“Shhh,” hissed Laney. “Watch your language in front of the kids.”
Thelma threw her head back and laughed. “Those kids don’t scare me, and they ain’t listening anyway. I do watch my mouth in front of Miss Taft, however. Once I used the F word and she whacked me in the shins with that damn chair of hers.”
Laney shot her friend a shocked look. “You’re lucky she didn’t have Tyrell wash out your mouth with soap.”
Thelma offered Laney a sly smile. “I don’t worry about Tyrell nor the Reverend either. They’re both too old to catch up with me.”
Thelma checked the passengers through the rearview mirror.
“Okay, everyone, buckle up,” she called loudly over the laughter and cries of the children. A moment later she started the engine, kicked up the air conditioner. The bus circled the camp one last time, then climbed back up the hill toward the highway.
The wooden gate was closed. Thelma braked and the dust cloud they’d kicked up washed over the bus. “I told Tyrell to leave that gate open. Where was he going, anyway?”
“The Wal-Mart in Verdugo City. Miss Taft needed some stuff,” Laney replied. “Don’t worry. I’ll open the gate.”
Shepoppedthe door andhoppedout,ran to the wooden gate and dragged it open. A few yards beyond the entrance, the concrete ribbon of highway began.
“Get in!” Thelma called.
Laney shook her head. “I don’t want to leave the gate open. Go through and wait for me on the highway.”
Thelma waved and moved the vehicle forward. Over the rumble of the van’s engine, Laney thought she heard another sound — a roar like an airplane.
Just as the church van rolled onto the highway, the muted, unidentified noise Laney heard before was suddenly a deafening roar. Racing full-throttle, a crimson sports car squealed around the corner, rushing toward the packed van for a head-on collision. Tires squealed and the vehicle fishtailed as Thelma tried to get out of the way of the oncoming hot rod. Her quick maneuver avoided a total smash-up, and the two vehicles struck with a glancing blow.
Laney heard the sound of tearing metal, saw sparks. Shards of glass rained down on the highway as the windows blew out of the van. Careening off the sports car, the van slammed into a guardrail that had already been weakened by a minor landslide. Its velocity, and the vehicle’s heavy weight, ripped the base of the rail out of the ground and sent the van tumbling down the steep side of the mountain.
Helpless to do more than scream, Laney watched the SUV roll down the steep embankment. Clutching her head in horror, she ignored the sports car as it rolled onto the shoulder of the road and skidded to a halt in a shower of dirt and rocks.
The young woman bolted across the highway, watched as the church van flipped over and tumbled end over end into a deep, tree-lined chasm. Over the crunch of metal and the crash of sliding rocks, Laney heard Thelma’s cries and the screams of the children. But when the bus finally struck the bottom of the canyon, all human sounds abruptly ceased.
Laney fell on her knees, sobbing, beating the pavement with her fists. She looked around, hoping for someone to help, for a miracle. Only then did she spot the red Jaguar. The driver had never even gotten out of the car. Now he was trying to back out of the shoulder of the road, onto the roadway. Laney realized the speeder was trying to get away.
“Stop!” Laney screamed. “They need help! You can’t just leave them.”
The car finally skidded onto the pavement. Laney saw that the driver’s side window was gone— shattered — and the car door crushed. Inside, a swarthy man in a white T-shirt with dirty brown stains sat behind the wheel, sunglasses covering his eyes. The tires smoked as the man gunned the engine, trying to speed away. Finally the wheels gained some traction and the swarthy man raced away without a backward glance.
Though she was shaken to the core of her being by the tragedy she’d just witnessed, Laney had the presence of mind to pull the cell phone out of her purse and call the police. She reported the accident, its location, and the license plate of the vehicle that had fled the scene.
It took the LAPD only thirty seconds to positively identify the vehicle involved in the hit and run accident — a cherry-red 1998 Jaguar registered to Mr. Hugh Vetri, film producer, vanity plate number FYLMBOY. The automobile had been reported stolen from a crime scene in Beverly Hills earlier that day. Within two minutes, an all-points bulletin had been issued, and a statewide manhunt for the fugitive driver had begun.
A single rap on the door launched Tony off the rickety bed. On bare feet, he moved silently across the floor and pressed his ear to the scarred wood. Across the room, Fay sat up in the second bed, tense with worry.
Tony caught her eye, placed his index finger to his lips.
“Who’s there?” he called.
“Hey, Navarro…It’s me. Ray Dobyns.”
Only then did Tony peer through the peephole. He recognized Dobyns at once and cursed silently.
Ray Dobyns was a transplant from Wichita, Kansas. His grifts in his home state, and in Arkansas, Texas, and California, finally caught up with Dobyns a decade ago and he fled south to extradition-free Mexico. Since then, Ray had made a marginal living by pulling off similar grifts to the ones Tony’s cover “Navarro” was supposedly running right now— credit card fraud, Internet fraud, passing bad checks.
As Navarro, Tony Almeida had had some dealings with Dobyns two years ago in Ensenada when he’d been working another case. Now Tony tried to recall if he’d given the man any reason to suspect he was more than a petty con man.
“Come on, let me in, man,” Dobyns called from the other side of the thin, battered wood.
“Give me a second,” Tony called. Then he faced Fay Hubley, “Get dressed,” he whispered, “and when I introduce you, talk as little as possible.”
Fay crossed to the bathroom, closed the door. Tony stripped off his shirt, tossed it on the bed and rumpled it among the sheets, Clad only in his chinos, he unbolted the door and flung it open.
Dobyns was nearly a head shorter than Tony— around Fay Hubley’s height. But his girth more than made up for his lack of stature. If anything, Dobyns had only gotten fatter since the last time Tony had seen him. At five-six, Dobyns had to be tipping the scale at three hundred pounds.
“Hey, Ray, come on in,” said Tony, stepping aside.
Dobyn’s face was round, florid, and freckled. Sweaty strands of short-cropped red hair protruded from under the brim of a white Panama hat. He was probably forty, but his baby fat made him appear ten years younger. Pudgy arms dangled from the sleeves of a long Hawaiian shirt, and thick, hairy legs stuck out of white linen shorts. On his wide-splayed feet, dirty, ragged toenails thrust out of the tips of his worn leather sandals.
“Did I interrupt you?” Dobyns asked with a leering grin. He looked around the room. His eyes instantly settled on the computers scattered on the desk, the floor, the bag of plastic credit cards and magnetic card readers stacked in the corner.
“Ah, I see you’re up to your old tricks, Navarro.”
Tony closed the door. “The usual thing. I’m using the Internet to fill a warehouse in Pasadena, only the stuff’s going in one door and out the other, if you get my drift. In another week I’ll disappear with two-hundred thousand dollars’ worth of merchandise.”
Dobyns nodded, impressed.
“What about you, Ray? What have you been up to?”
Dobyns removed his hat, tossed it on the bed. “A little of this, a little of that. Lately I’ve been moving Prada knockoffs north — some of the top boutiques in Beverly Hills are my best customers, too. Can’t trust anybody these days.”