The Haunted (Sarah Roberts 12) (22 page)

“What?” he said. “That doesn’t make sense. Sarah is in Los Angeles and she called you on a missing cop’s cell phone? I have to tell you, Hirst, that sounds impossible. If I hadn’t heard it from you, I wouldn’t believe it. We’re looking for her up here, northeast of Sacramento. L.A.’s almost a ten-hour drive.”

“I know. I can’t believe it either. We think she came in on a boat. I’ve got guys checking the marina now. Otherwise, why eat at a restaurant at the marina.”

“For her to be alone now tells me that whoever took her is either heading to a hospital or dead.”

“Working on that already. Tell me more about what’s happening up there.”

Parkman filled him in, leaving nothing unsaid.

“That’s one tough girl,” Hirst said. “She’s been through a lot.”

“I suspect she’s still going through something.” Parkman started across the parking lot toward his car. “Look, I’ll head south but I won’t get there for a while.”

“Don’t. Get some sleep. Leave early tomorrow and get here for dinner. There’s nothing you can do by leaving now and getting here at four in the morning. We’ll find her. I’m sure everything will work out.”

Parkman stopped at his car and leaned on the trunk. Hirst was right. He needed sleep. He would leave early and get to L.A. around lunch, or shortly thereafter.

“Hirst?” Parkman said.

“Yeah?”

“Remember, it’s Sarah. Be cool with her. She’s not the enemy.”

“I know that.”

“Seriously. If something happened to those cops, they deserved it.”

“That won’t go over easy here.” A moment later, he said, “If I hadn’t met Sarah, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. She’d be a suspect in their disappearance as she was using Roland’s phone and refused to tell me how she came into possession of it. When she learned I was coming for her, she bolted. I’ve got men working the phones trying to see what cab company did a street pickup out here. If she’s in a cab, I should know very soon. When I find her, I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt, but Parkman, I have to find her or she has to come in. It’s easier if she does it on her own. She doesn’t want a dozen LAPD members storming her hotel or wherever she’s staying. Things just don’t work out the way you want them to when that happens.”

“Just do me a favor. Trust that Sarah’s innocent. I know I’m right. Give her a chance to prove it.”

“I will and I’ll do my best to keep her safe once we find her. But if I don’t find her first or she doesn’t walk into a police station, I can’t guarantee anything.”

“I’ll be there soon.”

Parkman hung up and decided he couldn’t wait around. He got behind the wheel and started driving, his bag still in the backseat as he hadn’t gone into the hotel room after he checked in.

There was nothing keeping him here and everything making him want to drive all night long to Los Angeles. He started south just as his cell rang again.

Aaron’s name came up in the screen. Parkman set the phone back down.

“You wanted out,” he said to the empty car. “This is where it starts. Talk to Sarah when this is all over.”

The phone quieted after eight rings.

Chapter 31

The cab driver sat in traffic coming along Hollywood Boulevard. Sarah watched people passing by on the sidewalk, seemingly carefree, walking with purpose from place to place. What was it like to be innocent, to go to school, dream of a future, get married, buy a house? There was so much happening around the tourists and the people of L.A. that they had no idea. They pinballed from the wax museum to the gift shop to the restaurant and then back to their hotel having no clue that killers were among them.

There were police officers assigned to protect the public who acted contrary to their sworn duty. Wasn’t that what this was all about? Cole Lincoln used to be a cop. He broke the law. Evidently enough times that he couldn’t stay on as a cop anymore. But being the muscle at a mental hospital in northern California offered him many unwilling victims without recourse.

So maybe in her attempt to stop Cole, her sister had led her to Roland and Frank. Maybe it was just what was needed. And there’d be no blowback on Sarah. She certainly hoped so.

Snapping out of her thoughts, she turned to the driver.

“Would you recommend a good hotel around here?”

He slowed at a red light. “Ahh, how about—”

The phone in her hand rang. It was probably Hirst again, but it came up as a private number.

She leaned forward and thrust the phone over the back of the seats.

“As soon as I hit the button to answer,”—it rang again— “I’ll put the phone to your ear. Just say, yeah or hello. Okay?”

The phone rang a fourth time.

The cab driver nodded. “Okay.”

As Sarah reached for the button, she added, “I just want to play a trick on an old friend.”

She hit the button and pressed it to the driver’s ear as he pulled away at the green light.

On cue, he said, “Yeah,” in a deep voice.

Sarah snatched the phone back to her ear and listened.

“Has our guest left this place? Are her shoes heavy, her clothes soaked through yet?”

Cole!

She lowered the mic until it rested on her throat and mumbled, “Mmm, hmm.”

The cab was pulling over. She raised a finger for him to be quiet and wait. He put on the four-ways.

“Good, then come to the Safari Inn. I have left your final payment in room 224. Pick up the key at the front desk. Your debt to me has been paid. Let Frank know I appreciate his help, too.”

“Mmm, hmm.”

The phone clicked off. “Shit.” She gazed out the windshield. “Turn around. I need to go to the Safari Inn for the night.”

“Safari Inn? The one in Burbank, on Olive Avenue?”

Burbank? Roland had said he wasn’t going to kill her, but Cole just asked if she was gone. Wasn’t Roland supposed to deliver her to a hotel in Burbank to relive a scene from a movie? It had to be the Safari Inn.

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

The cab driver did a left on Vine and headed away from Hollywood Boulevard and the crowd of tourists taking pictures of the stars on the sidewalk.

Roland had lied. They
were
supposed to kill her on that boat. Bury her at sea. Then the gang in blue just cruise on in to L.A. and pick up a payoff and go about their merry way. No one would ever locate Sarah’s body and she would stay missing forever. How many people had this happened to in the past? To have it all worked out, to have it set up so perfectly, meant they must have done it before.

She felt righteous in what she had done to Roland and Frank now. They deserved it. Both of them had followed her to the cemetery. They had attacked her in Dr. Williams’ office and again at the cabin. These guys delivered her to Cole before, but this time Cole just wanted her to disappear. His fun with her was over. He was ready to move on.

But she wasn’t ready to let bygones be bygones.

As the cab sped toward the Safari Inn and room 224, Sarah focused on Vivian, asking if there was anything she needed to know about the Safari Inn. Was Cole waiting there? Or just a payoff for Roland and Frank? Was she walking into a trap? If Cole wasn’t there, where was he?

But all Sarah got in return was silence.

Vivian had been silent in the past and for good reason. Sarah trusted this was one of those times.

She leaned up and rested her forearms on the back of the front seat.

“If someone was threatening you in your cab, what weapons would you use on them?”

“What?” the driver asked, turning to look at her and then back to the road.

She read his name on the cab driver identification card.

“Mike, I’m not the threat. I just need a weapon. What kind of weapon do you carry and how much money do you want for it?”

“I have no weapons.”

“Sure you do. Come on, I’m a girl. I need one for overnight as I’ll be alone in my room.”

The driver didn’t say anything more as he took an exit for Barham Boulevard. At a red light, he paused, then took a right hand turn. Sarah sat back in her seat. She wasn’t going to push the issue, get him upset and kick her out of his cab. Stealing the cab would only add to the heat about to come down on her head.

“I have pepper spray,” the driver said.

She pushed off the back seat and rested on his again. “How much?”

He seemed to be thinking about it. She looked at the meter. The ride was hitting eighty dollars.

“How about I pay you a hundred and fifty for the ride and you throw in the pepper spray. Deal?”

He nodded. “Deal. But I don’t give it to you until we’re parked and you have paid me.”

“No problem.”

She watched the lights of the Warner Bros. Studio as the car passed it on the right.

Now she was going in to room 224 with a weapon. That’s all she ever needed. A fighting chance.

Chance favored the prepared mind, but was she prepared?

Chapter 32

Detective Hirst drove his cruiser hard, taking corners recklessly, a single red light rotating on the dash, no siren. Things were moving fast. One of his tech guys was able to track the phone to Hollywood Boulevard but then lost the signal. Meanwhile, Hirst had an officer calling the cab companies who had cars in the Marina Del Ray area looking for a driver who picked up a lone girl matching Sarah’s description from the restaurant.

He was five minutes away from Hollywood and Vine when his phone rang again. He pressed the hands-free button.

“Hirst here. What have you got?”

“The cab.”

“Talk to me.”

“Yellow cab. Driver picked up a girl in front of the restaurant. Drove her to Hollywood Boulevard and then dropped her at a hotel in Burbank.”

Hirst slammed on his brakes and checked his mirrors in order to make a U-turn.

“What hotel?”

The last car in a row passed him. He spun the wheel, turned the other way and hit the gas, heading to the 101, Hollywood Freeway. A moment later he passed the two cruisers that had been following him. In the mirror, he watched as neither one did a U-turn to follow him.

“Driver said she asked him to stop two blocks away from the Safari Inn, but she might’ve been going to the Coast Hotel which is right beside it.”

“Anything else?”

“The guy said she bought his pepper spray. Said she needed a weapon.”

“Got it. That it?”

“Yup.”

He ended the call and whacked the steering wheel with his open hand.

“Dammit, Sarah, what are you up to?”

Then he speed-dialed Parkman, who answered on the second ring.

“I thought you’d be asleep,” Hirst said.

“Can’t. On the road. Heading south to you. What’s up?”

“Sarah’s in trouble.”

“I figured. How much trouble?”

“She took a cab to a hotel in Burbank and bought the driver’s pepper spray. She’s up to something. I’ve got officers en route. I’m heading there myself.”

“How far away are you?” Parkman asked.

“Ten, maybe fifteen minutes.”

“Who’s going to get there first? You or the LAPD?”

“Me.”

“Good.”

“Parkman, you better get down here. Something tells me Sarah’s going to need a friend.”

“I’m on my way.”

“Just hurry.” Hirst ended the call as he used the ramp to get on the 101.

Then he tried Roland’s cell number. If Sarah would answer, he could warn her. Talk her out of whatever it was she wanted to do.

When she didn’t answer, he pushed the car to over eighty miles an hour.

Then he hit the siren.

Chapter 33

When the bright sign of the Safari Inn came into view, Sarah told the cab driver to pull over two blocks short of the hotel. She paid the driver, took the pepper spray and exited the vehicle. As the door slammed, the driver’s phone rang, and she moved into the darkness along the side of the road. The cab pulled away slowly as the driver was on his phone. A moment later it disappeared around a corner and was gone.

Up one side of Olive Avenue was a McDonald’s, still open, vehicles lined up in the drive-through. The other way was only darkened windows in storefronts.

One man walked in the opposite direction with a dog on a leash.

She headed away from the hotel until she came to a street light. When the light changed, she crossed the street to the Safari Inn side, then turned toward it. Slowly, her hands wrapped around the small canister of pepper spray, she moved along the sidewalk until she was standing in front of the Coast Hotel doors, a small hotel half a block from the Safari Inn.