Dangerous Games (7 page)

“Love—and now respect? It’s a whole new you.”

He shut his eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with respect. The Cherokee, you know, used to apologize to the spirits of the deer they hunted. They asked forgiveness for taking the animals’ lives. That was a sign of respect.”

“I doubt the deer saw it that way.”

“You never see the big truths. You’re too wrapped up in details.”

“It’s the details that can get us caught.”

“And it’s the truth that will set us free.”

“Just leave her alone,” the other man said. “I mean it.”

A click, and the call was over.

Kolb replaced the handset, then folded his hands over his abdomen. He stared into the darkness, feeling the slow movement of his belly in time with the push and pull of his breath, and thought about Special Agent Tess McCallum of the FBI.

He hadn’t lied. He did respect her, even love her, in his way.

He would like to tell her so, someday. And like the Cherokee, he would apologize before he slit her throat.

5

Larkin caught Tess leaving the office suite. “Done already?” he asked in obvious disbelief.

“Just stepping out for a while.”

“Michaelson needs that report before nine A.M.”

“He’ll get it,” Tess said, and disappeared through the door before Larkin could say anything further.

It occurred to her, as she drove out of the parking lot, that she should have been accompanied by another agent. FBI fieldwork was customarily done in pairs. She was alone—and heading for a rendezvous with a woman whose motives in contacting her were still not entirely clear.

She replayed the phone conversation in her mind. Something seemed wrong about it, but she needed a minute’s thought to identify the anomaly. Madeleine had begun by calling the tip line and had followed up with a call to the Bureau. But why bother with either approach? Why not contact the LAPD detective who’d arrested Kolb?

A prickle of unease fingered her spine. Pieces of the story didn’t fit.

She guided the Crown Vic out of Westwood. Bel Air sprawled to the north, in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains, which rose in folds and rifts to Mulholland Drive at the crest. She climbed twisting streets, following the map book she’d found in the glove compartment.

Rounding a switchback curve, she spotted a pair of bright yellow eyes in the sweep of her headlights. They flashed away into the woods edging the road. She glimpsed lean gray legs and narrow hips—a coyote. They still roamed these hills, feeding out of garbage cans, prowling the carefully tended gardens. It was almost eerie to catch a hint of such wildness when the concrete clutter of the city lay only a mile away.

On another stretch of road she passed a security patrol unit gliding in the opposite direction, a sleek, dark vehicle, silent as a shark. Bel Air had its own private security to supplement the police force. She felt as if she’d left LA and entered a foreign territory, one with its own authorities and its own rules.

Madeleine Grant’s home lay on a lushly landscaped cul-de-sac. The house was deeply secluded, nested inside a wrought-iron perimeter fence and layers of foliage. Posted on the fence was a sign warning that the property was protected by an alarm system. The fence itself was high and topped with sharp spikes. Trees that might have allowed an intruder to climb up and over had been trimmed back, their branches lopped to leave a zone of dead space around the fence. Ms. Grant took personal safety seriously.

Tess pulled up to the gate and lowered her window, announcing herself to the intercom. For a moment there was no answer. She had the curious sense of being watched. Then she saw a surveillance camera mounted over the gate, its lens gazing down at her.

Then a metallic voice rasped, “Come in,” and the gate slid open on a metal track. She drove down a long circular driveway that looped around a lighted koi pond with a marble fountain, and parked alongside the front steps of the house. It was a two-story Tudor that looked disarmingly small but no doubt extended far back into the property. Lights were on, both inside and outside.

She got out, fingering the gun in her coat to reassure herself that it was there. She glanced around at the large property, taking in the thickets of eucalyptus trees, the beds of flowers artfully arranged.

A shimmer of movement attracted her eye. She turned, then relaxed when she saw that it was only the quick passage of a golden koi through the pond. Dozens of the fish streamed in the bright water like shooting stars in a clear sky.

She headed up the steps. Again she had the sense of being watched. Her gaze scanned the windows. She saw nobody, but when she reached the top of the steps, the door opened before she could ring the bell.

“Agent McCallum. Come in, please.”

Madeleine Grant was not what Tess had expected. She’d pictured an older woman, harried and flighty, but Madeleine was no more than thirty-five and seemed perfectly composed. She wore a pantsuit that showed off her toned muscles. Tess guessed she spent a lot of time with a personal trainer.

“It’s good of you to see me on such short notice,” Tess said.

Madeleine waved off the remark. “I’m the one who should be grateful for your quick response.”

With the practiced informality of a hostess, Madeleine led her through the paneled foyer. Tess noted a closed-circuit video monitor discreetly stationed in a corner, offering a view of the steps. That was how Madeleine had watched her.

They stepped into an elegant living room, meticulously appointed like a magazine photo spread. Tess contrasted it with the cramped living-dining area in her Denver apartment, afghans piled on the sofa and half-finished books scattered everywhere.

“You have a beautiful home,” she said. “It must take a lot of work to keep it up.”

“I have a small staff.”

“Do you?”

Madeleine hesitated, as if regretting she’d spoken. “Yes…a live-in cook and housekeeper. This is their night off.” Her glance flickered nervously to the dining room.

Tess followed her gaze. The dining table had been set for one. The dishes had been only partially cleared, as if someone had been interrupted while cleaning up. Not recently, though—the ice in the glass had melted.

Madeleine gestured toward the chairs and divan. “Have a seat. Would you care for anything to drink?”

“No, thank you.” Tess settled into an armchair. Madeleine sat facing her.

Tess didn’t want to begin the interview directly. It was better to establish a rapport. She asked a few questions and learned that Madeleine was unmarried and unemployed. Her father had been a film producer. “Reginald Grant, perhaps you’ve heard of him.”

Tess hadn’t.

“You never saw any of his films? Lucky you, they were all shit. Made money, though. That’s all Daddy cared about. He was a moneymaking machine. Drove my mother to an early grave. Then he dropped dead of a heart attack at fifty-five.” Her father had left her the house and enough money to be “comfortable,” as she put it. “I know I sound like the quintessential rich-bitch Westside cliché, but I like to think I’m a little more complicated than that.”

“Everybody is more complicated than that,” Tess said.

“I never wanted to be one of those women who devote themselves to other people’s charities because they have no interests of their own. Or one of those even less interesting women whose lives revolve around shopping, hostessing, and the beauty salon. Actually I’ve pursued three different careers in my life. At the moment I’m between things, but some friends and I are in discussions about a retail venture on Melrose. It would require hands-on participation. I’m willing, but I’m not sure they are.”

“Well, good luck with that. Now—”

“My point is, I don’t lounge around at poolside sipping drinks and chatting on the phone.”

“Your personal life is really none of my business.” Tess figured there had been enough small talk. “Now, Ms. Grant…” She paused, expecting to hear the words,
Call me Madeleine
. She didn’t. “I’m afraid I’m not entirely clear on what happened to you last year.”

“I was being stalked.”

Tess nodded. “By William Kolb.”

“Kolb, yes.” She spoke the name with distaste.

“And how did this start?”

“It started when he pulled me over. For running a red light, he said, though I still maintain it was amber.”

“You’re saying Kolb was a police officer?”

“LAPD, that’s correct. He worked out of the West Los Angeles station. He was a patrolman. Six years’ experience. He’s thirty—no, thirty-one years old.”

“So he wrote you a ticket….”

“Which I paid, of course, though under protest, because as I said, the light was amber. It’s the only ticket I’ve received in my life, by the way.”

Tess waited.

“I thought, naturally, that the incident was behind me. Didn’t think anything more about it. Didn’t even connect it with the e-mails at first.”

“The e-mails?”

“I started getting them three weeks later. Offensive, suggestive messages. Very personal. Not just junk mail—they were directed specifically at me. Descriptions of my appearance, my home, my car. Familiarity with my daily routine. And…sexual innuendo.”

“They were anonymous?”

“Of course. I hired someone to trace them for me, and he said they had been sent through an anonymizer, which removed all the…What’s the term?”

“Routing information.”

“Yes. I suppose you have to know these things.”

“Believe me, what I don’t know about computers fills many books.”

“At least you know
something
. The police”—her hands rose and fell in a gesture of futility—“were useless.”

“When did you bring in the police?”

“Immediately after the messages started. It was obvious this person was spying on me, following me. He would say he’d seen me at a certain store or on a certain street.”

“And the police…?”

“Did nothing. Absolutely nothing. They said if the e-mails were untraceable, there was nothing they could do. I suggested having plainclothes officers place me under surveillance. They might catch sight of whoever was following me. They said they didn’t have the resources to do that.”

“It must have been frustrating. And frightening.”

“No, I wasn’t frightened. I was angry. I wanted to tell this person to come out of hiding and show himself. I would have, if I’d been able to reply to his messages, but of course that was impossible, since there was no return address.”

“I don’t think it would have been advisable, anyway.”

“Now
you
sound like the police. Don’t antagonize him. Don’t provoke him. Just live in fear. I’m not so easily intimidated. I began going through my records to see if I could determine who might be harassing me. When I came to the notation in my checkbook about the traffic ticket, I thought of Officer Kolb.”

“Why him, particularly?”

“He’d been rude to me. Hostile. Sarcastic and swaggering. A strutting martinet, all puffed up with authority. When I didn’t grovel and cower, he became more offensive. He seemed to take it personally—that he couldn’t make me back down.”

“Even so, there was no direct link….”

“It was a feeling, that’s all. The e-mails began three weeks after the traffic stop. And he looked at my license and registration, so he knew where I lived.”

“Not your e-mail address.”

“Anybody can obtain that information over the Internet. You know that.”

“You’re right. But it would have been more direct for him to call you.”

“Calls can be traced. Voices can be recognized. He was playing it safe. Or maybe he’s just a goddamned coward.”

“Did you tell the police your theory?”

“Oh, certainly. Tell the LAPD that one of their own is stalking me. No evidence, just a feeling. Woman’s intuition. I’m certain they would have been all over the case. They might have brought in extra officers to assist in the investigation.”

Sarcasm. Not Tess’s favorite thing. “You could’ve tried. Police departments do investigate allegations of officer misconduct—”

“Whitewash them, you mean.”

“Not always.”

“I shouldn’t argue with you. You work for the government, so of course you see it their way.”

“It’s not an us-against-them situation, Ms. Grant.”

“Yes, it is,” she snapped. She looked away, and Tess saw the swallowing movement of her throat. “In any event,” she went on more quietly, “the point is moot. Officer Kolb was caught with incriminating evidence that connected him with me. He was charged with stalking. For some incomprehensible reason they allowed him to plea bargain for a minimal sentence. He was sent away for less than a year. Now he’s out.”

“Wait, I’m not following this. How was Kolb caught if no one was even looking at him as a suspect?”

“He was caught because of his own stupidity, which is hardly surprising. The man is little more than a shaved ape. Put a gorilla in a uniform, and he could write traffic tickets, too.”

“How was he caught?”

“He left the stove on.”

“What?”

“The stove, a gas stove. He left one of the burners on after fixing his scrambled eggs or whatever. He went to work, and the gas flame was still on. Typical of the bovine stupidity of his type.”

“There was a fire?”

“A minor one. As I understand it, some dishtowels near the stove caught, and the kitchen wall started to smolder. It set off the smoke alarm. Someone heard it and called the fire department. By the time they got there, the whole place was full of smoke. They checked for damage and found…”

Tess waited.

“They found the things he was going to use on me. Not that I would’ve given him the chance.”

“What things?”

“Handcuffs. Duct tape. There was a map of this neighborhood with my house circled. Of course, he could’ve gotten past the security system easily enough. The police around here know how to disarm these systems.”

“The map led the police to contact you?” Tess asked.

“Not just the map. He had photos of me—digital photos, so he didn’t need to have them developed. The quality wasn’t great—it was a cheap camera—but he’d taken hundreds of shots. He’d been following me whenever he was off duty. In his van. That’s what he intended to use for transportation after he…” She shook her head. “But it wouldn’t have gotten that far. I never would’ve let him take me. In a situation like that, you don’t submit. You fight.”