Gridlock: A Ryan Lock Novel (9 page)

He glanced at her. The side of her face was pressed against the cool of the window and her eyes were closed. He thought about asking her how she was but stopped himself. Right now the best thing he could do was his job. Anyone who was being threatened needed, above all else, to see the person charged with their security alert and focused.

Inside the mailbox store, he watched as Raven took out the key from her purse, with a slight tremor in her hand. Then she stepped back. Cindy’s head had been found jammed into a vending machine and the last time Raven had opened the trunk of her car she had found the matching torso. The mailbox wasn’t big enough to hold a head, but he sensed that she still felt nervous.

‘You want me to open it?’ he asked her.

Behind them the tiny lobby of the Mailboxes R Us store was empty.

‘Sure,’ she said, handing him the key.

Inside there were maybe a dozen letters. He held them up. ‘Shall I check them?’

She stared at the floor. ‘No, it’s fine.’

He handed them over and watched as she rifled through them. ‘Anything interesting?’

Her eyes creased with concentration as she kept flicking. ‘Doesn’t look like it.’

‘You have any regular correspondents?’

‘A couple.’

‘Anyone who’s threatened to harm you or others?’

‘Apart from the stalker?’ she asked.

‘Yeah.’

She shook her head, then seemed to study him for a moment. ‘You were a cop originally, right?’ she asked him.

‘Military one.’

‘I thought MPs and the investigators were two different things.’

‘They are here. But I served overseas.’

He gave the street a quick scan, then turned back to her. He had to keep his vigilance up, especially in places she was known to frequent. ‘I served in the Close Protection Unit of the Royal Military Police.’

‘They’re good?’ she asked.

‘The best.’ Something caught in his throat and he coughed. ‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Have you given the TMU people access to your email and any social networking sites you use?’

‘Yeah,’ Raven said. ‘I gave Stanner all the passwords but I don’t think the stalker’s been in touch that way.’

‘Good. Then are we done here?’ he asked.

Raven tapped the edge of the final envelope against the palm of her hand. ‘I guess so.’

‘So where next?’ he asked.

‘Food!’

‘It’s better if we don’t order takeout. The fewer people we have coming to the front door the better. But it’s your call.’

She frowned. ‘That makes sense. Grocery store it is, then.’

Five minutes later Lock pulled the Range Rover into the parking lot of the Vons supermarket on Laurel Canyon Boulevard. He stopped near the front and got out first. The early-October heat was brutal. The Santa Anas must have picked up again. He walked round to open Raven’s door.

Stepping out, she left the mail she’d collected on the passenger seat. ‘So what do you and Ty like to eat?’

Lock put his hand just behind her back, escorting her into the cool of the store. ‘You spend time in the military, you learn to eat what you’re given.’

‘So, tofu,’ she said, then added, with a nervous smile, ‘I’m kidding. Let’s get some steaks.’

‘Sounds good,’ Lock said, his eyes flitting over everyone who rolled a cart past them. The customers were predominantly white with a scattering of Hispanics and very few African-Americans. The distinct racial profile of Los Angeles’ sprawling neighbourhoods was one of the things that had most struck him about the city. It contrasted sharply with New York, where every race, creed and colour were stacked, almost literally, on top of each other. Here the boundaries of social class and race were sharply differentiated.

As they turned the corner at the end of the aisle, Lock noticed a middle-aged man wearing business casual attire of slacks and a white shirt with no tie, staring at them. His hair was matted from the heat and he had a nice little paunch going. Lock met his gaze – but he didn’t look away, as most men usually did when Lock made eye contact in a way that suggested he, and anyone he was with, wanted to be left alone.

Raven must have noticed the man too because she gave a little shudder.

‘Ignore him,’ he reassured her. ‘He’s probably starstruck. If he’s something else, I’ll deal with it. Relax. Do what you were doing.’

They were next to freezer cabinets full of ice cream. ‘Could you grab me some Rocky Road?’ she asked him.

‘Sure.’ He reached in, pulled out a tub and placed it in the cart for her. The guy was still staring. They moved on down the aisle and he followed, trying to make it seem coincidental.

Next to him, Lock heard Raven mutter, ‘This is bullshit.’ Then she started towards the man. ‘Can I help you?’

He was clearly surprised to be confronted. He stepped back, then looked around as if searching for a hidden camera. ‘Excuse me?’

‘You were staring at me,’ Raven said.

The guy recovered his composure. ‘Maybe I thought I recognized you.’

‘And do you?’ she asked him.

The guy smiled. ‘Actually, I live across the street from you. Hal Bradley. You might have seen my kids coming to visit on the weekends.’

Next to him, Raven relaxed a notch, but Lock kept his guard up.

Hal said, ‘Sorry, is this your boyfriend or something?’

‘No,’ Raven told him. ‘Just a friend.’

Hal’s face hardened. ‘Great. Well, perhaps we could get together some time. Have dinner, maybe.’

Raven cleared her throat. ‘I have a lot going on right now.’

Hal made a face. ‘So, I’m not good enough for you, is that it? I didn’t think women like you were that selective. I could make it worth your while financially.’

Lock took Raven’s elbow as she started to protest. ‘Go get those steaks.’

She shook him off. ‘I can fight my own battles.’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ Lock said softly. ‘But I’m on the clock, which means I deal with this.’

Raven shot Hal an angry look but walked away, leaving the two men together. Hal seemed oblivious to the fact that Lock was glaring at him. There were times for Lock when dealing with a situation was purely professional. There were others when it became personal. This was one of the others.

If you wanted to make judgements about other people based on what they did for a living that was fine. This was America. People were entitled to their opinions. But when you shared those judgements, you had better be prepared for the person you’re talking to, in this case Lock, to reply.

‘She’s just a hooker, right?’ Hal protested, as Lock’s right hand moved slowly from his side and formed into a fist.

Raven was paying for the groceries at the checkout when Lock caught up with her. Behind him, a couple of store employees were gazing at him with open mouths, having just witnessed the one-sided altercation he’d had with Hal. He’d been careful to make sure that the other guy threw the first punch but it was all one-way traffic after that.

‘You okay?’ he asked Raven.

She nodded as the packer loaded the final bag into their cart.

‘You have a clean-up in aisle three,’ he said to the cashier, as she handed Raven her receipt. Then he took the trolley and escorted Raven out of the store.

15

The glow from a neon store sign traced across Raven’s face as they pulled out of the parking lot. She turned away from Lock and he knew she had started to cry. He drove in silence for a while, keeping an eye on the traffic. If she wanted to talk, she would. It wasn’t his job to force the issue.

After a few moments she grabbed her purse and fished out a packet of tissues, dabbed at her eyes, then blew her nose. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said finally.

Lock’s eyes flicked between the rear-view and the road ahead. ‘You’re allowed to be upset.’

‘It’s just a lot to deal with sometimes. If I had only myself to worry about I could probably get by, but with Kevin as well… There’s a lot of pressure.’

‘A lot of people would have left him when he was younger,’ he said.

She cleared her throat and her eyes darkened. ‘They already had. That’s why I couldn’t.’

He reached down and grabbed a bottle of water from a cup holder and handed it to her.

‘Thanks.’ She took a sip. ‘I don’t often tell people about what happened. But if you want to hear it?’

Now Lock felt she needed to talk. He gestured to the wall of red brake-lights ahead. ‘It’s not like we don’t have time.’

‘We grew up in northern California, right up past San Francisco. Dad split right after Kevin was born when he found out he was different. Just walked out on us without an explanation and never got back in touch. So that was one person who bailed on Kevin. Our mom did her best but she got involved with one deadbeat after another and most of them didn’t want kids around, never mind one with Kevin’s problem. So I guess all we had was each other and I ended up taking care of him a lot.’ She stopped. ‘Are you sure you want to hear this?’

He nodded.

‘Mom started getting more and more into drugs. Coke at first, then crank – y’know, methamphetamine – sleeping pills, pretty much anything she could get her hands on. Stuff started going missing from the house. She’d take it and sell it so she could buy drugs. I used to cover for her because I didn’t want us to be taken into care. By the time I was seventeen I’d dropped out of high school so I could bring in some money waiting tables. I started entering local beauty pageants too and making some spare cash that way. But it still wasn’t enough.’

‘That was how you ended up in your present line of work?’ he asked her.

She sighed. ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’

‘Go ahead.’

She dug into her handbag again, came up with a pack of cigarettes and lit up. After the first puff she closed her eyes. ‘It’s not like any little girl grows up thinking they want to do this for a living. You kind of fall into it. One day I was waiting tables when these three bikers came in. One of them was, like, mid-twenties, real handsome, and we ended up dating. Mom was too far gone to care and I was young and dumb and head over heels in love.’

‘He got you into stripping?’

Raven laughed. ‘He dumped me for a stripper, so I went and got a job where she worked to get back at him. Like I said, I was stupid. Anyway, turned out that an eighteen-year-old beauty queen can make a lot of money in one of those places – as long as you realize that the less you give the customers, the more cash they’ll throw at you.’

She took another puff on her cigarette and lowered the window to blow the smoke out. ‘All of a sudden I was making more money than I knew what to do with. I could get a place for Kevin, pay for someone responsible to look after him while I was working, and cover all his medical bills. And all I had to do was take off my clothes and pretend like I was interested in what some horny businessman was talking to me about.’

‘So why not just stay doing that?’ he asked her. ‘Why get into movies?’

Raven smiled again, but this time there was a tinge of sadness in her eyes. ‘That’s a really good question. I started out doing photo shoots, and the more of those I did, the better the clubs I got invited to dance at and the more money I could make. It all made sense at the time. It’s little bitty steps, Ryan. You strip, then you get offered a centerfold and you think, Well, I’m already naked in front of guys anyway. Then someone comes along and asks if you want to be in movies. So you do that. Then someone says, “If you do a little bit more next time they’ll pay you more.” So you do that little bit more. And it’s not like it feels weird because you’re surrounded by people who it’s totally normal for. That’s their life. They have sex on camera, they get paid, then they go home. It’s a job. That’s what people don’t understand about the business. There’s nothing erotic about it. We don’t sell sex, we sell the idea of sex.’

She turned to face him, holding his attention with a steady gaze. ‘Does that make any kind of sense?’

‘It does. I’ve worked for people I shouldn’t have, taken on jobs I’d have been better off avoiding.’

Her smile was back. ‘And it’s not like I plan on doing this for ever. I have the house almost paid off. Two, three years, and I’m good. I’ll have enough money to look after me and Kevin, and go back to college. It’s what keeps me going. Making sure that we’ll have a secure and worthwhile life.’ She stopped. ‘If I live that long, right?’

‘That’s one thing you don’t have to worry about. Not while me and Ty are around anyway.’

16

Inside Raven’s home, a faint smell of wood shavings hung in the air: the airborne residue of the newly changed locks, which glittered next to the handles of every door. Eight new cameras with infrared lamps beside them sat high on each wall of the house, feeding back a flickering loop of green-tinged images to two monitors, which sat inside the newly functioning panic room.

Kneeling on the wrong side of the closed door, Ty tapped against it with his knuckles. ‘Kevin? Can you hear me?’

There was a muffled response, which Ty could just about make out as ‘Go away.’

‘Brother, you need to come out of there before Ryan and your sister get home.’

Kevin didn’t respond.

‘Come out and we can talk.’

Ty sank down, his back to the door. Lock was going to have a shit fit when he got back. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’m just going to wait here until you want to talk to me.’

Then he got up and paced to the window. The glass threw his reflection back at him. He killed the lights and stared down to the deck below. At the bottom of the slope, on the other side of the fence, a dog prowled – a guard dog of some kind. A Shepherd. Ty sighed and rolled his shoulders. Kevin had been in a funk ever since he’d called his girlfriend, Wendy. It had been a short exchange.

Ty had overheard some of it. It had sounded like Kevin had been talking to someone, maybe the mom, who wouldn’t put Wendy on the phone. Kevin had started out polite. Then he’d pleaded a little. And then, when he’d grasped that the person he was speaking to wasn’t about to change their mind, he’d become petulant.

Finally, he had put the phone down and disappeared upstairs. Ty had assumed he’d headed to his room. He must have done at first because Ty saw him a few seconds later on the landing, clutching a backpack with Superman on the front. Ty was expecting him to come down the stairs and maybe head for the front door, but instead he’d disappeared into Raven’s room. A few seconds later, Ty had heard the heavy door of the panic room slam shut. By the time he’d got there, Kevin had locked himself inside and was refusing to talk.