THE SWAT planners had made a good choice. The house was an old canyon cabin isolated by a curve in the road. It had probably been built in the twenties as a hunting lodge and later expanded, but it hadn’t been maintained in years. Jonna’s white Neon was parked beside it. The man who brought it was inside the house, where Jonna would wait until Levy was spotted. When the surveillance elements identified Levy, they would radio the man in the house. Then it was up to Jonna. All she had to do was let Levy see her so he would know she was present. Once Jonna was safely back inside the house, the rest would be up to me.
They dropped us by the Neon, then quickly drove away.
I said, “Don’t look around for the surveillance teams. You won’t see them, but someone might see you looking for them.”
“What happens if he doesn’t come?”
“We’ll be bored. You’d better get in the house. If he sees me out here with you, we’re screwed.”
I waited until she was inside, then moved into a gnarled clump of scrub oak on the opposite side of her car. If Levy stopped anywhere at the front of the house, I would be able to approach him without being seen. I wanted to surprise him.
I settled in to wait. Levy would come or not. Might be ten minutes, or never. The occasional car passed without slowing. Local residents. Construction workers. First-time hikers trying to find the park who took the wrong turn. None of them was Levy. I listened to thrushes and mockingbirds. None of them was Levy, either.
The trees whispered behind me, followed by a voice that wasn’t much louder.
Pike said, “Good spot.”
He settled onto the earth beside me.
I said, “Marx is really pissed right now. I’m wired.”
“You think I’m trusting someone else to cover your back?”
We fell silent. Marx would be cursing. He would be livid, but the blond plus-one would be trying not to laugh.
Jonna Hill stepped out of the house eight minutes later and went to the Neon. That was my signal and also the bait. A brown Dodge sedan crept around the curve, slowing to look. Levy was hunched over the wheel. He slowed even more when he saw Jonna, and stopped in the middle of the street. His head swiveled, searching the area.
Jonna stepped away from the Neon. She wasn’t supposed to go into the house until he got out of his car, and didn’t. Her lips moved as she studied the Dodge. She was singing again. Da-da-daa, da-da-daa.
The three sniper teams would be on him with telescopic sights, ready to rock if a gun appeared. If any of them saw a gun, that shooter would touch off a .30-caliber round traveling at 2600 feet per second. We didn’t want him dead. We wanted him alive, but that’s the way it would be if he made the wrong move.
The Dodge swung in a lazy arc and parked directly between Jonna and me. Levy got out, no more than a car length from her and two lengths from me. His coat and pants were wrinkled, as if he had been sleeping in them.
Pike sighed a whisper.
“Perfect.”
Jonna did not return to the house. She should have immediately gone inside, but she didn’t.
She said, “How did you find me?”
Levy responded as if this was the most natural moment in the world.
“You had me worried. Why didn’t you answer?”
I slipped from the trees, and he didn’t hear me until I was directly behind him.
I said, “Worried about what, Alan?”
He stumbled sideways so dramatically I thought he would fall, then spun in a panicked circle. I held up my hands, showing my palms and taking a step back.
“Don’t have a stroke. Everything’s cool. How’d it go at Leverage?”
When he realized he was still alive, he pulled himself together. He glanced past me to see if anyone else was coming, then at Jonna, then up and down the street. Frightened.
“The meeting got canceled.”
“Good. We have a lot to talk about. Jonna, why don’t you go inside, give us a chance to talk?”
Jonna said, “No.”
Levy glanced at Jonna with bug eyes. Jonna had moved closer. She was staring at him, and I didn’t like the way she was staring. Marx wouldn’t like it, either. The snipers would have a more difficult time with Jonna outside.
Levy said, “I can talk to her alone. You didn’t have to wait.”
I edged toward Jonna, trying to put myself between her and Levy, but Levy backed away. He hooked his thumbs on his belt under his jacket. I didn’t see a gun, but the shooters would be on high alert.
“Yeah, I did, Alan. My new best friend here, Jonna, and I have already talked. I know what happened.”
Levy glanced at her again and continued backing away.
“I don’t understand.”
“Of course you do. Killing Lionel Byrd.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Alan, please. I caught you in one lie when you drove up. You told me you never met this girl, but you asked her why she hadn’t answered, you told her she had you worried.”
“I didn’t say anything like that. You must have misheard.”
Jonna said, “Yes, you did.”
I took a step after him, trying to keep up the pressure. I wanted Levy focused on me, not her, and I was still trying to get between them.
“Here’s what’s going to happen—you can pay me to keep your filthy little secrets, or we’ll go to the police. I’m thinking two million dollars, one for her, one for me. Sound good?”
Levy glanced up and down the street again as if he sensed the police were watching and knew he was being recorded.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t understand why you’re trying to do this, but I’m leaving—”
He suddenly veered toward the Dodge, and then Jonna said something that stopped both of us.
“I taped you, Alan.”
Fear played over his face as his eyes bulged.
“The day you gave me the pictures of the dead girls, I had a tape recorder under my shirt. I gave it to him. I let him listen.”
Jonna pointed at me. She had never mentioned a recording, had not given a recording to me, and the police had not found such a recording in her possessions. I wondered if she knew she was lying. I wondered if she believed it.
“Go in the house, Jonna. Alan and I will work it out.”
She didn’t go into the house. She moved toward him.
“Two million dollars isn’t enough.”
Levy wet his lips. He looked from me to Jonna, then back to me, and his hands went back to his belt.
He said, “How much do you want?”
We had him with those words. Alan Levy had demonstrated knowledge and awareness of the pictures by negotiating with us. We had him, and Marx would now be issuing commands to effect the arrest, but then Jonna said something else.
“There isn’t enough.”
Jonna took a knee as if bending to tie her shoe, then came up like a sprinter out of the blocks with what we would later confirm was a rat-tail file she had palmed when she stumbled into the tool rack in the surveillance van. She went for his neck, hitting him so hard she knocked him backwards into the Dodge and onto the ground.
Everyone had been so concerned Levy might kill Jonna, it never occurred to us she would kill him.
The shooter teams crashed from their hides, but they were far away and unable to shoot with the three of us clumped together. Pike burst out of the trees. I grabbed Jonna from behind, but she had wrapped herself around Levy, stabbing him in the neck and the face and the head. I caught her arm to pry her away, but that’s when I heard the popping, and then Joe Pike shouting.
“Gun!”
Levy had a small black pistol pressed deep into her belly and made a high, keening sound as he shot her. He pulled the trigger as fast as he could.
Jonna suddenly stepped back. I pushed her aside, then moved for the gun, but Levy had already dropped it. He was holding the bloody rag of his neck with both hands when Pike slammed into him.
Jonna stumbled backwards, sat down, then burped a red mist. I tore off my shirt and pressed it onto her belly as the SWAT guys swarmed over us.
“Hang on, Jonna. Hang on. Keep breathing.”
I don’t think she saw me. Her mouth was set in the determined line, but something in her eyes had changed. The seeds of anger were softer. I’m not sure, but I like to think so. I hope so.
Jonna Hill died as the paramedics arrived.