John Locke - Saving Rachel

I understand on a gut level I have to do something right now that I don’t want to do. I have to make absolutely certain it’s her. I duck my head a few inches into the trunk, and I’m suddenly aware of the searing stench. It fills my nostrils, burns my eyes, and triggers my gag reflex. I feel the bile working its way up my throat, and I start dry-heaving. I’m forced to turn my head away. I put my hands on my knees and assume the classic vomit stance. Then it dawns on me I’m standing on a public street with my back to a wide-open trunk that contains the body of a dead woman. I spin around, lower the trunk most of the way, and look around carefully to see if anyone is watching me.

I see no one but the dead lady in the trunk and a bunch of people in the park who are busy doing their own thing.

I take a deep breath, lift the trunk a couple of feet, and focus on the woman’s face. I’m certain it’s Mary, but the photograph they gave me of Rachel fooled me, so again, I have to be sure. Fortunately, I know a way to positively identify Rachel’s sister.

Last year, Mary and Parker had the family over for their tenth anniversary. The girls and their mom were giggling over something that turned out to be scandalous by their standards: Mary had gotten a tattoo. Of course, after hearing the explanation, it turned out to be more charming than titillating. She and Parker had gotten each other’s names tattooed on their ring fingers to celebrate the occasion.

“Hurt like hell!” Mary said at the time.

The lady in the trunk is wearing a wedding band that looks exactly like Mary’s. I take another deep breath, prop the trunk open with my left hand, reach into the trunk with my right, and tug on the woman’s wedding ring until I see the tattoo under it that says, “Parker.”

Mary’s dead.

I slam the trunk shut so hard that something breaks and it springs back open slightly. I fall on it, face first. My hands begin shaking uncontrollably. I press them against the hot metal to hold them still. The heat from the metal burns my forehead. I can feel my heart beating in my ears. I try to stand and feel my knees buckle. My stomach lurches, and this time, I can’t hold it back. I vomit hard on the street behind Mary’s car.

Then something hits Mary’s back window just above my head, and an explosion of glass slams into the back of her car, followed by the sound of a gunshot and then another and another! I look up and see four men—not policemen, not actors, not gangsters, but midgets, four of them—running toward me with guns drawn, firing.

Chapter 15

H OLY SHIT!

I run to the driver’s side, fumble in my pocket for the key, and— bam!—Mary’s backseat window, street-side, sends a shower of glass fragments raining through the cabin. Shards of glass are everywhere, including the back of my right ear and neck. I force the car onto the street, smashing the rear of the car parked in front of me. I’m pedal to the metal, but Mary’s Celica is a far cry from my Audi. Still, I’m barreling down Reece, toward the camera truck and puzzled crew and cast members who are trying to jump out of my way. I brake hard to keep from hitting someone. Several shots ring out in unison and hit something metal behind me, making a rat-a-tat machine-gun sound. I glance at the rearview mirror and can’t see anything behind me. Another rat-a-tat sound makes me aware I owe my life to having broken the trunk latch moments ago. It had risen up and caught the bullets that were meant to strike the back of my head. Feeling lucky again, I lurch forward and put Seneca Park behind me.

I’m racing down Reece in a Celica with Mary’s dead body in the trunk—the wide-open trunk! I don’t want to get stuck like this at a busy traffic intersection, so I slow down, take a side street for a block, turn right again, and head back toward the park.

No one on earth expects me to do this, right?

I stop and park a couple of cars away from the corner of Cannons Lane and Rock Creek, not far from where the gangsters parked their limo this morning. I take off my left shoe and sock, place the sock on my right hand, and begin wiping down every surface I might have touched in the front seat. I get out of the car and do the same there, wiping down everything including the wheel well, roof, and top of the trunk. I even wipe down Mary’s ring before lowering the broken trunk.

I hear some animated elfin chatter up ahead and see the four midgets—the ones who’d shot at me moments earlier—thirty yards away, laughing and high-fiving each other before climbing into a waiting limousine and driving off.

What the hell is that all about?

I’d understand if they’d hit me or killed me or stopped me. But they’d only succeeded in scaring me off. Is that what they’re celebrating? And if so, I wonder, why? I think about following them in Mary’s car, but I decide it’s more important to check on Karen.

I put my sock and shoe back on and walk the two blocks back and one block over to my Audi. No one’s blocking me this time. I climb in, back the car out, and start driving to Karen Vogel’s condo.

A shrill noise explodes from under the driver’s seat, and I’m so startled I nearly crash the car.

It’s a cell phone—not my cell phone, mind you, but a new one that’s hidden under the driver’s seat, the same place they’d hidden the photo of Rachel this morning. Only it’s the loudest cell phone ever built. It could wake the dead.

I click the “talk” button. It’s the gangster.

“We got your lady with us,” he says.

They’ve kidnapped Karen!

“You’ll never believe where we found her. Hey, she seems upset. She doesn’t want me to tell you where we found her. Funny, huh?” “Leave her out of this!” I scream. “What the fuck’s going on here? What do you want from me?” “You like, you can talk to her now. But only for a second.” I hear a muffled sound as the phone is being passed, and then a voice shouts, “Sam! Oh my God, these men—” I feel like I’m on a hundred-mile-an-hour roller coaster to hell, with Stephen King at the controls. The voice isn’t Karen’s. Then I hear a scream. … not Karen Vogel’s scream … Rachel’s. The voice and scream are Rachel’s. They’ve kidnapped—are kidnapping—my wife.

“Oh God! Please!” I shout. “Let her go. I’ll do anything. I swear to God, anything . Just let her go!”

“Sam, you sound like you’re ready to talk. So what I want, you go home now, go home, get on your … whatcha call … Web site, wait for my call.”

“Look,” I tell him, “let Rachel go, you don’t need her. If this is about the money, I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll give you the codes. I’ll give them to you right now. Just let her go.” “You got the codes memorized?” “I do.” “All of them?” “All of them.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line while he thought about it. Finally, he says, “Go home, Sam. We’ll call you soon.”

I hear the sound of Rachel struggling in the background. “Rachel!” I yell.

Then I hear a couple of sharp sounds, and Rachel emits a bloodcurdling scream that sickens me to the core. I’m trembling with fury and helplessness, thinking about that Mr. Clean motherfucker putting his hands on my wife. “Rachel!” I yell again but realize I’m speaking into a dead connection.

Chapter 16

Ifeel trapped, like a rabbit caught in a snare. Would I give up the codes to the fortunes of the world’s most dangerous men in order to save Rachel? Of course I would, the same way a rabbit would chew off its own leg to get away.

Because this shit has got to stop.

I’m on Westport Road, heading home, wondering if the gangster and Mr. Clean are there with Rachel. He seemed taken with the idea of where they found her, so my best guess is she was on her way home. Last we’d talked, she was heading to lunch. I’d mentioned I was at the house, and I probably sounded funny to her. She asked if I was sick, so maybe she decided to come home and check on me and got ambushed.

I realize there’s another possibility. Maybe she knows about Karen. Maybe she went to Karen’s condo during her lunch hour. Maybe the gangster picked her up at Karen’s. Did he pick up Karen too? No. He would have said. Or Rachel would have said something about her just now. So where’s Karen Vogel? And why was her purse upended on the kitchen floor?

I want to check on Karen, but I have to get home in order to save Rachel. I’ve known Karen one month, had sex with her exactly once, and my life has turned into a living hell. Mary’s dead, Rachel’s been kidnapped, and God only knows what’s going on with Karen.

I want to pick up speed and get home as quickly as possible, but the road has tapered into two lanes and I’m behind a line of cars. We’re moving, but regular speed. There’s nothing to do but follow the other cars past the church, soccer field, assorted fast-food restaurants, and … My cell phone rings—mine, not the new one. I pick up. “You trying to rob me, Sam?” “Who is this?” “Donovan Creed.”

Shit!

“No, sir, of course not.” My mind is racing. Creed is the professional hit man, the last guy on the list I’d want to piss off. Why on earth would he think I’m trying to— Wait, the computer! I’d entered Creed’s code a couple hours ago when I thought Rachel might have been kidnapped, before I found out she was okay. Though now she’s been kidnapped for real. Christ, will you just listen to me? Can this really be happening? It must be. You simply can’t make this shit up.

Creed is waiting for me to say something, but I’m trying to figure out how he knew I’d entered his code into my computer. Finally, he speaks. “Sam, you must be in a lot of trouble.” “Why do you say that?” “Sam, listen to me. Whatever you think your problems are, they’re nothing compared to dealing with me.”

Creed has this eerie kind of voice. Just hearing him say my name sends a chill down my spine. He’s right; I don’t want to have to deal with him. I decide to come clean.

“They’ve kidnapped my wife.”

“Rachel.”

How the fuck does everyone know Rachel’s name?

“They’re hurting her,” I say. “She’s my wife . What would you do if you were me?” “If I were you?” he says. “If I were you, I wouldn’t fuck with Donovan Creed.” “What, you’re saying you’d let your own wife die?” “This discussion is going nowhere,” he says. “No,” I say, emboldened. “I want to know what you’d do in my place.” “Sam, we had this discussion two years ago, when I asked if I could trust you with my money.”

I think about that, but the other thing is weighing on my mind— not Rachel, God help me, but the other thing. I can’t help it. That’s how my brain is wired. I have to ask him. “Mr. Creed, how did you know?” “About the code being entered? I had a frequency chip imbedded into my hip.” “You what?” “It’s tuned to the frequency of the digits.”

I’m stuck at a traffic light, wondering if I should run it. Better not. I don’t need cops on my ass. “The sixteen digits have a frequency?”

“Sam, you’ve got your specialty, but this part is way over your head. Let me put it this way: You put together a nice little money-moving scheme. It’s off the government’s radar. You tell me you can be trusted. I’m in. So I get my people to put together a little device that starts vibrating the minute you—or someone else—enters the code on your computer.”