by Dale Mayer
“Sammy lives there,” Ryker said. “This makes no sense. Stay on the line, Miles.”
They drove into the car park and pulled up behind the vehicle in question, then called for backup and waited for the cops to come and grab the vehicle, knowing that no way would she be in it. They did a quick check anyway.
“What apartment number?” Miles asked.
“Third floor,” Ryker said. “Three zero eight.”
They took the stairs, racing up, weapons already in their hands. By the time they made it up to the third floor, the two of them looked at each other. “You know this makes no sense, right?” Nico asked Miles.
“I know,” Miles said. “I’m afraid somebody else has a vehicle down there, and, now that we’re up here, they’re taking off.” And he quickly relayed that message to Ryker.
“We’re watching the feeds for vehicles coming out of the underground car park,” he said. “You check the apartment. We’re on the parking lot angle.”
Miles gave the count of three, and they literally busted through the door in to Sammy’s apartment. And they found Sammy, all right. A Sammy. Possibly the rightful owner of this apartment. But he was dead. And he certainly wasn’t the Sammy who had been standing guard at the hospital, but there was an uncanny resemblance. Nico and Miles looked at each other in horror, spun and called it.
Even as Miles talked to Ryker, he raced back downstairs for the vehicle. “What vehicle has left in the last ten minutes?” he asked.
“A small white pickup. I’ve got the license plate. We’re tracking it right now.”
“We need several units here. The real Sammy’s dead. And it’s not the same man who was the fake security guard at the hospital or at Vanessa’s apartment.”
“Shit,” he said. “Any chance you have a photo of him?”
“I do,” Miles said. “I took it when he first arrived.” While Nico drove, Miles quickly searched through his photos and sent it to Ryker. “Let me know if you can find him.”
“Oh, I found him,” Ryker said. “He’s actually criminally related to our buddy Ambrose here. He’s wanted all over the eastern block of Europe.”
“Any idea where he’s going right now?”
“Out of town and most likely to a private boat. We need to get him fast.”
“Set up roadblocks,” Miles said immediately. “We’ll have to cut off as many of his exits as we can.”
“We’re on it,” Ryker said.
In the background, Miles could hear Ryker’s fingers clicking away. “We need to contact Interpol.” He looked over to see Nico already talking to somebody, presumably his cohorts at MI5. “I wonder if this is the buyer who was to pick her up?”
“It’s possible,” Ryker said. “I don’t know.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Miles said. “We have to get her back.”
And then the chase was on. Nico came around several corners and pointed. The pickup truck was pulling out of a gas station. And it was the one they wanted. The driver of the vehicle had seen them coming up from behind and hit the gas.
Miles told Ryker to track him. “We’re following him now,” he said. “We’re heading north. Let’s cut him off with a roadblock as soon as we can. He can’t be allowed to get free this time.”
“Any sign of her?”
“No,” he said. “That’s the one thing that really bothers me. What if she’s not even in there?”
“She’s probably unconscious, so either slumped over in the front,” Nico said, “or he’s got her jammed in the small seat in the back.”
“Maybe.” He quickly told Ryker to get the feed from the gas station.
When that came up, he checked and said, “She’s there, but she’s slumped against the passenger’s door.”
“Good. He’s getting sloppy.”
“This was an improvised plan,” Ryker said. “And, without the planning that they normally go through, so I’ll say this one’ll be the one that trips them up.”
But the pickup was pulling faster away from them. Miles looked over at Nico. “No more gas to give this SUV?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Whatever engine he’s got in there has been souped-up. He’s got way more speed than I’ve got.”
The chat window popped up on the laptop in front of him. Roadblock two miles ahead.
“Just keep him in sight,” Miles told Nico. “A roadblock’s two miles up.”
Nico nodded. The truck inched ahead ever-so-slightly, putting more distance between them, but such a long stretch of road was here that he could keep him in sight. And then, when the police roadblock came into sight at a bend in the road up ahead, the truck hit the brakes and spun around and pulled a U-turn, and then he seemed to change his mind and went slashing through a rough field on the side instead, taking out a fence post.
Shots were fired all over the truck, coming from the police roadblock.
“Jesus Christ, they’ll kill her,” Miles cried out.
The shooting did not stop the fake Sammy. Nico went tearing through the field, gaining on them. Miles opened up his side window and pulled out his handgun, then leveled a shot and took out a back tire. The truck fishtailed terribly. He lined up again and shot at the back window, near fake Sammy’s head.
“You want to remember that, at this speed,” Nico said, “if you take out the driver, that vehicle might flip over and kill her.”
Miles swore under his breath because he knew that too. But the truck was having trouble maintaining its path as it was. Miles heard sirens behind him as the other police vehicles behind them caught up. “Any chance of coming up on the inside of him and forcing him off into those rocks? He’ll have a hard time getting away, driving in this rough field.”
Nico nodded, and, as they neared the pickup, the fake Sammy sent a shot through the passenger window, breaking the SUV’s windshield but missing Nico and Miles.
“Great,” Miles said.
But it was obvious that the truck was struggling to stay ahead of them with the one shot out tire.
Miles lined up and took out a front tire. The truck immediately skidded sideways in the field, unable to stay on course, rolling to a slow stop.
Miles was already out of his vehicle, running, holding a gun up against the driver well before Nico ever came to a stop right in front of the pickup. The other cops raced up to joined them too.
Miles jerked open the driver’s side door and placed a handgun against the temple of the driver. “Nice try, Sammy,” he snapped. He jerked the man out and dropped him to the ground, digging his knee into the fake Sammy’s back. Two cops came over immediately, and he let them secure the prisoner while he dove into the front seat, his fingers going to Vanessa’s neck and checking for a pulse. She was alive. But there was fresh blood. He raced around to the far side, opened up the passenger-side door, and yelled, “We need an ambulance.”
“Has she been shot?” Nico asked.
“Yes. I don’t think it’s too serious,” he said. “But it looks like her shoulder was hit.” He quickly held a hand over the wound that was slowly and slightly pulsing blood. As he undid the buckle of the seat belt around her, he whispered, “Vanessa, please, please, sweetie, wake up.”
Finally her eyes fluttered open, and she stared up at him. As soon as she recognized him, tears filled her eyes, and she whispered, “I told you that you shouldn’t leave me.”
“Yes,” he said in a dry tone. “You also told me, rather adamantly, if you will remember, that I was supposed to save your sister.”
Her eyes widened at that. “Did you?”
He nodded. “Ruby’s safe.”
She smiled and slid her good arm up around his neck. “Then it’s all worthwhile.”
“I don’t know about that,” he said. “It looks like a bullet nicked your shoulder.”
“Is it major?”
He studied the wound, then shook his head. “Looks like a flesh wound.”
“Then who cares?” she whispered as she tucked up close aga
inst his neck. “Promise you won’t leave me.” She held her gaze on him and repeated herself. “Promise you won’t leave me.”
“So you want me to stay long-term, forever even?” he asked, wondering.
“Could you? Would you?” She watched him closely as she asked.
“I would like that. And I wish I could promise you that, but I’ll have to leave you some of the time, but just for my job.”
She shuddered in his arms, and he just held her close.
“I guess that’s fair,” she said. “As long as we catch these guys, I’ll be fine.”
“I know you’ll be fine,” he whispered, “because you’re an incredibly amazing woman.” He paused, then added. “And I know you’ll be fine because I’ll be around as much as possible.”
She tilted her head back, smiled up at him and said, “Now, if only we were alone and you were saying that …”
“Let’s get that shoulder looked after,” he said. “And then we’ll see what we can do.”
“Did you find the Ambrose guy?”
He shook his head. “Not yet.”
She frowned. “Sammy said something about the other guy.”
“What did he say?”
“Something about how his day was done, and I wouldn’t have to worry about him anymore.”
“Interesting,” he said. “Well, we have his laptop here and his briefcase. It wouldn’t break my heart at all if this guy shot his colleague Ambrose before kidnapping you.”
“But if he killed him, we’ll never really know why this happened.”
“Not quite true,” Miles said, “because we still have your driver, Sammy here, and he’s the asshole we need.”
Just then another shot was fired, and he looked over to see the fake Sammy on the ground with one of the cops holding a handgun on him. And blood welled out of Sammy’s shoulder.
With Nico now at the scene, the cops holding Sammy in place, Miles walked over with Vanessa at his side and asked the fake Sammy, “So what about your John Smith who procured all your girls for you? Did you kill him too?”
The guy glared and didn’t say a word.
Nico looked at him and supposedly tripped, his foot coming up hard against Sammy’s gunshot shoulder, and the man roared with pain. He jumped forward, but Nico then suddenly fell down again and this time landed on his knees, using the guy’s shoulder for support. “Oh, God,” Nico said. “I’m sorry. This is really rough ground here.”
But the man was bent over, twisting up in a fetal position and bawling like a baby.
“Interesting,” Nico said, looking down at him. “You know what? You’re kind of pathetic. I didn’t really think that you’d be so easy to take down. And look at you. You’re bawling like a child. Obviously you couldn’t kidnap anyone on your own. You needed Ambrose to do your dirty work.”
He shook his head. “No, no, no,” he said. “I need my lawyer. This is police brutality.”
“Oh, well, where did you ever get the idea that I’m police?” Nico asked.
Vanessa chuckled. “And you, asshole, I want to know why you were taking me away.”
“For my collection,” he said.
Everybody around him froze.
“Your collection?” Miles asked in a warning tone.
But the guy was too oblivious, the pain curling him up in a tiny and tight ball. He nodded. “Yes. My collection.”
“And where is this collection?”
He shrugged.
“Tell us,” Nico said, his hand coming down hard on Sammy’s injured shoulder.
The man started to blubber, “Please, please no.”
“Where is this collection?”
“At home,” he said.
“And where’s home?”
He gave the name of a small town farther up the coast.
Miles looked down at her, and she said, “Don’t even think about it. I’m going with you.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded. “Absolutely sure.”
He looked down at the buyer and asked, “And why are you collecting these redheads?”
The man opened his eyes, and they were filled with tears of sorrow this time. “I wouldn’t have to,” he said, “but they keep wanting to leave me.”
“Did you keep them as prisoners?” Vanessa asked brutally.
He nodded slowly.
“You can never cage what needs to be free,” she said. “One way or another, they all will find a way to escape, even if it’s into death.”
And he started to blubber again. “But I loved them,” he said. “I would have loved you too. I would have kept you so happy.”
“There’s no true happiness to be found if you keep women as prisoners,” she said. “And why did you start all this?”
“She died,” he said. “That asshole killed her.”
At that, Miles understood a few of the puzzle pieces. “So, this John Smith or Ambrose or whatever he liked to be called, killed your girlfriend?”
“No, she was his girlfriend,” he said. “She was my sister.”
“And he killed your sister?”
Vanessa crouched in front of him and reached out to hold his hand.
Immediately Miles tried to pull her back, but she refused. “And you loved her, didn’t you?”
He nodded. “I so loved her. She was everything to me.”
“And was she your lover?”
He nodded. “We’d been lovers forever,” he whispered. “She was older than me, but then she started to see John Smith. And they got into a big fight when he found out that she loved me too.”
“And he killed her.”
“Yes,” he whispered. “He killed her. And I watched him do it, and I couldn’t stop him, but, at the same time, I now had power over him. Because he had killed to get even, he realized that killing made him feel good. And so he would kill every once in a while, just enough to stave off the pain. But then he realized that it made him just as happy to pick up women for me.”
“But only redheads, right?”
“Yes,” he whispered, “Only redheads. And only when I needed them.”
“Like once a year.”
He shrugged. “Sometimes, I’d have two, if the other one was still alive. Every year in the same month, he’d bring me a new one. I paid him a lot of money to keep quiet and to keep me happy. I have money …” He looked up at the people surrounding him. But, at the frowns glaring back, he sagged in on himself. “I have money,” he whispered. “I created a video game and made enough money to keep my collection happy.”
Happy? That was hardly the right word. Miles could feel the growing anger all around him. “You didn’t choose them?”
The fake Sammy nodded. “Some of them I did. You, I did,” he whispered to Vanessa. “You were so beautiful,” he said, staring up at her with longing. “All those photos, all the pictures everywhere … So beautiful I knew I had to have you.”
“There, that possession thing again,” she said. “Did you kill all those women?”
He shook his head. “No, of course not. I never killed them.”
“Did John?” Miles asked.
Sammy looked at him briefly, but his gaze slid away.
“So, when he brought you a new one every year, you let him kill the old one?” Vanessa asked, her voice rising in horror. “Isn’t it bad enough that you kept them prisoner all that time, then you turned around and, instead of giving them their freedom, you let that sadistic killer get them too?”
“We were blood brothers,” he said. “Nobody else would understand, but he understood me, and I understood him. Then he messed up and lost you. Then shot a cop because he was mad, and he hadn’t found you yet. He had a kid who did our IDs, played with the traffic cams, ran errands, … but he got caught. So I had to step in. I hated it but …” He stared at Vanessa. “You’re worth it.”
“Dear God,” she said, looking at Miles, her hand at her mouth. “I’m going to be sick.” And she turned and vomited into the deep grass.
Miles gently lifted her and pulled her back. “This man’ll go to prison, and we’re taking you to the hospital.”
She stared at him and nodded slowly. “I still need to know where this John Smith/Ambrose is.”
Miles looked down and said to Sammy, “He’s back at your prison, isn’t he?”
Sammy started to bawl again. “He’s my blood brother,” he said, “and I killed him.”
“Why?” she asked, still struggling to understand.
Chapter 13
“Why did you kill him?” Vanessa asked the fake Sammy.
“Because he failed,” he said simply. “I had warned him after the last one. Another failure and I’d kill him myself.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t kill you,” Miles said.
“He tried,” Sammy said. “That’s why I killed him first. I saw the police rescue once Vanessa escaped. I heard all about it in the news, and then I went to the hospital to stand guard. Ross helped with the fake ID and creating my personnel file with the hospital. And then I went to Vanessa’s apartment. Nobody ever questioned me. Nobody ever does. I’m one of those people nobody ever notices twice.”
“Well, that’s all right,” she said. “Now you’ll be known as the partner to the worst serial killer in this part of London.”
At that, he started to bawl again. “I didn’t want to hurt them. They were beautiful. They were just so beautiful, and they were mine.”
“Well, they were never yours to begin with,” she said.
He looked at her and shook his head. “But he always brought me a shiny new one, and I couldn’t resist.”
She stared at him in sick disgust and stumbled to the SUV, where she bent down again and took deep breaths. Her stomach was already pretty upset. When she felt warm arms around her, she turned and curled into Miles’s embrace. “Dear God,” she whispered.
He stroked her head gently. “I know. I know. Let’s get you to the hospital and get your shoulder looked after.”
She nodded. “And please make sure we confirm the other asshole is dead.”
“We will,” he said. “As far as you’re concerned, this is over.”