Distant Memory (22 page)

“What do you mean?” Nick asked.

“The attacker came into the house through the garage, past the car.”

“So?”

“So, they wouldn’t have to chase us if they knew where we were all the time.”

Nick looked out the side window, digesting what Lisa had said. “A tracker? Of course! The best place to mount a tracking device would be in the trunk. But I doubt they had time for that. It would be too risky to install in the garage. That means something was attached to the outside of the car. Did you see anything?”

“No, but that means nothing. Could they have put it on the undercarriage?”

“How would you know that?”

“I don’t
know
it. I
suspect
it. Now let’s find a place off the road where I can check.”

Lisa started the car and pulled away from the lot, directing the vehicle north through the heart of the small community of Ojai. As she reached the end of town she saw a sign that read
SOULE GOLF COURSE
. She pulled off the road and onto a long macadam driveway that was sheltered on both sides by tall, full oak trees. The spot seemed ideal. The driveway gave way to a small parking lot that fronted several buildings and a breakfast-lunch-only restaurant. After circling the near-empty lot once to see if she had been followed, she parked under a street lamp.

“I’ll be right back,” she said as she opened her door. To her surprise, Nick’s door opened a moment later. Slowly he lowered himself to the ground on his side of the car. She wondered what any passersby might think if they saw two people painfully exit a car and lie down on the parking lot. It had to be a strange sight.

“It’s too dark to see,” Nick said, talking to Lisa as he lay on his back. Even at the unusual angle at which she was seeing him, she could tell that the effort had paled him. “Hang on a second.” He sat up, stood, did something in the car, and then returned to his supine position. He had a flashlight in his hand. Flicking on the switch, Nick directed the light beam along the underbelly of the car. “I don’t see anything.”

“Let’s try farther back,” Lisa suggested. “He would want to place it as quickly as possible and in a position where it could be retrieved later.”

Lisa crawled to the rear of the car. Every muscle she had protested painfully. She ignored the pain. God willing, there would be time to feel pain later. God willing? An odd sensation—pleasant warmth—swept through her.
Frightened beyond reason one moment
, Lisa thought,
comfy and peaceful the next. I need professional help
.

Meeting at the rear of the car, Lisa and Nick lay on their backs again, the flashlight illuminating the underside of the trunk. They could see the fuel tank, the springs, the struts, and a long, narrow black plastic box
that hung to the metal straps that held the gas tank in place. Protruding from the box was a thin wire.

“Gotcha!” Lisa said. With no hesitation she reached up and tugged at the device. At first it resisted her efforts, but on the third tug the strong magnets yielded and the instrument came free in Lisa’s hand. “It’s a transmitter,” Lisa said. “The wire is its antenna.” They stood.

“So it transmits some kind of signal?”

“Maybe more. It may transmit our location through the GPS system.”

“Global positioning satellite,” Nick said. “So whoever planted this thing doesn’t have to follow behind us, he just has to wait until we stop, read the coordinates on his end, and drive to the spot.”

“Exactly.”

“Give it to me,” Nick said reaching forward. “I’ll destroy the bugger.”

“I have a better idea,” Lisa said. She turned and faced the buildings. Parked curbside was a UPS truck. “Looks like someone is making late deliveries.” Walking as fast as her stiff muscles would allow, Lisa made her way to the large brown truck, knelt down, and attached the device to the underside of the rear bumper. The magnets snapped the transmitter in place. Then she returned to the car. “Shall we?” she said, motioning to the vehicle.

“You are a devious woman,” Nick said. “I think I may love you.”

“Is that all it takes to win your heart?”

“Right now it is,” Nick said with a smile and then eased back into the car. Lisa took her place behind the wheel. “The UPS station is in Ventura, about a half-hour from here. That should put some distance between the bad guys and us.”

“I hope so,” Lisa said. “Now let’s find a place to get you cleaned up.”

Massey watched unflinchingly as the Mitsubishi Gallant pulled from the driveway of the golf course. The woman was behind the wheel. That was a good sign. That meant that Blanchard was injured. He was, after all, a professional driver. At least McCullers, incompetent as he was, had achieved that much. Glancing down at the GPS tracker on the front seat, he noticed something was wrong. The indicator, which should have matched the movement of the Gallant, was fixed in the same position. It took less than a second for him to figure out the problem. They had found the tracking device and discarded it.

“Clever girl,” he said softly as he restarted his car and pulled back onto the street.
I guess we have to do this the old-fashioned, low-tech way
, he said to himself. As he drove, keeping several car lengths back, he congratulated himself on his foresight. It was the very thing he had told the thick-headed McCullers before he killed him: “You assume everything will go your way, that your plans will never fail. I assume just the opposite. Consequently, I’m prepared.”

Massey had never been more thankful for that philosophy than he was right then. Had he relied on the GPS device alone, he would have lost his prey, but by following as closely as he could without being seen, by being as stealthy as possible, he would not now be lost.

He was forced to acknowledge that luck had played a part in it too. He didn’t like luck because it was subject to whimsy, there one moment, gone the next. He had learned to accept it when it came along, but never to rely upon it. Fortune smiled on the prepared and the disciplined.

Their finding of his device was a setback, but one with some positive spin to it. They now knew someone was on their trail, but they would have learned that in their confrontation with McCullers. Hopefully, he had not carried on a conversation with them revealing important details about Massey. Surely the woman knew who was after her, but she - couldn’t
know him. The positive side was that they would relax a little, maybe even become careless, assuming that they had shaken whoever it was that was tailing them.

N
ot much in the truck,” Tanner said. “One thing was odd though.”

“Just one thing?” Hobbs asked. The two men were standing in front of Blanchard’s house. A small crowd of onlookers stood a discreet distance away. This was an upscale area where gawking was considered undignified. A concerned interest was, however, allowed.

“I found a cell phone in the sleeper cab.”

“That’s not strange. A lot of people—”

“This one was dismantled. Someone had pulled the battery pack out of it. And before you ask, I plugged the battery back in place. It had almost a full charge on it, so they weren’t just changing out the power source.”

“You’re thinking of the wrecked car, aren’t you?”

“Exactly,” Tanner said.

Hobbs was thinking about it too. The crumpled Lexus they had found on the roadside had had the hands-free cell phone torn out of its mountings. The onboard GPS system had also been deactivated. The phone in the truck had to be more than mere coincidence.

“So she tore the battery out of the cell phone,” Hobbs said, speaking more to himself than to Tanner.

“Or he did,” Tanner suggested.

Hobbs shook his head. “It has to be her. I imagine the phone is his.”

“It is. I had the number traced. It’s registered to a Nick Blanchard.”

Hobbs rubbed his temples in confusion. “The more we learn, the deeper in darkness we plunge. We can find no record for a Nick Blanchard, but the cellular phone company has an account on him. How does that happen? I don’t suppose you asked for his billing address, did you?”

“Sure did. Once I gave my badge number to the cell phone operator, I was able to get all kinds of information. Unfortunately none of it is worthwhile. The address is a post office box.”

“Let’s get a list of the calls he’s made on the device. Let’s also get one on the home phone. Maybe we can learn something useful that way.”

“My gut tells me that we’re going to run into a dead end with that.”

“I think your gut is right, but we have to look. You never know what you’re going to find. Besides, even dead-ends can teach us something.”

“Like what?”

“Do you know what a doctor does when he can’t find out what’s wrong with his patient? He starts determining what the problem isn’t. Bit by bit, he eliminates possibilities.”

“Did you get anything from the neighbors?” Tanner asked.

“Yeah, but not much. Only one had seen the car that had been in the garage and recognized it as a gray or silver Mitsubishi Gallant. Lucky for us, the guy’s daughter drives the same model.”

“But no license number.”

Hobbs shook his head. “I didn’t expect one. I don’t know the license number of my neighbor’s car, and I’m a cop. Why should he? I asked for an APB. The sheriff’s department has helicopters up, but finding a sedan after dark is going to be hard. I’m hoping that they’re holed up somewhere and not running on the freeway.”

“I assume you made calls to the local hospitals,” Tanner said.

“Yes. They’ve been alerted to be on the lookout for a gunshot
wound. That’s the greatest possibility. I’ve also asked that the local pharmacies be polled. It’s possible that they may try to pick up something to treat the wound themselves.”

“Step by painfully slow step,” Tanner opined.

“I hate to ask this again,” Lisa began, “but how much money do you have?”

“I don’t know,” Nick said. “Seventy-five, maybe a hundred dollars. Thinking of doing a little shopping?” His voice was softer, breathier. Lisa was afraid that he was weakening.

“We need to find a safe place for you to rest,” she said. “How’s the arm?”

“It hurts. I think it may be bleeding again.”

“I was afraid of that. You should have stayed in the car while I looked for the tracking device. I’m going to find a place to stop.” They were driving up the winding Dennison grade that led to the expansive ranch area of Upper Ojai. “Maybe I should turn around.”

“No,” Nick said. “I think there’s a small motel once we get to the top of the grade. It’s a few miles farther down. At least there used to be one. I haven’t been up here in a long time.”

“Hang in there,” Lisa said, her voice thick with concern.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Nick said. “It’s funny in a way. I rescue you from a highway in Mojave and take you to a motel to rest, and now you’re returning the favor. People are going to start talking.”

“Just as long as they don’t start shooting.”

Nick had been right. A small motel that looked as if it had been built in the fifties lay on the south side of the road three miles from the crest of the grade. Lisa pulled into the parking lot. Nick reached for the door.

“You stay put,” Lisa commanded. “You don’t need to be moving
around any more than you have to, and that bloody shirt is sure to arouse suspicion.”

“Okay, but take one of my credit cards. They’ll want it for a deposit.”

“No credit cards,” Lisa said. “They’re traceable.” She exited the car and walked into the lobby.

The establishment was better than the Pretty Penny Motel she had stayed in the night before. Although the buildings were old, they were well maintained, the walls freshly painted, and the grounds well manicured. The parking lot was free of weeds and lit by several light standards. “At least I’m moving up in the world,” Lisa said to herself.

The lobby was filled with art deco furnishings and painted a pale flamingo pink. In contrast to the walls the ceiling was a startling white and the carpet an orange-brown. Lisa shuddered. Behind the counter was a woman she judged to be in her early fifties trying to look like she was in her late twenties. Her hair was teased and her eyes caked with blue eye shadow.