The Holdouts (Buddy Lock Thrillers Book 2)

by James Tucker

  In a quiet voice, the mayor asked, “Why do you care so much?”

  He turned back to her. “About the Sungs, you mean?”

  “Yes, the Sungs.”

  He held his hands in front of him as if he were going to explain, before realizing it wasn’t something he could tell anyone else. Not without offering the private details of his life. So he said, “It’s the way I’m made.”

  She smiled. “Yes,” she said, “I understand. You gave me a much better answer than some bullshit about wanting to help people or bring justice. You’ve been with the NYPD for too long to give me that answer.”

  He appreciated her thought, but then he wondered if she were cynical. He decided to push. “Why?” he asked her, “do you care about politics and the city?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “It’s the way I’m made.”

  Their eyes met.

  He said, “Thank you for your time, Mayor Blenheim.”

  She nodded. “No promises. But I’ll make a call.”

  56

  That night, Sloan Richardson couldn’t breathe. She woke up, tried to open her mouth, tried to understand why she couldn’t sit up.

  A hand covered her mouth. The hand held her tightly.

  Inhaling through her nose, she smelled the sweet scent of leather. A heavy weight pressed down on her chest.

  What the fuck?

  She kicked upward and then sideways, attempting to curl into a ball that would make restraining her more difficult, but only a moment later, she couldn’t move. There were too many of them.

  Several men, at least. She couldn’t see well in the darkness of her bedroom. They moved around her, held her.

  No, no, no!

  They were going to rape her. All of them. One after the other. They had the power to pull her legs apart. She could do nothing. Nothing at all. And when they were finished with her, what then? Would they kill her?

  She struggled again, tried to move, tried to kick. Now she tried to scream.

  But it was no use.

  She grew calm and tried to think. About what got her to a place where men invaded her home and held her on her bed half-naked. Living in a nearly abandoned building—her mother had warned her against this very thing. She’d been stubborn, arrogant, ignorant.

  Yet what she expected didn’t happen. Her breasts were exposed, but none of the men had touched them. At first she didn’t know why.

  Then they brought her into a sitting position and put a black cloth over her head that covered her torso.

  No!

  A third time she struggled, but they held her tightly. She could feel the size of their hands and sense their strength. She gave up and was quiet.

  They spoke in low voices about removing all her furniture and personal belongings and loading them into a truck on the street below. One man said, “Thirty minutes.” This man seemed to be the leader, and she thought his accent was foreign.

  A hard metal object rammed into the side of her head, and everything went blank.

  57

  In the night, Mei woke and sat up. The faint moonlight against the closed blinds showed the contours of the large bedroom.

  She could hear Ben’s rhythmic breathing from the sofa across the room. Her stomach burned, and she realized she was hungry.

  Careful not to wake him, she padded out to the house’s main room and switched on the lights. In the kitchen, she cut up a melon, poured a bowl of muesli, and added milk from the refrigerator. For a while she stood there, eating, not really thinking about anything, except that she’d had enough of this house, where she didn’t have Buddy or any of her books or clothes. She had confidence in Buddy and knew he could solve the case. Or she hoped he could. He’d often told her about unsolved cases, cold cases that went for years and sometimes an eternity without being solved.

  This is the last time, she thought. The last time Ben and I hide.

  After going over to her laptop on the sofa, she opened the screen. When it didn’t light up, she remembered she’d forgotten the right charger.

  She walked over to the table and opened Ben’s computer. Moving the cursor via the glide pad, she intended to close the text conversation on the screen. She wanted to read the Gazette’s headlines and check her email account to see if any galleries had responded to her job applications. Something caught her eye in a text Ben had sent to another cell number, presumably to one of his classmates.

  Worry enveloped her. She put an arm across her chest.

  In the text, Ben had given out their location. Not the exact house number or even the name of the owner, but its location near Rockridge and that it was owned by a friend of hers. Ben didn’t know the name of Jessica’s boyfriend, Mei realized with relief.

  She leaned in closer. The text had gone to a number and the initials A. B.

  No, she thought, I’m being paranoid. A. B. must be a classmate. And why would anyone at Ben’s school care if they were a couple hours outside the city? They wouldn’t. Not when many of his classmates were the children of movie stars who took them to glamorous locations all over the world. On the other hand . . .

  She thought for a moment and decided she wanted to be sure.

  She texted A. B. Who is this?

  For several minutes she waited. The clock on the upper right of the computer screen read 2:43 a.m.

  Still no response.

  As she’d intended, she went into her email account, but there were no responses from galleries. Then she went to the Gazette website and read the headlines. A massacre in Syria. A drought in Texas. A budget showdown in Washington, DC. She skimmed all the stories, not so much interested as filling time.

  She stopped reading when she heard the distinctive chime. A new text had arrived and appeared in a bubble on the right side of the screen.

  The new text was a reply to her text. It read: Duh!

  Mei closed the laptop. She walked into the kitchen and then returned to the computer but didn’t open it. What should she do? What could she do? Her text might have awakened a ten-year-old boy in Manhattan, who’d typed a snarky reply. Or her text might have been received by someone who meant to pursue them.

  She hugged herself and turned around. She went to the door and confirmed that both locks were set. She walked over to the kitchen window and looked out but saw only blackness, not even stars.

  58

  Sloan Richardson shivered in the cold. Not just shivered but shuddered. The men hadn’t put clothing on her, and she was outside, where the temperature was far below freezing, maybe below zero. She also knew she was sitting in a chair—a chair that was moving.

  She couldn’t see anything because of the black hood over her head. She didn’t how long she’d been unconscious or if it was night or day. She tried to shift her weight and move, but she couldn’t. Her legs were tied to the chair or in some way restrained, a rope or cord around her upper arms. Mentally, she studied every inch of her body. Even with limited movement, she knew she hadn’t been raped. This fact gave her relief. Until she realized that if they didn’t want to have sex with her, they wanted something else.

  Hearing the roar of a loud engine, she grew confused. She couldn’t identify the kind of machine that made the sound. Not at first.

  She thought it could be from a truck or a boat. She sensed that it mattered.

  But she knew one thing for certain: this wasn’t a random assault.

  The chair stopped moving. She was set down on a hard surface. Her bare feet touched it, and the icy cold shot up through the bottoms of her feet.

  Ahhhh!

  As she raised her feet, giving them some relief, something was placed in her right hand.

  Holding it, she recognized a pen.

  She heard a man’s voice, the same man who’d given orders to the others inside her bedroom. He said, “Miss Richardson, I’d like you to sign a document for me. A deed for unit 309 in the Nanjing building. In return, you’ll receive fair market value, wired to your account within three days.”


  Angry despite her disorientation, she threw the pen aside. “Fuck you!” she shouted.

  Something hard and heavy crashed into her right knee. The force seemed to come from a great height and blow apart her knee.

  Ah! Oh, my God.

  She tried to double up in pain, but she couldn’t move. She heard herself crying.

  Another blow fell, this time on her left knee.

  She screamed. She wept loudly, tears running down her face. She closed her eyes and struggled to move her legs, to give her knees some solace, but the pain didn’t lessen. She tried to get away from them, from the chair, from the men, but she couldn’t move. There was no escape. After a moment she sat quietly, crying, wanting to be somewhere safe where the men couldn’t get her.

  “Miss Richardson?” It was the man’s voice again.

  And once again she noticed his unusual accent, but she still couldn’t place it. She moved her covered head around, trying to turn in the direction of the voice. It seemed to be coming from her right side.

  “Please, Miss Richardson, put your signature on the deed. I’d rather not hurt you again, you see.”

  She felt a paper slide under her hand. Its normality comforted her. The pen was threaded through her fingers again. Writing her name was something she’d done thousands of times before.

  Considering her situation, she held the pen over the paper. What other option did she have?

  She signed her name.

  And then she was taken toward the loud engine. As it drew near, she realized the sound didn’t come from a car or truck, a boat or the jet engine of an airplane.

  Closer, closer, and it became more defined.

  Now, when the roar grew deafening, she recognized it at last.

  She grew frenzied. Struggling against the restraints, she jerked her head left and right, forward and backward. She leaned this way and that, trying but failing to tip over the chair. She screamed. She called for help.

  But in the all-engulfing noise, nobody heard.

  59

  At two o’clock in the morning, the door to Vance McInnis’s condo opened. A dark-clad figure stepped inside and closed the door.

  The figure wore a black knit hat and black leather gloves and carried a nylon messenger bag.

  After setting the bag on the kitchen counter, the figure unclipped the flap and removed surface cleanser with a high alcohol content, and eight microfiber cloths. Then the figure began spraying the countertop and all the door pulls, the faucet handle, the refrigerator and freezer doors and handles, and inside the refrigerator and freezer, the surfaces, bottles, and racks. Next came the dishwasher, outside, handle, inside, all glasses, utensils, plates, and bowls in the racks.

  But first, using polyethylene tape, the figure removed prints from a single drinking glass in the bathroom, then set the tape inside a plastic case and put the case in the messenger bag.

  The figure moved methodically, with great care and without hurry. The kitchen was the first room, then the master bedroom and the master bath.

  All surfaces. Anything that had been touched or might have been touched. Because it wouldn’t be long before a CSU team examined this condominium. This was nearly certain, for an order had been given.

  From one of the pillows on the king-sized bed, the figure removed two strands of hair. Short hair, dark, that of the man who at times slept here.

  Then the figure stripped the king-sized bed, not only the flat sheet with the damp circle in the center, but also the pillowcases, the white cotton blanket, the duvet cover, and the mattress pad. After carrying these to the small laundry room between the master bedroom and the smaller bedroom, the figure put the white linens, the duvet cover, and the mattress pad in the washing machine, added detergent and double the amount of bleach recommended, and switched on the machine.

  The figure returned to the master bedroom, cleaned it thoroughly, and continued on to the master bathroom. Later, the figure applied the cleaning solution and microfiber cloths to the surfaces of the second bedroom that Vance McInnis used as an office. Then the smaller bathroom, followed by the living room and the laundry room itself. The figure took the vacuum from the closet in the laundry room and went over the carpeting in the bedroom and office. Later, after four o’clock in the morning, the figure took the mop and bucket from the laundry room, added hot water and a splash of ammonia, and cleaned all the wood floors.

  Afterward, the water now only lukewarm and gray with dirt, dust, a few dead spiders, and other bugs, the figure dumped the bucket out in the laundry-room sink, set it on the floor and the mop in the bucket. The job was finished. It was nearly five in the morning.

  The figure stood by the door to the hallway and the elevator, wiping down the locks on the door and the handle. After opening the door and stepping out into the corridor, the figure wiped down the exterior door handle, the lock, and the surface around it, as well as the entire surface of the door between six feet high and three feet high where someone might have touched the door to hold it open or to close it.

  The figure closed the door, tucked the cleaning solution and the last microfiber cloth in the messenger bag, removed the vacuum bag and wiped down the machine, and, still wearing gloves, pressed the button for the elevator.

  DAY 4

  60

  Chief Malone rose from behind his large desk, glaring at Buddy. He walked around the room like a wild animal, ready to kill, and slammed his office door. He faced Buddy, his forehead red with anger. “You talked to the mayor?” Malone shouted, his voice as big as he was. “After I gave you a fucking medal, you went over my head?”

  Buddy didn’t respond. When he’d woken up that morning, he’d felt his old energy return, his old confidence. Malone wasn’t going to force him to back down. Not today.

  Malone opened his arms wide. “After you screwed me, you’ve got nothing to say? Nothing at all?”

  Buddy said, “I want to finish the job.”

  Malone’s enormous eyes widened. Sweat formed at his temples. “Yeah, Buddy, you finish it. You can work the Sung case—their suicide—for another week. But”—he pointed a thick finger at Buddy—“you’re doing it alone. Alone. Because I’m not going to waste Mingo’s time or any other department resources. None. Got it?”

  Buddy said, “I understand.”

  “Yeah?” Malone shook his head slowly. “I’m not sure you do. Understand. So let me lay it out for you. I expedited getting you back on the force. I let you work the suicides from Long Island—Jesus, I should have said no—and this is how you treat me? After I did you two big favors?”

  Buddy thought about Malone’s reaction, and decided it was typical. He’d expected it. Mostly. And this gave him some comfort. But he wasn’t certain of Malone. It seemed pretty strange that soon after he’d told Malone about the bodies Mack Berringer had discovered off Long Island, someone had nearly killed him.

  Coincidence? Maybe.

  But maybe not.

  Malone might be dirty, Buddy thought. The chief might have betrayed me, sacrificed me for . . . what?

  He considered subterfuge, but it was too late for games. He’d play it straight up, at least with Malone. After this meeting, he wouldn’t tell the chief a damned thing.

  Buddy went to the door and opened it. Before he left, he said, “There’s something there, Chief. And thank you.”

  Chief Malone laughed angrily. “I’ll see you in seven days, when you’ll have to work for real. And fuck you!”

  61

  Mei climbed soundlessly out of bed and looked over at Ben. His chest rose and fell under the duvet spread over him on the sofa.

  She thought about the text she’d received—or Ben had received—from A. B. around two thirty that morning. Had it truly been from a ten-year-old boy? If the text had been from someone else, should they leave the house Jessica had lent her?

  She didn’t know where else to go. If they moved to a hotel, she’d have to use a credit card because she’d soon run out of cash. And even if s
he’d had enough cash, she’d have to use her ID to register at a hotel. Either way, Ben’s resourceful aunt and uncle could track her and show Judge Miles that she’d violated the court order and taken Ben out of New York City—a black mark against her bid for continued custody of the boy she loved.

  She could think of no solution, except to be cautious, to be prepared, to be ready to fight, if necessary.

  Wearing lightweight pajama bottoms and a soft T-shirt, she took the gun in its case from the closet’s top shelf, together with the box of ammunition from her duffel bag on the floor. Again, she glanced at Ben.

  Still asleep.

  She hurried from the room and out into the kitchen. Unzipping the case, she withdrew the revolver. As Ward had shown her a couple of weeks ago, she released the cylinder and saw that only two bullets remained. Squinting, she peered along the barrel and saw that it was clear.

  Hands shaking slightly, she opened the box and inserted four bullets into the cylinder. Then she clicked the cylinder into place and looked over the room.

  Where to put it?

  Close, so she could get it if she needed it.

  But not somewhere Ben could see.

  A cupboard?

  No. If I’m cornered, I won’t have time to go into a cupboard.

  The refrigerator. The top of the refrigerator.

  She set it there, pushed it back a little, and then set the box of Triscuits and a box of granola in front of it.

  I can get it there, she thought, if I need it.

  62

  Buddy stood in the lobby of One Police Plaza, but sensed that he was on melting ice. Everything was getting hotter, and he was about to fall through. He pulled out his phone and dialed.

  “Hello?” It was the female voice he’d expected.

  “I don’t have access to your floor, so I’m downstairs,” he said. “Did you check the video?”

  She said, “Not on the phone. Stay where you are.”