her on the porch.
“How in the hell did he find you?” asked Spurlock. He glanced back into the bed of Ingles’ silver Ford Ranger. There Vance was sprawled, head lolling and thumping loosely when the Ranger bounced over a pothole.
“He’s a gifted man,” said Ingles.
“Huh,” grunted Spurlock, “he’s gonna be the only man in the state gifted with a headache bigger than mine tomorrow. If he sees another tomorrow, that is.”
“He will,” said Ingles firmly.
Spurlock glanced at him. He had already taken a strong dislike to the cocky bastard, and he had only just met him in person. He was even worse in person than on the phone. Spurlock had always disliked foppish, over- educated types that figured they were the only ones in the world with any brains. He figured he could probably shark his weight in pants off these snooty university-types, given the chance.
“Just give him to me, with transportation, and I know people who will take care of the rest,” he repeated. He knew people who specialized on making people disappear in L.A. They would have preferred the boy, but that was a done deal now.
Ingles made no response.
“What are you planning?” Spurlock asked again. As he asked, he reached into his front jeans pocket and touched his little metal squirt gun. He wondered if he would ever do anything more than beat peoples’ heads in with it.
“You’ll see,” said Ingles in that maddening tone of his. “There, it’s right up ahead.”
They were barreling along through the almond orchards. Off to the left of the dirt track (Spurlock hardly considered it a road) was a canal. The canal had sun-bleached concrete walls and a slimy trickle of water at the bottom. Spurlock looked ahead, and spotted a small building of concrete blocks. It sat near the canal and had thick rusted pipes that spread out from it like tree roots.
“It’s a pump house,” explained Ingles, seeing his blank look.
“I know what the friggin’ thing is.”
Ingles shrugged.
“I saved your ass back there, you know,” Spurlock told him. “Or rather, the rest of your toes.”
“I believe I’ve already expressed my gratitude in that regard.”
“Gee, fucking thanks a fucking lot,” snapped Spurlock. “I want that locker number, not a pat on the head, man.”
“As I said,” Ingles replied evenly, “we’ll discuss that when we’ve solved the current crisis.”
“He’s not my problem.”
“Oh no, you are quite incorrect there, my friend. He is your biggest problem. And mine.”
“Crazy fucker,” muttered Spurlock. Even he wasn’t sure whether he meant Ingles or Vance. Quite possibly, he thought to himself, he meant both of them.
Ingles squealed the Ranger’s brakes to a bumpy stop. He got out and limped to the pump house door. Somehow, he had quickly stopped the bleeding and even managed to get a shoe over his bloody bandaged foot. Spurlock watched him work on the rusty padlock. As soon as his back was turned, Spurlock automatically checked the ignition. The keys were gone.
As if in answer to Spurlock’s silent observation, Ingles waved the jingling keys over his shoulder at him. “Need them for the lock,” he said.
“Crazy psychic bastard,” muttered Spurlock. He hated when Ingles did shit like that, predicting your thoughts and actions. It was a good trick, but it got old fast. It made you want to surprise him somehow.
Ingles disappeared inside the pump house. Spurlock had worked in such places, and knew that inside were exposed heavy voltage lines. They ran these pumps on 440 volts AC, which was a lot of power. They could fry a man right down to his boot-stumps in a few minutes. He hoped Ingles, for all his brains, would make a mistake in there. While he waited, he climbed out of the truck and eyed Vance. Bruised, but alive. Murder One had, as yet, been avoided. But then, the day was young.
Soon Ingles came out with three huge rolls of silvery duct tape.
“What’s that-” began Spurlock, then he got it. “Ah, I see you are a man of learning. We’re gonna gift-wrap him! My buds in L.A. will like that. The Arabs do this all the time in Israel, you know.”
Ingles gave him a questioning glance, as if surprised that Spurlock knew there were people called Arabs and such a place as Israel. Spurlock ignored the look.
Quickly, they set to work taping up Vance. Soon, he looked like a silver mummy.
… 26 Hours and Counting…
“And what are you doing here, Sarah?” asked Agent Vasquez. Sarah looked at her with red-rimmed eyes. Tears ran down her face.
“One of them must be dead,” she said. She pointed in to the living room at the blood-splattered couch.
Vasquez pushed past her and examined the couch. Johansen stood near her, watching.
“It’s fresh. Tacky, but not dry yet. It’s not my field, but this can’t be more than an hour old.”
“Any sign of the cause?” asked Johansen. He stood watchfully near Sarah. He made it look innocent, but Vasquez could tell by the tension in his shoulders that he was keeping a tight eye on her. Vasquez smiled to herself as she continued to examine the couch. He was always the watchdog.
“Yes,” she said. “There appears to be a hole in the cushion. It goes right through into the wall behind the couch. It’s got to be a bullet hole.”
Sarah fell back against the kitchen wall and closed her eyes. “What’s happening?” she asked. “My whole life is falling apart. Can’t you people do anything but follow the trail? Can’t you stop anything?”
Vasquez approached her. “It’s time that you helped us too, Sarah,” she said. “What more do you know?”
“I know that Ray believed Ingles is the one. And I think he’s right.”
“The one?” asked Johansen. “The one what?”
“The one who kidnapped Justin. The one who released the virus and made it all seem like Ray did it.”
“And what about Brenda,” he asked.
“That too.”
“Hmm,” said Johansen. He arched his eyebrows. “It all seems a bit easy to blame someone else without any proof of anything.”
“Well what about this blood?” she demanded. “Here is some more evidence of violence.”
“All we know is that everywhere your husband goes crimes keep happening.”
Sarah dropped her face and bit her lip. Her hair hung in her eyes. Vasquez gestured to Johansen that he should get lost.
“I’ll go outside and look around,” he said, he caught her eye and gave her a look that said he didn’t think the woman-to-woman chat was going to fix anything. Vasquez just repeated her get lost hand-motion. He let the porch screendoor slam behind him.
“What else is up, Sarah? Why are you so sure that Ray is right about Ingles?”
“Because we had an affair. Ingles and I, I mean.”
Vasquez crossed her arms and nodded. Sarah looked up and then quickly dropped her eyes to the floor again. Vasquez waited, knowing that often the best way to get information was to simply listen.
“It was a short thing, a fling, I suppose people might call it.”
“When?”
“Before Ray and I married. Almost eight years ago now.”
“Nothing happened while you were married?”
“No, he tried to communicate for awhile, sent flowers, left notes on my car. But we never saw each other.”
“Sounds like old news. So why would they be ready to kill over it?”
“Robert,” she snuffled, dug a Kleenex out of her purse, then continued, “I mean Ingles-he got all weird about it. He freaked out and scared me, that’s partly why I dropped him. Besides, things became more serious with Ray then.”
