by Lisa Gardner
But I hadn’t leaned on him. I’d turned to painkillers instead.
I showered my way through my outrage. Washing my hair again and again and again. Lathering up, rinsing down, repeat, repeat, repeat. It was late, after 2:00 A.M. I should finish up, go to bed. I applied deep conditioner, then scoured my skin with the same ruthless diligence I’d just spent on my hair.
I wanted to think the worst of our experience was behind us, but I already understood from this evening’s ordeal that the grillings from various law enforcement agencies had only just begun. In the morning, they’d be back. More questions, maybe even a request for a formal statement regarding Ashlyn’s relationship with Chris. Maybe they’d require a medical exam. Maybe I should think about hiring a lawyer.
What were your rights when you were a victim of a kidnapping and other violent crimes? What kind of counsel was involved in prosecuting a grown man for sleeping with your teenage daughter? What if Ashlyn wouldn’t press charges, or answer questions? Should I demand it of her, or would it only traumatize her further?
Then, in the middle of the shower, rinsing the conditioner from my hair, it hit me:
My husband was dead. I was alone. For now, for always, there would be no partner to ask these kinds of questions. Ashlyn’s best interests sat solely on my shoulders.
My husband was dead.
I was now a single parent.
Justin…the knife protruding from his bloody chest.
I went down. Dropped to my hands and knees on the tiled floor, the water beating at my back while I panted, gasping for breath.
Moments in a marriage. All those times when I know I saw my husband. All those times I wanted to believe he saw me. The first time we made love. The priest, declaring us man and wife. Him, holding a squalling newborn in his arms. And Justin, dying before my eyes.
He’d looked at me. He’d known, maybe even felt the serrated blade already sliding between his ribs. He’d known he was dying. And he had not looked at me with anger and blame, only regret.
I would miss us, he’d said. He would grant me a divorce if I wanted it, but he would miss our family.
Was I crying? It was hard to be sure, with the shower spray pouring down my neck, around my face.
I would have to plan a funeral, I thought, but how did you plan a funeral with no body? Wait for the police to find it, I guess. Wait for that sheriff’s detective and his deputies to return my husband to me. And Ashlyn. She would want to say good-bye to her father. She would need closure, just as I had needed it thirty years ago.
And that thought stung me all over again. That for all my planning and sacrifice, in the end I hadn’t spared my child my deepest pain. She’d lost her father, just as I’d lost mine. Now I would play the role of my mother, trying to hold it all together. Meaning wading through finances that sounded like they were already strained.
What if we lost the house, what if we moved into tenement housing, what if Ashlyn never got to go to college, but became collateral damage of her father’s poor planning, just like I had been?
I couldn’t breathe. I was gasping, and yet no air would come into my lungs. I had survived three days in an abandoned prison, only to succumb in my own shower.
Then, in the back of my mind…hydrocodone. My orange-bottled pills. Maybe still downstairs in my purse in the center island. But if not, I had other stashes, a woman who knew how to keep her secrets. Half a dozen pills tucked in the back of the silverware drawer, ten more in my jewelry travel bag, four or five in the bottom of a crystal vase in the china closet. Close to two dozen emergency pills.
I stood up. I tasted oranges and I didn’t care. I was going to get out of this shower. I was going to head downstairs, raid the first hidden supply. Just this once, of course. After the past few days, I’d earned this.
I rinsed my hair.
I shouldn’t do it. I’d promised Justin I’d be strong for our daughter. He’d pressed me in the cell, probably already suspecting something would go wrong with the ransom exchange, needing the reassurance that I could raise our child without him.
Just two pills, I thought. Enough to take the edge off. My whole body ached and I needed the rest. I would be a better parent if I got some rest.
I wondered if this was how my mother had felt, the look on her face every time she’d gazed at a pack of cigarettes. Knowing she shouldn’t. But feeling the weight of the world upon her shoulders, the burden of single parenthood. She worked so hard. She deserved at least a little treat.
Justin had died for me.
Shouldn’t I be able to give up Vicodin for him?
I turned off the water.
One pill. Just…one. To help manage my own withdrawal. The sensible thing to do.
I should.
I shouldn’t.
I would.
I wouldn’t.
I opened the shower door, reaching for a towel.
And found a man standing in my bathroom instead.
IT TOOK ME A MOMENT. Maybe a full minute, while I stood in the glass enclosure, water dripping from my naked body. Then he leered at me, and that did it. The eyes were the wrong color—deep brown instead of crazy blue. And the checkerboard hair had been shaved, replaced by a smooth skull. Finally, his clothes, from commando black to European upscale.
But his face, his mean, merciless face hadn’t changed one bit, not to mention the fresh bruise over his left eye where my daughter had nailed him with a walkie-talkie only hours earlier.
I grabbed the towel, held it in front of me. Not nearly a good enough defense as I stood, trapped in my own bathroom by the man who’d murdered my husband.
“Miss me?” Mick drawled. He leaned against the doorjamb, his massive shoulders effectively blocking my exit. He knew there was no place I could go, nothing I could do. He seemed content to savor the moment.
“How…?” I had to lick my lips to get the words out. My throat was dry, my thoughts racing. Ashlyn, asleep downstairs on the sofa. Please let her still be asleep.
Then: She’d asked for a gun. Why hadn’t I made it to the basement gun safe yet? Why hadn’t I retrieved firearms first, then climbed into the shower?
“But I changed the security codes…”
“We got our own override code. You’d have to know about it to deprogram it, and you didn’t know about it. My intel is better than your intel.” He smirked at some joke only he understood. “It’s called irony, babe.”
“The police are watching the house,” I tried.
“Yep. Two patrols, one front, one back. Alternating intervals. And not a problem, since I only required sixty seconds to punch in my access code, open your rear garage door, then close it again. Police return to a secure-looking residence, and everybody is happy.”
“You’re wrong. Two detectives are coming over any moment. There’s already been a new development in the case. That’s why I was showering, so I’d be ready to answer their questions.”
He stilled, cocking his head to one side while studying me. One second passed, then another.
“You’re bluffing,” he declared. “Nice try, though. I like to think I’m worth the effort.”
He lunged. So quick I didn’t even have time to gasp. I wanted to leap back, into the glass-enclosed shower, but that would only trap me and I didn’t think for a second hard shower tiles would keep him from doing what he planned on doing next.
I snapped out with my towel. Was rewarded by his sharp cry as I caught him in the side of the face, hopefully on his bruise. I whipped the towel again, except this time, he grabbed the end, yanking me toward him.
I let go, and the sudden loss of counterweight made him stagger back. I bolted, heading for the door, jabbing out with my elbows, trying to catch him in the head again as I passed.
He grabbed at my waist, but my damp skin slipped through his fingers. Then I was free, flying through the master bedroom, hurling things behind me.
I didn’t know where to go, what to do. Instinct propelled me down the stairs t
oward the lower foyer. The police were outside. I didn’t care that I was buck naked. If I could just reach the front door, bolt out into the street…
Ashlyn, asleep in the family room. I couldn’t leave her behind.
I heard the thunder of pounding footsteps. My own muffled sob as I tried to pick up steam, faster, faster, faster. Hadn’t I already run this race today? Hadn’t I already lost it?
I rounded the corner onto the bottom landing. Looked up. Caught a brief glimpse of Justin’s face. Set. Grim. Determined. Wait, not Justin, Ashlyn. My daughter, Ashlyn…
“Duck,” she said firmly.
I did, as she swung her father’s golf club with both arms straight at Mick’s descending form.
He roared, twisting at the last second, taking the hit in his shoulder. Then he was bellowing with pain as he wrenched the club from my daughter’s trembling hands and heaved it over his own head.
I threw myself back at him, catching him around the knees as he stood on the second step.
Off balance, he stumbled, releasing the golf club to grab at the railing instead.
Ashlyn and I were off again. Front door wasn’t going to work. Too many locks, not enough time. We headed for the kitchen, driven by some primitive instinct toward the room best stocked with makeshift weapons.
I’d read somewhere that women should never grab knives. We were too easily overpowered, then the knife was used against us. Better, the proverbial cast-iron frying pan, which required little skill to bash over your opponent’s skull.
I had my mother’s frying pan. I was already flinging open the lower cabinet, scrabbling for it, when Ashlyn yelped.
She’d halted by the center island, grabbing my purse and throwing it back. But Mick had dodged effortlessly and now had the hem of her oversize T-shirt fisted in his hand. My daughter wasn’t going down without a fight. She was throwing back her elbows, stomping down with her bare feet, screaming at the top of her lungs.
And I could tell, from eight feet away, that Mick was enjoying every second of it.
Inside the cabinet, my groping hand found its target. I closed my fingers around the handle of the heavy pan and withdrew it, straightening slowly and confronting a man I loathed.
In return, he let his gaze wander up and down my still-naked form.
Then, like a man tossing garbage, he threw my daughter against the center island and advanced.
“How’d you know?” he drawled. “I’ve always liked it rough.”
Ashlyn hit the island hard, her head colliding with the granite. Now, out of the corner of my eye, I watched as her body slid bonelessly to the floor.
Don’t look. Don’t be distracted. One opponent. One chance to get this right.
Mick charged.
Too soon, too fast, I thought, and instead of swinging my pan, I dashed right just in time for Mick to feint left. I darted out of the kitchen, moving away from my unconscious daughter, toward the living room. If I could topple a lamp, make a disturbance visible through the front windows, maybe the passing patrol car would see it. The uniformed officer would stop to check it out.
Mick was moving. Sidestepping right, then left, then ducking, then lunging. The sliding, shifting rush confused me. Up, down, right, left. I had my frying pan up, trying to be prepared for anything, for everything, as he suddenly dove low, caught me around the waist and crashed us both to the floor.
I went down hard, fingers still locked around the handle of my pan. I brought it down onto his head, hammering, hammering, hammering. Except Mick had used my own trick against me. He was in too close, I couldn’t get enough momentum in the swing to really hurt him. His face was buried between my naked breasts and now, as I beat against him ineffectually, I could hear him laughing into my chest.
“That’s right, fight, fight, fight!”
I wasn’t going to win. He was too strong, too big, too well-trained. My best efforts, he found funny.
He suddenly reached up, caught my right wrist in a bone-crushing grip. I cried out. My cast-iron skillet fell to the floor.
And that was that.
He rose to his feet, grabbing my shoulders and dragging me to standing. This close, I could see that his brown eyes were just as crazy as his blue eyes had been. He was enjoying this. Relishing every second as his face lit up with the possibilities.
Behind him, the door to the basement stairs suddenly opened, a shadowy maw that revealed a second impressively large male, stepping soundlessly into my kitchen, while pressing a single finger to his lips. Z. Sans the green cobra tattoo and black commando gear.
I didn’t move. I didn’t make a sound. I stood there, totally bewildered, my wrist aching, my shoulders bruising, as Z walked smoothly forward, leveled a .22 caliber pistol and shot Mick at point-blank range through the side of the head.
Mick collapsed sideways.
Z stood over his man and fired twice more.
Then, at long last, my house fell quiet.
Z HANDED ME THE GUN, wrapping my right hand around the grip.
“Neighbors will call in gunfire,” he announced crisply. “Police will arrive momentarily.”
He reached behind me, dragging a throw off the sofa and draping it around my bare shoulders.
“I was never here. You fought him off. Well done.”
“You killed him.”
“He accepted the terms of the assignment: You and Ashlyn were off-limits. He broke the rules twice. In our line of work, failure has consequences.”
“You…you knew he’d come back?”
“I suspected.”
“I don’t understand. It was okay to kill Justin, but not Ashlyn and me?”
“The terms of the assignment,” Z repeated. He had a crumpled piece of paper. Now he pressed it into my hand. “Radar asked me to give you this. You won’t want to share it with anyone. And it’s probably only good for the next twelve hours.”
He turned, heading for the basement door.
“Wait.”
He didn’t break stride.
“I want to know the override code,” I blurted out. “The code you’re all using to get into my house!”
He didn’t break stride.
He was leaving. Just like that. Arrive, survey, conquer. My frustration bubbled up. As well as my loathing at always feeling so powerless. At the last second, it occurred to me that I wasn’t in the prison anymore, and that I was hardly helpless.
I raised the .22, the pistol Z himself had handed to me, and leveled it at the back of his head. “Wait. I said wait!”
Z finally paused, turning slightly. “Your daughter probably requires medical attention,” he commented.
“I’m tired of being a pawn!”
His voice, as calm as ever. “Then pull the trigger.”
My arms were shaking. My whole body, now that I noticed. And all of a sudden, I wasn’t exhausted anymore. I was enraged. At this man, for violating my home, my family. At myself, because heaven help me, I was already going to pop that first pill. But also, mostly, perversely, at Justin, because he’d gone and gotten himself killed and I still loved him and I still hated him and what in the world was I going to do with all those conflicting emotions? How would I ever get closure?
Z staring at me patiently, his expression almost testing. I wasn’t the one who would give him any trouble. His research said so.
I pulled the trigger.
And the chamber clicked hollowly. Of course, Z, the omnipotent, always one step ahead. He’d loaded his pistol with exactly three bullets, discharged all three rounds into Mick’s head, then handed me a useless weapon. I expected him to smile mockingly.
Instead, he said simply, “Good for you. Welcome to the first step of taking your life back.”
Then he was gone.
I checked my daughter first, who was slowly regaining consciousness. Next I found the phone, calling 911 and requesting the police as well as an ambulance. Finally, I went upstairs and retrieved a bathrobe, still gripping the gun with my right hand as I
slipped the piece of paper from Radar beneath my pillow and prepared for whatever was going to happen next.
Chapter 43
IT TOOK WYATT THREE TRIES to reach Tessa Leoni. By then, it was 4:00 A.M., but it hardly mattered. Buzzed on adrenaline and the knowledge of who, what, when, where, why and how, he was already in his cruiser, over state lines, heading for Boston.
“Chris Lopez didn’t do it,” he stated without preamble, when Tessa finally answered her cell.
“No shit. I put a gun to the man’s head—hang on, you never heard that from me—and he still pled innocent.”
“I never heard anything, and he didn’t do it.”
“He was sleeping with Ashlyn,” Tessa supplied. “Though he wants the record to show she was using him—”
“Is this the part where you don’t tell me that you shot him?”
“Please, bullets are much too expensive to waste on the likes of him.”
“Good point.”
“However, we had an interesting conversation on who would have enough access to Justin Denbe, to plot against him and his family.”
“Funny, Kevin and I just had the same conversation.”
“For the record, while you and Kevin and me and Lopez were all conversing, someone else was doing. One of the kidnappers returned, broke into the Denbes’ home and attacked Libby and Ashlyn, apparently intent on finishing some unfinished business.”
Wyatt was just taking the exit onto 93 southbound. He pulled his steering wheel sharply right. “What?”
“Exactly. Libby identified him as Mick; the Boston PD are running his prints now to get his real identity. Apparently, he’d taken a special interest in her during incarceration, but had been held off by the ringleader, Z. Well, assignment over, Z gone, Mick decided to make good on some earlier promises. He used a special override code to access the home—having timed the Boston patrol cars, FYI—then surprised Libby in the master bath. She took evasive maneuvers, Ashlyn entered the fray and the two women managed to lead him on a pretty good chase through the home until Libby finally grabbed a loaded twenty-two she’d left next to the sofa—”