Gregory snorted and stirred. Is he going to wake up?! Damn, what kind of beating would it be this time? Staci started to replace the phone, then waited. But Gregory still slept.
She couldn’t call 911, since she didn’t know where she was. They could trace the call, but she would have to leave the line open for that to work and she couldn’t risk it: Lily would return any minute. So she called home. She assumed no one would pick up and she would leave a message.
Her hand shook by the time the answering machine finally beeped. As quietly as possible she whispered “Las Vegas, south of the Rio and Palms, third-floor apartment or hotel. A dump. Help, Las Vegas…”
Footsteps outside the door. Lily!
Staci ended the call, then clicked on MENU. More movement outside the door! Her hand shook as she clicked on LOG, then RECENT CALLS. Damn, there were too many pages to click to do this! And just then, Gregory stirred.
She clicked DIALED NUMBERS. There was the call! But now she had to select OPTIONS just as she heard the sound of a key going into the lock.
Screw it, she thought, and with determination, using just one hand, she clicked DELETE. But then she had to confirm the choice and clicked YES. Then she pushed the red button and put the phone back on the table.
The door started to open slowly, and Staci ran back to the sofa and slumped onto it just as Lily entered the room and Gregory woke up. Her face was turned away from them and she held her breath as tears streamed down her cheeks from the knifelike pain that stabbed her knee.
She took a slow breath, careful not to reveal she was awake. A sense of victory washed over her, the seeds of hope had been delivered, until she remembered… she hadn’t gone back to SETTINGS and turned the KEYPAD TONES feature back on. The next time Gregory used his phone, it would be silent.
CHAPTER 20
A double homicide in the parking lot of the county morgue was a first. Generator-powered mobile light towers turned the scene from night to day, so it was easy to spot Sheriff’s Detective Bobby Chan finish off the last of a 7-Eleven hot dog as he arrived on-site. The smiling coroner didn’t seem to mind that the deed was done in his own front yard, probably because he could walk from his office to the crime scene.
“Chan!” called out Detective Ron Franklin, who had been working the scene. He stood next to a sedan wrapped around a palm tree.
“Talk to me Ronnie; the wife won’t,” said Chan, approaching.
“You’ve been divorced for over five years, Chan.”
“And she’s still not talking to me. Go figure.”
“Our dearly departed buddies here won’t be doing much talking, either.” Franklin was holding the dead men’s wallets and waved them toward the bodies still in the car.
Chan looked in through a broken-out window. “Well, well, it’s déjà vu all over again. The same two Russians we busted this afternoon. These guys have been working too hard. Stress can kill, you know.”
“LAPD didn’t even hold them overnight.”
Chan shrugged. “If they had a clean record and a good lawyer, then it’s ‘Adios, see you in court.’ The jails are overcrowded, no room for the bad guys anymore.”
“This ties right into the Bennings investigation.”
“It would seem so. These guys are shooters. They wanted to get him at the airport but missed. Then they tried again tonight, but Bennings didn’t miss. Kind of makes me think the Russians pulled the hit in Chino Hills.”
Franklin nodded. “But we still don’t know what the beef is about.”
“The stiffs here look all mobbed-up to me, so I guarantee it’s something to do with money.” Chan looked back to the dead Russians. “I’m going to tell the coroner that I’m reclassifying the death of Gina Bennings as a probable homicide. Looks like the Russian mob went after Major Bennings and his whole damn family.”
“The registration address of both cars is a PO box in Beverly Hills. And the dead guys have identical residence addresses on their driver’s licenses—a storefront in West Hollywood.”
“Find out who their lawyer was that got them sprung so fast today. Might lead somewhere,” said Chan.
“Hey, Bobby,” warned Franklin as he took in the sight of two men with buzz cuts and wearing cheap dark suits approach.
“Remind me again,” said Chan quietly to Franklin. “Is polyester in or out?”
“Excuse us, Detective Chan?” said the stocky one with a bald head.
“That’s me,” said Chan, eyeing the two men warily.
“We understand you’re the lead investigator into the murders at the Bennings house in Chino Hills.”
“And you are?”
“Agents Flood and Bates, U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command.” Bates, the stocky one, handed Chan a business card.
Bobby Chan held up the card into the light. “Seven Hundred and First Military Police Group, Field Investigative Unit.” The two men definitely looked military and not like regular coppers to Chan. “What can I do for you?”
“We’re looking for this man, Major Kitman Bennings.” Flood was a tall black man who didn’t look a day over twenty-five. He handed Chan a color printout of Kit Bennings wearing his army uniform.
“Never met him. But I’ve seen his ass in gear.” The soldiers looked confused. “I saw him run out of the international terminal at LAX this afternoon.”
“So he eluded being taken into custody?” asked Flood.
“I didn’t say that. I said I saw him run out of the terminal.”
“Was he alone?” pressed Flood.
Chan stared at the agent and smiled. “Now don’t go getting existential on me,” said Chan. Flood and Bates exchanged a quick, confused look. “Alone in a crowd of thousands? Well, let’s see; my partner and I were there, some Russian thugs were there…. Where were you guys, the wrong terminal?”
Flood and Bates looked like they were finally getting the idea that Chan was screwing with them. “Do you have any leads as to the major’s location?” asked Bates.
“I’m rich with leads. Poor with time. So if you’ll excuse me—”
“Did Major Bennings have anything to do with the killings here tonight?” asked Flood.
“Now that’s a good question.” Chan didn’t elaborate.
“Sir, the clerk inside said Bennings left minutes before the shots were fired.”
“The clerk inside heard shots?”
“He, well, no, he said—”
“You know, fellas, about twenty years ago I was on lunch break and stopped at my bank. Was it Wells Fargo? Wells Fargo sucks, but then, all of the big greedy banks suck. Anyway, I used to go there a lot because there was a real pretty Asian girl working as a teller. I mean, she was smoking. So… you know, I’d go in and get change for a quarter, whatever. It was pretty pathetic.”
Bates and Flood both started shifting their feet and looking down.
“Anyway, one day, a few minutes after I left, the place was robbed by a guy with a shotgun. But I promise that even though I’d just left, I didn’t have anything to do with the armed robbery. I did marry the clerk, though.”
“Sir, could you tell us…?” Bates started to ask.
Chan looked at the business card again. “Quantico, Virginia, huh? You know, Franklin, almost nobody lives in Quantico, but the big marine base is there, the FBI Academy, FBI Lab, all kinds of important stuff there.” Chan handed the card to Franklin, who pulled out his seven-inch tablet computer.