Wounded Animals (Whistleblower Series Book 1) (16 page)

I started to descend the hill once I had the rental car in my sights. The snow around it was patchy and uneven, and the keys could have landed somewhere over there.

“Where are you, Candle?” Darren said, but I still couldn’t see him. “This isn’t going to reflect well when I report back to Wyatt. You were almost cooperating, but now you’ve really fucked yourself. All bets are off, you stupid shit.”

He was right. I’d lost any goodwill accumulated by agreeing to kill Kareem. There was no turning back now, so I had to get away from Darren and plot my next move. Had to call Grace back.

Once I was next to the car, I started patting around the snow, looking for a hole where the keys could have landed.

“Come on out,” he said. He was close. But I still couldn’t tell where the voice came from.

Then I saw it. A depression in the snow and something silvery and black inside.

Darren popped up on the other side of a car, fifteen feet away. “Stop running, you fuck!”

I snatched the keys and jumped over the hood of the car, just like a Hollywood stunt driver.

***

As I opened the car door and slammed the keys into the ignition, Darren was scrambling through the snow to get to me, his chest heaving. He was shouting, but the windows were up and I didn’t hear a word of it.

Maybe I’d doomed myself and Grace. But she had called, and that meant more than some grainy little Polaroid picture. This was the sign I’d been waiting for.

Started the car, slammed my foot on the gas. As I sped away down the curvy street, I saw Darren start up a car and throw snow into the air as he peeled out of a parking spot.

I’d never been in a car chase before. What was I supposed to do if he caught up with me? Would he ram the car and try to drive me off the road into some innocent person’s house? Couldn’t put anyone else in danger, no matter what.

With one hand on the wheel, careening through the neighborhood, I glanced down at the phone in my other hand. Dialed Grace’s number. Went straight to voicemail.

“Shit, shit, shit! What the hell is going on here?”

I dialed again, still voicemail.

So now I had a sociopathic killer chasing me, and my wife had tried to make contact, but she wasn’t answering her phone. I had no idea where to go or what to do next.

A tiny seed of an idea popped into my head that maybe she was at home and couldn’t answer the phone for some reason, but if I sped there, she’d be waiting.

She’d be there and I could grab her and we’d get out and away from all this. Move far away, as Kareem had advised me that night at Ernie’s bar. That had been a week ago, but a world away.

It was a terrible idea because racing back to my house seemed like the most obvious thing, something Darren would be expecting me to do. But my house was just as good a place as any. These ruthless people could find me anywhere.

As I turned out of the Boulder neighborhood, I caught sight of Darren’s car turning onto my side street. I geared down to accelerate and joined the traffic, headed for the highway.

My phone rang again. I didn’t recognize the number, but my finger jabbed the screen to accept the call. “Grace?”

“Nope,” Darren said. “Where are you going, Candle?”

His voice was so calm and even. It sent a rush of anger through my blood like nothing I’d ever experienced before. “Fuck you, Darren. Fuck Wyatt, Detective Shelton, and those two lackeys who kidnapped me. Fuck all of you people. I don’t care what you do anymore. I’m going to get my wife back and if you get in my way, I’ll cut you down.”

I couldn’t believe the words coming out of my own mouth. Especially since they had all the power and I had no kind of a plan. But something was driving me. I’d been beaten and bruised and made to watch terrible things and I was determined to take some control back. Let them know they didn’t own me.

“Such a mouth on you. I wish you wouldn’t say such terrible things. I would’ve thought we’d made it painfully clear—”

I hung up on him and joined the highway. I could see him in my rearview mirror, but I didn’t care. He was wearing a grin and shaking his head.

At first, I wondered why he was smiling, but it was probably because I hadn’t yet noticed the giant traffic jam up ahead. When I realized that I was a half mile back in the line of cars, my head started pounding. Ambulance up ahead, both lanes blocked near the beginning of the hill that led out of Boulder Valley. Construction equipment littered the sides of the highway.

There was a cop letting cars pass on the shoulder one by one, but the line was so long, I figured I might have a half hour to wait.

I glanced in the rearview and saw Darren, about fifteen cars back. He was leaning out of his window, with a hand raised to block out the sun.

He opened his car door.

My skin prickled. I was trapped between two cars, and Darren was walking toward me, down the line of cars. His hands were in his pockets and his cheeks were concave as if he were whistling. Not a care in the world.

He would reach my car in less than a minute. With a chuckle, he slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out a knife. He kept it low but pointed the tip of the blade at me.

I looked everywhere, trying to think. My brain felt muddy and my eyes bleary, but my heart was racing faster than a hamster on a wheel. Nowhere to go. The car ahead of me inched forward, clearing a little bit of space.

Then an idea materialized. Checked the side view mirror. He was five cars back, taking his time, strolling along.

“Okay, psycho, just a little closer.”

He ran a hand through his hair and pulled his jacket tight around his body. Two cars away. Then when he opened his mouth to speak, I yanked the wheel hard to the right and gunned it. Because of the construction, there was a break in the barrier wall on the side of the road. I screamed over the shoulder onto the dirt road next to the highway, and revved the engine to power the car over a few hills. Snowy mud flew under the rental car’s tires as I prayed I wouldn’t get stuck.

I drove up a dirt embankment toward an unfinished exit ramp, a little worried this car might not be able to climb the steep incline. The wheels spun, trying to catch, flinging mud behind the car. I geared down to first, and one final punch got me up onto the gravel.

To my right was a dirt road, leading off into the nothingness of farmland. To my left was a partially-finished bridge over the highway, headed north toward the eastern edge of Boulder.

I turned onto the bridge, and caught Darren running back to his car out of my peripheral vision. By the time he’d get off the highway, I’d be at least a minute or two in front of him. He probably knew where I was going, but all I needed was a couple minutes of lead time to get home safely.

Driving the city streets out of Boulder and back to my house seemed to take forever. Stop lights, traffic, construction zones. My head was empty, focused only on reaching home. I had to get home. I had to figure out what to do next. Nothing else mattered beyond getting home and finding out how Grace had been able to call me.

Maybe she was out, and free. She might be home, right now, waiting for me. I clung to that idea with a fierceness that defied logic.

Through Boulder and Louisville and Lafayette, I navigated toward Denver proper. Always forward, toward my destination.

My neighborhood felt cold and thin. When I turned onto my street, the maybe-meth dealer was standing out in front of his house. He wouldn’t have recognized the car I was in, but I think he saw my face. He cocked his head a little when I glanced at him. I probably looked like hell, with everything that had happened to me over the last week.

But I didn’t pay any more attention to him than that split second. I slowed a little, remembering I’d been yelled at more than once because children played in this street. Almost there.

Closer to my cul de sac, I saw a strange car parked next to the curb by my house. Darren had said that Wyatt was coming, but this was a beat-up truck. Wyatt probably drove a BMW.

Then I saw someone sitting on my front step, a figure with hands on knees and face down. A spark ignited within me; could that be my wife in front of our house? But why would she sit out in the cold, instead of going inside?

I pulled into the cul de sac, and my heart gurgled when the figure lifted his head.

Not Grace, but Kareem.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Kareem Haddadi smiled at me from my front porch. I parked the car in the middle of the cul de sac, barely even noticing where I was. The man at the heart of all this, the man everyone had been searching for, had surprised me once again by appearing in the last place I would have expected to find him.

I stumbled out of the car, feeling the accumulation of all my injuries. Adrenaline had drained all the effects of the last painkiller I’d swallowed.

“You,” I said, just about the only thing I could think of to say.

He stood and walked across my front yard. Instead of a t-shirt and jeans, he was wearing a suit. Looked professional today, at least. “Candle, it is so wonderful to see you. I wish our reunion could have been under different circumstances.”

The only time we’d met before had been at night, and he had seemed to wear a glow around his skin. Mystical. Now, the person standing before me was just an ordinary man. “You’re not magical at all, are you?”

His lips curled into a crooked smile as he shrugged. “I suppose that is a matter of perspective.”

“Perspective?”

“Indeed. Please forgive me the deception. I had to get your attention that night, although it does not seem to have done any good.”

“I think I’ve figured out how you did everything but the rat. If you didn’t reanimate a dead rat outside that bar, how did you make it look like you did?”

“Misdirection.” He then pointed back at the house. “Wouldn’t you like to come inside? We have much to discuss.”

I followed him in. Kareem was a fraud. No magic man. For all I knew, he was in league with Wyatt and Darren and this whole sick game they were playing. “Where have you been?”

“The last few days, Sweden. I own a textile business, and there was an unfortunate problem at one of the factories. I had no choice but to visit. Before that, Japan, and before that, I was here. But you knew that already. I understand you’ve been to my house in Boulder, even.”

He pointed at the couch and I eased into the seat, my bones and muscles screaming at me. He sat across from me in a chair.

“Where’s my wife?”

His face fell. “I feared you would suspect me.”

The hurt in his voice sounded genuine, but I didn’t let the doubt show on my face. I didn’t know who to believe, and the mass of confusion was beginning to swell to a breaking point.

When I didn’t reply, he continued. “I’m afraid I don’t know where your wife is. Mr. Wyatt Green is the only person who knows where she is. All of the events that have transpired over the last few days have been because of him.”

Anger welled up inside me. “If you knew about everything that was happening, why didn’t you help me? Why didn’t you call the police or send someone?”

“I hoped that you and your wife would leave, because I suspected that the situation would escalate.”

I needed answers, not riddles. “How was I supposed to know how grave this was, when you wouldn’t tell me anything concrete?”

He took a deep breath and pushed his hands down the length of his thighs, rolling out wrinkles in his slacks. “I have failed you. I am terribly sorry, my young friend. I only learned of the seriousness of your troubles these last few days when I returned home, and I got here as soon as I could.”

“So what happens next?” I said.

“I am sure someone will arrive soon to kill me.”

I nodded. “Yeah, that person is me. They said it was the only way to get her back.”

“These people, they are not the honorable kind. They were never going to give her back to you. They would only dangle her as bait to force you to do their bidding.”

“But why? What’s the point of all this?”

He leaned forward and cast a grim look at me. “Look closely at my face. Do you not recognize me?”

I squinted, taking in the lines, wrinkles, curves of his features. Maybe there was something there, but I couldn’t place it. Just as in how the name Haddadi had seemed familiar when they’d first said it at the top of Eldo Canyon.

“We met, you and I, but it was a long time ago. You were just a child, so I am not surprised you cannot recall.”

I focused again, trying to think of his face as if I’d seen it in my youth. Attempted to imagine me looking up at him, taller and grown up compared to a little kid me. A second look didn’t help, there was still nothing there.

He frowned when he saw the continued confusion on my face. “Candle, everything that has happened is because of your father and I. Because of what we have done. I’ve tried to make it right, but it’s not been an easy task.”

Before I could reply, something hit the door, and it rattled against the frame. Then, a succession of quick bangs, and the frame splintered.

The door opened, and Darren stood there with Detective Shelton. Both of them with guns. They strode in, and Shelton hooked his leg to kick the door closed behind him.

“You just had to make this so fucking difficult,” Darren said, his face twisted into the most malicious expression I’d ever seen. “You want to subvert destiny, but you can’t fight it, can you?”

I stood up with my hands out in front of me. But I had no idea what I was going to do next; they had real weapons, and Darren wasn’t likely to make the mistake again of coming close enough to let me grapple with him.

Kareem still sat in the chair, his eyes closed. He placed each of his hands palm-up on his knees, and proceeded to inhale slowly through his nose and out his mouth.

“Get up, Haddadi,” Shelton said.

“You’ve been a difficult man to find,” Darren said. “Making us run all over the goddamn country. Where have you been hiding out from us?”