Play Dead. Meryl Sawyer

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СКАЧАТЬ Get inside, the killer silently warned. They hustled toward the entrance and the driver sped away to find a parking spot. Lucky for him, the guy headed for the open spaces behind the adjacent Mexican restaurant.

      Lethal silence. A second later a supersonic crackling—KA-BOOM!

      The explosion knocked the Dumpster sideways like an eardrum-splitting hatchet blow. The impact of the detonation assaulted every lobe in the killer’s brain and blackness eclipsed everything for a few seconds.

      “Aw, shit!”

      Debris rained down, pummeling the Dumpster lid with shrapnel-like objects. They bounced off the sturdy metal and crashed to the ground nearby. The acrid smell of smoke and burning rubber roiled through the air like a noxious fog. Jolted by the shock wave, nearly a hundred car alarms shrieked simultaneously.

      Ears ringing, the killer ventured a look and saw the orange-red inferno that had been Hayley Fordham’s BMW. Flames shot out in all directions and lit up the darkness while a cloud of white smoke mushroomed skyward.

      Hayley would be reduced to ashes in seconds by the inferno. What remained of her. No doubt the explosion had sent body parts flying. There were something like twenty bones in the human skull. Hayley’s head was now in twenty million pieces. The fire would incinerate anything else.

      Identifying Hayley Fordham would be a bitch. The killer had foreseen this. Hayley’s rear license plate had been removed and scorched with a cigarette lighter, then tossed into the shrubbery behind her car to make it appear that it had been blown off during the explosion. The police would know exactly who had died in the car bombing.

      Panicked, hysterical people stampeded out of Gulliver’s, screaming and holding up cell phones to photograph the geyser of smoke and flames. Others were yelling at 9-1-1 operators. No doubt the emergency switchboard was lit up like the fourth of July.

      To the killer, the sounds were muffled, as if they were coming from underwater. Should have used earplugs. Even if the chaos couldn’t be fully heard, it was exciting. It made the waiting, the planning worthwhile.

      Windows were shattered in the cars parked nearby. Some had suffered major damage from the flying debris. Windows and doors in both restaurants had been blown inward by the force of the blast. The destruction was mind-blowing. Worse than expected.

      Who knew? Excitement like a live wire arced through the killer. Inching along in the shadows to where the rental car was parked behind the three-story office building to protect it from the explosion, the killer couldn’t resist a smile of self-congratulation.

      Hayley Fordham was dead. What a trip! Everything had gone exactly as planned.

       CHAPTER ONE

      TRENT FORDHAM took the turn off Pacific Coast Highway in his Porsche at nearly one hundred miles per hour. It was after two in the morning, so no cars were around. He rarely had the opportunity to see what his baby would do. He floored it and the needle shot up to one-twenty.

      “Slow down,” screeched Courtney from the seat beside him. “You’ll get another ticket.”

      His wife was right, he silently conceded. He could not afford to be stopped tonight. It might result in a sobriety test. Not that he’d been drinking … but it was best to be cautious. After all, he was now a CEO of a company. Not a major player—yet—but he was well on his way up the ladder of success. Another speeding ticket was the last thing he needed.

      He eased off the accelerator to an audible sigh of relief from his wife and watched the needle drop. They drove in silence—what was there to say?—up to the gated entrance to their exclusive community. He slowed, expecting Jerome, the night guard, to wave as they passed. Instead, the guard signaled for him to stop.

      “What’s up?” Trent asked.

      “The police are waiting for you.”

      “Why?” He wasn’t worried; this had to be some mix-up.

      Jerome shrugged. “Wouldn’t say.” He shrugged again, his voice apologetic. “I had to let them in.”

      “Of course.” Trent tried to sound unfazed, but a yellow flag of caution shot up in his brain. “Thanks for the heads up.” That’s why he tipped the guards handsomely at Christmas—just for times like this.

      He roared through the ornate, twenty-foot-tall gates. He sped by mansions lit up like national monuments. What was going on? he wondered silently.

      “It can’t be Timmy. The Scouts would have called my cell or yours. Something’s wrong at Surf’s Up,” Courtney said, sounding only slightly worried.

      “No way,” Trent told her. “Security would have contacted me.” His mind was whirling like one of those dervishes he’d read about. Why would the police be waiting for him in the middle of the night?

      He stopped at the small park area. The green belt had created open space between mansions that took up most of each lot, leaving little grassy areas. During the day, nannies would be there with children and maids walking neighborhood dogs would be strolling along the meandering flagstone paths.

      “What are you doing?” Courtney cried.

      Trent turned off the sports car and climbed out, saying, “That was pretty awesome shit we were smoking. I want to hide my jacket in the trunk. It probably reeks.”

      “You were smoking,” Courtney said, “with your buddies. I—”

      Trent tuned her out. Courtney should talk! She was high on pain pills. All day; every day. He shared a spliff or two with the guys on weekends only.

      Bile had risen in his throat; he needed air. He tossed the jacket into the trunk and looked up at the stars. He forced himself to inhale a few deep, calming breaths. The Milky Way slipped in and out, back and forth like a kaleidoscope. He tried lowering his head, then sucking in more air. Better, but not much.

      “Oh, my God!” Courtney cried her voice high-pitched. “Maybe something did happen to Timmy. They might not have been able to reach our cells. You know, a tower outage or something.”

      Trent stood up and rushed back to the driver’s side. Their son was with the Boy Scouts at the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park for something called a Roar and Snore sleepover. The kids stayed up half the night to watch the lions feed, then they slept in tents.

      A thought hit him, kind of wobbly, fading away almost before he could grasp it. The Scouts required all sorts of emergency information before they took the kids anywhere. He was as sure as he could be when he was this mellow that nothing had happened to his son. “Don’t worry, honey. Timmy is fine.”

      “I hope so.”

      “Unless,” he said as he put the Porsche into gear, “they caught him with dope again.”

      “Impossible! You know he’s being bullied. Those kids planted it in his backpack. None of those little monsters are Scouts.”

      “Right. So you said.” Trent wasn’t buying that bridge. He’d been Timmy’s age not so long ago. True, his son was just eleven and Trent had been older before he’d first experimented. But today’s kids were СКАЧАТЬ