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The trooper appealed with hands outstretched, his shield glinting on his pocket. “You don’t have the resources we have. The best thing you can do is sit tight.”
“I have something better than resources.” Eric turned and stepped though the doorway. “I know Mark Chambers. I know how the sick fuck thinks.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Larry Belka returned to his motel room with cartons of food from a local Hunan restaurant. He set his meal aside to upload more pictures to his laptop. Outside, the sound of a car’s engine hummed. Stepping to the window, he pulled the dense curtain aside. An emaciated figure stepped from a cluster of trees carrying something wrapped in an overcoat. A small hand fell from under the cover of material.
“No, no, no.” Larry gagged on his words, and pressed his hands to the window. “What the fuck did you do, you crazy bastard?”
****
Mark almost dropped the child as he withdrew the room key from his pocket. She was unconscious, deadweight in his arms. He’d lurked outside her house for close to an hour, and then followed after she and a woman drove away in a van.
He dumped his burden onto the bed with no more care than tossing trash in a bin. Smiling, he stared down. After grabbing her, he’d forced half a bottle of antihistamine down her narrow throat. “Like mother, like daughter,” he whispered.
For all of Mark’s regrets, and for all the disappointments that shaped his life, he still had the memory of the brilliant Los Angeles morning when he’d sneaked into Jenna’s Malibu mansion with a handful of crumbled roofies in his pocket. He took an easy breath through his nose. He’d always have that memory. And now, he had the result borne of his pleasure—his child.
He picked up the stationary phone and dialed the next room.
****
The tinny chime of the phone made Larry jump and drop his cigarette. A garbled voice sounded in his ear. “Belka, get your ass and your camera over here.”
Larry slammed the cover of his laptop and grunted curses as he raced around the musty room to collect his things. Clothing was slung over chairs, and toiletries were on the bathroom counter. He pulled everything in an unselective sweep into his suitcase. Packing his photographic equipment was more time consuming and he grappled with trembling fingers to disassemble lenses and cables to put into cases.
An urgent pounding sounded at the door. “Hey! What the hell is taking you so long?”
Larry yanked the door open and dragged Mark inside. “Shut the fuck up. Do you want the whole place to hear you?”
Swigging from a half empty bottle of tequila, Mark swallowed and let out a perfumy belch. “Say thank you. I just made it easier for you to get your shots. I got the kid in my room.” Mark’s words were a proud proclamation, and he did an unsteady shuffle of dance steps as he spoke. “Maybe Bree will give us a bonus.”
Wheezing, Larry wheeled on Mark. “A bonus? Are you out of your fucking mind? What you’re going to get is twenty-five-to-life and I’m not about to share a cell with you. I’m getting out of here. You’re on your own.”
Mark’s face melted into sagging folds. “What about the pictures?”
“Pictures? I’m not taking any pictures now. We were supposed to set Angel up, catch her early in the morning taking the kid to school, or in a park. You jump in and I snap away.” Larry scrubbed at the thin remnants of hair on his perfectly domed skull. “Those were the pictures Bree Laine wanted me to take. She wanted pictures of you, the kid, and Angel plastered on the cover of the tabloids so she’d be scared enough to go back into hiding…forever!”
“But this is even better,” Mark announced. His eyes glowed a milky blue in a sea of red. His lips sagged in an uneven grin. “We send pictures of me and the kid to the tabloids…real cozy shots of my little girl sitting on her daddy’s lap. The tabloids will pay a fortune and so will Bree.” Mark tapped his temple with a cigarette-stained finger as if he’d made a brilliant discovery. “Then I start making noise about custody, and I’ll get whatever I want from Angel. The bitch will be sending me blank checks for the rest of her life.”
Larry squinted at Mark as if another head grew out of his ear. “Are you crazy? I just told you I was supposed to get pictures of you, Angel, and the kidtogether. Now because of your stupid stunt I’m not going to get any.”
Taking another swallow from the bottle, Mark shrugged. “Well…we still have the kid. The tabloids will paymuchodinerofor pictures of her and—”
“You sick, stupid fucker!” Belka tugged more at his stringy hair. “How fried is that brain of yours? I can’t take pictures of her now, and I’ll have to destroy the ones I already have.”
“But they’re worth big bucks.”
“They’re evidence!” The color of Larry’s face reddened to the shade of a Christmas rose. “You kidnapped her! I can’t sell pictures of a kid whose been kidnapped to the papers. It’ll look like I was in on it.”
“I didn’t kidnap her. She’s my kid.”
Larry pounded at his temples and cursed. “You have no right to her. Even if you did, you can’t just take her.”
Mark’s head hung between his shoulders, and his features drooped as if melting from his face. “She’s my baby. I can do whatever I want to her.”
“What the helldidyou do to her? No, I don’t even want to know.” Larry mopped the stream of sweat running down his face with his sleeve. He rushed about the room to gather the rest of his things while Mark took another lazy swig from his bottle.
The two men were an overused comparison trope—Larry, fat, sweating, and frantic—Mark, gaunt and rheumy-eyed. “Relax,” he said. “I gave her enough allergy syrup to keep her out till I’m ready to take her home. She’ll never be able to identify us.”
