Blood Money (10 page)

Kelton glanced back. Jessica was right
behind him, and nobody else was in sight. The sound of a police
helicopter filled the night air, but it was still a long way off,
and of no immediate concern.

They followed the path to the outdoor
theater, then cut right and crossed the street under the cover of
darkness. They passed by a series of International Cottages that
were closed by this time of night, past an empty parking lot, and
down the side of a heavily-wooded ravine that would provide ample
cover from the helicopter that was rapidly approaching.

Halfway down the moderately steep slope of
the ravine, Kelton stopped and held out his arm.

Jessica slid down another couple of feet
before gaining control of her body. “What?” she whispered.

“Do you hear the chopper?”

Jessica listened for a moment, then shook
her head. “No.”

“Exactly,” Kelton said. “It was on its way,
but for some reason it turned around before it got here.”

“That’s good, right?”

“Yeah, but I wonder why it peeled off.”

“Maybe there was a higher priority
development,” Jessica said.

“More important than a chase following a
murder? I don’t think so.”

“It doesn’t matter. We should just be glad
it’s not here.”

“You’re right,” Kelton said. He filed the
incident away in his mind to review later, when the timing was more
appropriate. “Let’s keep moving.”

They again started down the sloped ravine,
heading towards the west end of Balboa Park, picking their way
carefully through the underbrush to avoid making too much
noise.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” Kelton whispered as
they moved along. “There’s probably ten other ravines this size
scattered throughout the park, all of which connect up with each
other, plus the San Diego Zoo. There’s no way the cops can devote
the manpower to search the entire park without the help of a
helicopter; it’s just too damn big. So until another one arrives,
the search will be relatively passive. They’ll still be looking for
us, but they’ll most likely concentrate their efforts on the roads
leading out of the park, which they’ll have cut off by now.”

“So how are we going to get out?”

“We’ll continue through the ravine until we
get to the 163 freeway,” Kelton said. “Then we’ll hop the fence and
cross the freeway.”

“Cross a freeway? Are you serious?”

Kelton nodded. “Don’t worry, it’s only two
lanes each way with a median in between. And on the other side is a
well-covered slope, leading to Hillcrest.”

“And from there?”

“We’ll worry about that later,” Kelton said.
“Right now we just need to focus on getting out of the park before
another chopper arrives.”

A siren came to life somewhere behind and
above them. Kelton pulled Jessica to the ground. They snuck in
behind a large patch of scrub brush and sat still as the cop car
came to a stop above them and to their right. A spotlight
haphazardly scanned the area, coming with fifteen feet of their
location before reversing direction. A few seconds later, the light
disappeared, and Kelton heard the sound of a door closing, then the
car taking off.

They waited until they could no longer hear
the car above them, then stood up and continued moving forward,
drawing further away from the search with every step.

The brush was dense but not unmanageable,
and a few minutes after setting out, they came to a chain-link
fence separating the park from the shoulder of the freeway. A few
hundred feet above them and to their right was the Cabrillo Bridge.
Kelton couldn’t see a police car guarding the historic bridge, but
he knew one was there—it was one of the five exits from the
park.

No other cops were in sight and the sky was
still absent of choppers. As far as Kelton could tell, the police
still had no idea where they were.

Kelton scrambled over the chain-link fence.
Jessica was right behind him.

The freeway only had two lanes going each
way, and at this time of night, there was plenty of time between
cars to safely cross. They made their way across the northbound
lanes to the protected island with ease, then waited for a brief
lull in traffic to cross the southbound lanes.

Once safely past the freeway, they climbed
through a gap in the fence and began scrambling up the fairly steep
embankment towards freedom.

A few minutes later, Kelton and Jessica
found themselves amongst the maze of streets that made up
Hillcrest, a small neighborhood just north of downtown.

They made their way over to a medium-sized
shopping center with a movie theatre and a large parking lot and
leaned against the side of a building.

“What are we doing?” Jessica said.

“Waiting for our ride,” Kelton replied. “Put
your arm around my waist and pretend you like me.”

Jessica looked at him with a sly smile. “And
here I thought you were shy.”

Kelton started to blush. “We just need to
divert attent—”

“I know, I know,” she said as she looped her
right arm around his waist. “I’m just messing with you.”

Kelton bit his bottom lip but said
nothing.

Five minutes later they hit the jackpot.

A young couple in a gray, late 90’s Ford
Taurus pulled up and parked in the corner of the lot. They exited
the car without rolling up the windows or setting any alarms.
Kelton watched as they walked up to the box office, bought tickets,
and headed into the theatre.

He turned to Jessica. “Let’s go.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Twenty minutes after leaving Hillcrest they
were filling up the Taurus with gas in the city of Escondido.

They had traveled surface streets most of
the way to this point, and while Kelton was confident they were
outside of any perimeter the San Diego Police Department had set
up, he knew they still had to be wary. Most of the cops in the
surrounding areas would likely be on the lookout for them, and
while the streets were still relatively crowded at this point in
the evening, they wouldn’t be for long.

After inserting the nozzle into the gas tank
and starting the pump, Kelton took out the cell and dialed Walter’s
number.

“Hello, my friend. How are you doing?”
Walter said immediately after answering the phone.

“Better than you, old man,” Kelton
replied.

“Oh, I beg to differ.”

“Beg all you want, it won’t change
anything.”

“What happened?” Walter said immediately
after the all-clear was finished. “I waited for fifteen minutes at
the rendezvous point but you never showed.”

“Something came up,” Kelton said. “We were
on our way over when an unwanted visitor crashed the party. I had
to put him down, but it was a public place, and there were
witnesses. We spent the last hour on the run from the local
authorities.”

“But you’re safe?”

“For the time being.”

“Well, that’s good,” Walter said. “Where are
you now?”

“Within a half hour’s drive,” Kelton said,
not wanting to give specific locations over the phone, regardless
of how safe Walter claimed the connection was. “I wanted to stay
close so we could still try and get the exchange done tonight.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Walter
said. “Maybe you should just find a place to lay low until
tomorrow. It would be a disaster for you guys to get picked up by
the authorities at this point.”

“I hear you, but I really think it’s better
for everyone if I can get her off my hands before the Feds get wind
of this thing. This is one situation where we need to move
quickly.”

Three seconds of silence. Then Walter said,
“Let me get in touch with some of my people, and after I get a
better read on the situation, we’ll make a decision. Keep on the
move for the time being and I’ll get back to you as soon as I have
more information.”

Kelton closed his phone and stuck it in his
pocket. He pulled the nozzle from the gas tank and put it back on
the pump. Then he started thinking about how Jason Preston could
have found him. There was only one way.

He pulled the phone back out of his pocket
and called Slake’s number. The phone picked up after the fourth
ring. Slake’s voicemail explained that he wasn’t able to answer the
phone, but if you left a number, he’d call you back as soon as
possible.

Kelton hung up the phone without saying
anything and headed back towards the car. He’d have to remember to
explore the Slake angle further once he’d handed Jessica off to
Walter.

“So what did he say?” Jessica asked once
Kelton had closed the door behind him.

“To keep moving for now. He’s going to talk
with his friends and he’ll get back to us shortly with a revised
plan of action.”

“Are we still going to meet up with him
tonight?”

“Hopefully,” Kelton said. “But we’ll just
have to wait and see.”

He started the car and pulled out of the gas
station.

Walter called back twenty minutes later.
They were still traveling the surface streets when the phone
started to ring, which allowed Kelton the luxury of pulling into a
strip-mall parking lot before answering it. Leaving the engine
running and Jessica sitting in the passenger’s seat, he stepped out
and opened the phone.

After running through the all-clear, Walter
said, “It isn’t going to happen tonight.”

“Why not?”

“There’s just too much heat,” Walter said.
“The Feds have already descended on the area like a plague of
locusts.”

“Even more reason for me to unload her
tonight,” Kelton said. “The longer we wait, the more time we give
the Feds to catch up.”

“I understand your thought process, and
normally I’d tend to agree with you. But the way things have played
out so far, I want to slow things down. There’s no reason to rush
into this.”

“But if we get it done now, before—”

“Listen,” Walter said, his tone insistent.
“I know you want to get the girl off your hands, and believe me, I
wish we could have made the transfer tonight, as planned. But we
didn’t. And now I need to step back and analyze the situation. So
what you need to do is find yourself someplace to crash and get a
good night’s sleep. Then, in the morning, after I have more
information on where the Feds stand, we’ll figure out a plan to get
her off your hands. Okay?”

A brief pause, then Kelton said, “Okay.”

“This really is the best way. You know
that.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Kelton said.

“You don’t sound convinced.”

Kelton pinched the bridge of his nose and
took a deep breath. How could he explain to Walter that every
second he spent with Jessica Robbins was a threat to his carefully-
honed philosophy of self-reliance? That the emotions he had long
ago locked away in the cold, dark recesses of his mind were working
their way loose every time he looked at her? That the continual
presence of someone else in his life—let alone a smart, beautiful
woman—was something he had deliberately not experienced in nearly
five years?

He couldn’t.

And he didn’t want to try.

So he said, “You’re right,” and left it at
that.

“Get out of the area, but don’t go too far,”
Walter said. “And get some sleep. I’ll call you in the morning and
we’ll put something in place then.”

The line went dead.

CHAPTER TWELVE

It was just after 10:00 PM when they pulled
into a residential community in Temecula, a city on the border of
San Diego and Riverside counties.

“What are we doing here?” Jessica said.

“Well, it’s been about an hour and a half
since we left Hillcrest, which means pretty soon the owners of this
car are going to be exiting their movie and heading towards the
parking lot.”

“Where their car
used
to be,” Jessica
said.

“Exactly. And after they call it in as
stolen, police in the neighboring areas will be looking for it.
It’s doubtful that the search will extend this far north, but
there’s no reason to take any chances.”

“So we’re going to ditch the car,” Jessica
said.

Kelton nodded.

Jessica looked around. They were surrounded
by dark houses. Very few cars were parked in the open, and the vast
majority of those that were sat in driveways.

“And we picked this street because?”

“I know someone that lives in one of the
houses,” Kelton said as they turned onto Sandhill Lane. “And it
just so happens that I store an extra car in his garage, along with
a couple other key items.”

“Such as?”

“An alternate identification, a suitcase
full of clothes, a decent amount of cash. And, of course, a clean
weapon.”

Jessica smiled. “Insurance for a rainy
day?”

“I am of the belief that one can never be
too prepared for an emergency.”

“So it seems,” Jessica said. “I must admit,
this is pretty impressive forward thinking. Are you sure you didn’t
used to be a spy or something like that?”

“Not unless my memory was wiped clear by the
CIA.”

“Knowing those guys, I wouldn’t bet against
it,” she said.

“I would,” Kelton replied as he pulled into
the driveway of a large, well-maintained house and shut the engine
off. “But I don’t think I’d get very good odds.”

They climbed out of the car and headed
towards the front door.

“So who is this guy?” Jessica asked as they
climbed the porch.

“Remember when I told you about how I got
started in this business?”

“Yeah, you gave me a weak-ass cover story
about some guy that took you under his wing and taught you
everything he knew before retiring and leaving you his
business.”

“It wasn’t a cover story,” Kelton said. “The
guy who set me up lives in this house. His name is Earl
Paladin.”

Jessica gave him a funny look. “You mean
that story was true?”