WP

Chapter 10 – Into Thin Air

See Chapter 1 for disclaimer

A/N: Thanks for the reviews, and sorry for the wait - I just got back in from out of town. Here's 10...

Sunday, April 13, 2014, early evening

Early Sunday evening, Francisco Molina leaned back in his easy chair with his hands behind his head, and watched the national news broadcast with his eyes narrowed. The bungalow was stifling; even though the temperature outside was a very comfortable seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit, Frankie refused to open the windows or draw the shades. The house was in a relatively private location, tucked away at the end of a street that dead-ended on the outskirts of Valle Vista. It belonged to Frankie's aunt, who had recently been moved to an elderly care facility. Frankie, as her nearest relative, had agreed to put the property up for sale, but he hadn't yet, and it was a good thing. He had been keeping a low profile for the last two weeks, ever since his cousins had been killed in Mexico, and the house had come in handy. It was one of only three houses on a street that bordered the edge of the desert – the last one on the road, and the nearest house was also vacant. It offered both privacy and anonymity – no one, especially the Espinos, would be able to connect it to Frankie.

Two weeks had been enough to dissipate the fear, and allow anger to percolate. Frankie wasn't so much angry that the better part of his family had been killed; it had effectively put him in charge. The problem was that the Molina drug import machine had been nearly destroyed, severely curtailing his L.A. operations. Frankie's piece of the business had been minor compared to Oscar's lucrative operation in Mexico, although it had still made him a wealthy man. Now, with his main source of drugs gone, he had been forced to make buys through other channels. Some of the best sources were now controlled by the Espino clan, but Frankie refused to deal with them. He had no real reason to think the Espinos would come after him, also – in fact, he was known and respected as a major dealer in the L.A. area, and some of his men had been approached by Espino sources with good offers. Still, Frankie didn't quite trust them, yet. He had sequestered himself in the little bungalow and had his men circulate the rumor that he'd left town, until he could properly assess the situation.

In the meantime, he'd had time to ponder what had happened, time to watch his profits declining by the day, drying up due to lack of good product, and he'd begun to get angry. He scratched idly at two day's growth of beard, and plucked at the sleeveless T-shirt that hung on his muscled, wiry frame. The news broadcast had caught his interest; it featured a familiar face – Charles Eppes. He had directed the hit on Dr, Eppes five years ago at Oscar's request, and it had been Frankie's own men who had shot the professor on his front lawn. He'd always wondered what had happened to the man – they never had gotten good information on whether he'd survived or not. There had been no press releases or articles concerning his death, or the shooting itself; the DEA had squelched them, but the professor was never seen or heard from again, after that. Now, it turned out that he had been in witness protection all this time, and the authorities had no doubt had released him after Oscar and Raul Molina had been killed.

What really piqued Frankie's interest, however, were the rumors circulating among his men that two of their own gang members, Carlos Abrego and Juan Laguna, had picked up a man the other day, and were still holding him. Carlos and Juan were not in Frankie's inner circle, and they rarely participated in Frankie's activities, but they swore allegiance to him. Frankie, in fact, had tried to stay way from them in recent weeks; he had become aware of their activities – they had been kidnapping middleclass working citizens, forcing them to withdraw from their ATM accounts, and then killing them, stupidly leaving their bodies for the authorities to find. Frankie had enough troubles without being connected to two men who were dabbling in kidnapping and murder, and those murders – five of them - had been featuring prominently on L.A. local news. The news had dubbed them the ATM Killer – singular, because the cops didn't know how many were involved.

Frankie rubbed his face again, as he listened to the reporter speak of the sensation that Dr. Eppes' papers were causing. He didn't know a thing about math or physics, but he had the sense that someone who had created something this important would demand a high ransom. If Carlos and Juan had indeed picked up Dr. Eppes, Frankie doubted that they knew what a potential gold mine they held. The dumb bastards were probably holding him to hit his ATM accounts, without considering that they might have a shot at a lot more money…

He straightened suddenly, and without turning from the television, yelled, "Hey, Ramon!"

The object of his summons lumbered into the room. Ramon Jimenez was a squat, powerful man, with lats so big that he walked with his arms extended out to the side a bit, like a bird with drooping wings. "What?"

"Where can we find Carlos and Juan these days?"

Ramon grunted. "I dunno. I'll ask around – my cousin will know – his sister is goin' with Juan."

Frankie nodded. "Do it – and find 'em quick. I want to pay 'em a visit."

Ramon nodded, and Frankie sat back, brooding, his fingers tented in front of his face. He wasn't quite sure where he was going with this himself, and he needed to be careful. He had gotten a call earlier that afternoon from his own cousin, Nelida, who had said that the feds were looking around for him; they wanted to ask him some questions, and had shown her a picture of Dr. Eppes. There was no doubt in Frankie's mind that the feds were trying to see if he had anything to with the doctor's disappearance. Yes, if he was going to get involved in this, thought Frankie to himself – and if the man that Carlos and Juan were rumored to be holding was actually Eppes - he was going to have to be very careful, but he had a feeling that the rewards would be worth the risk. The money involved could be great, and right now, he needed money. And of course, Eppes had long been an enemy of his family… He frowned. The DEA had been trying to run him out of town, unsuccessfully so far, but the pressure they were applying had stunted his business activities. What if they had brought Eppes in to help, as he had helped with their case against Oscar? It was yet one more reason to make sure he got control of this situation, got control of Dr. Eppes' fate, and quickly.

Monday morning, Don scanned the meager contents of Charlie's case file for the fiftieth time, and slumped in his chair. He was exhausted; he'd gotten only about three hours sleep the night before. He had at least gone home to sleep in his own bed, and shaved and got a shower and a fresh change of clothes. Then he was back in the office, poring over the bits of information that they had. It wasn't much – the lab hadn't found anything interesting concerning Charlie's cell phone, and nothing notable in the area where it was found. They still had no idea where Frankie Molina was; before Liz and Nikki's visit to the Caballeros, LAPD had checked his home – a residence in pricey Malibu. The housekeeper told them that Frankie had left town after the Molina cartel shooting in Mexico. The LAPD hadn't turned up anyone in Burbank who remembered seeing Charlie. A check with the cab companies revealed that none of them had taken Charlie as a fare. There was nothing – no clues, nothing to go on. It was as if Charlie had vanished into thin air.

"Don!" Colby's voice floated through the office, and Don's head jerked up. He could see Colby and David hustling toward him through his office door, and he stood as they hurried through it. "We got something," said Colby, a bit breathlessly. "Someone from West Federal Savings just called – they have a guy who goes through any discrepancies first thing each day from the ATM transactions the night before, or in this case, the transactions from the weekend. The guy reported that Charlie tried to make a withdrawal at an ATM over the weekend – they have video."

"Colby and I are going down there," added David.

Don grabbed his jacket, hanging on the back of his chair, his heart rate accelerating slightly. "I'm going with you." Finally, something – and it included video of Charlie, no less.

Twenty-two minutes later, they found themselves in a back office at the main branch of West Federals Savings, staring at a monitor over a technician's shoulder. The bank manager, John Ferguson, and the employee who had reported the discrepancy, a man named Bill, were there also, along with Lieutenant Walker, who met them at the bank.

"I go through the problem reports every Monday," said Bill. "I look at the videos for them and record what the ATM transaction said, then enter a report into the computer. All kinds of things happen, sometimes the equipment malfunctions – then if the customers come in to the bank to report it, we have a verified report to help our people deal with the issues. Dr. Eppes' case jumped out at me, because we don't get too many situations where a card or account has actually expired. Then I looked at the name, and it rang a bell, from the news, you know. So, I called Mr. Ferguson."

John Ferguson spoke up. "The first thing I did was call LAPD, and then I came back here to have our tech look up the video feed." He waved a hand at the monitor, and Don watched the clip roll for the tenth time. It was Charlie, and the sight of him had made Don's gut contract.

"What's odd," continued Ferguson, "is that Dr. Eppes knew his card had expired. He has an appointment at our Pasadena branch tomorrow to reactive his accounts and to get a new ATM card, among other things."

Gary Walker pursed his lips. "Maybe he thought he'd try it anyway, just in case."

Colby's face had turned grim. "Uh-uh," he said. He pointed at the screen, as the clip rolled yet again. "No. Look at him. He keeps looking off to his left – there's someone standing there. Besides, he tries the card more than once – why would he do that if he knew it wasn't supposed to work, and it got rejected the first time? I can see him trying it once, at the most. Plus, he looks like he's about to try it a third time, and then he stops and looks back to his left, and then he walks that way. I've seen video clips like this before." He stopped and looked at Don, hesitating; then said gently, "He's acting like the vics we've seen on other ATM video clips – the vics of the ATM Killer."

Don felt an almost debilitating icy sensation creep over him, and his throat turned dry. "We don't know that. We can't just surmise that." The others looked at him sympathetically, and he scowled. "Where is this ATM, anyway?"

"East L.A.," said Walker. "I've already got men on the scene – they're gonna go door to door at the businesses around there and see if anyone saw Charlie there that evening. But it was late, almost eleven p.m., and that area shuts up tight for the night." He cleared his throat. "I agree, Don," he said, although Don knew that Walker was only humoring him. "We can't conclude that it's the ATM Killer. The good news is, as of eleven Saturday night, we know Charlie was alive and apparently unharmed."

Don nodded, and for the sake of his own argument, tried to look unperturbed as he turned back to look at the video. Inside, however, a feeling of dread was growing, and as he watched Charlie insert the card into the machine yet again, he wondered if that would be the last time he saw his brother alive.

Charlie pushed himself into a sitting position, slowly. He ached from lying on the hard floor, and he was weak and shaky from hunger. The pitch-blackness in the room made it impossible to tell what time it was, what day it was, and he cursed himself for not buying a watch with an illuminated dial. Not that knowing the time would help, but somehow, it seemed to matter. He felt as though he had been there for days – his water had run out, and he was thirsty and ravenously hungry. His wrists felt raw – he tried not to pull on the handcuffs, but they still chafed. He could feel hope waning, and he was beginning to actually wish that his captors would return. Maybe they would bring him food and water – it would be a relief simply to see light again, to know what time it was…

A faint sound hit his ear and he caught his breath and turned his head slightly, listening in the darkness. Another sound, then voices began to materialize, they stopped, but now Charlie picked up approaching footsteps, and his heart began to thump. Had he really just been wishing that Carlos and Juan would return? Now that their return was a reality, he suddenly wished for the opposite. He felt for the post near him and tensed, ready to pull himself up to his feet.

The doorknob rattled with the metallic scraping of a key; it sounded loud and grating after the silence, and Charlie winced in pain as the switch was flicked on and light hit his eyes. He closed his eyelids tightly – he couldn't help it – even though he was aware that Carlos and Juan were moving to stand in front of him. He blinked, and blinked again, trying to acclimate his eyes to the harsh fluorescent light. He finally managed to get his eyelids open, to find himself staring into the face of Juan, who had squatted in front of him. Carlos was standing over him, and both his captors were studying him. As Charlie looked up and met their eyes, Carlos reached for his gun.

End, Chapter 10

A/N: I make you wait, only to hit you with a cliffie. The good news is, you shouldn't have to wait quite so long for the update.