Missing: The Body of Evidence (32 page)

Turning right at the traffic lights out
of Meredith Avenue and onto Colorado Boulevard, Nancy sucked on her bottom lip.
Dad’s instructions to keep her eyes to the front were ignored. She scanned her rear-view
mirror to see the lights change. Jim’s beaten-up Mustang caught up behind Dad’s
van and Uncle Dave’s Ford-four-by four.

The lights changing had cleared the traffic
ahead and she could just about make out Ben’s Jeep, maybe two-hundred yards up
front and parked at the sidewalk. Approaching fifty yards, and Ben pulled out
in front. By the time she glanced in her rear-view mirror, she could only see
Uncle Dave’s car, two cars behind her.

Nancy checked her wing mirror. It was
clear. A blur in her peripheral vision and her insides jumped as if she had hit
a humpback bridge. She snapped her neck to get a look at the driver overtaking
from her mirror’s blind spot, but it was too late. Internal organs crash landed
as the car passed and a child waved to her from the back seat of the passing
car. Eyelids twitched and her neck stiffened as she gripped the steering wheel
with clammy palms. Her eyes darted from the side streets ahead, to the road up
front and then to the rear-view mirror and back ahead. Nancy let out a laugh as
the little girl’s face disappeared into the distance.

Just like climbing back on a horse after a
fall, she knew the only thing to do was to carry on and overcome her fear after
what had happened. Having an armed escort did nothing to allay her fear of
driving on the open roads, and she turned on the radio as a distraction, only
to be confronted by the sounds of
Stand by Your Man.
Nancy scoffed
.
She
knew it was difficult being a woman given her circumstances, but she didn’t
need reminding. Channel hopping, she found the traffic news. Uncle Dave passed
by and shortly after Ben dropped back for her to overtake him.

Once she hit the freeway and the side
streets were no longer an issue, she leaned her head on the headrest and the
pain in her neck washed away. The manoeuvring of her convoy wasn’t noticeable
until they came off at the exit road and headed for Mary’s at Magnolia Park,
with Ben taking the lead.

Ben signalled left, catching Nancy by
surprise. Left wasn’t part of the planned route. A glance in her rear-view
mirror and she saw Uncle Dave’s headlights flashing. Turning left and hitting a
straight, she breathed rapidly. Nancy reached out for the two-way radio. The
back fell off the radio and the battery dislodged falling between and under the
passenger seat. Her fingers strained to reach the battery, but she gave up
trying.
Damn.

Dad’s instructions burned between her ears.
If anything happens behind, don’t stop. Carry on with the car up front.
Nancy
could hear her heart pounding over the sound of the travel news commentator and
a surge of adrenalin sent her temperature up a notch.

A glance in the rear-view mirror showed
Uncle Dave’s vehicle had stopped and he jumped out, blocking the car behind. At
the same time, her dad’s van stopped alongside. Nancy jumped on the brake pedal
and brought her car to a screeching halt. Ben’s jeep raced toward her in
reverse.

Ben and Nancy both scrambled out of their
cars together. In one action, she drew her gun and set off running, only to be
pulled back in mid-flight by the vice like grip of Ben’s hand grasping at her
shoulder and his arm around her waist. The connections in her brain were
telling her to keep running, but Ben’s six-foot frame and his grip left her
legs flailing.

‘Wait for the all clear,’ Ben said.

‘Let go, you, Ape. Put me down. That’s my
dad.’

For all her wriggling, she couldn’t escape
his grip. She squeezed her eyes, hoping not to hear gunshots. The two-way radio
in Ben’s hand around her waist cracked into life and she heard her dad’s
metallic voice.

‘All clear.’

She stopped struggling, opened her eyes and
watched Uncle Dave get back in his car. He pulled forward and the car Uncle
Dave had stopped did a U-turn, and drove away from them.

Ben released his grip and her feet hit the
sidewalk.

‘Give me the radio.’ She almost dropped the
radio from her trembling hands and shouted at the mouthpiece. ‘What the hell
just happened?’

‘Get off the damned radio, and next time,
do as we planned,’ her dad’s voice reverberated down the earpiece.

Her face flushed and she thrust the radio
back at Ben.

‘Sorry for calling you an ape.’

‘No problem. You can call me anything you
like, but you weren’t going anywhere. Let’s get moving.’

Nancy looked at the bushes set back on the
sidewalk. She hadn’t noticed before, but an old guy was trying to act like a
chameleon, standing frozen, his back to the hedge.

Nancy reached in her jacket pocket and
thrust her badge at him.

‘Undercover. Move along, there’s nothing to
see.’

To her relief, he asked no questions and
hobbled off down the road.

This whole convoy idea bugged her. Her face
went numb as if frosted over. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate their
concern, but thoughts of events turning into a shoot-out by accident made her
want to turn around and forget the whole idea.

Ben must have detected her misgivings.

‘Come on, you have to trust us. Let’s get
this over with and then we can all have a good night’s sleep. We can laugh
after. I bet the guy they stopped crapped himself.’

Nancy managed a smile and holstered her
gun. Kneeling on the driver’s seat, she recovered the battery for the two-way
and re-fitted it, turning on the power to make sure it was working.

Sitting behind the wheel, Nancy took a deep
breath, and fired up the engine with a turn of the ignition key; determined
this time to keep her eyes on the road ahead.

Fifteen minutes later she arrived at her
destination, parking at her pre-determined surveillance spot. There was no way
out of Mary’s estate without one of them seeing her, but first, they needed to
know if she was at home, her car type and registration number. Jim walked past
her position and onto the estate. Dad followed, driving past Jim in his van.
Nancy looked at her watch. It was 7:30 a.m. She prayed that she had not already
left the house. Ten minutes later and Jim returned, walking over to her car.

‘Blue Toyota in drive.’ He recited the
plate number, looking straight ahead. ‘I could see her in the living room.’

There was nothing to do but wait.
Surveillance drove her to distraction. It was the one duty she dreaded and
tried to avoid at all costs. It was fine if you had nothing to worry about, or
if you had a partner to pass the time of day with idle chat. But, on your own,
even small worries would transform into gigantic life changing problems by the
end of the shift if nothing transpired. Given the stress she was already under,
she breathed a huge sigh of relief as her watch hit 8:05 a.m., and Mary’s
Toyota pulled off the estate. It was game on.

It came as a surprise when the direction
she took was to the outskirts of LA and she picked up the Little Tujunga Road
through the mountains. Nancy dropped back and followed Uncle Dave. His brake
lights glowed and she slowed in time to see Mary’s blue Toyota off to her left
passing through a security barrier, with a sign set back that read, “ACI” in
gold letters.

She put a hand over her mouth and
whispered. ‘Astral Chemical Inc?’

She continued to follow Uncle Dave,
glancing over to her left. Behind the tree line, a
twelve-foot-tall-security-meshed fence topped with razor wire followed the
road. Danger signs on the fence flashed by her vision in the form of lightning
symbols together with ominous skull and cross bones.

Nancy could hardly contain her excitement,
but at the same time wondered how she would gain access to find what was going
on behind the fence. Her shoulders sagged

‘Smartass. What now, girl?’

Uncle Dave turned right along a rest area
road to a vantage point behind the tree line and stopped. He climbed out of his
car and headed her way, his cell phone pressed to his ear. Nancy pressed the
electronic window button.

‘What now?’ Nancy asked.

‘Wait for the others.’

This was as far as the plan went. Jim, Dad
and Ben arrived. Nancy stayed in her car. She watched them get out of the
vehicles and all four converged. After a brief conversation, Uncle Dave and Dad
walked through the tree line and across the road in the direction of ACI.

She hurried out of her car and across to
Jim and Ben.

‘What’s going on?’

‘Just wait in your car. We need to keep an
eye on the road to make sure we’re not followed,’ Jim said. ‘You’ll never guess
who was following us back there until we sent him packing?’ He spat, aiming for
the floor, but hit his boot, followed by him doing a stork impression wiping
his boot on the back of his pants.

‘Well, I’m waiting?’ Nancy’s arms dropped
to her side her, her jaw slack mouthed and her eyes wide open in anticipation.

A man of few words, Uncle Jim acted to
type. His eyes rolled and he glanced up to the heavens. A knurled hand wiped
across his brow. His exuberance at asking to guess whom they had turned back
was out of character, and then he acted as though he had betrayed some
sworn-state secret.

‘Need to cover the flank. Your dad’ll fill
you in.’

Despite his years, he moved quickly to the
cover of bushes to watch the road. Nancy followed him like a shadow and tucked
in behind in a crouch.

‘Never mind Dad, who was it?’

‘Damn, Nancy, get in the car.’

‘I ain’t going anywhere until you tell me
who it was back there!’

His radio crackled and he answered. ‘All
clear.’

His eyes fixed on the road and with his
back to her, he waved her away. Nancy drilled holes in the back of his head
with a churlish glare and wanted to slap him. Knowing him of old, she knew
there was no point in hanging around for an answer and moved to her car. With the
car door still open, she parked her backside on the seat, her lips pouting in a
sulk. She got the idea the boys still thought of her as that little girl, best
seen, but kept in the dark with least said.

Twisting her body and hauling her legs
inside the car, she glanced across through the foliage to catch a glimpse of
the mesh fence surrounding ACI. Somewhere behind that perimeter lay the answer
to the mystery surrounding the professor’s death and everything else that had
transpired to turn her life on a backward slide. Mary had to be complicit in
all that had happened. In Nancy’s mind, the coincidence of her turning up at
the station to give her well-timed statement to throw the investigation into
disarray made her an accomplice in the professor’s death.

Just where she went from here, without the
backup of LAPD, to get at the answers made her head ache with a vengeance. A
thought sprang to the fore that maybe she should contact Brogan at Internal
Affairs and tell him what she thought was going on down at headquarters. There
again, since she didn’t have a clue what was going on, she shouldn’t start
throwing around accusations. Maybe Uncle Dave was right and the professor’s,
the janitor’s and Craig’s deaths were unconnected with anyone being on the take
at the station. None of what rolled around in her thoughts took away from the
knowing that at first someone wanted her out of the way and now wanted her
dead.

‘Incoming,’ She heard her dad call on the
two-way radio and sprang out of the car ready to ask questions on his return.

First Dad appeared through the tree line,
followed by Uncle Dave.

‘Back to the apartment. Three minute
intervals, let’s go,’ Dad ordered.

Nancy grabbed his shoulder as he entered
his van and he spun around.

‘Who did you stop back there?’

‘We ain’t got time for this. Debrief back
at the apartment.’

Nancy stamped her foot.

‘Tell me now, God damn it. I’m not a child
anymore.’

‘Off the shoulder.’ He gripped her wrist
and wrenched it from his jacket. His eyes narrowed and his face flushed. ‘There’s
a security patrol heading for the fence.’

To the sound of car doors closing, engines
starting and grit spitting on the undersides of the vehicles, she rushed to her
car to join them exiting the rest area. Banging the steering wheel, she twisted
the ignition key, spun the wheel and joined in line.

Feeling out of the loop followed her all
the way back to the apartment and made her face burn. She couldn’t work out
whom she despised the most, Dad, or Logan. Working with either was close to a
nightmare. Both of them bitter and twisted, she had it in mind to go it alone
and trust to her own instincts, without them deciding what was best for her.

Leaden legs carried her to the apartment
door. Once inside, she took off her jacket and threw it onto her bed as she
passed the bedroom and trudged into the living room. Dad went to the kitchen
and returned with a six-pack. He shared them out, with two cans for Uncle Dave.

‘Gather around,’ Dad said, and taking his
lap top from a shelf, set it down on the table.

At the pull of rings, cans hissed in unison
and everyone gulped at their beer. Nancy rolled her can on her forehead, looked
down at the floor, and shuffled her feet. Dad put down his can and spoke.

‘Okay, listen up. What we got is a high
security facility. There are signs inside the perimeter saying it’s government
property. We got ground movement sensors, security cameras on poles at regular
intervals. It looks like they have different frequency cameras and they’re
motorized. They got dog patrols and the security guards are armed.’

‘All for a chemical company?’ Nancy asked,
her eyebrows rising.

‘Some weird chemical complex if ya asks me,’
said Uncle Dave. ‘More like a mosque with those couple of White House type
domes.’

‘Yeah, weird,’ Dad said. ‘Like two
telescope-domes for watching stars. Let’s see what’s showing on Google maps.’

Nancy sucked on her teeth. The information
didn’t enthuse. There was no point knowing the layout as far as she could see.
If it were down to her, she’d be driving through the front gate with a partner
and backup to start asking questions.

‘What’s the point?’ Nancy banged her beer
can on the table.

All eyes gave her a disdainful look.

‘Okay, out with it. What’s eating you?’ Dad
asked.

‘I just can’t see the point. We’ve found
the connection between Mary and ACI, now we need the authorities to follow it
up. What the hell can we do?’

‘Grab her, put a bag over her head, get her
to the bunker like I said before and interrogate her,’ Uncle Dave said,
followed by a toothless grin.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Nancy said and then took
a swig of beer.

Dad leaned forward on his chair. ‘She’s
right.’

Nancy spluttered, spitting out drink onto
her blouse.

‘Huh, I’m right? Now you listen to me.
Hallelujah. Maybe you’ll tell me who you stopped back there?’

Dad wiped his hand across his mouth as if
to mask his words.

‘Bill.’ A cough followed the revelation. He
unfastened the Velcro on his jacket pocket, took out a high calibre magazine
and placed it on the table. ‘Took this from his rifle. I found it poking out
under his coat on the back seat.’

‘Bill! What was he doing following and with
a high powered rifle?’

‘Didn’t ask.’

‘You didn’t ask?’

Nancy rose from her chair.

‘What did he have to say?’

‘Nothing. He just turned around and left.’

It wasn’t even an attempt to disguise that
he was lying. A picture of his arms flailing with Bill’s car door open as if he
were talking animatedly ran through her mind.

‘That’s it, I’m out of here. Play your war
games if you want but leave me out of it. Contact the guy you know at FBI and
get him down here. The game stops now.’

Nancy turned, stormed out of the room, down
the hall into her bedroom, slammed the door and threw herself onto the bed. Her
head ached and her vision began to spin. Heat that started with warm pins and
needles rose in the left side of her brain and built in intensity until she
started to writhe on the bed. Clutching and pulling her hair, she started to
hear a voice reverberating in her inner mind.

‘You’re like me. Don’t let them take me.
Save me.’