Disturbance Read online

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Ifed Violet and finished doing what I could to make her more comfortable, talking to her, without any response on her side, about exploring the possibility of getting some of the adaptive technologies now available. I had seen wheel-chairs that could be operated by blowing into a strawlike device or by the movement of a person’s tongue. I kept thinking that if I had been in her place, cut off from everyone but Kai and a set of doctors I didn’t like, I would have been yapping away at first contact. Apparently, though, she was out of the habit of social interaction or wasn’t interested in what I had to say. I gave up after a few minutes of the silent treatment from her.

  I was considering going back to my room when the door to hers suddenly opened.

  Parrish with the gun again, and he had someone with him, but this time it wasn’t Kai Loudon. I felt pure rage course through me as I beheld Donovan Cotter for the first time since he had placed me under Parrish’s control.

  I was on the verge of venting some of that anger when I saw how much Parrish was enjoying it. Hell if I was going to satisfy his puppet mastery.

  “Hello, Donovan,” I said, then hesitated. “That really is your name?”

  “Yes. Hello, Irene.”

  “How very civil,” Parrish said, choosing to be amused. “Especially for a man who was just searching her closet. Tie her up.”

  I felt panic set in.

  “She needs to change into warmer clothes,” Donovan said. “I was going to bring those items in here.”

  Parrish smiled. “We’ll go to her room instead.”

  They took me there. I thought they would leave, but Parrish said, “Go ahead and change. We’ll watch you do that.”

  The panic heightened. I decided not to strip past my underwear and just to put the longer underwear on over my panties and bra. It was humiliating even to strip to that extent in front of them, with Parrish making comments on my body and what he’d like to do to me all the while, and mocking Donovan for not taking advantage of my state of undress.

  “I told you. I don’t want or need an audience,” he said.

  Parrish told me to go back into Violet’s room. Once we were there, he again ordered Donovan to tie me up.

  “That will make it more difficult to put her into the vehicle. I don’t want to carry her, do you?”

  Parrish clearly didn’t like being contradicted, but he said, “All right, just her hands, then.”

  Donovan moved toward me with a roll of duct tape. I decided I wasn’t about to go along with that without a fight, gun or no gun. I used a move from Kenpo, avoiding his hold and getting in an initial blow—hitting Donovan’s brow rather than the eye I was aiming for—when he quickly reacted. I wasn’t close to being a match for his skills. He soon had me pinned to the floor and bound my wrists.

  Parrish started laughing, so hard that he doubled over with a hacking cough.

  Donovan turned his head away from him, and under the cover of that laughter whispered into my ear, “Don’t attack. Wait.” He then lifted me to my feet, far more gently than I had expected.

  I was strongly tempted to ignore that advice, especially when Parrish tucked the gun into his waistband and sauntered within range of a kick. I watched him warily, all the time wondering if I was crazy to listen to a man who had drugged me, bound my hands, and was clearly a confederate of Parrish’s to some degree. Violet was sure he was somehow being compelled to participate in Parrish’s plans, but that wouldn’t make me any less dead if those plans succeeded.

  In the end what kept me from lashing out was Parrish himself. Looking into his eyes, I could see anticipation. He wanted me to give him an excuse.

  My next thought was that he had never needed an excuse for anything he did before, so why hold back now?

  Donovan.

  The answer came to me with a certainty that surprised me. I had no doubt that Kai, whose unpleasant acquaintance I had made a few hours earlier, would have been egging Parrish on, providing an audience eager to see him inflict pain and humiliation on me.

  As if to confirm my guess, Parrish glanced at Donovan, who had taken a step away from me, so that he was within view—and reach—but not threatening. It was as if Parrish wanted to impress him but was not quite sure how to do that. For his part, Donovan was standing still and calm, yet radiating power—it was as if nothing Parrish might do would disturb or intimidate him.

  “Did Donovan happen to mention that he’s my son?” Parrish asked.

  I didn’t answer.

  Parrish smiled. “It’s so ridiculous that you have two layers of underwear on now, you know. He’s seen you completely naked. He undressed you. He watched while you took a shower. As did I.”

  I wasn’t able to hide the fact that this news disturbed me.

  “Yes,” Donovan said calmly. “You had thrown up on yourself and Nick. You weren’t in any condition to be left alone.”

  Matter-of-fact, not salacious.

  Parrish frowned, but the frown quickly eased into another of his leering smiles. “He asked me to let him have you before I kill you.”

  Donovan didn’t respond. I followed his lead.

  Parrish chose a new tack. “Say good-bye to Violet. While she’s doing that, Donovan, get her things.”

  Donovan didn’t argue. He just walked into the other room.

  I wasn’t able to stay quiet. “What do you mean, ‘Say goodbye to Violet’—what are you planning to do to her?”

  “Why, nothing.”

  “Then why—”

  “You ask too many questions. All you need to know is that we’re leaving, Violet is staying.”

  “Without someone to care for her—”

  “Enough!” he snapped.

  I moved closer to the bed. Any further protestations I might make—that it was murder, that it was cruel—were unlikely to be seen as anything but points in favor of carrying out his plan. He thought nothing of murder. He enjoyed cruelty.

  Hands bound, I could not touch her. I leaned over and said, “I’m sorry.”

  I am not. Go.

  And then she baffled me with the next string of letters, not because I didn’t know what they meant but because this one word had already nagged at my memory:

  .—. .- .-. -.- .-

  Parka.

  “Why not let Donovan stay here and care for her?” I asked, stalling, hoping she’d further enlighten me.

  No.

  “No,” Parrish said. “Although that may be what he’d really prefer. He’s made a point of visiting her when he stops by.” He called out, “Right, Donovan?”

  Donovan either didn’t hear or pretended not to.

  “Do you have any idea what will happen to her if you just abandon her here?”

  “You, my dear Ms. Kelly, have much more to worry about than what becomes of Violet Loudon. Besides, who said she’d be abandoned?”

  I didn’t find that at all reassuring.

  Donovan returned carrying the duffel and—I was quick to notice—a dark green parka that looked expedition-worthy. Parrish held the gun on me as we went downstairs.

  Donovan said, “We didn’t think this through. She needs to have the parka on in the vehicle. We all need to wear our parkas and keep the hoods up—the hoods will make it harder for anyone in a passing car to identify us. And we’re going to have to change the way she’s bound,” he said.

  Not much later, I was carried outside by Donovan. My hands were bound in front of me, and after another struggle—no matter what advice he had to give me—my ankles were now bound, too.

  Parrish had been all for taping my mouth shut, but Donovan had dismissed this idea, saying it could easily be noticed by others and be difficult to explain, and it would make it hard to feed me or give me water. “Irene,” he said, “given your claustrophobia, do you see that it is smarter for you to stay silent? Otherwise we’ll have to tape your mouth and put you down on the floorboards for a long ride.” It was not hard to agree to be quiet.

  It was
dark outside, and cold, although I felt the chill air only on my face and hands. I was placed in the backseat of a green Subaru Forester. I was wearing the parka, the hood pulled up in a way that hid most of my face from anyone who might happen to look at the passengers in the SUV. Parrish was always very close to us. Donovan did not attempt any further communication with me.

  Everyone in the car wore parkas, which was why the air-conditioning was cranked up full blast. It was still almost too warm. I noticed Donovan’s parka was also dark green. Kai’s and Parrish’s were a light tan color, and of a higher quality. My parka felt a little lumpy, although of course I couldn’t reach my hands into the pockets to discover what they held. My imagination supplied possibilities from hidden weapons to remote-controlled explosives (making me a human bomb) and, more reasonably, energy bars, lip balm, and perhaps a scarf or the gloves I’d found earlier. Depending on which way I leaned against the door or seat and how panicked I was feeling at any given moment, the guesses changed.

  Kai was in the front passenger seat, his injured arm tucked inside his open jacket. At first he seemed to be having a hard time getting comfortable, but he soon fell asleep.

  Donovan drove.

  Parrish sat in the backseat, holding a gun on me, barking directions to Donovan.

  After we drove away from what I thought might be the Running Springs area and were winding our way down to Interstate 15, I wondered if we might be on our way out of state. But Parrish’s next instructions were to go north on 395.

  We were headed toward his old hunting grounds, the southern Sierra Nevada. He had killed dozens of people and slain animals there as well. One of his favorite moments, he had once bragged to an interviewer, came when he watched a victim dig her own grave. He’d had many such moments to treasure.

  Two facts about my situation disturbed me. First, he was letting me hear directions. Second, there was a shovel among the gear in the back.

  Added together, it seemed likely that I was on my way to my own execution.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Frank Harriman was alone when the text messages arrived, for which he was grateful. Pete had been by earlier, promising to keep him informed of anything he could learn about the ongoing investigation into Irene’s kidnapping. Rachel insisted that none of her cases were anywhere near as important to her as locating Irene, and Frank gladly accepted her offer to help him out. In her years working as a P.I. in Las Piernas, she had cultivated sources who would never talk to the police. That might be especially helpful when it came to the Moths.

  Ben, Ethan, Jack, Lydia, and Guy had also offered their help. Irene’s cousin Travis Maguire, who owned a helicopter company with Jack, was equally eager to be of assistance. Frank had thanked each of them and promised to be in touch.

  “Start with some sleep,” Rachel advised. “When’s the last time you got any?”

  He admitted that, between casework and Irene’s abduction, he hadn’t been asleep more than four hours in the last forty-eight. Sleep was something he deeply desired but found unthinkable. He told himself that poor judgment brought on by exhaustion wouldn’t help anyone.

  So they had left, and Frank had lain down, his thoughts troubled but so tired that he had no memory of anything after the moment the cat had curled up next to him, until five hours later, when the chiming of his phone awakened him.

  He stared at the text messages for a long moment. He didn’t recognize the sender’s number, but he tried it. No answer, no voice mail. An attempt to reply by text returned an error message.

  He did not give this cell number out to many people.

  He was well aware that this could be a trap, that his number could have been tortured out of Irene. He told himself not to let his mind always go to the worst-case scenario.

  He had also spent almost twenty-four hours feeling as if there was little or nothing he could do to prevent Irene from suffering and being killed by Parrish. He knew she was a survivor, had managed to escape Parrish before, but Frank had now reached a point at which he was desperate for anything that would increase the chances of finding her alive.

  He dressed and put on his shoulder holster and his gun, grabbed his jacket, a flashlight, and some gloves, then called Jack.

  “Come with me to the beach with the dogs, okay?” Frank said.

  “Sure.”

  He stepped outside with Deke and Dunk, and found Jack waiting outside his own house. Jack owned a fortune in real estate in Las Piernas and several lucrative businesses as well, but anyone who didn’t know him tended to see only the biker he had been—his jeans, T-shirt, and leather jacket might have just been seen as casual cool, but the shaved head, earring, and tattoos gave his look a different edge. He was one of Frank’s closest friends.

  Frank told Jack about the text messages as they walked to the beach stairs at the end of the block. Had he been with Pete, his partner would have been spouting warnings and advice. Jack just nodded and said, “I’ll take lookout duty.”

  The beach was all but empty on this chilly October evening. Jack took the dogs’ leashes and stood at the top of the stairs, watching for anyone approaching from the street or the beach.

  Frank went down the wooden stairs until he was just past the third one, then turned to face the stairs and knelt. Flashlight on, he looked carefully beneath the third step from the top. A casual observer would have missed the slight bump, a patch of green duct tape—green, to match the color of the stairs. He put on the gloves, then eased the tape off, all the while knowing that the lab was going to be pissed as hell at him anyway.

  They’d have to get in line to chew him out.

  There was a keyless entry fob attached to the tape.

  He stood, and climbed back up to street level.

  “Want to walk over to Jacaranda with me?”

  “Sure. Besides, these two thought they were going to the beach, so that might work as a poor substitute.”

  “I need to stop by the house for a second, just to get something out of the car.”

  Frank retrieved a box that would hold the tape without further disturbing its surfaces and grabbed a couple of small evidence bags in case more awaited him on Jacaranda Street.

  Jacaranda was two streets over. Frank looked for people sitting in cars or watching out of windows and saw no one. Beyond the barricades that marked the end of the street and the edge of the cliff, he could hear the surf, but otherwise the street was quiet. Halfway down the block, a vehicle he had seen before only on video was parked on the right side of the street.

  Even before he pressed the unlock function on the remote, he knew it would light up the Ford Escape.

  The plates didn’t match the ones in the video, but that wasn’t a surprise, either.

  He made sure no one was standing near the vehicle before he actually pressed the button. He had even warned Jack that for all he knew the thing would explode, which only made Jack grin and say, “Who doesn’t like to see stuff explode? Special effects companies live off this shit.”

  He hit the key, and all that happened was a friendly blinking of lights and a chirping call. They were standing too far away even to hear the doors unlock.

  He looked around again, trying to see if anyone had come to a window or looked out at the street at the sound of the remote operating. He didn’t see any movement.

  “Why not let me go open it up?” Jack said. “My affairs are in order.”

  “No, wait here, and if I meet my Maker, the dogs are yours on the condition that you’ll accept Cody as a part of the package.”

  “No deal.”

  Frank sighed. “Am I being an idiot? Yes, I am.”

  “Since you’re taking questions, let me ask you—why don’t you call people who have a bomb squad handy to test things out?”

  “Because the minute I call them, I’m cut out. I’ll have to wait until Pete can pry something out of somebody, and since he’s my partner, people see that coming.” He paused and looked at Jack. “Intellectually, I know I shouldn�
�t. In my gut—”

  “I understand. It’s Irene.”

  “Right. So, watch this idiot allow himself to be manipulated by Nick Parrish—it’s almost as fun as seeing shit explode.”

  “I may get to see both,” Jack said, which surprised a laugh out of Frank.

  He walked up to the Escape, used his flashlight to check over the exterior and as much as he could see of the interior, then decided to open the passenger side door first.

  He couldn’t help but wonder if he had missed some sign of explosives, but nothing happened as the door opened. He looked more closely at the area under the dash—no sign of tampering. He moved to the driver’s side, trying not to smear any prints that might be on the steering wheel or column. He took a deep breath and started the engine. No problem. He looked at the mileage, then turned on the GPS. Called up previous destinations and began taking notes. One of the locations, he noticed, was near where Parrish had escaped. But the most recent one was in the San Bernardino Mountains, not far from Running Springs.

  He turned off the GPS, turned off the motor, and locked the doors. He looked the exterior over once again, then walked back to Jack.

  “I’m going to see if Lydia and Guy will take care of the dogs and the cat.”

  “Hey, what I said before—you know I was just joking about Cody!”

  “Of course I do. But I thought you might want to join me on a road trip.”

  “Where are we headed?”

  “Running Springs, for starters.”

  “Sounds great.”

  As they made the turn onto their own street, Jack said, “I was thinking we should ask Ben and Ethan to bring Bingle and Altair. Take the Jeep.”

  Irene’s car. Frank set the thought aside. “Good idea.”

  He made the calls, telling Ben, “If you don’t want to have another encounter with Parrish, I won’t blame you at all—”

  “I’m coming with you,” Ben said firmly. “And let’s take my SUV. We’ve already got the dogs’ equipment packed in it, it will be roomier, and I’ll bet I’ve had more sleep than you. I’ll probably bring Bingle and Boolean. Altair only does human remains detection. Bingle does SAR and HRD, and Bool can track her if we just pre-scent him.”