Wanted by the Marshal

by Ryshia Kennie

  She gave his hand a squeeze. “I’m fine.”

  “Alright,” he agreed. “Keep your doors locked. You’ve got your phone?”

  “Of course,” she said with a smile.

  “I won’t be long.”

  “I’ll keep Lucy company,” she replied.

  He nodded and wondered again how she could be so darn attached to the cat. In her situation a dog would have been better. And as far as he was concerned, no pet at all would be ideal. But it wasn’t his life or his choice. He pushed the thoughts from his mind. He had other things to focus on.

  He looked at the key fob. There was a good chance it had no connection with her kidnapper. He guessed that it had lain in the parking lot long before the attempted abduction. There was only an off chance that it could be the clue that turned everything on its head. Of course, he hoped for that, but he knew what the odds were. He dialed down his expectations every time he’d faced a situation like this. The hope that it was the clue that cracked the case was a long shot.

  As he walked toward the entrance to the gym, a couple of young women left with bags slung over their shoulders. He stopped at the entrance and turned, watching as they got into a VW sedan and drove away. He glanced back at the SUV where Kiera sat; she caught his eye and gave him a wave.

  She was fine. He was worrying unnecessarily. The attacker was long gone, that was a given. That aside, he just didn’t like her out of his sight. Especially considering everything that had happened. He needed to learn to step away in the times that he could. This was one of those times. She was away from the compromised safe house; she was with him. She couldn’t be any safer.

  He went into the building. There, he made his way through a large area with benches and shoe racks and wound his way to the entrance on the main floor. He decided to give the fob the acid test and used it to swipe in. The buzzer sounded, freeing the gate. The young woman at the desk looked at him with a smile.

  “Here for a workout?”

  “No. Actually, I found this.” He held out the fob.

  “I see,” she said. “And it let you in. Definitely belongs here, then.”

  She took the fob from him and ran it under the scanner. She looked at the screen and then back at him.

  She frowned.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m not getting an account coming up,” she said. “It’s pretty banged up. I’ll see if I can find something in the records.”

  A minute passed.

  She typed some more, frowned and then pulled out a notebook from beneath the counter. She muttered as she scanned the entries and flipped a page. Finally, she looked up. “I’ll make sure she gets it.”

  She.

  That one word was like a glaring siren between them.

  “Can you tell me the name, please? I’m Travis Johnson, United States Marshal.” He pulled out his ID and showed it to her.

  “Yes, of course. Susan Berker.”

  “Is there an address, phone number? Anything else—age?”

  “An age—forty-two—but no address. Only a phone number.” She gave him the number.

  “Anything else?” he asked.

  “No.” She shook her head. A curl of black hair escaped one of the dozen or so braids that were held back with a purple-and-white headband.

  “We don’t collect data on our clients. That’s all the information we have on any of them. Sorry.”

  “Did she have a locker here?”

  “No. She didn’t. And...” She looked at the computer. “She hasn’t been here in a few days. I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”

  “Excuse me,” a soft voice said behind him.

  He turned around to face a young woman with soft, soulful eyes and a worried expression. “I heard you asking about Susan Berker. I may be able to help you.”

  “Do you know where she lives?” he asked hoping for the impossible.

  “Yes,” she said, much to his surprise.

  “I was at her place on Friday.” She blushed. “She took a liking to me. I’ve only seen her here twice. Anyway, Friday I watched her lift weights. She was amazingly fit.” She paused. “When I was in the change room, she came over and asked me if I’d like to come to her place for...” She blushed. “You know.”

  Travis nodded. He did know. A sexual encounter, the details of which had no relevance to what he needed to find out.

  “I said yes. But when I went to the address she gave me, she wasn’t the same.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “At first everything was okay. She gave me a hug and invited me in. Then she gave me a cup of tea. There was something off about the tea. I took a sip and couldn’t drink any more. She kept pushing me to drink it.”

  That had Travis’s attention. He guessed the tea was drugged. That put a whole new spin on what type of encounter this might have been turning into.

  “Was she violent at all?”

  “No.” She frowned. “She wasn’t happy with me when I didn’t drink the tea. Then, she suggested that we play a game and brought out handcuffs. I saw the handle of a gun in her pocket and that kind of freaked me out. Everything was getting beyond weird. I told her I needed to use the washroom and slipped out her side door instead.”

  Minutes later, with the address entered on his smartwatch, Travis thanked her and watched as she headed to the change room. He stood to the left of the desk and mulled over what it all might mean. With answers only came new possibilities as old questions ran through his mind. How had the killer found Kiera? Was it possible they’d been tracked here and if so, how?

  He contacted Serene. “Can you check if Kiera has been online since she was discharged from the hospital?” He knew that she’d been warned but he also knew of her soft heart.

  Minutes later he had his answer. One interaction, one message to her boss and a picture. Her soft heart had left her vulnerable, again. Although she’d been warned to stay off social media, he guessed that she hadn’t thought that one private message would be a problem. A picture of a beloved pet to remind an old woman that her cat was well cared for and safe was all that was needed. Her account had been hacked and her location traced. All it had taken was a little patience and a little tech savvy to pinpoint exactly where Kiera had gone.

  * * *

  KIERA LOOKED AT her watch. She was tired of waiting. It was a cool day; Lucy would be fine in the SUV for a few minutes. She unlocked the door and then she reached for the door handle. She was dying of curiosity to see if Travis had found something.

  Her hand was still on the handle when the door was almost ripped open, and the handle flew out of her hands. The beginning of a scream died in her throat as she faced a wild-eyed middle-aged woman with wide gray streaks running through her long black hair. She knew her, was familiar with that face. But that was of little concern. What was, was the gun in one hand and the hate in her eyes. Or at least that’s what she felt as her first instinctive reaction, that and a huge knot of fear.

  “Get out!” the woman demanded in a throaty, hoarse voice that could be as much male as female. Except she was definitely female. Kiera recognized her from only three hours ago. She’d tried to abduct her once in a parking lot and somehow, despite Travis’s precautions, she’d found them here. Now she had her arm and was yanking her out.

  There was no time to consider any of that. Kiera fought desperately. She couldn’t be taken again. For she knew the face and the voice. Her second kidnapper. Fear threatened to paralyze her, but she couldn’t let it. Instead, she managed to pull away and tried to shimmy across the seat, toward the driver’s seat.

  “Get out!” the woman repeated. The grip on her arm was painfully tight. It was unbreakable. She was being yanked toward the door despite her efforts. She could let it continue and land on her head on the pavement or do what the woman said. There was no choice; she held a
gun and she held the advantage in strength and in spades.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw the entrance to the gym and hope breathed in her heart. But it was empty. Travis was nowhere in sight.

  “Now!”

  The woman pulled so hard that this time only a twist of her body kept her from falling headfirst onto the pavement. She scraped her knee and managed to right herself. The gun was hard in her back, reminding her of the fact that she had no choice.

  “Move!” And as she took the first step toward the beat-up white van, she knew that it was over. The chance that she could escape twice, minimal, three times defied the law of—well, everything. She swallowed back the bitter taste of dread and prayed that Travis was as good as he claimed to be.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  It was an ugly word and it exploded from Travis in a burst of horror and anger as he raced across the parking lot. He’d seen the struggle as he’d reached to open the door. Kiera was pushed into the driver’s side of an old white van and a woman jumped in behind her. The van was taking off with a squeal of tires as he raced out of the building. He ran like he’d never run before. But it was futile. The van was out of the parking lot and speeding down a side road. His heart pounded. He couldn’t believe that this had happened, again. Anger and disbelief raged through him. He’d failed. He flung open the door of his vehicle and faced the fact that she was gone. Only Kiera’s cat peered at him from her carrier.

  He started the SUV and had it in gear almost in one motion. He wouldn’t let this happen to her, not twice in one day, not three times in a lifetime. He was peeling out of the parking lot after the van. The state of his tires and the amount of rubber he was leaving behind on the pavement was not a consideration. He couldn’t believe that this could have happened again, that it was happening at all. The van was already out of sight as he left the parking lot in hot pursuit. They’d taken an intersecting road and disappeared. All he had now was the address the woman in the gym had given him. He had to hope that was where she was headed. It was all he had. He couldn’t consider that he might have erroneous information.

  The woman at the gym had indicated that it wasn’t that far away. He put in a call to James and soon the FBI agent’s voice filled the SUV.

  “Wait for backup,” James said. “I’m serious, Travis. The last thing you need to do is endanger yourself, as well.”

  “I’m sorry, James. I can’t promise you that,” he said as he disconnected the call. He let it ring after that. He had no further need to talk to James. James knew nothing that would help him; he had only demands that would hold him back from chasing the pair down. He knew James would get backup out. But he couldn’t wait for anyone, not with Kiera again in the hands of a mad woman. Instead, he punched in the address on his GPS. Normally, he would have pulled over. Normally, he would have cared about distracted driving. The only thing that mattered was getting to Kiera in time to save her.

  “Hang in there, Kiera,” he muttered. He was speeding along a road that bordered an industrial section. That was the only bit of luck he’d had so far. He could speed without qualms in this area.

  He couldn’t lose her now. Not when he’d finally realized how much she’d come to mean to him. He took a corner so hard that the carrier slid across the seat and the cat let out a startled meow.

  “Sorry,” he muttered and didn’t give a thought to the fact that he’d apologized to a cat. There was only one thing, one woman on his mind. He had to get to her in time. He had to stop this atrocity before it went any further.

  The GPS had him at two miles away from his target. Two miles was nothing and yet it was everything. Within a minute he was in a residential area that seemed filled with worn, broken-down houses. He noticed a child’s tricycle that looked like it was abandoned in the front yard, left to rust in the elements. Again, they were fleeting thoughts. He had to slow down—tricycles meant kids, families. His hands ached from a too-hard grip on the wheel. He was taking a chance. He didn’t know if this was where they were headed. He only hoped he was right. If he was wrong, Kiera could be lost to him. He tried to push the thought from his mind. But the doubt kept returning and the dread of it made his stomach ache and his head pound with fear. The killer could be taking her anywhere. The address the woman had given him may or may not have been her home. It could be anything—belong to anyone.

  The sprawl of Denver was unending. Even here, on the edges of industrial commerce, where the majority of the houses were neglected, a crane loomed in the distance. He was a few blocks away. He took another corner too fast, and this time he offered no apology when the cat’s carrier slid again across the seat of the SUV.

  Another block, the housing seemed even worse, more dilapidated, more neglected. Another kid’s bicycle lay across the sidewalk like it was dropped and forgotten. A block ahead and three houses in, he stopped one house back from a worn brick bungalow. It was the kind built thirty years ago in a boom that had poor construction married to high demand and an influx of lower-middle-class workers. The house had seen better days. He turned off the engine. And, despite the urgency that was knotting his gut, he sat and took account of the situation. The white van was in the driveway. There was no one on the street. All was quiet which was good and also disconcerting. A door slammed, followed by a dog’s bark.

  His gun was out, kept to his side where it wasn’t the first thing anyone might see of him. He closed the door in a controlled move, so the door clicked shut. Everything was silent. But they hadn’t been there that long. They couldn’t be. He was only minutes behind them.

  He moved cautiously, bent over as he went up the drive on the side of the van farthest from the house. He peered in a window of the vehicle. Nothing. As he already guessed, the van was empty. A crumpled sweater lay on the backseat and a potato chip wrapper was on the floor. Otherwise there was no dirt or dust. It looked like it had been recently cleaned.

  He wondered at that. Despite the van’s age and environment, it had been kept meticulously clean. His answer was only speculation and something he pushed to the back of his thoughts. But, if she was continuing their murderous spree, even without her partner, then this was probably the vehicle she was doing it in. And cleaning up any evidence as she went. He didn’t take his mind to the darker place of what that evidence might be.

  He rounded the van, keeping low. He couldn’t go to the back or front without alerting Kiera’s kidnapper. He assessed as he went. He looked for weak points—places that he could use to his advantage and get in unnoticed, unheard. The basement windows were the old pullout-with-a-lever kind. Easy to break into. He could squeeze into the basement in a pinch. It was a relief to focus on moving forward and not on what Kiera might be enduring now, at this moment.

  Within seconds he was in. He dropped onto an empty concrete floor. He pressed his back against the concrete wall as he listened for noises. His heart pounded like it never had before as he feared that despite his reaction time, he might still be too late. The fear came from the fact that he could sense the emptiness. There was no life down here. He was alone. It was what he expected, and what he hoped not to find, not to be too late. He pulled out his pocket flashlight, shining it in a close range around him before spreading the beam out. There was nothing but one big concrete space. There was no development, no collection of stuff except for a trio of cardboard boxes. It was as if it was only temporary housing and not someone’s home. There was shuffling upstairs, followed by a woman’s cry.

  He moved to the foot of the stairs. He wanted to run up and crash the party, but he couldn’t. Waiting was going to kill him. He’d recognize that voice anywhere.

  Kiera.

  He held himself back. He couldn’t burst onto the main floor. He had his gun at the ready, his breathing steady as he listened. He was trying to pinpoint the location of the sound. He heard a bang. Then, there was a sound like something or someone being dragged. He guessed they were not ne
ar the basement stairs, the sound seeming deeper, near the back of the house. He had nothing but guesses but he couldn’t take the chance of wasting more time. He couldn’t wait another second for every bit of time was working against Kiera. With his gun ready to fire on a second’s notice he cautiously moved up the stairs. He felt with his feet in the dark, to avoid creaks that might warn of his presence. The basement door was closed. He put an ear to the door. There was silence on the other side. He couldn’t pinpoint where Kiera’s kidnapper was, where Kiera was—he had no visual. He had to take the chance.

  He pushed the door quietly open. Nothing. He eased himself through the doorway, moving stealthily but quickly. He was at the junction of the kitchen and a hallway that led in two different directions. Left to a living area and right to what he guessed would be the bedrooms. He had his gun in both hands and the weapon led the way. He hung at the edge of the doorway. Time seemed to stand still and then he saw her. Just like that his eyes met Kiera’s and his heart sank to see her bound and gagged, sitting on an old-style metal-legged kitchen chair. Before he could make a move in her direction, another movement had him turning to see a gun leveled at him. A middle-aged woman with an overtanned and wrinkled face glared at him but it was the gun in her hands that had his attention. He ducked and rolled away from Kiera, taking the trajectory of any bullet meant for him, away from her.

  He came up on one knee in midroll. He was ready to shoot, to kill, to get Kiera the hell out of there. Her captor had retreated through the doorway that led to the living room. It wasn’t a clean shot, but he took it anyway. She ducked behind the sofa. He moved forward and stopped.

  A shot to his left took out a chunk of the doorframe. He ducked down as she jumped up and ran for the front door. He had a glimpse of her long black hair as she hunkered down. He didn’t have a clear shot and took out his own chunk of drywall. Hunched and still moving, she turned and fired at him again. Plaster rained down on him; his vision blurred from the bits that got in his eye. He shot anyway, trying to take her out before she escaped or at best cause an injury. But she was out the door and gone.