Hollow Point Page 9

  Without another word, she heads for the door.

  I watch her go, wanting to say something, wanting to lift the table and throw it at her and snap her back in half, but the afterimage of my mother and sister and my sister’s family stays in my mind. As long as they’re in danger, I can’t make any moves against this woman or anyone else she’s working with.

  Leila knocks on the door to let the guard outside know that she’s done. She glances at the camera in the corner by the ceiling, at the cord she’d pulled, and shrugs at me. Not her problem.

  She smiles again.

  “We’ll be seeing you soon, Holly.”

  The door creaks open, and she steps out into the hallway.

  Twenty-One

  For a solid minute, I don’t move. Don’t breathe. Don’t even blink. I stare at the door, at the space where that woman stood, and do everything in my power not to scream.

  Those photographs Leila showed me are seared into my brain. Even with my eyes open, I can still see them. My mother at the grocery store. My nephews playing in a park. My sister and her husband standing together.

  Everything I did after I killed Javier Diaz was to protect them—my trip to Mexico, to take out Javier’s father, and then returning to the U.S. and starting a new life in the middle of nowhere. Did I miss my family, even though they often drove me nuts? Of course. But it was my love for them that kept me strong, ensured I never gave in and contacted them.

  I thought I eliminated the only link between my family and the world of killers. Apparently, I was wrong.

  Finally I close my eyes, suck in a heavy breath. I need to come up with a game plan. Something to get word to Atticus. Atticus will know what to do. He’ll make sure my family is safe. He’ll—

  The door opens again.

  I expect it to be Sheriff Gilbert, or a deputy, or maybe one of the U.S. Marshals, but it’s not any of them.

  Erik Johnson has on jeans and gray T-shirt. He stands in the doorway. Leans in slightly to glance up at the camera, does a sort of double take when he notices the wire has been unplugged. He focuses his glare on me.

  “You make me sick.”

  I can tell he’s been practicing the line, probably running it over and over in his head. The way he would eye me down. The way he would stand there with shoulders back, his chin tilted up. He’s pissed because he thinks I’ve been lying to him all this time, and while it’s true I have been lying to him, I’ve been lying to him for a completely different reason. Not that it would matter to him right now, or even make sense, but that doesn’t stop me from seeing him as my last chance of saving my family.

  “I need your help.”

  This clearly surprises him, but his glare doesn’t waver.

  “Why the fuck would I do anything for you?”

  “Don’t think of it as for me. It’s for my family. They’re in danger.”

  This clearly surprises him too, and he frowns for the first time.

  “What family?”

  “They’re not going to let me make a phone call. That woman—she’s not a real lawyer. She’s—”

  Well, who is she? It’s too complicated to get into it. I don’t have time to explain how she set me up to kill those two men. Because she knew I was the kind of person who would kill them. The kind of person who wouldn’t let the murder of a girl go unavenged.

  Erik takes a step back, leans his head out the door to look down the hallway, then focuses his glare on me again.

  “I shouldn’t even be here right now. They’ve suspended me. They interrogated me. I’m under investigation. Like I had any idea what kind of monster you are.”

  Obviously he’s talked his fellow deputies into sneaking him in here before the U.S. Marshals take me away. So that he can tell me off. I don’t blame him, and if I hadn’t just had a visit from the woman I knew as Leila Simmons, I would let him vent.

  I say, “Will you remember this number?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  I recite the number Atticus gave me a year ago, the one he said to call if I’m ever in trouble or need to get hold of him. After I recite it, I say it again, slowly this time, to make sure it sinks into Erik’s head.

  “Nobody will answer. It’ll be for a company called Scout’s Dry Cleaning. Leave a message. Say Holly’s family is in danger.”

  His face changes, clouds with confusion.

  “Who the hell is Holly?”

  Before I can answer, there’s a sudden whistle down the hallway, one of the deputies giving him the signal that his time’s up.

  Erik doesn’t waste time—he steps away, quietly shuts the door.

  I’m left sitting there, shackled to the table, staring at empty space again, and it’s another minute before the door opens and Sheriff Gilbert peers in, his face as hard and severe as his gruff voice.

  “Your ride’s here.”

  Twenty-Two

  There are only two U.S. Marshals. Neither one speaks to me. They pat me down, one of the Marshals signs off on a form on a clipboard, and then I’m being led down a hallway toward the side entrance.

  A brand-new Chevy Caprice is parked outside. It gleams under the midday sun. A few deputies stand off to the side, as well as a few state police officers, and beyond them—past a barrier of police cruisers—sits a local news affiliate van, a cameraman already set up with the reporter standing next to him. They watch me, just like everybody else, as I’m loaded into the back of the Caprice, shuffling across the seat with my ankles and wrists still shackled.

  Soon the Marshals climb into the car and we begin to move.

  The cameraman shifts his weight as he tracks us with his camera. I sense him from the corner of my eye, just outside the window, but I keep staring forward.

  The Caprice’s engine purrs as we accelerate down the street, headed for the highway.

  The Marshal in the passenger seat makes a quick phone call, says that we just left, and then sets his phone aside. Both of them have on sunglasses, and neither acknowledges me. I can’t tell if the driver even glances at me in the rearview mirror.

  While I’ve murdered two federal agents, it hasn’t become a national story. At least, not yet. A news chopper doesn’t follow us. The local affiliate van doesn’t follow us. Nobody follows us as far as I can tell—not even a deputy’s cruiser—and soon we’re speeding down the empty highway, headed south, the landscape mostly desolate except for the foothills off in the distance.

  The air condition is on, set to low. An uneasy silence fills the car.

  Not once do I feel the need to argue my case to these Marshals. They’re merely my escort. Eventually I’ll be taken in front of a judge for an adjudication hearing. I’ll be prosecuted on the federal level. There’s a lot of damning evidence against me—the photographs, of course, as well as my weapons—and I’ll be lucky if I don’t end up with the death penalty.

  My only hope now is that Erik moves past his sudden hatred for me and makes that phone call. All I need is for Atticus to hear that my family is in danger. At this point, I have no illusions I’ll be saved. I’ve always known a day like this would come, anyway. All my years of killing for the government, knowing if I were ever caught the government would disavow me and that I would be on my own. I’ve always known that risk, and I’ve been okay with it just as I’m okay with it now. Those men were corrupt, and the previous night they had killed Juana, and there was no telling what they planned to do with Eleanora.

  Up front, the Marshal in the passenger seat leans forward to adjust the air. He lowers his window a crack, and air whips in through the slit.

  He says, “I could use a cigarette.”

  The driver, keeping his face tilted forward, grunts in agreement.

  A billboard looms ahead, only a couple hundred yards away. It’s the only thing marking the landscape, one of those full-size billboards that goes right down to the ground. There isn’t even an ad on it, just a message saying that the thing is for rent with a number to call.

  I find mysel
f focusing on the billboard for some reason, and it’s only a moment or two before I understand the reason why.

  Movement beside the billboard, what appears to be somebody stationed there, and the sun is angled in the sky just right that it glints off what I instantly realize is a scope lens.

  I shout, “Look out!”

  The windshield spiderwebs and half of the driver’s head disappears. Blood and bits of brain tissue splatter the inside of the car.

  The passenger reacts at once, pulling his gun while he leans over to grab the wheel.

  That’s when I hear an engine coming up behind us and glance back through the rear window. A massive pickup truck is right on our tail. Two men sit up front, both wearing balaclavas.

  The pickup swerves into the next lane, inches closer, and immediately swerves back into our lane, striking the back of the Caprice.

  The passenger tries to hold onto the wheel, but he can’t do it with only the one hand. He drops the gun, grabs the wheel with both hands, starts to slide himself over to the driver’s side so he can press his foot down on the gas.

  The billboard is less than fifty yards away, coming up fast.

  The sniper steps out, rifle in hand, and sights on the remaining Marshal.

  The Marshal, maybe realizing that there’s no escape, makes a split-second decision.

  He whips the wheel toward the right, and the Caprice veers off the highway and barrels straight into the sniper.

  I’m briefly aware of the sniper going under the car and the SUV parked behind the billboard as we zoom past, but the ground here is rutted, unsteady, and as the Marshal tries to veer us back onto the highway, he loses control of the wheel and the Caprice starts to spin, whipping up a dust cloud in its wake.

  Even before the car has come to a complete stop, I dive for the closest door, but it’s locked from the outside. I try the other door, and it’s the same.

  Up front, the Marshal ducks down for his gun. He punches the gas, too, and the engine roars but we don’t move, and it takes the Marshal an extra second to realize the Caprice has shifted out of gear.

  Before he can shove the Caprice back into drive, the pickup skids to a halt in front of us. The pickup’s passenger jumps out, an M4 in his hands. He moves at an angle, so that he’s not facing the car straight on but rather from the side, and fires twice through the driver’s window, the Marshal raising his gun to fire back but not getting a chance to let off any rounds.

  By now I’ve leaned back, with my feet pointed at the rear passenger window, and I kick the window as hard as I can—once, twice, three times—and it’s on the fourth kick that the window finally gives way, and I jerk forward, as quickly as the shackles will let me, and despite the shards of glass sticking up from the windowsill I fling myself through the opening and hit the ground on my side, hard, a flash of pain shooting everywhere, but I ignore it as I struggle to my feet and start hopping away.

  Behind me, a voice shouts, “Do you want your family to die?”

  I stop at once. Stare at the foothills off in the distance.

  Turning around, I watch two men in balaclavas hurrying toward me. Both carry M4s. One of them straps the rifle over his shoulder as they near.

  “Don’t struggle.”

  The man picks me up and carries me fireman-style back toward the billboard and the SUV idling beside it. The world is upside down, but I see the Caprice from the corner of my eye, and I hear the passenger inside, the Marshal still alive. One of the men in balaclavas runs up to the Caprice with a gas can and starts to douse the car. The Marshal inside shouts no no no no as he tries to crawl from the car, but the man with the gas can uses his boot to shove him back inside as he lights a road flare and tosses it into the car. The Marshal starts to scream as the Caprice goes up in flames. I want to do something, somehow help him, but before I know it we’ve reached the SUV and I’m upright again, the man having deposited me so my feet are back on the ground. The back door is opened and I’m pushed inside. I hear one of the other men asking what they should do with Daniel, and another man saying they can’t leave him here so load him up, too. Another man leans forward, right at me, and I can’t tell what’s in his hand at first—the entire world feels like it’s spinning, on fire, a man screaming as he burns to death—but I realize it’s a needle, that they’re going knock me out. I start to struggle, and another man holds me in place, and a second later there’s the sting of the needle as they inject me and then a black bag is promptly pulled down over my head and all I can see is darkness.

  Part Two

  Neverland

  Twenty-Three

  The sun had set hours ago—the vast sky going from a dark blue to a lush indigo to a heavy black—and it was almost ten o’clock when Sheriff Tom Gilbert arrived home. He wasn’t driving his Ford pickup but one of the cruisers. Erik figured he had come straight from the scene out on the highway and hadn’t bothered to stop by the station to swap vehicles.

  Erik was parked down the street, angled so he had a good view of the house, and as soon as the sheriff had pulled into the driveway, Erik exited his own vehicle and hurried up the block. When he reached the house, the old man was already on the walkway headed to the front door, his pace sluggish, his shoulders slouched.

  “Sheriff Gilbert.”

  The sheriff paused for a beat, issued a heavy sigh, and turned to find Erik striding up his driveway. His gaze was cautious at first, but once he realized it was one of his deputies, his eyes hardened.

  “Christ, Johnson, I thought you were a reporter. What the hell are you doing here?”

  Erik stopped short, raised his hands to his sides to show he meant no harm.

  “I wanted to talk.”

  Sheriff Gilbert shook his head, issued another heavy sigh.

  “Nothing to discuss, son. Not until the investigation is over.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “Off the top of my head, I’m not sure, and right now it’s the least of my worries. Do yourself a favor and head home.”

  As the man started to turn away, Erik said, “You know I had nothing to do with any of this.”

  Sheriff Gilbert took another breath, nodded slowly as he regarded his deputy.

  “I know, son. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Honestly—”

  He glanced at the house to make sure his wife wasn’t watching or eavesdropping, and then dropped his voice.

  “Can’t say I blame you for knocking boots with the girl. She sure is a looker. But after what she did”—the sheriff shook his head—“we need to follow protocol. I mean, it don’t look good we found you half-naked in her place. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “I do, sir.”

  “And then what happened later today”—another shake of the head, this time with more anger—“shit, son, you shoulda seen what was done to that car. Both men burned alive inside. Your girl nowhere in sight.”

  “She couldn’t have done that on her own.”

  “Oh, I know it. Those federal investigators who came over from Dallas know it, too. They got a BOLO out for your girl. For her and whoever she’s working with.”

  Erik chewed the inside of his mouth. It was a nervous tic he’d developed from his years in the foster care system when he became anxious. He’d come here to confess, to tell Sheriff Gilbert how he’d snuck into the station to confront Jen—or Holly, if that was her real name—and how she told him the lawyer who had come to see her wasn’t a real lawyer and how her family was in danger. He hadn’t called the number she gave him—he hadn’t really been listening at the time, anyway, too furious after what he’d learned, and only remembered half the number—but he had sensed something in her eyes when she spoke to him, a vulnerability he had never seen from her before, not even when they were having sex.

  “Sir, the lawyer—”

  Sheriff Gilbert cut him off with a heavy sigh.

  “Yes, I know. She’s dead. They’re trying to determine when she was murdered.”

/>   The sheriff noted the frown on Erik’s face, and sighed again.

  “Goddamn it. You didn’t know? Of course you didn’t know.”

  “The lawyer was murdered?”

  “That’s right. They wanted to contact her about her client going missing the way she did. She gave her ID when she arrived at the station, and all her information was logged, and when she didn’t answer her phone, we sent somebody out there and—”

  Sheriff Gilbert shook his head.

  “Look, I can’t be talking about this with you. Not while you’re under investigation.”

  Erik took a step forward, his entire body on edge, Jen or Holly’s voice still echoing in his ears.

  That woman—she’s not a real lawyer.

  “Sir, are we sure she’s even a lawyer?”

  The sheriff frowned.

  “What kind of question is that? Of course we’re sure she’s a lawyer. But the woman who came to see your girlfriend”—he shrugged—“we don’t know who the fuck she is.”

  This stopped Erik cold. He’d thought Sheriff Gilbert meant the woman who came to see Jen or Holly had been found murdered.

  “Wait. Are you saying—”

  Sheriff Gilbert cut him off again.

  “That the woman who came to the station was impersonating the woman we found murdered? That’s right. Now look, Johnson, you really need to leave. I know you want to help, but you just can’t do that right now. Not until the investigation is over. And before you ask, no, I don’t know how long that’ll be.”