I stood there in my flannel shorts and black tank top, unable to get enough breath. My fingers gripped both sides of the letter and the gun sat on the counter to my right, and all I could think was, He’s serious. He’s as serious as the devil in hell.
And then I was running for my office, searching for the number I’d written on the bottom of one of the pages I’d printed out, the one with information about Keith Hammond. I didn’t have his cell phone, but I’d found his home phone through a reverse directory, which cost me $4.99, charged to my Wells Fargo debit card.
I found it, dropped onto the edge of my chair, and punched the number into the phone by my Mac.
Pick up, please pick—
“Keith.”
“I just got a letter from him. He knows about you.”
“Renee?”
“Yes, Renee. Could you come over?”
“Who sent you a letter?”
“Didn’t you hear a thing I said last night? Someone’s stalking me and he knows I was at your house last night.”
“Slow down. What kind of letter?”
“The kind someone would write when he knows way too much and is threatening to kill you.”
“What do you mean kill me?”
“He said that if I don’t do what he says he’s going to kill us. All of us.”
That brought a short pause. “Can you read it to me?”
“You need to read it yourself.”
“Is he there now?”
“No, someone pushed the letter through the mail slot in my door. The point is, if whoever is playing this can reach me this easily, he will reach you. I’m dead serious. This isn’t funny anymore. You’re involved, whether you like it or not.”
One more hesitation. When he spoke again I could hear the nervousness in his voice, and it brought me more comfort than I like to admit.
“What’s your address?”
10
“I AM WATCHING. Always watching,” Keith muttered, reading aloud.
He stood with one hand on the counter, running the other through his short blond hair, studying the scrawled red words on yellow-pad paper. He’d read it twice, hardly giving my apartment a second glance.
I, on the other hand, had read the letter at least a dozen times as I paced, waiting for him to arrive, and then again with him. My nerves were too raw to pay any attention to common courtesy, which would have suggested I change into jeans before he got there. And that I put away my kit or close the door to my bedroom. Maybe offer him a drink.
But the contents of the letter had wiped all social grace from my mind. It was the writer’s claim that there was only one way to save the sinner’s soul that had me worked up. The demands were all there, in red, unmistakable.
If you want to save the priest you will do exactly as I say without question. Fail once and the priest’s sins will be exposed to the Los Angeles Times. Fail twice and he will die. And if you doubt my ability to snuff out the priest’s life, you are a fool. Test me and know that I am he.
You will put one million dollars on my plate. You will confess to the murder of the person you kill. You will spend the rest of your life in that sanctuary of penance, paying for your sins. Do this and the priest will be set free. Maybe he can save you.
Time to live, Renee: Go to the Rough Riders bar in Long Beach at 10:00 tonight. Alone. I’ll know. Find my next message at the public phone in the corner. Do what it says.
I’m as serious as the devil in hell.
Of that, there was no longer any doubt.
“The question is, how?” Keith said. “Randell’s on the inside and unless he has frequent phone access or has a cell phone stashed in there, it would be very hard for him to get timely updates from anyone on the outside.”
“So it’s more than him, obviously.”
“Someone with a grudge against the priest. One of his previous victims.”
“His name is Danny,” I said.
Keith was taking it all in stride. He did, after all, have sheriff’s blood in him.
He nodded. “They’re using your attachment to him as leverage.”
“Leverage for what?”
“Evidently a million dollars.”
“How can we be sure this is actually Randell? Maybe it’s just someone on the outside.”
Keith took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. The sleeves on his blue T-shirt were short and exposed the lower half of a tattoo on his left shoulder—a sheriff’s badge with something about honor and death. His eyes flitted over to my gun, which still lay on the counter. He’d hardly given the Browning a second glance when I’d first let him in, which made sense. He’d expect someone like me to be packing after receiving the threats I had.
“The money points to Randell,” he said. “When you know the whole story.”
“What story?”
“But it’s about more than just money. They want you to know they know about Danny’s past, which validates their threat. The real question is, who got away from the priest and is back to make him pay?”
“What story?” I asked again.
Keith scanned the letter once more. I knew he was holding something back and I needed to know what it was. I also needed him to work with me. Having him beside me provided far more comfort than I was used to, and I can’t say it bothered me.
“Okay, look,” I said, covering the letter with one hand so that he would look up at me. “Let’s get one thing straight. It’s not just a coincidence that you’re here. If the woman hadn’t given me Bruce Randell’s name, I wouldn’t have tracked you down and you’d be back home right now, watching football and drinking beer. But she did, and I came to you and whoever is stalking me now knows about you. They may know you’re in here right now. You’re involved, like it or not. So we’re in this together. Right?”
“So it seems.”
“You’re either going to help me or you aren’t. Which is it?”
He studied me with his hazel eyes, then nodded. “We’re in this together.”
I removed my hand from the letter and stepped back. “Good, because I need you.”
He glanced over my shoulder and I followed his stare into my bedroom. There were my criminal tools, spread out like a smorgasbord.
“Looks like you can handle yourself just fine,” he said.
“Yeah. Well, every woman living alone needs to protect herself.” Which explained pretty much all of the tools on the bed except the strangling wire.
“True. Okay, let’s start over.” Keith walked into the living room where he paced, letter dangling from his right hand.
“For starters, there’s no way I’m going down to this bar of his,” I said. “Who does he think I am?”
“A person he has in a corner.”
“Then he doesn’t know me.”
“Let’s hope not. From the top. My best guess: The priest…Danny…is transferred to Basal, and in a matter of hours you get a call from someone on the outside who knows Randell. One of them had to know Danny was going to be transferred.”
“How? That’s protected information.”
He waved my assertion off with a simple flip of his wrist. “Forget that. Obviously we’re dealing with people who have access. Money buys you anything, honey. As anticipated, the phone call had you scrambling.”
“They wanted to scare me.”
“Just enough so that you would dig, knowing that you would quickly learn just how impossible it is to reach Danny. Isolation is critical to them. Danny belongs to them now, not to you. They hold that card. And we have to assume they wanted me involved.”
“Why would they want you involved?” I answered my own question. “Because he knew you would confirm the threat. Everything that’s happened so far—the call, the woman, the shoe box, the letter—it’s all to make sure I take them seriously.” I let it set for a breath. “Tell me about the money.”