By Any Means (8 page)

That late in the evening, there were few cars on the street, so Ash didn't bother turning on the light bar or siren as he pulled out of the parking lot. Even without them, the few drivers he encountered had enough common sense to get out of the way of the speeding police cruiser. Both he and Alvarez understood the situation, so neither of them spoke. The guy who abducted Rebecca had already killed two people. If they found him, he probably wouldn't go quietly.

“You okay with what we're about to do?” asked Ash.

Alvarez adjusted himself on the seat and slipped a hand to the holster on his belt. “We're about to investigate a lead in a kidnapping. Of course I'm okay with that.”

Ash glanced over. Alvarez stared straight ahead, his gaze intense, focused and ready. After his hesitation at the crime scene that afternoon, Ash was glad to see the detective's newfound poise. Maybe he just needed a little direction after all. He turned his attention back to the road. Unlike his visit to Shadeland Avenue earlier that afternoon, few cars lined up at the stoplights and most of the shops were closed. With the house still a couple of blocks away, Alvarez closed his eyes and made the sign of the cross over his chest, his lips moving as he prayed.

Ash killed the lights on his cruiser before turning into the neighborhood their caller had alerted them to. Single-story ranch homes lined the street with the occasional two-story popping up for good measure. Their caller had given them the address of a two-story Colonial with a brick chimney and white siding. Ash drove past without slowing. It looked like a nice family home; save the late-model green Pontiac in the driveway, it also looked abandoned. He parked at the end of the block and turned off the engine, but didn't say anything until Alvarez finished praying.

“Until we learn otherwise, we're here for information,” said Ash. “But if Rebecca's in there and in trouble, we might have to go in. Will you be okay with that?”

Alvarez's chest rose and fell, but he nodded.

“Do you understand what I'm really asking?” asked Ash. “More than likely, our caller is a neighborhood busybody who saw a couple of kids screwing around. If she isn't and this is an emergency, we'll have to act on our own. Do you understand what I'm getting at? You can't hesitate like you did at the fairgrounds today.”

Alvarez didn't turn to look at him. “You heard I was in the Peace Corps, didn't you?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Ash.

“Because I grew up speaking Spanish, they sent me to Juarez, Mexico, to teach English. I started dating the crime reporter for the local newspaper. I was going to marry her when my tour ended.”

“Okay,” said Ash, unsure why Alvarez thought it appropriate to tell him about the history of his love life right now.

“About two months before my tour was over, I took Marisol out to lunch at a café by my school. Two guys with guns came in and grabbed her. I tried to stop them, but one of them hit me on the head with the butt of his rifle and knocked me out cold. A day later, a police officer showed me a video a local cartel boss sent him. A fifteen-year-old kid from one of my classes slit Marisol's throat with a butcher knife so dull he had to use it like a saw. The cop said that's what happens to people who talk about things they shouldn't talk about.”

“Wow,” said Ash, exhaling slowly. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't be sorry. Back then, I couldn't have done anything, but now I can. If Rebecca is in there, I'm getting her back. I don't care what I have to do.”

Ash took a moment to respond. Before being hired, Alvarez would have gone through a mental health evaluation, an evaluation he should have flunked with something like that in his past. The admission changed the situation, made Ash realize for the first time how volatile it could become. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, thinking. For all they knew, it could be a couple of teenagers who snuck in looking for somewhere to fool around without their parents' watchful eyes; they'd be in enough trouble as it was. They didn't need a detective with something to prove and a score to settle chasing after them.

“Unless we hear someone screaming or another indication of imminent danger to a bystander, we're staying out of the house,” said Ash. “We go in only as an absolute last resort. Are you okay with that?”

“If this guy's got Rebecca in there, I say we charge in before he knows we're coming.”

Ash shook his head. “This can't work like that. If we charge in there, he's going to shoot her and us. We have to be smart. Are you okay with that? If not, I will get someone who is.”

“Then what do you want to do?”

“I want to walk around the house and find out how the people inside got there. As soon as we find a broken window or a door that's been kicked down, we'll call for backup. They'll handle the extraction.”

Alvarez took a deep breath. “What if we don't find anything?”

“If there are people inside, we'll find something.”

“But what—”

“That's enough,” said Ash, interrupting him. “I understand your frustration. If I could, I'd kick down that door and drag our suspect out by his hair. We're not bulletproof, though, and neither is Rebecca. If she's in there, we need to get her out safely. I'm not going to hear any arguments on this.”

“All right, then.”

Ash watched his partner for the next few seconds, trying to get a read on him.

“What?” asked Alvarez.

“Nothing,” said Ash, turning his eyes to the front. “Let's just be careful.”

Alvarez opened his door first, but Ash followed shortly thereafter. The evening air was cool and thick, and a slick sheen of moisture reflected off the grass beside their vehicle. Ash had parked three houses away from their target. Between them and it stood two hundred yards of grass and shrubbery. Even with a partially clouded sky, enough light reflected from the moon to silhouette them both against the sidewalk. If someone happened to look out the window of their target home, they'd be easy to spot.

Ash pointed to the side yard between two of the nearest houses and ran forward with Alvarez a few feet behind him. The rain earlier had left the ground spongy and wet. Trees filtered the moonlight in the home's backyard, casting long shadows on the grass. Ash stayed in those shadows and ran west, toward the partially fenced backyard of their target house, but stopped on the edge of the property and knelt in darkness beside a tree.

“You hear anything?” asked Ash.

“Just crickets.”

The house had two rear doors and half a dozen windows, none of which were open or broken. Whoever had broken in hadn't come that way.

“There's nothing here. What do you want to do?” asked Alvarez.

“We just got here, okay?” asked Ash. “We'll check out the property and report back to Captain Bowers once we find something. If we can't find anything, we'll wake up the neighbors. They might have seen something.”

“If Rebecca's in there, I'm not walking away from this,” said Alvarez, raising his voice and shaking his head. “We need to get in there ourselves. We can go through the back door.”

Ash tried not to grind his teeth. “We've already gone over this. We have no idea what's in that house. Even if Rebecca is in there, we don't know what the guy who kidnapped her is carrying. Are you comfortable going in there if our suspect has an assault rifle and body armor? I'm not. And if it's not Rebecca, I don't want some stupid kid to get hurt.”

Alvarez shook his head and looked at the house. “From the stories I've heard about you, I thought you'd be the first one through the door.”

“Don't believe everything you hear.”

“I don't like this.”

“You're not supposed to,” said Ash. “If this is our guy, he murdered two people and kidnapped a third. You're supposed to be pissed, but you can't be stupid.”

Alvarez looked away but finally nodded. “All right. We'll do it your way. I don't want this to go bad.”

It's already bad.

“Good. Let's move.”

Both men crouched low and crept toward the front of the house. Their target home had a long, narrow lot, so only about ten feet of shadows and grass stood between it and the home next door. It hid them well. Just like the windows on the rear of the house, the windows overlooking the side yard were securely fastened. Ash crept toward the home's front corner but stopped when he caught sight of an overgrown evergreen bush in the front yard. He had told countless homeowner associations to have residents trim their evergreen bushes well for just this reason: Someone had broken into the house and used the thick, needlelike leaves of a Yew to cover his entrance point. Ash put a finger to his lips and then pointed it out.

“Slowly move to the backyard and call Captain Bowers. Tell him we need backup immediately.”

Alvarez licked his lips and then nodded. He slipped into the night. Ash heard his voice, but he couldn't make out the words. If someone in the house heard, hopefully he'd think it was the wind. When Alvarez came back again, he was breathing hard.

“We've got SWAT coming in.”

“ETA?” asked Ash.

“They've been on standby all night, so ten to fifteen minutes. We'll have patrol officers here in five.”

Normally it'd take at least half an hour to get the entire SWAT team together, so ten to fifteen minutes was a great response time. Even still, a lot could happen in ten to fifteen minutes, much more than he cared to think about.

“All right. Call the dispatcher and tell the patrol units to maintain their distance from the house. We don't want to spook our suspect.”

“I already did.”

Ash glanced at him and nodded. “Good. Thank you.”

He settled his back against the house. The night air was thick from the storm earlier, and it didn't fill his lungs the way it should have. He couldn't get a deep enough breath to relax. That wasn't such a bad thing, though; he didn't need to relax given their situation. Ash glanced at his watch, noting the time before leaning his back against the house and planting his feet in the grass. Silence descended upon them.

In that quiet stillness, he heard it for the first time, faint, like a branch rubbing against his window on a cold winter night. A voice. Ash closed his eyes and held his breath. He heard it again, fainter this time.

“Don't say a word.”

Ash glanced at Alvarez and motioned toward the window with his head.

“Did you hear that?” he whispered.

Alvarez nodded. “Yeah. What do we do?”

“We wait for our team. Meantime, send Bowers a text message with an update. Tell him we might have a hostage situation.”

Alvarez's index finger flashed across the screen on his phone. Ash could have done it himself, but he wasn't nearly as fast. Within thirty seconds, he glanced up at Ash.

“It's done.”

At that time of night, their backup wouldn't run into much traffic. Ash nodded and glanced at the house.
Hold on, honey.

Time rarely played by the rules out in the field. A single moment could feel like a year or it could pass so fast you barely had time to register that it was gone. Ash didn't know how long he waited outside for the first patrol officers to hurry toward the house—it could have been a minute, or it could have been five. However long it took, the patrol officers parked far enough away from the house he couldn't see their car. Unfortunately, they didn't try to hide; they simply walked to a neighbor's yard and stood still. As soon as he saw them, Ash heard a familiar noise from inside the house, a muffled thud followed by a sliding, scraping sound. The home evidently had wooden windows. Like the wooden windows on his own house, they contracted and expanded with changes in humidity, meaning they didn't fit tight in the frame like a more modern, vinyl window. Their suspect had just opened one.

“Who's there?”

One of the patrol officers started to walk forward, but Ash stepped into the front yard, his hand held in front of him, stopping the officer. The front of the house had a neatly trimmed lawn and freshly mulched flowerbeds. A
FOR SALE
sign hung beside the driveway with a black bar along the bottom announcing it as a foreclosure. Their suspect had opened a window on the second floor, but Ash couldn't see him in the evening light. Alvarez followed a step back, his firearm held at his side.

“We're police officers. We're just here to talk.”

“I don't have anything to talk about.”

“I think you do,” said Ash, crossing toward the sidewalk where the patrol officers stood. They needed cover in case their suspect had a rifle, so he told one of the officers to get his car before turning his attention back to their suspect. “I know you've got someone in there with you. Who is it?”

“That's none of your business.”

“It is my business,” said Ash. “Is it Rebecca Cook?”

Ash counted to five, waiting. “No, it's my daughter.”

Ash's heart sank at the admission, but it didn't change the job in front of him. Like many of the officers in his department, he had sat through seminars on hostage negotiation before, so he knew the basic dos and don'ts. Hopefully they could get a professional quickly. “I've got a little girl of my own. What's your little girl's name?”

The man's voice wavered. “Madison.”

“Madison. That's a pretty name. Is Madison okay?”

“She's fine.”

The patrol vehicle rolled forward, and all four officers stepped behind it, putting it between them and the house and giving them some cover. There was no sign of Bowers or the SWAT team yet.

“We'd really like it if you and Madison would come out and talk to us face-to-face. Can you do that for me?”

“No. We're staying here.”

“Okay,” said Ash. “Can I talk to Madison?”

“Why?”