R.S. Guthrie - Detective Bobby Mac 03 - Reckoning (14 page)

Family.

As the music washed over her she could think of nothing that would make her more whole again.

And if her father pursued? So much the better. Because she knew when he, too, saw
home
, he would remember the life they used to have, just as she would then be able to remember and embrace the same, and all would be okay again.

She’d formed a plan. Her father was not stupid. Far from it. And he watched her closely—not twenty minutes ago he’d rapped lightly on her door (she didn’t hear him because of the ear buds and rocking Irish music, she simply knew his routines to the furthest degree necessary to complete her escape), opened it, and looked in on her. He didn’t say anything or ask her to remove her music. He rarely said anything. It was more like a prison guard stopping by to make sure the inmate was still housed properly.

No conversation necessary.

He smiled benignly and half-waved.

Melissa smiled back then returned to playing an invisible set of drums.

After he closed the door she stopped the ridiculous air-drumming and lay still on her bed, thinking about her escape plan.

Melissa knew once she breached the outer perimeter of whatever place held her—a place she’d never been outside of—that she’d have minutes only. Maybe less. Even though she’d never seen the outside, she was intelligent enough (and had heard and seen enough) to know that her presence there was heavily secured, and she knew she would have to assume the worst: fences, motion detection, and cameras. All this meant that there was little to no chance of Melissa Grant exiting the warehouse and compound that likely surrounded it without detection.

Which was why she knew she’d only have minutes. And if she only had minutes, she’d need someone to come and get her.

So she calculated her best chance of making it home and that way was by finding a way to reach out. A few days earlier her father had brought home a bag of cell phones purchased at a convenience store. There were six or seven still in the plastic cases. And she’d seen a number under a name, scribbled on a scrap of paper on her father’s desk. She’d committed the name and the number to memory, leaving the paper scrap untouched.

Macaulay.

720-555-3479

Melissa had no idea who Macaulay was, but it was her only hope. If he was a bad guy, her plan was over. If he didn’t have a clue as to who she was or didn’t want to get involved, her plan was over.

A trapped, starving mouse could not afford to ignore a scrap of cheese for fear of it being poisoned.

This was her one chance and she was going to take it.

Call this Macaulay, describe her imprisonment, ask for help.

She did not know how to tell him or her where she was. Her plan was to have this Macaulay on the phone as she escaped, calling out any landmarks, street names, corporate building names, signs—anything that might lead her rescuer to her.

It would have to be a race between her murderous father and this person, Macaulay, who though she did not know him or her, she hoped was the hero type.

Either way, whoever reached her first got the prize.

An almost nineteen-year-old, un-socialized recluse, scared shitless, nearly-clueless girl.

Quite a take.

I was on my way to a rare night out with my wife when my cell rang. When I looked down and saw it was
not
the job, and on top of that a number I did not recognize, I almost put the phone back in my pocket.

With triplets, Amanda and I hadn’t had more than half a dozen private moments since their birth. We were both cops. Who would we trust with our little angels? As it happened, a year or so back Bum Garvey’s daughter turned fifteen and decided to start a babysitting enterprise.

Thursday nights had since become “our” night. Zoë Garvey slated us for three hours every week and we either caught a movie or went to dinner, just the two of us. Sometimes, both.

The cop in me, however, wouldn’t let the call go.

“Hello.”

“Is this Macaulay?”

My insides turned to Jell-O. It was the voice of a teenager, but not Zoë.

“Yes. Detective Bobby Macaulay. Who is this?”

“My name is Melissa Grant,” she said, just above a whisper.

My instincts immediately took over. Still, I could barely contain myself.

“Melissa. We’ve been looking for you, honey.”

“I don’t have much time. I am going to make a run for it.”

“Whoa, whoa, do we have time to talk for a minute or two?”

“Just,” she said.

“If you leave your cell on, I can get to you. I can have the call traced.”

“You don’t understand, there isn’t time for that. He’ll see one of the phones is missing.”

“Your dad?”

“Yes. I have to try now. Believe me, Macaulay, I’ve thought this through.”

“Do you know where you’re at?”

“I’ve never been outside,” Melissa said. My heart ached for this girl.

“Do this,” I said. “Give me ten minutes. Put the phone under the bed or somewhere your dad won’t see it. I can get my people to triangulate your position that fast. Then you can disconnect and even put the phone back.”

“I need to run. You don’t understand. I can’t be here any longer. I’m losing my mind.”

“Take the phone with you, then,” I said. “But
leave it on as long as you possibly can
.”

“I can do that.”

“I need to switch to my second line,” I said. “I’ll still be here, baby, and I
will
get to you.”

“He just went downstairs, I have to go now. The phone will stay on—”

And with that she stopped talking. I could hear the muffled sounds of a phone being jostled around. I quickly put Melissa on hold and called my tracer unit.

“There’s an incoming call on my cell, right now, still connected. I need to know where the caller is—this is top priority over everything else. This is Melissa Grant on the phone.”

I didn’t have to say anything more than that. The tech team went to work, reverse pinging cell towers, triangulating positions. Eight minutes later they had her.

“Warehouse district,” the tech said. “Slauson and 23
^rd
.”

I flipped the lights only. I didn’t want Spence Grant to hear a thing. He’d probably already be aware soon anyway, but I was actually not far from the warehouse district—ten to twelve minutes if I could manage to get through traffic. Thursday was a popular dinner night in Denver.

I switched back to Melissa. “Are you there, Melissa?”

Still nothing but the muffled sounds of the phone being jostled. Then I heard it. Melissa screamed. But the jostling sounds continued, which meant she was still on the run.

I hit the sirens. Fuck it. The race was on now—with the sirens traffic was much more maneuverable, some cars getting over to the right, others stopping, but that was exactly how we were trained to drive a high-speed pursuit.

Slaloming, we called it. Not every car could get over to the right in the city. And some idiots with their music turned up loud enough to bust an eardrum wouldn’t hear us. We practiced this at least three times a year. Some cars stopped. Some still driving, oblivious. Some over at the right, some pulled over to the left.

I made time and I called Dispatch to send the cavalry.

Spence Grant had been gathering things he needed to bring with them. It was time to leave the house of horrors. What they had built—planned and contrived, he and his inner passenger—had served its purpose. The plan now was to take his daughter to the safe-house. After they—

Spence heard footsteps. He stopped and turned an ear toward the upstairs. It was faint, but his senses had become like a cat’s. Someone was walking slowly upstairs. And then he heard it. The most dreaded sound of all. Worse than the appearance of his demon.

The alarm went off as the front door was breached.

Spence took the stairs three at a time. By the time he reached the top his guest was waiting for him.

“What the fuck is going on?” the thing said, gurgling. The transformation took time and energy. Sleep.

“I think my daughter just ran out the front door.”

Monster and human ran in stride to recapture their prize.

Melissa knew there would be an alarm. She’d never heard it, of course, but she’d heard her father talk about the security system many times. The problem was that she had absolutely no idea how (or even where) to disarm it. This wasn’t a typical home system she could simply guess or steal the code.