Reduced to Ashes

by Kay Gordon

  His dark blonde hair was shaggy, curling over his ears and down the base of his neck, and a trim beard of the same color lined his strong jaw. His deep blue eyes had the potential to make his face look handsome if he hadn’t been such a jackass.

  “You know, everything was perfect nine years ago. I had the career I’d always dreamed of and a brand new promotion to prove I was good at it. Then the department hired you and it all started going to shit.” He took a seat on the other double bed so he was across from me. “Do you remember when I asked you out?”

  I shook my head because I definitely did not remember that.

  “Oh, I did. You’d been with us for more than a year and I asked you to dinner. You made up some bullshit about plans with your brother and then you went home with Dunsworth two days later.”

  I searched my mind to try and recall what he was talking about. It took a moment but when it clicked, I shook my head. I remembered him asking me if I wanted to grab a bite but Vincent and I were already going home that night for dinner. I had no idea that the invitation was anything more than just food.

  Widener didn’t bother allowing me to explain. “That’s when I realized you were a whore like the rest of them but that’s okay. I never had a problem finding someone for my bed. Then everything went down with Dunsworth and I managed to stay out of it until someone told Detective Coleman I wasn’t very nice to you. He brought that investigation down on me and I lost my job.”

  Oh, god. Evan. He was going to go after Evan, too. My stomach felt sick.

  “So I left Las Vegas and tried to make a life for myself up here but the only thing I could get was a fucking EMT job. There are some things that pay better than that, though.” He stood from the bed and reached out to touch my face. I flinched away from him and anger flashed in his blue eyes.

  “I could have been good for you, Jones. I have more money than I know what do with. You could have had a good life.” He reached into his pocket and held up a small baggy of discolored powder. “For years, I’ve managed to dominate this area but that detective had to come in and stick his nose where it doesn’t belong. He cost me millions of dollars and pissed off my suppliers. He’s fucked up everything. Imagine my surprise when I found out the two of you were together. Two birds, one stone.”

  A ringing in his pocket interrupted his tirade and he pulled his phone out, looked at the screen, and brought it to his ear. “Zero.” He listened for a moment and then smiled. “Perfect.”

  “Well, pretty girl,” he said to me, placing his phone onto the tall dresser. “Jarvis said that as far as he can tell, no one saw him grab you and he wasn’t followed so we don’t have to worry about being interrupted. That stupid mother fucker will do anything for some smack. I don’t touch the stuff but it’s amusing to watch those who do.”

  Widener offered me a smile that made my stomach churn even more than it already was. He turned away from me so he could focus on the dresser and I took his distraction as an opportunity to try and pull my wrists free.

  “I know you think you’re better than me, Jones, but you’re not.” He kept his back to me as he spoke, his voice holding a large amount of levity. “What would you do if the career you’d worked so long and hard for was suddenly ripped away all because of one person? You left my life in shambles. I had to start from the bottom and now your fucking boyfriend is threatening my empire.”

  My eyes darted from his back to my wrists and I moved faster, feeling frustration roll through my body when the tape didn’t seem to loosen at all.

  Widener turned with an even broader, more disgusting grin on his face, and I immediately stopped struggling when I saw what was in his right hand.

  A syringe.

  “I’m going to prove to you that you’re not better than me. One taste and you’ll understand why I stay in business. One taste and you’ll beg for it again and again like the other idiots do.” He gestured to where his phone was propped up behind him. “We’re even going to make a home video for Detective Coleman. I think he’ll like that, don’t you? By the time he sees it, I’ll be far from here. He’ll have to live with the guilt of knowing that I got away and that he let me get my hands on you.”

  “No,” I sobbed against the tape, scooting back on the bed in an attempt to get away from him.

  The lock on the door clicked and both Widener and I looked to see who it was. For a quick second, hope flooded my chest that it was my savoir. That hope was gone as quick as it came when I realized it was the guy from the parking lot.

  “Good, you’re just in time, Jarvis. Help me hold her down.”

  Jarvis grinned and moved towards me, not put off at all by the way I was thrashing. He grabbed my shoulders and I immediately slammed my head forward until it connected forcefully with his nose. He released his hold with a yelp but didn’t waste any time before he was using the back of his hand across my face.

  Black spots dotted my vision but I didn’t stop struggling, although it was weak at that point. Jarvis laid one arm across my shoulders, putting all of his weight on me as he used his others to pin my joined wrists to my stomach.

  Another weight hit my legs and I was able to see Widener’s blurry form crawling on top of me, the syringe dripping as he brought it above us.

  “Please, no!” I cried against the tape, trying unsuccessfully to roll over. Jarvis adjusted, trying to get a better hold, and restricted my breathing when he did. I tried desperately to suck in a breath, to keep fighting, but those black spots just continued to grow.

  The prick in my arm caused me to use what precious oxygen I did have to cry out against the tape on my mouth. I stopped struggling, not wanting to move when there was a needle in my skin, and I felt the second he pushed the plunger.

  Fire licked at my veins, followed by something indescribable. The panic I’d been feeling earlier, the rage, it all melted away. My body relaxed and the weights on top of me lifted, allowing me to take a long, fantastic breath through my nose.

  Oxygen hit my brain and exhilaration filled my body, making me feel warm. I let my eyes close and heard a long, content moan sound from somewhere. It took a second to realize that it was me.

  “There you go.” Widener sounded far away but I felt something stroke my cheek tenderly. I leaned into the touch, wanting more of it.

  The tape was pulled from my face and any sting of it was instantly soothed by more stroking against my hot skin.

  Deep inside my brain, I knew that the feelings running through me were artificial and that I needed to fight it. I knew that the touch against my skin was wrong. I knew that I shouldn’t open my eyes and smile at the man above me, but I couldn’t help it.

  “How do you feel, pretty girl?” Widener asked, his voice tender and sweet. Jarvis was standing next to him with a grin on his face, showing off his nasty teeth that I couldn’t even be disgusted by in that moment.

  “Look at her all docile and sweet. I know you said you weren’t going to but I bet it’d be nice to fuck her like this. If you’re not, I want to.”

  No, the rational part of my brain screamed but it was quickly shushed by the rest of it and my body’s need to be touched, to be loved.

  “Get out,” Widener demanded, casting a hard look to Jarvis before looking back at me with a smile. “Now.”

  My head started to spin slightly as Jarvis backed away but I forgot about him and the nausea as soon as he was gone.

  Widener pulled me up so I was sitting but my body was too heavy for me to hold up. He let my cheek rest again his chest and then pulled the hair tie out of my hair. When he ran his fingers through the short strands, it was heaven.

  “Goddamn, you make some fantastic noises.” He shifted me until I was on my back again before smiling down at me. “You want me to touch you, Tori?”

  I wanted him to touch me more than I wanted anything else in my life. “Mhmm.”

  He ran the tips of his fingers down the inside of my forearms and I let out another
moan, causing him to grin again. He didn’t stop until he was at my wrists and even the feeling of him removing the tape felt amazing.

  “Funny how quickly you come down off your pedestal, Jones.” He rubbed my tender skin and my eyes began to feel heavy. “Deep down, you’re just another woman. We could’ve been good all those years ago. Now you’re going to lay here and take everything I give you, just like you should, and you’re going to appreciate every second of it.”

  What I appreciated was his soft tone and his soft touch, and my eyes fell closed just as he pulled his shirt over his head. My body felt happy, content, and safe. Like it did when I was with Evan.

  My eyes snapped back open at the thought of Evan. Panic niggled somewhere in the back of my mind and I lifted my heavy arms, ready to fight, to push him away.

  Widener caught my hands and pressed both of my palms to his chest, causing the panic to melt away. His warm flesh sent goosebumps up my own and I wanted to feel it everywhere. Not in a sexual way but more of an intimate need.

  “I don’t...” My mouth felt like a desert when I tried to talk and my thoughts were hard to string together in my head, let alone as words. “Please.”

  He pressed one of my hands more firmly into his chest before directing my other further down. He rubbed my heavy hand against the denim covered bulge in his pants. I tried to pull away as revulsion burst through the cloudy thinking, but Widener kept his grip tight.

  “Feel, Tori. Feel what you do to me. Feel what I do to you.” He stroked the top of my hand gently and that simple touch caused me to flex the fingers on both of my hands. Widener groaned and pushed my palms harder against him.

  A sudden ringing sound came from the dresser, causing him to mutter a curse. He dropped my hands from his chest and groin and turned to answer the phone. I let my eyes close again and felt myself floating in and out of consciousness.

  I don’t know how much time passed before a hand pressed to my cheek and lips ghosted against my ear.

  “You stay here, pretty girl. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Sleep and when I come back, I’ll make you feel good again.”

  Those same lips pressed to my own and I arched into the touch, wanting the kiss. I heard a deep chuckle as the lips disappeared and a door shut somewhere in the background.

  And I happily let myself slip into the darkness.

  Chapter Thirty

  Evan

  Tori: Kelly invited us for dinner tomorrow at six. That okay with you?

  Me: Sounds perfect. I’m wrapping up here. My place or yours?

  Thirty minutes later, I still didn’t have a reply so I decided to call her. The phone rang for the full thirty seconds before her voicemail picked up. I hung up without leaving a message and stared at my phone.

  Something felt off.

  I pressed her name again, trying not to let my thoughts run crazy. It only rang four times before she answered and I started to smile until I heard the voice on the other end of the line.

  “Hello?”

  It was a man, not Victoria like I expected, and I was instantly on guard. “Who is this? Where’s Victoria?”

  “My name is Officer Duncan Welker with the New Hope Police Department. Can you please identify yourself, sir?”

  Everything inside of me went cold. “Detective Evan Coleman, NHPD narcotics, badge 4123. Victoria Jones is my girlfriend. Tell me what’s going on.”

  “Detective Coleman…” He hesitated for a moment. “Can you come down to Power Fitness on Creekside? It seems Victoria is missing.”

  –––

  I watched the footage again. I hated watching the moment she was taken but I needed a clue, any clue, to find her.

  I was so pissed. The guy who grabbed Victoria, who violently abducted her, was the same guy I’d had in cuffs just a month before. We let him go and now she was gone.

  Jarvis had been waiting for her, that much was obvious. She and Kelly left the gym, both of them smiling, and Kelly wrapped Victoria up in a tight hug before they parted ways to go to their separate vehicles.

  Victoria got into her SUV, but only thirty seconds passed by before her door opened. She stepped back out onto the pavement and walked around to the passenger side of her car, reaching for the slip of paper on her windshield.

  She stood there reading it for a few seconds before looking around in confusion. I watched as she started to walk back to the driver’s side of the car at the same time the sliding door to the van parked two spots away opened.

  If only she’d been able to see like I could from the camera angle. She would have seen Jarvis walk up behind her just as she was about to slide back into her seat. She would have noticed him before he jammed the needle into her neck. She would have been able to fight back for longer than the minute and a half before her body went limp.

  Jarvis dragged her unconscious body back to the van and lifted her in, looking around for witnesses before he followed. The van didn’t move for a full five minutes and the only thing I could do was assume he was tying her up. The lab had confirmed that the substance in the syringe was Propofol. It could knock someone out but they didn’t stay out for very long and I was sure he wanted her restrained for whenever that happened.

  The van drove away without anyone noticing that the woman I loved was inside.

  Kelly Christos returned to the parking lot about three minutes after the van pulled out and headed back inside. Apparently she’d left her phone on the reception desk when she and Victoria had been talking to the employee there.

  When she came back outside, she noticed Victoria’s SUV was still there and told us that she almost just assumed she’d gone back in to work out some more. She almost walked away without worrying about it. It wasn’t until she noticed that Victoria’s driver’s side door wasn’t closed all the way that she went to check it out. She found Victoria’s keys on the pavement next to the car, her cell phone and bag on the front seat, and then immediately called the police.

  Traffic cameras had been able to track the van out to the interstate but lost it from there. We had no idea where she was and no way to find her.

  Resisting the urge to smash the tablet into small pieces, I put it down on my desk and stood. I grabbed my hair and began pacing furiously.

  She’d been missing for almost five hours at that point. Vincent and Warren were out, as were Simon, Megan, Kelly, Nick, Tyson, and the rest of Company 21, driving around the city and surrounding areas in hopes of finding the van. We had waves of patrols out doing the same thing. So far we had nothing.

  I’d made Vincent leave a couple of hours before. The weird twin ESP he had was making me more anxious. Victoria had been missing for about an hour and a half when Vincent started saying his body felt weird. He kept scratching at his skin, rubbing his chest, and complaining that he was dizzy. The possibilities of what was being done to Victoria were endless and I was ready to kill Vincent when I kicked him out.

  I paced for about three minutes before sitting back down at my desk and pulling the footage up again. I watched it at half speed, not wanting to miss anything.

  “Where are you, baby?” I whispered, gripping the tablet so hard that I was afraid it was going to crack. “I need you to hold on. I’m going to find you.”

  “Evan.” Dominic’s loud voice cut through my pity party and I looked up to see him thrusting his own tablet towards me.

  “They found whatever had been on her windshield. It was caught on a wheel well of a vehicle parked three rows over. They just emailed it over. The lab is expediting the prints on it now.”

  I immediately took the tablet and focused on the image that was on it. It was just a white piece of paper with the word “Gotcha” written in all caps. I swiped the screen so I could see the other side and froze.

  “It’s stationary.”

  Dominic was already behind me, looking over my shoulder, but he leaned in to see what I was seeing. Using my fingers, I enlarged the logo.

 
; “Lucky Sevens Motel. Isn’t that the motel down off I-90?”

  “There’re five locations.” Dominic held out his phone, showing me where he’d already googled it. “New Hope, Rollins, Henderson, and two in Las Vegas.”

  Lt. Messer appeared in the opening to the cubicles. “You two go check out the New Hope location. I’ll alert the other precincts and have them check the other locations for the van. Go.”

  I stood from the desk. “On it.”

  “Let me drive,” Dom said, pulling the keys to the department sedan out of my grip. I didn’t argue, just went right for the passenger door.

  My best friend drove like a bat out of hell, something I appreciated. He kept the lights and sirens off unless we had to get around traffic but we wanted to get to the motel as fast as possible.

  “If she dies-” I started to say but Dominic cut me off immediately.

  “Shut the fuck up. She’s not going to die. There’s an end game to this, Ev. He didn’t take her just to kill her. He has an agenda and it has to do with you.”

  I tugged at the tie on my neck. It felt like it was strangling me. “You saw the way Vincent was acting. They’re doing something to her.”

  “Focus on finding her.” He glanced over and gave me a sharp look. “Get out of your head and start looking for that van.”

  My best friend was right. I looked out the window and searched the roads for our missing van.

  “I’m coming, Victoria,” I whispered to myself. “Hold on.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Tori

  My eyes felt so heavy and my whole body ached. I tried to roll over, to cuddle up against Evan, but it hurt. I stretched a hand out to reach for him when everything came flooding back to me.

  Waking up in the back of the van. Being carried into the hotel room by Jarvis. Coming face to face with Widener. The needle in my skin. The rush of exhilaration in my blood. Letting Widener touch me and force me to touch him. Passing out.