Eleventh Hour (28 page)

Gil Rainy said, “You feeling okay, Dane? You look better today than you did yesterday.”

Dane just nodded. “Arm feels better. All I am is depressed. Captain DeLoach seemed fine, then he was laughing so hard I thought he’d choke on his own breath, then he was just gone, asleep, making light little snores like women make.”

“I don’t snore,” Nick said. “You’ve slept close enough to me to know I don’t snore.”

Everyone turned to stare at her.

“Bite me,” Nick said to everyone in general, and stalked off to the Taurus.

The phone rang in Dane’s Holiday Inn room at ten o’clock that night.

“Yeah?”

“Dane, Savich here. Captain DeLoach—no, don’t worry, he isn’t dead, but he fired a gun at someone.

Maybe it was Weldon, but nobody knows. When the staff got into Captain DeLoach’s room, he was on the floor, unconscious, the gun beside him, and there was a big hole in the wall just behind that small sofa.

The glass sliding doors weren’t locked but they usually aren’t, so that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”

“Is Captain DeLoach going to make it?” Dane asked.

“I think so,” Savich said. “I couldn’t get exact information about his condition, only just what I told you.

The people there are on top of it. We’ll go out there tomorrow.”

“What about the two cops Detective Flynn had out there covering Captain DeLoach’s room?”

“They didn’t see a thing. Didn’t hear a thing until the shot.”

Dane cursed again, real low so Savich wouldn’t hear him. “He’s our only lead, Savich.”

“Maybe not. Now, get a good night’s sleep. Sherlock says to tell you that tomorrow you’ll be ready to rock and roll again.”

Dane grunted into his cell phone, laid it on the bedside table, looked over at Nick, and told her what had happened.

“I’ve decided,” Nick said slowly as she handed Dane two pills and a glass of water, “that Weldon DeLoach doesn’t exist. Maybe he’s just a name Hollywood made up, someone they’ve all created for us like some huge Hollywood production, an epic that pits reality against art, and reality loses. You know, lots of money, all big stars, lots of hoopla, a cast of thousands, murder and mayhem.”

“You know,” he said once he’d swallowed the pills, “that’s something to think about.”

“No,” she said, “it isn’t. I’m just talking, all blah, blah. I guess I’m just really tired, Dane.”

She turned off the overhead light in his room and went through the adjoining door into her own.

TWENTY-EIGHT

BEAR LAKE

“The doctor told me it wasn’t an accident,” Mr. Latterley said, looking distressed. His bald pointed head, Nick saw, was shiny with sweat. It was obvious he’d never had to deal with anything like this before.

“Evidently Captain DeLoach was struck just above his left temple. The doctor said that the wound wasn’

t consistent with his simply falling out of his chair. I’ve reported this to our local police and they’ve been interviewing everyone, but so far, we have very little. Every time they try to interview Captain DeLoach, he starts cackling like he’s some old crackpot, shouts that he’ll win and surprise everybody, but that’s it.

Over and over, that’s all he says. I don’t think he wants to talk to them. He won’t give them the time of day.”

Dane said, “We’ll have two round-the-clock guards on him now.”

“That’s good. This is all very disturbing, Agent Carver. Violence at Lakeview. Not at all good for business.” He shook his head. “And your suspect is his own son. I must say, Weldon DeLoach has always appeared to be a very nice man. Every time I have spoken to him, he’s been solicitous of his father, very caring, always paid any and all charges on time. I’ve e-mailed him and spoken to him on the phone countless times over the years.”

Dane handed Mr. Latterley a photo. “Is this Weldon DeLoach?”

Mr. Latterley looked down at the grainy black-and-white photo that they’d had shot off the VCR reel.

He didn’t say anything for a very long time. Finally, he raised his head, and he was frowning. “That’s Weldon. Bad photo, but yes, Agent Carver. You know, it’s entirely possible that it wasn’t Weldon who was here today. In fact, I simply can’t accept that it could have been him. He takes too good care of his father to want to hurt him.”

“All right. If not Weldon, have you any idea who else it could be?” Dane asked.

Mr. Latterley reluctantly shook his head. “No, no one else visits him, at least I’ve never seen anyone else.

We do have security here, but I suppose some criminal from Captain DeLoach’s past could have gotten in.”

“It would have to be a criminal with a very long memory,” Dane said. He rose. “I want to speak to Daisy.”

They found Daisy in the rec room, this time reading a very old
Time
magazine, chortling about Monica’s semenstained blue dress and how the president was dancing around that blow. “A hoot, that’s what it was,” Daisy said. “He wanted history to judge him as a great president”—she laughed some more—“

now he’ll be known as the moron who couldn’t keep his pants zipped.”

Daisy was wearing a different loose housedress today, sandals, her toenails painted a bright coral that matched her lipstick.

“I’m Special Agent Dane Carver and this is Ms. Jones.” Dane showed her his FBI shield.

“I remember you two. You were here yesterday. I’m Daisy Griffith,” she said, and grinned up at the two of them, a full complement of white teeth in her mouth. Nick believed they were hers. “Now, you’re here because of poor old Ellison. Knocked himself out again, didn’t he? Never did have a good sense of balance, did Elly. Always hurling himself about in that chair of his whenever he gets excited. Of course, he’s old as dirt—hmmm, maybe even older.” Daisy paused a moment, tapped her fingertips on a photo of Clinton shaking his finger at the media, and said, “I heard some of the nurses talking; they claimed it wasn’t an accident, that his son tried to knock him off. Is that true?”

“We don’t know,” Dane said. “Have you ever met Weldon DeLoach?”

“Oh yes, nice boy. Polite and attentive, not just to Elly, but to all of us.” She paused a moment, sighed. “

Elly talks about him a lot, says he’s real talented, with lots of imagination, a good writer. He’s a Hollywood type, you know.”

“Yes, we know. Did Captain DeLoach ever speak to you about his son, other than what he did for a living?”

“Well, sure. Elly said he was just too old when Weldon was born, that Weldon had been a big accident.

The boy had needed a younger man to raise him, and then his mother up and died on the two of them.

Here he was, an older cop, and he had a little kid to raise.

“Just last week I think it was, he said his boy hadn’t turned out the way he would have liked, but what could he do? He said he was tempted, particularly now, to let everyone know what the real truth was.

He said it would scare the hell out of me. I asked him what he meant by that, and he just threatened to throw a billiard ball at me. Mortie thought that was real funny, the old buzzard.”

The old buzzard, Mortie, was scratching his forearms incessantly. He said, yes, of course he’d spoken to Weldon over the years. “Oh sure, Elly talked about him sometimes, but I got the idea there was no love lost between the two of them. Did you know that Elly used to be a wicked pool player? Then his hands started shaking and the arthritis got him.” Mortie shook his head and scratched his forearms again.

“Would you like a pool cue, sir?” Nick asked. She chalked a cue and then handed it to Mortie. Mortie grinned and walked over to the pool table. He was hitting balls at a fine clip when Dane and Nick left the rec room.

“I thought it might keep him from scratching himself for a while,” Nick said. “What do we do now?”

“Onward to Nurse Carla.”

They found her at the nurses’ station, scanning a chart, whistling “Silent Night.” “Oh, yes,” she said, “all the staff know and like Weldon. He’s a very good son—considerate, kind, always visits his father. To think that he’d strike his father—nope, I just can’t believe that. It had to be an intruder.”

“What does Weldon look like?” Dane asked.

Carla Bender thought for a moment. “He’s real blond, practically white-haired, and he’s pale—like he doesn’t go outside enough. I joked with him about it once and he just laughed, said his skin was real sensitive and he didn’t want to get skin cancer. You know, Agent Carver, anything his father needed, Weldon always okayed it without hesitation. Good son. I just won’t believe that he struck his own father down.”

“I don’t think so either,” Velvet Weaver said as she came out of a bathroom down the hall. “Weldon’s really nice, soft-spoken, and I’ve never seen him as being remotely capable of any violence. And what could the old man possibly do to him to make him go into a rage and strike him?”

Dane showed her Weldon’s photo.

“Yep, that’s Weldon.”

Nurse Carla agreed.

They spoke to orderlies, to two janitors, to a group of gardeners. Everyone knew Weldon DeLoach, but no one had seen him anywhere around the time his father was struck.

“I really wish that just one person had seen Weldon,” Dane said as he steered Nick back to their new rental car, a Pontiac compact. “Within a mile of this place, that would be close enough.” He sighed.

“If it was Weldon, he was super careful. Or he was wearing a disguise, like the one he just might have worn in San Francisco.”

Dane didn’t say anything, just drove toward LA, ideas flying about in his brain, none of them leading anywhere except fantasyland. He kept his eye out for Harleys.

Nick finally fell asleep a little before midnight and was promptly hurtled back to that night in Chicago when the dark sedan had tried to run her down. Her dreams skipped to the man she’d seen leaving her condominium, the man who’d set the fire. Then, suddenly, she was staring at the man on the Harley, firing nonstop at them.

Oh God, oh God. She gasped and bolted straight up in bed, panting. It all came together. She realized suddenly that all three were the same man.

All three times, the man was out to kill her, not because she was an eyewitness to Father Michael Joseph

’s murder, but because the man was sent from Senator Rothman, who wanted her dead. Odd how it had all come together in a nightmare, but she was completely certain of this.

She quietly got out of bed. She pulled off her nightgown. She put on her clothes, her shoes. She looked at the adjoining door, drew in a deep breath, and quietly turned the knob.

She heard Dane breathing evenly in sleep. She didn’t think she breathed at all as she stole over to the bureau and took Dane’s car keys out of his jacket pocket. She saw his wallet on the bureau and took a credit card. And finally, his SIG Sauer, and an extra clip. She looked back toward him. He was still sleeping.

She looked back at him one last time, then quietly closed the adjoining door again. He’d already been shot trying to protect her. She simply couldn’t bear the thought of him dying—like his brother—a senseless, vicious death. She simply wouldn’t put him in harm’s way. She was a target and, as long as she was with him, so was he, for the simple fact that she knew to her soul that if she were threatened, he would give his life for her.

There was simply no way she could bear that. No way at all. Besides, she had a plan. If it failed, she could disappear again. She slipped out the door, quietly closing it behind her.

It was Savich, in a room three doors away, on the edge of sleep, who heard a car’s engine rev not far from their rooms. He was out of bed and standing naked in the Holiday Inn doorway, watching Dane’s rental car disappear out of the parking lot.

TWENTY-NINE

Sherlock sighed. “Does she have any money?”

“She can’t have much,” Dane said. “And that means that she’ll hitchhike. Oh damn, I take that all back.

Nick’s not an idiot. Let me check.” He ran back into his room. After a couple of seconds he called out, “

Does anyone have any handcuffs?”

“Not on me,” Savich said.

Dane was back in a moment, breathing hard. “When I catch up with her, I’m not going to rely on reason anymore. It’s time for brute force. Remind me to get some handcuffs from Detective Flynn. Here’s the deal. She didn’t just steal the car keys, she also has my AmEx and my SIG Sauer.” He stopped, looked momentarily baffled. “Why did she sneak out? Nothing’s really changed. Why?”

Within ten minutes, Detective Flynn had an APB out on the Pontiac, driven by a young woman with shoulder-length blondish-brown hair, gray eyes, weight around one fifteen. Well, not just gray eyes, Dane thought, they were pure gray and large, with dark lashes. But she was thin, still too thin, although she looked better than she had when he’d first met her. Good God, it was just last Tuesday. And she was wearing a pair of dark brown slacks and a light brown sweater, he’d checked. Purse? Her purse was black leather, just like her short boots. Size seven and a half, yes, that was her exact shoe size. It was important to be accurate for the APB, and so he mentioned that her eyebrows were a dark brown, nicely arched. Jesus, he was losing it. She was about five-foot-eight-inches tall—well, maybe taller because she came nearly to Dane’s nose. Every officer in the LA area was alerted, in great detail.

She’d taken all her clothes—all the clothes he’d bought her. He discovered very quickly that he’d never been so scared in his life. She was out there alone and she didn’t have any idea how to protect herself.

She had his car and she had his gun. She wasn’t helpless, thank God. He was going to tie her down when he found her and not let her up unless they were handcuffed together.

His healing arm itched. When his cell phone rang ten minutes later, he nearly fell over in his haste to get it.

Nick left the Pontiac three miles from the Holiday Inn, in the middle of a long row of cars parked in front of an apartment complex. She locked it and left the keys on top of the front driver’s-side tire. Obvious place, but given Dane’s resources, the chances were that the police would retrieve the car before a thief decided he was hard up enough to steal it.