It’s autumn here in Bayonne, New Jersey, and even deep inside this warehouse I can feel the occasional cool draft rippling through. I shiver and wrap my black trench coat more tightly around myself. This place is near enough to the coast that I could probably just run to the beach from here if I wanted to. But not yet. As tempting as it would be to just plop down on the Jersey Shore and let the salty fresh air mix with my tears, I didn’t come here for that purpose. I have something more important to do. I’m on a mission.
So I take a deep breath and try my best to walk lightly through the warehouse. This is easier said than done because my damn high-fashion boots are about as quiet as a foghorn, and the vast emptiness of this building causes my footfalls to echo slightly. Still, I doubt anyone else would come here — not since it was designated a crime scene.
Right?
After all, as far as I know nobody even owns it anymore. It’s sat out here on a muddy dirt road, abandoned, for so long that the original owners have probably died. I don’t know what this place was even used for. Except for murdering people in secret.
There’s that God-awful sting of tears again and I angrily swallow back the lump in my throat. I’ve come too far and risked too much to let myself be done in by my own stupid emotions. I can mourn later. Now, it’s time to buckle down and get the scoop.
I take a few more cautious steps before I’m distracted by what sounds like voices.
My blood runs cold, but I assure myself it’s got to be the draft rolling down the empty aisles, playing tricks on my spooked mind. There’s nobody here, I’m sure of it. Nobody but me.
But when I take another step I hear a distinctive shout.
I freeze up immediately, my eyes going wide. Oh no, I think fearfully, maybe it’s the cops coming by to check and make sure nobody’s disturbing the crime scene. But then again, they told me the forensics team already got all the information they needed, that the clean-up crew came through and cleared it all up long before I arrived. If there’s nothing else left to investigate, why would the cops be here?
My heart sinks into my gut.
Unless they’re not cops.
Feeling nauseous but strangely exhilarated, I lean into a massive metal shelf and strain my ears, trying to be utterly still and silent. I hold my breath and close my eyes, shutting out all extraneous sensory information so I can focus in on the voices. Sure enough, I’m able to make out the distant muttering of what seems to be a group of men.
A group? My heart starts to race as a sense of genuine danger starts to dawn on me. What am I doing here? I’m not a cop! I’m not a private investigator! I don’t have a gun or any kind of weapon at all, and even if I did, I would have no clue how to use it. I’m just a desperately curious, frightened fashion writer who has dropped herself smack-dab in the middle of what could potentially be some kind of criminal lair.
Stupid, stupid, stupid! I scold myself inwardly. What kind of idiot goes sleuthing around a murder scene unarmed and alone?
Holding my breath so tightly that my chest starts to ache, I can finally pick out a few choice words drifting over from across the massive warehouse: Cops. Information. Suspects.
Finally I’m forced to exhale and inhale sharply, letting the damp air fill my lungs. What on earth have I stumbled into here? What if these men are dangerous? I’m not prepared for a fight — hell, in these shoes I’m not even prepared for a quick escape. But something tells me I can’t turn back now. I’ve only been in this warehouse for five or six minutes, after an hour and a half of driving to get here. And who knows — the men talking might just reveal pertinent information about my father’s death. I can’t risk giving into my fear and bolting out of here now — not when things are just starting.
Besides, if I really want to make my late father proud, I’ve got to stop hiding behind frilly, innocuous fluff articles and blog posts, and start really getting into the nitty-gritty world of journalism. And that means embracing danger, walking bravely into the line of fire just for a shot at capturing that most elusive and beautiful prize: the truth.
Still, I can’t help but gasp in shock at the loud yell I hear next: “What do they know? What have they done?”
I cover my mouth to stifle my heavy panting. I’m so frightened by now that I’ve got goosebumps prickling up along my arms and legs, even under warm layers of clothing. It’s a man’s harsh voice I hear, almost a growl. His tone is accusatory and laced with venom. He sounds mean. Scary. Cruel.
I wait for the reply, which comes after a few tense moments.
“I don’t know! I swear! Don’t you think I’d tell you if — ”
There’s a loud cracking sound and then a man’s pained yelp. I crouch down in fear, suddenly wanting to make myself smaller, less detectable. This certainly doesn’t sound like a civil conversation. It sounds like something dark is going down.
“Get up,” orders a third man. His voice is very deep, his tone controlled. He sounds calmer, and yet more commanding. Even though he isn’t as loud as the other two, his voice carries the long distance, with an impressive resonance that sends a shiver down my spine, even with just those two words. I feel the insatiable need to see what he looks like, to put a face to the compelling voice.
Against my better judgment and every straining fiber of self-preservation in my body, I begin to creep along toward the voices. But my shoes — damn, useless pieces of crap — are too loud. I just can’t bear it. They might overhear me if I keep on this way. So, even though it pains me, I carefully slip them off my feet to carry them instead. As my toes, clad only in thin hosiery, touch the frigid, filthy floor, I grimace with disgust. Would it really have killed me to invest in a pair of sneakers before driving all the way out here? I have a lot to learn. This isn’t a Scooby Doo episode — I can’t run around in Daphne-esque heels and perfectly-styled hair if I’m going to make this work. Especially because the monsters I’m dealing with aren’t fake.
They’re murderers.
I can feel it in my soul. These guys in the warehouse have got to be related to my father’s death in some way or another. It can’t possibly be a coincidence that they’re here right now yelling about cops and stuff, when just a week ago my father’s life was snuffed out in the exact same location. I grit my teeth and force myself to ignore how gross the ground is beneath my feet as I move slowly, cautiously along toward the men.
“My associate gave you an order! Get on your feet, ya bastard!” commands the first voice I heard earlier. There’s the rustle of something like metal dragging on the concrete floor and I furrow my brows trying to figure out what the hell it might be. Then it hits me with a jolt to my heart: chains. It’s the sound of metal chains clinking and rolling across the floor.
What the hell? I crouch down even further as I continue to make my way closer. Even though everything just got a million levels more bizarre and horrifying, I feel totally drawn to the sounds of their voices. I have got to figure out what’s going on, even if doing so thrusts me directly into the lap of danger.
Besides, with my father gone, I don’t exactly have anything else to lose.
“I don’t know anythin’ about it, man! Nichego!” exclaims the second voice. He’s the one being interrogated, the one whose voice is wavering with fear. As I come closer, I peer around the ceiling-high metal storage shelves to see the three men only about fifty yards away from me. My jaw drops at the sight.
There’s a man with both arms chained to the floor, metal links around his wrists keeping him bound to about a ten foot reach. He’s drenched in sweat and his eyes are nearly bugging out of his head, he’s so scared. He looks like a skeevy rat of a man, with receding, blondish hair, scrawny limbs, and a long, hooked nose. He’s wearing a polo shirt and cargo pants which are much too large for him, and he’s kneeling on one knee, looking up at the two other guys with desperate, imploring eyes.
“Bullshit!” snarls the first voice, which I see now belongs to a tall, wiry, brown-haired guy in a light blue shirt an
d khakis. If not for the rolled-up sleeves and combative stance, he would look for all the world like a harmless Sunday school teacher or something. That image is shattered completely when he reels back and lands a solid kick to the chained guy’s calves.
The rat-like man falls on his hands and knees, buckling over in pain as he yells out, “Klyanus! I have nothing to say! It’s not one of ours!”
“I can’t abide a liar,” says the third man. A shiver runs down my spine as I realize he’s the one with the resonant voice. He’s even taller than the blue-shirt guy, with broad shoulders, and very dark hair. Even from here I can see the muscles tight underneath his dark jeans and black, short-sleeved shirt. There’s a thick black leather jacket crumpled behind him on the floor, as though he recently took it off. Then I notice that there’s a similar-looking jacket lying vaguely behind the blue-shirt guy, too. Weird.
“Hear that, zasranec? Your lies won’t be tolerated!” shouts blue-shirt. He pulls back for another kick but the cowering rat-man shrinks away instinctively.
The man in black raises a hand to stop them, his other hand rubbing at his temple.
“Maybe we’re going about this the wrong way, eh?” he begins, that deep voice filling my brain like intoxicating cigar smoke. “Perhaps you’d respond better to positive reinforcement.”
The rat-man perks up immediately, his sniveling face peeking out from behind his arms. He nods rapidly and begins to stand back up to take a few steps toward black-shirt. “Da, da, moy drug! What is your offer?”
Blue-shirt gestures angrily toward him, giving his associate a scathing, indignant glare. “You want to make a deal with this slug, Leon? Come on! Let’s just bash his ugly face in!”
“Quiet, Lukas!” black-shirt commands, holding up one finger to silence him. So his name had to be Leon. The name made me shiver.
Blue-shirt — Lukas — backs down, crossing his arms over his chest and rolling his eyes. Then Leon moves in on the rat-man and says, “What can you tell me about what happened here? How much do you really know?”
Fidgeting nervously and glancing back and forth between Leon and Lukas, the rat-man stammers, “I-I don’t know much, b-but I could give you some names of those who m-might have information for you.”
Leon snaps his fingers and the rat-man flinches. “Well? Spill!”
“F-first I need to know what you’re gonna give me in return.”
Lukas rounds on him furiously, snatching him up by the collar. “How about letting you leave this shithole with your miserable life? That good enough?”
Terrified, the rat-man starts to ramble very quickly. “I-I heard from my cousin Vic that his podruga’s sister knows a guy who got p-picked up by the politsiya about the LaBeau case!”
At the mention of my own last name I let out a startled gasp and drop my boots to the floor with a resounding, echoing clunk. My eyes go wide as all three men swivel around toward the sound — toward me.
“What the hell was that?” snarls Lukas, looking around with narrowed eyes.
“Help! Help!” the rat-man starts squealing, desperately thinking I might be a cop or someone here to rescue him from his chained interrogation.
“Zatk’nis, mu’dak!” roars Lukas, jabbing a right hook into the rat-man’s face.
“Who’s there?” calls out Leon, walking briskly toward me, squinting.
Oh no.
He’s going to find me. I’m going to die. They’re going to chain me up and beat the hell out of me like they’re doing to the rat-man. It’s all over.
Just then, my fight or flight instinct kicks in. Flight takes the reins.
With a terrified little squeal I stand up, tuck my boots under my arm, and bolt away as fast as my nearly-bare feet can carry me, my heart pounding in my ears.
“Stop! Stop right there!” Leon shouts, his voice running chills down my tingling limbs. I can hear his heavy footsteps quickening behind me. He’s chasing me.
“Boss?” Lukas yells.
“Stay back! I’ve got this!” Leon calls back in response.
He’s got this.
He’s got me.
Cherry
My head is pounding and my entire body aches, my legs having gone numb from running so far, so fast, in the cold air. My feet are frozen by this point, my toes totally without feeling. I’ve still got my boots tucked up under my arm, which is trembling but paralyzed in a kind of vice grip. The muddy, slushy earth beneath me splatters and smacks with every frantic step I take. I have not dared to look behind me, and I can’t hear much beyond the booming of my heart beat and the blood rushing in my ears. I am not a runner by any means, and in fact my gym membership card was little more than a shiny, colorful little decoration on my dresser back at my apartment in the city. I went a few times, but it was never a priority for me. The work I did, the kind of profile I kept, required me to be pretty and slim, but certainly not buff.
So this is probably the most physical exercise I’ve had in years. And it shows.
My lungs are in constant pain, causing me to wince with every labored breath. I don’t even know how long I’ve been running now. It could be fifteen minutes or it could be five hours — either way, I cannot wipe the fear out of my mind that my would-be attacker is just a few steps behind the whole way. I hope, vaguely, that I am running in the direction of help. Out here, in as close to the middle of nowhere as you can possibly get in the industrial state of New Jersey, it’s hard to find your way back to the road. At first, I took off into the woods, not thinking clearly enough to have a real destination in mind. But slowly, cautiously, I’ve made my way back in a loop toward where I think I parked my rental car.
Somewhere in the back of my brain, there’s a shrill voice screaming at me. How could you possibly lose your car? What kind of idiot are you? But at last the glint of something like polished metal flashes in the watery sunlight just ahead and my heart soars.
A sleek, unobtrusive, little green Ford Focus. My rental car. Thank God!
Somehow I manage to wrangle my aching, half-responsive arm into the back left pocket of my jeans to fish out the keys. With all the momentum I’ve been building up, I all but slam into the driver’s side door, shaking violently as I fumble to fit the key into the door. Finally I allow myself to look around, my eyes blinking and wide as I scan the area for my pursuer. He’s nowhere in sight, but that does little to satisfy my fear.
“Come on, come on,” I mumble nervously. Then the key wiggles into the hole and I turn it to unlock the door and fling it open. “A-ha!”
A-ha? What are you, a magician? I think to myself in annoyance. I jab the key into the ignition and turn the engine over, immediately throwing the car into reverse and peeling out in a sharp, backward semi-circle before switching to drive and jerking forward. With my basically-bare foot shoving the gas pedal down to the floor, the Focus plows down along the dirt road I took to get here, barreling away from the warehouse, away from this nightmare.
The trees blow past, leaning narrowly into the pathway as though half-heartedly trying to guard me from leaving. As I drive along at a definitely-illegal speed, I notice that my toes are regaining feeling — and that the thin hosiery has worn through. It probably disintegrated some ten or fifteen minutes ago from being pounded into the wet, rocky ground. Another pair of pantyhose ruined in the name of journalism. What a shame.
When I reach the main road I suddenly slam to a halt, unable to decide which direction to go. In my panic to reach safety, I have been laboring under the assumption that I would drive straight back to my hotel and lock the deadbolt. But it dawns on me now that my plan may be flawed. There’s no guarantee I’d be safe at the hotel. God knows it isn’t exactly the fanciest or most secure accommodation I’ve stayed in. And besides, if I am being followed — and I feel pretty damn confident I am — do I really want to lead them straight to where I’ll be sleeping tonight? The thought of those guys hounding me, maybe chaining me up in my own hotel room, is enough to make me gulp.
Hell no. Plan B.
Instead of taking a right, I slam the gas pedal down and spin the wheel to the left, the tires squealing and emitting the sour odor of burnt rubber as I turn the car in the general direction of the coast. I don’t know what I’ll find there, but some ancient, long-buried memory reminds me that there are usually cops stationed out by the water. By the docks.
I can hardly remember it now, as so much time has passed and I’ve done such a good job of burying my past self. Thinking of the docks now — it’s like looking through a foggy window.
Running up and down the beach, chasing the seagulls and singing old Britney Spears songs from the CD with the flower on it. The memory of the time I scraped my knee on a piece of driftwood and an older neighbor girl scared the hell out of me telling me I was going to get tetanus and die. The sound of my father’s voice, buffeted by the coastal breeze, calling out to tell me it was time to go home. That lump in my throat is getting all too familiar. I’m going to have to let myself break down and cry sometime soon.
And a boy… a boy with scraggly dark hair and a charismatic smile. His hands plunging down into the blue depths, grasping for my arms just as my chest goes tight and the world starts to fall into darkness around me. His fingers locking around my wrists, tugging me up out of the churning white foamy water and urging me to breathe, breathe, it’ll be okay, just breathe. The tickle of sand dragging along my spine, my wet clothes weighing me down. My eyes blinking open and burning with saltwater, focusing hazily on the stormy, purple sky high above me and then closing again just as the boy whispers, “You’re safe now.”
I’m so far away, so deep in these distant thoughts I have not visited in years, that I have to slam on the brakes to stop the car when it pulls into the nearly-empty parking lot near the entrance to the docks. The sky overhead is getting cloudy and a very light rain starts to drizzle as I catch sight of the police car down the way from me. I hop out of my car and barrel through the rain to tap on the tinted window of the squad car, hoping the cop inside doesn’t think I’m some crazed homeless person trying to start something.
Sights on the SEAL: A Secret Baby Romance Page 38