“By whom?”
“John Lyons.”
“The motherfucker.” Drake’s voice was hard, angry. “Would he hurt her?”
Randall pictured John’s silver hair and suave countenance. The desperation in his eyes he’d tried to hide. “He’s got nothing to lose,” Randall said softly.
“Why would he kidnap Kate?”
“He’s been defrauding our firm to finance a company that supplies body parts to one of our clients.” He’d found that out after his phone call from CreditAngels. “Kate had worked with that client. I think he wants to prevent her from revealing what she knows.”
“What’s the name of the body parts company?”
“BioMediSol.”
“Who else is involved?”
“A man named Craig Peters and a woman named Anna Keane.” She’d been the co-signee of the loan although her name hadn’t appeared in the Registry of Joint Stock Companies search. Impatience pounded through Randall’s veins. Drake didn’t realize how off balance John had been. They needed to hurry.
“Of Keane’s Funeral Home?” Drake asked sharply.
“Yes.”
“Holy shit.”
From his stunned reaction, Ethan Drake had made a connection that Randall had missed. “Why—”
“The embalming fluid’s from Keane’s Funeral Home,” Drake called hoarsely. “Get the fuck over there!”
The phone went dead.
A cold sweat ran down Randall’s back. He bolted out of Kate’s office to his car.
Chapter 54
Friday, May 18, 7:38 p.m.
She bit the scalpel sideways between her teeth, keeping her hands free, and lowered her feet to the floor. It was icy. But where her blood spattered, the tiling was warm and slick. Vertigo tilted the room. She put a hand out, her palm meeting the reassuring solidity of the meat freezer.
Move. Move. You have no fucking time. Get to the elevator. Now!
A low moan broke through the pounding in her ears.
She scrambled toward the elevator. It was six feet away. Her hands pulled her along the sides of the freezer.
You can do it.
That wasn’t her voice urging her forward.
It was Imogen’s.
A small warmth spread from inside her chest. It flowed down her arms, her legs. She pushed off from the freezer and threw herself against the elevator button. Her legs gave out. She slid down the wall. But her fingers gripped the door frame, ready to propel her inside when the elevator came.
The gears whirred. Slowly. Each second was a year of her life. She saw it with frightening clarity. The lost years after Imogen’s death. The desperate years of trying to regain her early promise. And maybe find joy, or at least peace, once again.
Instead, this.
The gears clanked.
Hurry. Hurry. Please hurry.
Blood dripped down her leg.
Craig Peters staggered into the room.
He lurched toward her.
She gripped the scalpel with one hand and pressed the elevator button frantically with the other.
Where the fuck was the elevator? She didn’t want to die waiting for an elevator.
He grabbed her by the throat.
He lifted her off her feet, slamming her back against the wall. The elevator button pressed into her spine. The door slid open.
“It won’t hur…” he mumbled. His eyes stared into hers. Kate wasn’t sure if he really saw her. His face twisted. Saliva dribbled down the corner of his mouth.
His hand spasmed, tight against her throat. Spots exploded in her vision.
Her spine ground tight against the elevator button, metal on bone. The elevator door buzzed in alarm.
Dark spots spun and cartwheeled, outlined in electric pink and yellow.
He was killing her. She was going to end up just like Vangie Wright.
Craig Peters panted. His whole body was rigid, so tense she thought he might snap against her, smash his body into hers and crush her into the wall.
The spots had exploded into neon. The pressure was building. Blood and tissue pushed against the wall of her skull.
Stop him. Stop him taking one more victim, Katie.
I can’t. He’s killing m—
Protect the victims. The voice was urgent. Like you used to look after me.
But I didn’t!
You did, Katie. You did. The voice became sad. I just wouldn’t let you anymore.
The voice faded into spinning dots. Black melded with white. The hand around her throat remained rigid. Unbending. Unyielding.
The scalpel. She couldn’t feel its cool metal between her fingers anymore. Her arm was numb.
Do it. He’s winning!
She lifted her arm. She forced her arm to tense. Then she plunged the scalpel into Craig Peters’ chest. He stared at her. He still didn’t seem to be seeing her. She pulled her arm back. The scalpel popped out with a sudden, sucking give of his tissue.
The choke hold around her neck remained rigid. Her brain was about to explode her skull. It could not possibly stay in her head with all this pressure.
She plunged the scalpel again, deeper. Harder.
Craig Peters’ mouth opened. A gurgling noise came out. She wrapped her fingers around the handle of the scalpel for one final attempt. But she was too weak. She couldn’t get it out.
She waited, staring into Craig Peters’ unseeing eyes.
She had no breath left. It was gone. Gone.
So was her sister. She tried to hear Imogen’s voice one final time. But she was mute.
She had a sudden image of being underwater. In the pool. She and Imogen were holding their breath. Who could hold it the longest? She’d always been good at that game. One. Two. Three. Four—
Craig Peters’ hands spasmed. The fingers loosened around her neck. She jerked free of his grip, ducking under his arm and rolling onto the floor.
Run. Run. Run, goddamn it!
But she couldn’t. Her lungs screamed for air. Everything else was numb. She lay on the floor, gasping, sucking in the air.
Waiting for his fingers to finish the job they had started.
But he tilted forward, smacking his head against the wall. The scalpel jammed deeper into his chest.
His eyes were open.
Wide open. Unseeing?
She stared at him, unable to move. Gulping in the air. Fresh. Sweet. It rushed into her lungs. They burned, the oxygen fanning the sputtering flame of her life. As her head stopped buzzing, she realized that the buzzing of the elevator had been silenced without her spine to press the button.
The elevator door slid closed.
No! Push the button…
Craig Peters fell sideways to the floor. Blood ran down his chest, spreading in a slow pool.
She rolled to her hands and knees. Forced her body upright. Slammed her palm against the elevator button.
The door opened. She dove into the elevator and reached upward, through the dark, dizzying pain that crowded her head. Her fingers fumbled for the lone button on the panel. Punched it. Her hand dropped. Her eyes closed.
Stay awake. You can’t give up now. John Lyons could be downstairs, waiting for you.
She forced her eyes open.
She had to get out of here.
The elevator landed with a gentle bump on the main floor. The door opened. She peered into the main embalming room. No sign of anyone.
Relief weakened her legs. She stumbled toward the door. A set of shelves built next to the wall caught her eye. Scrub gowns were stacked neatly on one of them. She grabbed one, clumsily thrusting her arms in the sleeves. The back gaped open, threatening to fall off her shoulders. She snatched another gown and put it on back to front. Being clothed gave her strength. Like she was one step closer to the living.
She staggered through the door into the hall. The building was silent. What time was it? She had no idea how long she’d been unconscious. She stumbled down the hallway, her hand holding the wall for sup
port, her right leg becoming heavier as if it was filled with water.
Go faster.
John Lyons was somewhere in here.
She forced her feet to move one after another. The dots had receded to the edge of her vision, leaching color from the walls. Everything had a shadow.
Her heart raced, urging her forward, yet begging for reprieve. She eyed the final corner. Was John waiting around the curve with his tire iron raised?
She inched forward, her leg now dragging.
Get ready to run.
She tried to psych herself. She couldn’t run. Her leg could barely move. Fear put her heart into overdrive.
She reached the corner. Pressed her back against the wall. Listened.
Was that John’s ragged breathing on the other side?
Or hers?
A minute passed.
Then another.
Her leg was numbing. If she didn’t move soon, she wouldn’t be able to.
On the count of three.
One.
Two.
Three—
Chapter 55
Friday, May 18, 7:49 p.m.
She barreled around the corner, head low. She’d take him in the middle, take the tire iron on the back, not the head.
The momentum pitched her forward.
She fell onto her hands and knees.
She scrambled to her feet, staggering against the wall, and looked around frantically.
She scanned the shadows. The dots in her vision converged, then pulled apart. She rubbed her temple.
John was not here.
The hallway was empty.
Where was he?
She didn’t know. All she knew was that she needed to get out of here. Now. Before she collapsed in this hellhole.
Her strength was ebbing like sand through fingers.
She would not die in this funeral home. She wouldn’t give Anna Keane and John Lyons the satisfaction.
The doors to the loading bay loomed in front of her.
She threw herself against the doors and they swung open. The scrub gowns clung wetly against her legs. She stumbled through the doorway, falling to her knees.
Air. Freedom.
She was alive.
She pushed herself to her feet.
The dots careered wildly. She put a hand against the building.
You cannot stay here. Move. Move. You’re almost home free.
She staggered forward. One foot. Lurch. The other foot. Her muscles did not belong to her. They belonged to someone else. Small pebbles of gravel dug into her feet.
Warmth. On her leg.
It was blood. The wound on her thigh was still bleeding. Gushing.
Wait. No.
She froze.
A man’s silhouette, black against the trees. Silver hair that gleamed—
The spots spun themselves into a fury.
Not now. Not now.
Not now…
Pavement struck her arms, then her face.
The spots careered into a black hole.
Chapter 56
Friday, May 18, 7:53 p.m.
Ethan slammed the brakes so hard the car spun around. It narrowly missed crashing into Ferguson’s car behind him. His eye had caught something green sprawled on the ground, lit by the streetlight on the edge of the parking lot. He jerked the wheel hard. The car lunged over the curb and into the parking lot.
The green came into focus.
His heart jammed into his throat. It was Kate. She lay in a bloody heap.
He leaped out of his car, running faster than he’d ever run in his life. Sirens blared around him. Tires squealed. The rest of the team careered into the back parking lot of Keane’s Funeral Home.
She lay facedown, her arm crumpled under her. Blood seeped through the scrub gown she wore. Her legs and feet were bare. She looked so vulnerable, so exposed, he had to fight hard to keep himself from scooping her into his arms and holding her tight.
Because if he moved her, and if she was—he could barely imagine the words—if she was dead, then he would disturb evidence that might ultimately convict the killer.
He threw himself to his knees and pressed a hand against her neck. Her skin was still warm.
“Please, Kate,” he whispered. “Please.”
His fingers probed the delicate lines of her throat. He couldn’t find her pulse.
He couldn’t find her pulse.
He pressed further, his fingers desperate.
Please God. Please.
No matter how frantic his fingers, he couldn’t find her pulse.
Ferguson knelt down on Kate’s other side. He felt her gaze on him. He wouldn’t look up, couldn’t bear to see the compassion in her face.
His eyes stung with tears. Tears of loss. And of regret. He had turned her away. He had failed to forgive her.
This was his punishment. Nice work, God. You really know how to put it to a homicide cop.
An ambulance veered next to them. The paramedics ran out, pulling a stretcher. Ferguson moved out of the way. Ethan remained where he was.
The paramedics knelt down. Ethan reluctantly removed his hand from Kate’s throat. It still held the warmth of life. Once her skin cooled, she would be another homicide victim. She would be part of a process that would talk about her life in terms of her cause of death, her injuries, her final moments, not dwelling on all the moments leading up to this. That was reserved for the victim impact statements. But those could never do justice to all the little ordinary things that, together, made someone extraordinary.
Ethan rocked back on his heels. He couldn’t watch the paramedics trying to put air into lungs that no longer breathed. It would make him hope. And that was too painful.
He turned, desperately scanning the scene playing out in the parking lot. It had taken on a surreal quality. Cars blocked the entry, officers stormed the funeral home, guns ready. Several patrols had been sent to block the front of the home.
But it was too late. They were too late to save her. He hadn’t been able to save her. This woman, who’d been brought down into the darkest trenches of life and had fought her way out of them.
He saw that now. He wished he’d seen it before.
He hadn’t understood how that past had made her prove her worthiness, over and over again. She deserved so much more.
Why the hell did he have to figure this all out now, when it was too bloody late?
He turned back to the paramedics and waited for the verdict. The male paramedic checked her blood pressure. Kate’s arm hung from his grasp. “She’s tachycardic. Heart rate one hundred and twenty per minute. Blood pressure seventy-eight systolic. Respirations present.”
Ethan’s blood began pounding in his ears. The paramedic looked over at him. “She’s still alive.”
Tears broke free of Ethan’s eyes and trickled down his face. He squeezed his eyes shut. Then opened them and grabbed Kate’s hand. “I couldn’t find her pulse.” Her fingers curved limply in his palm. He never wanted to let go.
“Her blood pressure was too low,” the other paramedic said, tying a tourniquet above the wound on Kate’s leg. “She’s lost a lot of blood,” she added. “She’s got trauma to her head and a bad break in her arm. She’s not out of the woods yet.”
Her partner checked Kate’s pulse and her airway. “Eye movement to sound. She’s withdrawing to pain. Verbal responses incomprehensible.” He began inserting an IV into Kate’s arm.
Ethan held her other hand. It was still warm. It would always be warm.
She was alive.
The paramedics lifted her carefully onto the stretcher. Ethan walked with them to the ambulance, his hand gripping Kate’s until they lifted her inside. The ambulance drove away, its sirens almost drowning out the sudden ringing of Ethan’s cell phone.
He yanked it out of his pocket. He was in no mood to speak to anyone, but the only people who had this number were the C.I. team and Kate.
“Detective Drake?” The voice on the other end
of the phone made Ethan’s blood pressure rise. “It’s Randall Barrett.”
“How the hell’d you get this number?” His fear had passed, leaving him with a burning anger at all the people who had put Kate in this situation. Randall Barrett numbered high on his list.
“Is Kate okay?” The urgency in Randall’s voice cut through Ethan’s anger.
“She’s hurt, but she’s alive,” Ethan said curtly. “She’s been taken to the hospital.”
“What about Lyons?”
“The team’s in the building. We’ll soon find out.”
“Look, I’m sitting at the intersection. The police won’t let me near the place. Can you tell them to let me through?”
“Stay away, Barrett. This is no place for a civilian. If John Lyons isn’t in there, I’ll let you know. Under no circumstances should you have any contact with him. Call the police instead.”
“I’m not a fool.” Randall didn’t bother to hide his frustration.
A bitter smile curved Ethan’s lips. Randall Barrett was used to being in control, taking charge of a situation. When would he learn he had no place in a murder investigation?
“I’ve got to go,” Ethan said. “I’ll be in touch.”
They both knew what he’d left unsaid: when hell freezes over.
Chapter 57
Saturday, May 19, 8:00 p.m.
It was dark when Ethan got to the hospital. Shadows had deepened to indigo an hour before as the sky darkened. Ethan hoped the gift shop was still open.
It wasn’t. Damn. No flowers for her tonight. Tomorrow he’d make sure to send her a hundred tulips, her favorite flower. He thought of Dr. Clare. Of the tulips lining her walkway. An ebullient welcome to spring, to the season of rebirth. But for her, it was a season of grief and loss. Her husband would be dead within weeks. Her children would probably not even remember him.
He hurried to the elevator and pressed the button for the orthopaedic ward. His fingers slid into his jacket pocket, hesitating. Screw it. He turned off his cell phone. So what that he was breaking his own cardinal rule.
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