“Where is she?” he said when he was out in the hall.
“Downstairs. She’s grabbing a cup of coffee with Montoya.”
Garcia took the elevator down this time and went to the hotel restaurant. Jessica was sitting at a table with a uniformed officer, Heather Montoya. He walked up to the table and neither of them said anything. Montoya looked from one to the other and said, “My shift’s done. It was nice meeting you.”
When Montoya had left, Garcia sat across from Jessica. He stared at her as she stirred her coffee absently with a spoon, watching the liquid spill away from the metal when she lifted it up.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment and then pushed the cup away from her. “I think I should leave tomorrow.”
He couldn’t speak. He stared at the black fluid in the cup as it whirled and slowed to a standstill. “I guess, that’s probably the safest thing.”
She leaned back in the seat. “Unless there’s a reason for me to stay.”
He swallowed and looked away. “Jessica…”
“You don’t have to say it. I know. Thanks for all your help. With everything. I’m sure you’ll find whoever did this to Michelle.”
“I will. I promise you that.”
She reached out and gently touched his hand. Then, she rose, walked away… and was gone.
18
Jessica packed up her things. She was going to set a flight for tomorrow, but decided she didn’t want to stay in the hotel room, or the city, any longer. Gathering her bag, she booked a flight online for this morning and left the hotel. An officer was still outside her door and he helped her with her bag and walked her down to her rental car.
The airport wasn’t far. She drove in silence, listening to the hum of the engine as she zipped along Interstate 5. When she got off the exit for the Sea-Tac Airport, a heavy, gray feeling sat in her gut. She didn’t want to leave. She wanted to run back and throw her arms around Thomas Garcia and never let go. But that couldn’t happen. Maybe in another life. But not in this one.
She returned her car, a disastrous affair that took an hour, and then walked to the terminal. It wasn’t until she was inside the terminal that she remembered she had a gun in her purse. Taking a moment to think about it, she took all the bullets out and dumped it into the nearest trash bin. Not ideal, but at least she could get through security and it wouldn’t hurt anyone. She could report it lost when she got back to Texas.
As she walked across the terminal to find the security entrance, she noticed something. Someone behind her. They were following just a little too close. She glanced back and caught only a glimpse of a beard before she felt a hand on her arm. His head was covered with a baseball cap and sunglasses as he tried to pull her out the doors.
She tore away from him and he disappeared out the doors before she could fight or scream.
He was here.
The security entrance was up an escalator and then down a long hallway. She ran to the escalators and then stopped. A thought hit her that she hadn’t considered, but that was now obvious: what if he followed her? He was brazen enough to come to her hotel room, to try and grab her in the airport terminal. What if he hopped on a plane and came down? Jacob and Ruth…
She turned around at the bottom of the escalator, searching the crowds for the beard and the baseball cap. It wasn’t there. She took out her phone and dialed a number that she had placed in her contacts this morning.
“This is Garcia.”
“Thomas, he’s here. He’s at the airport. He tried to grab me and I—”
“Slow down, it’s okay. I’m coming up right now. Right now. Are you in a public place?”
“Yeah, um, yes there’s people all around me.”
“Okay, don’t move, stay where people can see you. It’ll take me fifteen minutes. Grab TSA and explain it to them. Tell them to wait with you until I get there.”
“Okay.”
She didn’t want to put the phone away and instead held it in her hand as she searched for a TSA officer. One was across the terminal, near the baggage claim, next to a plant that was nearly dead. She briskly walked to him.
When she was near the doors, she heard a whiff and felt nothing but a blinding pain. Her body felt loose, like Jell-O, and she thought she would collapse, but didn’t. And she was moving. Someone had their arm around her and was dragging her out the doors. She tried to fight, but the calm euphoria of sleep was coming over her, and the intense pain of a throbbing migraine. Her eyes closed as she caught a glimpse of the plant. She had been wrong. It wasn’t dying. It was already dead.
Jessica had a sensation of movement. Something akin to a roller coaster. Some invisible force that pushed her against something soft, and then the force would relent and she rolled forward. It took a few moments to realize she was awake and was moving. That her wrists were bound and she had something wrapped around her eyes.
Then she recognized what the movement was. She was in the backseat of a car, or maybe a truck. She recognized the hum of the engine and the sounds of other cars whizzing past her. No frequent stops. Probably on a freeway. Slowly, she reached up to see if she could remove whatever was preventing her from seeing.
Some sort of cloth was wrapped tightly around her head. Enough that it was giving her a headache. She lifted it lightly and could see out the bottom. A sedan. A man in the driver’s seat. The man with the beard. He reached up and ripped the beard off, tossing the plastic on the passenger seat. With the baseball cap and her limited vision, she couldn’t make out a face.
Looking out the windshield, she saw she had been right. They were on the freeway, heading out of Seattle. The sedan was a four door but all the doors were locked. She guessed childproof locks where only the driver could unlock them.
The car was going at least eighty. Any attempt to jump out and she might kill herself. She searched for her purse and saw it on the floor in front of the passenger seat. Inside was her cell phone.
She lay her head back down and closed her eyes. The thought of her sister came to her. Of what her final moments must have been like… and that they would share that. In life they couldn’t be more different, and in death they would be the same. Killed by the same incomprehensible madness.
Breathing deeply, she tried to accept her fate. She was going to die, and there was nothing that could be done about it.
Several times, she nearly cried. But each time she would fight back the tears. Fine. If she had to die, she would die. But she didn’t understand why she was chosen for this. She’d done everything you were supposed to do in your life. Everything our culture told us would end in happiness. But instead of happiness, she would be violated and killed by a disgusting animal. Everything she had known was wrong.
And then a thought came to her that wouldn’t leave.
Jacob and Ruth. What they would do without her. Where they would go. No doubt they would just be shuffled from one foster home to another until they turned eighteen and were turned out to the world by themselves. Always thinking she abandoned them.
No, she thought. There is no way in hell I’m going to let that happen.
She made up her mind right there that she was going to survive. No matter what, she would survive this.
19
Garcia raced to the Seattle-Tacoma Airport like his car was on fire. At one point, a police cruiser tried to pull him over, blaring its siren and flashing its lights. Garcia called dispatch and told them to call him off. A minute later, the lights turned off and the officer quietly followed him to the airport.
They parked in front of the terminal. Garcia got out and went to the police cruiser’s driver side window. The officer was young, almost baby-faced.
“What’s your name?” Garcia asked.
“Riley, sir.”
“Riley, I have a victim that’s been stalked by a man that killed her sister. I want you to go to her and I’m going to hang back and watch. I want to see how people react to
a police officer coming up to her. If I see someone take off, I’m going after him. You need to call in for backup, but don’t follow me. You stay with her and make sure nothing happens.”
The color was gone out of the boy’s face. He couldn’t have been older than twenty-one. Probably hadn’t done anything more than a traffic ticket.
“Okay,” he said, his voice shaky.
The two of them entered the terminal. Garcia quickly scanned the space. His heart was pounding from adrenaline. After dozens, maybe even hundreds, of homicide cases, few things roused him. But he was redlining it right now.
“Go to the TSA office and see if she’s there. I’ll search the terminal.”
He walked quickly. The women’s bathroom and the restaurants and the gift shops. Then the escalators, lost and found, and baggage claim. He quickly went to the different airlines and checked with them. The entire process took about twenty minutes, in which time he called her phone at least have a dozen times. Each call went to voicemail.
He met up with Riley near the doors.
“TSA?”
Riley shook his head. “No, sir. They haven’t seen her. They have video and they said they will look through it, but she never checked in with them.”
Garcia put his hands on his hips and glanced around. “Let’s go help them look at that video. I don’t want them skimming through it and telling us there’s nothing there.”
Together, they walked to the TSA office. A man with a pudgy face and a ponytail was sitting in a room with what looked like 1960s computers. The type that seemed to take up an entire wall. Several other analysts were there as well. Garcia had been through there several times on cases involving the airport or air travel, and the scene didn’t seem out of place. But he guessed if the general public knew how much equipment and manpower was used to monitor and search them, they wouldn’t be as comfortable flying.
“If you’re here for the video, I’m lookin’ through it right now,” the man said.
Garcia came behind him. The man glanced up at him and then back to the screen.
“I said I’d call you.”
Garcia said, “I’d prefer to be here if that’s alright with you.”
“Federal jurisdiction. I don’t have to do anything you say.”
“You’re not technically law enforcement. I wouldn’t pull that card. I won’t interfere, just do your thing.”
The man mumbled something and then continued flipping through a video of the entrances and exits of the terminal. The time stamp was for six hours ago.
“It wouldn’t be that far back,” Garcia said.
The man scoffed. “How far back then, Lord Vader?”
Garcia glared at him. “The last woman this guy got a hold of, he raped for two hours before he stabbed her almost twenty times. All her organs were sliced into pieces. So show a little damn respect.” He turned his eyes to the monitor. “I got a call from her almost an hour ago.”
The man forwarded the video. They flipped through the various cameras.
“Right there,” Garcia said. “That’s her.”
Jessica was walking quickly toward the escalators to the second floor, where the gates were. Then she stopped.
Don’t do it, Garcia thought. Please just have gotten onto your plane.
She turned around, and went back toward the entrance.
“Damn it,” Garcia said under his breath.
A TSA officer was near the entrance, but he was turned around, his back to Jessica. As she approached him, a man came up behind her. He seemingly appeared out of nowhere and in a flash of movement, bashed something behind her ear. A black weapon maybe eight inches long. A sap or a small baseball bat. Jessica’s body went limp but the man put his arm around her and carried her outside. He angled her just right so that it looked, at first glance and from a little far away, that they were two lovers hugging as they exited the airport. They went out the entrance, and were gone.
“Go back,” Garcia said. “Little more… okay, stop there.”
He stared at the man. A beard, baseball cap… the shoes.
“Holy shit,” he gasped. “I know who that is.”
20
Jessica felt the car come to a stop. For the past couple of hours, they had been traveling on a road surrounded by lush green trees. She tried to identify any markers that could help the police get back to this place, but she saw nothing except trees and boulders.
The car was stopped near a cabin. Dark brown wood with two windows. The man got out of the driver’s seat and then opened her door. He wrapped his arms around her and lifted. She felt disgusted, every fiber of her being screaming to claw at his face and get away. But she managed to keep it under control enough to act limp as he dragged her toward the cabin. Her feet scraped against the dirt. She opened her eyes and glanced around. They were in the middle of a forest. So far from the road that she couldn’t hear any cars.
The man was dragging her by her waist with her back against his chest. She felt his cheek on the back of her head and it sickened her.
The door to the cabin opened and the man dragged her inside. This was the moment. There was no way she was going in there to be locked up.
Throwing everything she had at him, she swung her head back and nailed his cheek. She did it again and heard the crunch of his nose. His grip loosened. She tore away, and ran for the trees. Throwing her pumps off.
“Fucking bitch!” the man shouted behind her.
The trees tugged at her clothes and skin as she ran by. Her hands were bound with wire, almost like the electrical cord from a lamp or toaster. The wires were loose and she pulled them apart and let it drop to the ground.
Every direction looked the same. The trees closed in around her and she had to push the branches away to get through them.
The dirt began to sink and she could hear a stream. She ran for it. Where there was a stream, there might be people fishing. In a full sprint now, she ducked under some branches and saw a slope heading down to the stream too late. She slipped and fell on her side. As she slid down, the rocks tearing into her, she saw the man come up behind her, glaring down at her.
And she knew who it was.
She rose to her feet and took huge leaps down the slope until she reached the bank of the stream. Mud caked onto her feet but the stream wasn’t deep or violent. She sprinted across, the stones slippery with moss. On the other side, she looked back. No one was there. Scanning the trees around her, she had no idea which direction to go. Every direction looked the same.
She decided to follow the stream. It had to lead somewhere.
The bank grew muddier and harder to traverse so she climbed away from it a bit and trekked through the forest. Her head pounded so hard she thought she might pass out. Jessica knew she’d taken a vicious blow to the skull. One that likely caused a concussion. The blow had been so hard that her eyes hurt. She needed to get to a hospital.
The shrubbery grew thick. It was still slick with rain though the sky had cleared enough that she caught glimpses of blue. The stream widened and then narrowed. She stuck by it, constantly glancing around. As far as she could tell, he wasn’t anywhere near.
Time seemed to pass slowly, but she didn’t have any way to verify that. All she could measure was her level of exhaustion. And without food or water, as sweat began to pour out of her, she decided she needed to rest.
Leaning against an Aspen tree, she sat in the dirt, he face in her hands. She inhaled deeply and pulled her hands onto her lap. The pain in her head was radiating down her neck now. She would have paid anything just for some ibuprofen or painkillers.
The crunch of wood behind her, and then silence.
She inadvertently held her breath, her heart pounding. The crunch led to rustling leaves, as though something were brushing past them.
Jessica searched in front of her and saw some stones gathered on the ground. Slowly, she extended her fingers and wrapped them around the largest one.
Terror bubbled up inside. But
along with the terror was an anger that built with every passing second. Pure anger that she was in this situation. That she left her children to be stuck in some forest. That a sister she should have been close to was gone. And that the man she should have been with, would be with someone else.
In a single movement, she leapt to her feet and spun around. The man was behind her, a blade held low. No more than maybe three feet. She flung the stone, slamming it into his face as she sprinted away.
She could hear him right behind her. His labored breathing. He sounded like a pig. Deep, guttural snorts.
The trees thinned and she was able to run at nearly a full sprint. Each step was more painful than the last as twigs, fallen branches and rocks tore at her bare feet. But she didn’t slow. She could still hear him behind her, and then a sound she would never forget: laughter. He thought this was fun.
She glanced back once and saw his face. She had to confirm it was really him, and it was. He wore large, heavy boots, which meant the trail didn’t hurt him, but also that he was slow and cumbersome.
The stream widened as she ran, panting for breath. The water emptied into a lake. She could see it just beyond the tree line. A pier jutted out into the water and she dashed across the wood, and dove feet first into the icy water.
Underneath the surface was a muddy brown world of motion and sound. She went deeper into the water, in case he had a gun with him or decided to follow, and then she circled back toward the pier.
Slowly, almost painfully so because she really needed to suck in breath, she slipped up out of the surface underneath the wooden planks of the pier. She inhaled softly to keep the sound down, holding onto one of the wooden beams to stay afloat.
Directly above her, she heard a thump.
Through the spaces in between the beams, she could see him. He walked to the edge of the pier, the knife still in his hand, and glared at the water. He scanned from one side of the lake to the other. And then he looked into the water nearby.
Fatal Intimacies (Romantic Suspense) Page 7