Prey for Us Page 19

  “Waylon has seen too much. If he talks, or worse, goes back on his agreement and pursues charges, investigators and the media will swarm Thane, and I think we both know how tragic that would be. Make a right turn here,” she pointed at the phone. “He’s still going west.”

  Clay rounded the corner. “Mo, I told you I don’t need to get tangled up in any felony situations.”

  “It’s too late. You’ve harbored me. I’ve used your guns. You are tangled up tightly. But for now, you are with me, and we are allies, so you don’t need to worry about it.”

  “Is that supposed to give me confidence?”

  Morana shrugged. “Have I been caught?”

  “Fair enough, but I don’t have your kind of luck.”

  “I don’t believe in luck. Listen to me, Clay,” Morana said, turning in her seat to face him. “If you do what I tell you, I guarantee that you’ll get more satisfaction and money by working with me than from any other job you could dream of getting. If you don’t want to participate, let’s shake hands and call it off now.”

  “And if I say no?”

  “Thane and I will do fine working alone, so you need to decide if you’re all in because a half-ass effort will get us caught for sure.”

  Clay accelerated to make a yellow light. “I’m in,” he said.

  “Congratulations.” Morana grinned.

  “Waylon just turned up ahead,” Clay said. “His address is in the Stetfield Ridge community, and that’s right up there…” He pointed ahead.

  “Can you catch up to him before he parks?” Morana asked.

  “Maybe.” Clay accelerated. “Even if not, the tracker will tell us when he turns off his car’s engine.”

  “I love it.”

  “Then you’ll love the fact that Thane’s truck is trackable, too.”

  “You tagged it?”

  Clay nodded. “Transmitters came in a three pack. While I was back by the garage looking for you, I figured it was the right thing to do.”

  “Are you sure you hid it well enough? Thane notices every detail of everything.”

  “He won’t find it.”

  Two blocks from Waylon’s house, they saw that Waylon’s car had stopped. Clay turned the final corner and pulled to the side of the road. The street was lined with opulent houses separated by manicured hedges bordering spacious lawns.

  “He must have driven behind his house. I don’t see his car,” Clay said, craning his neck to see a sprawling Tudor style home indicated on his phone.

  “You should have heard how vicious he became when Thane had him trapped. It took everything I had to not kill him when I had him alone in the sub-lair. Now I regret that I didn’t squash that bug.” She pointed. “He’s behind the house.”

  Clay enlarged the map on the phone screen showing the car’s location. “His car is behind the house. His BMW could be back there too and isn’t tracked. What if he takes off in it?”

  “Give me the third tracker.”

  Clay pulled the small magnetic device from under his seat and gave it to her.

  Morana said, “I need you to put the app on my phone. I need to track both of Waylon’s cars and Thane’s truck.”

  “You got it.” Clay held out his hand for the phone.

  Before Morana could give it to him, it buzzed. She raised her finger for him to wait. “Hello.”

  “Mo, it’s me.”

  She covered the phone with her hand and whispered, “It’s Thane.”

  Clay motioned for her to keep talking to him.

  “Hi, Sweetheart,” Morana said.

  “Did you catch Waylon?” Thane asked.

  “I’m working on it.”

  “Mo, you have to succeed. I found more photographs on his phone.”

  “No, there couldn’t be. I checked it.”

  “Yes, there were! I’m looking right at them!”

  “Okay, calm down!”

  “He sent them in an email, and they transmitted.”

  “What do the photographs show?” Morana asked.

  “My garage! My workspace, my tools and they’re clear. I didn’t see him taking any photos while he was in the garage before he started chasing me, but maybe I missed it. One of the photos shows my work block in the garage entryway. I never wanted any of the blocks to be photographed.”

  “Who did he email them to?”

  “He sent them to himself.”

  “Then you shouldn’t worry.”

  “Of course, I should worry. He can forward them. And we don’t know who has access to his email.”

  “Thane, I am tracking him right now, and if things go as planned, he won’t have time to forward those photos to anyone. You need to trust me. Everything will be okay. I’ll be back soon, and we can put all of this behind us.”

  “I need you to get him—quickly. You told me you could end this.”

  “I can, and I will.”

  “Please hurry. Can you call me when you get him?”

  “I will.”

  They hung up.

  “That was Thane. He’s freaked out,” Morana said, handing over the phone.

  Clay installed the tracking app.

  Morana got out of the car, and before closing the door, said, “Wait here and keep the engine running. My meeting with Mr. Waylon Snells won’t take long.”

  “Wait, are you armed?”

  She smirked as though the question was silly, then pulled off a wig and tossed it in the back seat. She slung her bag over her shoulder and walked down the sidewalk to the edge of Waylon’s property. She turned, taking cover along a row of hedges that separated Waylon’s yard from his neighbor’s.

  Darkness had deepened enough to cloak her as she moved to the rear corner of the house. Waylon’s Mercedes was parked sideways in the driveway outside the open garage door. It blocked the BMW parked inside. She felt in her pocket for the BMW key.

  A light blinked on in an upstairs room on the side of the house. Morana slipped through the shadows sidestepping toward the open garage door. She looked inside and saw a camera mounted high in the corner, aimed at the garage entry to the house. It seemed to cover most of the garage, but not the circuit box on the wall below it.

  She dropped to her knees and crawled inside, passing the wheels of the BMW. She stood up at the circuit box and flipped the switch labeled garage, and the lights went out. She felt her way along the wall to the entry door to the house. Waylon had left it unlocked.

  †

  Waylon had turned his Mercedes hard enough to skid on the loose gravel at the edge of his driveway. As he sped along the arc to the rear of his house, he reached up to the visor and found the button for the garage door opener, repeatedly jabbing it with his knuckle. When he rounded the corner, the garage door had only begun to rise. His tires skidded again, stopping him inches from it. He turned off the engine, leaving the headlights on to illuminate the garage. He ducked under the slow–opening door and rushed into the garage, passing by his BMW. He flipped on the garage lights and disappeared into the house.

  He rushed down the hallway to his study and grabbed his landline phone to call the police, but then stopped when he envisioned law enforcement swooping in to investigate Thane’s property. If Thane had kept his magical garage foundation a secret, Waylon intended to get in on it—alone. He needed a better way to deal with Thane and the woman for what they had done to him.

  He pressed a speed dial to call his assistant, Angie. Before it rang twice, he checked his watch and realized that Angie would have left the office over an hour ago. He decided to call her mobile phone and then realized that her number was stored on his missing mobile phone and he didn’t have her mobile number memorized. He slammed the phone down and went to a cabinet, yanked the bottom drawer open and pawed through some electronics and old phones, examining them one at a time before tossing them into a nearby waste bin. He kicked the drawer closed. “Shit!”

  He crossed the room t
o his computer, leaned over his keyboard, and clicked open his email. Aside from a few scheduling email messages from Angie in his inbox, there were no other significant messages, and his partner had not yet contacted him. He looked up Angie’s contact information and was about to dial her mobile number when a message in his inbox caught his attention. It was from himself and had no subject. He opened it. The message contained no text but displayed several photos. He leaned closer to the screen and recognized images of Thane’s garage from several angles, showing his tools, work countertop and two areas of the floor. He frowned and scratched his neck. It would have been impossible for him to have pocket-clicked these photos. Each photo was level and focused. He didn’t remember emailing the photos to himself—he wouldn’t have forgotten that.

  He stepped back and stared at the screen, rubbing his chin. The only person who could have sent these images was that woman—Thane’s accomplice. But why?

  He pawed through the paperwork on his desk until he found an email from Angie that he had printed out. It had her mobile number in her signature. He grabbed his home phone and called her. “Hey, it’s me,” he said. “It’s a long story… I’m fine and, yes, I know I missed that meeting. Listen, I need you to get me a new mobile phone, I lost mine… No, not tomorrow. I need it now… Bring it to the house, I’m home… Then find a place that’s open, Angie… I don’t care how. The only thing I know is that I need a goddamn phone!” He hung up and slammed the handset to his desk.

  “Useless,” he muttered as he walked around his office with his fingers interlocked on his head. He went back to the computer and opened a new tab in his browser. If Angie was pushing back on getting him a phone tonight, he’d find a local phone provider on his own. Before he could enter a search term, he saw a banner at the top of a webpage. A mugshot that had been prominent in the news for a couple of weeks caught his attention. He had seen it probably fifty times and paid little attention to it. This time the photo seized his full attention. He felt behind him for his chair and slowly sat as he kept his eyes locked on to the image of a woman captioned with her name: MORANA MAHKER. He opened the story link. The woman in the photo had red hair, cropped short. “It can’t be,” he said. But something about the jawline, eyes, and expression removed any doubt. And an updated $2.5 million reward sent a rush of excitement through him.

  A faint click echoed in the hallway. He tilted his head, listening. He stood and moved to the closet. Without turning on the closet light, he reached in and felt around until he pulled out a golf club.

  He heard the sound again, closer.

  “I’m armed,” he called out, gripping the club with both hands. He held it like a baseball bat, resting it on his shoulder. He crept to the doorway and carefully peered out into the hallway. It was empty. He moved toward the entrance to the garage. As he passed by the laundry room, he heard the click louder and stopped.

  All the lights in the house went off.

  Shit! He wrung the golf club grip as he felt for the wall, then continued moving toward the garage door. His smoke detector began to chirp every few seconds, warning that it was on battery power.

  Behind him, he heard, “Psst.”

  Before he could react, hands grabbed his neck, and a knee came full force into his groin, doubling him over. A hard shove sent him crashing to the floor. His attacker jumped on him, pressing the side of his face to the floor.

  Waylon yelled, “No! Please! What do you want? …I have money!” he shouted. He struggled until he felt cold steel pressed to the back of his head. Waylon stretched his arms out on the floor in surrender. He gasped, “What do you want?”

  While his attacker tied his wrists behind him, a female voice said, “I want to help you get what you deserve.”

  †

  Eleven minutes after Morana disappeared onto Waylon’s property, Clay saw the lights that lined the driveway turn off, followed a few moments later by the lights in all the windows of the house.

  He sat straighter in his seat and checked his phone. He rolled the window down more and listened but heard only the hum of his car’s engine. He crossed his fingers, hoping not to hear gunshots.

  Four minutes later, his phone buzzed.

  “What’s going on?” he answered.

  “Back your car to the garage door.”

  “What about cameras?”

  “None are powered.”

  “Shit… did you…”

  “We can chitchat later. Get back here!”

  “Okay, okay, hang on.” Clay turned into the driveway. His headlights cut through the darkness as he rounded the corner to the rear of the house. As he backed his car toward the garage, the door began to slide open.

  Morana’s legs came into view, standing in the darkness with a flashlight, aimed at what looked like a large bundle on the ground beside her feet. She guided Clay’s car closer, then raised her hand for him to stop.

  Clay opened the driver’s door.

  Morana said, “Unlatch the trunk and keep it running.”

  Clay did so, then joined her in the garage. “What have you done?” he asked.

  The bundle moved. Morana put her foot on it and shoved it, rolling it over to reveal Waylon’s face. He moaned through a towel Morana had fashioned into a gag and tied tightly around his head. His body was wrapped in a bedspread, his ankles and wrists bound with zip ties underneath.

  “Help me get him into the trunk,” Morana said.

  Clay lifted Waylon’s wrapped upper body, and Morana took hold of his feet. Together, they heaved him into the trunk with a thud that made him groan. Before Morana closed the trunk, Waylon looked out at them wide-eyed and yelled something through the towel.

  Morana slammed the trunk closed and brushed her hands off.

  “Now what?” Clay asked.

  Morana handed Clay the key to Waylon’s BMW parked behind her. “Meet me at your place. Park at least two blocks away.”

  “Why my place?”

  “Everything I’m suggesting is a means that ends with you becoming wealthy beyond your dreams. Can we chat about this another time?”

  “But my place—I don’t like it,” Clay said.

  “You told me in the car that you’re all in.” She got into the driver’s seat of his car and closed the door. She rolled down the window and said, “I wouldn’t hang out here if I were you.” She drove away.

  †

  Thirty minutes later, Morana waited in the assigned parking spot that Clay rarely used in his apartment complex’s underground garage. He preferred to park on the street for the shorter path to his front door.

  Morana ignored the occasional thumping from the trunk while she waited for Clay to show up.

  When he entered the garage and came down the stairs, Morana got out of the car and slung her bag over her shoulder. “How far away did you park?”

  “Three blocks,” Clay said, catching his breath. “I’m still not in love with this idea. My place is too risky, and all my neighbors are nosy. What happened to your paranoia about me turning you in?”

  “I’m still paranoid, but you’re easier to trust when you’re close enough to kill.” She reached into the car and unlatched the trunk.

  “I wish that was more comforting,” Clay said.

  “Risk is always relative. Your place is safest for what we need to do. You need to trust me.”

  The only sound in the garage was the faint hum of a clothes dryer. Clay went to the corner of the garage and looked into the vacant laundry room that also housed the breakers for the building’s electricity.

  It was a few minutes after 10:00 PM. Most of the neighbors would be in for the night. He went to the far wall and opened the circuit panel and flipped the breakers marked Courtyard and Stairway. He came out and ran up the stairs to verify that the lights were off before returning to Morana. “Let’s do it.”

  “What’s the chance one of your nosy neighbors will run down to check the breaker in the next 10 minutes?�
�� Morana asked.

  “I can’t guarantee it, but not likely. We’ve had three brief power outages this month, only one of them attributed to a storm. The residents will think it’s more of the same.”

  Morana opened the trunk. Waylon tried to scream through the gag. She pressed her stun gun into Waylon’s side, squeezed the trigger, and then slammed the trunk closed. After waiting for Waylon’s thrashing to subside, she opened it again and said, “I’ve got plenty of current. If you make any sound on the way inside, I’ll double the juice I just fed you. Understood?”

  Waylon nodded emphatically.

  Clay went to the garage exit at the top of the stairs, and after making sure no one was walking in the dark courtyard, he ran back, and they pulled Waylon from the trunk.

  Morana unwrapped him from the bedspread, then cut the zip tie that bound his ankles. She and Clay guided him up the stairs, through the dark courtyard, and into the apartment.

  Inside, Clay closed and locked the door. Morana shoved Waylon to the floor. “Go make room in your closet,” she said.

  “And for your own good, you should turn off all your damned spy-cams.”

  “For my own good?”

  “If you want me here, all surveillance is off, and you need to make me believe that you’ve done it. Not to mention the fact that your footage will implicate you, too, if it’s seized.”

  Clay rolled his eyes, then got some scissors and electrical tape from a kitchen drawer. While Morana watched, he went around the apartment, placing small pieces of tape over all the microlenses Morana had previously discovered, and a few more she hadn’t seen.

  He then went to the bedroom and removed some shoes and a storage box out of the closet, to make room for their new guest. They pulled Waylon to his feet and guided him to the bedroom, forcing him to the closet floor. When she tried to close the closet door, Waylon moved his foot to block it.

  “Clay, where’s my hand-held encouragement?” Morana asked. “Can you get my bag beside the front door?”

  When Clay turned to leave, Waylon shook his head hard. He pulled his feet inside the closet.

  “Never mind,” Morana said, closing the door. She pressed her shoulder to it until the latch clicked.