The Night Charter (13 page)

I
T HAD BEEN
less than ninety minutes since the gunfire when Camaro brought her truck to a stop in front of Parker's house. There was no need to hide anymore, and no one to see her anyway. The whole neighborhood was as lifeless as the moon. Even the drunks disgorged at last call had either made it to their beds or were booked in by the cops for some time in a cell.

She went up the walk and paused at the door. On the way here she had turned over the possibilities of what she might say when the moment came, but none seemed adequate. Parker died with his head in her arms. That was not an image Camaro wanted to put in Lauren's mind.

In the end she knocked and she waited, and then she knocked again. A light went on in the front room, making the curtains glow, and Camaro sensed a presence on the other side of the door. “Who is it?” Lauren asked. She sounded younger than fourteen, and there was fear.

“Lauren, you don't know me, but I'm a friend of your father's,” Camaro said.

“Where is he?”

“He can't be here right now. Listen, I need to talk to you. Can you open the door?”

Lauren waited for so long Camaro thought she'd gone away. Then the locks clicked and the door cracked open. A security chain extended across the open space. Lauren Story looked out at her. The same face as in the picture, only older and more tired. Her hair had darkened. “Who are you?” Lauren asked her. Again the fear.

“My name is Camaro. Something's happened, and I need you to trust me. Will you let me in?”

“Are you friends with Uncle Matt?”

Camaro thought for a moment. “No,” she said.

Lauren shut the door.

Camaro leaned close. “Lauren, this is important. I need you to let me in.”

Something metal rattled and the door opened again, more widely this time. The chain was disconnected. Lauren was in a pink-and-white nightshirt emblazoned with Hello Kitty. “I shouldn't do this,” she said.

“It's okay. I'm not here to hurt you.”

She stepped inside and saw the shabbiness of the place—the ground-in poverty of the furnishings and the few pictures on the walls, mostly posters in plastic frames. The drab yellow cast from the floor lamp in the front room made everything seem that much sadder.

“Where is my dad?” Lauren asked.

Camaro pushed the door closed. She looked at Lauren, and everything she had planned to say fled her mind until it was totally blank. They stared at each other.

“He's dead,” Lauren said.

The words needed to be spoken. “Yes,” Camaro said. “He is.”

Lauren fled before the tears could spill from her eyes. She ran down the hallway that bisected the house and went into another room. The door slammed shut behind her. Camaro was left alone. “Lauren,” she called after the girl. “I'm sorry.”

There was no answer. Camaro passed into the shadow of the unlit hallway and stood before the closed door. She put her hand against it and listened, and she heard Lauren crying. The girl's breath came in huge, gasping sobs, then muted. Camaro knew she was pouring her grief into a pillow. Maybe a Hello Kitty pillow, so cheerful and bright and unlike this house.

“Lauren,” Camaro said.

“Go away! Just get
out!
”

“I can't go away. It's important that I stay awhile. Long enough to get you out of here. You're not safe, Lauren. People are going to come, and you'll be in danger. I promised your dad I wouldn't let anything happen to you. So I'm not going without you.”

Lauren said nothing and the crying went on. Camaro turned from the door and saw the back bedroom. She went in and found the mussed bed and the cheap particleboard dresser clad in wood veneer. The closet was already open, and she put on the bedside light to see by.

There were scratches on the vinyl flooring that showed where the wainscoting had been removed, and the wood was pulled back ever so slightly from the painted wall. Camaro dug her fingertips in and removed it, exposing the hollow behind.

She dragged out the attaché case and left the closet. In the light of the lamp, she opened it and looked inside. More bundles of fifties, just like the ones Parker had used to pay her for the Cuba trip. He had said there was forty thousand, and she had no choice but to believe him. There was no time for counting now.

“What is that?”

Camaro flinched and turned at the sound of Lauren's voice. She hadn't heard the girl stop crying or her door opening. Lauren stood in the doorway with her eyes swollen and red, wet splashes on her cheeks where the tears had not been wiped away. When she inhaled, her lungs hitched, the weeping only a hairsbreadth away.

“What is it?” Lauren asked again.

“It's money,” Camaro said. “Your dad asked me to get it. For you.”

“Did Uncle Matt kill my dad?”

“No, he didn't. But he's coming. And the people who hurt your father are going to come, too. We don't have much time. Get some things you need, and let's get out of here.”

“How do I know I can trust you?”

Camaro shook her head. “You don't. You either will or you won't. But I'm telling you right now that you're coming with me no matter what. Even if I have to carry you out.”

Lauren's breath hitched again. A fresh track of tears carved her cheek beneath her right eye. She swabbed at it with her fingers. “I'll go,” she said.

“Hurry. Ten minutes. No more.”

The girl vanished. Camaro checked the nightstand for a weapon. In Florida felons could not own one legally, but that didn't mean they didn't have them. Parker did not. She switched off the lamp and left the room.

Lauren was in her own room, and Camaro heard the skitter of hanger wires in a closet. She looked in and saw that she was right about the Hello Kitty pillow. The room also had a small desk and a red chest of drawers that looked like it might have been real wood. The girl had a suitcase on the bed and had it half-filled. Camaro willed her to be faster.

Camaro wandered the rest of the house, finding the nook where the washer and dryer were and seeing the small kitchen. She had returned to the front room when she heard the distinct sound of a Charger's 440 cutting through the night.

C
AMARO EXTINGUISHED THE
lamp in the front room and went to the window. She pulled back the curtain just enough to see out front and saw the Charger slotting in ahead of her truck. A few moments later the engine stilled and Matt and Soto got out. They did not have their weapons in their hands, but she knew they were armed.

She pulled the Glock out of her boot and considered simply gunning them down on the walk from the front door. She crossed the idea off in her head. Closeness was what she needed now, and Lauren had to be put out of danger.

Lauren was pushing on her suitcase, trying to get it to close enough that she could work the zipper. Camaro flipped off the lights in the room, and when Lauren looked to her Camaro put a finger to her lips. “Uncle Matt,” she whispered. Lauren nodded, her eyes bright in the darkness.

They stole across the hallway down a short passage to the bathroom just as Soto kicked the front door in. The suitcase was left behind. The bathroom had no window and the shadows there were total. Camaro half-closed the door. Lauren clung to her.

Camaro glanced around the small room. The tub was old, built into the wall, and probably made of cast iron. She pointed to it. “Lie down in there.”

Lauren looked as though she might not obey, but then she complied. Silently she stepped into the tub and lowered herself into a fetal position below the lip, completely shielded. Camaro returned her attention to the door.

“She's in here,” Camaro heard Matt say. “That has to be her truck. I saw a light.”

“I don't want to get ambushed again, bro,” Soto said.

“Don't keep your head up your ass, then. Move it. I'll cover the front. You check the back. Parker's room is all the way on the end.”

There was the scrape of an athletic shoe on the floor, and Camaro heard Soto come nearer. A moment later he passed the bathroom with his gun out, a dark shape against more dark. He paused at Lauren's room. “Hey, it looks like Parker's kid was packing,” he said.

“Look under her bed.”

Soto went into the bedroom. He was gone half a minute before he reappeared in the hallway. “No, she's not under there.”

“Did you look in the closet?”

“Shit,” Soto said, and he disappeared again.

Camaro had her hand on Lauren's shoulder. She felt the girl trembling. The tears were all gone. Now there was only adrenaline. “Don't make a sound,” Camaro said into her ear.

Soto came out of the room. “Nothing in the closet.”

“Go check Parker's room. Look all over.”

She waited until he was gone before she eased the bathroom door open more widely and stepped through. When Lauren started to move, Camaro stilled her with a hand and touched her lips again. Lauren remained silent.

“I found it!” Soto yelled.

“The money?” Matt yelled back.

“No, but there's a hole in the wall. It must be where he was keeping it. That lady must have it now.”

“She's around here somewhere,” Matt said loudly. “You hear that, you bitch? We're gonna find you! And Lauren!”

Camaro advanced soundlessly until she was even with the hallway that split the house. She knew without having to look that Matt stood at one end. Parker's bedroom was on the other, only a few steps away. Camaro heard Soto rifling through the dresser anyway, just to be thorough.

“Lauren, honey!” Matt called out. “Can you hear me? It's Uncle Matt! Come over here! Nobody's gonna hurt you.”

She did not spare a glance Lauren's way. The girl had not moved, would not move until Camaro gave the signal. Perhaps not even then, if fear overrode sense and she was paralyzed by it.

“Come on, Sandro,” Matt said. “If it's not there, it's not there.”

“Coming.”

Camaro waited until he was exactly abreast of her before she struck. His weapon was at his side, and she seized his wrist, pushing in hard and rolling his forearm over even as she closed her other hand over the gun. Soto made a loud yelping sound. His body followed his arm, the shoulder joint turning and forcing him to tumble over Camaro's forward boot onto his back.

She heard Matt yell, and she crouched as his gun went off. Plaster dust burst into the narrow hallway as the bullets went wide, hitting nothing but wall. Camaro closed her finger over Soto's and triggered his weapon once and then a second and third time. The slugs did not land.

Matt reeled out the open front door, shooting wildly. Camaro wrenched the pistol backward in Soto's hand until she heard his finger break, and then she jerked it free of his grip. The gun passed into her right fist, and she emptied it after Matt, the muzzle flash strobing in the darkened hall. Matt was gone. The Charger's engine roared on the curb.

Soto struggled to make his feet, and Camaro dropped onto his back, turning until she clung to his back like a crab closing its legs. One arm went beneath his chin, and she locked her wrists together to squeeze. Camaro felt and heard his breath rasping and the pressure of his pulse against her arm, and then he went limp. Outside, the Charger laid down rubber on the quiet street.

She put the empty gun back into his broken hand and pressed his fingers to it. “Lauren, come on,” she said.

Lauren left the bathroom slowly. “Is he dead?”

“No, but he'll wake up soon. We have to go.”

Camaro offered her hand, and Lauren stepped over Soto's motionless body. Camaro took the attaché case and they both rushed to the front door. Lights were coming on in houses all along the lane, and the silhouettes of the people inside were black against yellow windows. They ran for the truck. In less than a minute they were gone.

“Y
EAH, I UNDERSTAND
,” Ignacio said into his phone. “I'm here now. I'll talk to you soon.”

There were not so many police units on this scene as there had been at the killings in Liberty City. Three marked cars were on the curb in front of Parker Story's house, their light bars flickering, as the officers themselves collected on the tiny lawn. They straightened up when Ignacio got out of his car and they saw the shield dangling from its chain around his neck.

“Who was first on the scene?” Ignacio asked them.

“I was, Detective,” said one. He was young, black, and could not have been in uniform for more than a year. “Officer Sapp.”

“What's your first name, Sapp?”

“Quinn, sir.”

“Okay. Walk me through it. Do we have any bodies?”

“No bodies, no. Lots of bullet casings.”

“Let's go inside.”

The front door was broken down and barely hung from its hinges. Ignacio made note of the shoe-print on the painted wood. “Someone needs to get a picture of that,” he said.

“CSIs are on their way.”

“What's taking so long?”

“You had them all up in Liberty City, sir.”

Ignacio sighed. “Right.”

There were a number of bullet casings scattered around inside and just outside the door. Ignacio counted eight altogether. He crouched down to look at them, careful not to disturb anything until photographs were taken. The rounds were 9 mm. Maybe a thousand stores in the Miami metropolitan area and beyond sold ammunition exactly like it.

“We have more in here,” Sapp said.

All of the lights in the house had been turned on, so it was easy to see the bright, shining brass in the hallway. More 9 mm shell casings. This time there were at least a dozen. Ignacio saw the divots taken out of the wall where two bullets had landed. One slug was still embedded in the drywall. “Lots of shooting and no dead bodies,” Ignacio said. “That's something, I guess. Show me more.”

“The place has two bedrooms,” Sapp explained. “One looks like it belonged to a little girl, and then there's the master bedroom. It looks like the girl was clearing out, because there's a suitcase full of her stuff. The master bedroom's been worked over pretty good.”

“Let's see.”

In the master bedroom the mattress on the bed had been pushed out of alignment, and all the drawers in the dresser were open. Ignacio stood by the open closet and almost didn't notice the hole in the wall. Sapp was there. “Somebody stripped off that wood there,” he said.

Ignacio got down on his hands and knees. His keychain had an LED flashlight on it, and he shone the bright beam into the hole. It was dusty inside, but there were marks on the floor indicating that something had been pushed in and pulled out several times. He wondered what could fit in such a space. A case for a gun, maybe. Parker Story was a convicted felon, and if someone found a weapon in his house, it was a serious charge.

“Tell me about the cars,” Ignacio said when he got up.

Sapp brought out a notepad. “According to the neighbors, there were two vehicles out front when the shooting started. There was a red crew-cab pickup and a yellow-and-black car. They said the car looked like it was for racing.”

“It's a Dodge Charger,” Ignacio said.

Sapp made a notation with a pen. “We didn't get a plate on the Charger, but we got a partial for the pickup. AUG. I called it in already. They're going to let us know when they come up with a match.”

“That shouldn't take long,” Ignacio said.

“No, sir.”

“Did the neighbors see any
people?
”

“Yes. One unidentified white male and two white females, one about thirteen or fourteen. They said the girl lives here.”

“She's Parker Story's daughter. What about the male? Have they seen him before?”

“No one said so, but they did say the car's been around before.”

“But there's more, right?”

“Yes, sir. There's the guy.”

“The guy? Who was the guy?”

“Latino male. A unit picked him up about a mile from here, running somewhere. They stopped and searched him and found he was packing an automatic. His trigger finger was busted up real bad, though.”

“What was his name?”

“Sandro Luis Soto.”

The flesh along Ignacio's spine tingled, and he nearly gasped out loud. “Why didn't someone tell me this in the first place?”

“Well, we heard you were interested in Parker Story, and this is his place.”

“And Sandro Soto! Sandro Soto, too! Where is he?”

“Taken down to booking.”

Ignacio left the bedroom and picked his way carefully through the hallway and its scattered brass. “I'm headed down to booking. Have someone call me when the CSIs get here, and tell them to call me if they find anything useful. Meanwhile, wake up all the neighbors again, and ask them the same questions all over. Somebody knows something they didn't say the first time.”

“I'll take care of it.”

“Good job, Quinn.”

“Thanks, sir.”

Ignacio went out of the house and instructed the other two uniforms what to do. He put Sapp in charge. “If anything weird happens, anything at all, I want to be told,” he told them.

He hurried to his car. Sandro Soto was just an hour ahead of him.