Joshua had nothing to say in reply.
* * *
“That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Sariah said, trying to stop the madness that seemed to be spreading throughout the cab. “Why would they target her?”
Joshua shook his head at her. “They weren’t. At least not at first.” He blew a stream of air out of his mouth as he ran a hand through his stubbled hair. “Look. They saw an opportunity for leverage, and now they’re taking it.”
“But why? It doesn’t make any sense,” she said.
The fear was real, she could see that in Joshua’s eyes. But his logic didn’t seem to be tracking, and Sariah was worried that after breaking his sobriety last night, the former agent’s judgment was suspect.
“This is Humpy we’re talking about,” Joshua said, a tremolo of pain running through his voice. “If he sees someone getting close, he’ll hurt them. Barring that, he’ll hurt the ones they’re close to. Get them distracted, working on something other than chasing after him.”
Now she saw it. “Divide and conquer.”
“More like divert and conquer, but yeah.”
The urgency was real enough, but that did leave Klingler out at the base not knowing what was going on. Sariah debated between calling him or texting Bailey to pass the message along. But then her attention was drawn away by a sound from the rear of the taxi.
Had moaned, pulling his cell phone away from his ear and shaking his head. Apparently, he’d just tried to reach his mother. And from the look on his face, he hadn’t gotten through.
Sariah turned to their alternative-looking driver. “Get there as fast as you can.”
To Phoenix’s credit, she knew how to drive fast when she needed to. They zipped past cars and trucks on their way back to the hotel. What was amazing was that the ride still managed to be smooth, even with all the maneuvers the woman was employing to navigate the moving chessboard that was Interstate 77.
Sariah glanced back over the seat and caught sight of Had. His face was drawn, tears standing out in his eyes.
“We’ll get to her, Had,” she tried to comfort him. “We’ll keep her safe.”
But he just stared back at her, making no reply. He was right. There were no guarantees here. If Joshua was correct in his assumptions… and Sariah was almost convinced that he was… then Mama was in danger.
And as irritating as Sariah found the woman, she also recognized how much she had grown to care for the abrasive Southern spitfire. She and Had were family. And anything happening to his mama was an attack on the entire team.
The cab sped up to the curb outside the Hampton, and Phoenix managed to stop the car without throwing everyone into the front seat with herself and Sariah. This woman had an uncanny ability to drive vehicles.
“Everyone out!” Sariah cried. “Move! Now!”
They piled out of the car, Sariah snatching her gun from its holster once more. The hotel staff wouldn’t be too thrilled about her show of force, but if they ran into someone in the middle of taking Had’s mother, she wanted to be prepared.
As they ran up to the front door, a woman with long braided hair and a flowing, floor-length dress walked up to them. She had an air of otherworldliness about her that reminded Sariah of a new age spiritualist or some kind of medium.
“Agent Cooper?” she said, moving forward with her hand extended. “I’m Leslie Sands. Joshua Wright’s sober companion.”
Then Sariah’s arm came forward, showing the gun, and the woman took a step back. Her composure remained unruffled, but she nodded in understanding.
“You’re busy, I see. Then I’ll just take Mr. Wright with me.”
Sariah did a double take. “Excuse me? We’re in the middle of chasing down an unsub. I need him.”
Once again, Leslie Sands nodded. She also didn’t move to the side to let Sariah past her.
“I understand that you believe that to be true,” the woman murmured. “But Mr. Wright is in no shape to be helping anyone.” She motioned toward the former agent. “Look at him.”
Sariah looked this time. Actually looked.
Joshua seemed to be on the point of falling over. The stress of the situation combined with his tremors seemed to have left him on the point of keeling over.
But this was important. And no matter who this woman was, she had to respect Sariah’s authority as the leader of this team.
“Listen. I don’t have time to argue. Give us five minutes and I’ll have him back to you.” Sariah started to move forward, only to find that Leslie Sands had stepped in front of her again.
“No.”
“I don’t think you get what’s happening here,” Sariah said, her volume increasing. The woman was maddening.
“I understand more than you might think,” she answered. “But either you leave Joshua with me, or I call Agent Tanner and disband your team.”
That stopped Sariah in her tracks.
“You can’t. You don’t have the…” she began, but then looked at the woman before her.
Leslie’s face was serene, but there where Sariah had seen weakness in her stance before, now she saw something else. It was strength, but a kind of strength Sariah didn’t have much experience with.
One thing was certain. They were going nowhere until Joshua agreed to stay with the woman.
Sariah turned to the former agent, the request clear in her face. Joshua took one look his expression soured.
“Really?” he snapped. You’re going to leave me here with this… woman… when I could be helping you track down our killer.”
“That’s the way it has to be, I’m afraid,” Leslie said, unruffled by his caustic tone.
“You do realize that the man is probably here, in the building, right?” he yelled at her, spittle flying from his mouth as his face turned beet red. “And your idiocy is helping him to escape?”
But the sober companion just gazed back at Joshua. “Is that what’s happening? Or am I perhaps helping out a man with a disease while his companions sit about and wait for their suspect to walk out of the hotel?”
Leslie Sands was putting Sariah’s teeth on edge with her calm tone, but whatever else might be going on here, the woman was right about the suspect. Time for Sariah to make a judgment call.
“Joshua, you’re with her,” she said, turning to the others before Joshua had time to protest. “Reggie, you go out and check the pool and the workout room just in case Mama’s gone down there. Had you and I will check her room.”
Reggie nodded and sprinted off in the direction of the gym and the outdoor pool. The likelihood that Mama was out there might be slim, but Sariah didn’t want to accidentally miss her because of something stupid.
It was still more than likely that Mama would be sitting on the bed watching The Price Is Right or some cheesy movie on the Lifetime Channel. At least that’s what Sariah kept telling herself as she waited for the elevator to descend.
Had, in the meantime, continued to try to ring his mama. With each successive attempt, his face grew more and more wan. The cheerful demeanor that Sariah had learned to associate with the young officer was nowhere to be seen.
The ride up to their floor seemed to take forever. Had called again and again and again, his movements increasingly jerky and frenetic. Beads of sweat stood out on his brow, and a couple had joined together to start running their way down the side of his face. His breath came in ragged gasps.
“It’s okay, Had. It’s going to be okay.”
Sariah murmured the words over and over, but the officer just stared at her with his eyes as dead as she had ever seen them. He was right, of course. There was no way for them to know for sure. This was Humpty Dumpty they were talking about.
The door to the elevator slid open, and Had sprinted down the hallway, Sariah at his heels. The young officer reached his own room, swiping the card and yanking the door open.
The passageway between the rooms was still ajar, and Had surged into his mama’s room, rushing fr
om one end of the place to the other. The television was on, and the sounds of some game show… okay, not The Price Is Right, but something else just as banal… sounded from the set.
The room was trashed.
Clothing was thrown everywhere. A lamp was knocked over. The chair was still upright, but had been shoved up against a wall. Everything was in disarray.
Mama was nowhere to be seen.
Had released a voiced breath that sounded an awful lot like a sob, sinking into the chair that was next to the wall. His head hung down between his knees and his shoulders shook, the movements somehow both restrained and violent at the same time.
Sariah cleared her throat. “We don’t know she’s been taken, Had. She could still be down at the pool. Reggie might have found her by now.” Even to herself, the explanation felt false and hollow.
But Had lifted his head, his eyes rimmed in red and filled with tears. “Mama doesn’t swim. And the last time she worked out was when she gave birth to me.”
His voice rasped out of his throat like it was clearing an obstacle each time he spoke a word. There was a bitterness in his tone that Sariah had never heard from the young man, even when Bilal had died.
And then, from the bathroom, there was a noise. Movement. A step. One more.
Sariah pulled out her gun, urging Had to do likewise. They faced one another, placing themselves in mirror positions outside of the bathroom door.
The handle turned and the door swung wide.
CHAPTER 7
“You realize that you have completely hamstrung my team?” Joshua raged as the freaky-hippy woman followed him toward his room. “They need me right now.”
“That’s an interesting set of ideas you’ve just expressed, Joshua. Do you mind if I call you Joshua?” When Joshua just ground his teeth instead of answering, Lisa Sands continued as if he had given her permission. “You think that I’m the one who has hamstrung your team?”
That brought Joshua up short, but he wasn’t about to get sidetracked by semantics. “You are the one who apparently has the authority to disband our team, so yes, I would say that right now, you are the one that’s the obstacle.”
“And your drinking had nothing to do with it?”
“Well of course it had something to do with it,” Joshua spat back at her. “But just now, there was something going on that was more important than whatever asinine conversation you’re wanting to have with me.”
Leslie stopped walking, almost forcing Joshua to run into her. Turning to face him, the woman spoke with a seriousness, almost anger, that Joshua hadn’t seen out of her so far.
“There is nothing more important to you than your recovery. Nothing.”
Joshua laughed, a dark, brutal sound. “That’s bullshit. I’m a better investigator drunk than most are stone cold sober, and everyone knows it.”
Leslie reached out and laid a hand on his upper arm. “Oh, Joshua. That may be true. But it’s also an excuse that you’re telling yourself to make your drinking okay.”
Putting his face inches away from his sober companion’s, Joshua spoke, each word distinct. “My. Team. Needs. Me.”
Without moving away, without responding defensively, Leslie looked straight into his eyes. “Prove it.”
“What?” Without meaning to, Joshua took a step back.
“Prove it,” she reiterated. “I want you to run up and down the nearest flight of stairs… let’s see… two times.”
Joshua could feel his body responding to his anger. His hands were shaking with the rage that was flowing through his veins. Or was that from his delirium tremens?
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Leslie shrugged. “I’m not an investigator, so I’m not sure about this. But it seems logical to me that if you’re chasing a suspect, you have to be able to physically handle the stresses to your body that the chase would cause.”
She pointed to the stairwell that was back beside the elevator they had just left. Her speech and her expression were both still calm.
“So show me.”
Joshua glared at her for what felt like another whole minute before stalking toward the stairwell entrance. As he passed through the door, the echoes rang all around him, causing his head to pound.
Glancing down at the stairs that descended to the first floor, Joshua realized that if he ran down and just kept running, Leslie wouldn’t be able to stop him. Maybe he hadn’t been able to be there for his team at first, but he could be there now.
But even as the thought passed through his mind, the sober companion stepped around in front of him. “Up, please.”
“What?”
“Run upstairs, please. Running downstairs doesn’t really prove much, does it?”
Joshua felt his face harden. This woman was the first one in a long time that he really wanted to punch in the face. But then he realized there was nothing to keep him from doing the same thing he’d planned before, but from a level up. Dart out to the elevator and head down to the first level. No problem.
“Fine,” he snapped.
Pointing himself toward the stairs leading up, Joshua stepped onto the first one while taking a deep breath. It was just a couple of staircases up and down. No big deal.
He started running, and within five steps he could feel that this was going to be so much harder than he had anticipated. His breath was already coming in ragged gasps, and he hadn’t even made it to the turn in the staircase… the halfway point.
His thighs burned, his head pounded. His heart felt like it was going to beat its way out of his chest with each contraction.
But he was making it. He could make it.
His footsteps slowed as he neared the turn. Then he was around it, his arm gripping the railing to help pull him up. One step at a time.
Lungs burning. Face flushed and sweating. A stitch developing in his side.
But then he was at the landing of the next floor. The door stood before him.
A small part of him wanted to turn around and go back down. To finish running the stairwell twice, shove the victory in Leslie Sands’ face.
Looking down the way he had come, Joshua knew he wouldn’t be able to make it. Even the once had just about killed him. So instead, he walked to the door and went to open it.
It was locked.
How…?
And then he saw it. The key card reader.
It sat just to the side of the door. All he needed to do was to swipe his key card and he would be able to walk through. Walk away from that horrible woman below.
He pulled out the card and held it up to the reader.
The card would not go into the slot. Joshua’s hands shook so badly that he even tried bracing one hand in the other, but the tremors were too much.
He tried everything he could think of. Leaning against the wall, trying to brace the card against the upper portion of the card reader so he could slide it down… he even tried placing the card in between his teeth to try to swipe it that way.
Nothing.
He couldn’t do it.
Joshua’s arms hung down limp by his sides. He was beaten and he knew it. Turning back around, he walked down the stairs one by one. Each step was an admission of his failure.
By the time he reached the lower floor, Joshua was a broken man. His physical frailty beat at him with the force of an emotional sledgehammer.
And there in the landing of the stairwell was Leslie. Her long flowing skirt fluttered in the breeze of what must have been central air. It gave her an otherworldly look, almost ephemeral.
But it was her expression that drew Joshua’s gaze, riveted his attention to her eyes. As he looked, for a moment it seemed as if this woman’s soul was laid bare.
She was infinitely sad. Sad for Joshua and his failure, yes. That was part of it. But that wasn’t all, not by far.
Something had happened to her. Something terrible. Something akin, perhaps, to Joshua’s own experience with his family.
And in
the face of that sadness, that supreme empathy on her part, Joshua could not fight any longer. He hung his head before her.
There was a long pause. Then she spoke, her voice echoing in the stairwell in that strange way that both amplified and distorted her speech.
“Are you ready to begin?”
Joshua just nodded.
Opening the door that led back to his hotel room’s floor, Leslie motioned for him to precede her. He stepped past her and began to walk down the hallway.
“Oh and, Joshua?” she said.
Joshua turned to face the woman. She now had a slight smile on her face.
“The door to each floor is keyed to only those who are staying on that particular floor.” Her smile grew. “You didn’t really think I was that dumb, did you?”
Then she strolled past him, walking down the hallway toward his room. Joshua felt his mouth hanging open and had to consciously think about closing it.
Leslie Sands was much more of a challenge than he had thought possible.
Joshua wasn’t sure how he was going to handle it.
* * *
Sariah tensed as the door to the bathroom opened. And nearly fired her weapon as a scream sounded through the hotel room.
There, standing in front of Sariah and Had, was a naked Mama, her hands moving to cover up as much of herself as she could. Strangely, the only thought in Sariah’s mind was that for a woman of her age, Mama had managed to keep herself in great shape.
“What the hell are you two doin’?” she yelled at them both after a moment.
Had, for his part, didn’t seem to know what to do. It was clear that he was relieved to see his mother, and for a second, it appeared that he was going to try to give her a hug. Then it registered that she didn’t have any clothes on.
“Oh… ah… Mama… I’m sorry,” he finally managed, turning around to keep from seeing her nakedness. After a beat, Sariah did the same, her face flushing.
“Ms. Hadderly,” she began after clearing her throat. “We’re… I’m so sorry. We thought…”
“You thought you’d just barge in here and take a peek at me naked is what you thought,” she responded in a tart tone. Sariah could hear her rummaging around behind them, probably looking for clothes.
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