Losing Sarah (A Sarah Roberts Thriller Book 16)

by Jonas Saul

  “Where are we going?”

  “Las Vegas office. We’re to report to the Special Agent in Charge there.”

  “Got a name?”

  “Samantha Puig.”

  “Did they say why?”

  “No. I was told to drop the surveillance and go to the airport.”

  King sat back and ran a hand through her hair. “That sucks. Wonder if they made us.”

  They rode in silence for a while.

  “You think Sarah Roberts has something to do with this?” King asked.

  “Would you fuck off with the Sarah shit?” Fitzgerald snapped. “She’s got nothing to do with what the FBI decide either way.”

  “Geez, sorry,” King said in a mock hurt voice. “Didn’t know Sarah was a sore spot for you.”

  “She isn’t.”

  “Right. I can tell.”

  Five minutes later, King said, “Band of the Hand. Good movie. You should watch it.”

  Fitzgerald didn’t even glance her way.

  Chapter 39

  Whitman found a motel on the outskirts of Rosarito and checked them in using American dollars. Once they were settled in the room and Aaron had given Parkman a towel to stem the bleeding in his arm, Whitman announced he was leaving to get supplies.

  Within five miles he found an all-night drug store where he got disinfectant, a small sewing needle, a roll of thread and cotton swabs. Bandages were by the counter where he got orange juice and pre-packaged muffins. Parkman had lost some blood and would need his energy levels raised. At this hour, unless he wanted potato chips or chocolate bars, the muffins and juice would have to do.

  Whitman got back to the motel, knowing this was only a pit stop. The cop they left behind was going to have every cop in the country hunting them in short order. They had an hour, maybe less to get on the road.

  And go where, exactly? Border patrol would be watching for three guys. There would be descriptions of Parkman and Aaron. Sure he saved their lives tonight, but he might have signed their death certificates for tomorrow.

  He entered the room to find Parkman asleep on the bed farthest from the door. Aaron sat beside the bed holding the white towel—now stained deep red with blood—against the arm wound.

  “Clotted?” Whitman asked.

  Aaron nodded. “Mostly.”

  Whitman unpacked his purchases and set everything up on the table beside the bed. The room came equipped with a coffee maker and sealed packets of filtered coffee. He poured water into the basin and turned the machine on without the coffee. In moments he would have hot water. Hopefully it was hot enough to cleanse the needle and thread.

  Once he was set up, he turned to Aaron. Sarah’s boyfriend had heavy eyes, but they watched Whitman with an intensity that made Whitman think of a cougar watching him from atop a large boulder, waiting for the right moment to pounce.

  “Wake him,” Whitman said.

  “Why?”

  “I need to stitch his arm closed and then we leave.”

  “Leave? Where?”

  “We can’t stay here.”

  “Because the cop you left alive back there?”

  Whitman dropped the needle and thread into the hot water. He’d been around enough hostility to last a lifetime. It didn’t bother him any more or less than usual. The only reason he felt concern was he didn’t want his reunion with Sarah to be marred by anything as trivial as a jealous boyfriend. He paused a moment, watching the needle at the bottom of the coffee pot.

  “Aaron, if you have an issue with my intentions, then speak. State your claim.” He faced Aaron. “Say your piece. Or don’t. But what you won’t do is accuse me of a hidden agenda. Sarah saved my life. I would be rotting in the ground if it wasn’t for that woman.” He moved across the carpeted floor and stopped in front of Aaron’s chair. “Sarah is everything to me. As a friend. As a role model. As a woman. She is not someone I think of intimately. I don’t seek a relationship with her. She’s yours. You have nothing to concern yourself with. If you can prove otherwise, I will walk away from this. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I want to clean and disinfect Parkman’s wound and stitch it up. Then we can carry on with the saving our lives part. Are we cool?”

  After a moment, with Aaron neither speaking nor nodding, Whitman walked back to the coffee pot, withdrew the needle, threaded it, and started back to Parkman.

  “Sarah is my world,” Aaron said. “We’ve been through a lot together.” He nudged Parkman to wake him. “Understand something for me.”

  Whitman nodded.

  “What you’re feeling isn’t jealousy. It’s caution. You show up after several years, back from the dead. Makes me wonder why. What do you want? Why now? You say your intentions are clean. All I’ll say is that remains to be seen.”

  “Saving your life back there isn’t worth something?”

  “It is.” He pushed Parkman again. “The true test will be when you’re with Sarah.”

  “Then let’s go get her and you and I will learn together what I’m here for.”

  “I warn you, if for any reason—”

  “There’s no need to warn me. Sarah can take care of herself. As I’ve heard you can, too. Now, can we get Parkman fixed up?”

  Aaron waited a heartbeat, nodded slightly, then shook Parkman awake.

  “Parkman, I need to disinfect the wound,” Whitman said. Parkman’s eyes opened slightly. “I need to clean and disinfect it completely so as to leave nothing inside. If anything is left inside the sub-dermal layer of skin, it can become septic almost immediately.”

  “Go ahead,” Parkman mumbled.

  “It might hurt, but once I’m done in a few minutes, you’ll be on the road to healing. Also, I have muffins and juice. You need to eat and drink to get your energy up.” Whitman touched Parkman’s flesh around the wound. It was cool and damp.

  To keep Parkman’s mind off the process, Whitman decided to talk to him. There was no local anesthetic to administer so Parkman was going to be sewn up raw.

  “The body expels foreign material using abscesses and pustules.” He dabbed with the disinfectant soaked cotton into the inner part of the cut. Parkman winced and drew back. Aaron held him, forcing him in place. “If I sew it into the skin, that would be bad.”

  Once the wound looked clean, Whitman brought the needle to it. A minor amount of blood seeped out, running down Parkman’s arm. He pressed the skin where he wanted to place the needle, rotated it in his fingers to aid in the numbing, and pushed the needle in.

  “I’m starting with the closest edge of the wound and sewing away from me. This area should be mostly numb from the injury, so you shouldn’t feel much.”

  “It’s good,” Parkman said. “Just do it. No problem.”

  Aaron opened an orange juice and handed it to Parkman, who drank it back.

  Whitman sewed in a zigzag pattern up the wound until he reached the end where he tied it off in a firm knot.

  “There, all done.” He dabbed at the little blood with the stained towel. “I’ll apply a large bandage and we’re good to go.”

  Aaron unwrapped a muffin and handed it to Parkman. He unwrapped another and bit into it.

  “If you need to use the bathroom, do it now. We’ll be on the road for a while and we shouldn’t be stopping that often.”

  “Where are we headed?” Aaron asked. “Sarah’s in Rosarito somewhere. We need to go back there. Find her. Then leave.”

  “Not possible,” Parkman said.

  Whitman was relieved he wasn’t the one who had to say that.

  “Not with one cop still alive from the shack. We’re wanted men in Mexico now. We need out.”

  Aaron got up and walked to the other side of the bed. “What about Sarah? Just leave her here? When she’s at her weakest?”

  “We have no choice. We’ll be dead before the sun sets if we don’t.”

  “And if she dies?”

  “Aaron, she won’t. It’s Sarah. She has Vivian.”

  Aaron moved to the motel r
oom window and peeked out the curtains, clearly battling with the decision to leave the country.

  “Drake, have you got a cell phone?” Parkman put his hand out.

  “Whitman. And yes.”

  “I need to make a call.”

  Whitman handed him his cell. A moment later, Parkman was talking to a man he called Casper. Then he clicked off the call.

  “Casper’s sending a helicopter.”

  Aaron turned from the window. “Where? You didn’t tell him where we are.”

  “Leave this cell phone on. He’s tracking it. Helicopter will be here inside an hour. I’m going to sleep. Wake me when it gets here.” Parkman leaned back and rested his head on the pillow.

  “Wow, this man named Casper is powerful,” Whitman said. “Who is he?”

  “Works for the U.S. government,” Parkman said. “Helped us out of a few jams.”

  “Good to have someone like that around.” Whitman stepped into the bathroom to wash up. Several minutes later when he walked back into the room, Parkman was asleep, breathing loudly.

  Aaron was nowhere to be seen.

  He had left the room.

  Chapter 40

  Sarah woke with a splitting headache that felt like a toothache had flared up in the middle of her skull. Rubbing her temples didn’t ease the pain. Slow on the uptake, it occurred to her that her arms weren’t restrained as she rubbed the side of her head.

  Other than the headache, she didn’t feel sick anymore. Her stomach had settled. If anything, her body felt rested, like she’d slept for twenty hours.

  She kept her head on the pillow and her eyes closed as she thought of heroin. The urge seemed to be gone. In fact, the idea of shoving that stuff in her arm disgusted her. She sighed in relief. It was time to get back to herself, to live her life again. The addiction was over. From here on in, even if the idea appealed to her in the slightest, she’d be able to beat it. In the worst moments of withdrawal, she had almost won. From here on, there would only be best moments.

  She forced her eyes open. It was the same room as before, with the same dismal artwork and sparse furniture. Although now, she wasn’t tied to the bed, therefore not a prisoner.

  The headache’s pounding eased off. She rolled to her side, dropped her legs over the edge, and pushed off the bed into a sitting position. A moment of dizziness halted her movement. When it passed, she took in her surroundings from an upward position. They had left her alone. The doctor and all his equipment was gone. For all intents and purposes, no one would see anything other than a girl waking in a room after what might appear to be a wicked hangover.

  “Yeah, some hangover.”

  Her voice was deep, gravelly. She cleared her throat, then squinted at the small flare of pain behind her eyes and tried to speak again.

  “What am I doing here, Vivian?”

  Her sister’s presence flowed into her consciousness.

  “Good to know you’re still around,” Sarah whispered. “Haven’t chatted much lately.”

  In seconds, Vivian’s knowledge was imparted upon Sarah, transferred to her consciousness. It was suddenly there like she’d only recovered a thought from before. Vivian’s words entered her mind like it was something she just knew. Instead of speaking, Vivian could plant an entire idea, a plan, or a way of thinking into Sarah’s consciousness by way of mental osmosis. Almost at once, the planted thoughts took on a cognitive awareness for Sarah that became her new understanding. In essence, what Vivian planted became Sarah’s new knowledge and ultimately her thoughts, even though Sarah knew they were of a foreign nature.

  In the time she sat waiting for her headache to subside enough to get off the bed and walk around the room, she understood why she was here, why Vivian allowed her to be used as a heroin test subject, and what she needed to do. Vivian failed to reveal the end game, though. Why did it all matter so much? Why was she supposed to stay here and do what Jane Turner wanted her to do? Sarah was left wondering how that connected to the drugs, but felt it had something to do with Jane’s son, Blair.

  Vivian explained her process had to be the way it was or she wouldn’t have met Blair if she wasn’t addicted to heroin. She wouldn’t have wanted to buy anything from him. Actually, knowing what he was up to in his Camaro, she probably would’ve wrecked his car and put him in the hospital. Instead, she became his customer. To witness the accident. To whisper the prophecy. So he could overhear her and tell his mother about it. So she would be interested in Sarah and research her. All that had to happen, according to Vivian, starting with allowing Enzo to cause her addiction in the first place, so that Sarah could be in this room at this exact moment. It was all like a blueprint, prewritten in immaculate detail for each event to happen in real time.

  “And now I’m supposed to just play along?” Sarah asked the empty room.

  Vivian whispered yes, then retreated from Sarah’s consciousness.

  “Great. Thanks.” She thought of another question. “Hey, Sis, what about Aaron? Where’s he right now? Probably worried sick about me. How many days have I been here? And what’s he think about these glamorous plans of yours?”

  “This is your third day,” a metallic female voice said from the corner.

  Sarah jerked her head to the left too fast and winced at the pain. The voice emitted from speakers somewhere because the room was empty.

  When she hopped off the bed and landed on her feet, her knees gave way and she dropped to the floor, bracing her fall by thrusting her hands out in front of her.

  “Shit,” she muttered under her breath.

  “It’ll take a little time to walk,” the voice said. It had to be Jane’s voice. Cameras must be giving her visual access to Sarah’s room. Why though? To see when she wakes up? To see what she does?

  That made it creepy. Sarah understood this room was the guest room, which meant Jane spied on her guests.

  “Not a very trusting person, are you?” Sarah said.

  “What was that?” the voice asked.

  “Toilet. I need to piss.”

  There was a moment’s pause. Then, “Through the door on the far left you will find what you need.”

  With the use of the side of the bed, Sarah got to her feet, wobbled for a moment, then started across the hardwood floor.

  “You’ve been in bed for three days. You’ll recover quickly, though.”

  Like I need to be told that.

  It felt like a burst of acid filled her stomach and she felt nauseous again.

  I thought that shit was over.

  “There are no cameras in the bathroom. But neither are there ways to escape. I’ll wait for you out here.”

  Ways to escape? Wait for me?

  So now I am a prisoner.

  Two minutes later, after flushing, washing her hands, and splashing water in her face, she felt a lot better. She emerged from the bathroom and looked around the room. The cameras had to be small or hidden because nothing stood out.

  “You’re looking for the cameras,” the voice said. “You won’t find them. Surgically implanted in the room. I have six cameras that cover everything but the toilet.”

  Sarah made her way over to the window and pulled the curtain aside. The sun was rising on what would probably be a gorgeous day. A quick glance down revealed the ground below was at least thirty feet away. Too high to break the glass and jump. From her limited view, it looked like the wall below the window was smooth without the required footholds to climb down. The surrounding grounds looked immaculately tended, but no tree came close to the house. The only way out of this room was through the door.

  “Banish thoughts of escape,” the metallic voice droned on. “I have an offer for you. Once we agree to the terms, you’ll be on your way. Free to go back to Aaron and Parkman.”

  Sarah started across the room on less wobbly legs. Jane Turner had done her research. This woman was dangerous. Rich and powerful. She could get what she wanted. Like pulling Sarah from a Mexican jail. For what, though? An offer? A
deal? Hold her as a prisoner until the deal had been reached?

  “What kind of an offer?” Sarah asked.

  “One you might find quite appealing.”

  “Somehow I don’t think so.” She made it to the door and tried the handle. Locked. She knocked on the door. It looked like wood but sounded solid, like it was made of steel.

  “Reinforced vault door,” Jane said. “The kind of material a bank would use on their vaults. I had it made for this room. Without the combination, which mind you, is only accessible on the other side of the door, there’s no opening it unless you rammed it with a tank. Somehow I doubt anyone’s bringing a tank to the third floor of my house.”