by G. K. Parks
I swallowed, the blade digging deeper. My eyes shifted to the side, and I searched the dark recesses for my discarded bag. Did he know I had a gun? Or was my purse a hindrance? Think, Parker. What are your options?
He refused to answer me. The only words he spoke warned me to remain quiet. He expected compliance, and from the way he held the blade, he would get it. Or my blood would spill.
I saw it in his eyes; he was waiting for me to do something stupid. It would leave him with no choice. He’d be forced to act, and in some twisted way, his conscience would be clear.
I opened my mouth to speak, and he flicked the tip of the blade, just enough to draw blood. Despite the mask that covered everything but his eyes, I could read his expression. Don’t speak. Something came over him then, as if he finally decided what he was going to do. He reached between us with his free hand and fumbled with my belt.
My mind went into overdrive. Weaknesses, find weaknesses. This wasn’t the best position to be in. My gun and phone were too far away to be of any use. Based on his build and my aching and numb toes, he was heavy and strong. “Please,” I whispered, “I’ll do whatever you want. Just don’t kill me.” If I gave him complete control, he’d relax, and I’d take advantage.
He unhooked my belt and leaned back on his heels to work it free from my pants. His unyielding weight kept my feet glued to the ground. I tried to squirm away, and he grabbed my shoulder and pushed my back against the wall. He dared me with his eyes, but I stopped moving. He’d slice me open before I could wrestle the knife away.
Instead, I focused on the soft, easy targets. His eyes and his groin. This was close quarters combat. I could handle myself. I just needed to get into position. The eyes would be more difficult since moving my arms would surely cause him to cut me. I needed him to take a step back.
Suspecting he wanted to get his rocks off, I’d give him a helping hand or a knee. “Please,” I whispered, “I won’t resist.”
He tugged hard on one end of my belt, causing my hips to twist and knock against his. Without thinking, he turned to the side to pull the last length of belt free, and his foot moved almost entirely off of mine. Bingo. That was it.
I slammed my knee into his crotch, and he doubled over. The knife caught on my clavicle, and I yelped in pain. The blade wedged just behind the bone and stuck. But that didn’t stop my retaliation. I kneed him again, this time in the chin. He stumbled backward, ripping the knife free as his back collided with the opposite wall.
“You sick fucker,” I snarled, aware he still had the knife in his hand. I landed a roundhouse kick to his chest, afraid to get too close on account of the blade and his physical advantage. He fell back, dropping the knife.
In the dark, I couldn’t see his hands. Was he going for a gun? Did he have another weapon? I screamed, hoping to attract as much attention as possible. He didn’t pull a gun. Instead, he barreled toward me, intent on shutting me up.
My elbow cracked into his jaw, and I spun, thrusting the palm of my other hand upward and breaking his nose. His eyes teared so badly he probably couldn’t see. He let out a vicious snarl, wiping at the tears. I slipped deeper into the dark, searching for my gun. Rushed footsteps echoed on the sidewalk, and I prepared for another attack.
It never came. The commotion caught the attention of several pedestrians. The attacker barreled past the first two men who came to my aid. He knocked one of them on his ass and darted across the street.
For a split second, I was torn. Should I pursue? He was injured. I might be able to subdue him, but it was a gamble. His knife had clattered to the pavement, and he never reclaimed it. The asshole was probably in too much pain to think about it. And I knew whatever sick intentions he had were long forgotten. Who the hell was he? And what did he really want?
Despite my preference for enacting my own form of justice, I was in no condition to go another round either. Not without my gun. I found my purse amongst several garbage bags that had fallen out of an overstuffed trashcan. I picked it up, removed my nine millimeter, and stepped onto the sidewalk.
Dammit. Where did he go? The blood trail ended at the curb.
“Did you see a man running away?” I asked the closest guy. “He had his face covered and a broken nose.”
“No shit,” the guy said. “Son of a bitch nearly toppled over me.” He glanced at his friend. “We called the cops. They should be here soon.” His eyes went to my collar, but I didn’t wait for him to say anything else.
“Hey, you.” I pointed to a couple across the street. “Did you see a man with a mask?”
“He got into a car and took off,” the woman said. She looked both ways and darted across the street. “Are you okay?” She didn’t touch me, but she looked over my injuries and askew clothing. “Did he…?”
“No,” I looked at her, “he tried.”
“Good for you.” She reached for her husband’s hand. “Darren, call 911. Get her an ambulance and the police.” She looked at me again. “You should sit down. That looks really bad.”
“I’m okay.” Cross Security loomed fifty feet away. Another few steps and I would have been inside. None of this would have happened. Yet, something told me the attack wasn’t a coincidence, but my mind couldn’t wrap itself around the inconsistencies. I had no idea what just happened. Was it an attempted sexual assault? I wasn’t convinced that had been my attacker’s intention. He wanted my belt, not inside my pants.
“The police are on the way,” Darren said, showing more compassion now that his wife was insisting upon it.
“What are your names?” I asked, figuring they might disappear like the other two men who helped stave off the attack.
“Darren and Darlene Stone.” Her eyes darted back and forth, as if we were in the middle of a war zone. Perhaps, in some ways, we were.
“Did you happen to get the license plate of the car?”
They shook their heads.
“What about make or model?”
“Um, it was that red car parked over there,” Darlene said.
“It had four doors. Old, like from the early 1990s,” Darren added. “The car alarm went off a few minutes ago. I didn’t even think old junkers like that had alarms. Maybe you noticed it?”
“Figures,” I muttered. It was the only thing that made sense. Whoever the asshole was, he had been waiting for the perfect opportunity. Except there was no perfect opportunity, so he made his own. I pressed a hand into my collarbone, hissing. Oh yeah, that would require stitches. “Shit.”
A patrol unit arrived a minute later. I pointed them at the scene of the attack and gave the officers my name and information while one of them pressed some gauze against my clavicle. I introduced them to Darren and Darlene and asked if we could continue this inside. One of the officers accompanied me to the office while the other questioned my new friends.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?” the officer asked.
“We have medical staff on duty. This will be faster.”
“And you’re certain he didn’t touch you.”
“Not like that.” I gave the cop a look. “He had gloves on. His entire body was covered, head to toe. I can’t tell you anything except his height and maybe his weight. He drove an old red car and triggered the alarm as a distraction. That’s when he grabbed me.”
“That’s something.”
I stepped out of the elevator on the thirtieth floor. “Do you want to call in the guys from evidence collection?”
“You said he didn’t touch you. What do you think we’ll be able to collect?”
“Look, I want this guy off the street. I want him caught, and I want him locked up. If he had attacked someone not quite as trained or prepared as me, things would have gone a lot differently. He also knew how to hold the blade, how to stand, how to act. He’s probably done it before.” Actually, I was positive he’d done it before.
“Any idea how many serial rapists are on the loose?” the cop asked.
I gl
ared at him, unable to determine if that was rhetorical. “Why don’t you tell me?”
“A whole hell of a lot more than there should be. We’ll do what we can to find this one, but I can’t make any guarantees. You were lucky. It could have been a lot worse. The thing is, when it comes to prosecuting, the charges won’t be that steep since he didn’t touch you.”
“I’m not convinced this was a failed sexual assault. And let’s be real. Assault with a deadly weapon or attempted murder comes with steep penalties. It’s up to the prosecutor, the judge, and the jury. That’s why you need to make sure the case will hold up. Get a team down here to check everything, or I’ll have private sector professionals do your job for you.”
He clicked his radio and requested a detective and evidence collection at our location. “Anything else I should know? Maybe you got some other helpful hints on how I should do my job.”
“Actually, I do,” I retorted. “You have the knife he used. Maybe he touched it before he put on his gloves. Perhaps you’ll get prints. And you need to run the car. Check nearby businesses for security cam footage. You find the car, you’ll find him.”
“Sure. Easy peasy.” He watched the bloodstain on my shirt grow larger. “Since you got all this useful information, you should realize hospital records speak volumes. Are you sure you don’t want an ambulance?” He clicked his radio again, requesting an ambo to our location, even though I knew the medics here could testify just as easily as any ER personnel.
“The medics are upstairs.” I grabbed my bag from behind the door and headed back to the elevator. “Do you know how chain of custody works?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He was growing increasingly annoyed by my attitude, but I didn’t care. “I watch those crime shows too.”
“Great. When I take off these clothes, they’re going into a sealed evidence bag, which is going into your custody. You are going to observe this happening and sign off on it to ensure that no shyster defense attorney can object to whatever trace they might find.”
“Wonderful. Maybe we should record it too.” We stepped out of the elevator, and the cop spun in a circle, suddenly realizing I wasn’t full of shit. “Where the hell are we?”
“Welcome to privatized policing.”
The techs Cross employed were the cream of the crop. They could find and analyze almost anything. Of course, when it came to pursuing legal grounds, I wasn’t entirely sure how convincing the evidence they obtained might be. That’s why I wanted the real police to handle this matter. However, they were bogged down in cases, and this wouldn’t be a priority. The officer following me around had practically said as much.
A detective arrived, someone I didn’t know, who asked the same questions as the patrol officers. She took my statement, my clothes, and photographs of my injuries. She had just left when Lucien returned to the office.
“Miss Parker, why are there patrol cars outside the building? Someone notified me the police were here.”
I winced as the medic finished the last stitch, tying off the ends. I pulled my shirt up over my shoulders and buttoned my blouse while he dabbed at the scrape on my face with an alcohol-soaked cotton swab. I pulled away, wincing. That was enough of that. However, he remained undaunted and put a band-aid over the cut.
“Do you want a little something for when the lidocaine wears off?” the medic asked.
“No, I’m okay. Thanks for the patch job.” I turned to face Cross. “I need whatever security camera footage you have for outside the building.” And then I told Cross what happened, recalling just how mad I’d been when I left dinner.
“I’ll get started on it.” Cross studied me uncertainly. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.”
His eyes narrowed, taking in every cut, scrape, and nervous tic. “Do you want a detail to follow you around until the police apprehend him?”
“No, and I doubt they will.”
Cross picked up the phone and ordered a team to check for trace in the alleyway as soon as the police were finished. “We’ll find the vehicle. Don’t worry.”
“This is a police matter.”
“You’re one of my investigators. That trumps everything.”
“I don’t want special treatment.”
“Too bad.”
Grumbling, I went down the stairs to my office. A thought hit me just as I reached for the doorknob. The attack wasn’t random. It was supposed to appear that way, but the timing and location were too convenient. The assailant planned everything. That’s why he set off his car alarm. It gave him the chance to grab me off the street without anyone noticing.
Who the hell was he? And what did he really want? I didn’t think sexual assault had been the priority. He waited too long. He was too careful, too measured. Most random attacks were frenzied. This wasn’t. He was calm, like he was waiting for something. Either I was being stalked, or I was targeted for another reason. I had to find out why.
Ten
The security cameras didn’t catch the car’s plates, and the view of the driver left a lot to be desired. That damn mask made him unrecognizable. Cross had done what he could with facial recognition, but it wasn’t enough. Both the police and Cross Security were working on DNA analysis from the blood drops found at the scene, but DNA took time.
I wanted to know who the man was and, more importantly, why he attacked me. My gut said it wasn’t a random act of violence. He chose me. If the point was to kill me, he would have sliced my throat. No, he wanted something else. The police were convinced it was a failed sexual assault, but he didn’t rip open my blouse or yank off my pants. He just wanted my belt. Maybe it was a fetish, but I didn’t think so. Like most adversaries I’d faced, he underestimated me, but if he hadn’t, I wondered what he would have done.
Oddly enough, the attack actually had a positive effect on my psyche. Instead of falling deeper down the rabbit hole of death and mayhem, which was the direction I had been heading after watching the light leave Gifford’s eyes, I was now invigorated. I’d been trained to survive, and I proved it. I was invincible. And even though the voice in my head reminded me how ridiculous that notion was, I couldn’t shake it. I liked the high. Truthfully, I felt great, which was ironic.
Martin, on the other hand, didn’t share my sentiment. He didn’t exactly know the whole story, but he knew I’d been jumped on my way back from dinner and the police and Cross Security were investigating. As usual, the stitches concerned him.
“Miss Parker, Mark Jablonsky is here to see you,” the receptionist said.
I hit the button for the intercom. “Thanks. Send him in.” I grabbed a pen and sticky note and went back to what I was doing.
“Holy shit.” Mark stood in the doorway with his mouth agape. “I’ve seen serial killers that weren’t this crazed.”
“I’m not crazed,” I retorted, sticking my note to the wall. “Close the door before Cross sees you.” I turned to Mark, eyeing the folder in his hands. “Did you bring it?”
He held it out, walking toward me while he analyzed my handiwork. “You’re going to need more wall space.”
“I’ll manage.” I placed the file on the coffee table and started dissecting it. “How many favors did you have to call in?”
“Not many. That’s everything cybercrimes found on Noah Ryder.” He bit his thumbnail and pointed at the post-it. “What’s all this?”
“CryptSpec,” I said dismissively.
“And this?” Mark asked, turning and striding across the room. He flicked a few of the photographs I taped beside my notes. “That’s from the attack?”
“Uh-huh.” I sorted the documents into workable piles. “Ryder has a specific profile he targets. Any idea if he’s still active?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” Distracted by my macabre collage, he didn’t elaborate further.
I threw a pencil and hit him in the back. “Hey, I need to know if the FBI is opening an investigation into Ryder.”
He rubbed
his head and glared at me. “Not at this time. Are you sure you’re okay? Marty’s concerned. And after seeing this, so am I.”
“No reason to be.” I grabbed a few pushpins and tacked the FBI profile and list of Ryder’s possible aliases to the wall under his name. “I’m just busy, and this was the easiest way to keep things organized.” I pointed to the back wall. “Stuart Gifford was murdered right outside the CryptSpec building. The police are investigating.” I lowered my voice and looked uncertainly at my closed office door, afraid Cross might appear. “Detective Heathcliff believes a few of the people who work there have a side hustle removing ransomware. It might go to motive.”
“You think they’re causing the problem and fixing it?”
“That is the nature of ransomware. I assume Derek’s thinking the same thing, but we haven’t spoken about it directly. Blackmail and desperation are great motives for murder, and if Gifford figured it out, that would be reason enough to kill him.” I shrugged. “Plus, I have no idea why Gifford was at CryptSpec unless it was related to the ransomware.”
“Maybe it’s more than a side hustle.”
“It’s possible their new app is being used to exploit security weaknesses on computers and devices. Maybe that’s how the programmers are installing the ransomware. Then again, the competition could be responsible.”
Mark raised an interested eyebrow. “Go on.”
“I was hired to flush out an internal leak. I thought I did, but after Gifford was killed, other facts came to light.” I finished updating the Noah Ryder wall and crossed to where Mark was standing. “See this,” I pointed to a printed screenshot, “this is the information CryptSpec can access when someone agrees to the TOS. It would make finding targets easy, and with a bit of internal manipulation, some of the guys at the company could use the app to make a handsome profit by victimizing users.”
Mark blew out a breath. “Technology. Gotta love it.”
I had shared my theory with Kellan and Lucien, but the official company line was we had dropped the CryptSpec investigation. The civil engineer might have discovered what was going on or who was behind it, went to CryptSpec to confront the guilty party, and was murdered for his trouble. But that was just my working theory. Heathcliff’s might be different.