Little Girl Gone - Brett Battles

The garage, Logan thought as he glanced to the left.

He ran to the fence, and climbed back over. As he landed, he heard two things: the roar of an engine, and the sound of an automatic opener pulling up the garage door.

He sprinted to the sidewalk, glancing over his shoulder as he did. The door was up just enough for him to see the taillights of a Lexus SUV.

Forty-five seconds later, Logan was in his El Camino, driving back by the house. The garage door was all the way open now, and the Lexus was nowhere in sight. He raced to the end of the block and looked both ways. Nothing.

Continuing through the neighborhood, he headed toward La Tijera Boulevard. It was the closest main road, and the most logical place Ryan would have gone. Logan’s instinct turned out to be right. He spotted Ryan two streets shy of the main intersection.

Now that Logan had him in his sights, following Ryan was easy. Unlike the guy who’d been chasing him earlier, Ryan had no idea anyone was behind him.

They popped onto the 405 north, following the route Logan and Angie had taken earlier. But when they reached the 10, instead of going east, they went west toward the beach, getting off barely a mile later at Bundy Drive.

From there they went south, and very shortly the Santa Monica Airport came into view. Logan was hoping Ryan was just going to drive right by, but no such luck. On cue, the Lexus turned down Airport Avenue.

Logan stopped at the corner so Ryan wouldn’t see his headlights following immediately after him, not at all liking what this might mean.

Santa Monica Airport was located right in the middle of the city, with a single runway long enough to accommodate most business jets. This made it a favorite of Hollywood celebrities who could fly in and avoid the mess at the larger, commercial airports, and be wherever they needed to be thirty minutes later. In other words, a person could get almost anywhere from there with a ton less hassle.

Logan waited until Ryan was nearing the first of the hangers, before turning down the road.

Off to his right, he could see a small aircraft coming in for a landing, but overall the airport itself seemed pretty quiet. Checking his watch, he saw that it was a quarter after nine, and was willing to bet the airport had a curfew that probably went into effect in the next couple of hours. He looked back at Ryan’s vehicle.

“So are you flying somewhere?” he said out loud. “Or are you here for some other reason?”

Brake lights flashed ahead, then Ryan’s SUV turned into a parking lot. Logan immediately did the same, finding a smaller lot tucked between two buildings.

As he got out, he pulled on his jacket and felt the knock of his pistol against his hip. For half a second he wondered if he should leave it. Just sneaking around an airport could easily get him into trouble, but doing so with a gun? That would be serious jail time. But it was a choice between a potentially bad outcome versus a potentially life-ending one if he couldn’t defend himself. The gun stayed in his pocket.

Back on the road, he kept to the shadows as much as possible, hoping they would be enough to conceal his presence. He’d only gone a short distance when he saw Ryan step into the street and crossed over to the airport side, walking up to a small building directly across from the lot where he’d parked. As he reached the door, someone inside opened it and he walked through.

The moment it closed Logan darted across the street, then headed west along a tall fence that separated him from an open area where several small planes were parked. He stopped at the first building he came to. Next to a faded blue door was a sign that read:

LITTLE ALICE’S AVIATION

FLIGHT SCHOOL AND

AIRCRAFT MAINTAINENCE

Logan looked through the window. The streetlights provided enough illumination for him to make out a counter, a couple of desks, and a seating area. Beyond the desks, a door opened onto a darkened room. Just as he hoped, no one was there.

He made sure there were no cars coming, then pulled out the modified lock pick set he’d used at Elyse’s place, and set to work on the door of Little Alice’s Aviation.

It took him longer than the apartment had. This door had two deadbolts, and a lock in the knob. He had finished both deadbolts, and was just starting on the last lock, when a car started coming down the hill toward the airport.

He focused on the lock, keenly aware that the headlights drawing nearer and nearer.

“Come on,” he whispered, his teeth clenched, urging the lock to cooperate. When the car arrived, he needed to either be inside or walking away.

He took a deep breath, moved the pick again, then felt the lock finally release.

Rushing inside, he shut the door, then looked through the open vertical blinds at the street.

As the car drove by, he could see two men sitting inside. The driver he didn’t know, but the passenger looked very much like the same man who’d been chasing him and Angie. Apparently he survived his crash.

Logan moved one of the blinds just enough so that he could watch them pull into the same parking lot Ryan had used. It seemed a pretty safe assumption they’d walk over to the same building, too, so, instead of watching, Logan headed through the office into the darkened room in back.

He flicked on his flashlight, and took a quick look around. The room was set up as a classroom. There were a dozen chairs with attached desks all facing a dry erase board on the far wall. There was also a door to the left that could only have led outside.

Night air greeted Logan as he opened it. Beyond was a concrete sidewalk, then a wide paved area, and finally what he could only describe as a carport for planes. All the spaces were filled with small, prop-driven aircraft.

He scanned the entire area to make sure no one was around, then stepped outside. The building Ryan had gone into would be on the other side of the sheltered planes. Logan walked over to it, and made his way to the far end. When he got there, he could see the runway directly in front of him, maybe fifty yards away, just beyond an access road and a strip of grass.

He rounded the side of the shelter, then stopped at the rear corner and peeked around. Back toward Airport Avenue was the building Ryan had entered.

There was a lot of activity going on down there, all centered around a sleek-looking private jet parked nearby. Logan could see lights on inside its cabin, and was pretty sure there was someone in the cockpit moving around. The door at the back of the building was open, and light was shinning from inside it as well.

Unfortunately, everything was too far away for him to make out any details. He needed to get closer.

On the other side of the jet, directly across from his position, was an open area where nearly two dozen small planes were parked. It would provide a much closer, unobstructed view of the jet and the back of the building. The problem was getting there without drawing attention.

He glanced around. There was a wide spot in the access road, about hundred feet away, where a half dozen plane were parked. If he could get there, then work his way along the aircraft until he could cross over to the other lot, that might work. And if at any point someone saw him, there were enough planes around that he could act like one of them was his.

He crossed over to the grass strip, and turned down it. When he reached the aircraft, he paused, looking back toward the jet. So far no one was rushing in his direction, or trying to see what he was doing.

He continued on until he was directly across from the open parking area where he ultimately wanted to be. This was going to be the tricky part. While he hoped he wouldn’t be noticed, he was going to be in plain view for at least ten seconds. The best he could do was to make it look like he had zero interest in whatever was going on at the jet. When it appeared that no one was looking in his direction, he crossed the access road at a diagonal away from the jet.

Once he reached the safety of the first plane, he looked back.

“Dammit,” he said under his breath.

He hadn’t been as clever as he’d thought. Two men were standing on the tarmac, facing in his direction. One of them was pointing at the road where he’d just crossed.

He watched as they talked for a moment, then the one who had pointed started walking back toward the building, while the other began heading toward Logan.

That was an even bigger problem than it could have been. If the guy found him, there’d be no way he could play off the lie that he was just checking his plane.

Logan had met this guy before, in the refrigerator at the back of the Coffee Time Café.

21

Using the planes to mask his movements, Logan scuttled back to the next row, then started trying each aircraft door that he passed.

Locked.

Locked.

Locked.

Locked.

Big city people. No trust.

By the time he arrived at the fifth plane, Tooney’s assailant had reached the parking area. Logan tried the next door, and was already in the process of moving on when he realized the handle had actually turned.

Easing the door open, he crawled inside. The plane creaked as it took on his weight. He just hoped it wasn’t loud enough to be heard more than a few feet away. He closed the door, then scrunched down in the space between the front and back seats. A blanket would have been nice, or something else to cover himself with, but there was nothing.

All he could do now was wait and listen.

At first he could only hear the man’s footsteps, but then a familiar rattling sound joined them, and Logan instantly knew the guy was trying the doors of the planes.

Logan glanced over to see if there was a way to lock his cabin door from inside, but if there was, he couldn’t spot it from his current position, and couldn’t risk twisting around to take a closer look.

He slipped the gun out of his pocket and pointed it at the door, hoping he wouldn’t have to use it. The steps and the rattling grew nearer. Logan had no idea exactly where the man was, but he couldn’t have been more than a few planes away.

Suddenly an outburst of music cut through the night, stopping after a few seconds, mid-note.

“Yeah?” a voice said, the same voice Logan had heard in Tooney’s café. “No. Nothing. Are you positive you saw someone?...It was probably just a maintenance guy or something…Yeah, okay. Be right there.”

Logan assumed the man had hung up, but he held his position because he hadn’t heard him walk away.

One minute passed, then two. Then—

A foot scraped on the tarmac, then another, and another. Soon the scrapes became footsteps that grew fainter and fainter until Logan could no longer hear them.

He resisted the urge to check for another minute. When he finally did look out the cockpit window, the man was all the way back at the jet.

Logan returned the gun to his pocket, and exited the plane. As quickly as he could, he made his way over to a dark area near the fence, then moved along it until he reached a small storage shed that was about as close as he dared get to the jet.

The first thing he did was to write down the tail number and a general description of the aircraft in his notebook. It was a sizable plane that was probably about as large as the airport could handle. Logan had no doubt it could easily fly from one coast to the other with fuel to spare.

From his vantage point, he could see the open cabin door, and a short staircase that led down from the plane to the tarmac. Outside the building, four men huddled together. Ryan was one of them, as was the guy who’d just been searching for Logan. One of the other two was younger, like Ryan, which made Logan think he might be the recently-moved-out Aaron Hughes. The final guy was black, and probably in his early thirties. Logan had never seen him before, but wondered if he might have been the black guy Joan and Maria had mentioned.

After about five minutes, Ryan and the guy Logan decided to anoint as Aaron went inside the building. The other two talked for a few more seconds, then headed over to the jet. One of the guys called inside, then a man wearing a simple uniform appeared in the doorway. From the way he was dress, Logan though he was probably the pilot.

The three men talked for several moments, then one of the men on the ground pulled out a phone and made a call. The conversation went on for no more than thirty seconds, then he hung up and said something to the other two.

The pilot nodded, seemingly satisfied, and disappeared back into the plane. A few moments later, the jet’s engines fired up. This seemed to be the cue the guys in the building had been waiting for, because soon Ryan, Aaron, and the man who’d chased Logan and Angie on the freeway came outside and joined the others.

Standing together at the foot of the stairs, the men seemed antsy, none of them saying very much, then Ryan suddenly glanced over his shoulder toward the access road. A second later, the others did the same.

Logan followed their gaze, and immediately spotted a dark Chevy Suburban approaching from the east. Once it turned off the access road, it circled the plane, then pulled around the wing to get as close to the aircraft as possible. The two front doors opened, and two men stepped out. The driver had a similar look and feel to the other men waiting with Ryan and Aaron. The passenger, on the other hand, was older. Maybe mid-forties, and dressed in a well-tailored, dark suit.

Mr. Andrews?

There were no hugs or handshakes, just a tight gathering as the group listened to the man in the suit. When he was through, he pointed at the SUV.

Almost immediately, the Suburban’s back passenger doors flew open, and a man got out from each side. The one who’d been sitting behind the driver leaned back in like he’d forgotten his bag or something, but what he pulled out wasn’t a bag. It was a small, young, Asian woman.

The distance made definitive identification difficult, especially since Logan had only seen a picture of Elyse and had never met her in person. But he had little doubt that the woman was indeed Tooney’s granddaughter.

She appeared to be drugged as the man half-walked, half-carried her toward the plane.

Just a couple of hundred feet separated Logan from the girl he had promised to find, the girl he had promised to bring back to her grandfather. But there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. If he tried, the only result he could see was one that ended with both the girl and himself dead.

Feeling completely helpless, he watched as the man loaded her onto the plane. As soon as she was onboard, Aaron, Ryan and the three who had been waiting with them followed the suited man up the steps.

The guy who’d been driving, and the other one from the backseat got back into the Suburban, and pulled it over to the side, out of the way.

Logan assumed they were just parking it, and would be joining the others, but then the plane’s entry door was pulled up and slammed shut. Almost immediately the jet began to taxi away.

Wherever the plane was headed, it was going, and there was nothing Logan could do about it.