Watch Your Back (29 page)

‘They reported their arrival to Dispatch at twelve twenty-four,’ Hyatt said, then added grimly, ‘and at twelve twenty-eight Dispatch received a report that it had been a false alarm and they were breaking for lunch.’

Surprised, Clay did a quick visual scan for the officers’ radios. They were gone. Whoever killed them had bought himself a few more minutes by filing a false report. ‘That narrows down the time of death considerably,’ he murmured. He looked up at his sliding glass window, specifically at the hole in the glass where the lock had been. ‘That was hurricane glass,’ he said. ‘Whoever came through there would have needed a Sawz-all with a diamond bit blade to get through it. They came prepared. Have the neighbors been canvassed?’

‘I have Novak and Coppola doing that now,’ Joseph said. ‘Since this is related to the attempts on Stevie’s life, it’s linked to the restaurant attack, the drive-by shooting, and the safe house attack last night – all under the umbrella of VCET jurisdiction. You’ve got camera surveillance, I assume.’

‘Of course. Can I have some gloves? Thanks,’ Clay said to Brodie when she handed him a pair. He opened his coat closet, dropped to his knees and removed a sports equipment box from the shelf that sat eight inches off the floor and ran the width of the closet. Below the shelf were several pairs of shoes. Tossing them into the box, he tugged the shelf back from the wall enough to run his finger through the gap, unlatching a panel that served as the closet’s back wall.

‘Do you have backup batteries?’ Joseph asked. ‘Because they cut your power and your secondary power. They also cut both alarm sirens – both inside and outside.’

‘The alarm runs on a different backup system. Once the alarm is tripped or the primary power is cut, it sends me an alert. The backup power they cut from outside is used when there’s a legit outage, like from a storm. The cameras, thermal and cellular alarms have their own backup power sources. One’s behind this wall and the other is in the basement.’

Clay cleared away the coats hanging from the closet pole, then gingerly gripped the panel and pulled it free, revealing his security system.

Joseph whistled. ‘Do you have a Bat Cave, too? With a fire pole? Please?’

‘Just a normal basement,’ Clay said dryly. ‘The cameras cover the entire interior of the house and run twenty-four/seven.’ He popped the DVD from the recorder. ‘I can run it on my laptop or you can run it on yours.’

‘Mine’s set up right here,’ Brodie said, reaching for the DVD.

‘Start it at noon.’

‘Paige didn’t call 911 to get a cruiser out here until twelve twenty,’ Hyatt told him.

‘But the first alert hit my cell at twelve ten. Because I didn’t acknowledge it, the next alert went out at twelve thirteen, to both my cell and Paige’s. She called me several times and when I didn’t answer, she called 911 and started driving here herself.’

‘She called me right after she called 911,’ Hyatt said, ‘but then I got the all-clear from Dispatch so I didn’t come out. Now we know that all-clear was fake.’

‘I’ve got the video cued up,’ Brodie said and everyone crowded around her laptop.

‘Wait a sec.’ Clay carried her laptop to his fifty-two-inch TV and connected the two. ‘Hit play. Camera three will give you his approach from the backyard to the slider. Camera five—’

Brodie motioned him to her laptop. ‘Take the wheel, Clay.’

‘Okay.’ He chose the camera that focused on the slider from the outside, fast-forwarded until a man came into the picture, dressed in coveralls and carrying a toolbox. He wore a baseball cap low over his face, hiding his features except for his ears.

‘He’s big enough to break two necks,’ Hyatt commented.

‘He’s a wrestler,’ Clay said. ‘Or was. He has cauliflower ears.’ He changed to the camera pointing toward the street and skipped back to a minute before the man had shown up around the back. The curb was empty until the man drove up in a nondescript Toyota Sequoia, its front plates obscured by mud. ‘Shit. Can’t make out the plates.’

He switched back to the camera focused on the slider and watched as the intruder boldly climbed the stairs to the deck, and using his toolbox as a stepstool, reached up to snip the siren wires. ‘That’s the first alert I got at twelve ten.’

‘Why didn’t you see the alerts?’ Joseph asked.

Because I was almost having sex with Stevie.
Clay avoided looking at her, lest he give them away. ‘I was working out.’ Not entirely untrue. He’d been sweaty and out of breath. ‘Got in the shower and didn’t get out until twelve twenty-five. That’s when I saw all the texts and calls from Paige.’ He pointed to the TV screen. ‘Sawz-all.’ The intruder was working at the glass with the handheld electric saw, cutting through in less than a minute. ‘That’s got to be one hell of a blade.’

Joseph shook his head. ‘He came prepared, just like you said.’

‘He’s even wearing eye protection,’ Quartermaine added bitterly. ‘Gotta love the safety-conscious killer.’

The man unsheathed a knife as he entered the house. His next move was to locate the siren inside the house and snip its wires as well. Then he began slicing the sofa cushions, methodically searching. The goggles he wore covered half his face, the lens distorting the view of his eyes. A scarf covered the lower half of his face, rendering him unidentifiable.

‘Safety-conscious and cocky as hell,’ Hyatt murmured as the man looked straight up into the camera and gave two gloved thumbs up. ‘Sonofabitch.’

‘He didn’t even try to turn the alarms off. He just wanted the sirens silenced.’ Clay changed cameras, following the man through his house, gritting his teeth at the path of destruction he left in his wake. He dumped desk drawers and closet contents, knifed up mattresses, yanked pictures off the walls, breaking the glass and leaving photos strewn. In his bedroom closet, the man easily found Clay’s firebox. He tucked it under his arm and kept searching. ‘Shit,’ Clay hissed.

‘What was in it?’ Joseph asked.

‘Nothing to tell him where Stevie and Cordelia are hiding.’ Clay blew out a breath, tamping his temper. ‘It’s my baseball card collection from when I was a kid. Which is wrong to get angry about, considering he’s about to kill two cops.’ He hissed another breath when the guy approached the model boat he’d built with his grandfather St James eons ago. ‘Don’t do it. Don’t—’ The guy reduced the model to a pile of splintered balsa. ‘Goddammit.’

Joseph briefly squeezed his shoulder.

Clay’s fists clenched at his sides when the man picked up a ceramic vase on his nightstand. He wanted to close his eyes, dreading what was probably coming. He flinched when the vase hit the floor and broke into dozens of pieces.
Dammit.

A warm body moved close to Clay and he didn’t have to look to know who it was. He’d know her scent anywhere. ‘I’m sorry,’ Stevie whispered. ‘Who made the vase?’

‘My mom. Right before she died.’

Stevie exhaled. ‘I’m so sorry.’

He wondered what she was sorry for, but didn’t ask. Didn’t trust his voice. The bastard was crouching next to the broken pottery, flicking the pieces with his finger. He picked a few items from the rubble and held them up to the light coming through the window.

Impotent rage rushed through Clay as he watched the man toss his mother’s watch and ring into his toolbox without care.

‘You didn’t have them in your safe?’ Brodie asked, sadly.

‘It was a twenty-dollar Timex. The ring I gave her when I was a boy. They’re worth nothing, really.’ And yet, everything. Goddamn that cocksucker.
If I ever get my hands on you . . .

The intruder checked his watch and peeked out Clay’s bedroom window at the street. Shrugging, the guy left the bedroom and went to the kitchen where he proceeded to empty every canister in the garbage. He rifled through cookbooks, leaving them on the floor. Then he snatched the picture Cordelia had drawn with crayon from Clay’s refrigerator door.

Don’t do it. Don’t you even touch it
. But the guy was, turning the paper over, examining it closely. His shoulders moved as if he laughed. Carefully he ripped the paper, then reaffixed it to the fridge with more magnets.

‘What is it?’ Hyatt asked.

Brodie patted Clay’s arm. ‘I’ll get it.’ She came back a few seconds later, as the man was rifling through Clay’s coat closet, the very one that held his surveillance equipment. He crouched, checking for a panel, coming perilously close to finding it.

‘It’s a threat,’ Brodie said.

‘To who?’ Stevie asked.

Clay looked at the two halves of the drawing Brodie held. ‘To you, Stevie.’

Stevie gasped. ‘That’s . . . me. And . . .’ She bent closer. ‘And you?’

Cordelia had drawn her mother in a hospital bed and Clay standing next to the bed, a halo over his head. One knew the participating players because Cordelia had been considerate enough to write their names with bold arrows pointing to the people who were basically stick figures.

‘Cordelia made it for me when you were in the hospital,’ Clay said gruffly. At least it was salvageable, once he got it back from BPD’s evidence room. If he ever did.

Mr Cocksucker had torn the page, neatly severing Stevie’s head from her shoulders.

Clay forced his mind back to the cameras. The man was in the basement but there was nothing for him to destroy down there. Within a minute, he was back upstairs and leaving – this time through the garage. The front facing exterior camera showed him tossing Clay’s firebox on the passenger seat, getting in, and driving away.

His whole ‘visit’ had lasted no more than seven minutes.

‘Okay,’ Joseph said slowly. ‘He just left? I mean, just like that?’

‘He’s gotta come back,’ Stevie said. ‘Hollinsworth and Locklear didn’t kill themselves.’

Clay fast-forwarded the video, slowing when a sand-colored Chevy Tahoe stopped on the curb. A different man got out, also dressed in workman’s coveralls. This one had a backpack slung over one shoulder. He, too, wore a ball cap pulled low over his face.

Mr Backpack walked up to Clay’s house, knocked on the front door. When there was no answer, he jogged around to the side, where he opened the door the first guy had left unlocked.

‘What the hell?’ Clay muttered.

Mr Backpack waltzed in through the laundry room, taking a moment to do a turn, taking the place in. He pulled the brim of the ball cap down to cover his face while he reached under the cap to tug a ski mask over his face, the movement fluid. Like he’d done it many times before.

Beside him, Stevie flinched.

‘What?’ Clay asked and she shrugged fitfully.

‘It’s just . . . There’s something about that guy creeps me out.’

Mr Backpack followed the same path Cocksucker had, checking through the debris. In Clay’s bedroom, the man sifted through the photos that Cocksucker had left on the floor, brushed off the glass, and put them in his pack.

‘Sonofabitch,’ Clay bit out.

‘He took your photos,’ Brodie said. ‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. Other than the pictures of my mother, I don’t even really remember all the ones I had out. They become kind of background noise.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Stevie murmured again. ‘They’re irreplaceable.’

‘Not really. I’ve got the photos scanned to a flashdrive which is stored in my safe deposit box, along with anything else that he might have actually been interested in.’

‘Well, what do you know about that?’ Hyatt murmured. ‘Look.’

The man had paused, pulling a shadowbox-style frame from the debris. ‘My medals,’ Clay said. ‘My mother had them framed for me, years ago.’

Then the guy stunned him by carefully setting the frame against the dresser. ‘We found them there,’ Brodie said. ‘I wouldn’t have even considered that one of these guys would do that.’

‘Most definitely former military,’ Clay said. ‘The way he was careful with the medals? This guy saw combat. He may have even been wounded.’

‘Why?’ Stevie asked, leaning closer to the TV, trying to see the medals up close.

‘One’s a Purple Heart,’ Hyatt said. ‘The other’s a Silver Star.’

‘Purple Heart is for wounded in the line of duty,’ Stevie said. ‘The Silver Star for valor.’

‘Yeah,’ Clay said, suddenly uncomfortable.

Mr Backpack was jogging down the hall, checking the kitchen. Then he stopped. Cocked his head as if listening for something.

‘It’s twelve twenty-four,’ Hyatt said, dread in his voice.

On the video, Mr Backpack stood at the side of the sliding glass door, waiting for the cop who came in through the slider.
Twist
.

A few seconds later the second cop came in through the garage.
Twist.

Everyone gathered around the TV cringed, silently watching.

Backpack unsheathed a knife, slit the two cops’ throats, took their radios, then waltzed back out through the garage. Clay switched the camera to street view and they watched him get in the Chevy Tahoe and drive away.

‘Pause it,’ Joseph commanded. ‘Can you catch his back plate?’

Clay had already frozen the frame, and, heart suddenly racing, tapped Brodie’s keyboard to zoom in. ‘How’s that?’ he asked with satisfaction. Unlike the front plate, the number on the back was as clear as day.

‘Perfect,’ Joseph said grimly. He stepped away from the group to call it in.

Clay hit ‘play’ again, watching as the Tahoe drove away. And then something unexpected happened. ‘Joseph.’ Clay motioned him back over to the TV. ‘Look at this.’

Joseph frowned. ‘What the hell?’

The black Toyota Sequoia was back in the picture – literally. The SUV had come from the opposite direction, almost as if it had been waiting. Mr Cocksucker ran around Clay’s house, up the stairs to the deck. He skidded to a halt outside the sliding glass doors, upset, but still enough in control that he kept his head down, his face hidden.

‘He was waiting for something, but not for this,’ Stevie said.

Clay frowned. ‘He was waiting for you, Stevie. That’s why he didn’t even try to bypass the alarm. He knew the alarm would draw the cops, me, and by extension, you. He probably planned to take a shot at you when you walked from the curb to the front door.’

‘God,’ Stevie whispered. Then her chin came up, her jaw squared. ‘But he’s not waiting for me any more now. I wonder where he went.’