“You think he’s involved?” Ty asked Lock, as they stood in the cavernous front hallway waiting for the cops to arrive.
Li was in the kitchen doorway, breaking the worsening news to his boss in China. It was one call that Lock was grateful he hadn’t had to make. If he knew anything about very wealthy self-made men, Li should count himself fortunate that he had an ocean between himself and his employer.
Ty’s question was a good one. It had been at the front of Lock’s mind even before they had seen Emily and Charlie being jacked and driven off in their own car.
As Li’s conversation with Emily’s father grew increasingly agitated Lock nudged his partner. “We should get this on camera.”
“Already on it,” said Ty, who had his cell phone held casually down by his side, the lens tilted toward Li.
“He knows something, and he’s not sharing it. But I don’t know what that is.” Lock shrugged.
“Or we’re reading too much into it?”
“That’s possible too,” said Lock.
Assumptions were dangerous. At any time, but especially this early on. They could send you hurtling down blind alleys and smashing into dead ends without you even realizing it. They ate up valuable time. And in cases like this time was the enemy. The longer Charlie and Emily were gone, the more likely it was that bad things would happen.
“Why did he wait to watch what was on the cameras?” said Ty.
“We need to press him on that.”
“Or let the cops?” ventured Ty.
“No, we need to do it. The cops aren’t going to share anything with us,” said Lock.
“Not with me, you mean,” said Ty.
Ty’s recent intervention in the armed siege in Long Beach hadn’t exactly enamored him to law enforcement. It was understandable.
Despite that, Lock was certain he had made the right call. A crime had been committed and law enforcement had the proper power and resources to deal with it. He and Ty could run something in parallel. Lock was still figuring out what that would entail, if anything.
There was an argument that they had done precisely what they should have done. Perhaps it was enough to work out what had happened and hand it over. It wouldn’t pay the bills, but doing the right thing rarely did.
“We should stick around until they get here,” said Lock. “We can bring them up to speed. Then I guess it’s up to our client here to decide if we stay onboard.”
“He wasn’t very happy about you making him call the cops.”
“I wouldn’t read too much into that, Ty. Where he comes from, you call the cops and tell them someone stole your Lamborghini and they want to know where you got the money to buy a Lamborghini.”
“Point taken.”
They lapsed back into silence. They could hear sirens, first in the distance, then closer.
“You think those kids are okay?” Lock asked his partner.
“I think it all depends on just how smart or dumb those gang members are.”
“What do you mean?” said Lock.
“If they’re dumb they could try to get an extra pay day. Run a K and R.”
K and R meant “kidnap for ransom”. It was common in some countries. Big business, even. But not in the United States where law enforcement was way too sophisticated and uncorrupted, and the price was life, without the possibility of parole, if you were caught.
The kidnap part was easy enough, as the gang had just proved. They had stumbled straight into one. The ransom part, the actual collecting, without being detected or the money traced, was far harder. America wasn’t fertile ground for that part of the crime.
“This looks way beyond their pay grade,” said Lock.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” said Ty.
“So if they’re smart?”
“If they’re truly smart,” said Ty, “those two kids are already face down in the Pacific.”