Gridlock: A Ryan Lock Novel by Sean Black Page B

think might be linked to this.’
    Lock exhaled. ‘I know you get in some major shit if you say too much, but the more I know, the better I can do my job. And if the FBI are getting involved there’s no way in hell they’re going to tell me anything.’
    Stanner motioned for him to move a little further away from the house and on to the sidewalk. ‘About four years ago an adult-film director by the name of Gary Fairfax was found dead at his apartment in Van Nuys. He was pretty rough with the female talent. Liked to knock them about sometimes.’
    ‘And this ties in with Cindy Canyon how?’
    ‘It doesn’t.’ Stanner hesitated. ‘Not exactly anyway. But it might tie in with Raven.’
    ‘She knew the guy?’
    ‘She knew him. She worked for him. She threatened to kill him.’
    ‘Was she interviewed at the time?’
    ‘She had an alibi. A good one. Watertight, in fact. It all checked out. Plus people who make threats tend not to be the ones who back them up with action.’
    ‘So we’re back to square one.’
    ‘Not quite,’ Stanner said. ‘I got a call yesterday from someone else in the porn business, another director who worked with Raven, an even bigger scumbag than the guy who got snuffed – if such a thing is imaginable. He said he’d been getting some fairly heavy-duty threats. Notes showing up in his mailbox.’
    ‘So what? He’s a porn director. Wouldn’t he be used to threats?’
    ‘Maybe so, but the handwriting was a direct match for the note that was left with the dress.’

19
     
    Lock stood in the darkened living room, listening to the house creak and groan as, outside, the wind whipped up a storm of late autumn leaves. The first time he took residential guard duty at night he always tried to tune himself into the location. Every house or office building had its own little quirks: a squeaky floorboard or an air vent that whistled in the wind. The better you knew them, the easier it was to click when something was out of place. The same went for people.
    Upstairs, Raven, Kevin and Ty were asleep, sheer exhaustion trumping fear in the case of the first two. Being scared or on the edge for any length of time drained the body of energy. It was why men in his job quickly learned to take control of anxiety and fear. He visualized his response level in colors. Green was normal, amber corresponded to no immediate threat but a heightened level of awareness, and red was game on. If you stayed on red for too long, eventually you’d crash and burn.
    After dinner, he had agreed with Ty that he would take a first shift of residential security lasting four hours. Then Ty, who hadn’t had the early start Lock had had, would pick up a final five-hour stint. Four or five solid hours of sleep were plenty. Lock had gone days at a time on far, far less.
    Taking the first shift would give him the opportunity to think over the day’s events and settle them in his mind. As long as the intruder didn’t choose to come crashing through a window with something deadlier than an old house key. His recent appearance had ratcheted up the threat level. It wasn’t a question now of if he would be back but when. And, to make matters worse, he now knew that he would be facing opposition so he’d come prepared.
    Lock walked to the french windows at the rear of the house. Beyond the deck was the sweeping panorama of city lights and he wondered if the stalker was down there somewhere, planning his next move, or whether the specter of something more sinister, which Stanner had raised, had substance. Could Raven be implicated in all of this?
    The fleeing figure Ty had chased said she wasn’t. Her threatening a movie director who had then turned up dead suggested she might be. The note with the dress could have been planted by anyone. And now another director was being threatened. The cops would be looking into it – but with how much manpower? Perhaps this was Lock’s opportunity to get off the back foot at last and start to