Don't Leave Me Read online

  Steven said, “Did you hear me, Stan?”

  Stan said nothing. He thought about the specials. He thought about the prices. He better not miss any work because of these guys. They better let him and Chuck go.

  “I need you to talk to me, Stan, because you can help your brother right now.”

  “I can?”

  “Oh yes, by telling me some things about him.”

  “I don’t think I’m going to,” Stan said.

  “Now, that’s not being friendly, is it?”

  “You want to hurt Chuck.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  Stan nodded.

  “Do you believe in miracles, Stan?” Steven asked.

  How should I answer that? Stan wondered. It could be another trick.

  “I’d like to hear your answer, Stan. Do you believe in miracles?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Why?”

  “Because God can do anything. He can save Chuck and me right now, so you better not be mean.”

  “I believe in God, too.”

  “You do?” But how could he, and still do mean things, like kidnap people?

  “Of course I do,” Steven said. “You have to be blind not to believe. I look out at the ocean, and know that God is the creator of all things. If that is so, he can do as he pleases. He can perform miracles.”

  Stan remembered his mother said once that the devil can perform miracles to fool people. He folded his arms.

  “You won’t help me?” Steven said.

  Stan shook his head.

  “But you do believe in miracles?”

  Stan said nothing. He just wanted the man to go away.

  “I will perform a miracle for you,” Steven said. “Will that help you talk to me?”

  Stan stayed silent. He can’t do miracles! He’s fooling me!

  Steven smiled. His eyes crinkled when he did. He stood up from the chair and walked to the door. There was a keypad next to it. He hit four keys and the door clicked open. He made a motion to someone on the other side. Stan hoped it would not be one of the men with guns coming in to watch him.

  It wasn’t.

  And Stan almost screamed.

  But he couldn’t, he couldn’t make a sound, because he was maybe going crazy, the devil was making him crazy right now, because a ghost walked into the room.

  “Hello, Stan,” Julia said. “It’s good to see you.”

  Chapter 52

  And sometimes, Chuck thought, you just have to get mad.

  He remembered in seminary, what they called the imprecatory psalms. The ones where David raged against his enemies, calling down wrath on them. And he was a king. He had it pretty good. He had an army, too. I’m a guy in bare feet in the wild at night and hands tied in front of him.

  But rage is going to keep me going.

  Serbian mobsters. On our shores. Cockroaches. Step on them.

  How’s that for an imprecatory psalm?

  Chuck laughed, and was glad he still had that capacity. He was moving like a blindfolded man across a mine field. Each clump in front of him had to be felt with either hand or foot, the way a blind person would use a cane. But up top he did not see the lights of a car, waiting. He was a good distance from the point where he’d gone over the edge. Maybe they were gone now.

  Maybe they’d be back.

  Chuck stepped on something hard and sharp. He pulled his foot back before putting full weight on it. He bent over and felt around. His hands found the rock. It was about the size of a baseball, but flatter. One side of it came to a dull point.

  Chuck picked it up and parked his butt. He set the rock point side up on the ground, between his knees. Using his knees like a crude vice, he held the rock in place and started working the duct tape against the point. All he needed was a tear, and he could do the rest with his teeth. But the tape had several layers of thickness to it.

  He counted ten passes over the rock before he felt a rip. He tried rolling his wrists to get more play. The tape held firm.

  This was going to take some time. But it wasn’t like he was late for a train. Nah, I got nothing to do, boys, how about we play the tie up and try to escape game? Let’s do it at night in the middle of nowhere, too.

  He rubbed the tape on his crude cutting rock, the caveman discovering tools. Give me a flint and I’ll make fire. Ugh.

  Stay mad, Chuck. Stay mad.

  Stationary, he was aware now of only the sound of the occasional car passing on the street above, and the phtt of tape against stone. The whole thing was rhythmic now. Maybe he’d invented a new sound. Duct tape jazz.

  He felt a significant tear in the tape. This time his wrists could move. He got about a half inch more of play.

  Then heard something moving in the brush. Something very close.

  .

  Sandy Epperson said, “Mark.”

  “What the hell time is it?”

  “Time to talk. I found something.”

  “It better be Jimmy Hoffa.” Mark’s voice sounded thick and slurry on the phone. Sandy couldn’t blame him for being mad. But if you want to be a homicide detective, you have to learn that sleep is a luxury. What better time to give it to him than now?

  “Better,” she said. “I found a connection.”

  “This can’t wait?”

  “It’s hot on my mind.” She knew Mark was well aware of that phrase. It was one of the first things she taught him—to talk to the partner when something is hot on your mind. In the initial phase of forming a case theory, it was the synergy of front burner thoughts and the partner’s fresh input that could make all the difference.

  “I got another word for what’s on your mind,” Mark said. “But go ahead.”

  “How about the Raymond Hunt Academy?”

  Pause. “What, Samson’s school?”

  “Yes. From Ed Hillary to Ray Hunt, to—”

  “Wait. Ed who?”

  “Hillary, the guy who ran down Samson’s wife.”

  “You still on that thing in Beaman?”

  “There’s a through-line there.” The most important aspect of detective work for Sandy was the through-line. Even in the most complex cases you could always find a main thread, something that ran through the entire series of events. Almost always it was related to motive.

  “What does this have to do with Nunn?” Mark said.

  “Nunn connects up to Samson.”

  “You playing with Legos? Thanks. Now I’m up.”

  “Run through this with me,” she said. “You want to make some coffee?”

  “Nah, I’ll just tape my eyelids open. Go on.”

  “A little over seven months ago, Charles Samson’s wife is killed in a little town outside of Los Angeles County. It happens. But then it turns out that the guy who hit her, Ed Hillary, was not some random drunk driver. He was, in fact, a major donor to the Hunt Academy in Calabasas. He gave money to the school where Samson worked.”

  Pause. “Okay, you have my attention.”

  At least his voice sounded alert now. “Scenario one. What if Hillary was trying to kill Samson’s wife? What if it wasn’t an accident?”

  “Motive?”

  “Samson’s wife was a reporter of some kind. She told Samson she was doing a story on alligator farms. Turns out to be bogus. So instead, she’s digging into something involving Hillary or the Hunt Academy, or both. And Hillary doesn’t want her digging any further.”

  “Might be something there. You have another theory?”

  “Scenario two. What if somebody wanted Hillary dead too? And set the whole thing up to look like a drunk hit-and-run? The thing that troubles me about Hillary is that he had so much alcohol in him at the time. When you look at what he had at the bar that night, he was nowhere near what his BAC was at the time of the accident.”

  “What are you saying then?”

  “That somebody may have poured booze down his throat and set the thing up.”

  “And who would that somebody be?”


  “That’s a question for Ray Hunt, don’t you think?”

  “Sandy, I think you and your famous gut instincts need to get some sleep, like me.”

  “Wait––”

  “Good night.”

  The call cut out.

  And Sandy Epperson cursed at her phone.

  Chapter 53

  She wasn’t a ghost! It really was Julia!

  She looked almost the same. Her brown hair was a little longer, her brown eyes a little more tired. But her voice was exactly like Stan remembered it. He liked it before, but now it was just freaky!

  “I’m so sorry you’ve had to go through this,” Julia said. She sat in the chair where the man had been sitting only moments ago.

  “But you’re alive!” Stan said. This was not right, this was not how things happened. People can’t come back from the dead, only in horror movies and Stan did not like horror movies. “How can you be alive?”

  “Believe me when I say it’s best you not know,” Julia said.

  She looked so sad. “Did you get kidnapped?”

  Julia put her hand on his knee. He didn’t like to be touched there, but he let her this time. “Be patient,” she said.

  Stan thought she might cry.

  “But you were dead,” Stan said. “I saw them put you in the ground.”

  “We haven’t much time. You can help Chuck.”

  “Where is Chuck? Is he all right?”

  “Yes. He’ll be right here soon, in this house. They just want to talk to him. If you’ll stay nice and calm, it will all be all right.”

  “Where have you been, Julia? Chuck was so sad when you died. But . . .”

  Julia nodded, her own sadness again all over her face. Poor face.

  “Will you come back to live with us?” Stan said.

  “Stan, it’s best not to ask questions now. I just want you to know you have a friend here. I’m here. Okay?”

  “But you played a trick on Chuck. Didn’t you play a bad trick?”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “I do too! I hate it when people tell me I don’t understand something when I do. I understand that you fooled us but I don’t know how you did it. And I don’t know why you did it, but it was mean. It was a very mean thing you did.”

  “I know,” she said. She stood and went to the door, hit the keypad four times. The door clicked open.

  She looked back at him one more time before going out. She looked like she wanted to say something else. But she didn’t, and closed the door behind her.

  .

  The thing in the brush, whatever it was, was getting closer.

  Animal of some kind. But what?

  Chuck did not move, not wanting to attract attention. He wondered if this thing—don’t let it be a mountain lion, let it be a rabbit—had picked up his scent.

  And he was still bound by the tape.

  He’d been so close to getting free.

  He tried not to breathe too loudly.

  More rustling in the brush. Chuck estimated the distance at twenty feet. If the animal couldn’t hear him breathe, it no doubt could hear the Salvation Army drum in his chest.

  Chuck worked his hands, pulled, the tape giving way a little more.

  The rustling stopped.

  In his imagination he saw a huge lion, stopping, snout upturned, sensing prey.

  This was it. He was dead meat. A meal.

  With the added help of fresh, survival-mode adrenaline, Chuck drew his hands to his chest, as if getting ready to row for old Yale. He couldn’t help grunting as he pulled as hard as he could.

  The next second felt like twenty.

  And then he was free with a snap.

  He listened. Only silence, but it was filled with something palpable.

  Slowly, as if the slightest disturbance in the wind would set the animal-thing charging, Chuck reached down for the sharp rock.

  No further sound.

  But unless the thing had wings it was still there.

  He gripped the rock like his four seam fastball in Little League. The gesture made him remember the time he struck out Mitch Corwin in the championship game. And now Mitch Corwin was playing center field for the Milwaukee Brewers. The highlight of his athletic life was that day. He felt just like Nolan Ryan. He even wore number 30 like Nolan did on the Angels.

  Sometimes Chuck wondered if he’d ever get to feel that way about anything again.

  Now, holding his breath, Chuck got to a standing position. The animal-thing was directly to his left, somewhere. It was now as if he were on the mound with a runner on base.

  Then he heard it, a low snarl. It froze every joint in his body, yet at the same time blasted awake every nerve. This was not unfamiliar. It was just like facing Mitch Corwin with two outs back in the championship game. Now this, the ultimate contest.

  Chuck estimated the distance. One thing he always had was a sense of sound. It started when he would listen for his father coming home, fearing the worst. It got so he could judge just how far from the front door his dad was. And from the creaking of the floorboards which direction he was going. If it was toward the stairs Chuck would try to get Stan and hide in the closet. Estimating distance was crucial if they wanted to keep their butt cheeks from a beating.

  About twenty feet was just right for the animal-thing. The snarl gave him the direction. Chuck tried to imagine a big catcher’s mitt and a strike zone. He brought the rock to the ready position at his chest. Then a quick lift of his left leg, a stride toward the target and his fastball. Down the middle.

  He heard a thud, like the ball settling into the catcher’s glove, followed by high yelp. A dog sound. And the sound of rustling again, moving in the weeds, but this time away from him.

  No more delay. Chuck started clambering up toward the road. Whatever that thing was, a coyote no doubt, maybe it had cousins.

  It was time to get out of this canyon and find Stan.

  .

  “How could you be so stupid, so reckless?” Kovak said.

  “I did what I thought was right,” Dag said. “I don’t need to be told anything else.”

  Kovak folded his arms. They were standing in Kovak’s office, surrounded by computers and maps and every manner of electronic device. Dag wanted to pull wires out and throw them through a wall.

  “Is that so?” Kovak said. “Now you are someone who thinks he can engineer a traffic collision? You pull a knife on someone, and think you won’t be seen? Setting fire to this teacher’s house?”

  “Yes!”

  “What was the point of that?”

  “To put all suspicion on him, don’t you see it?”

  Kovak shook his head the way he used to do when Dag was a child, the way it always made him feel like he wanted to crawl into the earth and die.

  “Where is the teacher then? Simo has brought the brother, but you have managed to lose the teacher.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “Then where is he? Is he dead on the road? Is he walking around? Is he talking to the police?”

  “We will find him.”

  “No, I will find him. You have no more to do tonight. Do not leave this house.”

  “I will go and come as I like,” Dag said.

  Kovak slapped his son across the face.

  Chapter 54

  Chuck reached the guard rail and felt like he was Steve McQueen about to flee the prison camp.

  He saw a haze of light about a half mile away. It was a long half mile and his feet were raw. His body felt like a medical school class slide on abrasions and their various forms.

  The other direction was black night with a ribbon of road twisting around a bend.

  A ribbon with some very bad guys cruising around.

  He would use both sight and sound now. He would be able to see headlights coming from up ahead, and hear cars approaching from behind. Behind was the problem. Cars from around that bend would appear quickly, throwing hard light on him.

  Ste
ve McQueen indeed. McQueen was ultimately caught.

  Maybe he could be Charles Bronson. Bronson got away, didn’t he?

  He touched down on the other side of the guard rail. The shoulder of the road was only about a foot wide. Rocks, gravel, glass all over it, he well knew. His best shot was to walk on the asphalt itself, and that was not exactly rice paper.

  He headed for the light.

  .

  Stay nice and calm. That’s what Julia said. And Chuck would be coming to the house!

  Stan wanted to believe it. Chuck close again. Chuck would know what to do.

  But would they do something bad to Chuck? The man said he didn’t want to hurt Chuck, but bad men lie, mean men lie.

  But Julia was here. Right here in this room, and she said stay calm and I can’t stay calm, how can they tell me that when they close me up in here?

  They are bad men with guns, they shoot people, but they kidnapped us instead because they want Chuck.

  I gotta help Chuck. He said he wouldn’t leave me. And I will never leave him.

  But how, how?

  Think.

  Stan went to the door and put his ear on it. He heard nothing but a low hum of some kind. No voices.

  He closed his eyes and saw the house in his mind. He saw the way they had taken him in. From a dark garage through a long corridor with tile and fancy wood and nothing on the walls. Lights right in the ceiling. Then through a door and down some stairs, past a little office of some kind––through the slightly opened door he saw a computer on a desk and a map on the wall, on a big corkboard with push pins. Then into this room, this special room with no windows, and locked in.

  Then he thought he knew what he could do. Yes, he could help Chuck. He could fool them all. He didn’t care if they were wolves now. He was going to help his brother, yes he was.

  If he could get Julia back in the room.

  He pounded on the door. “Hey!”

  He pounded again.