Chapter 28

Since Tony had learned the van caught the eyes of the FBI, he and Rudy had looked for an opportunity to steal another vehicle. A heist wasn’t a good option on US 101 with so much traffic. Not long after they left Lincoln City, he made a right turn on a narrow country road.

They drove back along the twisted lane for several miles until they came across a turnout on the right. Not much more than a wide spot in the road yet two cars could park side by side. Stopped in it, a Jeep Laredo sat vacated. The sun had set a few minutes before and the stretched shadows caused by tall trees had been replaced by the gloom of night. With no street lights, the van’s headlamps offered the only illumination in the darkness. Tony steered alongside the Jeep. The deep-brown SUV looked newer than any ride he had had in recent years. He let the van’s engine idle as he opened the driver’s door to check it out.

Overhead he heard the sound of the wind whisper through the high branches of the trees and, not too far away, a river thrashed as it tripped into, around, and over its rocky bed. As he rounded the front of the van, Rudy stepped out and wandered off toward the trees on the edge of the turnout.

“What the hell you doing?” Tony asked.

“God, can’t I take a piss without permission. You’re worse than my ol’ man.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment. Just make it fast.”

Tony tried the doors of the Jeep but they were locked, so, he searched for something to break a window. In the van`s headlights, he saw a large rock beside the road about twenty feet ahead. The Jeep’s rear door had two windows, one of them small and wing-shaped. Tony raised the rock to shatter to the wing but, as he was about to swing the large stone, a new sound drifted through the air.

With the whistle of the wind and the churn of the river, he could discern neither where it came from nor if there was more than one voice. He paused, frozen in place, listening. As it grew closer and more distinct, he determined the sound came from the far side of the Jeep nearest the river. Hidden in the darkness between the two vehicles, he dropped the rock just below the van’s passenger door.

As the sound drew closer, one male and one female voice became distinguishable. He turned his head toward them and two figures emerged from a trailhead. Caught in the peripheral light of the van’s headlamps, one carried a flashlight with the beam pointed toward the ground. They turned and walked toward the Jeep. With their faces illumined by the van’s headlights, he saw a middle-aged couple, slightly overweight, panted for breath.

This will be as easy as stealing a kid’s lunch money all over again.

*

Detective Caesar Garcia wasn’t about to give up. He had been on the case for the better part of twenty-seven hours. Of that, he had only spent a few of them asleep in the back of the break room when he stretched out on a coffee-stained couch with threadbare arms. He knew cases like this with open trails had to be followed quickly and efficiently, and, since he rose at 4:00 a.m. to take the call from Ansell Parker, he hadn’t shut his eyes for more than a blink’s worth.

He didn’t relish admitting a lapse of judgment but, he knew, if he hadn’t disclosed to Agent Hawk that he leaked information on Rudy’s relationship to Adelaide Masters-Leigh to the AP, it would come out eventually. In his opinion, the way the government worked, once a suspected leak sprung, they might lose focus on the real case while they ramped up an investigation to find the hole. Perhaps with the air cleared early it’d mean the FBI wouldn’t waste time while Natalie was still in the wind.

As he walked back toward his desk from the kitchen with a can of soda and a bag of pretzels, his thoughts were distracted by the ring of his cellphone.

“Garcia,” he said into the mouthpiece and swiveled his desk chair. The springs creaked as he sat and tipped back.

*

Natalie heard the voices outside the van as well and shed the ties on her hands and feet. With the memory still riveted on the clerk and the man at the convenience store, a tremor rippled through her body as she considered how little Tony respected the life of other people. She slipped Hank’s head off her lap and moved without a sound to the other side of the van. Behind Rudy’s seat, she crouched where she could see out the open passenger door. Tony had stepped around to the front of the Jeep. Two people walked in his direction. She braced herself by the back of the passenger seat and stood, hunched over at the waist. In one fluid movement, she spun and settled easily into the seat. Cool air spilled over her legs.

As the couple drew closer, they slowed their pace and the man raised his hand with an apprehensive wave. He shone the flashlight toward Tony. “Everything alright?” he said and shifted his body so he came between the woman and Tony.

Tony didn’t answer. Natalie saw him reach behind his back and knew he was searching for the revolver. She wanted to shout, “Run!” but for what reason? Tony would have no qualms about whether he shot them in the back or front. Dead is dead, “no witnesses,” Tony had said.

Tony pulled the gun from his belt and said with a cool reserve in his voice, “Give me your keys.”

“We … we don’t want any trouble,” the man said and reached into his pocket.

“Slowly, now,” Tony said, “I don’t like surprises.”

Natalie quietly slid off the seat and softly touched the ground on the balls of her feet.

“It’s only my keys,” the man said.

“Please don’t hurt us,” the woman pleaded. “Just take the car and leave us alone.”

Natalie started to move from behind the door. As she shifted, her foot bumped into something.

“On your knees,” Tony demanded.

“Please, we’ll do whatever you want,” the man entreated and turned back toward the woman, “but she’s just getting over knee surgery. Getting on her knees will hurt and might injure her again.”

“Shut the hell up, do I look like I give a shit. Maybe I should just blow your knees out so you can sympathize better. Get on your knees, now, both of you, and give me those damn keys.” He walked toward them with the pistol pointed at the man’s head.

The man helped his wife into a kneeling position. “I’m sorry, dear,” he said. As she began to sob, he held the keys out to Tony.

Because Natalie was behind the bright lights, she knew the man and the woman couldn’t see her. She kept her eyes trained on Tony while he walked away from her to retrieve the keys. She stooped and found a large rock. She glanced around the turnout quickly to find Rudy. If he really did want to set her free and would follow her lead, this was the perfect time, but she couldn’t see him anywhere. She stepped around the passenger door and walked to the front fender of the Jeep. Her target was only ten feet away. She lifted the rock over her head with both hands, took careful aim, and hurled the missile at Tony.

*

“Detective Garcia? Special Agent Hawk.”

After she had returned to her cubical from the scene of her witness’s murder, Angela had located the reports on the Beaumont case in the National Crime Information Center database. From them, she had been able to fill in some blanks in Caesar’s information.

Eyewitnesses, two soldiers recently returned from Iraq, from a photo of three men at a convenience store had identified for the Reno police they were the same men seen with a man who was later found murdered. No physical evidence had been found to positively connect the three men to the murdered man, so for now they had been deemed persons of interest. The soldiers had also identified the men’s car as a mid-sixties four-door Chevy. A car matching that description with the plate number two attentive Lassen County Sheriff’s Deputies had been able to positively link to the three men, had also been found abandoned near the scene where a farmer’s 1982 Ford van had gone missing.

“Yes, good evening,” Caesar said. “I received a report just a while ago that the third suspect has been identified, Henry Rogers. Seems he goes by Hank, Hank Rogers.”

Someone at Xandar Studios had recognized the photo and it hadn’t taken long to find he hadn’t been on the west coast long.

“What do we know about Mr. Rogers?” Angela asked.

“Well, his neighborhood’s a little different than the TV icon . . . ,” Caesar paused.

Angela Hawk knew he was trying to make a joke but she was in no mood. His actions had likely caused a man’s death, not to mention the teenage clerk still in the ICU. She waited for him to continue.

“A look at his rap sheet says he’s been a bad boy. He was arrested on a series of drug possessions, breaking and entry, robbery, and assault. Even though he spent a few years in Sing Sing, I just don’t see anything that’d have escalated to this serious a crime spree.”

“You know,” Angela said and rifled through reports on her desk, “yeah, here it is, Tony Alonso spent some time in Sing Sing as well on a sexual assault charge. Maybe they met there, I’ll check it out.”

“Wonder if there are any open warrants for them in New York?” Caesar asked as he pulled the bag of pretzels open. “I came up empty in California on the three suspects but it might help us get a clearer picture of Alonso if you check him out. Have you learned anything else?”

Angela heard a crunch in her ear but ignored it. “We lost them around Susanville but picked up their trail in western Oregon just an hour ago. One of the suspects used a credit card at a gas station.”

She paused. With her murdered witness, this hadn’t been her week for good news. “I’m afraid something terrible has happened, Caesar.”

“What?” he shouted. “Did you find Natalie’s body?”

“No . . . but they shot a teenage clerk at the station. He’s in critical condition and may not survive. They left one witness who had stepped into the restroom but, as they fled, they ran over and killed another man.”

“My God, they’re escalating,” Caesar said. “God help her.”

*

Tony took the keys and contemplated whether he should waste the couple here or take them off into the brush somewhere. When the eyes of the man flicked past him, he twisted to his left. The quick motion threw him off balance. With the gun still pointed at the man’s head, he stumbled, tried to reset his feet, and caught a vision of an unexpected threat. A heavy stone flew just inches away on a collision course with his head. Behind it, the figure of Natalie draped in her black leather jacket ran around the fender of the Jeep.

He had no time to avoid the missile. It glanced off his left shoulder, bounced into his face, and, already off-balance, knocked him toward the ground. The gun and the keys dropped within easy reach of the man.

*

Natalie saw the gun fall as she raced toward the place where Tony had been standing. The man, too, reached for it. Tony’s left foot jerked up as he fell and connected a solid blow below with the man’s chin. As he fell backward, Tony crumpled on top of the shrieking woman.

The gun lay unchallenged on the ground. The glint off the nickel plate from the headlights of the van made the revolver look like a searchlight to Natalie. She continued her stride toward the beacon of safety. Her fingers welcomed the cold steel as she wrapped them around the barrel.

“Quick, get to your car and get out of here,” she said to the couple as she turned the pistol to grab the grip.

The man looked up at her, his eyes pleading.

“Come on, go. There’s not much time.”

The startled man grabbed the keys out of the dirt and stood. He pushed Tony off his wife and helped her to her feet.

“Hurry now,” Natalie said. She waved the gun toward their car.

While the couple scurried to the SUV, Natalie looked to where Tony lay sprawled on the ground. He wasn’t moving.

As the man passed Natalie, he said “Thank you, miss, but you seem to be in trouble. Your face is bruised, Shouldn’t you come with us?”

Even though the prudent thing would be to run away with them and leave Tony with his face in the dirt, she couldn’t walk away from Rudy. That’d seal Rudy’s doom for certain. She wasn’t sure why but it seemed her presence is what kept Rudy alive to this point. “Please,” Natalie said, “just do as I say. Call 9-1-1 as soon as you can.”

Both doors of the Jeep slammed closed and then the engine started. She stepped out of the vehicle’s path, a step toward Tony, and, as the Jeep began to drive away the woman opened the passenger window and shouted, “Are you sure, dear?”

She searched for Rudy and, not seeing him, said, “Yes, go!”

The Jeep continued toward the road. She could finish this now. Shoot the bastard and be done with it. No sooner had she thought it, though, than a quick twist back to Tony showed he no longer lay on the ground. Movement out of the corner of her eye snatched her attention but she didn’t have time to react. Tony slammed his fist into her stomach.

The air in her lungs raced out in a desperate wheeze as she staggered backward and doubled over. She still had the gun and tried to straighten up to search for her target but it was too late. One of Tony’s fists slammed into her cheek and his other hand grabbed the barrel of the gun. With a twist she thought would break her wrist, Tony wrested it away. Natalie fell to her side in the dirt.

Tony took aim at the Jeep as it receded into the night and fired once. The shot shattered the rear window, but the dark SUV continued down the road and out of sight.

“Now you’ve stepped in shit, bitch. You let witnesses go. Get back in the van!”

“Why don’t you shoot me and get it over with?”

“Shut up,” he said and grabbed her arm. He yanked her to her feet and shoved her toward the Econoline.

“I don’t get it. You didn’t rape me when you had the chance and now for the third time, you didn’t kill me when you could have. What do you want from me?”

“I want you to shut the hell up and get back in the van.”

Tony thrust her toward the open passenger door. She stumbled but was able to keep her footing. As she reached the door, she heard Rudy’s voice.

“I thought I heard a shot. What happened to the Jeep?”

Tony didn’t answer but, opening the cargo door, he shoved Natalie inside.