by Polly Iyer
It amazed her how many people had seen her act, but then she’d performed for twenty years in every major city and then some. “Glad you enjoyed my act, Doctor.”
“I understand you’ve given up the stage.”
“That’s right.”
“She helps the police department on occasion now,” Cash said. “Like today.”
“They’re lucky to have you, and so is the young man you brought here. Nice to meet you both.”
Cash chased after him, but Diana heard what he said.
“Doctor, a cop was brought in here earlier this morning, Detective Sam Beecher. He has an officer with him and might still be in the ER. Any chance you could clear the way for us to see him?”
“Let me check.” He stopped to speak to Sheila and Marilyn for a minute, touching the mother’s shoulder in a comforting manner before heading to the desk. A moment later returned to Cash and Diana.
“Detective Beecher is still in the ER. He wasn’t my patient, but I can tell you he has a concussion. The neurologist wants to keep him another day. They’re trying to find a place for him now. We’re a little over bed count. I’ll let his doctor or his family tell you more.” He pointed down the hall. “Third room on the left, where an officer’s standing guard.”
“Thanks, Doctor. We appreciate your help.”
“Nice guy,” Diana said when the doctor went in the other direction.
“Good looking too,” Cash said.
Diana gave him a questioning look.
“No, no. Just stating a fact. Can’t a man say another man is good looking without getting that look? Not that there’s anything wrong with being gay, mind you, but I’m not.”
“Sorry. I’m usually better than that.”
Cash didn’t respond.
“I’m on edge.”
“Me too, Diana. This has been a hell of a day.”
Cash flashed his badge to the officer outside Beecher’s door. Adele Beecher was inside. Beecher was sitting up with a tray in front of him. His left eye was purple and swollen shut. Adele stood up. Diana hugged her.
“I wondered when you were going to get here,” Beecher said. “I spoke to the captain.”
“He told me,” Cash said.
“I want to thank you two for coming to my rescue.”
Cash shook Adele’s hand. “I’ll go find some coffee,” she said. “You three can talk.”
Cash patted Beecher’s shoulder; Diana pecked him on the cheek. “How’re you feeling?”
“Like someone took a hammer to my head.”
“Did you see who?”
“Like I told the captain, I have no idea. I looked out the window and saw a cop’s uniform. I thought the captain sent someone to relieve me for an hour or two, so I opened the door. The guy was wearing a hood under the cap. He zapped me with a Taser, and I went down. Then he clocked me. That’s all I remember. I didn’t wake up until you guys came.”
“How long were you out?”
“I opened the door around three, got here at four, but I woke up before that. Maybe half an hour, a little less.
“Anything you can give us?” Cash asked. “Height? Weight? Voice? Did he say anything?”
“Nothing, but I wasn’t awake long enough to hear if he did.”
“What did he hit you with?”
“A sap, I think. Whatever he whacked me with did the trick. Got a pounding headache. Never mind I can’t see out of one eye. Did ya get the kid?”
“Yeah. He’s here. Lucky we found him when we did. He was trapped inside an abandoned trailer near the landfill off Gentilly Road. The temp inside must have been 110. He wouldn’t have lasted another hour.”
“Son of a bitch. I want out, but the doctor said no. He wants to run some more tests, make sure I won’t have a stroke or something. I tried to reason with him, then I’m afraid I kind of threatened.”
“You didn’t,” Diana said.
“Yeah, but he laughed at me. Said he could put me down with his little finger if I tried anything. I believed him. He’s a bruiser, and I’m not at my best. Then he told me I should lose weight. Him! You should see this guy. Two fifty if he’s a pound, but solid muscle. Said he was going to put me on a diet.”
Cash laughed.
“I’m running my mouth,” Beecher said. “And on top of that, I feel terrible. They got the lieutenant because I messed up. If they do him harm, I’ll track them down and kill them all.”
Beecher loved Lucier. They were good friends outside of work, and Diana had no doubt Beecher’d feel responsible if something happened to his boss because of him.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she said. “This abduction was well-planned.”
Cash leaned forward. “Who knew you and the lieutenant were at Diana’s, Sam?”
“I didn’t tell anyone but Adele so she’d know where I was. I don’t know who knew at the district or the other districts. Hard to keep Feldman’s death quiet. Cops have a way of finding out these things.”
Cash got up and walked to the window. “This smells to high heaven. A boy is kidnapped to make his cop father kill another cop, then another cop is attacked to kidnap the cop who escaped being killed by the boy’s father.”
“Very succinct.” Beecher’s sardonic tone wasn’t lost on the group.
Cash snorted. “I’ll run a check on the trailer, but I doubt we’ll find the kid’s abductors that way. That tin can was abandoned years ago, along with the others. We need to check them too.”
“Someone wants Ernie dead in the worst way.”
“You’re right about that,” Beecher said. “I’m just wondering why they didn’t kill him.”
Diana held in the tears, but it wasn’t easy.
Ernie, where are you?
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Euphoria
Lucier opened his eyes. Everything was a jumble. His watch said six. Was that a.m. or p.m.? Today or tomorrow or the day after or a week after? He reached to lift the curtain, and his injury protested. Propping himself up, he tried again and saw a fenced yard in the dim light through the barred window. A dank, musty smell hung in the air, similar to where Diana had been imprisoned when she was kidnapped. When was that? Months ago? Years?
He blinked to clear his vision and focused on his arm. He swore under his breath. Needle marks. How many shots had they given him? Dozens? Hundreds?
Too many.
Questions rambled in his head. Times, days, months, years ― every one without answers. How long before he didn’t know who he was?
He had to pee. Every stumbling step to the bathroom wrenched his wounded chest. No way could he stand, so he plunked down on the toilet seat and relieved himself. With one hand on the wall and the other on the sink counter, he heaved to his feet, holding on to fasten his pants and waiting until everything stopped revolving. He washed his hands.
The tiny window high up on the wall was too small to crawl through, but he hoisted himself onto the toilet seat to view the outside. Heavy mesh covered the opening. Dark clouds hung low over a swampy landscape behind the fence. No other houses, nothing human. No lights anywhere. Maybe there were homes in front of this house. Someone to see what was going on.
His image in the mirror frightened him. He’d seen drug addicts in the midst of euphoric highs and in the last, torturous throes of withdrawal. To prevent that from happening to him, he’d marshal his strength and fight them.
Them. Who were they? Why was he here? How could he fight them when he couldn’t even pee straight?
Staggering back into the room, Lucier stopped when the door opened. This time the shorter of his two captors came inside and waved him to the bed.
“Get out, and take your junk with you,” Lucier said with surprising force.
A snicker escaped from beneath the man’s hood, and he silently thrust the syringe in the air. He grabbed Lucier’s arm, but Lucier pulled back and swung a clenched fist at the man’s face. The man caught his wrist and with little effort pushed him onto the bed.
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In his lucid moments, he knew what they were doing, and he didn’t have the strength to stop them. He wondered if each shot was a little stronger, a little more addictive. They’d keep him there until he wouldn’t want to leave, until he couldn’t leave without the next fix.
The room spun again. Christ, he was going to pass out. Then the needle plunged into his vein. The blue line, normally invisible in his caramel-colored skin, swelled as the drug entered his body.
A half-hearted wail of rejection escaped Lucier’s lips, but as the euphoria hit, warmth cradled him as if he were wrapped in a soft blanket. The sun’s rays filled his body, and he was soaring again, high above in an incredibly brilliant place.
He lay in a dreamlike state, a feeling of well-being so comforting and relaxing, he wanted the sensation to last forever.
He was the sun king.
He was God.
* * * * *
His concentration shot, he swiveled his chair so he could look out the window. How could everything have turned to shit? He’d chosen his people carefully, all except Alba. He was Chenault’s recruit. A lot of good that did him.
Nothing was turning out the way it was supposed to. He began this mission almost twenty years ago, a one-man justice system. He never should have brought the others onboard, except for one. But he had. In all that time, no one caught the pattern. Not until Alba sent that photo to Chenault and Moran saw it. Since then, they’d killed three cops, not to mention two attempts on Lucier’s life. Then there was the kid.
He got up and circled the room, raking his fingers through his hair. They’d almost killed a seven-year-old kid, for the greater good, the noble mission, he told himself.
Actions had consequences.
They’d been careful, but Lucier and Racine were a formidable combination. Him with his meticulous reasoning and plodding persistence; her with that uncanny psychic thing she had going. Lucier’s team ― an overweight detective, an Irish veteran cop, and a clever young rookie ― weren’t to be taken lightly either. Lucier had trained them well. Because of Chenault and Alba, they’d already zeroed in on the operation and some of the group, still without conclusive proof. The attempts on Lucier’s life had called attention to the case. The best they could do was discredit him before he ended their “equal justice for all” concept.
He pounded his fist into his open palm. The kid was a mistake. He took full responsibility for that debacle. Everyone voted down a third attempt on Lucier’s life. He should have done the deed himself or contracted the hit without involving Feldman. But the Jew was beginning to balk about their path and had become a risk. Now he wasn’t, and the kid was alive.
They’d all contributed to a list, people whose punishments hadn’t fit their crimes. The list was long and ever-growing. Even so, time had come to let things cool down. With Lucier out of the way his team might not dig deeper. Unfortunately, Racine didn’t give up easily. She wouldn’t quit until she found her lover. She wouldn’t have to look long. Lucier would be hooked good, then they’d throw him back into civilization, ruined, a junkie cop, disgraced.
“You won’t be thinking about anything else but him, Miss Diana Racine, but he won’t be the same man you knew. No, Lieutenant Ernie Lucier will have a giant monkey on his back. He’ll be so fucked up, he won’t be able to see straight, let alone think.”
Chapter Forty
Off Limits No More
Diana tossed and turned the whole night. If she got an hour’s sleep, she’d have been surprised. When dawn broke, she checked outside to see the police car parked in front of her house. Cash had arranged a twenty-four-hour guard to stay inside with her. She hurriedly dressed, then dashed into the kitchen to make coffee.
“Morning, Officer Burel.” she said to the uniformed man sitting at her kitchen table reading the newspaper. “Coffee?”
“That’d be great.” He gestured to the paper. “Hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not. All’s quiet, I guess.”
“Nothing out of the ordinary.”
She had to admit, the officer’s presence made her feel safe. She made a full pot of coffee. “How do you take yours?”
“Black. Thanks.”
She brought him a cup and carried hers into the guestroom where she sat on the club chair and stared at the bed. Putting her coffee aside, she crawled between the same sheets that had covered Lucier, letting his scent fill her, sensing his body next to hers. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
Getting up for a tissue, she noticed the T-shirt Lucier left a few weeks ago that she brought for him to change into. He’d tossed it at the bottom of the bed. She picked it up and buried her face in his familiar cologne.
Scent was all she got. Nothing else.
Her powers failed her when the need was greatest. Whether conscious or unconscious, Lucier was off her radar. Still, she had to try.
Was he dead or alive? Was his body buried somewhere, never to be found? If they wanted him dead, why didn’t they kill him? Why take him? Nothing made sense. She was as useless as the T-shirt.
Where could she direct her gift? How could she help? Who wanted both her and Lucier out of the way? All questions without answers.
Someone came into this room. What did they do?
Back on the bed, she pulled the blanket onto her lap. Whoever took Lucier had to have touched it. Afraid she’d glean nothing from the secret the blanket held, she nevertheless clasped it in her hands and closed her eyes. What would she see, if anything, and through whose eyes?
After a few minutes of the full power of her concentration, she had her answer. A sob caught in her throat when she saw what the abductor saw ― Lucier, lying in bed, asleep. The view appeared to be through binoculars until she realized she was looking through an eye-slitted hood.
Lucier stirred, but he didn’t wake. She assumed the pain meds had knocked him out. What was she witnessing?
Then she knew.
A latex-gloved hand holding a syringe entered the picture. Another gloved hand held Lucier’s arm while the man with the needle plunged it into Lucier’s vein. He started to wake, but he fell back to sleep. Then both men grabbed Lucier under each arm, tugged him up, and ―
And what?
“Come on, dammit. Don’t leave me now.” Frustration rose, and she pounded the mattress with her fist. “Get back here.”
Within seconds, Burel barreled through the door, gun drawn, vigilant. “Who’s here? Are you all right?”
Diana jumped. “I’m fine. Sorry if I startled you.” With Lucier gone and Beecher in the hospital, who should she call? Cash was a smart kid, and she felt closer to him than Halloran. “Would you call Detective Cash for me? Hurry.” Why didn’t she have his number?
“Okay, sure. Right away.”
Cash called within three minutes. “What’s up, Diana?”
She relayed her vision. “Two guys took Ernie. One shot him with something that knocked him out. A drug. Willy, I don’t know what to do. I can’t see anymore. I can’t help him. Oh, God.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes, maybe twenty.”
Diana sunk into the chair again. Why couldn’t she see into Lucier? How could she be so immune to him?
But she got something. Two men came for Lucier. Beecher knew the exact time he’d been sacked. The team could trace the whereabouts of their suspects. She reached for Lucier’s shirt again, not to read but to feel his presence. Before long, a warmth crept into her body the likes of which she’d never before felt. She was floating, soaring high over the Mississippi until the muscles in her stomach tightened as if a wrench squeezed and twisted them. She toppled onto the floor, curled in a fetal ball, the unbearable pain contradicting an underlying feeling of wellbeing.
She didn’t know how long she lay there, half in heaven, half in hell, before strong arms lifted her onto the bed. Cash raised her head, and Burel put a glass of water to her lips. After she took a few sips, the pain subsided, but the fear of what the event meant remained. She
swallowed hard to keep the sobs from bubbling out.
“What happened?” Cash asked in the gentlest tone.
She steadied and looked him in the eye. “I have good news and bad. The good news is Ernie’s alive. The bad news is,” she caught her breath, “he’s in terrible pain and not from his wound.”
“What then?”
“Drugs.” She described her vision. “I felt what he felt. Warm and safe, then my stomach tightened as if it were in a vise.”
Cash slid into the chair. “Street drugs. Could be anything, most likely heroin or cocaine.”
Diana’s stomach twisted even more, but not from any vision. “They could have killed him here. Why didn’t they? What are they planning, Willy?”
“I haven’t a clue. Did you see the surroundings? Anything we can track?”
She scrunched her eyes, willing an image to materialize. Something to tell her where Lucier was. Tears she couldn’t hold back formed in her eyes. “No. Nothing.”
“Time to start asking some hard questions. I’ll talk to Captain Craven, then meet Halloran in Beecher’s room at the hospital to figure out our next move.”
“Hurry. We may not have a minute to spare. Meanwhile, I’ll go to the hospital to talk to the Feldman boy. Maybe he can shed some light on the men who took him.”
“Officer Burel will drive you there and wait for you.”
* * * * *
Cash headed back to the district to talk with the captain. With the lieutenant missing and Beecher out of commission for the time being, he and Halloran were the only members of the team still working on the murders. Halloran was spread thin doing double duty, and because Cash had only made detective shortly before Diana came on the scene, he wouldn’t be surprised if the captain put someone else in charge. He had two important skills: he loved research, and he possessed technical expertise the others didn’t. Nothing like Jason Connors or what he’d heard about Keys Moran, but his abilities had come in handy on the cases he’d worked since joining Captain Craven’s division.