It’s parked well outside the halo of the nearest sodium vapor light. Maybe that’s why he bypassed the first two open spots after entering. She looks around. In general the parking lot is badly lit. Badly lit and huge. And according to the posted rates, not all that expensive, either. And it’s hardly secure. The exhaust from the jets can’t be good for your paint job.
She peers through the Camry’s window. Gives her eyes a minute or two to adjust to the shadows.
There’s nothing inside. Nothing. Not a scrap of paper. Not an empty packet of gum. Nothing.
Even though it feels dangerous, she places her hand against the trunk.
She even knocks.
But it’s crazy, what she’s thinking. According to Luke, Pemberton just opened the trunk and pulled out a carry-on, and besides, he’s never dumped an entire body before.
The only part of one of his victims he allows the world to find is her face.
The terminal is packed.
Pemberton bypasses the long lines of customers trying to figure out self-serve ticket kiosks that seem to confound everyone equally regardless of their educational background.
He’s strolling, Luke thinks, and for some reason, it’s harder to maintain a tailing pace on foot than it was on the freeway.
He pulls a plain black carry-on that looks like almost every other carry-on in the airport. Just like the Camry looks like almost every other car on the road. His outfit, however, is startlingly bright. White jeans, one of those rumpled tan fisherman’s hats that reminds Luke of his late grandfather, a cream-colored T-shirt, and a tan windbreaker. It doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of his incognito routine. Then Luke imagines what the ensemble looks like against the polished white floors on a black-and-white screen, and the outfit choice makes sense.
So far Pemberton’s walked past one major airline, two regional ones, and the entrances to two different security checkpoints. He’s made no effort to weave around even the most sluggish of passengers who cross his path. In fact, he seems to stick with the nearest crowd wherever possible, as if he’s being gently sucked into the wake of every family or tour group or excited gaggle of college students.
Even if he is taking his sweet time, Luke’s still confident there’s not a chance he’ll strike here or anywhere else inside the airport. The minute he stepped off that shuttle, he gave up all hope of an abduction.
So what is he doing?
They arrive at the entrance to another security checkpoint.
Pemberton slows. So does everyone else around him. They’re pausing to debate whether or not this is the checkpoint for their gate. Digging in their bags and purses for their photo IDs. Using the little crowd as cover, Pemberton slips into the nearest restroom. Luke pauses, looking for some way to look busy without having to commit to any of the actual rituals of travel.
He walks past the bathroom, then out the nearest exit. There’s a wall of glass that allows him to see the bathroom entrance when he doubles back. Once inside again, he walks up to the spot where travelers are showing their IDs to the TSA agent, looks up at the nearest bank of arrival and departure screens. Then he looks back and forth between the screens and his burner phone as if he’s comparing what he sees on each.
After ten minutes of this, and no sign of Pemberton, he needs a new charade. There’s no Starbucks, no magazine stands, no stores of any kind this side of security, so it won’t be easy. And there’s still a good chance the guy’s about to fall into the security line and board a long flight. Maybe he checked in online. But why get off the shuttle at a stop so far from his gate? Why walk two and a half terminals first?
He almost misses the man who emerges from the bathroom. And that’s the idea, apparently. It’s Pemberton, but the fisherman’s hat and cream-colored outfit is gone. Now he’s in black running pants, a black baseball cap, and a black windbreaker with white stripes on the arms. He’s also added a pair of thick-framed glasses, and he’s moving at a different speed. Not rushed but clipped. He changed not only outfits but also demeanors; Strolling Leisure Traveler has been replaced by Just Landed and Have an Appointment First Thing in the Morning Traveler.
Luke follows him down the escalator to the arrivals level.
If he changes cars again, I’m gonna grind my teeth to dust, he thinks.
Pemberton heads to the nearest taxi line. Luke allows some space to develop between them, then joins the line himself. Is Pemberton actually going to get in a cab? At this point Luke wouldn’t be surprised if the guy whipped out a saxophone and began playing tunes for change.
The burner phone buzzes in his pocket.
It’s Charley. Update?
Luke types, Walked two terminals. Never checked in. Changed outfits in a restroom. Now he’s in the taxi line.
Charley answers, He’s going home.
How do you know?
There’s only four people between Pemberton and the head of the line now. What should he do once Pemberton gets inside a cab and leaves the curb? In this day and age, if you tell a cabdriver to follow another cab, he probably calls the cops on you.
No e-mails from airlines or travel agencies on his computer. And he’s scheduled for surgery tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. He’s going home. Trust me. Come back.
Bailey, he thinks. Someday soon he’ll get used to the fact his brother can see into almost every corner of the world.
You sure? he types. I don’t want all this to be for nothing.
It wasn’t, she answers. We found his next abduction site.
“So all of this was just to plant the getaway car?” Luke asks.
After taking the shuttle back to the parking lot and planting the tracker on the Camry, he and Charley are sitting in his parked Jeep. He wants to be more relaxed than he is, but the fact that Pemberton’s slipped off into the night has left him with a weight in the pit of his stomach. He’s not as convinced as Charley is that the guy went back to Newport Beach.
He’s angled the rearview mirror so he can see part of the Camry’s roof.
“Just?” she asks. “It’s probably the most important part of his plan. Look at it this way, a parking lot like this, same-day entry and exit’s going to be suspicious, and it’ll be the first thing they look for on the cameras once they figure out the abduction happened here. This way, the car stays here for several days like the rest of them, and when he rolls through the exit, presumably with his victim in the trunk, it looks like he’s coming home after a trip.”
“With you in the trunk, you mean. Presumably awake, since twenty milligrams of Xanax has no effect on you.”
“Yep.”
“Why not just fight him off here in the parking lot? Why let him take you all the way back to Temecula?”
“Remember the plan?”
“Overpower him; restrain him. Leave him right next to the evidence of his crimes.”
“Yep. I can’t do that here. Best I can do is scare the shit out of him.”
“Or kill him.”
“Which I’m not interested in doing,” she says sharply.
“I didn’t say you were.”
“I didn’t say you did. This is about stopping him. This is about making sure it’s me he pulls out of this lot and not someone else, not someone who doesn’t have my . . . abilities.”
He remembers a little speech she made the other night about how she wanted to stare into Pemberton’s eyes and enjoy the fear there when the man realizes she’s the end of him, but no sense bringing that up now.
But is there any way to point out to her that, yes, there is an easier way to do this? She could overpower him here in the lot. They could call the cops. Once the cops realized they had an attempted abduction on their hands, they’d haul him in, have cause to search his houses.
You didn’t agree to stop Pemberton, he tells himself. You agreed to help her do whatever she wanted, so here you are, hotshot. Enjoy the ride.
“I don’t know,” he finally says, surprised to hear he’s kept his thoughts from shaking his tone. “You really think this parking lot is where he’s going to strike next?”
“Well, what else was he doing tonight?”