61

My arm shook as if it belonged to someone else. Hempel’s sad eyes told me I hadn’t misunderstood. “He has my whole family?”

“Every police officer in San Diego is looking for them.” Something about his sandpaper voice told me how bad it was. “They’re still alive. I’m sure of it.”

I had to focus. Put thoughts together. Gather ideas into words. “How do you know?”

“This guy never does anything fast.” He started the car.

The Preying Hands always had a conversation. He made his victims suffer. Frieda and Garth. Then Jill. I pushed open the door and vomited.

When I swung back inside, Hempel held out a pack of gum. “Take one. It settles your stomach.” He shook out a piece. His stubbled head nodded.

I grabbed the gum, unwrapped the paper, and shoved it into my mouth. The cloying minty taste jolted me. But my mind still swirled drunkenly.

Hempel pulled the phone from his pocket and answered. “Got it,” he said and hung up. He gunned the engine and pulled the car onto the road. “There’s a special unit. We’re meeting them at the station in fifteen minutes. Massy won’t get far.”

I looked back at the iron gate and stucco walls, at the gabled roofs. I should have suspected something. Why hadn’t I seen it? “You said Jill got a text. How could she? Mike’s phone would have been locked.”

“Lund thinks Massy drugged Mike somehow. He used Mike’s index finger to open the phone and sent the text. Jill would have recognized her father’s car and gone to it without thinking. Maybe she saw him in the front seat and didn’t know he was unconscious.”

I could imagine the rest. Massy must have forced them into his own vehicle, something no one could identify. Maybe a green van like the Preying Hands had used. He’d shoved Jill and the kids inside.

My whole body was shivering. I tried to still it but couldn’t stop the shaking. “Where would he take them?” My voice came out a croak.

Hempel stared through the windshield at the winding road. “Someplace quiet. Out of the way where no one can see.”

Someplace quiet. Quiet so he … I couldn’t think about that. Maybe a building. One where he’d set up everything he needed. Oh my God. I forced the images from my mind. I had to wall off those thoughts.

“Go to the bank,” I said.

“You think he’s there?”

I shook my head. I knew what we had to do. The plan made the rest of my thoughts fall into place. I bit harder on the gum. “There’s a reason he shredded his financial statements. The statements have the addresses of the buildings he owns.”

Hempel nodded. “The bank has copies.”

I snatched out my cell phone and called Bob to tell him what we wanted. Hempel switched on the siren and for ten minutes I listened to it wail inside my head. The two reporters outside the bank must have heard it. They ran to us and I shoved them aside. I had a key to the first floor’s back door. We ran down the hallway.

On the tenth floor, Bob waited for us in the boardroom. He’d already spread the financial, tax, and trust statements over the mahogany table. There were hundreds of pages.

I picked up the credit file and said, “Bob, you can leave now. As far as you know, I’m just helping you land this client.”

Bob looked at Hempel.

“I’m a detective,” Hempel said.

Bob winced. Everyone did when they first heard Hempel’s phlegm-filled voice. “You can’t give this stuff to the police,” Bob said. “You need a court order. If Massy gets off he’ll sue the bank. He’ll sue you for every stick you own.”

“He’s got my wife and kids.”

Bob swallowed. He slipped off his suit jacket, loosened his silk tie. “What’s the plan?”

“He probably has a preferred place he uses over and over,” Hempel said. “Somewhere he can keep all his tools.”

“Are you sure it’s Massy?” Bob said.

Hempel’s eyes blazed. “Listen, Bob. As long as you’re here, I’d like you to do me a favor. Leave your fucking doubts for later, okay? Can you do that?”

Bob nodded.

I spotted the storage facility. It was in the town of Julian, about an hour and a half outside San Diego. He could hide in any of its units.

“It’s harder to get a warrant for Julian,” Hempel said.

Bob leafed through another stack and found the rent roll. “We’ve got bigger problems than that,” he said. “There are 183 renters of storage units.”

Hempel slammed his palm and the whole table shook. “I’ll need a warrant for every goddamn one of those.”

I scanned down the names on the rent roll. Nothing popped out. I moved on to the income statement for the C corporation that owned the facility. Just standard revenue designations: leases, cleaning, locks, special services.

I jumped to my feet and paced to the cabinet at the end of the room. Think.

“Look at the expenses,” Bob said.

The bottom portion of the statement showed a purchase of a Handlon Custom Model 806 T-12 unit. Hempel googled it on his phone. “It’s a heavy duty refrigerator,” he said. “Mainly for restaurants.”

“It could be for foodstuffs,” Bob said. “Julian is apple country. Or maybe it’s for wine. There are a lot of vacation cottages in that part of the mountains.”

I pushed my arm into the table to stop it from shaking. “He doesn’t use it for food.”

“What are Halsey Eco Green Tech panels?” Bob asked.

Hempel googled them. “Wall panels used in recording studios. Soundproofing.”

He passed me another piece of gum. I tore off the paper and crammed it into my mouth. I dug my fingers into my scalp. There had to be a clue. Massy had destroyed his home copies for a reason.

Hempel jerked to his feet. He strode to the window, his jaw hacking at the gum. “I suppose we could surround the storage complex.”

“What happens to my family then?”

I flipped through the piles again. Pages and pages slapping onto the mahogany table. The name 928LLC sounded vaguely familiar. It was a limited partnership. I grabbed the rent roll and ran my finger down the 183 names. 928LLC rented unit number 111. A map of the building was jammed into the credit file. I found unit 111—one of the large deluxe ones at the far end. 928LLC. 9-28. I knew then. “My father was arrested on September 28,” I said.

“Yes!” Hempel hurried back to the table. “I’ll bet this unit has a refrigerator and soundproofing.”

I couldn’t think about that. I couldn’t think about screams, or cameras on tripods, or the grinding squeals of power tools. It was nearly three thirty. Massy’d had my family for four hours. “How fast can you drive to Julian?” I asked Hempel.

“Let’s go,” Hempel said.

We ran out of the bank to the hallway. But only one elevator was working. While we waited, Hempel telephoned the Sheriff’s Department in Julian. He was calling Lund when my cell phone rang.

There was no caller ID. I closed my eyes and tried to slow my heart. When I answered, I only heard his breathing.

“Is this my private banker?” No electronic distortion this time.

Hempel must have seen my body go rigid. He twirled his index finger: Keep him talking.

“Where …” My voice cracked. “Where are you?”

“Why don’t I hear that famous banker charm? No ‘How are you doing?’ or ‘So nice to hear from you?’ You know, we could have been brothers, you and I. But alas, I can only give people eyesight … not vision.”

Hempel mouthed words: Meet him.

“I want to meet you.”

“Of course, you do.” Massy laughed. “But you have to be a good little banker, all right? Here’s what you’re going to do. Go home and wait for instructions on your landline. As of now, no one has been hurt.”

“What do you want? Tell me your demands.”

He laughed. “One more thing. Let’s save the investigators some time. The blood on my kitchen table is O positive.”

Jill’s blood type.

He giggled. “Guess what? It’s not Jill.” He disconnected.

What was Polly’s blood type? Or Mama’s? My God, Garth and Frieda.

Hempel’s big hand gripped my shoulder. His eyes bore into mine. All I saw were those terrible hairbrush eyebrows.

“He wants you to panic. That’s how he controls you. Don’t let him.”

The elevator doors opened. We stepped inside and the doors slowly closed. As we rode to the basement I related the conversation. We both knew that Massy couldn’t keep my family alive for long. He had to tie them up and the children would start to cry. They’d need water. They’d need a bathroom.

The elevator reached the main floor and we hurried into the hallway. As we jogged toward the back exit Hempel said, “The Sheriff’s Department in Julian texted me. They’re on their way.”

“But as soon as he sees them he’s going to—”

“They’ll do it quietly. No sirens, just unmarked cars. The FBI helicopter will land miles away. He’ll never hear it.”

“We have to get there before they do anything.”

Hempel stopped. Grabbed my arm. “You think you can go in there and save your family? Be smart, William. Be smarter than him.”

“What the fuck do you think I’m doing?”

“Go home and wait for his call. You’re a banker, you know how to talk. So talk to him.”

Was I supposed to just sit at home and wait?

“Blake will brief you,” Hempel said. “He’ll meet you right here by the door.”

“Where are you going?”

“To Julian. Kevin and me, we’ll make sure this gets done right.”