In Too Deep Read online

  “Stop asking.” Troy was curt. “We’re going to go as far as we can go.”

  Rawley stared through the windshield, watching headlights passing them in the opposite lane. That lane headed east, toward Santa Fe, toward his mom. Reaching deep in his pocket he fingered the pink beaded necklace he’d taken from her jewelry box. He hadn’t known why he’d done it. It was his birthday gift to her. But in the heat of the moment he’d just grabbed it and taken off.

  Now he was glad.

  “I should call my mom,” he pointed out.

  “Not yet.”

  “She’ll have the cops on us.”

  Troy threw him a harsh look. Rawley shrank back at the venom in that dark gaze. “Well, let her. They’ll have a hell of a time finding us, won’t they?”

  Intimidation normally didn’t work on Rawley. He resented authority like every normal fifteen-year-old. He was just quieter about it than his friend Brandon. But he was stuck in a car with a virtual stranger, he realized now, and he wasn’t sure what to do.

  “Wouldn’t it be better to just call her?”

  Troy swore pungently. “She’ll send her boyfriend after us. Is that what you want? The guy who screws his own sister? You want him, huh? You want the guy that slips it to her when she’s sleeping, then covers her mouth with his hand so mom and dad won’t hear?”

  All lies, Rawley had a feeling. The more Troy embellished, the clearer that was. He could feel his stomach tighten with fear. He understood at last. But it was too late.

  Escape was all he could think about.

  Jenny had gone to the restaurant. She needed something to do. She wandered around the kitchen and thought about Rawley. She could visualize him bussing tables and seating customers.

  Troy, don’t hurt him.

  Her jaw set. She was experiencing a little of that cold control her ex had once possessed. If he possessed it still, she hadn’t seen any signs of it. Troy wasn’t the same. He was looser, wilder, more dangerous. Capable of anything.

  After an hour of watching the clock, she headed home. She’d been keeping a vigil by the phone and that hadn’t worked. She’d hoped Rawley might call if she were gone, yet been afraid to leave. Finally, she’d bolted from the condo just to save her sanity. Now, she drove over the speed limit to get home and check the messages.

  None.

  One glance at the answering machine and Jenny collapsed. Head in hands, she wept tears of fear and fury. Ten minutes later she was on her feet, pacing. She had to do something. Why had she let Hunter leave? She should have gone with him. Except if Rawley called …

  Magda. She would have Magda stay here while she went to find her son. That was the answer. With no plan fully formed, she headed to the phone. Hand on the receiver, she almost cried with relief when the phone miraculously rang.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” Rawley said.

  “You’re going to have to hold it”

  “I can’t,” he answered simply.

  Heaving a sigh of disgust, Troy pulled into a service station. To Rawley’s consternation, his father followed him inside. Hell of all hell, Rawley couldn’t pee. His father watched him like a hawk. But his nerves had tightened up and no amount of silent pleading could get his body to work. “I guess I was wrong,” Rawley mumbled, shoving past Troy on the way to the car.

  It happened so fast he was still reeling with shock. One moment he was stepping out the bathroom door, the next he was slammed up against the wall. Before he could move, his head was slammed hard again against the tile wall. His ears rang.

  “Don’t fuck with me,” his father told him.

  Rawley lowered his lashes. Every instinct told him to go for it, just hit him and take him down. But Troy had a good twenty pounds on him and an unpredictable temper.

  “You wanna call Mommy? Fine. Get in the car and I’ll give you the cell phone. But after you say hello, turn it over to me.”

  “Are you kidnapping me?” Rawley asked him bluntly.

  “Hey, kid, you begged to come with me. Begged!”

  “Guess I made a mistake.”

  They stared each other down. In the end Troy started laughing. He clapped Rawley on the shoulder and guided him back to the Explorer. “All right. I was mad. I didn’t want to stop. Here.” Troy handed him the cell phone as he shut the passenger door. Rawley would have jumped right back out with the phone in hand, but Troy didn’t immediately move away.

  What time was it? Three o’clock in the morning. Rawley placed the call and the line rang and rang. Finally, the answering machine picked up. “Hey, Mom?” His voice cracked. Suddenly he couldn’t go on. Troy peeled the phone from his limp fingers and said, “Jenny?” then realized he’d gotten the machine. After a moment of thought, he said, “Where the hell are you in the middle of the night? Have you spoken to your dear old dad? He and I have a deal going. When this thing all gets settled, you can join Rawley and me. One big happy family, just like it should’ve been fifteen years ago. You better not be fucking around with Calgary.”

  With an effort Troy cut the connection. He really wanted to swear at her, tell her what a whore she was. But the kid was about to break down and this was the moment to go, go, go.

  He couldn’t wait to get to LA. He was so horny he could scarcely think straight. He’d wanted to beat the shit out of the kid, but that wasn’t going to work.

  Patricia, he thought. No. Frederica. Maybe she was on an upswing and they could fuck themselves silly.

  “Stop blubbering,” he said harshly as Rawley lay like a limp rag in the passenger seat. Troy made one step toward the hood of the car and he heard Rawley’s door open. Surprised, he jumped back and slammed the door against his son’s hand and heard his howl of pain. He slammed the door twice more, but the kid had jerked his wounded fingers free after the first time.

  Behind the wheel, he reminded him tightly, “I told you not to fuck with me.”

  Next stop, the City of Angels.

  Jenny sat in a chair at the side of the hospital room. If she’d been the least bit tired she would have nodded off. As it was, she stared at her father’s sleeping form and the frightening sight of tubes connected to the line of monitors recording his vital signs.

  The call had been from a member of the hospital staff. Allen had suffered a heart attack. A small one, by cardiologist’s standards, apparently. She could hear Allen yelling in the background, still seeking to control, and she’d been so disappointed that it wasn’t Rawley that at first she hadn’t understood what had happened.

  When she’d finally connected all the dots she called Magda, got her machine, and left a message saying she was going to the hospital to be with her father and could Magda please come over and stay by the phone? She would explain all later.

  Magda and Phil had showed up at the hospital instead. Jenny could scarcely convey everything that had happened—including Rawley’s sudden trip with Troy, which had probably been the trigger for Allen’s heart attack. She tried to give Magda her keys, but because Jenny hadn’t adequately explained the situation, neither of the Montgomerys understood her urgency about Rawley.

  Finally, Magda grabbed her arm. “Are you saying he was kidnapped?”

  “It amounts to that.”

  “Where did they go?” Phil wanted to know.

  “I have no idea.”

  “What’s the status on your father?” This, too, from Phil.

  Jenny shrugged helplessly. Tests were being run. As an afterthought, she made her way to a pay telephone and called Natalie. Another answering machine or voice mail. Well, it was the middle of the night. She could scarcely blame her for not wanting to answer the phone.

  She left a curt message. “Hello, Natalie. It’s Jenny. My father’s had a heart attack, but is doing okay so far. He’s at St. Vincent Hospital. I’ll call you in the morning.”

  Magda and Phil hung outside Allen’s room, looking oddly sick themselves under the unforgiving fluorescent lights. “You didn’t have to come here,” she said a
gain.

  “Of course we did!” Magda hugged her hard for about the tenth time.

  “But as long as you’re up, I really need someone to go to my place and check the messages. Rawley should have called by now.”

  “When did he leave?” Magda asked, finally understanding the gravity of the situation.

  “This morning. Late morning.” She felt close to tears again. “While I was at Hunter’s ranch.”

  “Oh, honey. Don’t feel guilty. Please. Rawley wanted to go, right?”

  She nodded. “He took a bunch of clothes … a lot of them. Maybe he plans to—stay with Troy.”

  “Oh, that won’t work.” Magda shook her red curls. “Troy’ll get sick of him.” Jenny blinked at her. “Well, from what you’ve said about him, he doesn’t exactly have the patience of Job and fifteen-year-olds can test the best of us. I mean, Jenny, Rawley’s great But he’s a teenager.”

  “You think he’ll want to come back?” she asked hopefully.

  “Of course he will. You’re his mother.”

  “Jenny!”

  It was Allen’s voice. Jenny scurried back into his room. “Don’t yell,” she said in a whisper. “Please. Take care of yourself.” She glanced at the monitors as if she could make sense of the readouts. The narrow green lines peaked and dipped and waved.

  “I’m fine,” he declared impatiently. “Have you heard from Rawley?” He started coughing and Jenny touched his shoulder.

  “Dad, please,” she implored.

  He waved a hand at her, unable to speak for a moment. “You need to pay him the money,” he finally rasped out.

  “Five hundred thousand dollars?”

  “How much is your son worth?”

  “Priceless, and you know it. And you also know it doesn’t work that way. Rawley’s got to want to come back.”

  “Pay Troy the money and he’ll drop Rawley like a hot potato.”

  “Dad—”

  “Just do it, Geneva. Call my lawyer. Joseph Wessver. Tell him to set it up. He’ll know what to do.”

  Jenny gazed at her father in concern. He looked terrible. Sick and old. They’d fought about money for so many years. “You bought me out of my marriage. Now, you’re going to buy me my son back.”

  Allen managed a faint smile. “Best investments I’ve ever made.”

  Leaning forward, Jenny kissed him lightly on the forehead. She saw the glimmer of tears in his eyes as she turned away.

  Hunter woke up with a jolt. He’d cruised by some of Troy’s other previous haunts, then had drifted back to Ratty’s and fallen asleep. Now, he watched the rustbucket Chevy nose into a spot. The engine sputtered and quit. The door flew open and Ratty himself climbed out. Stretching, he reached in the back of the car and hauled out what looked like several thousand dollars worth of electronic equipment. Hunter watched him make several trips up to his apartment.

  “A little breaking and entering, Ratty, old boy?” Hunter whispered to himself. “A little burglary and theft? That how you’re surviving these days?”

  He was going to have to call Mammoth when this was all over and get Ratty’s ass hauled into jail. But not now. Not yet.

  He dozed off again, fitfully.

  Dawn was breaking as the green Explorer slipped into the parking lot and found a place next to Ratty’s Chevy.

  For Rawley, it was a living nightmare. And it was all his own fault. Why hadn’t he listened to his mother? Why? This man wasn’t his father. There was something wrong with this man. He was nervous as hell. Chewing gum and jiggling his leg. It was like he was high on something. Maybe meth. But Rawley was beginning to suspect Troy’s drug of choice was intimidation—and sex. The last part was because of the way he talked.

  “You had sex yet?” Troy had asked him as they hurtled through the night toward the west coast.

  Rawley had carefully couched his response. In the short time he’d been with Troy he’d learned it was best to offer as little information as possible. “I’ve been with girls,” was his answer. In truth, he’d had a few wild rumblings that had come pretty close to the real thing. But he’d never actually done it. Too many consequences he wasn’t ready to deal with. He wasn’t one of those guys who carried condoms and he was bound and determined to avoid STDs at all costs.

  His answer got Troy’s leg jiggling. “Your mom’s a cold bitch. Real icy. She needs a good—”

  “Shut up about my mom!” Rawley had yelled without thinking.

  “You ever thought about her that way?”

  Rawley had seen red. He knew his dad was trying to work him over, but that was low. Low and dirty. His father’s smile gleamed unpleasantly in the dark car.

  “Go ahead, kid,” he said, enjoying the malicious game. “See what it gets you. Come on, crybaby.”

  Troy’s hand had slipped down into his jacket pocket. Rawley froze. He sensed without being told that Troy was going for a gun.

  “My mom was right about you,” Rawley said.

  “Your mom needs a lesson in how to be nice to a man. And I’m going to give it to her.”

  Not if I cut off your balls first, Rawley thought without a qualm of guilt.

  “Get out of the car,” Troy said now, pushing Rawley roughly out into the early dawn chill. Rawley wasn’t asleep but he was slouched in the seat, thinking hard. Escape was everything. He had no money. Not a dime. But if he could get to a pay phone he could call his mother collect.

  He stepped from the car. Troy was beside him in a flash, waving him up the stairs. Rawley had to step around the junk collected outside the door. “Hey, there, J.P.,” Troy called as he pounded on the door. “Open up this pigsty!” A lot more pounding ensued before a weasly looking guy finally slung open the door.

  “Troy!” he crowed in delight.

  Rawley took a step back, but was grabbed by the collar of his letterman’s jacket and thrust inside a dark, smelly room.

  Hunter hadn’t brought a gun. He didn’t own one. He’d carried one when he was on the force but had turned it in when he quit. Though he’d pulled his gun often during the course of duty, he’d almost never fired it.

  Now he wished to high heaven that he owned one. Walking in on Troy and Ratty unarmed was just plain foolish.

  He debated calling Carlos and Mammoth. They would come if he asked. They would come fully prepared.

  But they would play by the rules, something, at this juncture, that Hunter wasn’t prepared to do.

  He couldn’t figure out Rawley. The kid had seemed kind of reluctant to go in. Or was he just sleep-deprived? He and Troy had been on the road a long time. Uncertain how to play this, Hunter hesitated.

  There was a pack of cigarettes in the glove box. He pulled it out and played with one, unwilling to actually light up. He must be getting over that addiction as well as his burnout, he decided. He certainly felt alive and sharp this morning.

  The morning wore on. About nine o’clock a couple of young kids flew out of unit sixteen and began playing in the strip of dirt to the side of the asphalt. The sun burned hot in a smoggy gray sky.

  There had been no sign of life from Ratty’s apartment since Rawley and Troy entered. No lights. No sound. No stirring, as far as Hunter could tell.

  Thinking it over, he decided it was time for a confrontation, gun or no gun.

  He climbed out of the Jeep and up the stairs. The kids playing in the dirt paid no attention to him. In the boxes of junk outside Ratty’s door he spotted a length of metal casing about three feet long. Not much. But it could sure inflict some damage if the blow was right.

  Hunter weighed the weapon in his hand. He glanced at the door.

  He knocked loudly.

  Ratty answered, blinking in the light like the rodent he was. Hunter shouldered past him and found Rawley two feet on his left, scrambling out of a sleeping bag on the floor and rushing toward him, his face alight with joy.

  Hunter picked it all up in the split second before his gaze found Troy Russell. The man had a gun—and he was pointi
ng it directly at Hunter’s heart.

  “Move and I’ll kill you,” he stated flatly.

  “Hello, Russell?” Hunter answered calmly.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “Stand still,” Troy responded. “Drop that. Get your hands up.”

  Hunter slowly released the piece of metal casing gripped tightly in his fist, eased it gently to the floor and lifted his hands.

  “Hey!” Ratty called from behind Hunter’s right shoulder.

  “J.P., get your car warmed up,” Troy yelled at him.

  “But I—”

  “Get that piece of shit moving!” he snarled through his teeth. Ratty hurtled down the outside stairs, knocking over boxes of his treasured junk in his haste.

  “Shut the door,” Troy ordered Rawley.

  Rawley was breathing hard. “Wait…wait a minute…”

  “Shut—the—fucking—door.”

  “You’re not going to shoot Hunter.”

  “Just do it!” Troy fairly screamed.

  “Go ahead,” Hunter said softly. Russell’s loss of selfcontrol worried him. He’d had no idea the man had changed so much.

  Rawley hesitated. He didn’t want to comply. His heart was pounding fast. He instinctively gauged the distance between himself and Troy.

  Troy read his mind, and it pissed him off no end. He would have to shoot the stupid little bastard and teach him a lesson.

  In that instant, as Troy moved the barrel in Rawley’s direction, Hunter twisted and pushed Rawley away with all his strength. The bullet blasted with a loud bang and the hot, distinctive smell of cordite. Hunter felt the pain as if from a long distance. Rawley sprawled on the ground. A tangle of legs and arms. Fighting back a wave of shock and pain, Hunter gasped, “You okay?”

  Troy gazed at the gun in surprise. He watched Calgary stumble forward. How loud was the sound? As loud as he imagined? Jumping forward, he yanked Rawley to his feet. The boy, stunned at first, became a wild animal, attacking and growling. “I’ll shoot him! I’ll shoot him again!” Troy screamed. “I’ll shoot him!”

  Rawley froze, his breath coming hard and fast. Troy could scarcely see straight. The kid had kneed him in the groin and it hurt like hell. But the gun was an equalizer. He held it through waves of pain, weaving it between Rawley and Hunter, concentrating on Hunter who was clutching the windowsill with one hand, the other arm hanging loosely.