The Sentry (15 page)

The fridge was scaled with takeout menus held on by magnets. Cole opened it and found the refrigerator stocked with milk, beer, soda, and what appeared to be fried oysters and shrimp in greasy white cartons. Would two people in the restaurant business leave food they knew would go bad in the refrigerator?

When Cole closed the fridge, he noticed a hand-printed note taped to the door. He hadn’t seen it before because it was lost among the takeout menus.

London was eight hours ahead. It was late, but Steve Brown might be up. If Smith took the time to call Button, maybe he called his landlord, too. Cole dialed the number.

Brown’s phone rang six times before voice mail picked up.

“Mr. Brown, my name is Elvis Cole. I’m in Los Angeles. Would you please give me a call about Wilson Smith and Dru Rayne?”

Cole left his number, hung up, then went to the window over the sink. It was the last thing he would check before leaving. He had found no hard evidence of either an abduction or a trip, and was already deciding which of his LAPD contacts to call about Mendoza and Gomer. The house had been a bust, and his head was out of the game.

He studied the window’s latches and interior frame, and that’s when he saw a single deep cut on an exterior part of the frame. A thin, bright groove sparkled across the metal near the latch, far shinier than the surrounding metal. Cole touched the handle, and the window slid effortlessly open. Once the window was open, he saw a deep dimple in the frame. Cole closed the window. He stared at it for a few seconds, then called Joe Pike.

“Did you check the kitchen window?”

“Yes. All the windows.”

“The window over the sink.”

“You found something?”

“Someone forced it open. I’m looking at it. There’s a scratch on the frame where the screwdriver slipped, and the frame is bent by the latch. None of this was here this morning?”

“No.”

“The latch is broken. The window slides free.”

“Not this morning.”

“Which means this didn’t happen until three or four hours after Jared saw Mendoza.”

“Find anything in the house?”

“Nada. No sign they were taken. No sign they went on a trip. Nothing.”

“I understand.”

“I don’t.”

“Understand later. I just left Button. You don’t have much time.”

Cole put away his phone and stared at the window. Maybe he did not find evidence of a crime because someone had already found it. Maybe there had been many signs of a struggle, but someone cleaned the crime scene.

Cole returned to the front entry and was about to let himself out when he noticed the empty bookcase. Steve Brown showed prudence by storing his valuable items. Maybe his books and computers weren’t the only things he decided to hide.

Cole ran his fingers along the top of the bookcase and found a weathered key. He tried it in the front door, and found that it fit the deadbolt perfectly. Brown had stashed his spare key inside while he was gone instead of leaving it outside where a passing burglar might find it. A smart move made by someone who knew all the tricks because he had written so many cop shows.

Cole let himself out. He used the key to lock the deadbolt, then hid it behind the fence.

Cole cracked open the front gate, made sure no one was watching, then pulled off the vinyl gloves and let himself out. He took a single deep breath, released it, and let the tension he carried out with it. He had seen with fresh eyes, and now everything was different, and maybe everything Pike feared was true.

Cole crossed the alley for a better view of Smith’s house, then looked from one end of the alley to the other. It was crowded by wall-to-wall houses, with only one way in or out for cars. A person could enter or leave by the pedestrian bridges, but for cars there was only one way out. It was a lousy place to do crime, but lousy places for crime were great places for witnesses.

A skinny guy with stringy black hair came to the upper window at the Palmer house. This would be Jared. He stared at Cole with a serious frown, and Cole stared back, thinking if there was one Jared, there might be more.

Cole had decided to knock on doors when a tan Crown Victoria turned into the alley, heading his way. A man was driving, with a woman in the passenger seat. Cole knew they were cops, and wondered if the man was Button.

The outsized Detroit sedan was so wide it filled the street. Cole stepped to the side to let them pass, and gave them a cheery wave.

“Beautiful day, isn’t it? Great walking weather.”

The man looked at Cole as if Cole was litter.

“Great if you don’t have to work for a living.”

The woman seemed embarrassed.

Cole continued on his way. Behind him, the Crown Vic stopped in front of the Palmers’ house, and the man and the woman got out.

Cole strolled down the center of the street, checking the houses for large facing windows or decks with clear views of the street, but found something better.

A dark green contemporary home sat across the street and two doors down from the Smith house. It had sleek lines, a flat roof, and a large steel door. A security camera that looked like a black bubble clung to a wall beside the door.

Cole checked to see what the police were doing, and saw that the Palmers’ front door was now open. Jared and his mother were in the street with the officers.

Cole drifted closer to the camera. Because it was focused on the gate, the camera probably did not have a full-on view of the street, but it might see enough for a glimpse of a passing car.

Cole felt a subtle electric tingle that came when he knew he was in the hunt. Many security systems were hooked to a DVR. Some only recorded when the bell was pressed, but others recorded continuously on a rewritable disk. The camera might give him nothing, but it also might give him everything.

Cole took a last glance back at the Palmer house. The door was closed, and now the two officers were inside. Talking to Jared.

Cole turned the corner, and then, like Joe Pike, he ran.

P
ike woke with damp sheets twisted around his legs. He was alert and awake, but had no memory of his nightmare. Pike never remembered. Sometimes in the first moments of consciousness, he saw dim shapes, one shadow over another, but never more than that. Nothing new, and nothing he wasted time worrying about. Pike had suffered night terrors since he was a boy.

Pike checked his watch. The luminous hands told him it was 3:17 in the morning. Cole had relieved him ninety minutes ago, and now sat outside Carla Fuentes’s house, waiting for Mendoza. Pike had come home to grab some rest, but his sleep was finished for the night.

Pike untangled the sheets, then swung his feet from the bed. He saw his cell phone on the nightstand and thought of Dru. He checked the phone, but found no messages or missed calls.

Pike pulled on a pair of light blue running shorts, yesterday’s sweatshirt, and carried his shoes downstairs before putting them on. He didn’t turn on the lights. He didn’t need to. He saw well enough in the dark.

Downstairs, he drank half a bottle of water, put on his shoes, then strapped on a nylon fanny pack. He wore the fanny pack to carry his phone, keys, DL, and a .25-caliber Beretta pocket gun.

Pike deactivated his alarm, set it to re-arm in sixty seconds, then let himself out.

He stood very still, taking the measure of his surroundings, then stretched and set off on his run. Pike almost always ran the same four or five routes, heading up along Ocean Boulevard through Santa Monica to the canyons, or around Baldwin Hills on La Cienega past the oil pumps. That night, he ran west on Washington Boulevard straight to the sea, then north to the top of the Venice Canals and an arched pedestrian bridge. He stopped at the crest of the bridge to look down the length of the canal.

A dog barked further inland somewhere in Ghost Town, and Pike heard vehicles on nearby Pacific Boulevard, but here the houses slept. The smell of the sea was strong. The largest canal—Grand Canal—ran to the ocean through Marina del Rey, and fed the five inland canals with life. Small fish swam in the shallow water, and sea plants grew in wavy clumps.

Pike had chosen this bridge because it gave him a view of Dru’s house. Many of the homes had exterior security lights, which now shimmered on the water, but the distance and coastal mist made picking out her house difficult. He found Lily Palmer’s large white modern first, then Dru’s redwood on the far side. Like many of the other homes, it was dotted by bright exterior floodlights which were probably on an automatic timer. Then he noticed the upstairs bedroom was lit. He watched the light, searching for shadows, but nothing moved.

Pike trotted off the bridge and along the narrow alleys to Dru’s house. Nothing and no one stirred, and no dogs barked. Pike thought, these people should have dogs.

Streetlamps and security lights blazed hot in the confined lane, giving the mist a purple-blue glow. Pike stopped outside Dru’s house. A few windows glowed dull ocher in the surrounding houses, but most were dark and all were quiet. No one was awake. Even Jared’s window was dark.

Pike took his cell phone from the fanny pack, and thumbed the speed-dial button for Elvis Cole. Cole answered on the second ring, his voice soft, but completely alert.

“What’s up?”

Pike spoke in a whisper.

“You leave a light on in the top bedroom at Dru’s?”

“A light?”

“I’m outside the house. The upstairs bedroom is lit.”

“I was up there. I don’t remember turning on a light, but I don’t remember not turning it on, either. I don’t know.”

“Mm.”

“You think someone’s in there now?”

“Just wondering about the light.”

“You going inside?”

“Yes.”

“The spare key I found, it’s behind the fence next to the gatepost. Not the one next to the house. The other side.”

“Anything on your end?”

“Lights out, game over. She’s in a coma.”

“Okay.”

“Listen. Call me when you leave there, okay? You don’t call, I’m gonna come over there expecting to save you, then I’ll miss Mendoza.”

Pike put away the phone. He breathed in the air and the street and the scent of the sea, listening, but heard only ambient noise. He stepped into the shadows near the gate, then lifted himself over and dropped silently into the courtyard. He paused to listen, then felt for the key.

He used a full minute to ease the key into the lock, another minute to turn the knob, and two full minutes to open the door. The entry was dark, fielding only a dim glow that escaped from above. Pike strained to catch sounds from the house, but heard nothing. Only then did he close the door.

Pike moved through the house without turning on lights, and avoided the windows. The big windows allowed enough ambient light for him to see that nothing was disturbed. Everything was as he remembered and as Cole described.

He reached the top bedroom, but did not enter. A nightstand lamp was on. Pike thought back to his fast trip through the house that morning, but didn’t remember the lamp. It was a small lamp. During the day, its light could have been swallowed by the sun, which explained why he and Cole didn’t remember it, but Pike didn’t like not knowing. The lamp was a problem.

Pike backed away, let himself out, locked the door, and replaced the key by the fence. He stood in the courtyard for another moment, listening, then slipped through the shadows alongside Dru’s house until he reached the edge of the canal.

He wondered where Dru and Wilson were, and if they were all right. He wanted to believe they were, but he knew this was unlikely. He heard a distant barking again, and wondered if it was a sea lion out past the locks.

Pike studied the houses across the canal, and the far bridge where he had just been standing. Needle feet crept up his back along with the words in Wilson’s shop.

I am here
.

Pike stepped backward into the shadows. He slowed his breathing, and silenced his body to listen. He searched the far bank for reflections and movement. The water lapped. Lights bounced on its obsidian surface. Pike wondered if predators swam this far inland. He wondered if they hid beneath the surface.

Daniel watched him cross the bridge, tall dude out for a run in the middle of the night, dark glasses tight across his eyes, these L.A. people, what’s up with that? Probably used sunblock, too.

Cleo whispered, “Shh. He’ll hear you thinking.”

Tobey hissed, “Shh. Hear your brain.”

Like water snakes in the weeds.

Daniel said, “Please be quiet. Doesn’t the water feel good?”

“Cold.”

“Cold.”

Their voices echoed to silence.

Daniel was submerged to his nose in shallow water, hidden beneath a wooden dock on the opposite side of the canal. Daniel, Cleo, and Tobey, watching.