by Mark Stone
As it stood, there were only a couple of big trucks in the whole of the sprawling parking area. I scanned them, not really sure what I was looking for. If Ellen was in one of these trucks, I would be basically screwed. I couldn’t go into a vehicle without either a warrant or the express permission of the owner. Permission seemed unlikely, and a warrant was a timely thing. Besides, I didn’t want anyone to know I was here. I would have to hope I saw her walking away from a truck, if she was here at all.
Just then, something strange caught my eye. It was a familiar looking car. Though I couldn’t place it at first, when I did, the breath caught in my throat. I remembered that car, long and sleek. I had been envious of it when I was a kid. I had wished I could afford a car like that, a car like Charlotte’s dad owned.
As I took the car in, I noticed it just as sleek as Charlotte’s dad’s car had been, except blue instead of the copper color the man had back in the day. It was then that I remembered the call I received from Charlotte the night she disappeared. She had said to the people she was talking to that they had a car like her father’s, identical except it was blue. Putting that together with what Ellen said, about being forced into a blue car and made to kidnap Charlotte. It had to be this car.
I had to be looking at the vehicle Charlotte was taken in, and the fact that Ellen had disappeared from this place a few moments ago couldn’t be a coincidence.
Pressing the pedal down, I drove toward the blue car, skidding to a stop, and instinctively grabbing my gun.
Pushing the door open, I gritted my teeth and hopped out, rushing toward the car. As I did, I saw Ellen sitting in the front seat. Across from her, sat Dustin Reynolds. His eyes met mine and went wide. I thought he was going to warn her, maybe run, maybe even shoot at me if he had a gun.
Instead, he did something I totally didn’t expect.
He screamed for help.
My eyes widened too, and looking over at Ellen, I saw the gun in her hand.
Unfortunately, I was way too late to stop her from shooting him dead in the face.
32
“My God!” I yelled, turning quickly, my gun raised, and running to the side of the car where Dustin had been sitting. Blood was everywhere as I pulled the door open, an eye still on Ellen, my gun raised to her.
Dustin fell toward me, his body still and his mouth open. Grabbing him wasn’t easy, seeing as how one of my arms was in a sling and the other needed to keep the gun trained on Ellen. Still, I caught the man’s head, feeling the slickness of his blood against my aching palm.
“Put the gun down, Ellen!” I said loudly, sparing only the smallest of seconds to look at the man as he lay against my arm. Twisting my body, I managed to push the button on my communicator. “Roscoe, get the hell back here right now!” I screamed. “And call a damn ambulance. Dustin Reynolds has been shot at near point blank range!”
“I had to!” Ellen said, tears in her eyes. “I had no choice!” I narrowed my eyes at the woman. The gun was still in her hand.
“I said put your weapon down, Ellen!” I repeated, my jaw clenched and my heart pounding. I could feel the blood pouring out of Dustin in sheets. There was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it. Even if Ellen didn’t have a gun pointed directly at me, there would be little I could do to add to this man’s very slim chances at survival.
“It’s not my weapon,” she said through tears. “I’ve never owned a gun in my life. Until today, I’ve never even fired one.”
“Well, you made a hell of a first impression,” I muttered. “Now put it down!”
“I can’t,” she answered, shaking her head. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this! He told me if both of us didn’t die, then he’d kill my son. He’d kill my family. I can’t let him do that!”
I swallowed hard. I heard everything Ellen had just said, and I definitely had questions about it, but until she put that weapon down, I wasn’t going to be able to focus on anything.
“Ellen, I’m not going to tell you ag-”
“His gun jammed,” Ellen said, looking down at the floorboard. For the shortest of seconds, I followed her gaze. Finding another gun on the floorboard, I gasped a little despite myself. I could tell from the way it was laying that this gun had very likely been in Dustin’s hand. It must have fallen when he got shot the way he did. “Either that or he didn’t have the guts to go through with it,” she continued.
“I’ll talk to you about this, Ellen,” I said quickly. “I promise. Whatever is happening here, we’ll get through it. You have to put the gun down, though. You have to prove to me that you’re not a danger to yourself or to anyone else anymore.”
Dustin was completely still in my arms. I still couldn’t afford to turn my attention to him, but that was probably for the best. If I was right, looking down at the man would only confirm the worst fears I had about him.
“If I do that, my son dies,” she answered. “If I walk away from this, he’ll kill my boy. I’d rather die than have that on me.”
“None of this is on you,” I said, though honestly, I had no way of knowing what the woman did and did not hold responsibility for. In truth, I imagined you would be hard pressed to find a DA who wouldn’t press charges against the woman after doing what I just witnessed her doing. Still, it didn’t seem like she was going to lower her weapon right now, and if I didn’t want to shoot her, I needed to keep her talking until Roscoe got here.
Luckily for me, my friend was nothing if not exceptionally well-timed.
Roscoe crept up behind the woman, tapping on the window behind her head with his gun.
“Put it down,” he said firmly.
“Just kill me,” she said, her eyes widening and her face crumpling into tears. “Please, just kill me. I’d do it myself, but I’m Catholic, and I-I don’t know what would happen to my soul if-”
I nodded to Roscoe, which he took as a sign to pull the door open. As he did, he grabbed Ellen, ripping the gun out of her hands and wrestling her to the ground.
Before reacting to that, I turned my attention to Dustin. He was as much a mess as I’d feared. Scrambling to his neck and then to his wrists, I searched in vain for a pulse. Finding none, I grimaced, took a deep breath, and lay him back against the seat. An ambulance would be here in minutes, if not sooner. There would be nothing they could do to actually save him, but they’d at least be able to take him to the hospital and make his passing official.
Giving him a gentle pat on the arm, I turned, circling the car and finding Ellen cuffed, sitting up with her back against the car. Roscoe was standing an arm’s length away from her, his hand still hovering close to the weapon he had holstered.
“Does any of that blood belong to you?” Roscoe asked, looking me up and down.
Turning my eyes to my body, I found my clothes had been soaked through in blood, blood from a man who had just asked me for help not five minutes ago.
“No,” I said solemnly. “It’s all Dustin’s.” Glaring at Ellen, I marched closer. “Where’s Charlotte?”
She looked up at me like I had just accused her of being the Boogeyman. “I don’t know,” she said. “I swear, I don’t. How would I know anything about that?”
“I just watched you murder the man you admitted to kidnapping her with,” I said sternly. “I have no idea what you would or wouldn’t know at this point.”
“We took her because he threatened us!” she answered. “Just like I shot Dustin because he threatened me.” Tears spilled from her green eyes. “He was supposed to shoot me too. That was the deal. We’d shoot each other, everyone would think we were responsible for Charlotte’s disappearance, and all of this would be over. Neither of our families would be hurt.” She shook her head. “But he couldn’t do it! Why couldn’t Dustin just do it?”
“Shut up, Ellen,” I said, huffing loudly and moving closer to her. “I don’t have time or patience for any more of this bull. Do you understand me? Now, you will tell me exactly who is threatening you. You will tell me who is forc
ing you to do this, and you will tell me just who held you captive. If you do not, then so help me God, I will make sure you’re thrown in a jail cell and kept there until kingdom come. Do you understand me?”
Her entire body shook, and I thought my threat had worked. As it turned out, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
“You can’t take me back to that police station!” she shrieked. “He’ll be there! He’ll know I didn’t die here! If you take me back to the station, he’ll kill my son!”
“If you don’t tell the police, then we can’t help you,” Roscoe said from beside me.
“Don’t you get it?” Ellen screamed. “He is the police! The man who held me captive, the man who made me do all this stuff, he’s also the man who questioned me! He’s behind all of this.”
The bottom seemed to fall out of the world as Ellen’s words caused something in me to click. Suddenly, everything made sense. The fact that the attic wasn’t found, the way the person responsible for this seemed to be one step ahead of us at all times, how Ellen had known a phrase only my grandfather had ever said. All of it made sense now, and as something the man whose face was now pounding against the inside of my skull told me when we were back in the precinct escaped my lips, I felt sick.
“Two ends of the same person,” I said, swallowing hard and turning back to Roscoe. “I’m sorry, Roscoe. I have to go. I think I know who is behind this. I think I know where Charlotte is.”
33
“Dillon, I need you to calm down,” Boomer said to me from the other end of the phone as I tore through downtown Naples on my way to Clive’s apartment. I couldn’t believe any of this. If what Ellen was saying was the truth, and I felt it in my gut that it was, then Clive was behind all of this, but why? Clive was a good guy and a decent cop. What on earth would possess him to not only spy on Charlotte and eventually kidnap her, but to also kidnap someone who looked like her, possibly kill two other single mothers and scoop up a guy for good measure? None of it made any sense. That didn’t matter, though, I needed answers. I needed to know what was going on, and more than that, I needed to find Charlotte and bring her back home.
“”I’m not calming down, Boom,” I barked back into the phone, which was on speaker and sitting on the seat beside me. I had one good arm, and I needed that to drive, not hold a damn cell phone. “If it was up to you, this case would still be in the hands of the person responsible for the crime!”
“We don’t know that, yet, Dillon,” he said furiously. “We don’t know anything, and having you bursting into a man’s home with a gun and accusation isn’t in anyone’s best interests.”
“Except for maybe Charlotte’s,” I scoffed, making a hard right. “You remember her, right? She’s the woman who was pulled off the street in the dead of night under our watch.”
“That’s not fair,” he said. “Of course, I remember her. I’m working as hard as I can. You’re not the only person who loves her, you know.”
“Is that right?” I asked, pulling into Clive’s apartment building. “In that case, you damn well need to start acting like someone who loves her. Up until now, all I’ve seen is incompetence and anger.”
It was a rough thing to say to your boss. Then again, we were in rough territory.
“She’s not the only one I love in this situation,” he answered. “And you’ve been beating yourself against a rock this whole investigation. I don’t want to see you get any bloodier than you already are.”
“The rock and the wave,” I said, remembering something Rebecca had told me the day all of this started. I could only hope she’d understand what I was doing now and that she wouldn’t blame me for not waiting.
‘What does that mean?” Boomer asked as I threw the car in park.
“It means I’m doing this, Boomer, and there’s not a damn thing you can do to stop me.”
“You can’t go into another person’s apartment without a search warrant,” Boomer said. “Not unless you’re invited in.”
“Can you get the son of a bitch on the phone?” I asked, grabbing my own phone with my good hand and marching toward the apartment building.
“I can’t. He’s not answering,” Boomer said.
“And he just disappeared from the precinct?” I asked, a tone of indignation in my voice.
“Same as you did,” Boomer reminded me.
“Be that as it may, if you can’t get in touch with him, then something tells me I’m not going to be able to get permission to enter,” I said, pushing through the front door of the apartment building.
“Which means breaking in anyway could cost you your badge,” Boomer warned.
“Guess that’s a risk I’ll have to take,” I said, and hung the phone up before my best friend could respond. I loved that badge. I loved being a cop, but if losing it meant getting Charlotte back, I’d melt the damn thing down into liquid in a heartbeat.
I already knew Clive’s apartment number, and flashing my badge was an easy way to make it past the front desk and to get the clerk to buzz me up to the seventh floor, where Clive’s apartment sat.
My mind was spinning as I stepped into the elevator, letting it close and lift me toward my goal. Was I right about all of this? Was Charlotte inside that apartment, an apartment that sat not three miles from my own house? Had she been here this entire time, right under my nose?
The elevator doors opened and a sense of hope and determination filled me. It was stronger than anything I had ever felt. I had been on cases before. Hell, I had fought my way out of many the horrors before. I had never felt anything like this before. I had never been this determine, this focused.
Nearly running toward the door, I settled in front of it. Breathing heavy, I slammed my balled up fist against it. I didn’t expect anyone to answer. Clive had left, and at the same time Ellen and Dustin had been blackmailed into killing each other. He had to imagine the axe was about to fall. That was the only thing that made any sense. He must have known I was getting close, or that someone was. Forcing a double suicide would spin everything on its head. It would effectively turn the attention away from him.
As I knew would happen, no one answered the door. The thought of Charlotte was strong in my mind, so strong that it forced my hand. I couldn’t wait any longer. If she was on the other side of this door, then I was going to go through it, by God.
I, of course, thought about what Boomer said, about losing my badge if I didn’t wait for a warrant. Warrants took time, though, and I didn’t have any to waste.
Testing the handle, I found the door locked. Pulling the gun from its holster, I fired a shot directly into the lock. It pulled clear off the door, forcing the thing open.
“Clive! I’m coming in!” I yelled into the darkened hallway. As I stepped inside, I smelled the stench of food and body odor. Walking further in, I saw something that took my breath away. A makeshift room in the living room; a mattress on the floor, a television, and chains bolted into the floor. I knew with a sickening thud that this was where Charlotte had been kept, and I knew with even more clarity that she wasn’t here anymore. I was too late.
My heart was racing as I rushed through the rest of the apartment, hoping that my instincts were wrong. I knew in my gut that I was too late. I knew that, if Charlotte was still alive, Clive had already taken her. Still, I had to look. I had to hope. I had to pray. I had to believe.
Bursting into his bedroom, my gun raised and my heart on fire, I once again gasped at what I saw. There, plastered all over the wall of Clive’s room, was a makeshift shrine to me. There were pictures of me, newspaper articles devoted to my accomplishments or the accomplishments of my family and friends. I saw a picture of me and Rebecca on my wedding day. My face was cut out, though, replaced with Clive’s. Rebecca’s face was cut out too, replaced with a picture of Charlotte’s.
“Lord in Heaven,” I said as I took all of this in. “This is all about me.”
34
“Right under our noses,” I said, looking at Boomer as h
e, Rebecca, and a few other officers walked through Clive’s apartment. “All of this happened right under our damn noses!” I stood quickly, and pulled away from my wife as she tried to comfort me. I wasn’t mad at her, but I also couldn’t sit still. I didn’t need to be comforted right now. I needed to be mad. I needed to be insanely driven. I needed to be the rock and the wave right now, and I needed results.
“This is insane,” Rebecca said, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes. “I worked with him. I trusted him.”
“We all trusted him,” Boomer said. “He’s an officer of the law, for God’s sake. That’s supposed to mean something.”
“It does,” I answered. “It means he had the means to always be a step ahead of us. It means he knew our movements before we did. It means he knows the way we track people and the methods we used to find them.” I shook my head. “He’s in the wind, and he has Charlotte with him.”
“All because he’s obsessed with you?” Rebecca asked, looking back at the open door and the shrine dedicated to me that Clive had constructed. It was an elaborate thing, filled with information about me. Perhaps the man thought I might find it flattering if I ever saw it. It certainly did paint me in a positive light, even if it did seem to be intended on making a point of the fact that Clive thought I made the wrong romantic choice. All it did was make me sick, though. I was so nauseous that it took all I could do not to wretch and vomit all over this floor.
“I guess so,” I answered, trying to stay as calm as I could. “I knew he thought we looked alike, and I knew he was weird, but I never thought he could go this far.”
“Neither did I,” Boomer said. “I know Clive. I handpicked him myself. This doesn’t make any sense. He’s never struck me as the type to do something as crazy as this.”