Kill Switch

by Neal Baer

  Their simultaneous acceptance into Curtin’s fellowship program was a happy accident. Ian applied after just one year of city hospital insanity and was deferred until the following year. Claire never told him that Curtin approached her to apply, wanting her decision to be a surprise. She showed up the week before the fellowship began with all her suitcases and boxes of her belongings jammed into the SUV she rented. The pleasured shock on his face when he entered the room was worth all the pains she had taken to keep her enrollment in the program a secret. She closed her eyes now, remembering that first night when they made love almost until sunrise.

  That had been only ten days ago. Claire felt as though she’d lived a year since then, the emotional trauma of the last twenty-four hours having drained her so thoroughly as to numb her. And all she wanted now was to stay that way.

  What happened next shocked her. Out of nowhere, she started to cry, her eyelids unable to block the tears from escaping. She caught herself before the sobs came, but not before Ian heard her and came rushing over.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, concern written on his face.

  “I don’t know,” Claire answered back, not understanding. How could she not know why she was crying?

  “I’ve never seen you like this before,” Ian said, handing her a tissue.

  Claire wiped her still-closed eyes. “What’s happening to me?” she asked Ian.

  “You’re feeling,” Ian answered instantly.

  “I don’t want to feel,” Claire replied. “Anything.”

  But she could feel him. Smell him. She allowed her eyes to open, revealing Ian kneeling beside her. Looking at her strangely. And then Claire, almost horrified, realized what that look was. She brushed away a lick of her now-short hair.

  “You don’t like it?” she asked.

  “N-no . . . of course I do . . . ,” he stuttered, sounding almost ashamed.

  She saw his erection through his gym shorts. What happened next shocked Claire more than her crying.

  She sprang off the couch like a lioness attacking her prey, grabbed Ian’s head between her hands, and kissed him as hard as she could. As if this kiss, this electrifying force between them, could somehow erase everything that had happened to her.

  They kissed wildly, frantically, for only seconds before images of dark clouds moved behind her lidded eyes.

  “I want you,” Claire said breathlessly. “Now.”

  He took her hands and the clouds disappeared as he led her toward the bedroom. As they passed a mirror on the living room wall, they saw their reflection.

  “You’re beautiful, Claire,” Ian said.

  “I’m not Claire,” she said, staring at the sensual blonde in the mirror.

  “Yes, you are Claire, and I love you,” Ian answered. “Nothing you do can ever change that.”

  As they reached the bedroom door, Claire stuck out her hand to prevent them from entering. She was someone else for a moment, someone without a past. Only the present with a man whose love would save her.

  “No,” Claire managed. “The terrace.”

  Ian could barely hold back as she pulled him to the sliding glass door. A blast of warm air hit them as Claire slid the door open and they stepped onto the terrace. She turned to face Ian, grabbing the safety rail to steady herself. Ian gripped her from underneath and held her against him.

  Claire lifted herself up and leaned her head back over the railing, her neck stretched to the limit. Her view of the nighttime city lights upside down made her dizzy.

  Is this what autoerotic asphyxiation feels like?

  “Oh my God,” she cried.

  “Yeah, baby, come on,” Ian encouraged her.

  And she did, letting out a moan so intense it shattered everything inside her, releasing all the pain stored up for all these years. And for a moment, she felt completely free, focused only on Ian holding her.

  Then suddenly, just as she felt his spasms, a wave of terror came over Claire. The lights of the city spun around her. She could feel herself losing control, as if she were about to fall eighteen floors to the sidewalk and certain death. She pushed him away and ran back inside.

  “I thought you wanted me,” said Ian, following her. Claire grabbed her robe and tossed Ian his.

  “I do,” Claire said. “But I’m afraid . . .”

  “Nothing’s going to happen to you. I promise,” he said softly. He reached out for her, and she accepted his embrace, but her mind was spinning.

  Claire began to analyze her reaction chemically. She was low on serotonin after her stressful day. She craved the endorphin rush of her orgasm, which shut her emotions right down and turned on her amygdala, pumping adrenaline right into her system and causing panic.

  For ten minutes, animal instincts had taken over. Now she was in control. She was herself again.

  CHAPTER 9

  The angry clamor of construction equipment met Nick and Wessel as they exited their beat-up, unmarked Impala. It was eight the next morning, Monday, and the night had passed without news of another murder.

  “I half expected you to call and say Quimby was at it again,” Wessel said, trying to make conversation.

  “Asshole probably didn’t want to wreck your Sunday dinner,” Nick answered, trying to keep things friendly between them.

  “Another murder would’ve PO’d my wife for sure,” Wessel agreed. “One thing she hates is messing up Sunday dinner. Says it’s family time. Have to put family first.”

  “You got kids?” Nick asked.

  “A boy three, a girl two, and one on the way,” Wessel replied with a grin, the first one Nick had seen.

  “Damn, Tommy,” he said. “You’ve been busy.”

  They headed up the street. “I got two myself,” Nick said, wanting to brag. But he held himself back from telling Wessel any more.

  They reached the address Claire had given them, an eight-story apartment building between Amsterdam and Broadway on 78th. The construction din came from the vacant lot next door where new condos were going up.

  “Always loved this part of town,” Wessel said with a frown, looking around.

  “Where you from?” asked Nick.

  “Westchester. Grew up in Scarsdale.”

  “Scarsdale? And your parents let you become a cop?”

  “Nope, but I thought it would be more exciting than being a lawyer,” Wessel quipped as they entered the vestibule.

  Nick glanced at the piece of paper Claire had given him. He saw for the first time that she’d written her cell phone number at the bottom.

  “Got it. Apartment One-B,” Wessel said, reading over Nick’s shoulder, his hand about to push the buzzer when Nick yanked it away just in time.

  “What the hell was that for?” Wessel demanded.

  “If Quimby’s inside, why let him know we’re here?” Nick answered, gesturing to a middle-aged woman about to exit through the security door. As she passed them, Nick and Wessel stepped through into the lobby.

  The woman caught the door before it closed. “Just a minute. You two don’t live here.”

  Wessel pulled his shield. “Police,” he said. The woman seemed satisfied. She nodded and left.

  As they headed down the first-floor hallway, Nick took stock of the building. About sixty years old, he figured, probably built just after World War II, and had seen better days. The chipping paint and aging water stains on the ceiling were a sure sign the landlord was trying to force out his longtime tenants so he could convert their rent-controlled apartments into more profitable condos.

  “This is it,” Wessel said as they reached the door to apartment 1B. A small paper tag just below the ancient peephole identified the occupant of the apartment as F. Quimby in what appeared to be the scrawl of an elderly woman.

  The detectives positioned themselves on either side of the opening—you never knew what was behind a door—and Nick knocked.

  “Who’s there?” came a female voice from inside the apartment.

  “Police. Mrs. Qu
imby?”

  “I don’t see anyone,” said the voice, obviously referring to the peephole. “Show me some identification.”

  Nick held his shield in front of the peephole.

  “You could’ve bought that badge,” said the voice. “I want something with a picture.”

  Nick and Wessel exchanged bemused looks. Mrs. Quimby was either on the ball or breaking theirs.

  Nick held his ID up to the peephole. One unlatched safety chain and two dead bolts later, the door opened, revealing Florence Quimby. She looked to be in her late seventies. Her undone white hair, housedress, and testy attitude made it clear she didn’t expect visitors and didn’t want any. Especially cops.

  “What is it?” she demanded.

  Nick’s nostrils were suddenly violated by the stench of stale tobacco, no doubt the result of decades of nicotine buildup in the apartment. “I’m Detective Lawler and this is Detective Wessel. Is your grandson Todd home?”

  “What do you people want with Todd now?” Florence asked.

  “We just need to talk to him, ma’am,” said Wessel.

  “Yeah, right,” said Florence. “Last cops who said that took my Toddy away and I didn’t see him for a year.”

  “Is he here now?” asked Wessel.

  “No, and he hasn’t been for a couple of days,” answered Florence.

  Nick and Wessel looked at each other. “Any idea where he might be?” Nick asked.

  “He doesn’t tell me where he disappears to,” Florence replied, sounding frustrated. “Are you here to take him back to jail?”

  “May we come in?” asked Wessel.

  “Unless you have a warrant, the answer’s no.”

  Nick peered into the apartment, in which time appeared to have stopped somewhere around 1972. The garish wallpaper was peeling, Formica furniture looked beaten to an inch of its life, and the rust-colored shag carpeting was so peppered with worn spots the padding underneath was exposed.

  “Toddy’s not a bad boy,” Florence said to them. “Why don’t you just leave him alone?”

  Wessel looked past her into the apartment. “All right if I have a drink?” he asked.

  “I got water. I can bring it to you.”

  “I’d rather have a beer if that’s okay.”

  Nick shot him a look.

  “I don’t keep beer in the house.”

  “Then whose bottle of Pabst is that?” Wessel demanded.

  He gestured to the coffee table in the living room. The bottle was nearly full, its outside covered with condensation as if someone had just taken it from the refrigerator. Florence turned and looked. A panicked expression appeared on her face.

  “I don’t know where that came from.”

  And then the detectives heard it—the unmistakable creaking of an old, beat-up wooden window opening.

  “I’ll take the back,” Wessel said, running out as Nick shoved Florence aside, pulled his gun, and dashed into the apartment.

  “You can’t go in there!” Florence shouted after him as he ran down the hallway.

  But Nick already had the bedroom door open. Across the room, a faded yellow curtain flapped in the breeze. He ran to the window just in time to see Todd Quimby sprinting through the construction site next door. As quickly as he could, Nick climbed through the window, jumped without hesitation to the dirt below, and tumbled to the ground.

  He got up and dove for cover just as a steel girder hanging from a crane came within inches of snapping off his head. Nick saw the workers in hard hats yelling at him, the noise drowning out their voices but their lips clearly warning him to get the hell out of the way before he got himself killed.

  And then, three sharp blasts from a whistle nearly blew Nick’s eardrums out. As if an invisible hand had descended from above and switched off the power, every piece of heavy machinery went silent; every worker froze in place. The only thing moving was Todd Quimby, and Nick could see he had a huge head start.

  He scrambled to his feet and ran as fast as he could. But Quimby was already running through the open chain-link gate onto the street.

  It took Nick about fifteen seconds to cover the same ground and reach the sidewalk. He looked around. There was no sign of Quimby or Wessel, and no place for them to have disappeared.

  Except for the subway entrance at the corner of Broadway.

  He sprinted down the block and down the stairs into the abyss. Almost immediately, his vision blurred, struggling to adjust from the bright sun to the dim lights of the station. Nick flashed his shield at the token booth clerk as he jumped the turnstile onto the southbound platform. The waiting passengers were all looking south for a train that would come from the north.

  “What’s going on?” Nick asked the gathering crowd.

  “Cop chased some guy onto the tracks,” said a bystander, pointing.

  Nick ran to the southernmost end of the platform and was about to descend the short flight of stairs onto the tracks when he stopped short.

  What the hell am I doing? I can’t see a damn thing.

  He had no choice. His partner was somewhere in that darkness.

  Nick plunged forward into the tunnel. The sudden blackness once again blurred his vision, as if he were looking through filtered glass. He was virtually blind, his only frame of reference being a couple of bare lightbulbs on one wall and a red signal maybe two dozen yards ahead. Or was it closer?

  Nick forged on, carefully navigating the center of the tracks to avoid electrocuting himself on the third rail.

  And then he saw something move. Is that a person?

  He ran, stumbling toward the figure. He could hear the rumble of an approaching train but couldn’t tell from which direction it was coming. And then he saw the beam of the train’s headlight on the northbound track beside him. It boomed past, so close he could see the passengers looking through the windows at him. Just as quickly, the train was gone, but for some reason the noise wasn’t fading away.

  Then he saw the light bathing him. He turned to face the certain death that would roar over him in seconds.

  Suddenly, something propelled him across the tunnel onto the empty northbound tracks. He fell between the northbound rails, pulling himself up just in time to see the train that would have killed him fly past.

  When it was gone, he could just make out a figure slumped beside him.

  Nick hurried across the tunnel. Saw the blood on what he knew was his partner’s suit. And he realized.

  Tommy Wessel had pushed him out of harm’s way and in doing so, had been clipped by the train.

  Frantically, he knelt beside Wessel, who was fighting for every breath.

  “Hold on,” he screamed at Wessel. “Don’t you go out on me.”

  This kid saved my miserable life, while that scumbag Quimby’s out there, looking for someone else to kill.

  He heard footsteps. Saw the beam of a flashlight.

  “Police!” yelled the figure. “Are you okay?”

  It was a Transit Bureau cop, no doubt sent into the tunnel by the same passengers who’d directed Nick down here.

  “I got a cop down,” Nick screamed at him. “Call a bus! Goddamn it, call a freakin’ bus!”

  As Nick looked down at the young man who had been his partner for all of twenty-four hours, he knew whatever happened to Tommy Wessel was on him.

  CHAPTER 10

  Police vehicles clogged the street outside Manhattan City Hospital’s emergency entrance as Tony Savarese, sweating from the heat in his ever-present blue blazer, squeezed the Impala into the only spot left at the curb, beside a fire hydrant. Nick, riding shotgun, barely noticed. All he could see was Tommy Wessel lying near death on the train tracks.

  The troops had arrived at the subway station within minutes, the paramedics whisking Wessel off to the hospital while at least fifty cops and detectives searched the shut-down subway tunnel for any sign of Todd Quimby. But he had vanished, probably through an emergency exit. Savarese determined that Nick was in no mental shape to take
part in the search and, after debriefing him on the subway platform, drove him to be with his short-time partner.

  “We’re here, Nicky,” Savarese said, bringing Nick back to the present.

  As he exited the car, the precinct numbers on the police cruisers he passed told the story: Cops, from the lowest rookie to chiefs with stars on their shoulders, from around the corner to the farthest reaches of Queens and Staten Island, were pouring into the ER to show support and give blood. Nick himself had participated in the ritual for many a fallen cop more times than he cared to remember. But never before was the downed officer his partner.

  Now, as Savarese escorted him through the double doors into the waiting room, Nick saw the dozens of cops praying, talking, crying. All turned silent as they became aware of Nick’s presence. The media attention he’d gotten eight months earlier ensured that every cop in the city—and most of its citizens—knew his face. As he passed through the throng of his brethren, Nick couldn’t help but notice their solemn expressions. Were they looking at him with sorrow and sympathy? Or were they thinking that once again Nick Lawler screwed up?

  The sound of quiet sobbing rattled Nick, which Savarese couldn’t help but notice. He wiped his bald, sweaty head with a handkerchief and led Nick through another door into a treatment area. A few feet ahead, Lieutenant Wilkes was doing his best to console Debby Wessel, a pretty, obviously pregnant, twenty-five-year-old brunette. She and Wilkes were looking through a glass window into a room where a team of doctors and nurses worked on her husband. Nick’s eyes returned to Debby. She’s way too young to have to face this, he thought.

  “You can’t be in here,” came a voice from behind them. It was a doctor, the credentials hanging from his neck identifying him as Gavin Lester, chief of emergency medicine.

  “Police, Doc,” said Savarese. He pointed to Nick. “He’s Detective Wessel’s partner.”