Diagnosis Murder 4 - The Waking Nightmare (16 page)

He walked over to the fence, found a hole cut into it, and stepped through to the other side.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Steve notified LoJack and had the auto theft tracking devices activated on his father's Saab and Wade's rental car; Both signals came back from the same Panorama City location.

It surprised him.

Were they working together? Did Mark contact Wade or was it the other way around? Why would Mark join forces with the marshal whose ill-considered action almost got Rachel killed? Why did Mark keep his son in the dark? Was it because Mark was protecting Steve from getting reprimanded or fired?

That never stopped his father before. The more Steve thought about it, the stranger it all seemed.

Something wasn't right about this.

No, Steve corrected himself,
nothing
was right about this.

He was about to send the patrol cars to his father's location, and then drive out there himself, when his cell phone rang.

It was a Latina woman, and when she was done telling him her story, Steve changed his plans.

He called the police dispatcher, gave them the map coordinates of Mark's car, and ordered them to send paramedics and any available officers in the vicinity to the scene. The officers were to be warned that a U.S. Marshal was at the location, pursuing a murder suspect who was to be considered armed and extremely dangerous. He also alerted them that an unarmed and injured civilian, Dr. Mark Sloan, might also be there.

Steve hung up and paced in front of his desk. It would take him forty-five minutes, at best, to reach the scene himself. By then, whatever was going to happen would be over, and his father could be dead. He couldn't wait that long. He had to get there immediately.

Acting on impulse, he called the LAPD helicopter unit and lied. He said Captain Newman wanted a chopper on deck for him, ready to go.

It was a lie that could get him knocked down a pay grade or, worse, thrown off the force. But Steve didn't care. He'd worry about the consequences later.

Now that Mark was closer to the building, he could see it wasn't merely abandoned. It was one of the forgotten ruins of the Northridge quake that should have been razed years ago. The building's decorative brick façade had fallen away, the individual bricks long since scavenged and put to use in the neighborhood as paving stones, chimneys, and doorstops. The entire structure listed to one side, the walls riddled with huge cracks. If he blew hard enough, he could bring the whole place down.

The safety of the building didn't matter. The immediate danger was the people inside, two men with guns who wanted to kill each other.

A lawman and a fugitive.

A father and a son.

There was a good chance that somebody was about to die.

It occurred to Mark that it might be him, but that was also something he couldn't think about now. Although he didn't have a plan, he knew he had to go in. He couldn't wait for the police to arrive.

He hurried into the building, clutching his broken arm to his chest with his right hand to steady it.

The air was hot, heavy, and reeked of urine and decay. Beer bottles, fast-food containers, and a soiled mattress cluttered the hallway. As dangerous as the building was, the risk of imminent collapse hadn't stopped people from partying inside anyway.

And who could blame them, Mark thought. It was so lovely.

Then he heard the footsteps above him and the creak of weight on the thin floorboards. But even if he hadn't, he could feel the presence of the two men upstairs, shadowing each other, moving in for the kill.

Mark moved quickly to the stairs.

The sun came through the cracked wall in bright slashes of light that carved up Marshal Tom Wade as he crept down the corridor, his gun drawn.

If you pull your gun, you better be ready to use it.

That's what he told the new marshals who trained under him. And when you shoot, he'd say to them, always shoot to kill.

He knew the rules. They'd saved his life countless times. Hesitation was fatal in his line of work.

But if it came right down to it, could he really shoot his own son? Could he take that necessary kill shot?

He's not your son anymore. That ended when he killed a cop. He deserves no more and no less than any other cop killer. He needs to pay.

It was what he'd been telling himself for years. But now that the reckoning had finally come, he felt the quiver of hesitation in his chest. It might as well have been a heart attack that he was feeling. It was just as lethal in a situation like this.

"It's time to quit, Pike," Wade shouted. "It's time to come home with me."

Home?

Pike would have laughed if he wasn't afraid it would give his position away. When had he ever had a home with Wade? What the hell was home anyway?

He moved through one apartment after another, slinking through doorways and sliding between the exposed framing in the rotted walls. The floors were strewn with water-damaged drywall, broken glass, and rat droppings. The pain in his shoulder was excruciating. His shirt was soaked with blood. Flies buzzed incessantly around him, as if testing to see if he was already dead.

The rooms seemed to be getting smaller, the ceilings lower. Even the air felt heavier, harder to suck in. Everything was closing in on him. He had to get out of here.

Where was the river this time?

There was a crash behind him. Terrified, he whirled around and fired without thinking, blasting a hole in the wall. It looked as if a cannonball had gone through it instead of a bullet.

Tom Wade, who'd been silently tracking movement on the other side of the wall, also whirled around at the sound of the crash, but he was too disciplined to fire.

Whatever it was, or whoever it was, it wasn't Pike. The gunshot told him where Pike was, in one of the apartments to his left.

Wade slipped into the nearest apartment and flattened himself against the wall, waiting. That's when he saw the drops of fresh blood on the floor and the footprints in the plaster dust. He followed the trail to his prey.

* * *

The crash they both heard was Mark Sloan, falling through a step in the staircase. The wood beneath his feet disintegrated under his weight and he fell through as if a trapdoor had opened underneath him.

As he fell through the ragged opening, he wasn't even aware of himself reaching desperately for something to grab on to with his right hand.

But he did.

And now he dangled by one arm above the first floor, splintered wood standing up like spikes below him, his right hand holding the next step on the stairway.

His left arm was broken; there was no way he could pull himself up with it. He'd need to think of another way to do it before he lost his grip.

There was only one thing he could do.

Grimacing, Mark swung himself, planting his foot against the wall. Between his hand on the step and the pressure of his foot against the wall, he managed to pin his body in place. Now he was able to work his way into a roughly horizontal position and roll his body up onto the next step. He prayed that the step would hold his weight.

It did.

Wincing in pain, he managed to crawl up to the next step, and then the one after that, until he found himself peering over the landing, just in time to see a man's shadow slip into one of the open apartments.

Mark rose shakily into a standing position and shuffled towards the apartment. He didn't have a strategy. Every muscle in his body ached and his broken arm pulsed with pain. He wouldn't be a very formidable adversary. All he knew was that he had to do something. He had to talk them both back from the precipice.

"It's time to pay for what you've done," Wade shouted from somewhere near Mark, perhaps separated by only a wall or two.

Pike responded with two gunshots, the wall exploding over Mark's head. He fell forward, slamming his broken arm against the floor, his startled cry of agony muffled by the echo of the gunshots.

"I don't have to pay for nothing," Pike screamed back. "They're your laws, not mine."

Mark rose slowly, cradling his wounded arm, and followed the sound of Pike's voice.

Pike felt Wade behind him, the hairs on his neck standing up, goose bumps rising on his flesh. He turned around slowly, tightening his grip on his gun, which he held at his side.

Tom Wade stood framed in a doorway, his gun aimed squarely at his son.

"Drop the gun, Pike," Wade said evenly.

Pike sneered at his father. "Drop yours."

"You can't win this," Wade said. "There's no way out except through me. We can both leave here alive or we can both be carried out dead. Your call."

"You can't shoot me." Pike laughed, shaking his head. "But I got no problem dropping you."

Mark stepped in from an adjoining room, finding himself between the two men, though not in their line of fire. Neither Wade nor Pike shifted their gaze to him.

"Nobody has to die today," Mark said carefully. "You can both lay down your guns. The police will be here any moment."

"The law is already here," Wade said.

"You're a joke," Pike said.

Mark could see something change in Pike. His face became as rigid and set as his father's, his eyes as focused.

Pike deliberately and fearlessly raised his gun.

Wade was stoic, his gun held steady. If Pike were anybody else, Mark knew that Wade would already have planted a bullet between his eyes.

But Pike wasn't anybody else.

That's when Mark noticed something had changed in Tom Wade, too. The lawman was frozen. He looked like a mannequin of a U.S. Marshal posed in the perfect shooting stance.

But he wasn't shooting.

Wade should have fired before Pike could bring his gun up. Any other cop in his position would have.

But he didn't.

In the second that passed, Mark realized Wade either wasn't going to shoot or he was going to wait until Pike could get a shot off, too.

It was suicide. For both of them.

Pike grinned, taking careful aim at his father. He wasn't going to need a river after all.

Mark couldn't let himself become a spectator at another suicide. Not after Lenore. Not after Rachel.

"
No!
" he yelled, as loudly as he could, railing against all the stupid, pointless, unnecessary sacrifices of life he'd seen today, yesterday, and so many days before. It was wrong, and he couldn't abide it any longer.

His furious, guttural cry seemed to startle Pike, who whirled on Mark, pointing his gun at him. There was a gun shot.

Mark flinched, closing his eyes for an instant. When he opened them again, Pike was still facing him, with an astonished expression and a smoking hole in the center of his forehead.

Pike fell forward, dead long before he hit the floor, the gun skittering out of his lifeless grasp.

Wade stared at his own gun in shock, as if it was a living thing that had acted on its own. He didn't know if Pike was going to shoot Mark or not. Pike probably didn't know either. But the lawman in Wade couldn't take that chance. Reflexes honed by years of experience acted for him. He might have hesitated where his own life was concerned, but not someone else's.

He fired. And now his son was dead, at his father's hand. The realization hit Tom Wade like a gut punch.

The marshal dropped to his knees, staring at his son's body.

Suddenly the whole building began to shake violently around them, though Wade seemed oblivious. Plaster dust rained down from the ceiling. Cracks opened in the walls. A heavy, rhythmic rumbling filled Mark's ears.

Earthquake.

Mark steeled himself for the inevitable. Any second now, the condemned heap would collapse on them. Of all the miserable, unbelievable luck...

Then Mark realized he wasn't hearing the subterranean roar of a ground-splitting tremblor. It was a helicopter.

Relieved, and suddenly exhausted, Mark leaned his back against the wall and allowed himself to slide slowly to the floor.

The police were here, not that it made much difference now. Pike couldn't get any deader.

Mark glanced at Wade, still on his knees beside Pike's body. Their eyes met.

"He's my son," Wade said.

Mark nodded and closed his eyes. He'd never felt so tired.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Mulholland Vista Estates, high in the hills south of Ventura Boulevard in Reseda, was a gated community of million-and-a-half-dollar tract-home mansions with backyards the size of a parking space. The mansions were so close to one another, neighbors could swap jars of Grey Poupon with each other through their kitchen windows.

The $750-a-month association fee paid for the lush tropical landscaping and the round-the-clock security at their ornate million-dollar gate, which couldn't stop the neighborhood from being besieged by rattlesnakes, coyotes, and mountain lions that came down from the mountains to feast on gourmet table scraps and tasty French poodles.

But none of that made the community any less desirable for people too poor to live in Beverly Hills, Malibu, or Brentwood, but still rich enough to want people to know it. A McMansion at Mulholland Vista Estates was just the way to do it.

The African American couple who were waiting for Lenore Barber when she drove up fit the buyer profile for a home in Mulholland Vista Estates perfectly. Mr. and Mrs. Guy Hanks were young, good-looking, and were sitting in a brand-new, BMW 7 Series. He was an executive in the rubber and plastics industry and she, as far as Lenore knew, was simply his stunning trophy wife.

Mrs. Hanks was more than that. She was an adjunct county medical examiner at Community General, but despite all the time Lenore spent at the hospital, she hadn't met Dr. Amanda Bentley. At least not yet. She would if she didn't stop smoking soon.

Amanda was the first one out of the car, striding towards Lenore with her hand out and a bright smile on her face.