The Case of the Sin City Sister (30 page)

Eve looked around at the place. There were no cars or motorcycles in the driveway. The curtains were closed on the front windows. The yard was untended. There were a few rolled newspapers by the front door. The small dwelling, an old wood-framed house with flaking paint and bars on the outside of all the windows, was situated at the end of a short street in what appeared to be a zoned business area. There were a few warehouses at one end, and two other houses on the street, which both appeared to be empty, were surrounded by chain-link fences. If you didn’t know there was a house at this address, you would never have known to look.

Daniel turned off the engine, and they both reached to open their doors. Eve suddenly felt his hand on her arm. She turned to him.

“You gotta stay here,” he instructed her. “And I mean it this time,” he added. “I can’t have you in there with me.”

She started to object.

“I have my gun.” And he slid aside his jacket to reveal a pistol
attached to his belt. Eve had not recalled seeing it the entire time they had been in Vegas. She wondered if he had kept it hidden from her in an attempt to reduce any anxiety she might have had or if he hadn’t worn it until her call from the hospital.

“Do you think you’ll need that?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he answered, pulling his jacket back over it.

Eve could still see the outline of the Glock pistol under his coat, the same model of gun she recalled her father having when he worked on the police force.

“I do know that I’m prepared if I do need it. I can handle whatever happens in there, but I have to be fully attentive when I get inside. I can’t be worried about you.” He took her hand. “You’ll only be a hindrance to me and to Dorisanne if she’s in there and in trouble.”

She glanced down and then back at him. “Maybe we should call the police here. Maybe we should have some sort of backup.”

“And tell them what? That we got this address and we think someone is hiding here?” He shook his head. “That doesn’t really warrant a police officer coming to this address. Besides, we don’t know what this is. There may just be someone here who can tell us something. We don’t want to get anybody into trouble.”

Eve nodded, even though she still thought having someone else present, having some other law enforcement officers involved, would be a better idea than Daniel going into the house alone.

“Please, I’m asking you, just stay in the car. If she’s in there, I’ll come and get you right away. And if she’s not, I’ll be right back to tell you what I find out. But just stay here. Keep your phone out and call 911 if you hear anything . . .” He didn’t finish the sentence.

Eve held her tongue. She wasn’t sure why, but she wasn’t as defiant or as argumentative with Daniel as she was with the Captain. Maybe it was because she knew this was an argument she would not win. And she also knew that what he was saying was true. If she walked in with him and there was some kind of danger, she would be of no help to him. She could help more by doing exactly what he said. She would stay outside and make a call if something happened.

She nodded and removed her hand from the door handle and pulled out her phone. He squeezed her hand, and she watched as Daniel exited the car and made his way to the front of the house. As he walked away, Eve noticed again the hardscrabble yard, the weeds around the front porch, the peeling paint on the front of the house, and the iron bars on the windows. The house looked neglected, and she wondered what Daniel would find when he went inside. He turned back once and looked in her direction, nodded, and then turned back and knocked on the door.

It was just a few moments before the door opened. Eve couldn’t see who let him in, and she strained to find any opening in the door or window coverings that she could peer through from her seat in the car. Then, just like that, he walked inside and the front door closed behind him.

Eve sat, doing anything she could to stop herself from jumping out and following Daniel into the house. She started saying a prayer, the Our Father. She finished it quickly and started over again. She recited the rosary, reaching for the chain hanging on the mirror, the one she had been using throughout the entire trip to Vegas, and then she stopped, dropping her hands into her lap.

What if there was some sort of scuffle or shouting? She wouldn’t be able to hear from her location. At the very least, she needed to open the car window. She thought about starting the engine so that she could do that, but then, worried about the noise it would make, she decided against that idea. So, without specifically defying Daniel’s instructions about going to the door, she decided she would simply step out of the car and get closer to the house so that she could make sure she would hear anything that might signal danger.

She stepped out slowly, not noticing as her phone slid from her lap to the floor of the car. Just planning to get closer to the house, she pressed the door closed and glanced around. She could feel her heart race and she took in a deep breath. She was scared, but she was also determined to find out what was happening. Not hearing anything, she crept toward the house, deciding to stand near the front window. She thought she saw a car turning in their direction, and she wondered if she should run and dive back into the car and hide. She watched, relieved, as the vehicle kept going past the warehouses and the street she and Daniel had turned onto.

She continued and got as close as she could to the front of the house, trying to hear if there was any sound coming from inside, but there was nothing. She tried standing on her toes to peek inside, but she could not see under or around the curtains. Without any way to see or hear anything from inside, she decided she might have a better shot of finding out what was happening if she moved around to the back of the house. Maybe there was a kitchen or some room in the rear of the house that she would have a better chance at seeing into or hearing whatever might be going on.

She slowly and quietly walked around to the back, noticing the short fence around a small square yard and the empty lot behind it. Beyond that, a long ways from where she stood, there was another street and houses situated on both sides of it. All around the house was just scrubby desert terrain, an area that she guessed was being groomed for other places of business, other warehouses like the ones at the end of this street.

Still, there was very little movement anywhere around, and Eve saw nothing out of the ordinary. She continued to move closer to the back door, noticing an unobstructed window that gave a full view of what appeared to be the kitchen. Eve stopped and looked in, and that’s when she saw her sister and Daniel standing at the kitchen table, Dorisanne crying and Daniel holding her in his arms.

The sight of such a thing both surprised and calmed her, and thinking that everything must be all right for the two of them, she was reaching up to knock on the window, to make herself known, when she noticed that Dorisanne and Daniel were not alone. She dropped down out of sight, but only after she had seen the man she’d run from at the hospital standing in front of them, a gun pulled and pointed straight at Daniel’s chest.

FIFTY-ONE

Eve held her breath and crept back around the house. She was trying to make her way to the car when she heard the front door of the house open, and she quickly slid back to a hiding place under the kitchen window. She leaned over and peeked around the corner. The man with the gun was walking toward the driver’s side of Daniel’s car, Dorisanne stumbling in front of him, held close to him, his arm wrapped around her waist, the gun pointed at her side.

Eve dropped back to where she was hiding and heard the car door open and close, peeked again, and watched then as both of them hurried away from the car, going back in the direction of the front door. She heard the beep signaling that the man had taken the keys from the ignition and locked the car.

It appeared that he had come outside and was checking to make sure that Daniel was alone. She was glad she had made an exit when she did, happy that her instincts had been right. He must have opened the door to take the keys, though, and, she realized as she
felt around in her empty pockets, her phone not there, that he had probably also taken that or, at the very least, locked it inside the car. She realized that she had no way to get back into the car and no way to make a call. She slumped down, her back against the side of the house, and tried to figure out what her next move should be.

She looked to her left and saw the row of warehouses, with no vehicles anywhere around. The closest business, she recalled, was a diner about a mile away from the house. She looked to her right and in front of where she sat, the view from the back of the house, and noted that the street with the closest houses was also more than a mile away. The thought of heading toward the diner seemed like a good plan, but she worried that if she made a run for it in that direction, the man would see her from the rear window, and that would only make things worse for Daniel and Dorisanne.

Eve was unsure of what move she should make, knowing that going for help in either direction was going to involve almost twenty minutes of walking. Feeling anxious, she leaned back against the side of the house, closed her eyes, and prayed. It was just one simple word, the prayer she prayed more than any other: “Help.”

She took in a breath and then glanced back again to her left and then to her right. She couldn’t believe her eyes. She smiled as she noticed that just around the corner of the back side of the house was what she knew to be the tip of the rear tire of a Harley-Davidson, Dyna Super Glide, more than likely from the year 1997.

She dropped to her knees and headed for the bike, crawling and staying well below the windows of the house. She couldn’t hear anything from inside, and she hoped that was good news, that the man holding her sister and friend hostage had not yet
started shooting, that perhaps Daniel was trying to talk their way out of there or that there was something, anything, keeping the man from killing his prisoners.

She reached the corner, stood up, and walked around to the front of the Harley. She glanced around, still not seeing anyone in the vicinity. She reached around the handle bars and felt for a key but quickly discovered it was not there. But of course, who left a key in the ignition of their ride?

Knowing that the noise of the engine would be loud enough to reveal her presence and likely cause more trouble for everyone, she turned the bike around and walked it away from the house, into the empty lot to the east and well behind 2245 Lone Star Place.

She crossed herself as she usually did when she was about to do something questionable like hot-wire a bike and then reached for the ignition cap and removed it. She found the wires, leaned down, and yanked them apart. She figured out which one was the hot one, crossed it, and made her leap onto the seat just as the engine started. She slid the motorcycle into first gear and took off, heading away from the house and hoping that the man didn’t hear his Harley being stolen right out from under his nose.

Eve drove as fast as she could through the empty desert lot until she finally hit the row of houses behind the one on Lone Star Place. She thought about stopping at the first house she came to and asking if she could use their phone, but she worried that time was too valuable. She knew that having to explain who she was and what she needed and why she was riding a motorcycle through backyards without a key in the ignition might create more trouble than it would alleviate.

She drove through the first yard in her path, watching in her rearview mirrors as a man ran out the front door, screaming at her, and then she sped up, making her way to the paved street and heading toward the main drag that she and Daniel had been on before making the turn onto Lone Star Place. She was speeding toward the diner when, out of nowhere it seemed, a police car came flying up behind her. She had not seen it anywhere previously, but it didn’t matter, she knew it would provide the assistance she needed. She quickly pulled off to the side of the road, dropped the kickstand, leaving the engine running, and jumped off the bike.

She was running in the cruiser’s direction when she suddenly saw the driver’s door open and a gun being raised and pointed at her.

“GET DOWN!” the police officer shouted from behind the door. “GET DOWN RIGHT NOW!”

Eve stopped and dropped to her knees. She raised her hands in front of her.

“Turn around. Hands behind your head!”

Eve did as she was instructed, spinning around on her knees, turning away from the officer, and placing her hands behind her head.

“Now, drop facedown to the pavement.”

Eve started to turn around and speak, try to explain what had happened, what was going on at the house just a few miles away from them, but she soon felt a heavy hand on her neck, pushing her face to the ground. She was in a bowed position, one of submission and obedience, a position that she knew all too well.

“I’m trying to get help,” she said to the man standing behind her. “My sister—”

“Just shut up!” the officer responded. “It seems a lot of people are looking for you. I saw the APB on this bike about an hour ago. Of course, they think you’re in Vegas, and the description they have of you is all wrong since the report is that they are looking for a man, but they definitely got the bike right.” He was trying to pull out a pair of handcuffs while he held on to Eve’s neck, but he seemed to be having some trouble doing it with only one hand.