by Paula Cox
On the sofa now, holding her sore face in her hands, Tiana could only sob. Evil was all around her. There was no protection from it. She was as helpless as she’d ever been, but what made it impossible to bear was that, moments ago, she’d done a courageous thing. Broached the subject of marriage. And he’d beat the shit out of her for it.
“You know, it’s funny: you play nice, you abide by the rules, and this is what you get. A sly cow who tries to guilt you into a corner. Well, you know what? Maybe those rules aren’t so hot after all. One of these days, one of us might have to take a dive,” he said. After thinking that over, he started chuckling insanely. “Yeah, that might not be a bad idea. I give you a little shove when you’re least expecting it. You break your neck on the way downstairs. I win by default. What do you say to that? Still want to guilt me into getting married? No? Thought not, sweetheart.” He gave her shin a little kick. “Get up to your room and don’t ever mention this again.”
Slowly, painfully, Tiana rose to her feet and wandered through a kind of slipstream fog to her bedroom. She didn’t come out for two whole days. Thad stayed away. When he did finally return, he never mentioned the incident again. Neither did she. To anyone. Though she considered filing assault charges—she had even memorized the exact wording she would use—Tiana Crowe couldn’t bring herself to cross him.
Was it that he’d threatened to shove her down the stairs and break her neck? Or that since leaving home, she’d never know any other life than with him? Or that she believed, deep down, that he would never do anything like that again and that things could go back to the way they were, so long as she never brought up the subject of marriage again. Money, security, a lavish lifestyle…were those the bribes she’d taken to stay silent while a drug-addled psychopath had raged away in the corner of her life?
Well, that bribe had come back to bite her now. And his threat to break her neck might not be an idle threat any longer!
***
It was a bizarre scene. One of the guest bedrooms, the most visible in the entire house, just before the upstairs restrooms, was painted red—not with paint, but with red wine. Several bottles of it were poured over the bed and carpet and tossed up the walls. On the wall over the bed, someone had written, in wine: URGENT! BOWDEN STAY BY PHONE TILL I CALL.
No other name had been given, and there was no clue as to who might call. However, the author had known that someone, the next person to visit the restroom, would discover this and get Dax’s attention. A trail of wine even extended to the landing, just to make sure. But it also meant that whoever had gone to all this trouble was either still at the party or had recently left.
So to wait or not to wait…for a phone call that may or may not come.
“Has anything like this ever happened before?” he asked Ward Lever, his balding, over-tanned agent.
“Never. Hell, I don’t even know what it is. Or what we’re supposed to make of it. If it’s some kind of blackmail or ransom scheme, why go to all this trouble with the wine? Why not just ring up? Or if it’s a prank…okay, I got nothing.”
“It doesn’t add up,” Dax concluded, eyeing the bedside phone suspiciously. He looked under the bedside table, checking for a wire that didn’t belong.
“You think that thing might be bugged?” asked Ward.
Dax didn’t want to alarm him by going a step further. He was probably just being paranoid. And Ward’s observation still applied. If someone was going to rig an explosive device to the phone receiver, why advertise it in advance? Why call attention to it?
It didn’t add up.
“You going to wait for the call?” asked Ward.
“Might as well. But not for long.”
“Now I wish I’d installed that CCTV inside the house as well. These assholes just don’t respect anyone else’s property.”
That gave Dax an idea. “Go find Alvaro,” he told Ward. “He knows IT. Take him to the CCTV terminal—you remember where it is, in that closet room I showed you in the study—and get him to play back the party arrivals. You sent out all these invitations. You know who should be here. I want you to pick out anyone who doesn’t belong, anyone who’s gatecrashing. Okay?”
“Um, okay. What should I do if I come across—?”
“Come straight back here to me. Don’t try to confront anyone. And don’t—”
Screams from downstairs, followed by the sound of breaking glass, ripped Dax from his investigation. All he could think about was Tiana. Sherwood might be watching her, but it had been a long time since Sherwood had tackled anyone.
People were running upstairs like rich rats fleeing a sinking party. They were tripping over each other to get away. It made it tough for Dax to get past. He couldn’t see exactly what was happening down there, but it seemed to be moving through the foyer. Toward the front door.
“What the fuck’s going on?” he asked a couple clinging to the bannister.
“A man with a knife,” the woman replied. “He’s gone berserk. I think he’s killed someone in the kitchen. Don’t!” She tugged Dax’s shirttail. “Don’t go down there. He’s crazy.”
Those two words unlocked the entire sequence of events in his mind. He knew who was behind all this, and why he’d done it.
Oh my God! Tiana!
For a fleeting moment, he had a feeling of utter helplessness. If Hollis had gotten to her first, there was nothing he could do about it. Then he felt ashamed for having left her. And stupid. And derelict in his duty. How could he have let this happen in his own freaking house? Finally, when he heard the words: “He’s taken her! Should we call the cops?” Dax leapt over the banister and climbed down onto the oak sideboard, ripping his shirt. He pushed people out of his way, but he couldn’t get there quick enough.
A group of men stopped him at the front door. “Don’t go, Easterling. He’s got a knife.”
“Out of my way!”
“He’s already attacked your man.”
“Sherwood? Is he okay?”
“I don’t know. Your other man is seeing to him—the Mexican lad.”
On his way out the door, Dax called back, “Then he’s in good hands. Alvaro knows what he’s doing. Has anyone called nine-one-one?”
No response. Dax got his Smartphone out and dialed the emergency number on his way to the garage. A group of about twenty people was gathered on the gravel at the edge of the front drive. The rear lights of a speeding car disappeared through the front gates.
“What was the car’s make?” he yelled at the group.
“A Pontiac Firebird,” a man shouted back. “White. Vintage.” He appeared to converse with the others before he added: “We didn’t get the license plate. Sorry.”
“Fuck.”
The operator put Dax through to the Los Angeles Police Department emergency switchboard.
“Yes, it’s urgent. I’m reporting an abduction. It’s just happened.” He gave his name, address, a description of the car, and the names of the abductor and abductee. “No license plate number, no.” He got into his green E-type Jaguar but had to quickly adjust to driving stick—it had been a while since he’d been behind the wheel of his prized British vehicle—and peeled out of the garage. The tires kicked gravel up at the spectators when he floored the gas. “I don’t know for sure, but he might be taking her back to their house. They used to live together. No, I don’t have the address. You need to find it quick. Okay, keep me posted.”
He hung up, then immediately called his agent, the man with all the contacts. “Ward, I need you to get Thad Hollis’s address for me. I don’t care. Call in a few favors. Make promises you can’t keep. Whatever it takes. I need that address, and I need it immediately. Okay. Call me as soon as you get it.”
Next, he rang Tiana’s cell. It was a long shot, but just in case Hollis had thrown her in his trunk and forgotten to take her phone away, he thought he’d better check.
To his surprise, the line opened after a dozen or so rings. “Tiana? Tiana, is that you?”
“Who is this?”
“Dax! It’s Alvaro.”
“Alvaro? Where are you?”
“At your house. Looking after Sherwood till EMS gets here. Someone heard this phone ringing outside, near the Jacuzzi. She saw your name and brought it to me. It’s Tiana’s phone, right?”
“Shit. Yeah, it is.”
“Is she okay?”
“Don’t know, muchacho. I’m in pursuit. Trying to figure out where he might be taking her.”
“Let me ask around. See if anyone knows where that asshole lives.”
“Okay, Alvaro. Thanks. How is Sherwood doing?”
“He’s cut pretty bad. Nothing major though, as far as I can tell. But he’s banged up. What the fuck is wrong with that guy?”
“It’s a long story. I don’t have time right now.”
“Okay, brother. Good hunting. Be careful.”
“Copy that.”
For the life of him, Dax couldn’t recall the street name Tiana had given to the taxi dispatcher that morning she’d left his house—his real house. It was the morning after one of the hottest—no, the hottest—night of his life. His mind had been on…other things. He’d heard what she’d said; he just couldn’t dredge the name up. Goddamn it. Where had that fucking cab taken her?
His instinct told him it wasn’t in this neighborhood. Tiana had seemed, for want of a better word, intimidated by the size of his and Ward’s estate in Hollywood Hills. He pinned it heading south on Mulholland Drive, heading toward Laurel Canyon Boulevard.
What he wouldn’t give to have one of those police scanners right now. Every unit in the area would be on the lookout for a white Firebird, and there couldn’t be many of those about. It was only a matter of time before it got spotted. But would they get to it in time? And even if they could, what would Hollis do when they finally cornered him?
Jesus. Don’t think that far ahead. Just concentrate on finding her, damn it.
The night lights of L.A. sprawled out below like a million drips of melted steel on a huge, sleeping gridiron. One of them was his destination. But which?
Chapter Fifteen
The one consolation in her mind when Thad dragged her into the house was that it was his house. He hadn’t taken her somewhere else, somewhere they couldn’t be tracked. He’d brought her home. And someone, somewhere would have this address. Therefore, if she was careful, if she could buy herself some time, stall him somehow, it might give the authorities a chance to get to her before he did anything worse.
“Thad, I’m not going to struggle anymore. You’ve brought me home. Now, let’s sit down and talk about this. Let me pour you a drink.”
“Seriously? Oh yeah, why don’t I let you give me a massage as well—with a power tool. Hold on a minute while I fetch that kitchen knife so you can give me a straight shave.”
Tiana swallowed a queasy lump in her throat. His talk of power tools and kitchen knives wasn’t the kind of distraction she’d had in mind.
“So what are we doing here?” she asked, immediately wishing she hadn’t.
“We’re here to finish what we started,” he replied.
“What do you mean?”
Tiana went to sit on the sofa, but he yanked her up right away and hustled her over to the stairs. “Thad, I really don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Get up there!” he snapped.
“We settled this last time.”
“Fuck we did.”
By now her heart was racing so fast, she found it difficult to breathe. Tiana had heard about WAGs suffering from anxiety attacks during their partners’ fights, but she’d never had one. Was this what it felt like—the onset of one? Either that or a goddamn heart attack. He kept shoving her up the steps. The urge to leap over the banister and make a run for it almost got the best of her. However, he was so close behind her, the bastard would never let her get that far.
“Come on, Thad. This has to stop. It’s getting serious now. You do know the police will be on their way. You can stop this now and that’ll be the end of it. I promise. We can both move on with our lives and put this behind us.”
Either he wasn’t listening or his damaged brain wasn’t capable of seeing sense. At the top of the stairs, he shoved her so hard she careered forward and fell flat on her face. Her chin and knees suffered carpet burns that throbbed like hell. Despite her pleas, Thad roughed her to her feet and frog-marched her into the bedroom. He launched her onto the bed. She immediately spun round, ready to fend him off with kicks. But he calmly locked them in and pulled up the white chair from her dressing table.
Now she had an inkling of what he meant by “finish what we started.” The last time they’d shared this room, he’d beaten the truth out of her. Was this his follow-up interrogation?
But she didn’t dare speak first. She was too afraid. Tiana had to stick to her game plan at all costs—to draw this out as long as she possibly could and hope that he didn’t hurt her too much before help arrived.
Jesus, has it come to this? Thad? My Thad? What did I do wrong?
“You fucked him tonight,” he said. “Don’t lie.”
“I won’t lie to you, Thad. Never again.”
“So you had sex with him?”
She nodded sheepishly.
“Where? In the shower?”
“In the Jac—” She cleared her throat. “In the Jacuzzi. It was a spur of the moment thing.”
His eyes were deadly still, his tone so flat it was unnerving. “When did you start seeing him?”
Tiana had to think back over a turbulent couple of weeks. She scrambled both for the truth and for an answer that might save her. However, she was too rattled to think that clearly. He was in human lie detector mode, if such a thing was possible. Bullshitting him was the way to go, she knew, but not in her state of mind. The truth was all she could cling to right now.
“I went to see him,” she explained, “after you had that fight with him in the street. I needed to know what was going on, why he interfered in the ring that night.”
“What would you do something so stupid?”
“I-I thought I could clear the air. He didn’t know the stress you were under. I tried to explain what you’d been through.”
He stood tall and threw the chair against the wall. “You told that shit to a guy who hates me? That was your first disloyalty.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. I-I thought if I could explain why you hadn’t been yourself, he’d ease off a little. And he did. He got it. He’s been through hard times himself; he knows what it’s like to go off the rails a bit.”
Thad jabbed a threatening finger at her. “He’s nothing like me. Nothing. He was out to sabotage me, and you helped him do it. You think I don’t know that you two were seeing each other before he stopped my fight with Freitas? It’s so obvious. It all fits.”
“What fits? What are you talking about?”
“You and Easterling.” By now he was stalking around the room, his mouth open wide as he processed the crazy epiphanies. “Shit. All that time! You were planning it all that time. To humiliate me. You’d told him everything—the steroids, my treatment. First you drove me away to Adi with all your bitching and whining, you made me feel like I was the one cheating, when all the time you and Easterling…” He’d have torn his hair out if he’d had any. Instead, he raked the bristly dome with his fingernails, drawing blood.
“Thad, it’s not true. I swear the first time Dax and I ever spoke was when I went to see him at his gym.”
“That’s another lie. You spoke to him at Home for Heroes last year. I remember it.” He paused to weigh her up. “Why would you try to cover that up unless you were seeing him back then as well? All that time you were fucking him behind my back. And you had the balls to give me grief about Adi. That was your second disloyalty, sweetheart.” And that was the blackest use of that pet name she’d ever heard.
“Thad, you�
��ve got no evidence of any of this.”
Not that he needed any. He was so paranoid by now that he could just pluck things from midair and, in his mind, make them facts. There was no reasoning with him. Absolutely none. This couldn’t go on much longer. Every word out of her mouth, whether true or not, incriminated her, inched her that much closer to whatever punishment he had in mind.