Twisted Innocence (Moonlighters Series Book 3) (26 page)
Miller didn’t want to admit it, but Jack was right. If he didn’t go, it was just a matter of time before he was locked up. As good an attorney as Jack was, he wasn’t good enough to get him off all the charges he’d face. “The question is, how do I relocate and still keep my business booming?”
“Set up a meeting with your contact in Colombia, in some neutral location. Talk to him about your options. Move to another location and keep brokering. You could even broker for
this
area, but from a distant location. You don’t have to be here. Or better—work for him in Colombia where you’re safe, and keep up the flow to the states.”
“What about Creed?”
Jack sat back, rubbed his temple. “Lenny, I’m trying to help you. Have someone else take care of Creed when things settle down. But you don’t have to be anywhere near town.”
It made sense. But it wasn’t as easy as it sounded. “How do I get out of town with everybody looking for me?”
Jack thought that over for a moment. “You should’ve done it while the police were all over the bombing.”
“So we need another distraction. But we have to take care of Creed before I leave town.”
“What difference does it make? They have a boatload of evidence against you already. If they can’t find you, you’ll be okay.”
“It matters because of what my people will think. That they can turn on us and get away with it. That they can talk to police and survive. What kind of operation will we have if people think we’re soft?”
“He has the whole police force watching his back.”
“So we get them to look away.” He turned, an idea forming in his mind. As it took shape, a slow smile came to his face. “This could actually be fun.”
Jack got up and shoved his hands through his hair. “I don’t think fun should have anything to do with this. Fun is what sinks you every time. Fun lands people in prison.”
Miller laughed. “Call one of the guys and have them pick up the tweekers who mugged Holly Cramer. I want to talk to them. I think we can use them.”
“Bad idea,” Jack said. “You gonna trust any of this to a couple of junkies who can’t think straight?”
“They’re just part of the plan. We’ll send them to Holly Cramer’s house.”
“You don’t think they’d get caught?”
“I don’t
care
if they get caught. Set it up now, and let everybody know we’ll need all hands on deck.”
M
ichael and the team learned pretty quickly that Barker, the one who’d planted the bomb, no longer lived at the address on his driver’s license, but it didn’t take long to track him to a new address. Michael and Max staked it out and took turns watching all night, but he didn’t leave once. By morning, they, their father, and Al Forbes rode in three separate cars, ready to follow Barker the minute he came out. He finally pulled out of his driveway at ten a.m. and didn’t seem to notice them staggered up and down the street. They followed him through town, three cars moving behind him, alternating the tail so the same car wasn’t behind him all the time.
As Michael swapped with his father and came up behind Barker, he saw that he was on the phone. Then, without signaling, Barker made a sudden turn into a parking lot and drove into the alley behind the stores. Michael couldn’t follow without being seen. None of them could go into the back driveway
and remain unnoticed, so they blocked both ends of the driveway behind the building.
“What’s he doing?” Max asked.
“Don’t know, but I think he’s on to us,” Michael said. “Should we move in and make an arrest? He’s not going to lead us to anybody if he saw us.”
“Let me walk back there and see what I can see,” Forbes said. “I’ll act like an employee out smoking.”
“All right,” Michael said, “but stay back.”
Forbes left his car and walked around the building, smoking like an employee who’d just stepped out the back of a store for a break. In the radio, Forbes told them what he saw. “Dude’s parked like he’s waiting for somebody,” he said quietly. “He’s on the phone, yelling, slamming his steering wheel. Something’s not right. I’m guessing he made us and is calling for help.”
“Time to make an arrest,” Max said. “We’ve got him surrounded. There’s a ten-foot cement block wall back there, so I don’t think he can get away. If we block off the alley, we can get him. If we get this guy into custody, show him that we have evidence he’s the one who planted the bomb under Michael’s car, maybe we can make him talk.”
Forbes came around the building, got back into Max’s vehicle. They waited awhile, but Barker never came back out. Finally, Forbes—the only one they were sure Barker wouldn’t recognize—went back around, cigarette in his mouth again.
After a few minutes, Forbes radioed back. “You’re not going to believe this. Barker’s gone. Car’s empty.”
Michael hit the steering wheel. “We have to check out every store. He had to go through a back door, or he has help here somewhere. It’s doubtful he went over that wall at the back.”
Forbes and Max drew their weapons and checked every back door. There were no unlocked doors, but if Barker had a friend working inside, someone could have let him in. They went around to the front and checked every store. No one admitted seeing anyone come in from the back in the last few minutes. While it was possible that someone was hiding Barker, the police couldn’t search the back rooms of the stores without warrants.
Michael followed Max back out into the alley and looked up at the building. “There,” Max said. “There’s a camera. Let’s find the building owner and get that video.”
Time ticked by—time in which Barker could be getting away if he wasn’t holed up in one of these stores. After an hour, the building owner showed up and gave them the day’s video. They pulled it up on Max’s computer and fast-forwarded to Barker’s car pulling into the alley.
They watched, breath held, hoping they’d be able to see if someone let him in. They watched the footage of Forbes walking up, then leaving again. They couldn’t see Barker inside the car, but suddenly, the driver’s door opened and Barker got out. He climbed up on a Dumpster, got his balance, then leaped to the top of the cinderblock wall and disappeared on the other side.
Max cursed, and Michael kicked the building. “He could have gone a dozen different directions on the other side of that wall,” Michael said. “Probably had somebody pick him up.” He set his hands on his hips. “I can’t believe we lost him.”
“We’ll just have to find him,” Max said. “He’s bound to go home eventually.”
But Michael doubted it. Barker knew he was being followed. He wouldn’t let his guard down now.
F
or Holly, it had been an early morning after a sleep-interrupted night. Lily had demanded two feedings during the night, then had wakened for the day at five a.m. Between feedings, Holly’s sleep had been shallow, and she’d dreamed of tragedies involving Creed.
She gave Lily a bath and dressed her for the day. Juliet would work at home today so that she could watch Lily and Robbie, since she hadn’t yet been able to find a babysitter. Holly would go to the office and hunt down any facts she could find about Barker, the alleged bomber, and hope something she found might lead them to Leonard Miller.
She strapped Lily into her car seat and carried her out the side door from her kitchen into the garage, snapped the car seat into its base in the backseat of her taxi, and kissed her daughter’s forehead. She’d probably be asleep before they’d driven a mile.
A crash turned her back to the house. Glass breaking . . . voices . . .
Her alarm system blared its warning. Holly went for the gun on her passenger seat as her phone began to ring. The alarm company.
She clicked it on and said, “Call the police. Someone’s in my house!”
She left the call connected and dropped the phone into her pocket as she headed back in, leading with her firearm. Then she saw them . . . the two meth heads who’d mugged her days ago, awkwardly going back out the window the way they’d come in, as if they hadn’t counted on the alarm going off.
“Hold it right there!” she shouted. “Don’t move!”
But the girl kept scurrying through, cursing as she cut her hand on glass. The man pushed her out and dove out behind her.
Holly ran to the front door and bolted out. The two stumbled across the yard as the alarm kept blaring. Refusing to let them escape this time, Holly followed them, yelling for them to stop. She couldn’t fire right here in a residential neighborhood, and they clearly weren’t afraid of her.
Their drug abuse had taken its toll, and they weren’t fast runners. Holly ran with all the strength she had, and when she caught up to them, she grabbed the girl’s shirt and threw her against the man, knocking them both to the ground. “Stay down or I’ll kill you!” she shouted. “Don’t move your little finger!”
They cursed and lay facedown on the pavement as the sound of a siren swirled close.
“What did you take from my house?” she demanded, dripping with sweat.
“Nothing!” the girl shrieked. “We didn’t have time! We
were told you weren’t home and you didn’t have a security system.”
“Who told you that?” They didn’t answer. “Who?”
When they still refused to speak, she bent and roughly searched their pockets, grabbed the girl’s huge bag. She looked through it, trembling, and found her own wallet, her credit cards, her driver’s license—things they’d taken from her purse the day they’d robbed her in her cab. It didn’t look like they’d had time to get anything from her home.
How stupid could they be, breaking in through a window like that in broad daylight? What kind of idiots were these people?
When the police cars made it to her street, she waved them down to her. Keeping her gun on the thieves, she called out, “I’m Holly Cramer. I work for Michael Hogan. I have a concealed permit. These two just broke into my house.”
The first cop out drew his weapon and shielded himself behind the door. “Drop the gun.”
Holly tossed it toward them, out of the couple’s reach. “Cuff them!” she shouted. “They mugged me a few days ago. There’s a police report. You can check. I don’t want them to get away.”
The cop in the back car got out and got her gun. “I know her. I took her report. She’s legit.”
Holly breathed a sigh of relief as they gave her back her gun, cuffed the two thieves, then shoved them into the back of separate cars, the two foul-mouthed addicts cursing and spitting.
Holly wiped the sweat from her forehead.
Lily.
She had left Lily in the car. “Can we finish this at my house? My baby’s in the car in my garage.”
They agreed. Holly jogged back the few houses to her own house as the police cars moved into her driveway. She went back in the open front door, through the kitchen, and out to the closed garage, a police officer following her.
The back door of her taxi was still open.
Lily lay sound asleep in her car seat, undisturbed by the chaos. But then Holly saw it . . . wires weaving through the straps and clip over the baby’s ribs. A device of some kind placed on the top of the seat near her head.
A bomb!
“No . . . dear . . . God . . .” She stood frozen, unable to move.
The cop stepped up behind her. “Ma’am?”
“A bomb . . . on the car seat. The break-in was just a distraction.”
The cop began shouting into his radio as Holly’s focus narrowed down to those wires.
C
reed was sick of the hospital gown and wanted desperately to change into his own clothes, but his sutures and the Velcro cast on his arm made it difficult. Maybe when his mother came back in he would get her to help him change into clothes that made him feel more human. Cathy sat next to the bed, questioning him and taking notes. Though the police had questioned him for hours already, she still grilled him, hoping to jog loose some additional memory—any memory—that would help them locate the man who had changed her life three years ago.
The hospital phone rang, and he jumped. Most people called him on his cell phone. He hadn’t gotten a single call on the hospital room’s phone since he’d been here. He tried to reach it with his right hand, but Cathy sprang up. “I’ll get it.”
She picked up the phone and handed it to him. “Hello?”
“Hello, Creed.” It was a man’s voice, one he couldn’t quite place. “Do you know where your baby is?”
Creed sat up straighter. “Who is this?”
“A recent acquaintance,” he said. “Sorry our little encounters didn’t work out. But this one surely will.”
Miller. He mouthed the name to Cathy and slid his legs off the bed, got to his feet. “What do you want?”
“I wanted to let you know there’s a bomb on your baby’s car seat. If anyone tries to move her out of it, she’ll blow.”
Creed bent over and drew in a breath. “What . . . do you want?”
“I want you to walk out of that hospital and drive to where I tell you.”
Creed looked frantically around the room. Where were his clothes? “I . . . I don’t have my car here. I was brought in an ambulance.”
“Have someone drive you to your car. Come the rest of the way alone. Give me your cell phone number. I’ll call you back in twenty minutes.”
Creed almost couldn’t breathe. He rattled off his number.
“Oh, and if you talk to Holly Cramer, tell her not to do anything stupid,” Miller said. “Those wires have a hair trigger sometimes.”
The phone clicked off.
“What did he say?” Cathy said. “What did he want?”
“Have to call Holly.” He grabbed his cell phone off the bed table. “Get my clothes. They must be in the closet.”
Creed’s heart slammed against his sternum as he waited for Holly to pick up. Her phone rang once, then she clicked on. Her voice was quiet, trembling. “Creed . . .”
“Is she okay?” he asked.
“There’s a bomb,” she said just above a whisper. “The police are here but they can’t move it or it might explode. She’s sleeping, but if she wakes up and starts to move . . .”
“Holly, Miller wants me to leave the hospital. He’ll call me back with instructions. Just hang on. I’ll do whatever they say.”
He heard the slurp of her sniffs, voices in the background. Finally, she whispered, “Be careful, Creed.”