Saving Rachel Read online

  I try to shake off the lucky feeling, the one that always leads to disaster. I still have to navigate two miles of road before I get to the freeway, the freeway that takes me to Mary’s house.

  As I’m driving, I think about Rachel’s sister, Mary.

  As long as I’ve known her, Mary’s been overweight. First time I met her—I’m going back six years now—we’d been talking maybe five minutes when she opened her wallet and carefully removed a clear plastic sheath, out of which she pulled a photo. She glanced at it a few seconds before handing it to me.

  “Can you believe this is me?” she said beaming.

  At that time, the picture was at least ten years old. It depicted a slim young woman with shoulder-length blond hair and a big smile. She had on a red-and-white tube top that showed a reasonably toned stomach and tan shorts that complimented firm, tapered legs.

  “Nice picture,” I said at the time.

  What I’ll never forget is how she took the old photo from my hand as if it were a precious crystal and gave it a long, wistful look before carefully placing it back in the plastic enclosure and ultimately, in her wallet.

  I’ve seen Mary at what, thirty social events since that day? And more times than not, she pulled that old photo out of her wallet and showed it to someone.

  I’m planning a quick drive-by. I don’t want to enter Mary’s house or raise anyone’s suspicions; I just want to see if her car is in the driveway. That’s where it would be, not in the garage, but in the driveway, or possibly on the street in front of her house. This is because Mary and her husband, Parker, are pack rats. Over the years, they’ve managed to accumulate so much junk in their garage, there’s no room for cars. Now in the neighborhood, I’m a block away. It will be easy to drive past the house and see if her blue 2004 Toyota Celica is there.

  It isn’t.

  My cell phone rings. It’s Karen Vogel. I want to confront her but don’t know where to begin. I click on the call and hear her screaming before I get the phone to my ear—screaming like she’s being attacked.

  It takes her a few tries, and her words are interspersed with chokes and sobs, but she finally manages to tell me what’s happened. And when I hear it, I’m convinced she knows nothing about Rachel, Mary, or the gangsters.

  “Stay on the line,” I say. “Don’t move. I’m on my way.”

  I tear down the road to Karen’s condo. On the phone, she seems to be hyperventilating. She tells me her cell phone is out of power. She’s going to hang up and call me right back on her home phone.

  “No!” I say. “Please don’t hang up. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  I hear the click as the phone goes dead. I wait for her to call me back—and wait.

  Now I’m pulling into her driveway. I park behind her car. I get out and notice her trunk is shut. I pop it open. It’s empty. I look around but see nothing that shouldn’t be in her yard. It’s the same with the street; everything’s normal. I rush to her front door and bang on it while calling her name.

  No answer.

  I turn the doorknob, and just like in the movies, the door opens. I continue calling Karen’s name. I get to the kitchen and see her cell phone on the counter. I check to verify that the battery is dead. It is. On the floor by the back door, I see something that concerns me more than anything else that’s happened: Karen’s purse. It’s lying on the floor open, as if it had fallen or been knocked from the chair. Her wallet and some of the other contents of her purse have spilled out of it and are scattered around the back door.

  The back door is open.

  Chapter 11

  On the phone moments earlier, Karen had told me she’d come home to change into a suit for her job. She went into her bedroom and changed clothes and then decided she wanted the lipstick she’d left in the purse in her car. She went out to the car, but found no purse. She knew it couldn’t be in the trunk, but she opened it anyway.

  … And saw the dead body in her trunk.

  It was someone she knew, a guy friend—except that her guy friend was an accountant.

  Only just now, when she’d seen his blood-soaked body, he was wearing a policeman’s uniform.

  Like Karen, I was in shock. I listened as she went on and on about how long they’d been friends, how close they were. No, she had no idea how he got into her trunk; she didn’t know how long he’d been in there. She’d left the trunk wide open, run straight into her house, and locked the front door. Her first instinct was to call 911, but she was frightened. Since her friend was dressed as a policeman, she was afraid of who might come to her door. Our plan was for me to come here, and together, we’d call 911.

  I look around the kitchen for a note or any type of sign she might have left me.

  Nothing, unless you count the purse.

  I do.

  I pick up the items from her purse and place them on her kitchen table. Then I get her purse and dump the contents out on the table.

  There’s got to be something here.

  I pick up the items one by one: a pink leather Coach wallet containing four credit cards, assorted gift cards, a Kentucky driver’s license, and fifty-three dollars in cash; a small can of TREsemmé hair spray; a green plastic Clinique compact; sugar-free Tic Tacs, Paradise Mint flavor; an ink pen; an eyebrow pencil; a pack of moistened towelettes; and a checkbook with no entries written in the check ledger. I check the zippered side section and find three packets of Splenda, some loose change, and three cards with romantic messages she’d received with flowers from yours truly.

  I open her cell phone again to see if she made any calls after hanging up on me. She did not. I press the redial button on her home phone to see who the last person was that she’d called. The hotel answers.

  That’s odd. She made the reservations two days ago. There’ d be no reason to call today.

  I check the digital display for the time of the call: 10:43 am.

  Around the time I was running for my life in the park.

  Which means someone called her at the hotel from her condo. Someone called to say what? I shake my head to keep myself from imagining all sorts of crazy scenarios. The digital displays on phones, like e-mail time stamps, are notoriously incorrect. She probably called the hotel last night to make sure they charged her for the room. That’s the only way they would let her check in at seven this morning, they’d said. The time signature is wrong, that’s all.

  I can’t call the police—they’re looking for me! You think they’ll believe my story? Hell no! They’ll show up, check her trunk, find the blood evidence from the “policeman” shot at the park this morning, and I’ll be serving twenty to life before you can say, “Dream Team.”

  The gangster said sometime soon I’ll pick up the phone, and he’ll be on the line. At the time, I thought he was nuts. Now I’m not so sure. I think he’s got Karen, and I’ll do whatever I have to in order to get her back safely. I’m thinking he’s placed a throwaway cell phone in my home near my computer desk. Maybe I press “one” on the speed dial and he tells me what it will cost to get Karen back safely.

  So I’ll go home and search for a cell phone. But first, there’s something I feel I should do. Since the “policeman” showed up in Karen’s trunk, I should check mine for Mary’s body. If it’s not there, I have another idea where it might be.

  I leave Karen’s condo and walk slowly to my car. I press the keyless entry for the trunk. It rises to full extension.

  It’s as empty as Karen’s.

  So it’s on to Plan B: Seneca Park. Since Mary’s car wasn’t at her house, I figure it must be somewhere around the park. And it’s not much of a stretch to assume her body might be in the trunk.

  As I open my car door, I get a sudden thought. I retrace my steps to Karen’s kitchen and check the digital display on her house phone to see the time of the call I just made to the hotel.

  It’s accurate.

  I stand there, biting my lip, trying to figure out what it means. I retrieve Karen’s wallet from h
er purse, flip it open, and remove her driver’s license. I pocket it while walking back to my car, thinking it might come in handy if I decide to involve the cops later on.

  In ten minutes, I’m back on Reece Street, two blocks east of the park. I have to be careful since Mary’s car won’t be the only thing near the scene. Some cops will be there too. They’ll have the area cordoned off with yellow crime-scene tape, and I can only hope they’ll be too busy collecting evidence to notice me. If someone does recognize me, fine, let them take me. It’s only a matter of time before they arrest me anyway, so it’s a question of now or later. Normally, I’d say later, but Mary’s always been decent to me, so here I am. I happen to know she keeps a key in a small, black magnetic box under her front wheel well. If I can find her car, I should be able to get her trunk open.

  I decide to park here, two blocks away, because my car definitely stands out. I find a small opening between two cars and work my way in. I cut the engine, climb out, and within seconds, two young men in their early twenties recognize me. One holds up his hand, gesturing for me to stop. The other is speaking enthusiastically into a walkie-talkie. Both start moving toward me. I race back to my car and jump in. They’re coming from the front, so I have to execute an almost impossible maneuver to get my car out of the space and back out of there before they can stop me. But somehow, I make it, and that lucky feeling sweeps over me. I know it’s not much, but at least I’m safe for the moment.

  In front of me, the young men are on the street, hands up. No problem, I’ll just back up fifty yards and turn down Clifton. I check the rearview mirror and see a black sedan has blocked my escape. The two men I’d seen on my front porch climb out of the car and approach. I look around frantically. The two young men are practically on top of me in the front, the two detectives within ten feet in the back, each coming from opposite ends of the car, tightening the distance like a noose around my neck. There’s no way out. It’s over. I’m caught.

  Chapter 12

  “Mr. Case?” says one of the detectives. “My name is Aiden Fry. I’m with VH Productions.”

  I say nothing, so he adds, “VH Productions, the movie company?”

  “I’m sorry—what?”

  “We need you to sign a release for the film we shot at the park.”

  “Film?”

  “We just came from your house. I left a business card in your front doorjamb.”

  “I … I haven’t been home yet,” I stutter.

  Aiden Fry nods. “We can’t guarantee we’ll use your reel, but far as I’m concerned, yours was the best performance. By the way,” he says, “love your car! Thanks for letting us fi lm it.”

  I stare at him blankly and then shift my gaze to his partner, then to the walkie-talkie guys, and back to Aiden Fry. “The shooting at the park was part of a movie,” I say evenly, trying to see if pronouncing the words makes the idea more plausible.

  “A damn good scene,” says Aiden Fry’s partner.

  I think about the people at the park. There must have been eighty of them. Could they have been movie extras? There had been babies— some in strollers, some in blankets—but now that I think about it, something had been missing, something you’d expect to see in this or

  any other park, even if there had only been a half-dozen people there.

  “No dogs at the park this morning,” I say.

  “Right,” the partner says. “Don’t like ’em. Too unpredictable. People start chasing you across a field, a dog could spoil the whole shoot.”

  I nod at him absently, trying to remember the picture I have in my head of Mary being shot. Is it possible the woman I thought was Mary had been an actress who just appeared to be similar? I can’t swear I was drugged this morning, but at the time, I had the distinct feeling something had been injected into my neck. The gangster had mentioned Mary just before I exited the limo. Could the drug, in combination with the power of suggestion, cause me to “project” Mary’s face onto the actress who had been “shot” during the filming? It seemed so real at the time, but sure, Mary’s “wound” could have been faked. She doubled over and fell. Thinking about it now, I don’t remember seeing any blood on her. The two joggers shot by Mr. Clean had blood on the backs of their heads, but that could have been placed there before the filming.

  That leaves the policeman. His “killing” seems impossible to fake—especially since Karen Vogel saw him in her trunk a few minutes ago, dead.

  “The policeman this morning,” I say.

  “What about him?”

  “His head exploded.”

  Aiden’s partner is animated. “Fantastic effect! Incredibly realistic! Wait till you see it on the big screen.”

  “Uh-huh,” I say, watching his face carefully. “How’d you do it?”

  “Paintball.”

  “Someone actually shot him in the head with a paintball?”

  “It’s a low-velocity gun, and the paintball is twice the normal size, but yeah, it’s basically a paintball. With a bunch of plastic goop mixed in.”

  I think about it that way, but there’s something wrong with the explanation.

  “I was there. I would have seen a guy shooting a paintball gun.”

  Aiden Fry says, “The shooter’s in the storm drain, ten feet from the cop. He’s an expert, but it’s still a dicey shot. The guy playing the cop gets fifteen hundred just to take the hit.”

  “Storm drain’s not visible from your angle,” Fry’s partner adds.

  Aiden Fry says, “You want to stay and see the next one?”

  “Next one?”

  “We shot several today; we’ve got one more. You can watch if you like. Heck, you can be an extra if you want.”

  “Extra?” It occurs to me I might be under the influence of some type of psychotropic drug.

  “We’re shooting the scene one more time. If you want, you can be one of the guys chasing the Schlub back to the limo.”

  “Schlub?”

  He laughs. “Oh, sorry. That’s the name of the character in the script, ‘Limo Schlub.’ Nothing personal.”

  Chapter 13

  I’m not buying the whole notion that I’d been kidnapped and forced into a movie scene, but I do accept Aiden Fry’s offer to be an extra in the next shoot.

  So I’m walking to the park with my new friends when Fry says, “Oh, the paperwork.” He checks his watch. “Any way you can hang around after the scene?”

  He points to the restaurant overlooking the park, the Rock Creek Diner.

  “We can grab a coffee and answer any questions you have about the release.”

  I tell him that should work.

  He instructs me to join the group on the far side of the jogging track. I nod and move past cameras and film crew as they start organizing the extras. While they’re being positioned, I go to the area of Reece Street where Mary and the policeman had been shot. I stand where they stood, and sure enough, there’s a storm drain nearby. There’s a guy with a paintball gun inside, and he motions me to move along. I turn and see two actors approaching. One appears to be Karen’s friend, the “policeman” I’d seen this morning getting his head blown off. The other is my sister-in-law Mary, or her identical twin. I wave; the lady smiles and waves back. It’s not Mary, but the resemblance is remarkable.

  The “policeman” isn’t as friendly. He gives me a bored look and continues staring at me as if trying to place me from somewhere. I wave my hands at him like I’d done earlier this morning, when I thought he was a real cop. He makes the connection and shouts, “Get him!” and laughs.

  “That’s me,” I say. “Limo Schlub.”

  It’s clear someone is royally fucking with me because these are definitely the people I saw this morning. But are they fucking with Karen too? Did they use a body double of her “policeman” friend to spook Karen? If this guy is her close friend, why would he allow it? And why have I automatically assumed Karen’s been kidnapped? Maybe she heard a noise before I got there and ran to a neighbor’s house
. She might be back at her condo by now.

  Of course, if she were home, she’d have called me by now.

  I don’t have time to think about it because the scene has started. It plays out exactly the same way mine did, except the “Schlub” looks nothing like me, the limo is different, Mr. Clean is different, and the car that peels out after the two shots are fired is not a red Audi R8, but a tricked-out Camaro.

  When the Schlub starts running back to the limo, I start backing up, out of the scene. I keep a close eye on “Mary” and the “policeman,” who continue to lie where they were “shot.” I back up across the track, and … shit! I trip over a picnic basket and fall to the ground. I get up, embarrassed, hoping I didn’t get caught on film and realize there’s no one watching me. I’m well out of the scene. I’m on Reece Street now, half a block west of “Mary” and the “policeman,” and they’re still down. I duck behind a pickup truck, sit on one knee, and watch them.

  Two minutes go by, and finally, a camera truck drives to the corner where the Camaro had been parked. Some cameramen get out and start fiddling around with equipment, and I can see they’re about to start filming from that angle. I’m on the street side of the truck, which means I’ll be part of the film unless I move. I stay low and scoot behind the pickup as a group of “policemen” rush to the “crime scene” to tend to “Mary” and the “policeman.” They’re on police radios, barking out codes, with guns drawn, looking very “movie-ish.” A moment later, an ambulance roars up behind me, continues past my position, and comes to a stop beside the victims.

  The EMS guys jump out of the ambulance and get to work. They put “Mary” on a stretcher and load her into the ambulance. As for the “policeman,” they shake their heads. The cops start overacting to the point I’m certain this scene will be scrapped during the first edit.

  Now I’m completely convinced the movie scene is genuine, and I was kidnapped and forced to be in it. Someone placed a Mary look-alike in the cast so I would witness her pretend murder. They also inserted a body double of Karen’s friend into the scene, and maybe these are the warnings I should be concentrating on instead of the “K” and “V.”