The Scapegoat, page 22
Marks turned his head to the side.
He was talking to someone with him in the room.
Cassidy Stone, he presumed. Time to up the ante.
“End this like a man, Marks! Not like a mouse hiding in a hole!”
Marks twisted sharply away from the window and a second later the front door opened and in a flurry of movement he saw Marks appear at the top of the steps, his arm locked around Amy Tremaine’s neck, moving her in front of him like she was weightless. Her long brown hair hung across her face and down the front of her cobalt-blue shirt, her head tipped forward by the pressure of the Desert Eagle against the side of her head.
“Get back, or the bitch dies!”
Through the tangle of hair, Amy was sobbing. He couldn’t make out words, just high-pitched squeals of terror. Coombes held his hands up, emphasizing the fact that he was unarmed. Marks came down the steps toward him, throwing glances at Sato, but apparently not taking her as a real threat.
“You can’t still believe there’s a happy ending here, Marks. Let Amy go before something happens that can’t be undone. I know you aren’t going to hurt her; you’ve known her since she was twelve. You’re practically her uncle.”
Marks laughed and pressed the gun harder than ever against Amy’s head.
“Yet she said nothing to defend me when that woman was spreading her lies about me. Just like her dad. These people threw me under the first bus that came along, they owe me. I owe them nothing. You know I’ll do it, Coombes, I’ll do it even if your partner shoots me. A gun like this, it makes a real mess. Now back off.”
Marks was at the bottom of the steps now, directly across from him.
Coombes backed away, using the movement to distract from the fact that he was lowering his hands to his sides. He stepped up onto the sidewalk opposite Marks. Backing off also increased the angle between himself and Sato. If Marks turned to aim at her, Coombes was confident he could shoot him before the other man could pull the trigger.
“Your mother thinks you’re dead, Nathan.”
“Nathan is dead. I’m Nolan now.”
The mention of his mother had hit home.
“She’s heartbroken. All she lives for is to see you again.”
“Whatever, man.”
Marks dragged Amy up the street to the Jeep, which was pointed toward the intersection. He matched pace on his side of the street and drew his weapon again. Sato moved around the back of the Pontiac to the same side as Marks, covering the opposite side.
It was no longer possible for Marks to use Amy Tremaine as a shield, if he turned his hostage toward Sato, Coombes could turn his head into a pink mist.
Once again, Marks chose him as the threat and held Amy between them.
“We’re leaving, Coombes. I suggest for her sake that you stay here.”
“She’s only good to you alive. Your insurance disappears the second that changes.”
Marks pushed Amy roughly across the driver’s seat into the passenger seat, his arm extending so the end of the gun barrel remained within inches of her cowering head.
“Then I guess we have a stalemate, Detective. But we are leaving.”
The framework of the Jeep now blocked Coombes from taking Marks out with a headshot and anything else probably guaranteed Amy would die as the last act of a bitter man. He glanced at Sato to see if she had a shot, but he could tell that she had no intention of shooting.
He glanced back at the house, expecting Cassidy Stone to come out, but saw no sign of her. The Jeep roared to life, then left six feet of rubber on the asphalt as it took off toward the intersection. Coombes ran into the middle of the street and raised his Glock, but the Jeep turned sharply right, putting Amy between them as Marks turned onto Douglas.
Coombes wanted to scream, but there was no time.
They ran back to the Dodge.
Sato spun the car around and took them back to the intersection. The Jeep was out of sight, but it wasn’t hard to work out where it was going. Marks was making for Sunset on the other side of the triangle.
The intersection with Sunset Boulevard was clear, but they could see the Jeep continue straight on the other side of the crossing. Coombes frowned. For sure Sunset was less than ideal as an escape route, but Marks was headed toward dead ends.
“Where the hell is he going?”
Sato still had the strobes on and she used them with the siren to push her way across the busy road. When it came to heavy traffic and slower speeds, she had him beat. Her driving was downright muscular, if not insane.
They were on the other side now, on the section of Douglas Street that headed towards Elysian Park. They’d lost sight of the Jeep as they’d crossed Sunset.
“I’m sorry, Johnny, I had the shot. I couldn’t do it.”
“You did the right thing, Grace. It was a tough shot and it needed to be perfect.”
“But you could’ve made it.”
He turned and was surprised to see that she was upset.
“I was in the Army, Grace. My head is in a different place and always will be. Anyway, there’s a reason why you’re driving right now. I might have missed him and hit her.”
The road twisted to the right but he remained looking at her. Beyond her face he saw a plume of dust rising and in the middle of it, the rear of the Jeep.
“There! He’s cutting across the park!”
She hit the brakes and backed up fast one-handed, her head twisted around to look between the seats. In front of them was a utility entrance to Elysian Park. It was protected by a heavy steel bar that was chained in place. On each side sat a barrier like at the sides of a highway. On the left-hand side, the highway barrier ended next to a plant bed which Marks had driven over with the large wheels and ground clearance of the Jeep.
Sato took a moment to line up the Charger to the same damaged area and floored the throttle. There was a bang and the front of the car was kicked up in the air, followed by a dull scraping noise that moved from the front to the back as they passed over the flower bed before landing on the far side. The wheels caught on the paved road beyond and they shot forward into the park.
The road was little more than a wide footpath that wound through Elysian Park like a twisting snake and Marks had again vanished from sight.
This was his plan all along, Coombes thought.
Marks had explored the area, looking for ways he could escape if he was ever found. It might even have been one of the reasons that he’d chosen the house. The curving road came to an end at another steel bar, only this one lay open. An intersection. Scott Avenue. Left to Echo Park, Right to Stadium Way and on to the I-5.
“What do you think, Johnny?”
“He’s trying to lose us, right? He figures his best chance of doing that is to be where we aren’t looking. Go straight, stay in the park.”
She looked across at the trail that continued opposite.
“You sure about this?”
“It’s what I’d do.”
They crossed Scott Avenue. On the far side, confirming his theory, tire tracks went around another steel bar. Sato followed them and within twenty seconds the Jeep appeared in front of them. It looked like Marks had eased off the gas to prevent his dust plume giving away his position because he suddenly accelerated again, the pursuit back on for real.
In these conditions, the Jeep had a clear edge. Four-wheel drive, high ground clearance, large all terrain tires, and a suspension setup perfect for off-road driving. Marks began to pull out a bigger and bigger lead.
“He’s getting away,” she said. “We need to call it in.”
He remembered his earlier statement about calling in backup like it was a fragment of a long-forgotten dream.
“We don’t need to catch him, Grace. Think about it, we just need to maintain line of sight. As soon as he makes his move back onto normal streets, we’ll eat him alive.”
The next crossing was Academy Road.
Marks did the same thing as before and drove straight across. Only this time, he drove the Jeep onto the foot trail next to the the road they’d been using. It was steep and narrow and intended for walkers. A sign prohibited cycling.
Sato braked, bringing them to a stop.
“Johnny, it’s too steep, we can’t follow.”
He swore and punched the dashboard. The Jeep was already gone.
“All right, take the park road we were on before. Line of sight, remember? We can follow them from the side, maybe they won’t see us.”
Sato put the Charger in gear and resumed their pursuit.
“We’ve lost too much time, they’ll be long gone.”
“I don’t think so. We’ll be able to go a lot faster.”
There were trees between the trail and the paved road and he saw no sign of the Jeep. It was possible, he thought, that the former Marine might anticipate this move and double-back to Academy Road. They could’ve lost them already.
Suddenly the trees fell away and a large empty area of dusty earth opened up. In the middle of it, was the Jeep sparkling in the sunlight like a jewel. The trail and the road were farther apart than he’d hoped and it seemed like Marks was making good on his escape.
The Jeep was tilted dramatically toward them as it traversed the slope, barely clinging to the side of the hill. Sato slowed to a stop so they could watch the other vehicle. It was rolling along at a walking pace. The downhill side was the passenger side and he saw Amy Tremaine’s blue shirt as she gripped the windshield pillar to prevent herself from falling out.
She glanced at them, then sharply back toward Marks. A second later, the Jeep turned up the slope toward Park Drive. The windows of the Dodge were rolled up, but the sound of the Jeep’s engine could clearly be heard, straining to push itself up the hill.
Dust and stones flew out the back as the big tires tore up the earth, but it was struggling to stay in place.
Realizing his mistake, Marks leveled out the Jeep again. Then he did something Coombes wasn’t expecting.
He stepped out onto the side of the hill.
Without a driver nailing the throttle, the Jeep slid rapidly sideways, then began to roll dramatically down the slope toward them, a thick cloud of dust filling the air behind it. The Jeep had almost stopped rolling when he saw Amy Tremaine’s body shoot into the air and land like a bag of rocks on the side of the hill.
When his eyes returned to the top of the slope, Marks was gone.
For a second, neither of them said anything.
“Call it in,” he said. “I’m going up there.”
He saw Amy on the ground. It didn’t look good.
If she was alive, there wasn’t much time.
Coombes picked his way up the slope, his shoes slipping on small stones and the dry, dusty earth. His eyes moved between where he was placing his feet to where Amy Tremaine’s body lay the whole way. He slipped twice and had to catch himself with his hands both times to avoid hitting the ground. He kept going, his only focus being Amy.
He willed her to move. To roll over, to twitch a finger, anything.
Her face was turned away from him, back up the slope, as if she had turned to watch Nathan Marks run off. A man she’d known since she was twelve. A man who had sacrificed her to escape like she was no more to him than a bug stuck to his windshield.
Her blue shirt was dirty and torn from being thrown out of the rolling Jeep. A patch of dark blood had spread across one side, over her kidney. His eyes fixed on Amy’s back as he closed the remaining distance.
The shirt wasn’t moving as she breathed, it was still.
He knew she was gone before he got there.
For four days Coombes believed he could save her. Instead, he’d been the reason for her death. They’d given chase, forcing Marks to drive the way he had. Faster and faster, over terrain that didn’t support high speed chases. This was on him.
He paused for a second, putting off the moment.
Finally, he reached down and rolled her over.
35
Coombes looked at the dead face in front of him. Not quite cold yet, but very far from alive. When she hit the ground, her right cheekbone had collapsed and her jaw had been broken and pushed to the side. The damage to her face, coupled with the missing spark that came from being alive, meant that it took him a second to understand what he was seeing.
Behind him, Sato shouted up.
“Is she dead?”
He stood and turned toward his partner.
“It’s not Tremaine! It’s Stone!”
“Huh?”
“It’s Stone! She dyed her hair.”
Sato said something he didn’t catch; it might’ve been Japanese.
He swept his head across the top of the hill, looking again for Nathan Marks. The park was peaceful, but not silent. He could hear traffic on the I-5 and, closer in, the tick, tick, tick cooling sound coming from the destroyed Jeep engine.
Coombes walked around the SUV’s debris field.
Broken glass, plastic, and twisted metal.
There was no sign of a bag capable of holding five million dollars. For sure neither of them had been carrying a bag when they came out the house and he hadn’t seen one flying out of the Jeep as it rolled over.
Simple logic dictated that Marks didn’t have the money with him because it hadn’t been at the house. If the money had been at the house, it would be here. Why would he have the money somewhere else if they were preparing to leave?
He looked back down at Cassidy Stone’s face.
She looked radically different as a brunette. Coombes realized that she’d also dyed her eyebrows, before they barely seemed to exist. The dark eyebrows made her face seem more three-dimensional yet also less real against her pale skin. He remembered the way Stone’s face twisted while she was trying to bait Marks into killing him.
He nodded his head, understanding.
The money isn’t here because Marks didn’t trust her.
Either he thought she’d kill him for it, or that she’d steal it the second he fell asleep. So he hadn’t brought it back to the house after the pick-up, he’d stashed it somewhere safe.
Somewhere she didn’t know about, or have access to.
They didn’t know where that was, they were going to have to track him down all over again and he didn’t see how they were going to do it. He thought about cell phones, the gold standard in tracking someone down.
Stone wasn’t carrying a cell; he didn’t even have to pat her down. As her parole officer had said, there was no room for anything in her pockets. The material of her pants was so thin and tight he could see the shape of her underwear through it. There’d been no phone in her hand when Marks had brought her out in his fake-hostage play, which meant he’d carried it for her. It wasn’t going to be anywhere around the crash site, it was with Marks.
He was done here.
With his back toward Sato, he took a photograph of Stone’s face, careful to crop out the blue shirt. He checked it, then sent it to Tremaine. A message came straight back.
Who’s that?
Coombes typed: The getaway driver.
What about Amy?
Still working on it. Hang tight.
Coombes stowed his phone and made his way back down the hill to where Sato stood. If Marks had brought a rifle, he could’ve shot them both where they stood, but they were well outside the effective range of any pistol.
“What do you think, Johnny?”
“Honest opinion? He’s gone.”
“In his place, where would you go?”
“I’ve seen no sign of the ransom money. I figure his only goal is to get the money and leave town. Nobody walks away from five million.”
Sato looked at him, her hand shielding her eyes from the sun.
“Maybe he left it at the house? He came into the park hoping to lose us and planned to double-back to pick up the money when it was safe to move it.”
It wasn’t how he’d imagined it, but it made sense.
“Which explains why he took the Jeep, not the GTO.”
Coombes nodded. It still didn’t feel right, but he had nothing better.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s check your theory. If we find the five mill, nobody needs to know about it. We’ll settle down on an island somewhere and grind out seven beautiful babies.”
Sato pretended not to hear and pointed up the slope.
“What about her? I already called it in.”
He thought again about Cassidy Stone. She hadn’t just been pretending to look like Amy, she was wearing her shirt. The one she had been wearing when she was abducted, and the one she’d worn in the water tank.
Did that mean Amy was dead?
“We’ll check the house, then come back. Amy’s the priority. Stone isn’t going anywhere.”
36
They parked on Kensington Road, a street over from Allison Avenue. If Marks returned to the orange tree house for the ransom money, Coombes didn’t want him to know they were there until it was too late. He paused as Sato stepped out the Dodge and knocked back more Advil while her view of him was obscured. It was the move of a junkie, he thought.
Allison Avenue was quiet, with only a delivery truck moving along it.
“What’s your plan here, Johnny?”
“For what?”
“Getting in. This isn’t Stone’s residence; we can’t use the parolee work-around to search it and we don’t have a search warrant.”
Coombes grunted. He hadn’t been thinking about the legal aspect of entry, he’d been thinking about five million other things, all tied up in neat bands in groups of one hundred. The joke he’d made about finding the money and keeping it was not such a joke, he reflected.
They were at the address now. He opened the gate and walked up the path to the front door. The entryway of the house concealed their position from the rest of the street, giving him time to think in case Nathan Marks approached.
He took out his cell and put Becker on speaker.
“What’s happening, Coombes?”
“Marks made a break for it through Elysian Park and rolled the Jeep he was driving down a hill. Stone’s dead, he’s in the wind.”
