RANDY FRANKLIN AWOKE to darkness. His mouth tasted metallic—oddly, of copper and silver, as though money had been dragged across his tongue. Where was he? For one awful moment he thought he had gone out drinking, had a blackout after five years of sobriety, and it made his chest hurt with anger and disappointment in himself. But no, he hadn’t gone out drinking. He remembered: Jane Norton had come to his office, and he’d left for the day, calling the temp agency to arrange for a receptionist to come tomorrow, because he wanted layers between him and that girl. Her case, and the others’, had been nothing but trouble for him. He wanted out, and he wondered if she might be his ticket.
Then he’d headed to a junkyard east of Austin, found the wrecked car on his newest case. It was a late-year-model European sedan, driven too fast by an Austin engineer, who had run a red light and T-boned another car, one with an older couple inside. They were both badly injured and were suing the engineer. The engineer claimed he had applied brakes and that they had not been responsive as quickly as they should have been. Franklin’s boss—representing the engineer—had dispatched him to the junkyard, where both cars were interred, to check the so-called black box, that would measure and record the engineer’s car’s data—speed, application of brakes, and so forth—for the last five seconds before the crash. In inspecting the black box, Franklin had “accidentally” erased it. Oh no. How awful. It happened now and then. If at the moment of impact, the car suffered a power failure, then the reserve electricity went to deploying the airbags and didn’t salvage the final seconds of data. Sometimes Randy used a magnet, or if he could restart and move the car for five seconds, the data could be overwritten, depending on the damage. Lawsuits were war. Now it would be easier to blame the automobile manufacturer than it would be the inattentive engineer. This wasn’t uncommon. Franklin worked both sides of accidents; if he had been employed by the lawyer for the plaintiffs, then he would have downloaded the information first to ensure against such interference from the opposing investigator. Now, if the opposing investigator bothered, he’d find the black box’s data damaged, perhaps from a power failure tied to the crash. No way to prove otherwise, when Randy was careful. Fortune favors the bold.
Had he interfered with the computer systems in the Jane Norton crash? He thought not. Her suicide note was enough to veer a judgment toward his clients.
Then he remembered heading toward his car, and spotting a fat wallet lying on the ground close to it. He’d bent down to pick it up, curious, and then a rush of movement from the other side of his car, then the momentary sting of a needle in his neck. Then a delicious floating nothingness.
He’d been drugged.
The relief that he hadn’t gotten drunk lasted all of three seconds, displaced by bold terror that he had been injected by someone and tied up and left in a coffin-like darkness.
He realized he was gagged, a neat plug wadded into his mouth. He tried to move and he couldn’t, arms cocooned to his chest, legs bound together.
He explored the space with his feet. He was in a car trunk. He could hear the distant sound he recognized with a chill, of metal crushing.
He was still in the junkyard. Hadn’t someone seen him taken and tied up and placed here? It was a huge operation. Wouldn’t there be security cameras?
Data could be erased. He knew that well enough. His chill turned to a feverish flush of panic.
The loud grinding roar that rendered wrecked autos to scrap, sold and recycled, got louder. He’d heard it in the background as he’d fixed the computer readings in the wrecked Euro sedan to his liking. Then it was just background noise. Now it was closer.
He kicked at the trunk. Just to get his captor to open it. He could talk his way out of this. Offer money. Anything could be negotiated. That was all that happened in the aftermath of car crashes. It was all negotiation.
The mechanical noise got louder, and louder.
There was no answer to his kick. He was gagged and he began to kick hard at the trunk’s lid, trying to scream past the gag. Please, he thought. Please. The trunk’s release cord was gone, cut or removed. He writhed in the space, panic bolting through his bones.
Sweat broke out on his forehead. He could feel the jerk of movement; the car sliding forward. He tried to pivot, trying to kick open the access port to the car’s backseat. It had been sealed, reinforced somehow, and then the terror set in deep because he heard the metal grinding and he realized that the compactor that reduced the cars to scrap was here.
He raged, he fought, he thought of everything he wished he’d done in his life, in a rush, as the fear blinded him.
He would be crushed to death.
The trunk opened. Hands pulled him up and out and dragged him along the ground. He heard the smashing grind of the car being crushed, felt his bladder loosen.
“You listen to me,” a voice whispered. It was gritty, lowered, a harsh, camouflaged rasp. He was sick with terror and he froze.
“I just did you a favor. You do me one. You are going to get out of town for a while. You will go straight to the airport or bus terminal and you will get the hell out of Austin. Do not go home. Do not pack a bag. You have your parents, go see them for a week. Maybe two. Nod once if you understand.”
He could hear the death grind of the car being flattened. He nodded.
“Good. And you’ll get a phone call at your parents’ house when it’s fine for you to come home. I know where your parents live, Randy. If you tell anyone about this, I will know, and I’ll flip a coin and one of them will die. Heads your mom, tails your dad. I will kill one of them because you can’t keep your big fat mouth shut. Do you understand me?”
He was too terrified to move.
“Nod if you understand me, Randy,” the voice said with infinite patience.
He nodded for all he was worth.
“All right. You have a nice trip.”
He felt a knife cut through his bonds. He stayed still.
“You count to three hundred. If you get up before that, a friend of mine who’s keeping an eye on you will shoot you in the head. Enjoy your visit with your folks. I know how much you love them.”
Randy Franklin counted to three hundred, slowly, carefully, as if it was the most important task he would ever fulfill. He then pulled free of his bonds and took the cloth sack off his head. He lay next to his car. His keys lay on his chest.
He got into his car and aimed it, east, toward the imminent dawn, Austin in his rearview mirror.
26
AT LEAST ONCE a week since the separation Cal drove over to his old house and jogged the three-mile circuit through their neighborhood that he had run nearly every day since they moved to Graymalkin Circle. At first Perri was sure it was an excuse for him to see her—as arrogant as that sounded, you got to think such things when your spouse didn’t want the divorce—but then she realized he just liked the route. He didn’t even try to talk to her, unless he needed to borrow the restroom after his run. Sometimes she would wait for him, with ice water or iced coffee, just to say hi, and then she’d wonder again exactly what she thought she would gain out of no longer being married to him.
She didn’t wonder that this morning.
He parked and she waited to see if he would start his stretches, or if he’d go over to the Norton house for a word with Jane. He started stretching.
Perri came out of the front door and hurried toward him.