by Steven James
“Mommy!”
“I think she’s waking up.”
“Is she okay?”
“She’s—”
As Sharyn blinked, the inside of St. Gerard’s Church came into focus again. She could see the altar area, and there in the transept, sitting in the chair, with her ankles and wrists duct-taped to it, was her daughter, Olivia. The serial murderer Dylan Neeson stood beside her.
While Sharyn was pushing herself to her feet, she found that she was still dizzy and had to pause to reorient herself.
Finally she managed to stand, trying her best to mask how uncertain her balance was.
Obviously, Dylan wasn’t here alone. Someone else had knocked her out. Someone else had targeted her chest with the laser sight. However, as she looked around the church, no one else was in sight.
When she directed her attention onto Dylan, she noticed that his left hand was wrapped with a bloody cloth, evidently injured.
“Let my daughter go. This has nothing to do with my family. It’s just between you and me.”
“Oh, it’s not just between you and me. It has to do with our family.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It has to do with our son. The one you aborted.”
Livvy, who was crying, called out, “Mommy!”
“It’s alright, sweetheart,” Sharyn assured her. “Trust me. Everything’s going to be okay.”
“Nothing can excuse what you did,” Dylan told Sharyn.
“You raped me,” she replied. “Nothing can excuse that.”
“But you took a life, Scarlett.”
“My name is Sharyn.”
“You can change your name, but you can’t change what you’ve done. You can’t undo the past, only face up to it.”
The abortion had been kept under the radar. Sharyn hadn’t told anyone about it over the years except for Kevin, and, this week, Pat. So it was a mystery to her how Dylan had found out about it. She hadn’t even known the baby’s sex and yet here he was, saying that it was their son.
“How do you know all this?” she said, partly trying to stall, partly trying to get answers. You need to take him down. You need to get Olivia out of here.
“My attorney had you followed,” Dylan said. “He was thorough. As you remember, it was during the trial. We were trying to get as much information as we could. After you left the abortion clinic, he went in—snuck in the back, found the remains of the fetus.”
Sharyn was speechless.
“We were able to do a DNA test. He was mine. He was ours. Why did you do it?”
“Because you raped me,” she repeated.
“Was that the reason?”
“Mommy, please help me!” Olivia said before Sharyn could answer Dylan.
“I will in a minute,” she replied. “Livvy, I love you. I’m going to get you out of here.”
“I love you too, Mommy.”
“Close your eyes.”
She doesn’t need to hear any of this!
Over the past fifteen years, Sharyn had tried to deny the real reason she’d gotten the abortion, but now she realized that if she didn’t tell Dylan the truth, he might very well kill her daughter.
It was time for it all to come out.
++++
Christie entered the back of the church.
She could hear Sharyn speaking with a man up front. A girl sat bound to a chair next to him.
A handgun lay in the middle of the expansive sanctuary.
Christie didn’t know what was going on here, but she could tell for certain that Sharyn and the girl were in immediate danger. She didn’t consider herself an expert with a gun, but growing up in Minnesota, she’d gone hunting as a girl. She certainly knew how to use one.
Actually, she knew pretty well.
You’re not a hero.
But you can’t let that man hurt them! That’s Sharyn. That’s a little girl! You have to do something!
She kicked off her shoes to remain quiet and stayed in the shadows as she made her way toward the gun.
++++
This side of the factory had a basement, not a bomb shelter, at the bottom of the stairwell.
“This way, Patrick,” a voice called.
Blake.
He’s taunting you!
Alright, well let him.
It was just going to make it easier for me to catch him.
I scrambled over a tumbled clutter of concrete slabs, avoided the broken glass and rusted rebar stabbing through the concrete, and approached the steps.
Below me, at the base of the stairwell, water filled the basement, and bloated, waterlogged furniture floated by.
Water was gushing from one of the pipes that’d been broken off and perhaps sold as scrap metal. Apparently, the city had never shut off the water here. Hundreds of thousands of gallons must have already poured into the basement.
When Blake spoke again, his voice echoed up from below: “I’m waiting, Agent Bowers.”
The steps were steel, but weren’t grooved, and the water dripping down from the few pipes that remained nearby left them slick, so as I descended I had to watch my step or my feet would have shot out from under me.
At the water’s edge, I swept the flashlight beam before me, but saw no one.
The bottom steps were submerged and I couldn’t tell exactly how many were covered by the water, so I took each one carefully, feeling my way with my foot until I located the floor.
The water reached my waist.
A city that shuts off water to those who don’t pay for it, but doesn’t shut it off in old factories, even when it fills up the basements—crazy. But then again, how do you check tens of thousands of old buildings?
The basement was a broad, sweeping space interspersed with imposing concrete support pillars. A webbed network of cracks crisscrossed the cement ceiling. Amazingly, some type of stalactites had formed from chemical-rich water seeping through the concrete and leaving sediment behind as it dripped down.
“Blake,” I called. “Turn yourself in. Don’t make me shoot you.”
“I’m over here,” he said from behind a cement pillar thirty meters away.
I saw no one, but started making my way toward the voice.
90
Sharyn debated how much to tell Dylan, especially in front of her daughter. But right now Olivia’s safety was all that mattered.
You have to tell him. You have to do this.
She felt a hot rush of shame. The shame that she’d tried to bury for all these years. No, she hadn’t aborted her baby simply because of who its father was. Or even because of the way it was conceived. She’d aborted her baby because she’d thought only of herself.
Only herself.
Tell him.
No.
Yes. For Olivia. The truth for her life!
“I did it because of my weight. My figure,” Sharyn said. “I grew up in Hollywood. I thought I might want to model some more. When I got pregnant, I didn’t want it to show. That’s it. That’s the truth. Now let my daughter go.”
“You killed our child”—Dylan’s voice was cold steel—“because you didn’t want to get fat?”
He produced a box cutter from his pocket and slid out the blade, then pressed it against Olivia’s throat.
“No!” Sharyn shouted. “Stop!”
“When it comes to abortions,” he said, “liberals will try to use the gotcha question, ‘So what about in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the mother is at risk?’ What would you say?”
“What do you mean?”
“Would you say abortion is wrong in those cases?”
“No.”
“So what about when there is no rape, no incest, and no one’s life is in danger? What about cases where the parents just don’t l
ike the sex of their child, or the eye color, or find the idea of raising a child inconvenient or a setback to their careers? Or the mother just doesn’t want to get fat? Would you say it’s wrong then?”
“Yes.” Her voice was hushed, but she repeated it to make sure he could hear. “Yes, I would. Now put down the blade.” Then she said to her daughter, “Livvy, it’s all pretend. Keep your eyes closed. It’s all pretend,” she lied. “It’s all just a game.”
But it’s not just pretend. It’s real. It’s—
“I’ll give you a choice,” Dylan said to Sharyn. “Just like in Sanctuary. The same choice that mother had in the movie.”
Sharyn was about thirty feet from him. He tossed an automatic knife to her. It skidded to a stop near her foot.
She picked it up. “What’s this for?”
“You get to decide how this ends. Either you cut your own throat, or I cut hers. If you come toward me, she dies. If you don’t take your life, I take hers. Who will die for your sin and who will suffer for it? I’ll give you ten seconds to decide.”
There’s a second person here. Where is he?
“Ten.”
You can’t do this, Sharyn.
You have to!
“Nine.”
She flicked out the blade and stared at it.
“Eight.”
Lifted it to her neck.
“Seven.”
You deserve this. You were selfish. You would’ve had a son.
“Six.”
You took his life. It wasn’t right.
“Five.”
“No, Mommy!” Olivia screamed. “Don’t do it!”
“Four.”
All she needed to do was press and slide to save her daughter. Press it in, swipe it to the side, and—
“Three.”
I pray the Lord my soul—
“Two—”
As she was about to carry out the sentence on herself, she heard a gunshot, and then Christie’s voice: “Don’t move!”
But Dylan did. Leaving Olivia there, he bolted awkwardly, favoring one leg, to the side of the church as another gunshot rang out.
As he escaped into the priests’ changing room, Sharyn ran forward to free her daughter from the chair.
“Christie,” she shouted, “get over here. Hurry!”
She slit the duct tape and was helping Olivia stand when Christie arrived.
Christie offered her the gun, but Sharyn asked, “You know how to use that?”
“Grew up hunting.”
“Alright. There’s someone else here. Protect my daughter. Get her out of here. Do you have a phone?”
Christie handed her cell over and Sharyn called dispatch to get backup en route as she flew toward the room after Dylan, tightening her grip on the knife’s handle as she did.
++++
The water in this part of the building flowed into a tunnel that led toward the Detroit River, and I imagined that it probably emptied into the river at some point.
The tunnel must have been part of the original plant, and although I was curious how that related to the flooded basement, right now I didn’t have time to concern myself with any of that.
I tried the phone to call for backup, but here beneath the concrete and steel, I didn’t get any reception. Then, maybe twenty meters ahead of me, near where the basement narrowed, I saw Blake.
I had the Glock aimed at him but I didn’t trust myself to take the shot from here.
“You didn’t leave the ice, did you?” I said.
“The ice?”
“In the whiskey glass, back at the Russian scientist’s house. Gaviola left it.”
“How do you know?”
“There weren’t any ice trays in the house, yet somehow the ice in that glass wasn’t melted. Someone brought it in. And that’s how you were able to get away, isn’t it? How long has he been working with you?”
“Why do you think it was him?”
“He was the first one in the garage. After that, there wouldn’t have been any opportunity to plant the ice. Also, he’s the one who got the anonymous tip. It was a distraction, right? Something to keep us searching in that neighborhood while you slipped away? It’s a little thing, but little things point to the big ones: whoever brought the ice in didn’t know that there were no ice trays.”
“Tell Gaviola, ‘Hi,’ from me when you arrest him.”
“You can tell him yourself after I bring you in.”
I edged toward him through the water. To my right, the current picked up. As a kid in Wisconsin, I’d always feared falling through the ice and drowning. No ice here, but I could still end up trapped, sealed underwater. I didn’t even want to entertain the thought of being swept down that tunnel.
“If you want me”—Blake smiled—“come and get me.” And then he ducked into the rushing water.
I waited for a moment to see if he would come back up, or if it’d all been a ploy.
91
Dylan was waiting for Sharyn in the priests’ room.
He grabbed her by the shirt and threw her forward. She tumbled down a short flight of stairs and he was right behind her.
The small room at the base of the stairs was thick with shadows, and when he came at her, he kicked her hard against the place on her skull where his partner had bashed her earlier.
The force of the blow spun her around and brought a flash of stars and the same dizziness she’d had when she first woke up.
++++
It wasn’t a ploy.
Blake was gone.
I cursed to myself, studied the amount of space between the top of the water and the tunnel. It looked like there would be just enough air to grab a breath inside there as long as the current wasn’t too swift.
I holstered the weapon, rushed forward, took a deep breath, and dove into the water.
++++
That bloody fabric that was wrapped around Dylan’s left hand was her ticket. Sharyn decided to attack him where he was weakest. Still on the ground, she struck, spearing the automatic knife at him. Her timing was spot-on and the blade embedded through his palm.
But instead of stopping him, he curled his hand to lock the blade in place and then swiped it at her.
Pain didn’t seem to bother him.
At least not yet.
But she would make sure that it did soon enough.
Fights in the movies can last a long time, but most fights in real life are quick. A couple of punches, a couple of kicks, someone goes down, and then it’s over.
Alright, it was time to end this one.
She got to her feet and stared at him. He had the box cutter in one hand, the knife embedded through the other.
From what Pat had said Wednesday night, this guy was an expert at close-quarters combat.
The flashlight.
She reached behind her for it, swept it forward, flicked it on, glared it in his face, and then threw it at him. Taking advantage of the distraction, she rushed forward, grabbed the wrist of the hand that still had the knife through it, and smacked his elbow to cause the arm to snap up toward his chest, driving the knife in.
He managed to use the box cutter to slice into her shoulder as he slumped against the wall and began to sink toward the floor.
Yeah, there was pain on his face now.
Good.
He tried to pull his hand away from his chest, but she pushed the blade in farther and held it firmly in place until he was on the floor and he was no longer moving.
She stood back, heart hammering, shoulder bleeding, arms shaking.
“That’s for Simone and Ted,” Sharyn said. She went back into the sanctuary, found it empty, and called for Christie, but heard nothing.
Running outside, she finally located Christie and Olivia. “Are you two okay?”
“Yeah,” Christie said.
Olivia hurried to the arms of her mother.
“Any sign of his partner?” Sharyn asked.
Christie shook her head.
“Thank you,” Sharyn said.
“Of course.” Christie looked shaken and pale.
“You sure you’re alright?”
“I’m just not used to this type of thing. It’s more Pat’s specialty than mine.”
“You looked pretty good in there to me.”
The sirens told Sharyn that backup was coming. She made sure they had a bomb squad en route as well to rescue Kevin, who, as far as she knew, was still in the basement.
++++
It was harder than I thought to grab air in the tunnel.
If I tried swimming forward, there wasn’t enough room to get my head up for a breath, so I had to float on my back. I still had my flashlight, but in the swift and turbid water, I couldn’t see much.
Without warning, the space at the top of the tunnel disappeared, and the current became faster, tumbling me against the rough sides of the tunnel and spitting me out into the Detroit River.
I kicked my way to the surface, snatched a lungful of air, and looked around. There was no sign of Blake on shore. No sign of him in the river.
As I was scanning the bank again, all at once, I felt a hand on my ankle. Instinctively, I gasped but he tugged me down before I could draw in a fresh mouthful of air.
Blake climbed up my body until his hands were on my shoulders, then he kicked me down deeper into the water.
I stroked upward toward air, but he kicked at me again, this time hitting me in the side of the jaw. The little air that I did have burst out of my mouth, and I had to struggle to get back to the surface. Just as I did, he was on me again. But instead of going for my face, he went for my gun—the holstered Glock.
While I struggled to keep it from him, it slipped away into the river, but I managed to land a solid punch to the side of his face.
Then, all at once, he took a breath and did a surface dive into the river.
I waited for him to come up. Treading water, I turned in a circle but saw no sign of him.
92