He nodded toward the dining area, and the killer guarding the table put his gun to Ally’s neck.
Reflexively the girl stiffened in her chair. Barbara groaned, and Judy went on stroking her crucifix.
“Any bravery on your part,” the man said, “and the young lady dies too.”
Trish stared across the room into Ally’s wide brown eyes and saw another, younger girl.
“I won’t try anything,” she whispered.
Slowly the man inclined his head. “All right, then. Get on the horn and say you found no problems here. Your unit’s leaving the scene, and you’re requesting a code seven.”
Code seven: out of service. It wasn’t entirely a lie. Wald was code seven, all right-permanently code seven- and she soon might follow.
“Okay,” she said, her voice husky and low.
“Do it.”
The thug to her left unclipped the radio from her belt and pushed it close to her face.
“Which channel” the gray-eyed man asked her.
“One.”
The thug activated channel one, taking the transceiver off the scan mode, then pressed the transmit button.
“Four-Adam-eight-one.” Somehow Trish kept her voice even.
Crackle of static, then Lou’s response: “Go ahead, eight-one.”
“We’re clear of the detail. No sign of a prowler.”
“Guess Pete was right. You didn’t need backup.”
“Ten-four.”
“Hey, is that the Kent place”
Oh, God. Slow night, and Lou wanted to chat.
“Ten-four,” Trish said again, hoping her stiff formality would preclude further conversation.
It didn’t. “Thought I recognized the address. I was there on a house tour once. Nice digs.”
Suddenly Trish saw a way to drop a hint, a very subtle hint but perhaps one Lou would pick up. Pete Wald had said Sergeant Edinger gave the same lecture to every rookie. Lou, who’d worked at the station for twenty years, surely would be familiar with the routine.
“Yeah, it’s nice.” Trish tried to sound normal, but it was hard to do with those deadly gray eyes watching her intently. “A lot like some places I’ve seen in L.A.”
“L.A.” Dubious.
“You know, Bel-Air, Beverly Hills. Ed and I were just talking about that.” Come on, Lou, read my mind. “About how things are in L.A.”
“Funny. Never knew Ed to pay any attention to architecture. And I don’t know when was the last time he was down in the city.”
Clearly the message hadn’t gotten through. Worse, Trish had aroused the suspicions of her captors. Restless stirring around her. A pent-up explosion in the air.
The gray-eyed man made an angry cutting motion: Wrap it up.
“Anyway,” Trish said, her heart beating faster, “we’d like to go code seven now.”
“Hey, your watch just started. What gives Pete taking a nap”
“You know it.” A long nap, Trish thought, wondering if it was about to be nap time for her, too.
“Request granted.” Lou signed off. “Twenty twenty-eight.”
The radio was withdrawn. Trish waited, afraid she had pressed her luck too far. She hoped Ally wouldn’t pay the price. Please, not her.
“What was that all about, Trish” the gray-eyed man said with cold amiability.
“Nothing. Lou wanted to talk, that’s all.”
“L.A. Someone named Ed. Where’d that come from”
“I was just, you know, making conversation. Ed’s a guy who works at the station. He used to live in L.A., still talks about it a lot. It didn’t mean anything.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It’s the truth.”
“I don’t trust you, Trish.”
“I did what you wanted.”
“You tried to mess with me.”
“No.”
He turned to the woman at his side. “How about it Can you sound like her”
“Easy.” She lisped the word.
Then her breathy voice altered its pitch, climbing an octave higher, and the lisp was magically gone, her delivery clear and sharp.
“Four-Adam-eight-one. We’re clear of the detail. We’ll be going code seven.”
The mimicry was more than adequate.
Her boss nodded, then looked at Trish again. “My associate can pass for you. I’ll feed her the codes and phrases.”
The implication wasn’t subtle. Trish’s wrists twisted uselessly behind her back.
“Won’t work,” she whispered. “Lou knows me. We talk all the time.”
“If we keep the transmission short, we can pull it off. These rover radios are crap anyway. All the voices sound pretty much alike.” He said it then, said what everyone was thinking. “I don’t need you, Patricia Annette Robinson.”
No more words. Rigid, she waited for the bullet.
The man watched her a moment longer. Then his gaze shifted, focusing on the killer to her right.
Some silent message passed between them, instantaneous as a spark, and the butt of a pistol clipped her hard behind the ear.
Coldcocked.
Trish had time to think it was better than getting shot. Then pain washed over her in a stinging wave, its undertow dragging her away.
Her last thought was a question: Will I ever wake up
Then no questions, no fear, only a humming void and a wordless sense of peace.
16
Cain watched Trish Robinson drop to the carpet in a graceless sprawl. A spasm ran briefly through her body, and she made a low retching noise, coughing up spittle, then lay still.
“You should have iced her.” Agitation brought back Lilith’s lisp, making her sound like a petulant child. “I wanted to see that.”
“Bad idea.” Cain kept his voice low.
“I don’t see why.”
Ordinarily she didn’t need things spelled out, but blood made her slow-witted. It was like catnip to her.
He nodded toward the dining area. “I’d rather not get our friends any more worked up than they already are. We pop the rookie right in front of everybody, and things could get out of control.”
“So what do we do with her” Tyler wiped blood off the handle of his gun. “Lock her up”
“No.”
Cain hated cops, all cops, even pretty little lady cops who’d barely gotten their feet wet in the field. Cops were bugs, meant to be squashed.
“She disappears,” he said softly, his gaze fixed on Tyler. “Her and the other one and the car they came in. No muss, no fuss. You know that old Bobby Darin number Splish splash, Trish was takin’ a bath….” His hand made a downward sliding motion. “You and Blair make it happen.”
Tyler’s heavy-lidded eyes shut briefly in acknowledgment. Blair giggled.
“Take off their belts first,” Cain added. “No point wasting the gear. And give Lilith the radio so she can monitor the traffic.”
