Killer in the Hills by Stephen Carpenter Page B

are you?”
    “One more thing,” I say. “Come alone, and don’t tell anyone where you’re going.”
    “Can’t do it, Jack. You know that.”
    “There are people who want to kill her, Melvin,” I say. “I won’t do this any other way.”
    Silence again. I picture Investigator Wen frantically typing away at his command station, tracking the phone.
    “I know it’s against regulation and every instinct you have, but it’s the only way to guarantee her safety. It’s me and a fifteen year-old girl and you know we won’t be any trouble.”
    I wait. He says nothing. I can’t stay on the phone any longer. I have one last card to play—a tricky one, but it’s all I’ve got. Hobson’s choice.
    “I’m trying to save my daughter’s life, Melvin. Just like I saved yours once.”
    Silence upon silence. I have broken an unspoken code. I have made it personal, and made Melvin appear the weaker player, which I know he cannot abide. When he finally speaks I can hear the restrained anger in his voice.
    “Alright,” he says.
    “Lot K at the Rose Bowl. We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
    I hear the click as he hangs up. I pull the battery from the phone and get back in the car. Karen glares at me, furious.
    “Who were you talking to?” she says.
    “Someone who’s going to help us,” I say. “He’s a friend and I trust him.”
    “Who, the FBI guy?” she says.
    “He’s a friend.”
    “He’s a cop,” she says. “You’re turning me in.”
    “Look, you were right,” I say. “We can’t keep driving around with nowhere to go. I’ve done everything I can do, and now there’s no one who can help us but my friend. Yeah, he’ll take you to the cops eventually, but first I’m going to make sure they have the video from the hotel, which proves that you weren’t there the night your mother was killed; and second, I’m going to get you a good lawyer. It’s your best shot. It’s your only shot, in fact.”
    “ Bullshit ,” she says, her voice rising an octave. “I’d be better off if you hadn’t fucking kidnapped me in the first place.”
    “Really. You think Sal would have liked having you around with your face all over the news? I thought he was all about being under the radar. Unless you were lying to me.”
    She looks away and chews on a thin strand of beads in her hair.
    “Have you lied to me? About anything?”
    “No,”she says, but she doesn’t look at me when she says it.
    I look at my watch—4:47. I open my door.
    “Stay in the car,” I say. “I want to make sure he’s alone before I come for you. I’ll be back in half an hour.”
    I get out and go to the trunk and grab Zach’s bag of computer gear and sling it over my shoulder. Karen gets out of the car and slams her door and walks down the dark street, away from me.
    I catch up to her.
    “Get back in the car,” I say.
    “Fuck you,” she says, walking faster to get ahead of me.
    I grab her wrist and she turns and punches me in the face with her free hand. I grab her fist and turn her around and hold her arms behind her as she struggles.
    “Let me go, ” she says.
    “No.”
    “You said I could leave anytime I wanted,” she says.
    “Not anymore.”
    I wrestle her back to the car and crowd her against the passenger door.
    “You bastard— ” She tries to kick me, but I stand to the side and step on her foot. She gives a short shriek and I gather both of her tiny wrists in one hand and take the handcuffs from my back pocket.
    “Gonna cuff me to the car again—?” she yells, her voice choked off by a sob. A tear lands on the sooty roof of the Corolla.
    “Nope,” I say, and slap one cuff over her right wrist and ratchet it tight, then snap the other cuff to my left wrist. Then I wrap my free arm around her waist and carry her toward the steep hillside that leads down to the Bowl.

CHAPTER THIRTY
     
    I have never surfed a mudslide while handcuffed to an angry badger but now I know what it would be like, so I don’t