Gridlock: A Ryan Lock Novel (22 page)

Lock straightened. Beyond them the Pacific roiled lazily on to a perfect stretch of beach. A couple of seagulls swooped low overhead. ‘Can I see some ID?’ he asked.

‘Of course. Can’t be too careful under the present circumstances.’ Hill dug his ID from his pocket and handed it to him.

Lock took his time checking it out, then passed it back. ‘You can’t have read the script, Mr Hill. Law enforcement isn’t speaking to me.’

Hill smiled. ‘The LAPD aren’t, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t take it too personally though. They barely speak to me either.’

‘So what’s your involvement in all of this?’

‘The killings flagged up on ViCAP.’

The Violent Criminal Apprehension Program was a computer database used by local law-enforcement agencies and the FBI to look for similar facts or patterns that might link crimes in different states.

‘I got interested when one of the first suspects, Larry Johns, went missing in Arizona,’ Hill continued. ‘Anyway, long story short, I offered the LAPD my services via our field office. They initially declined, which was perfectly understandable. Homicide is a state crime, and out of our jurisdiction.’

‘But now that there’s a bunch of other bodies, including a cop and his wife, things have changed,’ Lock guessed.

Hill gave a sad smile. ‘I’m assisting them in any way I can.’

Carrie got up from her chair, and put a reassuring hand on Lock’s shoulder, letting him know that they were good. ‘I’m going to make sure our guests are settling okay,’ she said, and disappeared back into the house.

Levon Hill sat down, his forearm shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun bouncing off the water. Lock remained standing, a hand on the white-painted rail, eyes scanning the beach, trying to build the picture he’d been creating from day one of who belonged here, the houses they stayed in, when they walked their dogs or went for a jog. All of it would help him should he spot something or someone who didn’t fit the regular pattern. He’d brought danger into his home, and into his and Carrie’s lives. There was no escaping that.

‘Nice spot,’ Hill said, after a while.

‘Why are you here to see me, Mr Hill?’

‘I want to catch this individual, Mr Lock.’

‘We all do.’

Hill squinted, fishing in a pocket, then pulling out a sturdy black sunglasses case. He held off putting them on – presumably, Lock thought, to emphasize his sincerity. ‘Your priority is a little different. Your job is to make sure your principal stays safe. That’s the right term in your industry, isn’t it, Mr Lock? Principal?’

Lock nodded as Hill’s eyes disappeared behind mirrored Ray-Bans. ‘Correct. The client is the person who’s paying. The principal is the person you’re keeping safe. Often, as in this case, they’re one and the same individual.’

‘So our aims diverge slightly?’ Hill said.

Directly above them there was more pounding of feet and skittering of paws. Lock heard Kevin throw a ball for Angel, and Ty warn him not to throw it over the edge as Angel was about dumb enough to go after it.

‘I guess they do,’ Lock admitted.

‘However, there might be a way in which we can bring them together. If we can catch up with the person who’s making all our lives difficult, then Raven Lane is safe.’

‘That would be great,’ Lock said, tension creeping into his voice.

Hill gave another big, open, warm smile. ‘It surely would, wouldn’t it?’

Lock could feel his jaw tightening another notch. No matter how beautiful the scene laid out before them, Levon Hill’s visit wasn’t a social call. ‘Why don’t you cut to the chase? What do you want?’

Hill nodded towards the huge glass sliding door, which was still open. ‘Maybe we should close that first.’

Lock took a couple of steps back and pulled it shut.

Hill angled his head better to catch the strong Malibu sun. ‘This can’t go any further,’ he said, raising his sunglasses.

‘I can’t make a decision on that until I know what it is you’re talking about.’

‘I mean it. If it gets out that I shared this with you, my career in the Bureau is toast and you’ll understand why.’

Lock very much doubted that but he kept the thought to himself. There was no way that someone who had come as far and as fast in the FBI as Levon Hill was going to start telling tales out of school without some kind of nod from someone back in Virginia. ‘Spit it out.’

Hill stared into the middle distance. ‘We think we have the killer.’

‘How?’

‘The phone call. We’re a bit further ahead on the technology than people think.’

‘One phone call doesn’t prove anything, apart from the fact that he knows Raven’s real name and about the dress.’

‘That’s correct,’ Hill said. ‘Which is why I want to draw him out further into the open. The acceleration of the time between the killings shows that he’s clearly in a state of some psychological turmoil. I think he wants this to be over as much as we do.’

‘Why do you think that?’

‘I don’t believe in accidents, Mr Lock. If an individual gets sloppy, it’s usually because on some level they want to be caught. Not a theory you can easily sell to law enforcement, I might add, but it’s the truth.’

‘And how do you intend to draw him out?’

‘We have a name, we have a location, but we need more evidence before we can bring him in.’

‘One last time, Mr Hill. What is it you want?’

Hill pulled out a pack of nicotine gum and popped a piece into his mouth. ‘I want to put Raven right in front of him.’

44

Directly above them, Lock could hear Raven talking to Ty as Kevin continued to chase Angel around the house’s upper deck. He took a moment, allowing Hill’s request to sink in.

‘We have a lot of circumstantial evidence, but nothing firm enough to get through the arraignment. Last thing the LAPD want to do is arrest someone then have to let them go – especially after what happened with your client,’ Hill continued.

Aware of their voices traveling up, Lock moved to the sliding door. ‘Let’s talk more inside.’

Hill followed him into the main living area, then through to a small study with a sofa bed, desk and computer. Both men stood in the cramped quarters, as a screensaver of a lightning storm bounced around the computer.

‘So this guy, what’s his name?’ Lock asked.

‘I can’t tell you that. Not right now anyway.’

‘But you have him under surveillance?’

‘Like white on rice,’ Hill said. ‘But we have to be careful. We don’t want this going the way of the Phantom Lover case.’

The reference was to a man known as Vercanto Diaro, also known as the Phantom Lover. A serial killer in Colorado who targeted college girls around the Denver campus of the University of Colorado, Diaro had racked up more than a dozen victims before he’d become a suspect. Without enough direct evidence to arrest him, the FBI had mounted a huge surveillance operation, but Diaro had worked out he was being watched and fled the country.

‘You think our guy’s aware that you’re on to him?’ Lock asked.

Hill frowned. ‘I think he’s matching us every step of the way. This isn’t some mouth-breathing sociopath we have here. Our guy might be crazy, but he’s also very accomplished at this.’

Lock sat on the arm of the couch. ‘You can’t share a name with me?’

Hill shook his head. ‘No.’

‘Worried I might go after him myself?’

‘I don’t know whether you would or you wouldn’t. But I do know that there are still questions over the ATF agent who died in that stairwell up in San Francisco.’

Lock felt himself bristle. In San Francisco, he’d shot an ATF agent who’d been conspiring with white supremacists and whose treachery had cost the lives of one of Lock’s friends and the man’s family. Despite the provocation, Lock had killed the man in cold blood and there wasn’t a week that went by when he didn’t question what he had done. ‘That was self-defense You know that. Look, let’s cut to the chase: you want to use Raven as bait to draw your suspect out.’

‘And if we do, this can all be over in less than twenty-four hours.’

‘And what if something goes wrong? You said yourself that our guy’s smart. You don’t think he’ll get a little suspicious if we offer Raven up to him on a plate?’

‘He’s smart, but he’s also obsessive to the point where his intelligence is overridden by his baser needs. Right now his basest need is Raven. I’m willing to bet that this will trump his not wanting to get caught.’

‘Wait here for a second, will you?’ Lock asked.

‘Sure.’

Lock walked out of the room, opened a side door and took a set of external steps up to the top deck. Everyone stopped to stare at him, even Angel who cocked her head to one side. ‘Ty? You got a minute?’

Ty looked at Kevin and Raven. ‘Holler if you need us. Okay?’

Raven took the ball from the deck and tossed it to Kevin. Angel almost did a back flip trying to intercept it. ‘Sure.’

As they walked back down the stairs, Lock quietly brought Ty up to speed. Then they strolled to where Hill was sitting at the computer playing a game of Patience.

‘So? What’s it to be, gentlemen?’ he asked.

Ty and Lock shared a look.

‘I want Ty here to make sure there’s no spin put on this at a later date – any suggestion that somehow we’ve not co-operated.’

‘So you’ll do it,’ Hill said.

‘No,’ Lock responded. ‘We won’t. My responsibility is to make sure that Raven and her brother stay in one piece. Staking her out like a goat for a mountain lion would be an abrogation of that responsibility. Keep running your surveillance. Hope he slips up.’

Hill closed down the game and got up. ‘What if we lose him? What then, Mr Lock?’

Ty stepped in close to Hill. ‘Then we’ll deal with it.’

A door led out on to the Pacific Coast Highway where the traffic choked the northbound lanes as people made their way back towards the San Fernando Valley. Lock noticed a huge outline of a ghost tacked to the house next door, a reminder that tomorrow evening was Hallowe’en.

Hill opened his car door, putting a hand out to Lock. ‘I’d have said the same thing if I was you. No bad feelings?’

Lock shook. ‘We’re good. I hope we get him soon.’

‘Oh, and you’re gonna keep this on the down-low, right?’

‘Wouldn’t do me any good to broadcast it.’

‘And your fianc8Ee?’

‘We have an agreement about stuff like this. She knows I have to be able to do my job. Plus, I’m guessing that the LAPD would bring a world of hurt down on a reporter who let slip that you have this guy in their sights.’

As Hill got into his car there was the steady trill of a cell phone. He dug it out of the light grey windbreaker he was sporting and studied the display. ‘Wait up. Let me just take this first.’

He hit the call button, the phone pressed to his ear. A full ten seconds later he said, ‘When?’ Then he listened some more. He finished the call and turned back to Lock and Ty, who were still standing outside the house. ‘You familiar with someone called Raul Dominguez?’

‘What about him?’

‘His car was just found burned out by Central Division,’ Hill said.

‘And what about Raul?’

‘He was in the trunk.’ Hill looked away. ‘Looks like he’d been stabbed.’

Lock felt the muscles in his neck and shoulders tighten. Despite the friction between them, Raul had been a good kid. It made no sense that he was dead. But it showed that the killer was growing increasingly desperate. As the initial jolt of shock ebbed away, something occurred to him. They had the suspect under surveillance. Yet Lock had seen Raul not that long ago. ‘But you just said that you have—’

Hill interrupted: ‘That’s the kicker. The surveillance team lost eyes on him about six hours ago.’

‘Right when Raul would have had to go missing,’ said Ty, as he glanced towards Lock.

‘You know,’ Hill said, ‘if he slips away again, and finds Raven…’

‘Then we’ll be ready,’ Lock said firmly.

‘What do you think all this stress is doing to her?’ Hill asked. ‘Listen, we’ll have cops wall to wall. Raven will be totally safe. If this drags on, can you say the same? Can you be certain of that, Mr Lock? Let’s get some closure to all of this.’

Lock sighed. ‘Fine, ask her yourself. But if she says no, then you drop it.’

Hill smiled. ‘You have my word.’

45

Lock looked at Raven, who faced him in the kitchen, her arms folded. Her eyes were yellowing slightly, and her skin had moved beyond pale to transparent. The strain was finally showing.

Tiring of the deck, and at Lock’s suggestion, Carrie had taken Kevin on to the beach with Angel. The one thing you could rely on in Malibu was the neighbors’ discretion. Even if someone did spot Kevin and work out who he was, no one would be calling the media. People came to Malibu because they had money and because they wanted to be left alone.

‘I’ll do it,’ Raven said, her face set in a frown.

‘It’s your call,’ Lock said.

Hill looked surprised and Ty shocked. Raven unfolded her arms. ‘What?’

‘I said it’s up to you,’ Lock replied.

‘You’re not going to give me some big lecture about how I’m being irresponsible? About how I might get hurt?’

Lock answered with a shrug of his shoulders. ‘Would it make a difference?’

‘Nope. My mind’s made up,’ she said.

‘Well, then, I’ll save my breath.’ Lock turned to Hill. ‘But I’m going to be there. That’s part of the deal.’

Hill sighed. ‘The LAPD won’t like you being involved.’

‘Tough shit. I also want to be able to recce the location first.’

Hill reached for his cell phone, which was lying on the black granite counter. ‘I’m going to have to make some calls.’ He looked over at Raven. ‘You’re good to wear a wire?’

‘Whatever it takes. I just want this done.’

Lock raised his hand. ‘I have a question.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘How are we going to know where this guy is?’

‘He popped back up on the radar right after we found Raul.’

‘You spotted him?’ Ty asked.

‘No,’ Hill said with a sad smile. ‘He strolled back into his apartment in West Hollywood like he’d been out for a pack of smokes.’