dependent on their kidnappers and developed a bond with them.
The condition even had a name, the Stockholm syndrome. Maybe Abbie's enforced isolation was making her dependent on Reynolds and that was why she appeared to be playing up to him.
'Are you getting along okay?' Tracy asked.
'I'm lonely. I'm also bored to death. I tried to convince myself that this would be like a vacation, but it's not. I read a lot, but you can't read all day. I even tried daytime television.' Abbie laughed.
'I'll know I'm completely desperate when I start following the soaps.'
'The trial will start soon. Mr. Reynolds will win and your life will go back to normal.'
'I'd like to think that, but I doubt my life will ever be normal again, even if Matt wins.' Abbie stood up. 'I'll get you the camera.'
When Abbie went upstairs, Tracy waited in the entryway.
Abbie returned with a camera case. She handed it to Tracy.
'Thank you for having the cup of coffee. I know you didn't want to.'
'No, I . . .'
'It's okay. I was hungry for company. Thanks for putting up with me.'
They shook hands and Tracy took the camera. As she pulled out of the driveway, she glanced back at the house. Mrs. Griffen was watching her from the front door.
2313 Lee Terrace was a single-story brown ranch-style house with a well-tended yard in a pleasant middle- class neighborhood.
A nondescript light blue Chevy and an equally nondescript maroon Ford were parked in the driveway. As the officers assigned to raid the house drew closer to it, they could hear the muted sounds of music.
Inside the living room of the house, three young women sat in front of a low coffee table talking and laughing while they worked. In the center of the table was a large plate piled high with cocaine. The woman on the end of the couch closest to the front door picked up a small plastic bag from a pile and filled the bag with cocaine. The next woman folded over the Baggie, then used a Bic lighter to seal it. The third put the sealed Baggie in a cooking pot that was close to overflowing with packaged dreams.
Two men in sleeveless tee shirts lounged in chairs, smoking and watching MTV. One man cradled an Uzi. A MAC-10 submachine gun was lying next to the second man's chair within easy reach. Two other men with automatic weapons were in the kitchen playing cards and guarding the back of the house.
Bobby Cruz watched the women work. He was doing his job, which was to protect Raoul Otero's product. From his position he would see if one Of the women tried to slip a Baggie down her blouse or up her skirt. Cruz knew that the women were too frightened of him to steal, but he hoped they would anyway, because Raoul permitted him to personally punish the offender.
'Julio,' Cruz said. One of the men watching TV turned around. 'I'm going to pee.'
Julio picked up the MAC-10 and took Cruz's post against the wall. Cruz knew that Julio would not be tempted to look the other way by a glimpse of breast or thigh and a promise of future delights. Once upon a time, Cruz had forced Julio to assist him while he interrogated a street dealer Raoul suspected of being a police informant. Ever since, Julio had been as frightened of Cruz as the women were.
As Cruz walked down the hall toward the bathroom, the front and back doors exploded.
'Police! Freeze!' echoed through the house. Cruz heard the women scream. One of them burst down the hall behind him as he ducked into the bedroom. There were more screams in the front room and shots from the kitchen. Someone was shrieking in Spanish. An Anglo was bellowing that he'd been hit. Cruz calmly ran through his possible courses of action.
'Put 'em down,' someone yelled in the living room. Cruz opened the clothes closet and moved behind the clothes hangers.
The closet was crowded with dresses because two of the women who were packaging the cocaine lived here. Cruz pressed himself into a corner of the closet and waited. The odds were that someone would search the closet. If it was his fate to be arrested, he would go peacefully and let Raoul fix things later. But he would try to cheat fate if that was at all possible.
There were heavy footfalls in the bedroom. He heard the voices of two men. The closet door opened. Cruz could see a man in a baseball cap and a blue jacket through a break in the dresses.
He knew these jackets. They were worn on raids, and POLICE was stenciled on the back in bold yellow letters.
'Sanchez, get in here,' someone called from the hall. 'This asshole claims he doesn't habla inglds.'
The man at the closet door turned his head to watch Sanchez leave. When he turned back, Bobby Cruz stepped through the curtain of dresses and calmly stuck his knife through the officer's voice box. The policeman's eyes widened in shock. His hands flew to his throat. He tried to speak, but he could only gurgle as blood and spittle dripped out of his mouth. Cruz pulled the policeman through the dresses and laid his body on the floor. He was still twitching when Cruz worked off his jacket, but he was dead by the time Cruz adjusted the baseball cap and slipped out of the bedroom into the hall.
A policeman rushed by Cruz without seeing him. Cruz followed the man into the kitchen. Two men lay on the floor, their hands cuffed behind them. They were surrounded by police. A wounded officer was moaning near the sink and several men huddled around him. A medic rushed through the back door into the kitchen. Cruz stepped aside to let him in, then drifted into the backyard and faded into the night.
Two houses down, Cruz cut through the backyard, dropping the police jacket and cap. Then he headed toward a bar that he knew had a phone.
In the three years Raoul had been using 2313 Lee Terrace they had never had any problems. The people at the house were all family or trusted employees and they were all extremely well paid. They might cop some cocaine, but they would never go to the police. But someone had, and whoever it was knew a lot about Raoul's operation if he knew about Lee Terrace.
Chapter TWENTY
Matthew Reynolds chose five o'clock on the Friday before the trial to review the questions he would ask during jury selection.
Tracy knew better than to complain. With the trial so close, all hours were working hours.
Reynolds was explaining his system for questioning jurors about their views on the death penalty when his secretary buzzed to tell him that Dennis Haggard was in the reception area. 'Do you want me to leave?'
Tracy asked.
'No. I definitely want you to stay. This could be very interesting.'
Dennis Haggard was balding, overweight and unintimidating.
He was also Jack Stamm's chief criminal deputy and an excellent trial attorney. Reynolds walked over to Haggard as soon as the secretary showed him in.
'Don't you ever quit?' Haggard asked as he looked at the files, charts and police reports strewn around Matthew's office.
Matthew smiled and pointed to his associate. 'Do you know Tracy Cavanaugh?'
'I don't think we've met.'
'She just started with me. Before that, she clerked for Justice Sherzer.'
As Haggard and Tracy shook hands, Haggard said, 'The Department of Labor takes complaints. If he works you more than seventy-six hours straight, there's a grievance procedure.'
Tracy laughed. 'I'm afraid we're way past seventy-six hours, Mr.
Haggard.'
Reynolds seated himself behind his desk. Tracy took a stack of files off the other client chair so Haggard could sit on it.
'What brings you here, Dennis?' Reynolds asked.
'I've come because Chuck Geddes wouldn't.'
'Oh?'
'He's still mad about the bail decision and this put him through the roof.'
'And 'this' is?'
'A plea offer, Matt. Geddes wouldn't consider it, but the AG insisted.
Then Geddes said he'd quit rather than make the offer, so everyone agreed I would carry it over.'
