To watch Caitlin, if and when she returned home.
To watch… and perhaps to strike.
He shook his head. Smarter to forget her. Smarter to move on, reinvent himself once more, start the games anew.
But she had eluded him once before. It galled him to have been cheated of her not once, but twice. To leave their relationship unconsummated.
Well, perhaps all was not yet lost. Anything was possible. And he was patient. He could wait for her. He had already waited so long.
43
No way out.
C.J. had sprinted past blocks of lightless buildings, across swards of brown grass, until she reached the chain-link fence at the edge of the complex. From a distance it didn’t look like an insuperable barrier. Only when she drew close did she see the coils of razor wire cresting the fence like spiked, unruly hair.
The wire would cut her to pieces if she tried to climb over.
Next she skirted the perimeter in search of a gap in the fence or an open gate. She found no gaps, and the gate, when she came to it, was padlocked.
Pick the lock? She didn’t have any tools. Cut the chain or the hasp? Not without a hacksaw.
Craning her neck, she peered up at a sign over the gate, which read “COMING SOON-MIDVALE OFFICE PARK.”
Below the words was an artist’s rendering of an immaculately landscaped commercial development on narrow, winding streets. The colors were bright and clear, and the picture had the wholesome appeal of a storybook illustration. But it was streaked with dirt and rain, and she guessed that construction on the project had halted some time ago.
She looked through the steel mesh of the gate at the surrounding darkness. There had to be a road or a home nearby, some sign of habitation or activity.
There was nothing. The office park lay in an unpopulated wasteland of sere desert hills, an environment that reminded her a little of the Mojave Desert where she had grown up. In the congested sprawl of the LA basin, Adam had managed to find that ultimate rarity-a secluded place.
She leaned against the gate, fighting for breath, trying to decide what to do.
Well, there was one option. She could bust her way out.
Adam must have parked his car near the garage, although she hadn’t seen it during her escape. If she could find it…
Maybe she could hot-wire the engine. All she needed was a tool to pry off the ignition cylinder-any bit of scrap metal would do. Then ram the gate and blow it off its hinges.
The difficulty lay in defeating the BMW’s antitheft system. But maybe she would get lucky. Maybe Adam had left the car unlocked. Even if he had, the system might automatically lock the doors and arm itself after a set period of time. Well, she would face that problem when she came to it. For all she knew, Adam had left the doors open and the key in the ignition. She could dream, couldn’t she?
At least it was a chance. A plan.
Carrying it out meant returning to the vicinity of the garage. If Adam had anticipated her strategy, he might still be there, lying in wait.
No, that was crazy. He couldn’t read her mind, for God’s sake.
Anyway, she had to risk it.
She headed back toward the garage, hoping Adam wasn’t smart enough to set an ambush there.
44
Adam had hated his ex-wife for a long time, but until tonight that hatred had been impersonal, driven by the conviction that she had wronged him, that justice demanded retribution.
Now he knew what real hatred was. He knew it with the agonized throbbing of his genitals, where she had shocked him-Jesus, shocked him like some prisoner in a Third World jail with his nuts hooked up to a car battery. He knew it with the complaint of his left knee, already stiffening up. She’d struck him with the flat of the plank, hard against his lower thigh, close to the knee, and though he didn’t think there was any permanent damage, he could feel the swelling of a nasty bruise.
She had hurt him.
He repeated the thought in his mind, trying out different emphases- she had hurt him, she had hurt him, she had hurt him.
No matter how it came out, it sounded equally incredible.
For her to hurt him had never been part of the plan. He was the one who was supposed to inflict pain and punishment. Hell, he was entitled to.
Now here he was, limping through the dark streets of Midvale Office Park, his balls aching, his knee on fire, and she was out there somewhere, uninjured as far as he knew, having equalized the contest.
He was pretty sure she couldn’t escape. That was one reassuring thought. He knew the complex well, and with the gate locked, it was a giant cage.
A cage. That was the first thought to strike him on the night when Roger Eastman had shown him this place.
Eastman was another attorney at Brigham amp; Garner, but unlike Adam he was no newcomer to the firm. He’d been there fifteen years, developing a healthy roster of clients and an even healthier paunch, which hours on the golf course did nothing to reduce. For some reason he had taken Adam under his wing.
One day three weeks earlier, Eastman asked if Adam had plans for the evening. “Nothing important,” Adam said, aware that the only item on his personal agenda was a visit to the Web site he had discovered, the one showing C.J.’s bedroom.
“Great.” Eastman smiled. “I want to show you something.”
He was very mysterious during the drive out of town. He refused to answer any questions. “You’ll see” was all he would say as he steered his Lexus away from the last remnants of the January sunset.
It was fully dark by the time they reached his secret spot. Adam remembered the moment when the Lexus turned onto the unlighted asphalt road that seemed to lead nowhere-and then Eastman flicked on his high beams to illuminate a construction-site sign.
“Midvale Office Park?” Adam asked. “This is where you wanted to take me?”
“That’s right, kid.” Eastman often called him kid. Adam hated it. “And you know why?”
“I can’t imagine.”
“Because it’s mine.”
From his coat pocket Eastman produced a ring of keys-not his regular keys, but the kind of heavy chain a night watchman would carry. He unlocked the gate, pushing it open, then returned to the Lexus and drove into the complex, past shells of three-story buildings, lightless, bare of trees or other foliage. The artist’s rendering on the sign over the gate showed a Tudor architectural motif, but the facades had not been put up, leaving only featureless wood-frame walls with dark, glassless windows.
“Mine,” he said again. “Well, partly mine anyway. I’ve got this client. Tommy Binswanger-I’ve mentioned him.”
“Sure.”
“Tommy’s a broker. Handles commercial real estate. He tipped me off about this place. Prime investment opportunity. The original developers hit a financial snag, had to shut down construction, declare bankruptcy, unload all their assets. Tommy put together a group of investors, and we snatched this place for a song. To ante up my share, I had to burn through my portfolio, take out a second mortgage, pay IRA penalties for early withdrawal. The wife didn’t like it, let me tell you. Well, fuck her. She never approves of anything I do. This deal’s gonna make me rich.”
You already are rich, Adam thought. But he merely said, “Wow.”
“Wow is right. The developers were so desperate for ready cash, they were in no position to bargain. Tommy estimates this facility will be worth a minimum of twenty million when completed. We paid a fraction of that.”
“Has construction resumed?” Adam asked, looking at the dark avenues gliding past, the empty windows, the excavations and dead ends.
“Not till next year. March is the tentative start date. We need to work out a few details first. Legal matters, tax issues, all that crap. Tommy’s handling it.” He waved his hand vaguely.