Going Gone (11 page)

“Son of a bitch,” Hershel muttered.

He grabbed the body by the legs and began dragging it toward the water. His own legs were trembling, and the pulled muscle in his back was reminding him it was there by the time he reached the water’s edge. Relieved that it was over, he gave the body a shove.

“Bon voyage,” he said, and stumbled back to the van.

After checking the interior to make sure nothing had fallen out of Trent’s pockets, he drove away, relieved the job was over.

It was almost midnight when he got back. He drove past Lucy Taft’s house to his apartment, breathing a quiet sigh of relief that he was home. As he got out, he grabbed the sack with his burger and fries. He was halfway up the steps when he began smelling smoke from somewhere in the distance. He looked over his shoulder toward the house and caught a glimpse of someone in an upstairs window. When he realized it was his landlady with a pair of binoculars, his heart skipped a beat.

He ran the rest of the way up and quickly locked himself inside. Instead of turning on the lights, he made his way through the rooms, using the glow of moonlight to see. He changed clothes in the dark and then settled down to eat by the light of the television.

He felt uneasy, knowing she’d been watching him, and wasn’t sure what that meant, but he had no qualms about killing her, too, should the need arise. In fact, the more he thought about it, the better the idea sounded. It would be the perfect way to tie up loose ends before he left. Satisfied that he’d solved another problem, he stuffed a couple of French fries in his mouth and then reached for the salt.

* * *

Lucy Taft had been sound asleep when she was awakened by a loud explosion. She threw back her covers and rushed to the windows, immediately horrified by a huge orange glow over the housetops and pillars of smoke billowing into the distant night air. She ran to the library to get William Harold’s binoculars and then hurried back to her bedroom. The orange glow was getting bigger, but even with the binoculars, she was still unable to see what was burning. She was still standing at the window when Paul Leibowitz drove in.

She registered him glancing her way but didn’t care as she glanced at the time. The air was filling with sirens, and she knew whatever had happened, it was bad.

“God’s blessings and healing upon you,” she whispered, then put down the binoculars and crawled back in bed.

* * *

Charles Trent’s abduction was discovered when two members of the cleaning crew came out to their van for supplies and saw the door of his van standing wide-open, the lift still down, and the wheelchair tipped over a short distance away.

The police were on the scene within minutes. They bagged the manila envelope and his keys and briefcase, and started looking for witnesses.

The guard on the night desk confirmed the time Charles had left the building. They looked at security footage, but the parking lot was too dark for them to tell what had happened. Trent showed up on the footage when the headlights came on in his car, but when he passed the bumper, he disappeared. A few minutes later they could see a van leaving the parking lot, but with no identifying marks and no way to see the color or the tag number, it didn’t further the investigation.

They called his secretary and asked when she’d seen him last. When she learned about her boss’s disappearance, first she cried, and then she went into duty mode and came back to the office to help Detective Jenkins, the cop who’d caught the case. She went through Trent’s files with steel-eyed diligence, giving Jenkins a list of names and backgrounds on past clients who might be holding a grudge. The man
was
a lawyer, and lawyers pissed a lot of people off.

* * *

Cameron and Laura were eating late after their session at the gym. She was quiet all through dinner. All the joy of her upcoming wedding had been crushed by what was happening.

Cameron knew her well enough not to push. If she wanted to talk about something, she would let him know. When they began cleaning up the kitchen, he turned on the television to catch part of the late news. He was drying pans and putting them away when the local newscast was interrupted by a breaking story. They both stopped to watch.

“...just now on the scene of what appears to have been an abduction. Local lawyer Charles Trent, who was paralyzed from the waist down over twenty years ago, has disappeared. A cleaning crew in the building where his office is located noticed his vehicle door open and his wheelchair lying on its side in the parking lot.”

Charles Trent’s picture came up on the screen as the newscaster continued to talk.

“Police are looking into his past cases, searching for disgruntled clients.”

“I know him,” Cameron said as he walked up behind her. “I’ve seen him trying cases in court. Nice guy. Never let his condition get him down.”

Laura leaned against him without comment.

He wrapped his arms around her and kissed the back of her ear.

“We’re nearly through here, honey. Why don’t you go take a nice hot bath...soak the soreness out of some of those muscles? I’ll finish up.”

She turned around and hugged him.

“You’re the best, and I’m sorry about your friend. Maybe they’ll find him alive.”

Cameron frowned. “It’s not likely. When cops and lawyers go missing, it’s usually because they’ve pissed off the wrong bad guys. So go soak your sweet self. I’ll be in to check on you later...just to make sure you haven’t fallen asleep in the tub.”

He watched her leave, eyeing the drag in her step and the slump in her shoulders, and wondered if the self-defense lesson was the cause of this sadness. Had it put her back in that victim mind-set she’d tried so hard to get past?

* * *

Laura stripped in the bathroom and clipped her hair high on her head so it wouldn’t get wet. She eyed the silver cross hanging between her breasts as the tub filled, then turned away and added some of her favorite bath salts. She slowly eased down into the heat with the bath pillow behind her neck, then took a deep breath and closed her eyes, all but floating in the hot, steamy depths.

Five minutes turned into ten, and she was trying to decide whether to get out or add some more hot water when an explosion rocked the house. The lights flickered as she climbed out of the bathtub in a panic. She grabbed a large bath towel, wrapping it around her body as she bolted out of the bedroom screaming Cameron’s name.

Cameron was in the living room watching television when the explosion sounded. He jumped up from the sofa and ran to the windows as flames began spiraling up above the housetops nearby, then heard Laura scream. He turned just as she came running down the hall, dripping water as she went.

He caught her in midflight and swept her up into his arms, then headed back into the bedroom.

“Hey, honey. You’re going to freeze out here like this. Let’s go back and get you dried off and dressed, okay?”

Laura was shaking as she clung to him.

“Did you hear that explosion? Are we in danger? What happened?”

“Yes, I heard it. I don’t know what happened, but I’ll find out in a bit. Right now, let’s get you dried off.”

He handed her a towel and went to get some sweats out of the dresser while she finished drying.

She was sitting on the closed lid of the commode when he came back into the bathroom. She was staring at the scar on her leg and the bruises on her body, wondering how much all of that would show when she went for the fitting for her wedding dress in a couple of days.

He frowned. “Did you get all those bruises this evening at the gym?”

“I guess,” she said.

“Son of a bitch.”

She blinked and then looked up at the devastation in his eyes.

“You didn’t hurt me. I wanted to do it.”

He shook his head and then handed her the sweats.

She put on the pants and was pulling the top over her head when they began hearing sirens.

Cameron rushed out of the bathroom with Laura right behind him.

The moment she looked out the window and saw the flames for the first time, her training kicked into gear. She grabbed the landline phone and quickly called the police.

“Reston P.D.”

“Please connect me with the officer in charge of this shift.”

“One moment, please.”

Laura waited a few moments and then heard a click, followed by a gruff voice.

“This is Lieutenant Sharp.”

“Lieutenant, this is Laura Doyle with the American Red Cross. I live in Reston and just heard an explosion. I can see the flames from my home. Can you tell me what happened? I need to know what, if any, emergency services might be needed.”

“I don’t know details, Ms. Doyle, only that a gas main exploded. We’ve had conflicting reports of two, maybe three, blocks being leveled, but I can’t confirm that.”

Laura closed her eyes, imagining the devastation.

“Thank you. This was very helpful.”

She hung up.

“A gas main exploded in a residential neighborhood. Initial reports are that two or three blocks have been leveled. I have to get down there and see for myself what’s needed.”

She started back down the hall toward the bedroom, but Cameron was right behind her.

“I go where you go on this one,” he said.

She didn’t argue.

Within ten minutes they were in the car and on their way toward the blaze. Cameron moved quickly through the streets, taking alleys and small side streets to get closer to the fire, and then they ran into a roadblock.

Laura got out of the car, leaving Cameron behind the wheel, and flashed her credentials as she looked for someone in charge.

She was directed to an officer another block down the street and gave Cameron a quick wave before jogging toward him.

Cameron never took his eyes off her, and when she returned a few minutes later, he was waiting.

She leaped in the car, buckling her seat belt as she talked.

“Take me home. I have enough information on my home computer to initiate emergency services, and then I’ll go from there. If I have to drive into D.C. to my office later, then so be it.”

Cameron quickly turned around and headed home.

“What happened? Does anyone know?”

“I doubt it, but I saw live footage on the lieutenant’s laptop. Four blocks on both sides of the street are leveled, the worst I’ve seen. They can’t search for bodies because of the fire, and they’re evacuating at least ten blocks in every direction until the gas has been shut off. It looks like a war zone.”

Cameron shook his head, thinking of all the people who had been eating dinner, watching TV or sleeping in their beds. They probably never knew what hit them.

* * *

The next morning dawned cool and brisk. It was Lucy Taft’s favorite time of year. She dressed in a pair of old wool slacks and an even older fuzzy sweater. She added her favorite corduroy jacket, and took her pruning shears and a basket as she went outside to deadhead the last of the flowers in her garden.

The garden was too large for her now, but she refused to give it up. She hired people during the hot weather to help with the weeding and mowing. But when the days began growing shorter, the nights colder and Mother Nature began putting her babies to bed, it was all hers.

She set the basket aside and began clipping old blooms from her chrysanthemum bed with a steady snip, snip. She’d been at it for at least fifteen minutes when she heard footsteps behind her. Thinking it was probably Mildred coming to urge her back inside, she ignored them.

“Excuse me,” Hershel said.

Lucy stood up and turned around. “Oh, Mr. Leibowitz! I thought you were Mildred coming to talk me into going inside, and I didn’t want to go. It’s so nice out this morning.”

“Yes, ma’am, it is nice,” Hershel said, eyeing her pruning shears. “Those are some wicked-looking scissors you have there.”

She glanced down and then shrugged. “I guess. I’ve had them for ages, and they do the job. Do you garden? I love to garden. I like to do my own deadheading, too, don’t you?”

She didn’t wait for him to answer as she moved on to the next patch in need of cleaning up.

He stuck his hands in his pockets and began following her along the path.

“Yes, ma’am, I’m a strong proponent of taking care of my own business. I don’t butt into other people’s business, either.”

Lucy missed the double entendre as she reached across a bed of marigolds to snip off an old rose hip she’d missed before. It didn’t do to let them go to seed like that. William Harold always believed it weakened the main stalk.

She put the clipping in her basket and thought about her grandson, William Herman. Someone had done too much pruning on him back when he was young. He didn’t have a lick of William Harold’s backbone, and it was a damn shame.

Her thoughts turned to the explosion she’d heard last night and something occurred to her. She stopped and turned around, eyeing Paul with such intensity that he thought she was about to out him.

“You were out late last night.”

Breath caught in the back of his throat. He frowned.

“Yes, I was. And you were up late, as well. I saw you standing at the window looking through a pair of binoculars.”

Lucy was so curious to learn what had been on fire that she missed the sarcasm.

“I know. The explosion was so loud it woke me, but I couldn’t see anything but an orange glow over the rooftops, even with my binoculars. I mentioned your late arrival hoping maybe you’d seen it on your way home and knew what had happened.”

Hershel was so relieved he wasn’t going to have to kill her—yet—that he almost laughed.

“Oh, so that’s what you were looking at. I thought you were looking at me.”

Lucy’s heart skipped a beat. All of a sudden she felt threatened and had a sense that this conversation could have turned out much differently.

“Well, yes, of course I saw you drive in, but I’d been at the window for at least fifteen minutes. So you didn’t see the fire?”

“No, ma’am, although I did smell smoke when I got out of my car. Maybe it will be in the morning paper.”

“It wasn’t. I looked. Probably happened after they’d put the paper to bed. I should have stayed inside to watch the news this morning. I’m sure it’s on TV, but I wanted to do this while the day was young.” Then she shrugged. “No matter. I’ll call one of the boys. They always know what’s going on.”