always observant. “There’s got to be someone who can find out what’s happening in there without tipping them off.”
“Yesterday you said no. Now you think there is? How?”
“Probably not without tipping them off, no. Not in the time we have.”
“And you don’t think the warden’s involved,” I said.
“It would be a stretch.”
“This whole thing’s a stretch. You made the calls, right? Like you said, Pape keeps the place quieter than a corpse in Siberia. Why? Maybe this is all his doing?”
“Possible, but not likely. Going around the law isn’t as easy as it may seem.”
Unless you’re Danny, I thought.
“Either way, I’m not willing to take that chance,” I said. “This is Danny’s life we’re talking about here.”
“Fine. But if the warden’s involved, and I doubt he is, then we’re screwed.”
“This is news?”
“No. But I mean really screwed.”
“Like I said, this is news?”
He nodded and tapped a small stone to the side with his foot. The fact of the matter was, Keith couldn’t have the same motivation I had to protect and save Danny. He could only help me. God knew I needed his help, but at what cost to him?
“Maybe I should do this alone,” I said, crossing my arms. “Really—”
“It’s too late for that,” he interrupted. “People smart enough to use Randell are smart enough to tie up loose ends. I know way too much now to let go.”
I hadn’t really thought of it that way, and I felt a pang of guilt for demanding he help me. In my urgency, I’d sucked him into a place of terrible danger for my own gain. I was using him.
I pulled up, struck by the thought. He turned and looked at me with those hazel eyes. But there wasn’t any fear in them, only resolve. He was a good man, a very good man. I couldn’t help wondering what it would have been like to meet a man like Keith before Danny came into my life.
Now there was only Danny. Forever.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be. I was meant to be here.”
“No, I came to you.”
“Only because I put Randell behind bars and you were smart enough to find me. Frankly, whoever is behind this may have wanted you to find me.”
“Seriously?”
“Why not? I could verify the validity of Randell’s threat. It was probably at Randell’s request—you’re not the only one who has enemies. This is what he gets out of it.”
“What if I hadn’t come to you?”
Keith shrugged. “He’d probably have found another way to get me involved. Doesn’t matter now, we’re here. Let’s walk.”
We moved on, and my mind returned to Danny. A question that had ridden my mind through the previous night served me again.
“We could go through a judge,” I said. “Take them at gunpoint and force them to shut the prison down.”
“You know one who could do that?”
“Don’t you?”
He considered the question. “Nope.”
“Not even if we told them the whole thing? Showed them the notes?”
“Without corroborating evidence, what would stop a judge from thinking
“And that corroborating evidence would have to come from inside the prison,” I said. I knew all of this, but for both of our sakes I had to get it out one more time, if only to line things up again, like checking a lock on a door three times just to be sure.
“Basal’s a self-contained city with its own rules,” he said.
“Same with the inspector general’s office?”
“OIG would be our safest best, but it would still take way too much time and require an investigation that would probably be leaked to whoever’s monitoring communications.”
What would Danny do?
“Then we go straight to the warden,” I said. “Not at the prison, but at his house. In the middle of the night.”
Keith glanced at me. “We could. You want to take the risk Sicko won’t find out? The note said no warden.”
It also said I would have to kill someone. The wind was blowing my hair in my face and I was too distracted to care. “You think Sicko’s just going to let us walk when this is over?”
“Nope.”
That was quick.
“But you think we can find a way out before it gets to that point,” I said.
“He’s gotta keep pulling a lot of strings to make this happen, so yeah. There’s a good chance he’ll slip up sooner or later.”
“Sooner, I hope.”
“So do I. Like you said, until then we’re screwed.”
I nodded and swallowed. “Don’t worry. I’m good at playing games.”
But I was lying, wasn’t I? A gun I could handle. Bedbugs I could starve to death. But games drove me crazy, and I was already too crazy.
The hours crawled by, and the millions of people around us went about their business, oblivious to the stakes we faced. I spent the three hours prior to our journey to Morongo Valley pacing my home, repacking my kit, then checking and rechecking my nine-millimeter with an unsteady hand. Then I cleaned the gun and checked it yet again, because three years had passed since I’d used it, and in my shaken state, I wasn’t sure I’d done everything right—even though I knew I had, if that makes any sense.
It was five minutes before eight when I turned off my headlights and rolled the Toyota to a stop on Sherman Road, where we’d been directed by the note. I had suggested taking Keith’s truck because the route was a gravel road way out in the middle of nowhere, but he’d dismissed the idea out of hand. Whoever was watching would want to see me driving my car.
Glowing haze from the city to the west hid the moon, and there were only a few stars visible above us even though it was dark. The old warehouse one hundred yards ahead rose into the night sky like a massive ancient tomb.
The car’s engine barely purred; the air-conditioning vents whispered. I sat with both my hands on the steering wheel, staring at the darkened building, mind filled with ghosts and dead bodies.
“You sure you’re up for this?” he asked.
“I can see why he picked this place. There’s not a soul within ten miles but us.”
“And whoever’s watching.”
I glanced out the side window. Scattered scrub pine hunched on the otherwise barren ground.
“I don’t like this.”
“I don’t either,” he said. “Just don’t panic.”
We sat in silence for a beat. Keith’s plan had all seemed so simple—we’d both go in together, armed. The note hadn’t said anything about me coming alone this time, just without authorities. Sicko needed us alive, Keith insisted. There wouldn’t be a threatening confrontation here, probably only more nonsense, but I knew he was saying some of that for my benefit.
Nonsense wasn’t in Sicko’s vocabulary. He liked to communicate with bloodied body parts in shoe boxes and perverted bears in biker bars. Looking at the dark warehouse, a terrible fear gripped my mind. Despite Keith’s
