LITMIR.BIZ

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      It had been a warm summer night in June when Ricky Sanchez had gone about his normal janitorial duties of waxing floors, emptying trash cans and cleaning the rest rooms after hours in one of L.A.’s towering glass and steel high-rise office buildings. But on that particular night it had been the wrong place to be at the wrong time. From an unseen spot in a maintenance closet, Ricky unwittingly became the eyewitness to a high-level drug deal that had turned deadly.

      Ricky hadn’t known at the time that it was notorious drug lord Donnie Hollywood whom he had seen put a bullet in the head of a rival, but instinct had told him the only way to stay alive had been to find a hiding place and stay there, which is exactly what he had done. He’d still been trembling in a crawl space when the police had found him the next morning.

      Jake still remembered the rush of adrenaline he’d felt when he’d listened to Ricky tell what he had seen. They had been trying for months to get something on Hollywood, something that would put him out of commission for good, but he’d managed to elude them each time. But now they had him on a murder charge and Ricky’s testimony was going to put him away for life.

      It hadn’t come as a surprise when word filtered in from the streets that Hollywood had promised a hefty reward to anyone who succeeded in taking out the prosecution’s star witness. The authorities had already taken steps to protect Ricky, and Jake had been confident they had thought of everything to keep him safe. He’d been stashed in a safe house with around-the-clock security and no one outside of Jake, the D.A. and a small, select number of task force agents—all of whom he had trusted implicitly—knew how to find him.

      Unfortunately, it was the one thing Jake hadn’t accounted for that did Ricky in. It had been one of their own, one of his own task force agents who had betrayed him. Hollywood had managed to do the one thing Jake had thought could never happen, turn one of his men against him, and it was a mistake he would regret for the rest of his life. It had not only cost Ricky his life, but the lives of two more task force agents as well.

      Jake paused at the top of the stairs, staring down the narrow passage. The sense of betrayal had been overwhelming but the sense of failure had been even worse. Ricky had known the risk, had understood the danger, but he’d agreed to testify anyway. He had trusted Jake and the other members of the task force with his life, and they had let him down. At the funeral, Ricky’s wife had told Jake she forgave him, and her words had haunted him every day since then. How could she forgive him when he hadn’t been able to forgive himself?

      He made his way down the stairs and along the corridor to his small apartment. It had been over three years since the funeral, three years since Valerie had left him and he’d decided to resign from the force. He’d failed—both in his personal life and at work. He’d dropped the ball. His wife had suffered and an innocent man had paid with his life. How could he ever forget that?

      He’d hoped being alone would help him work through his guilt, would help him put the past behind him and allow him to get on with his life. But he was beginning to think that was never going to happen. Ted had told him he needed time to heal, but in three years the wounds still felt fresh.

      He reached inside the door and flipped on the kitchen light. The station had originally been designed to house two rangers, with living quarters for each—one built into the stone base of the tower and another one above a detached garage about thirty yards across a small compound—but lean budget times allowed for only one ranger to be assigned. Jake had chosen to live in the apartment within the tower. While the actual living area was no larger than the quarters above the garage, the tower housed the main kitchen, laundry facility and a fireplace. Besides, it had just made sense that he be close to the station’s elaborate communications systems, located in the tower, in the event of an emergency.

      Setting the glass in the sink, he headed for the bedroom, feeling as though he could sleep for twelve hours straight. But despite his fatigue, sleep eluded him.

      Maybe it was a good thing he would be leaving the mountain. Maybe he needed to test the waters a bit, see what it was like to be back in civilization again, to be among friends, eat a little junk food and maybe even drink a little too much—at least for a little while. While leaving wasn’t exactly something he was looking forward to, he should try to make the best of it. Besides, he hadn’t been able to say no to Ted.

      Los Angeles police detective Lieutenant Ted Reed was like a brother to him and if it hadn’t been for Ted, Jake wasn’t sure he would have made it through those terrible months after Ricky’s death and the divorce from Valerie. The two of them had grown up in a neighborhood in Los Angeles where it paid to know who your friends were and who you could trust to watch your back—and Ted had protected his on more than one occasion. Somehow the two of them had managed to survive the poverty and the violence, the dysfunction and the disadvantages, even though it hadn’t been easy. They’d made the decision to enter the police academy together and had supported each other throughout the ten years they’d served on the force. The hard times had forged a permanent bond between them. It made them survivors.

      It had been almost awkward when Ted asked him to serve as best man at his wedding. But he understood. As men and as cops they had learned to play their cards close to the vest and keep emotions to themselves. Ted hadn’t told him much about the woman he was marrying but Jake could hear the emotion in his friend’s voice. The feelings were there—powerful and deep—and it wasn’t necessary for them to go through the uncomfortable ritual of talking about them.

      The wedding was in a couple of days and Jake planned on heading down the mountain in the morning after he got back from checking the trailhead. While Eagle’s Eye was remote, he was never really alone. The area wasn’t without inhabitants. There was Claybe Fowler, his nearest neighbor in the Forest Service, who manned the Cedar Canyon Ranger Station located eight thousand feet below at the base of the mountain. And during Jake’s regular trips to Vega Flats, its motley crew of residents had all become his friends. Of course, during the summer months there were hikers and mountain bikers, campers and even a handful of hunters and fishermen about, and with the help of the tower’s state-of-the-art communications and computer system, he also managed to keep in touch with the outside world. He talked to Ted, his co-workers, his mom and his sister on a regular basis via his ham radio and his cell phone, when he could catch a signal. The satellite dish gave him more television channels than he could count and, of course, there was the radio and Jane—Dear Jane.

      So, while isolated, he hadn’t exactly been alone the last three years. And while he didn’t relish the thought of going back to L.A., he owed it to Ted.

      “Go to sleep,” he ordered himself, rolling onto his side and pulling the comforter around him close.

      He let his mind drift, thinking back over the stories he’d listened to tonight on the radio. He wondered just how many of them were real and how many were made up just to get on the air.

      He thought of Dear Jane’s soft purring voice. Would he make up something just to get on the air with her? Or would he need to? If he were to tell her about Valerie, about Ricky and how responsible he felt for his death, what would her advice to him be?

      “I know you’re there Jane, I can hear you breathing. Oh Jane, dear Jane, it’s okay, you don’t have to say anything—you got plenty said on the radio tonight. It’s my turn now. You can listen to me for a change.

      “Did you get my letter? If you read it you will know it won’t be long now. I’ll find you. I’ll find you and the—”

      Her hand shook as she flipped the call button, cutting off the caller. The ringing in her ears was almost deafening and her heart beat so fast in her chest it was almost painful.

      “Hey, you okay?”

      “Hmm…wh-what?” She looked up into Dale’s kind, round face. “Y-yes, I’m fine. Why?”

      “I don’t know, you look a little pale.” Her producer regarded her for a moment, his gaze narrowing. “That was him, wasn’t it? It was that psycho again. He used the call-in line, the son of a—”

      “He just wanted to let me know he’d

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