No Reservations Required (19 page)

“They fly, my dear. They
fly.
”

32

“I was about to send out the Marines,” said Sophie, glancing up from her computer keyboard. She was sitting behind her desk in her office at the Maxfield.

Bram had just come in. He poured himself a cup of coffee and then sank down on the couch. “You didn’t get my message?”

“The one about Chris being missing?”

“The one telling you I’d be late.”

“Nope.” She tapped in one last word, then turned her full attention on him. “Want the latest news flash?”

“Let me guess. There’s been an arrest.”

“Andy Gladstone. It happened this afternoon.”

Bram shook his head. “I told Al they had the wrong guy.”

“But here’s the curveball. It wasn’t for Bob Fabian’s murder, or Loy’s.”

Bram was just about to take a sip of his java. He blinked his surprise at her over the top of the cup. “Whose, then?”

“Del Irazarian. They put Andy in a lineup and somebody identified him. That plus a bunch of damaging evidence found inside the room makes Andy their man.”

“Evidence?”

“Money. Almost two hundred thousand in a briefcase that belonged to Andy. The police think Irazarian was blackmailing him. By the way, Anika moved into a suite upstairs. Apparently, she’d just told Andy she was leaving him when the cops arrived with the handcuffs.”

Bram groaned. “Poor bastard.”

“Phil may have murdered Bob and Ken Loy, but it looks like a good bet that Andy’s responsible for Irazarian’s death.”

“I wish I knew what the hell was going on.” Whatever the truth turned out to be, Irazarian was connected to Phil as well as Andy. Bram’s mind was awash in disconnected facts and suspicions.

After the conversation he’d just had with Lyle, it looked as if
he
had a motive for Bob Fabian’s murder, too. Here was another man who would have done anything for Bob. Ken Loy’s death could easily have been part of a revenge plot—making Loy pay for the death of Valerie Fabian. But when it came to Bob himself, motives turned murkier. If Lyle thought Bob was about to tell Sunrise Airlines that he wasn’t fit to fly—that he was a drunk who refused to get help— who was to say what he might do to protect himself? Bram recalled Lyle once saying that flying was all he knew, the only thing he was ever any good at. If his livelihood was suddenly threatened, at his age, his financial prospects were bleak at best. At worst, he could lose everything. A man might behave totally out of character to protect the life he’d always known. He might even go so far as to kill someone he claimed to love.

“What are you thinking?” asked Sophie.

“Are you up for a little adventure tonight?”

“Are you kidding? After sitting in this office most of the day? Just name it.”

“I need a partner in crime.”

“Crime, huh? Sounds interesting.”

“A little breaking and entering.”

Her expression brightened. “I love it when you talk sexy.”

“We could get in trouble.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

On the way to the mini storage garage later that night, the image of Chris, hurt, trapped, perhaps unconscious, drilled its way into Bram’s consciousness. He had no idea where she was, but if he just kept picking at the edges of Phil’s life, maybe he’d get lucky. If he couldn’t find her, maybe he’d find a clue, something that would lead him to her before it was too late. It was that dread that he pushed away from him as he and Sophie cruised across the Roberts Street Bridge.

It was after midnight when they finally pulled up to the gate.

“You’re pretty clever,” said Sophie. “Renting that unit just to get inside.”

Bram tapped in the code, then glanced into the backseat. “Let’s hope that bolt cutter lives up to its hype.”

Wind blew dry leaves across the lot as the Bentley eased through the entrance. High-beam lights sliced across the long rows of garages, casting most of their illumination along the edges of the property. They drove up and down the quiet lanes for a few minutes, seeing if anyone else was around.

“This place is like a graveyard,” said Sophie, tucking her leather coat more tightly around her neck.

Making one last pass down the central track, Bram pulled the car up to Phil’s double garage. “This is it.”

Sophie squinted into the darkness. “Doesn’t look like much of a lock.”

“I talked to a guy while I was inspecting the garage I rented. He rents the one on the other side. He gave me some advice, told me to buy myself a standard lock. Seems that if you put some super-heavy-duty thing on it, it’s like advertising you’ve got something expensive to steal. He said there isn’t a lock that can’t be broken anyway, so just go with the standard.”

Bram eased out of the front seat. After grabbing the bolt cutter, he approached the door.

Sophie followed.

Before he could clamp it on, she put a hand on his arm. “Wait. I thought I heard something.”

Bram turned around. “A car?” he asked in a whisper.

She nodded, pressing a finger to her lips.

They waited for a few seconds.

“What if it’s Phil?” whispered Sophie.

Bram didn’t have an answer. Stepping to the end of the garage, he scanned the lot for signs of life. After nearly a minute, he tiptoed back to Sophie. “Maybe you heard a car out on Old Mill Road.”

“Maybe,” said Sophie. As Bram lifted the bolt cutter, she added, “but it sounded closer.”

Bram glared at her. “Come on. Let’s get this open.”

Just as the snipped lock dropped to the asphalt, headlights hit Bram square in the eyes. He whirled away, stuffing the bolt cutter under his coat. The light was so bright he couldn’t see the car behind it, but whatever the make and model, it was heading straight for them.

Instinctively, Bram moved in front of Sophie, blocking her from view. “Pick up the lock,” he whispered, barely moving his mouth.

Sophie eased down behind her husband’s back and slipped the lock into her purse.

A moment later, the car turned off the lane, heading for another section of the lot.

“Boy, that was a close one,” said Sophie, leaning back against the double garage door.

Bram wasn’t convinced they were off the hook. What if the guy in the car was playing with them? Since he never got a good look at the driver’s face, for all he knew, it could have been Phil. “We need to get this door open fast. I want to see what’s inside and then get the hell out of here.”

“I’m with you,” said Sophie. She stood back as Bram bent down and heaved the heavy door upward.

Removing the flashlight from his side pocket, Bram pointed the beam inside, letting it wash over the interior. Two vehicles were parked inside. The rest of the space was filled with construction materials. Insulation. Boxes of nails, tools, paintbrushes, masking tape. Several air compressors. Various-sized windows.

“That’s Chris’s Escort,” said Bram, stepping into the darkness.

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. But what’s it doing here?” The answer to that question might be one he didn’t want to hear. He tried the door, but found that it was locked. Shining the light inside, he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that it was empty. At least the car wasn’t Chris’s coffin.

Sophie had her own flashlight. She was moving around the other vehicle—a large truck. “This thing must belong to Phil’s construction company. It says ‘Banks Construction’ on the side. And there’s a number twelve.”

“He’s probably got a fleet of trucks. He numbers them so that he knows who’s got what at any given time.”

“Why’s this one parked here?”

“Good question,” said Bram.

Sophie pointed the beam of her flashlight into the front seat. “Honey—”

“What?”

“I think you’ll want to see this.”

“What is it?” He scrambled around the back of Chris’s car.

“A gun,” she said, holding her light steady on it. “You see? There on the front seat next to that Coke bottle.”

Bram tried the door. “Locked. Figures.”

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“That we just found the murder weapon?”

“Last I heard, the police didn’t have it.”

“Nah. Couldn’t be.”

“You saying we suck as detectives?”

“The police have been searching for it for weeks, Sophie.”

“Yes, but they didn’t know about this storage unit.
You
did.”

“Do you have your cell phone with you?”

“Am I ever without my cell phone?”

“Now might be a good time to call the cops.”

“Sure, now that
we’ve
solved the case.”

As Sophie found the phone in her purse, Bram grabbed the top of the garage door and started to bring it back down.

Sophie shushed him. “I heard something.”

“Oh,
come on
, Sophie. Don’t do that to me again. We need to get out of here.” He stuck his head out of the garage and surveyed the lane in front of the unit.

“No. In here—in the garage. I heard something.”

“It’s probably a rat.”

“Rats don’t moan.”

Bram listened. After a few seconds, he heard it, too. “It sounds like it’s coming from the trunk of Chris’s car.” He thought a moment, then pocketed his flashlight and pulled the garage door closed.

“Why’d you do that?”

“So nobody will hear me when I do this.” He slammed the bolt cutter into the driver’s-side window, breaking the glass all over the front seat. Pulling up the door lock, he grabbed Sophie’s flashlight and trained it on the dash. It only took a second to find the trunk button.

“That opened it,” whispered Sophie. She was back by the trunk. Lifting the lid upward, she gasped.

Instantly, Bram was by her side. His heart nearly stopped when he saw Chris lying in a fetal position inside, her hands and feet bound with duct tape, a cloth bag pulled over her head. There was a small gash on her upper leg and her bare arms looked deeply bruised and battered. “Dear God,” he said, leaning down close to her ear. “Chris, it’s Bram and Sophie. You’re safe now. Don’t be frightened. I’m going to remove the cover from your head.” He did so as gently as possible, hoping that the sound she’d made meant that she was still alive.

When the bag came off, Chris’s eyes were wide-open and wild with terror. She shivered as she sat up. Bram removed the duct tape from her mouth. “Are you okay?”

Her voice was low and raspy, but still strong. “Get me out of here!”

Sophie took off her coat and put it around Chris’s shoulders while Bram continued to work on the tape.

“Is anything broken?” asked Bram.

“I don’t think so,” responded Chris. “But hurry. Please! He could come back any minute.” She was terrified, shaking uncontrollably, barely holding it together.

Once she was free, Bram pulled up the garage door, then stepped outside to look around. Everything seemed quiet. Moving back inside, he lifted Chris and carried her out to the backseat of his Bentley. While Sophie got her settled, he eased the garage door back down and then replaced the mangled padlock, making it look as if it was still functional. It might buy them some time.

Jumping into the front seat of his car, Bram hit the ignition, then the gas, and took off.

“She’s like a block of ice, honey. Put on the heater.”

As he glanced into the backseat, he caught sight of a car swinging onto the road behind him. The headlights in the rearview mirror momentarily blinded him.

Chris turned to look. “It’s Phil!”

“We don’t know that,” said Sophie.

“And we’re not about find out,” said Bram, hanging a quick left and making straight for the exit. For a few seconds, he thought he might be able to outrun the other car, but then he remembered that to get out of the lot, he had to go through another gate, and to get it to open, he had to punch in the code. That meant he had to stop—all the time he’d gained was moot. As he saw it, he had two choices. Gun the motor and hope the car was heavy enough to break through the gate, or play it safe and stop to enter the exit code.

Seeing the heavy gate loom suddenly up in front of him, he was afraid that if he ran into it at full throttle, Sophie and Chris would rocket into the front seat and probably out through the windshield. None of them had taken time to put on their seat belts. Feeling that he had no choice, he stomped on the brakes.

“He’s coming,” gasped Sophie, her voice squeezed tight with fear.

Bram concentrated on the task at hand. He lowered the window and tapped in the code. As the gate swung open, he floored the gas pedal and roared off.

“The gate’s closing,” called Sophie. “The other car’s still inside.”

Bram breathed a sigh of relief as he sped out onto the frontage road and headed back toward the bridge.

“Better go straight to a hospital,” said Sophie.

“No!” cried Chris. She lurched forward, grabbing Bram by his shoulder. “I’m fine. You have to hide me. If he finds me, he’ll kill me.”

“You’re safe, Chris. Trust me. I won’t let anything happen to you.” He turned right on Blackman and pulled into the lot of a 7-Eleven, parking in back next to a Dumpster. “Maybe we can wait on the hospital, but we need to call the police.”

“Yes. Okay,” said Chris. “But can we stay here for a while? Just a few minutes? I feel safe here. I just need to feel safe!”

Bram cracked the car door, looked back at Chris. “Sophie give me your cell phone. I have to call the cops. And then I’ll get Chris something hot to drink. Something to eat. You must be starving.”

Chris shook her head. “God, how did you ever find me?”

“Long story,” said Bram. “Sophie, you fill her in and I’ll be back in a flash.”

Standing next to the front door, Bram tapped in Al’s home number. It was going on one in the morning. Bram figured he’d find his buddy in bed.

“Lundquist,” came a sleepy voice. “This better be good.”

“Al, it’s Bram.”

“Christ, Baldric. It’s the middle of the night.”

Bram quickly filled him in on what had happened.

“Let me get this straight,” said Al, clearing his throat. “You broke into a mini storage lot?”

“No, no. You’re not listening. I
rented
a garage. Totally legal. But, well, yes, once I was inside, I did break into a unit that belonged to Phil Banks. But that’s beside the point now. If I hadn’t, Chris would be dead.”