The gear on the floor in the final aisle was neither ceramic nor ornamental, nor festive. The electronic equipment included a receiver and a recorder, but he couldn't identify the other three items.
They were plugged into a board of expansion receptacles, which was itself plugged into a nearby wall outlet. Indicator lights and LED readouts revealed the equipment to be engaged.
They had been maintaining surveillance of the house. Its rooms and phones were probably bugged.
Confident in his stealth, having seen no one in the loft, Mitch assumed, upon sight of the equipment, that it was not at the moment being monitored, that it must be set to automatic operation. Perhaps they could even access it and download it from a distance.
Simultaneously with that thought, the array of indicator lights changed patterns, and at least one of the LED displays began to keep a running count.
He heard a hissing distinct from the idling Honda in the garage below, and then the voice of Detective Taggart.
'I love these old neighborhoods. This was how southern California looked in its great years…'
Not just the rooms of the house but the front porch, too, had been bugged.
He knew that he had been outmaneuvered only an instant before he felt the muzzle of the handgun against the back of his neck.
Chapter 13
Although he flinched, Mitch did not attempt to turn toward.. the gunman or to swing the lug wrench. He would not be able to move fast enough to succeed.
During the past five hours, he had become acutely aware of his limitations, which counted as an achievement, considering that he had been raised to believe he had no limitations.
He might be the architect of his life, but he could no longer believe that he was the master of his fate.
'…before they cut down all the orange groves and built a wasteland of stucco tract houses.'
Behind him, the gunman said, 'Drop the lug wrench. Don't stoop to put it down. Just drop it.'
The voice was not that of the man on the phone. This one sounded younger than the other, not as cold, but with a disturbing deadpan delivery that flattened every word and gave them all the same weight.
Mitch dropped the club.
'…more convenient. But I happened to be in your neighborhood.'
Apparently using a remote control, the gunman switched off the recorder.
He said to Mitch, 'You must want her cut to pieces and left to die, the way he promised.'
'No.'
'Maybe we made a mistake, choosing you. Maybe you'd be happy to be rid of her.'
'Don't say that.'
Every word matter-of-fact, all with the same emotional value, which was no value at all: 'A large life- insurance policy. Another woman. You could have reasons.'
'There's nothing like that.'
'Perhaps you'd do a better job for us if, as compensation, we promised to kill her for you.'
'No. I love her. I do.'
'You pull another stunt like this one, she's dead.'
'I understand.'
'Let's go back the way you came.'
Mitch turned, and the gunman also turned, staying behind him.
As he began to retrace his steps along the final aisle, past the first of the southern windows, Mitch heard the lug wrench scrape against the boards as the gunman scooped it off the floor.
He could have pivoted, kicked, and hoped to catch the man as he rose from a quick stoop. He feared the maneuver would be anticipated.
Thus far, he had thought of these nameless men as professional criminals. They probably were that, but they were
something else, too. He did not know what else they might be, but something worse.
Criminals, kidnappers, murderers. He could not imagine what might be worse than what he already knew them to be.
Following him along the aisle, the gunman said, 'Get in the Honda. Go for a ride.'
'All right.'
'Wait for the call at six o'clock.'
'All right. I will.'
As they neared the end of the aisle, at the back of the loft, where they needed to turn left and cross the width of the garage to the steps in the northeast corner, something like luck intervened by way of a cord, a knot in the cord, a loop in the knot.
At the moment it happened, Mitch didn't perceive the cause, only the effect. A tower of cardboard boxes collapsed. Some tumbled into the aisle, and one or two fell on the gunman.
According to stenciled legends on the cartons, they contained Halloween ceramics. Packed with more bubble wrap and shredded tissue paper than with decorative objects, the boxes were not heavy, but an avalanche of them almost knocked the gunman off his feet and sent him stumbling.
Mitch dodged one box and raised an arm to deflect another.
The falling first stack destabilized a second.
Mitch almost reached toward the gunman to steady him. But then he realized that any offer of support might be misinterpreted as an attack. To avoid being misunderstood — and shot — he stepped out of his enemy's way.
The old dry wood of the railing at the back of the loft could safely accommodate anyone who leaned casually on it, but it proved too weak to endure the impact of the stumbling gunman. Balusters cracked, nails shrieked loose of their holes, and two butted lengths of the handrail separated at the joint.
The gunman cursed at the storm of boxes. He cried out in alarm as the railing sagged away from him.
He fell to the floor of the garage. The distance was not great, approximately eight feet, yet he landed with a terrible sound, and in a clatter of broken railing, and the gun went off.
Chapter 14
From the toppling of the first box to the concluding punctuation of the gunshot, only a few seconds had passed. Mitch stood in stunned disbelief longer than the event itself had taken to unfold.
Silence shocked him from paralysis. The silence below.
He hurried to the stairs, and under his feet the boards released a great thunder, as though they had stored it up from the storms that long ago had lashed the trees from which they had been milled.
As Mitch crossed the garage on the ground level, past the front of the truck, past the idling Honda, elation contested with despair for control of him. He did not know what he would find and therefore did not know what to feel.
The gunman lay facedown, head and shoulders under an overturned wheelbarrow. He must have slammed into one edge of the wheelbarrow, flipping it over and on top of himself.
An eight-foot fall should not have left him in such a profound stillness.
Breathing hard but not from physical exertion, Mitch righted the wheelbarrow, shoved it aside. Each breath brought him the scent of motor oil, of fresh grass clippings, and as he crouched beside the gunman, he detected the bitter pungency of gunfire, too, and then the sweetness of blood.
He turned the body over and saw the face clearly for the first time. The stranger was in his middle twenties, but he had the clear complexion of a preadolescent boy, jade-green eyes, thick lashes. He did not look like a man
