Damage Control Read online

  The engine whimpered like a beaten dog. Then it died.

  She pumped the gas pedal and tried again. The engine groaned. She pumped the gas pedal repeatedly, her father’s voice admonishing her from the recesses of her mind. Don’t flood the engine. Don’t flood the engine.

  She turned the key again and again, urging the engine to kick over. Each time it failed. Then there was only the clicking of a dead battery.

  “No. Goddammit!” She slapped the steering wheel, threw herself back against the seat, and saw the man standing outside the window of her car.

  35

  THE MAN RAISED his arms as if under arrest, a pained expression on his face. Dana reached into the glove compartment and pulled out the canister of mace.

  “I’m sorry.” He spoke through the glass. “I didn’t mean to startle you again. I heard your car struggling.” Dana tried to appear in control but fought a bile taste in her mouth, as if her stomach were close to emptying its contents on the floorboards. “It sounds like a dead battery. I have jumper cables. Would you like a jump?”

  She scanned the parking lot, a strange yellow-orange from the encapsulated lights. She saw no one. She had her cell phone in her purse but knew that at this hour, road service could take an hour or longer. She could call the police and tell them… tell them what? That a man was asking her if she needed assistance jump-starting her car?

  He waited patiently. His eyes were bloodshot and tired.

  He’s trying to help. Your imagination is making you paranoid. The events of the day have worn you thin. You have a dead battery. He’s just being kind.

  Maybe. She kept the Mace in her hand and opened the car door.

  “I understand if you’re nervous.” The man reached into his back pocket, pulled out his wallet, and removed a business card. “My name is Fred Jeffries. I’m an attorney, though I wouldn’t want you to hold that against me.” He smiled. “Here’s my card.”

  Dana recognized the business as a large insurance defense firm with a downtown office. She knew several lawyers there. She wanted to laugh but could not bring herself to do so.

  “I don’t mean to keep startling you,” Jeffries said, continuing to flog himself.

  “You just surprised me,” she said. “I’m wound a bit tight tonight.”

  “I don’t blame you.” She could see, with his suit jacket off, that Jeffries had a belly. He looked anything but menacing. “I have a wife and two teenage daughters who I wish were a bit more careful. In this day and age, you can’t be too cautious; you really don’t know who you can trust.” He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Listen to me. I’m probably scaring you even more.”

  “No. I’m fine now.”

  He turned his attention to her car. “Mind if I give it a try? It sounds like you have a dead battery.”

  Dana stepped back to allow Jeffries to squeeze between the door and the adjacent car. He lifted a leg up into the cab and held the steering wheel to climb into the driver’s seat, sitting at the edge to reach the pedals.

  “I tried not to flood it,” Dana said, trying to sound knowledgeable.

  He waved her off. “Forget flooding it. These all have electric ignitions and fuel injection. Don’t need to even hit the gas pedal.” He turned the key. The engine clicked. “That’s a battery, all right.” He shut off the key and sat back, his hands apart as he examined the dash. “Here’s your problem.” Dana leaned inside, and Jeffries sat back to show her. “You left the lights on.”

  Dana felt like an idiot. “They encourage you to drive with your lights on now.” She shook her head. “I was in a hurry this morning, getting to the airport.”

  “It happens all the time.” Jeffries climbed down from the seat. “Actually, that’s good news. It means there’s nothing wrong with the battery. It’s just drained, but it should hold a charge. I have jumper cables. Road service can take hours this time of the night. I know. I’ve been through this.” He pointed. “I’m parked just a couple of stalls down this same row.”

  “I’d really appreciate it.”

  He looked around the front of her car. “You lucked out. You have an open space in front of you. Let me pull my car around. We’ll have you out of here in no time.”

  Dana reached inside the car for her travel bag and pulled out her cell phone, suddenly curious to see if Grant had called. She watched Fred Jeffries hurry down the aisle and disappear from view as he lowered himself into his car. A moment later, she heard an engine and watched a blue BMW back from a stall and drive around the end of the aisle. Linda had left her three messages: In the last, Marvin Crocket demanded she call him. Jeffries drove up the aisle one over and pulled into the stall in front of the Explorer. Dana directed him with hand signals until his bumper was just inches from a waist-high concrete barrier separating the row of cars. He bounced out of his car, now fully enveloped in his knight-in-shining-armor role. He left the engine of the BMW running and waved to indicate that everything was going to be okay. Then he opened the trunk and reappeared carrying black and red jumper cables.

  “Do you think they’ll reach?” Dana asked. She listened to the final message, her mother confirming she had picked up Molly. There was no call from Grant. She contemplated calling his hotel room again, just to unnerve him.

  Jeffries squeezed through a small gap between the concrete barrier and a concrete pillar. “We’ll make it work. Hopefully, our batteries are on the same side,” he said, as if talking about kidneys.

  Dana shut off her phone and put it back in her travel bag. She had no doubt this was not the first time Fred Jeffries had played the Good Samaritan. “I really have to thank you for doing this.”

  Jeffries dismissed it. He stood at the front of her car, rolling up his shirtsleeves. “The latch for the hood should be on the left, under the dash.” He pointed to the cab of her car.

  Dana reached inside and pulled the knob under the dash toward her, hearing the hood pop open. “I hope you’ll let me take you to lunch,” she said, emerging. “You’ve been so kind.”

  “I’m always interested in going to lunch, though I wouldn’t allow you to pay. I just like the company of nice people, especially after days like today.” Jeffries opened the hood of the Explorer. He studied the battery for a moment. “You wouldn’t happen to have a flashlight, would you?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  He stood on his toes. “These things are pretty standard. Red is positive. Black is negative.” He continued studying the battery. “Huh. You seem to have an extra cable. Never seen that before.”

  “Is it going to be a problem?”

  Jeffries shook his head. “Shouldn’t. It’s probably a ground of some sort. They’re all overloaded with power locks and windows and air-conditioning. Can’t even find the spark plugs anymore. The main thing is you want to get a good set on the connection. Your battery looks almost new; we should have you out of here in a minute.” He connected the jumper cables to both batteries, then brushed his hands. “You might have to get in my car and rev the engine a bit. You don’t want to floor it, but sometimes you have to give it some juice.”

  The concrete barrier gave her little room. She walked through the gap and stood on the other side. Jeffries climbed into the seat and held up two crossed fingers. The battery kicked and whined, but the engine did not start. Jeffries leaned out the side of her car. “Okay, rev the engine a bit,” he said, indicating the BMW.

  She nodded, walking behind the concrete pillar as Jeffries turned the key. She heard the engine whine, gain momentum, and kick over with a deafening roar.

  36

  SHE LAY ON her back, staring up at the roof of a car. A woman leaned over her, talking. Dana’s head felt like it was splitting down the middle. When she tried to sit up, the woman put a hand firmly on her chest. Dana felt something over her mouth and nose and tried to remove it. The woman grabbed her hand. “You’re in an ambulance. We’re transporting you to the hospital. Do you feel pain anywhere? What about your chest? Are you hav
ing trouble breathing?”

  She was wearing a mask. She felt the cool flow of oxygen. Though she heard the woman speaking, her mind was not assimilating the information. She recalled hearing a loud roar and feeling a rush of energy, as if she were being pushed from behind by a huge wave. It had knocked her forward, swept her up, and dropped her violently to the concrete.

  “That cement barrier and pillar took most of the force,” the woman said. Dana reached up and felt a bandage across her forehead. “You struck your head pretty good. I’m afraid we couldn’t find your shoes.” Dana looked down at her bare feet. She had gauze wrapped around her lower legs. The synapses in her brain continued to trigger memories. She recalled being facedown, feeling the cold concrete against her cheek, shards of metal and crystals of glass raining from the sky amid a deafening cacophony of bells, beeps, and whistles in the airport garage. There had been sirens.

  The paramedic pulled open Dana’s eyelids and shone a bright light in her eyes. “I’m checking the dilation of your pupils.” The powerful light blinded her. “Are you having any blurred vision?”

  Dana’s neck felt stiff and sore. She remembered the man, the Good Samaritan. Fred Jeffries. “The man in the car,” she mumbled through the mask.

  The paramedic shook her head. “Are you having any trouble breathing, any discomfort in your chest?”

  Dana put her head back against the pillows. “The man in the car,” she said again, her voice muffled.

  “Just try to relax,” the woman said.

  Tears rolled from the corners of Dana’s eyes, diverted by the plastic cinched tightly to her face. The ambulance slowed and turned. Out the back window, Dana saw a sign for the emergency entrance to Highline Community Hospital in Burien. The ambulance stopped beneath a covered entry. The back doors were flung open. Two paramedics pulled the stretcher out the back, revealing a gunmetal-gray sky. “My bag?” Dana asked, panicked.

  The female paramedic reached into the ambulance and handed it to her. “It’s right here. Nobody was going to take that from you. You had a death grip on it when we arrived.”

  MICHAEL LOGAN HURRIED down the hall, nearly jogging. During their short telephone conversation, Dana had said only that there had been an explosion and she was in the hospital. She did not want to call her mother. Would Logan come? From the tone of her voice, Logan sensed there was something more, something Dana was not going to tell him over the telephone. Two minutes after hanging up, he pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and threw his leather jacket into the Austin Healey.

  When he reached the door to her hospital room, he knocked twice before pushing it open. She sat upright in the bed with a piece of gauze across her forehead. Though she looked battered and bruised, she was in better shape than his mind had conjured on the drive to the hospital. A nurse stood taking her temperature and blood pressure. Dana smiled when she saw him. Logan let out a sigh of relief. Then he turned to give her and the nurse a moment of privacy. After the nurse left the room, he walked to the bed.

  Dana spoke as he approached. “I need you to get me out of here.”

  Logan shook his head. “I spoke to the nurses. They want to keep you at least overnight. They’re monitoring you for a concussion and possible internal bleeding.”

  She threw back the sheet and started to lower her legs over the side of the bed. She had bandages on her shins. “I can’t stay overnight. I need to get home.”

  He put a hand on her shoulder. “Take it easy. I sent a police car to watch the house, just as you asked. Now tell me what happened.”

  She shook her head. “Someone blew up my car.”

  “I know,” he said. “I called the SeaTac Police Department on the drive over here and spoke to the detective who responded.” The detective had told Logan they’d descended on the place like an army unit, concerned that the explosion was some sort of terrorist attack. The initial indications were that someone had used C4 and a device set to detonate when Dana’s car engine started. “Whoever set it up was a pro,” the detective had said. “He wasn’t messing around.”

  “Then you know that you have to get me out of here,” Dana said.

  “Do you know who did it?”

  “Get me out of here,” she said. “We have a lot to talk about.”

  The tone of her voice told Logan she needed to leave, that she did not feel safe. “I can put police officers outside your door.”

  She got out of the bed and walked toward the bathroom. Her hospital gown splayed open, and she reached behind to pull it together. She removed her bag from a closet in the room and emptied the contents on the bathroom counter. “Come in here,” she said.

  She stood at the sink, holding the half-eaten Snickers bar. It looked to have melted. She peeled away the remainder of the paper and rinsed the gooey mess under the faucet. As the chocolate and caramel fell away, Logan saw the earring. She looked up at him. “This is important. More important than we realized. I’ll tell you everything. But first I want to take you someplace.”

  “Where?”

  She shook her head. “I have to show you.”

  Logan nodded. “All right, I’ll see what I can do,” he said, and walked from the room.

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, he pulled the Austin Healey to the curb and got out to open the passenger door. A nurse stood next to Dana, who sat in a wheelchair beneath a darkening gray sky that had all the indicators of an impending heavy rain. The wheelchair was a small concession to hospital protocol. Logan had to sign a consent form acknowledging that he was taking Dana against the doctor’s protestations.

  Dana grimaced as she lowered herself into the car and bent her legs into the cramped front seat. Her clothes were ripped, torn, and stained. The nurse handed Logan a bag with pain medication from the hospital pharmacy. Then he walked to the driver’s side and started the engine.

  “What time is it?” she asked. Her watch had stopped.

  “A bit after nine.”

  Dana took out her cell phone. “I need to call my mother and tell her to keep Molly home today. I’m sure she has anyway.”

  “Where to?” Logan asked.

  “Montlake.”

  “Can I ask why?”

  “I have something to show you. Don’t drive directly there. Take a couple of detours.”

  Logan decided not to debate the matter with her further. In the wake of Marshall Cole’s murder, he knew things were not as they seemed. He had no reason to doubt she knew why. He made several detours and took back streets off the freeway. He saw no indication that they were being followed. When they reached Montlake, he followed her directions, made a right onto Interlaken, and crossed over a one-lane bridge.

  “It’s the colonial on the left, the last house before the arbo-retum. Drive down the driveway,” she said.

  He pulled down a steep driveway to a white colonial with hunter-green shutters.

  “There’s a side yard just past the house. Park under the carport. The car won’t be seen from the street, and there’s an exit out the back.”

  Logan drove beneath a white trellised carport and followed the driveway to the back of the property. He parked in front of a freestanding garage. Unlike the house, the garage needed a coat of paint. One of the panes of glass in the door had been broken. Dana exited the car with some difficulty, not waiting for Logan to assist her. She grimaced and held her ribs.

  Logan came around the side. “Are you okay?”

  She took a breath, grimaced again, and walked to a wooden gate. She waited for Logan to reach over and unlatch it. The backyard was an expansive green lawn surrounded by dogwood and maple trees. Behind the property fence, the Washington Park Arbo-retum offered a green canopy. In the corner of the yard, a hot tub sat beneath a redwood gazebo. Logan followed Dana to a side door and took the keys from her. Before opening the door he checked around the frame for any indication of wires that could lead to a detonator. Finding none, he opened it, and followed her inside. If the disarray inside the house surprised her, Dana di
d not reveal it. He sensed from their brief conversation at the hospital that she had expected it and had prepared herself. This trip had been for his benefit.

  Logan followed her from room to room, stepping around her possessions, strewn books and pictures and emptied drawers. She showed little emotion. He followed her upstairs. When they reached what he presumed to be her bedroom, she stood at the windows, looking out at the trees, their branches seeming to gently envelop the room.

  “I used to love to sit here with Molly and look out this window,” she said. He noted that she had used the past tense. “It made me feel like being a kid in a tree house again, you know? Did you ever have a tree house growing up?” When he didn’t immediately respond, she turned and looked at him.

  “Not growing up, no,” he said.

  She turned back to the window. “James and I asked our father to help us build one. He hired a contractor instead. It had a trapdoor and a rope ladder. Nicest one in the neighborhood. My father never skimped. I used to like to go there and sit and think. I guess I still do.”