Thrilled To Death (21 page)

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Authors: Jennifer Apodaca

BOOK: Thrilled To Death
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Nothing indicated some kind of hideaway.
“Come on, think,” I told myself.
“Nothing there?” Gabe asked, coming up behind me with Ali.
I shook my head and said, “Empty buildings, that's where he'd go, right? Maybe a place he has a car stashed?”
“Yes.” Gabe stood next to me, looking through the same papers I'd just rifled through.
But I had an idea. “Then we have to call my mom.”
Gabe put the papers down. “Would she know what houses and businesses are abandoned?”
My heart kicked up. “She's the real estate queen. I'd bet she keeps lists of those to get the owners to sell. My mom is relentless in business.” I pulled out my cell phone and dialed my mom's cell. I wasn't sure where she was, but I knew she had the boys with her.
She answered, “Samantha, any news?”
“Mom, where are you?” I realized that of all the people Blaine and Lola had called, no one had called my mom. She didn't know that Fletch had kidnapped Grandpa.
“At home. TJ and Joel are bickering over what to have for dinner.”
My stomach lurched. TJ and Joel—they loved Grandpa. As did Mom. But at least they were safe in Temecula. I prefaced telling her the situation with, “Mom, listen but don't tell the boys, okay?” I launched into the fastest explanation I could manage.
“That weasel—” She cut herself off, probably remembering the boys. “I see,” she replied in her clipped business voice. “What do you need?”
I was grateful to her for sparing TJ and Joel from finding out. If we were damn lucky, I'd tell the boys after we had Grandpa back safe with us. Then it would just be a cool story, not a terrifying ordeal. “I need a list of abandoned or foreclosed and empty properties where Fletch could be lying low until he can get Grandpa out of town.”
“No problem.”
I looked at Gabe and nodded.
“Damn,” he said softly in a complimentary voice, then said, “Let's start with the properties closest to Rosy's, then fan out.”
I relayed that to my mom.
“I'm starting with a five-mile radius. It'll take a minute to sort the program.”
“You can do that?”
“Get your real estate license, Samantha. Then you will be able to—here we go. Turn on Grandpa's printer. I'm going to fax this.”
I reached over and hit the power button.
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Samantha, keep checking in with me.”
“I will. I'm with Gabe. You can call his cell if you can't get through on mine.” I gave her the number.
“Find him.” She hung up.
I started to shake my head at my mom, but the printer began spitting out the fax.
Gabe grabbed the first sheet and studied it. Then he looked at me. “Your mom is scary, you know that, right?”
“Hey, I've met your mom. She carries a gun and smacks you with a large spoon.” Good God, I was defending my mother.
He reached for the second sheet and handed me the first. “What do you think?”
I looked over the list. “The houses off Machado are very close to Rosy's, but they are in a tightly packed neighborhood. Too easy to be spotted.” I looked down the list. “Up here by our house, in the old Woodhaven tract, is possible.”
I took the second sheet of the houses that were a little farther away from Rosy's house. I tried to picture Fletch thinking this out. Fletch had a plan all along. Kill Shane, and if no one ever knew, then he would go on as Grandpa's star protégé. But his backup plan was to grab Grandpa and hide. So he must have scouted out at least two abandoned houses—one house to give the hit man the deadly dose of sleeping pills and alcohol and the other to hide in. The hit man was found up in Elsinore Hills, quiet, rural properties spaced out a little bit more. Several abandoned homes. “Elsinore Hills.” I looked at Gabe.
He nodded. “Let's go, we'll start there.”
I followed him to the door.
Ali beat us there and looked at me with her liquid brown eyes.
I looked up at Gabe. “She knows something is wrong. She's coming with us.”
Gabe opened the door, and Ali raced for his truck. She settled between us, and we pulled out. I looked over the list.
“Should I call Lola and have her send teams to start canvassing these other abandoned or foreclosed spots?”
“Have her send Blaine and Cal. They both are armed, and they both can handle a bad situation. But Barney's friends could get hurt.” Gabe turned the truck left out onto Grand and raced up to Lake Street. I called Lola and gave her the information.
She listened carefully, then answered, “I'll call Cal and Blaine. We've had two sightings, but neither panned out.”
“Thank you, Lola. I don't know what we'd do without you.”
“Anything to help, Sam.” She hung up.
I set the phone down on the seat under my leg and petted Ali as she rested her head in my lap. We were on Lake Street, and Gabe made a left onto Gunnerson. I had lived in Lake Elsinore all my life, so I knew these hills that overlooked the valley and the lake pretty well. I directed him through the streets, some paved, some still dirt. The homes up there varied in age—some decades old, some completely remodeled, and a few newer ones. There used to be an old country club up there that had been condemned for decades but it burned down, which still made me sad. It was such a telling piece of Lake Elsinore's history, a grand attempt to turn Elsinore into a resort town back around the 1920s, before the Depression hit.
“There,” I pointed to a dirt road. “Turn left.”
Gabe wove through the back roads, easily maneuvering the truck over the uneven hills and road. We came to a stop at the first abandoned house. The driver's side door faced its driveway. It was a one story crumbling Spanish-style house surrounded by a crumbling wrought iron gate. Chunks of the roof tile littered the grounds. The sides had been tagged by punks with spray paint. I reached for the door handle, but Gabe caught my arm.
I looked over at him. His eyes were cold and fixed, his mouth tight. I could feel the anger rushing beneath his firm hand. “What?”
“Ali and I are going in first.”
“I'm going with you.”
“You are staying outside with the cell phone.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but then I remembered the disaster I'd caused at Rosy's. Gabe might have managed the situation if I hadn't gotten Fletch's attention. Guilt twisted my insides. At least if I stayed out here, I could get help. I nodded but I couldn't say anything.
“If there's trouble, I'll send Ali out to you. Call for help and drive away. Got it?”
My guts twisted tighter, and I forced out the words pounding in my brain. “I won't leave you.”
His face hardened. “Yes, you will. For TJ and Joel, you damn sure will leave. You'll get help, and you'll stay safe.”
Stubbornness wasn't going to get the job done. “I'll do what I have to.”
Gabe put his hand on my face. “I never doubted it. We'll be back in a couple minutes.” He dropped his hand and said, “Come on, Ali.”
She barked once, apparently thinking that Gabe had a terrific idea. Gabe left the engine idling and the driver's side door open as he got out of the truck. Ali jumped lightly to the ground next to him. He pulled out his gun in his right hand, and Ali positioned herself at his left thigh. The two of them disappeared through the broken wrought iron fence to check around the back of the house.
I sat there for three or four minutes, my muscles clenched into knots as I strained to hear any sound and stared through the opened driver's side door.
Then Ali and Gabe walked out through the gate. He met my gaze and shook his head.
My muscles sagged in disappointment, even though I was relieved that Gabe and Ali were okay.
Ali jumped in first and settled close to me. I put my hand on her neck as Gabe got in and shut the door. “Next house,” he said.
I still had the paper in my hand. I looked down and directed him to a two-story house. There were some wood stairs that led from the driveway up to the front door. The house sat on a hill covered in brown weeds and littered with debris. There was a dirt area left of the garage that looked like it had RV access, but I didn't see a vehicle back there. The front window and the windows of the rooms over the garage were broken. The paint might have once been blue, but now it was a dusty, peeling gray.
The house looked like it had been abandoned for years.
Gabe stopped the truck on the street. We were risking being seen if Fletch and Grandpa were in there, but time was a problem. There just wasn't enough time to sneak up on every house. If Fletch was holed up in a house, he probably had a car ready to escape.
“Call Lola and see if anyone has called anything in.”
I nodded.
“Let's do it again, Ali,” Gabe said. He left the truck idling for a fast escape, and he opened the door and got out.
Ali stepped to the seat's edge to jump out and froze. She sniffed, her long German shepherd nose twitching as she checked out the air. Then she jumped to the ground and ran up to the warped garage door and sniffed again.
She lifted her head and barked, using her right paw to scratch at the garage door. In seconds she grew increasingly agitated and determined.
My heart ramped up to high-speed pounding. Had we found Grandpa and Fletch?
20
I
stared at Ali struggling to get through the garage door of the abandoned house. Was Grandpa in there?
“Ali, come,” Gabe said.
She stopped barking and whining and looked back at Gabe with uncertainty confusing her beautiful fur face.
I leaned across the truck toward the opened driver's side door. “Ali,” I said softly, knowing full well she could hear my voice. “Come here.” We didn't want Fletch to hear us if they were in there.
She paused for one more long second, then turned and ran back to us. She sat down by the opened door of the truck and whined softly.
Gabe had his gun out. “Keep her here with you.”
Every cell in my body urged me out of that truck and into the house to find Grandpa. I didn't know what to do. “Wait, Gabe.” I had the phone in my hand. What was Cal's phone number? “Let me call your brother, or Vance or Blaine!” Panic, the need to move, to do something, had my breathing in overdrive. But I didn't want Gabe hurt or killed either.
“Let me check it out.” He walked toward the house.
I scooted over to the driver's side and watched him. He moved up to the garage, then stayed close to the wall until he got to the stairs. He stood there for a few seconds, looked up the straight flight of stairs, then moved up. He went carefully, one step at a time, keeping to the shadows of the wall with his gun held down in both hands.
Then he disappeared from sight.
I put my hand on Ali's head. She shivered, with her muscles tense and ready to pounce. I knew exactly how she felt.
A few minutes later Gabe came back down the stairs. His face was grim, set hard with his mouth thin. There was a pumping anger in his walk.
My heart stopped. I couldn't breathe. Pain bloomed in my chest, and all I could do was stare at Gabe. He wore a careful mask on his face, but I could read the anger.
Oh God.
Helpless, I wanted to run, to escape what he was going to tell me.
But I couldn't run. Couldn't breathe.
He stopped next to where Ali sat.
“What?” The word hurt all the way up my throat.
“They were here. Rosy's car is in the garage. Fletch used this house to make the bombs he set off at Rosy's, the vest he forced on Barney. . . .”
I couldn't stand it. “Is Grandpa in there?”
His face shifted. “No. Sam, no. Barney's still alive. There was no sign of his being hurt. All they did was come here to switch to another car.”
“They're gone?” It was a better option than Grandpa being dead, but my mind was trying to catch up. I began to realize Gabe was pissed because we were too late, not because Grandpa was dead.
I asked, “What now?”
“We call Vance.” He reached for the phone in my hand.
I let him have it.
He made the call. I'm not sure how he got patched through, but he talked to Vance. He described finding gunpowder, wires, and caps . . . things I didn't understand. No guns, he said. No sign of blood and no sign of any struggle.
Then Gabe said, “Once a uniform gets here to secure the scene, I'm going to go get gas. Then we'll be back.” He ended the call.
“Gas?” I stared at Gabe and repeated myself in confusion. “Gas?”
He handed the phone back to me. “For the truck. It makes it go.”
I blinked. Grandpa was kidnapped, and getting gas seemed unimportant.
“Ali, in,” Gabe said.
I moved over and Ali jumped in. Gabe followed her and pulled the door shut. Then he looked over at me. “I want to be ready for what comes next. Running out of gas wouldn't be a good idea.”
That made sense.
A police car roared down the street with flashing lights. Gabe got back out of the truck and went to talk to the cop. Then he returned and slid into the seat next to me. He put the truck in gear, did a three-point turn, and headed through the streets toward the main road. “There's a chance they've gotten out of town, Sam.”
I nodded. “He couldn't get on an airplane dragging Grandpa as a hostage. Wherever they are going, they are going to have to drive.” Getting gas made more and more sense.
“To Montana?” Gabe made the dangerous left turn from Gunnerson onto Riverside Drive.
“That's a long drive.” I had to force myself to think, to set aside my worry and guilt over Grandpa and think like Fletch. “He's proving something to his dad, but that doesn't mean he has to go to Montana, does it?”
“I don't know. You know Fletch better than I do.”
“I thought I knew him, but I was just looking at the surface, at the goofy comedy magician.” Right now, the fact that I could be that shallow wasn't my biggest problem.
“Expand on that, Sam.”
He was right. I had to try. I was the best hope of finding Grandpa. I knew a lot of things about Fletch. “Fletch's dad seems to be the driving force behind his decisions, maybe more of an influence than I realized. Fletch loves dogs, and he got that from hanging out with his dad's hunting hounds. His dad used to get furious at Fletch for making the dogs
soft.”
I let my thoughts string along, adding up the details. “His dad is a bit of a survivalist. Fletch probably picked up all kinds of skills from him. He might try living on the run somewhere. Although he hates rough living.” I was contradicting myself, but I had to look at every angle, see all of Fletch, not just the surface.
“Where does he usually live?” Gabe asked.
I knew that answer. “Reno. That's where he does most of his shows.”
“He may have a cabin or something. I'll start running checks, and I know Vance will do the same.” He turned left onto Collier Avenue, and we passed the Lake Elsinore Outlet Shopping Center on our right. Coming to Nicholas Road, Gabe turned into the gas station.
That made sense. A cabin would utilize some of the survivalist skills but minimize the rough living. Ali's whining interrupted my thoughts. “She needs to go to the bathroom. I'll take her while you're getting gas.”
Gabe nodded as he got out. “Stay where I can see you.”
Ali and I got out and walked away from the gas station, toward the dirt hill that led down to the parking lot at the end of the outlet center. At the top of the hill, I stopped and waited.
Ali edged partway down the hill, sniffed a plant, then snorted and ran the rest of the way down the hill.
Guess she didn't want to pee on an incline. I sighed and followed her down, trying not to slip in my boots and end up sliding down on my butt. When we got down to the blacktop, there was a sea of cars and a line of motor homes parked up against the brick wall. On the other side of that wall was the 15 Freeway.
Ali and I walked across the asphalt to a large tree in a planter that decorated the parking lot. From his position above us at the gas station, Gabe would have no trouble seeing me moving among the parked cars.
I stopped at the first tree planter, but Ali ran ahead. “Ali, come back here.” She went to the next planter a couple parking lot rows over, closer to the brick wall, and sniffed. Then she relieved herself.
I looked back at Gabe. He was standing at the truck, pumping the gas and watching us. I turned back and saw that Ali had run to the next tree planter, closer to the row of motor homes.
She was just letting off the excess anxiety, but we didn't have time right now. “Ali—” I started to demand she come back.
But Ali suddenly lifted her head and started barking furiously. She ran flat out toward the motor homes. A green SUV had to swerve and lay on the horn to miss hitting her.
What the hell was wrong with my dog? I ran after her as fast as I could in my boots. “Ali!”
She raced around the motor homes, weaving in and out, stopping and sniffing, then taking off again. After a minute or so, she picked out a midsize motor home. It was the fourth motor home in the row from the gas station side. She ran agitated circles around the motor home, barking furiously.
I stopped at the back of the motor home. Ali raced along the door side of the home, around the back, and up the other side. “Ali.” I dropped my voice to a whisper as I turned to watch her. “Damn it, we don't have time for this. We have to—” The hair on the back of my neck stood up.
Idiot!
The obvious slammed into me all at once. The house we knew Fletch had been in had RV access. Shane had a motor home. Successful magicians often traveled in motor homes. A motor home was the perfect answer to a man who had survivalist skills but liked comfort.
Oh God.
I started to turn so that I could look toward the door of the motor home.
“Don't move. I have a gun.”
It was Fletch's voice. Ice crusted my skin as sharp fear slithered over me.
Ali's deep growl rose from farther behind him.
He poked me in the back with what I assumed was his gun.
“Tell her to stop or I'll blow up the vest on Barney. You know I'll do it, Sam.”
Terror for Grandpa wrapped around my throat and I croaked out, “No, Ali.” I tried to swallow past the constriction around my neck and asked, “Where is he? What have you done with Grandpa?”
“He's inside the motor home. He's going with me. Barney always believed in me. He will come to understand what I did for him. I couldn't let Shane come to Elsinore and humiliate him, or me. I've made both of them proud.”
“Both?” What was Fletch talking about?
“Barney and my dad. My dad got tickets to Shane's show and he laughed. Laughed! Said that I never stood up for myself against real men. Well, I stood up to Shane like a man. He was a bully, and I fought back. And I protected Barney by stopping Shane from humiliating both of us. My dad will see now that magicians are not sissies but tough and brave.”
Oh God. His dad had finally pushed him over the edge. Fletch was trying to earn his dad's approval while keeping Grandpa's support and affection.
Ali made a low and threatening growl.
“Make. Her. Stop.” He poked the gun into my back.
The icy crust paralyzing me cracked, and hot tears filled my eyes. My brilliant dog had tried to tell me Grandpa was in the motor home, and I screwed it up.
Again.
I had to keep her safe. “Ali, sit. Stay.” I fought to breathe, and said to Fletch, “Don't hurt her. Let her go.” Fletch loved dogs, but if he was willing to blow up Grandpa, then I had to believe he'd kill my dog.
“You're going to lock her in the bathroom inside the motor home. Now turn around slowly.”
I looked around. I saw a mother pushing a baby stroller. She was across the huge parking lot. An older couple was walking to their car about six or seven rows over. I swept my gaze up to the gas station. From this distance I could see over the dirt hill.
I didn't see Gabe or his truck.
Had he seen where Ali and I went? Could he help us and Grandpa? I knew Gabe wouldn't leave me. I doubted Fletch realized he was here. How could he?
“Now,” Fletch ordered.
I just had to stay alive and keep Grandpa and Ali alive until Gabe could help us. I turned around, facing the space between the door side of Fletch's motor home and the back of the one parked next to it. Ali sat, but she let out another growl. Her hair stood up on her back in a stiff row of pure canine rage. Her lips were drawn back in a vicious mask of huge teeth. I had never been afraid of Ali, but at that moment I didn't know if I could control her. She was not going to let her people be threatened. She knew Grandpa was in the motor home, and she meant to get to him.
“I'll shoot her if I have to,” Fletch said behind me. He shoved the gun hard into my back.
“Ali, stay,” I said in the calmest voice I could manage. I thought that the idea of shooting Ali was stressing Fletch even more. Now that he was the
real man
his dad wanted him to be, he'd have to shoot her if she got in his way.
“Inside, Sam,” Fletch said. “Open the door.”
I went to the door and opened the latch. I carefully pulled open the door, unsure what to expect.
“Tell her to go in.”
“Are you sure? Wouldn't it be better to leave her out here?” I really didn't know if I could control her.
“No, she'll alert someone. Get her inside. Now.” His voice was as brutal as the gun jamming into me.
“Come on, Ali. Let's go see Grandpa.”
She got up and raced into the motor home.
“Now you.”
I stepped up on the built-in ladder, then into the interior. It was warmer and smelled like closed-up air and old food. I looked around. The motor home was much less grand than Shane's.

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