“What the hell does that mean?” I asked. “Running out of time how?”
The man laughed, or at least that’s what it sounded like, as it ended in a groan.
“Where. Is. She?” I leaned in over Karl’s face, so he could see the dangerous glint in my eye, and at least one of the guns I was holding.
Apparently the glint didn’t look all that dangerous because he just smiled back at me.
That’s when I leaned my knee into the neatly bandaged gunshot wound.
He cried out, probably as much from surprise as from pain.
“Where. Is. My. Mother,” I said, easing up a little bit.
“I’ve still got the better hand, here,” Karl said. “You need me to find her, and I can guarantee she’ll be dead soon if I don’t make a phone call. Play ball with me or you become an instant orphan.”
Now didn’t seem to be the time to let him know I would actually have one parent left, who was apparently a contract killer for the Mafia. I couldn’t see how to turn that to my advantage.
Instead, I started to lean in again, using the barrel of Karl’s gun pressed against the exact spot the bullet ripped through his side, but before he said anything, Kendra finally became useful.
“I’ve got it! I’ve figured out the code!” she said, her excitement weirdly out of place, given the situation. She sounded more like a kid who’d just solved a particularly tough puzzle than an adult facing attempted murder and extortion charges.
“What?” I turned to look at her, my hand poised over Karl’s wound, ready to poke it with his gun again.
“I know where he’s got her. I know where your mother is.”
The first question was what to do with Karl. I knew he wouldn’t die from blood loss, but shock could still become an issue. I didn’t want to be a party to his murder, even if he was a monster. Spending the last couple years of my life chasing other people’s demons had helped keep mine in check. Seeing the destruction other people wreaked helped me stay, if not honest, at least relatively ethical. And I especially didn’t want him dying in my living room.
“Karl. Kendra and I are going to take a little drive. I think it would be in your best interest to come along.”
“Why would I do that?” he asked.
“Would you rather stay here?”
His eyes shifted back and forth between Kendra and me. I could tell he was weighing his options. I figured, deep down, he still thought he could turn things around with her, even if she had shot him. She hadn’t killed him after all. Maybe in their line of work a gunshot wound was a sign of affection.
“Fine,” he said.
“Let’s get him into the back of my car,” I said, taking a page from his own playbook. I didn’t have a trunk, but I could still fit him in the space between the backseat and the hatchback.
Karl started to argue when I opened up the back to help him in, but one look at the giant dog in the backseat and he curled himself up small enough to fit.
I took it for granted Kendra would go along with my plan, and it didn’t occur to her she didn’t have to. She seemed to be a woman used to taking orders, and while I might not typically reinforce that kind of behavior, for now I would use it to my advantage.
“This is for your own safety,” I said as I duct-taped his hands and legs together. He might have tried to say something, but I slapped the tape over his mouth so I wouldn’t hear it.
I covered him with the beach towel that had been on the dog and Kendra and I got into the front, where she could navigate me through the streets of Bellingham. Sunrise wouldn’t be for another hour, so I wasn’t worried about anyone seeing my strange cargo in the back.
The dog continued to lie quietly in the backseat. Once this was sorted out, I’d have to figure out what to do with him. He didn’t have a collar on, but someone must be missing that enormous fuzzy face.
“Tell me about Karl’s other partners in crime,” I said, putting questions about the dog on a back burner. I also cranked up the heat again. I’d grabbed a coat out of the closet on the way out the door, but I was still dressed in shorts and shower shoes. I guess I wasn’t thinking as clearly as I should be, knowing Chava was running out of time.
“I have no idea who it could be,” Kendra replied, pointing to a street coming up. “Right turn there.”
“Don’t hold out on me now, Kendra,” I said, taking the corner slow enough not to jostle Karl too badly or throw the dog to the floor.
“I’m serious, Eddie. Karl never worked with a partner, except me.”
“And Deirdre,” I said.
“Right. Her.” I caught a glimpse of Kendra’s face before she turned away, looking out the window.
“Jealous?”
“What? No. Why would you say that?”
“Something in your tone of voice just now.”
Kendra didn’t respond.
“Do you think he’s lying?” I asked, shifting gears. “About someone holding a gun to my mother’s head?”
“It’s possible.”
I was better off assuming there was someone else with my mother I’d have to disarm to get her safely away. I wished I wasn’t going into this situation so blind. Maybe I’d get lucky and find Chava alone. We continued the rest of the trip in silence, each caught up with our own thoughts, broken only by Kendra’s directions and the occasional grumble from the back of the car that could have been either Karl or the dog—I couldn’t tell which.
“We’re almost there,” Kendra said after the last turn. “On the right.”
Driving past the building Kendra pointed out, I turned around at the end of the next block and pulled up out of sight of anyone inside. I could see why Kendra thought of this place. It had been a coffee roaster in a previous life. Hot and wet would make sense in Chava’s mind. And it definitely fit the “up all night” bit. The Sound Coffee Company’s sign still hung above the door, but windows covered in brown paper showed it had been a long time since coffee beans were roasted behind these walls.
“I didn’t see this listed in his properties,” I said, eyeing the building through the trees that screened it from a distance.
“It’s probably not listed by the coffee company,” Kendra explained. “That was a renter; it would have been listed under retail.”
“How did you know it was here?”
Kendra hesitated. My guess was telling me the truth would incriminate her in some way.
“Look, Kendra, I don’t care what scams the two of you have been involved with; I just want my mother safe. The more you can tell me, the better prepared I am when I storm that building. If she dies, you’re guilty as an accomplice after the fact. Do you really want that hanging over your head?”
I gave her a moment to think about it. If I pushed her too hard I might get nothing useful.
“I went with Karl, after he moved here, to see what holdings Christopher Leeds had.”
“Who is Christopher Leeds? Just a made-up name?”
“No. He’s a real person. He doesn’t live in the area so no one knows what he actually looks like. The real Christopher Leeds is ancient, and dying. Karl stole his identity, and then came out here and used it to make a little cash.”
“How did he make money stealing the guy’s identity?”
“Easy,” Kendra said, shaking her head like anyone should see this. “Leeds had automatic deposits for most of his properties, so Karl just chose a few, which he contacted pretending to be Leeds with new account information. The renter doesn’t have any reason to suspect it’s someone else using Leeds’s name, so they just change the account they deposit to.”
“Doesn’t Leeds notice he no longer has any money coming in from that renter?”
“He’s so ill, probably not. Karl does his research. He sends a thirty-day notice to vacate to Leeds, along with another address to send the deposit back to, as if it’s coming from the renter. So Leeds thinks the account is closed. Thirty days later, the renter sends the rent to the new bank account, which Karl set up, and the money is deposited there. He can usually keep a scam like that going for a couple months, and there’s almost no way to trace him. He has the money immediately forwarded by wire into another bank account, owned by some shell company he’s created. There are so many fake names on top of fake names it would take forever to track it all down. And you’d have to care enough to do it. Taken renter by renter, it’s not much money, but adding it all together, it’s a lot.”
“How much income are we talking about?”
“Several thousand dollars a month.” Kendra shrugged as if that meant little. “Commercial real estate is a mess right now. No one who holds as many properties as Leeds does would be too wound up about a few, smaller retail places in low-rent areas sitting empty. Even if he was healthy, it’s doubtful he’d rush to fill the spaces. Karl keeps an eye on Leeds, in case he makes a move to look into anything, but with someone like Leeds it can go on even longer. He’ll probably die soon and his estate will be in probate for months. Karl does his homework really well.” There was a certain annoying pride in Kendra’s voice. “He picked someone without a clear heir. The extended family will be fighting for years. No one will know what’s rented to whom or who owns what.”
“Jandyce versus Jandyce.”
“What?”
“Dickens?”
Kendra continued to look blank.
“Bleak House. The endless lawsuit where no one makes out except the barristers?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I guessed Kendra’s education didn’t include a lot of English Literature.
“Did you see the inside?” I asked, giving up on the Charles Dickens reference.
“I did. It’s still full of coffee roasting equipment and espresso machines, things like that. Another way the scam makes money is Karl sells anything of value left behind in a vacated property; he was thinking about liquidating out here.”
“How does he get around not having the keys to any of these empty buildings?”
“Karl’s got an entire locksmith operation set up in a van he keeps elsewhere. He just rekeys any property he needs to get into. When he’s dressed in a locksmith uniform, no one thinks twice about it. He’s not the type you notice. He’s invisible. People change locks on newly vacated businesses all the time.”
Thousands of dollars a month? I was in the wrong business. I even had a head start since I owned those fancy lock picks of mine. Except, I wasn’t a thief. Or a murderer. Burglar, yes, but I never actually took anything after I broke in. Well, except for Leeds’s files. I guess I did technically steal those, except the circumstances were dire. I thought Kendra was being held against her will. And they weren’t really Leeds’s files, since Leeds was really Karl Turner, who was a criminal, right?
Pushing thoughts of the ethical nature of my own behavior out of my head for now, I brought my attention back to where we thought Karl might have hidden my mother.
“Is there a back entrance?”
“Yes,” Kendra said. “There’s a back door, no windows, that leads out to the alley behind the building.”
Kendra went on to describe as much of the layout of the inside as she could remember. Thinking about what she told me, I guessed Karl would have Chava in the back, in the storeroom. It would be the most secure part of the building, and no one would hear her from outside.
The question of the day, however, was whether or not Chava was in there alone. She might have been when they arrived, but someone else had been brought in after the phone call to me.
“You stay here,” I said to Kendra as I got out of the car.
“Okay,” she said meekly. “What if there’s someone else in there, and he comes out and sees me?”
“Stay down,” I said. “If I’m not back soon, call the police.”
“I don’t have a cell.”
I debated giving her mine, but what if I needed it?
“There’s a gas station a few miles back. Drive there if you have to and use the pay phone.”
I popped open the hatch to take a quick look at Karl, who rolled his eyes at me and made whiny noises. I didn’t really care what he had to say at this point, so I ignored him. At least he was still breathing and wasn’t going to die from shock anytime soon. The giant, gray mass of fur sat up enough to look over the edge of the backseat at me, but he just plopped back down. I guess having a safe, dry car felt like heaven after being outside on the waterfront all night.
I left the keys in my ignition, hoping Kendra wouldn’t just drive away as soon I disappeared from view. She was the only hope I had if things went sideways. I’d thought about waking Iz, then remembered she was spending a long weekend up in the San Juan Islands. The list of friends I could count on pretty sparse. I thought about Chance Parker too, but that would be even more complicated. Plus, he’d do everything by the book and for me Chava’s safety came first, meaning we could end up wanting different things.
If I survived the night, maybe I should think about finding a few more friends.
Moving through the trees, I came up on the building from the west side. With only a few windows high up, I wouldn’t be seen by anyone inside. I crept around back and surveyed the door. It was just as Kendra described it: two dumpsters sat not far away—one for garbage, one for recycling. There were no windows, only a single door to the right and a rolling door to the left.
I considered sneaking around to the front of the building to peer through one of the covered windows. However, the chances were better that I would be seen by someone inside rather than actually doing myself any good.
I’d just have to go through the back door and hope for the best.
At the back door, I studied the locks. Luckily they didn’t pose any serious challenge, and I had them picked and open in less than a minute. I held my breath as I slowly opened the door a crack and peered inside.
The room was a dark cavern. Despite the sky growing light outside, it was even darker than the warehouse because there were fewer windows. Nothing stirred, and at least this time everything wasn’t covered in pigeon droppings. I opened the door just wide enough to slide in and closed it behind me. Standing with my back to the door, I slowed my breathing and listened but heard nothing. The only thing to alert my senses was the smell of coffee beans. I pulled my gun and the extra penlight I’d retrieved from my glove box—my good one having sunk to the bottom of the bay along with my coat and Swiss army knife—and checked out the room I was in.
Large vats and shiny aluminum machinery filled the room. Clearly this was where the roasting was done, with the front area reserved for the coffee shop. The storeroom/office combination Kendra described would be in front of me to the right.
I made my way across roughly twenty feet of open floor without tripping and falling into a vat. The door didn’t have a lock, but I placed my ear against it and listened again.
Still nothing.
Holding my breath, I edged the door open.
Still dead quiet.
Good news or bad?
Swinging the door open I thanked the hinge gods nothing squeaked or gave away my presence. It was so quiet. Was I even in the right place? Shining my flashlight around, I could see tall storage racks on either side of me.
Was Chava being held somewhere else?
Maybe Kendra had distracted me long enough to take off with Karl and my car. I stopped for a moment, frozen. Should I go back out and see if they were still there?
I’d come this far. I decided to commit and hope for the best. How far could Kendra get in a stolen car, a guy with a gunshot wound stashed in the back?
“And your dog,” a little voice in my head said.
Where did that voice come from? He wasn’t my dog. I’m not a dog person.
Was I?
Willing my feet to move, I shined my flashlight in front of me again. I could see another closed door at the far end. No light showed from underneath. If anyone occupied the room, they were sitting in the dark. Leaning against it, I caught the faint sound of movement.
Someone was on the other side.
The only thing I had going for me was surprise, so I decided to take my chances. I pushed the door open as fast as I could, pointing my gun in front of me and shining my light wildly around the room. It landed on my mother’s face. Fear showed in her eyes, the whites wide and the pupils tiny. Her mouth covered with duct tape, she made noises as if she might be screaming behind the makeshift gag.
No one else inhabited the room with her, so maybe I had gotten lucky and Karl was lying about having a partner. Rushing to Chava’s side, I went to pull the tape off and saw someone had placed handcuffs on her wrists and bound her legs with more duct tape.
I wish I’d paid a little more attention to Chava’s expression, however, because I wouldn’t have been quite so surprised when the lights burst on and a voice behind me told me to drop the gun.
I wasn’t sure if the surprise was because someone else really was there, or because I recognized who it was even before I turned around.