In His Reach, page 17
“Magdalena!”
Eve led the whole party back across the lawn at a dead run, with Lawrence lagging farther and farther behind. Eve vaulted the flagstone stairs two at a time and threw the door open. She raced into the living room but did not see Magdalena. Neither was she in the kitchen, bathroom, sitting room, drawing room, game room, or guest bedroom.
Eve raced back into the main living room, where Tomasso was sitting on the sofa with a blank expression on his face that she was coming to recognize. She ran up to him.
“Tomasso, right?” she panted, wide-eyed and crazed looking herself. “Where’s Magdalena?”
The man looked at her as if he didn’t understand. Eve, despairing the passage of each second, tried to remember if he’d heard him speak English before.
“Tomasso?” Eve tried again, waving a hand in front of the man’s face.
“She’s dead, isn’t she?” he said with a heavy accent, not even blinking. “My daughter. My only child. The light of my days. She’s dead, isn’t she? Tell me the truth now. Is my little girl still alive?”
Eve sighed. She didn’t have time for bedside manners now. She placed a hand on the man’s shoulder.
“Yes, Tomasso. Serena’s dead. I want to find the man who did it. I want to put him away forever, so he’ll never hurt anyone again. And I need to do it now, before he strikes again.”
“You find him,” Tomasso agreed, giving Eve a surprisingly lucid stare all of a sudden, “but when you find him, don’t arrest him. Don’t put him away. People who get put away—they come back out, or they kill more inside. Do the world a service. Kill the fucking dog. He’d probably thank you.”
Eve made no reply to this. She could understand the sentiment. She herself had been tempted by the deep rage that surged within her when she was faced with a human monster, but it was an emotion she’d learned to temper with judgment.
“Tomasso,” she repeated desperately, “where is Magdalena? I’m afraid she’s in terrible danger.”
“Magdalena?” the man blinked and looked around as if coming out of a long dream and expecting to find his wife by his side. “She was here just a moment ago.”
“Please think,” Eve said. “Did she say anything about going anywhere? When I spoke to her earlier, she said she was going to take her daughter and escape. Do you think she would go alone?”
“Go?” the man looked at Eve as if not understanding again. “Where would she go? It’s not safe out there.”
“That’s why I’m asking you!” Eve nearly screamed. She took a deep breath. This was getting her nowhere. Magdalena had taken off somewhere or else been kidnapped, and her husband was too stunned to be of any help. She left him on the sofa in his stupefied daze.
Nearly in a blind panic herself, Eve ran out the front door to the parking pad. She pulled out her phone and hurriedly dialed the number of Sheriff Delvecchio. She had to get all her resources in step if she had any hope of catching this deranged lunatic.
“Delvecchio,” the sheriff answered his phone.
“Agent Hope,” Eve identified herself rapidly. “We’ve got pandemonium at the ranch. The killer was here. Unclear if he’s still somewhere on the property or on the lam again, but he took out another DeSoto.”
“Christ,” Delvecchio muttered, “who was it?”
“Serena,” Eve said bitterly. “The poor girl vanished this morning. She was found in Russi’s cottage with a bullet hole in her head just a few minutes ago.”
“Jesus Christ,” the sheriff said again, “she was only twenty-two.”
“I’m very sorry for your loss,” Eve said for the millionth time in two days. She looked around at the trucks and vehicles parked on the wide slab. She was almost positive there was a truck missing. “But that’s not the end of our troubles,” she told Sheriff Delvecchio. “Now it looks like Magdalena’s flown the coop.”
“God, why would she do that?” Delvecchio said. “She’s making herself vulnerable by separating herself from the group.”
“Panic,” Eve replied. “Her home doesn’t feel safe anymore because it’s not, so she took off. Any idea where she might go to hide out?”
“No idea,” he replied after a moment. “Listen, Agent Hope, I was actually about to call you. I just got word from the state troopers. One of their choppers found your black pickup truck. They sent out a patrol car to check it out. There was nobody there. The truck had smashed into a boulder and was spinning its tires out against it in a field off Alma Road. I guess our guy put a rock on the gas pedal and let the truck run, and that’s where it came to a stop. Kind of a reckless way to dispose of a vehicle, but recklessness seems to be this guy's MO. Anyway, nobody lives out there on the outskirts. He must have gone on foot from there or hitched a ride.”
“Did you say Alma Road?”
“That’s right,” the sheriff sounded caught off guard. “Why, do you know it?”
“No,” Eve said, “but I think I know where Magdalena is, and if my hunch about this killer is correct, he’s already there too.”
She hung up and ran for the house.
“Saddle up, Hobbes!” Eve shouted to her partner through the door. Hobbes was there in an instant, with the remaining DeSotos trailing after him. Nobody wanted to be left behind in the house.
“Where’s Magdalena?” Hobbes asked.
“Alma,” Eve said, running across the parking pad to the Charger and wrestling the key out of her pocket.
“Where?”
“No time,” Eve said. “I’ll explain on the way. Delvecchio found the truck. I think our killer is there too.”
Eve was unlocking the car when her partner called out to her over the roof. Something about the tone of his voice sent a chill down her spine.
“Hope!” he called out, using her last name alone for the first time in their young partnership. “Hold it!”
“What?” she yelled back hotly, her eyes only just peeking over the roof of the Charger.
“The tires are flat!”
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
“What?” Automatically, Eve looked down at the tire on her side. These, too, were completely deflated. Eve crouched, studying the damage. There were jagged slashes through the rubber, as if somebody had plunged in a sharp, serrated knife and yanked. She cursed and stood up. Her mind raced, and in the back of her skull, a loud clock was ticking off the seconds of Magdalena DeSoto’s life. The woman had experienced so much suffering, physical and emotional, that Eve couldn’t bear the thought of it ending like this.
Eve stole a quick look at the other vehicles on the pad. As she expected, every tire in sight was slashed. She made her decision in an instant, throwing open the door of the Charger and jumping behind the wheel.
“What about the tires?” Hobbes asked, but he got into the car anyway. Eve liked that. Maybe he was long-term partner material after all.
Instead of answering, Eve inserted the key into the ignition and turned it over. The Charger roared to life. Eve slammed it into gear, pulled it in a tight circle, and gunned the gas.
The Charger rode rough on its flat tires, even over the smoothly paved driveway that led up to the villa. The hardpacked gravel would be hell on the rims, Eve knew, but the cost of vehicle repairs was nothing weighed against the precious time they would lose waiting for the sheriff to come get them.
Eve focused all her attention on driving, avoiding potholes and patches of rough pavement while still pushing the charger to the limits of its capacity, given its handicap. Even so, the drive to the edge of the county felt like it took forever. Each minute that passed while she drove was filled with memories of Simon Stone giving her the slip in the past, compounding and redoubling her desperation not to let it happen again.
At last, they came to an old, bent, metal signpost with peeling letters that said “Alma Rd.” Eve banked the Charger off the highway onto the country dirt road almost without slowing down. The car rumbled horribly, but the shocks held out. Eve floored it, kicking up a long trail of dust behind the car.
“Are you worried that’ll warn him we’re coming?” Hobbes asked, looking over his shoulder at the tan dust devil twirling away in their wake.
I hope it does, and it scares the shit out of him, Eve thought, but she kept her eyes on the road and her mouth tightly shut.
Alma Road was lonely to begin with, but Eve had no problem identifying the “desolate section” to which Stephano had referred. The first half mile or so was dotted with small houses, spaced discreetly apart but close enough for neighborly barbeques on weekends.
Then there were four or five miles of nothing.
Eve had her eyes glued to the landscape, looking for either the truck that Magdalena had taken from Flat Hill or for the house and dilapidated barn that marked her old hideout. With her attention taken off the road, Eve didn’t manage to miss as many of the rocks and potholes as she could have.
“There!” Hobbes said suddenly. “Over that hill. Isn’t that a barn?”
Eve strained her eyes against the hilly horizon. Sure enough, a tired-looking barn that must have once been red leaned in the distance. Only its caving roof and hay loft could be seen, but that was all they needed.
A narrow road led in that direction. Eve shot her partner a questioning look, and he shrugged, then nodded. Eve steered the car down the road, which was little more than a footpath with high grass on either side. A hundred yards in, an old signpost informed them that they were on private property. Twenty yards farther on, another warned that trespassers would be shot on sight. Eve wondered if that meant Magdalena kept guns out here with which to defend herself, but she wasn’t hopeful.
The road led them past the barn and through the sloping hills. They were truly in the middle of nowhere. Aside from the hardly beaten path beneath their tires, the barn was the only visible sign of civilization.
They drove, bumping and thudding on the flat tires, through acres of this nothing. Eve felt cold, as if there were pins and needles penetrating every bone in her body. She couldn’t stand this.
Then, ahead through a distant cluster of trees, she saw the house. With a wave of relief, Eve pressed her booted foot to the floor. The Charger complained a little, but they picked up speed. Through the trees, Eve thought she could see a truck. Was it the one that Magdalena had taken from the villa? She couldn’t quite tell. She screwed up her eyes, trying to see through the trees and branches in her way.
“Hope!” Hobbes yelled suddenly. “Watch out for the …”
But it was too late. Cursing atrociously, Eve realized that she’d sidled the Charger into the ditch that ran close along the side of the road. The ditch was deeper than it looked, and the mud was soft. The flat tires on the passenger side sank quickly into the mire, and the vehicle moved no farther. They were still 200 yards or so from the house.
Without missing a beat, Eve was out of the car and running. Her eyes were still fixed on the house in the distance. So, the car was out. It had gotten her close enough. If neither Simon nor Magdalena were there, she’d have to wait for the sheriff anyway.
Eve put all that out of her mind. Her task now was simple: run.
As she closed the distance between her and the house, she saw Hobbes overtaking her in her peripheral vision. His long legs carried him ahead of her quickly, and soon he was leading the charge.
They came to a halt as they reached the house. Eve glanced around. There was no sign of the sheriff or the troopers. Nothing but the truck Magdalena had boosted from Flat Hill. Eve gave her partner a brisk nod, motioning that she was going to kick in the door, that she would take point, and that Hobbes was to go around back and enter from behind. She wasn’t going to lose her perp again.
Hobbes nodded, and Eve thought he looked a damned sight steadier than the first time when they’d breached an empty house. Funny, she thought as he vanished around the corner of the house, because now she was the one with her heart in her throat. The electric fire of pre-combat nerves never changed, no matter how many times she did it.
Eve kicked in the door, which wasn’t even locked. The jamb broke with a weak splinter, and the door swung back. Eve rushed in with her gun leveled and found herself looking at a wild-eyed, pale-faced man with choppy hair and a scruffy beard. She’d seen hair cut like that before when she was in-country. It had been cut with a knife. The same went for his shave. There were five, black tears tattooed under his cheeks. Three on one cheek, two on the other. The ink looked fresh. The second tear under his right eye still oozed blood. It mixed with the ink and turned a sickly rust color.
The man was standing at an odd angle as if his leg was injured. Eve thought of the shotgun, but only for an instant. Right away, her attention was recaptured by the revolver in the man’s hand.
It was pointed at Magdalena’s head.
The woman was zip-tied, like Serena had been, although instead of binding her arms behind her back, Simon had fastened them in front of her chest in the traditional prayer position. A black cloth was tied tightly around her eyes.
“Simon,” Eve said the name in a loud, clear voice, looking the man in the eye. He looked back without a hint of fear in spite of the two federal agents pointing guns at him. He had one arm wrapped around Magdalena’s waist, the other was occupied with the revolver, and he was using her as a human shield. Magdalena’s face was completely stoic. She might have been sleeping. Simon smiled at the agents from behind the woman.
“Now, now,” he said, making a tutting noise with his tongue, “I’ve just met my long-lost mother. Can’t you give me a moment of privacy?”
“Put down the gun, Simon,” Eve said in the same tone, taking a small step towards the pair. His eyes landed quickly on her feet, and he dug the barrel of the revolver into Magdalena’s temple. He seemed to be weighing his options. Where the hell was Hobbes?
“You’re Simon Stone, right?” Eve asked, trying another step. He backed away, and Eve noticed for the first time that there was a back door only a few feet behind him. “Psycho Stone? Thomas Edison High?”
The scruffy man cocked his head at an odd angle, but the smile on his face didn’t go away. His wide, lidless eyes were underscored by dark bags that made his corneas stand out weirdly in his deeply hooded sockets. His countenance made Eve’s skin crawl.
“You know my name?” he asked, taking another step towards the door. “How?”
“Small world, Simon,” Eve said. “You carried my photo, my family’s photo, for a long time before you sent it back to my brother.”
“Your brother?”
“That’s right,” Eve said. “Tyler sends his regards. In your letter, you said that you were working on your filling your bubble with peace. You can start that right now by putting down the gun and letting that woman go.”
“Tyler …” Simon mouthed the words as if talking in his sleep. Then a disturbing grin spread across his face, showing too many teeth for Eve’s comfort. “Oh,” he said with a voice like a rattlesnake getting ready to strike, “I know who you are. You must be …”
But before the vile man could say her name, the door behind burst open, hitting him square in the back.
Hobbes came in, yelling like a maniac, when he realized that he’d struck an armed man and, worse yet, had not knocked him out. There was a moment of chaos as Eve tried to get a clear shot at the killer, but it was a massive tangle of arms, legs, and vital areas as her, Hobbes, and Simon tussled in the doorway.
“No!” Simon’s voice rose in a strained screech over the grunts and scuffles of the fight. “This bullet’s not for you!”
For a moment, hope blossomed in Eve’s mind. If he wouldn’t use the gun on them for symbolic reasons … but her hope was dashed immediately as she saw a brutal Ka-Bar combat knife appear in Simon’s other hand. The same knife he used on the tires, Eve’s mind snapped the connection into place automatically.
Then everything seemed to move in slow motion.
Eve watched with perfect, almost serene clarity as Simon plunged the knife into Hobbes’s ribs up to the handle. He let go, and Hobbes fell back, the gun slipping from his hand as he started to clutch the knife protruding from his side. Turning with a fluid spin, Simon returned his attention to Magdalena, who lay on the floor where she’d been knocked over. Eve watched down her own gunsights as Simon leveled the revolver, aimed at his own mother’s head, and …
Eve pulled the trigger.
Three tight shots, crack crack crack, all of which landed, whap whap whap, in Simon Stone’s center mass. The man’s body was thrown like a ragdoll against the doorpost. She wasn’t going to take any chances. Seeing red as Hobbes bled in her peripheral vision, Eve squeezed the trigger again, placing her last shot right between Simon’s eyes.
***
Eve stepped into the hospital room carrying a glass vase of geraniums and cosmos, wondering if she’d picked the wrong gift for her partner’s recuperation. What did you get for the partner who you were supposed to train and protect but instead got stabbed? There was no Hallmark card for that. She’d checked.
Deputy Director Pliny was in the room already, seated by Hobbes’s bedside with a grave look on his face. He looked up and nodded quietly at Eve as she stepped into the room and closed the door behind her.
“How’s he doing?” Eve asked, setting the vase down.
“He’s okay but damned lucky to be that way,” Pliny said. “There was some minor damage to his lung, but the surgeon was able to mend it, and the doctor said he’ll make a full recovery.”
“I feel awful that he took the injury. I’m the seasoned partner. I should have been the one with my ass on the line,” Eve said, briefly sitting down in a chair but quickly standing again. She paced the length of her partner’s gurney.
“You know, Agent Hope, sometimes I think you just like getting injured for the sick pay and pudding cups,” Pliny said with a wry smile that lived mostly in his eyes. “You’ve got to let the kid earn his scars. You’ve already got yours, and Lord knows I have mine.”
