Cole’s phone rings. He expects it to be another call from Dylan, another call he plans to ignore. But it’s not. It’s a call he should have prepared for, but he’s had a lot to prepare for over the last few days, so this particular possibility didn’t get a dress rehearsal.
Julia Crispin says, “Tell me you have teams in place.” No doubt she’s been sitting in front of her laptop in her mirrored basement office in Rancho Santa Fe, sipping her drink of choice while tending to paperwork and occasionally glancing over at Charlotte’s feed like it’s a nostalgic TV rerun.
From the tone of her voice, it sounds like she’s just realized this won’t be an episode of The Golden Girls.
“So you’ve been checking in on us?” Cole asks.
“It’s my technology. I’ll do whatever I want with it. Tell me you’ve prepared for this, Cole.”
“A lot has gone into this night, Julia, and it’s better if I don’t tell you about any of it. That way if something doesn’t go exactly as planned, then—”
“Cole.”
Her voice is frosty enough to silence him.
“If something happens to that woman, there will be consequences.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but something is happening to that woman, and it’s the result of a series of choices she’s made.”
“Choices forced on her by Dylan Cody, and now you. If you don’t have teams in place, get them in place now, Cole. Because if that woman doesn’t make it out of this, I will fucking ruin you and your family’s company and every last member of your family. Do you understand me?”
But it must be a rhetorical question because she hangs up before Cole can answer, and before he can point out the potential self-inflicted wounds inherent in such an endeavor.
When he turns back to the monitor bank, Ed’s studying him.
Cole waves his concern away.
“Do we have real-time traffic?” he asks.
The web tech says, “Yeah. They’re forty-five minutes out.”
“Good. My bird’s gassed up, right?”
Ed nods.
“Good,” Cole says, as if everything’s going to plan.
“Get closer,” Marty says for what must be the tenth time.
“Marty, we talked about this.” Luke’s trying to focus, even relax himself a bit. They’re traveling the reverse of the route Pemberton took on the night of the Camry stash, and that’s good. That means he’s behaving as expected, taking them to the Temecula house. This is the time to focus, get their breath. But Marty’s decided it’s time for a freak-out.
In the back seat, the boys are quiet, but in the rearview mirror, Luke catches glimpses of their eyes moving back and forth between him and Marty like dogs following a tennis ball.
“We can’t see her, for fuck’s sake,” Marty barks.
“We can see her right there,” Luke says, pointing to the GPS tablet. “Marty, I’ve been tailing him for days, if he recognizes the Jeep and panics when he’s got her in the trunk, we’re in uncharted territory. That’s what the tracker’s for.”
“Why’s it dark, though?” Marty points to the contact lens feed. “Why’s it so damn dark? Shouldn’t she be blinking? Doing something we can see?”
“If he’s moving bodies in that trunk, he’s going to take out the light sources, if there are any.”
“But not even any cracks, maybe light around the edge of the roof? Come on, Luke.”
For the first time, he thinks Marty’s got a point. But he also thinks Marty’s reactive and maybe not as cut out for this kind of operation as he thought he’d be. Charley’s objective could not be any clearer: make the guy believe she’s a prostrate victim until she can overpower him when he’s surrounded by evidence of his crimes. Any sudden moves before then could blow the whole thing, pitching their operation into a half-assed arrest of Pemberton, a bullshit cover story, and potential evidence lost to rich lawyers and more denied warrants.
But there’s something else’s that nagging at him.
The drive time. If they continue at their current rate, Charley will only have a little less than an hour left on her Zypraxon after they reach the vineyard.
“Your guys at the surveillance point,” Luke says. “What’ll it take to get them close to the house?”
“Not much. We staked out possible positions yesterday. Wasn’t much else to do up there.”
“They’re armed?” Luke asks.
“Oh yeah.”
“Tell them to get in place. Just in case.”
Marty sighs, starts typing into his burner. Relieved and calmed some, it seems, just to have something to do.
And he’s relieved that Marty’s not still pressuring him to ride the Camry’s ass.
He sees the sign for CA-79. A short stint on that will bring them to the entrance to Pala Temecula Road. Ahead of them, the tracker takes that very route.
More good signs.
On the GPS map, the mountain road looks like a slender thread laid across an ocean of black, the Camry a flashing blip slowly traveling its length.
“It does look dark.” Luke hasn’t heard Brasher say more than a few words since they met earlier that day; he has to check the rearview mirror to make sure it’s him. “The other screen, I mean. Is that thing working over cell service?”
“Nope,” Luke says.
“You got Wi-Fi in this car?”
“Nope.”
“How’s the signal getting to that thing then?”
“We don’t know,” Marty answers. “We just enter a code.”
A few seconds go by before Brasher says, “Well, shit.”
“Going dark,” Luke says, before killing the headlights.
There’s a collective sphincter clench throughout the Jeep, and then they’re twisting up the road without headlights. Up ahead he sees a brief, teasing glimpse of the Camry’s taillights. But they’re far enough away to seem like the wing lights of a plane at cruising altitude. Later he can brag about how well he memorized the map of this particular stretch of road, but only if this next part goes well.
“How are your guys?” Luke asks.
“Fifteen minutes out.”
More silence, more strained breaths and the plastic creaking sounds of Rucker and Brasher grasping their oh-shit handles in the back seat as the Jeep weaves through the dark.
“His access road’s coming up on the right,” Marty says.
Luke slows, drives right up onto the rock-strewn shoulder. A good distance uphill he catches a glimpse of the Camry’s headlights flashing across an automatic gate sliding to one side. Then the car disappears inside. A few seconds later, what he assumes are motion-activated lights die, and his small glimpse of the gate disappears.
Now it’s just darkness.
A minute later he hears barks echoing through the canyon; their ghostly distance does nothing to muffle their ferocity.
Then the dogs go quiet, perhaps recognizing their owner. More darkness. More breathing.
And darkness on the tablet that should be showing them everything Charley sees.
With each passing second, Luke’s stomach gets a little bit colder.
“Something’s wrong,” Marty whispers.
“The lenses are working,” he says. “The signal’s live. It’s just . . .”
“It’s not the lenses. It’s the drug. We’re not seeing anything ’cause she isn’t seeing anything.”
“Give it a minute.”
“The garage is ten paces from the house, Luke. They’re inside by now.”
“Text your boys. See what they see.”
Marty complies.
A minute goes by with no response.
And another.
And another.
“Nothing,” Marty says. “They’ve gone quiet.”
“Bad cell service?”
“We were fine at the surveillance point. We figure the casino down valley’s got extra towers. Luke—”
“All right. Everybody. Guns out. Let’s go.”
Rucker says, “What about the dogs?”
“If they don’t sit when you say, shoot ’em.”
“I don’t hurt dogs,” Rucker says.
“Seriously?” Luke whispers.
“Dogs didn’t abduct Charley. Men did.”
“Then fire over their heads. Just not at one of us.”
There’s no argument. Luke grabs the tablet from its holster. If it hasn’t come to life by the time they reach the gate, he’ll junk it and focus on his weapon, but God willing . . .