The Rescue(21)

“So where do we go from here?” said Harlow.

Decker looked at her, his face mostly a shadow. “Don’t you want to know what he told me?”

She shrugged. “Can you really trust anything he said?”

“He had nothing to lose by coming clean.”

“Except his loyalty to the brotherhood.”

“I don’t know,” said Decker. “I get the feeling he was telling the truth.”

“What did he say?”

“He insists they had nothing to do with Meghan Steele’s kidnapping. They knew something was odd when she was delivered, but they didn’t discover her identity until after the transaction was complete.”

“Transaction?”

“They were paid to make her disappear—permanently,” said Decker. “But when they suspected there was more to the girl than met the eye, they did a little digging. Didn’t take long to discover the truth. They kept her here, as a domestic slave, thinking she might be useful at some point.”

“These people are animals.”

“Animals don’t do this to each other,” said Decker, continuing with Penkin’s confession. “He claims the same crew that delivered Steele showed up at one of his clubs a few months after they handed off Meghan, infuriated that she was still alive. Claimed they had a complication that required a drastic solution.”

“Blowing up the house and setting you up?”

“Way more than that,” said Decker, his voice trailing off.

She didn’t want to push the conversation any further, knowing where it would end. Instead, she completely shifted topics.

“What now?” she said.

He took a while to answer.

“We go with your first idea and visit Ares Aviation in Riverside—tomorrow,” he said. “Right now, I need some sleep. A lot of sleep.”

“Sounds like a plan,” she said, pushing herself away from the car. “Keys?”

Decker handed them over and hopped off the hood.

“I’m not driving you back smelling like that,” she said. “It was bad enough on the way over. Your clothes are in the trunk.” She handed him the keys back.

Decker retrieved his clothes and walked over the small rise between the car and house. She waited for what felt like an excessively long time for a man to change. Harlow drew her pistol and set off looking for him.

She found him just over the hill, seated with his arms crossed over his knees on the hardscrabble ground—face buried. Harlow quietly backtracked until he was out of sight again. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She truly couldn’t imagine what he was feeling out here.





CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A sharp knock jolted Decker awake. Despite having no recollection of where he had just awoken, his hand shot to the nightstand to grab the pistol he vaguely remembered placing there before falling asleep. All he found on the nightstand was a full glass of water. Eyes fluttering, he tried to make sense it all. The pounding on the door continued as the information rushed back into place.

He was somewhere Harlow Mackenzie had brought him after their trip to San Bernardino County—to interrogate Viktor Penkin. A hotel? Her apartment? Light peeked through the edges of the floor-to-ceiling shades in front of the bed, exposing enough of the room to confirm that he wasn’t in a jail cell. It hadn’t been a dream. He was free!

“Hold on!” he said, checking to see if he was wearing clothes. Somehow he was in tight-fitting gray UCLA sweatpants and a light-blue V-neck T-shirt.

“Okay,” he said, swinging himself to the side of the bed. “Come in.”

The door cracked open a few inches.

“Decent?” said Harlow.

“Yeah. If you consider a man dressed in women’s clothing decent.”

She opened the door and walked toward the front of the bedroom. “I wasn’t expecting guests. Sorry.”

“I’m not complaining,” said Decker. “As long as you don’t expect me to set foot out of the building like this.”

“We’ll get you squared away with some clothes before we head out.”

Harlow pressed the digital controller next to the rightmost shade, sending all of the shades into a slow, controlled ascent.

“Thank you,” he said, before glancing toward the nightstand. “The gun?”

“What gun?”

“The Glock.”

“You mean the one traceable to several homicides committed yesterday? I’m pretty sure it’s going on a fishing trip today—and not coming back.”

“Can I get a replacement?”

“I have coffee and bagels waiting in the kitchen. Good coffee,” she said. “We can discuss it then.”

He took his eyes off the rising blinds to follow her as she walked back to the door. She was barefoot, dressed in pressed gray slacks and a light-blue blouse.

“Are we headed in to the office?” he said.

“No,” she said, turning in the doorway. “You and I are headed back out to San Bernardino County to speak with the gentleman at Ares Aviation who submitted that waiver.”

“Well, all right then.”

“Glad you approve,” she said and then was gone.

He turned his attention to the view unfolding beyond the windows, once again momentarily transfixed by what he saw. The downtown Los Angeles skyline filled the floor-to-ceiling glass, the first skyscrapers seemingly less than a block away. Decker got up and walked to the windows, guessing the room was at least twenty stories above the ground. Judging by the position of the skyscrapers to the east, he guessed this building was on the far edge of Westlake. Extremely expensive real estate given its proximity to downtown.