking your picture.”

“Well, then—”

“But I don’t think he’d made serious plans to abduct you. That part of the case was trumped-up.”

“The things in his apartment—”

“The things in his apartment were planted. By Abby. I’m afraid she was a little overzealous. And it’s going to prove costly to her.”

Madeleine turned away. Her mouth moved silently, whether in rage or in consternation Tess couldn’t tell.

“Costly,” Madeleine echoed after a moment. “How?”

“Planting evidence is a felony, Ms. Grant. I intend to see that Abby Sinclair pays the full legal penalty for her actions. I intend to have her prosecuted.”

Madeleine spun to face her. “You
can’t
.”

“I’m afraid I can. And I’d like your help.”

“
My
help?” She straightened her shoulders. “Go to hell.”

“We can’t have people running around planting evidence just to secure a conviction. It’s wrong when the police do it, and it’s equally wrong when a private citizen does it. We cannot have anarchy in this country.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. It’s not a question of anarchy. The man was guilty. He was stalking me. He meant to do me harm.”

“That still doesn’t justify—”

“Doesn’t justify what? Getting him off the streets? Putting him in a prison cell where he would be in no position to terrorize anyone?”

“He could have gone away on the e-mail evidence alone—”

“Bullshit.” The word twisted her face into an angry mask. “He’s a cop. They protect their own. If all they’d had against him were the e-mails, they would have charged him with a misdemeanor. As it was, he got only a one-year sentence.”

“Because the DA knew the evidence was planted.”

Madeleine blinked. She hadn’t known the reason. But the information stymied her for only a second.

“The DA,” she said, “also knew that Kolb was a rogue policeman following me, threatening me. And he let him off with a year in jail. Not even a year—ten months. Without the evidence that he was planning to abduct me, they wouldn’t have gotten even that much. They wouldn’t have put him away at all. They would have let him walk.”

Tess studied her. “You’ve given this a lot of thought.”

“Of course I have. It was my life at stake.”

She decided to take a shot. “Is that why you let Abby plant the evidence?”

“You stupid bitch.” Madeleine expelled a long, hissing breath. “Abby didn’t plant anything.
I
did.”

The words were clear, but at first Tess couldn’t take them in. “You?”

“I told you I take care of myself.”

It was impossible. A clumsy attempt to protect Abby. “You’re lying,” Tess said. “You couldn’t have done it. You didn’t even know Kolb’s address.”

Madeleine smiled, a mischievous, superior smile. “Not until Abby gave it to me in her initial report. She also reported Kolb’s work schedule. He was working the day shift that week. She informed me that she would look inside his apartment the next morning while he was on patrol.”

“You’re saying you went to Kolb’s apartment before Abby did?”

“Yes.”

“What were you wearing?”

“How can that possibly be relevant?”

“There’s a witness, a description. What were you wearing?”

“Sunglasses. And a baseball cap to hide my hair. And I carried a shopping bag with the items I’d brought, the items—”

“The items Kolb mentioned in his e-mail to you.”

“That’s right. I wanted him put away, you see—not slapped on the wrist.”

Tess sighed. Things never were simple. She should have learned that lesson by now.

“How could you possibly get into his apartment?” she asked, though she had no doubt Madeleine could find a way.

“I’m not entirely helpless—or entirely inexperienced in that sort of thing. My parents were hardly ever around when I was growing up. Daddy was off making crappy movies. Mommy was always in the middle of a nervous breakdown or an affair—usually both. I had a great deal of unsupervised time on my hands. I got into an occasional spot of trouble.”

“Breaking and entering? That kind of trouble?”

A shrug. “It was nothing serious. Pranks, you might say. Or perhaps it was a cry for help. The lock on an apartment door wasn’t going to stop me from taking steps to protect myself.”

“You picked the lock.”

“It was easy.”

“But you left tamper marks. Scratches.”

“Did I? Well, I’m not a professional, you know.”

“No, you aren’t.” But Abby was. She wouldn’t have left signs of tampering. And she wouldn’t have allowed herself to be seen by the maintenance man. She was too experienced, too capable, to make those mistakes.

“I broke in,” Madeleine was saying, “hid the things I’d bought in the kitchen cabinet. Duct tape, handcuffs—it was rather embarrassing having to purchase those. And a map of my neighborhood with my address circled in red. I locked up when I left. Abby must have entered only a short time later. She found the evidence and arranged for it to come to the attention of the authorities.”

“And she never knew it was planted?”

“Of course not. Why would she?
I
certainly didn’t tell her.”

“You
used
her.”

“Everyone uses everyone else, all the time. When you grow up in this city, you figure that out pretty early.”

“That’s a lovely ethical precept to live by.”

“If I’d wanted a theological discussion, Agent McCallum, I’d have gone to a priest.”

Tess thought it might have done her some good. “You do realize I could have you prosecuted?”

“Go ahead. I have the money to fight it. And whom do you think the public will side with? The government, which refused to help me—or the victim, acting in her own defense?”

“You can’t take the law into your own hands.”

“I wouldn’t have had to, if the system worked. Find a jury that will convict me. Find a jury that isn’t as fed up as I am.”

That was a tall order, and Tess knew it. “You never told Abby?” She’d asked the question already, but it seemed essential to hear the answer a second time.

“No, I didn’t. As far as she knows, the things she found were Kolb’s. All she did was move them out of the cabinet into plain sight.”

“And start a fire to draw an engine company to the scene.”

“Clever of her, don’t you think? So are you going to have me arrested?”

Tess would have loved to snap the handcuffs on, if only to see the expression on Madeleine’s face. For a moment she understood why this woman had gotten under Kolb’s skin when he pulled her over for a traffic violation.

But she wasn’t Kolb, and she wasn’t interested in personal vendettas. And Madeleine was right. A jury would take her side.

“No,” Tess said.

“Then do me a favor.” The sudden sincerity in her tone was startling.

“A favor?”

“Don’t tell Abby what I did. Please.”

Tess was baffled. “Why not? What difference would it make?”

“It would needlessly upset her. You see, I know Abby better than you do. She has standards. She would be highly disturbed if she were to learn there was anything underhanded in a case in which she had participated.”

“Underhanded? Everything she does is underhanded.”

“That’s not true and not fair. She plays by her own rules. They may not be your rules, but they’re hers.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, she’s a vigilante. She’s the Lone Ranger.”

“Some people might say the Lone Ranger is a hero.”

“In the movies. Not in real life.”

Madeleine smiled, a little sadly. “This is Los Angeles. The difference isn’t always so clear-cut.”

“That’s very clever, but—”

“I’m not trying to be clever. You may not see it or agree, but Abby is doing what she thinks is right. She has integrity, Agent McCallum. Whatever you may think of her, she’s on your side.”

Tess didn’t know about that. She wasn’t sure whose side Abby was on.

But one thing was clear to her, as she gave back the goggles and ear protectors and left the gun club. Abby hadn’t lied about her participation in the Kolb case. She’d told what happened, as best she knew it. And Tess had cut her off, refusing even to listen to her side of the story.

She punched Abby’s number into her cell phone, but there was no answer. Either she’d turned off her cell or she wasn’t picking up.

The time was six thirty-five. Probably she was with Kolb already—Kolb, who might be the Rain Man, on a night with rain in the forecast.

No support. No backup. Alone.

But maybe not for long.

29

Kolb wedged his gun into his waistband, then practiced reaching behind for the draw. When he was satisfied, he put on a leather jacket to conceal the weapon. In one pocket of the jacket he stowed a roll of duct tape and a spray bottle of chloroform. In the other, handcuffs and a powerful flashlight.

Abby would be wearing the tape and the cuffs soon. She was going into the storm drains. But first she would write the ransom note—he had paper and pen in his car. There would, however, be no need for her to record a message for the phone call to the mayor. There would be no phone call. Even after the city paid him the ten million, he wasn’t giving them her location. He couldn’t risk having her rescued. She had to drown.

His plan, like any improvised course of action, had certain weaknesses. If the authorities knew Abby was investigating him, then he would be tied to her kidnapping. As a precaution, he would not return to his apartment. He’d already loaded the few personal items that mattered into the trunk of his car. He would never see this place again.