by Mel LeBrun
Chapter 5
Jessica woke to the smell of coffee brewing. I must be a heavy sleeper she thought, since it seemed nothing Michael did woke her. He was sitting at the table reading the paper. Was that today's paper? How the hell did he leave and come back without waking her?
“Good morning,” he greeted her without taking his eyes off the paper. He seemed to have eyes in the back of his head.
“How did you know I was awake?”
“Your breathing changes.”
She wondered how loud her breathing must be for him to notice. The beeper went off on the coffee maker, signaling it was ready.
“You want some coffee?” he asked. “Cream, no sugar.”
“Yes,” she replied still half-asleep. “Wait, how did you know how I like my coffee?”
“Just a guess.” A slight smirk crossed his lips, but she couldn't see that.
It wasn't a guess. He had already been to her apartment that morning and learned a lot about her from it. He left early to pick up a paper and figured he'd kill two birds with one stone and check out Jessica's home.
While scoping out her apartment from a distance, he spotted two guys sitting in a gold Ford Taurus just down the street.
“Well, well, well. What do we have here? Dumb and dumber.”
The passenger was wearing an arm brace. It was the two surviving shooters from the cafe. He had wounded one in the shoulder. Pulling out his camera, he snapped some pictures, a few close-ups and a few showing the buildings in the background. He then drove a block away to a pay phone. Being the good citizen that he was, Michael phoned in an anonymous tip that two of the cafe shooters were sitting on Jessica's street.
He parked at a nearby shopping plaza, pulled a hooded sweatshirt from the back and put it on. He jogged back to Jessica's street, stopping just near enough to watch the show.
First, an unmarked police car made a pass by the Taurus. The tranquil neighborhood gave no warning of what was about to occur. Within minutes, a swarm of police descended upon the two shooters. As the two men were on the ground being handcuffed, Michael casually walked down the sidewalk to the apartment. From the backseat of a police car, they saw Michael across the street grinning victoriously at them as he turned to enter Jessica's apartment building.
IT WAS an upscale apartment. Michael wondered what Jessica did for a living working at home that she could afford such a nice place. Then he wondered why she was using the crap computer at the cafe when she no doubt could afford a really nice one of her own. He quickly picked the lock on her door and was inside. It was nicely decorated with fine wool Oriental rugs scattered throughout. He moved from the living room to the kitchen and dining room. He took stock of what she had in her fridge and cupboards. Wires on the counter looked like they went to a laptop, but there wasn't one in sight. Next stop was her office. Here too it looked like there had been a computer at one time, but it was gone. The drawers of her desk had been rifled through. Someone was looking for something.
Books filled a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. Many looked like antiques and just for show, but others were apparently bought and read. He grabbed one of the latter, an adventure novel. She liked adventure. He wondered if that would still be true after her ordeal.
There was a basket of mail on her desk, all addressed to Jessica Nickoli. He leafed through the pile, but there wasn't anything of interest.
Knowing he shouldn't spend too much time, he moved on to her bedroom. He chuckled seeing that she didn't make her bed. He never made his bed. What was the point? He looked through her nightstand hoping to find a journal or something, but that probably had been taken as well.
His eyes fell on a tiny bookshelf in her bedroom. One of the books looked a little odd. He picked it up and realized it wasn't a book, but a box made to look like a book. Bingo. Inside, he found her journal. That might come in handy since it seemed she might be with him for a while. There was no doubt in his mind they wanted her dead. Somehow, he would have to explain that to her. He briefly searched her dresser drawers. He was not the first person searching them and didn't expect to find anything. She was Plain Jane in the underwear department he mused, but there was nothing else of interest.
He checked out her medicine cabinet, noting the lack of birth control. He couldn't help wondering why she was single. She was gorgeous and now he knew she had money. Men should be falling over themselves to be with her. Another thing that struck him was the absence of photos. There were no family photos, just a few pictures of her with some friends. Nothing of her as a child. There didn't even seem to be any photo albums. He figured it was either one of two possibilities. They were lost in a fire, or Jessica Nickoli wanted to forget her past.
Deciding it was time to go, he went out the back door of the complex and jogged nonchalantly back to his truck. He stuffed the journal in the pocket behind the driver's seat, ditched the sweatshirt in the back, then went into the grocery store in the shopping plaza. He picked up a newspaper then stopped in the book aisle and tried to find a good adventure novel, but decided it was taking too long so he just left with the paper.
Back at the warehouse, he had been reading the paper to see if there was any more news about the shooting. The police still had nothing. There was no mention of Jessica, which he was sure he would never see anyway. No one knew she was there, except the people that wanted them both dead. He would have to tell her everything. He just didn't know how.
He got up to get her coffee. He also liked it with cream and no sugar. He found the similarities between them amusing.
“I guess one good thing about being cuffed to a pipe is I get waited on,” she quipped as he handed her the cup.
A smile crept across his face. Even in a time like this, she was cracking jokes. He admired her. He still didn't know how to tell her that her life as she knew it was over.
“I have to use the bathroom,” she blurted.
He released the handcuffs and helped her up. She came out hoping she could get a break from being handcuffed.
“Please, is it really necessary to cuff me? I can barely walk.”
“I can't trust you and I have to go do something. Maybe when I get back.”
She was visibly upset, but it didn't sway him. Her life was more important than her temporary discomfort. She didn't understand the danger she was in. He would tell her tonight, if he could work up the nerve.
After cuffing her again, he grabbed what looked like a little suitcase from one of the lockers and walked outside. He shut the door but didn't lock it. She heard the truck door open and close, but didn't hear the engine. Was he walking? What was he doing?
AFTER GRABBING his gun from the truck and putting it inside the mini-suitcase, Michael carried it to the end of the dock and looked out over the water. It was a beautiful sunny day. A cool spring breeze came off the water. It was tolerable in the sunlight, but would be too cold in the shade. He placed the suitcase down and lay on his stomach at the edge of the dock. Reaching under, he grabbed a rope that was tied to a support beam. He tugged on it and soon a mass of diving equipment emerged from the water attached to the rope. He pulled it onto the dock. He put on the wet suit and geared up with the air tanks, mask and fins. He then slipped into the water with the suitcase and disappeared beneath the surface.
He didn't have a safe. Instead, he kept important items in watertight containers underwater. If someone found the warehouse, they may never think to search the water nearby. He needed to change out his gun. Rotating them a few times and then getting new ones made tracking his movements more difficult. After the shooting in the cafe, it was time to switch. Plus. he needed more ammo, which he had plenty of stored underwater.
Inside, Jessica noticed that he put the cuffs on rather loosely this time. She spent the next five minutes desperately trying to squeeze her hand through the metal cuff. She was almost there. Just a little more. Hurry! Before he gets back! She cursed at herself.
With a final tug, she was free. Her hand throbbed in pain,
but she was free. She limped to the door and peeked out. She couldn't see him. She opened it more expecting at any second to see him standing in front of her, but he wasn't there. The truck was. She looked for the keys, but couldn't find them. He must have taken them with him. She would have to escape another way. Walking was arduous. She couldn't even put her shoe on because her ankle was so tender. She looked at the water. She could swim to the other side of the channel. There were more docks and there might be someone there to help her. If nothing else, she would be further away from this place and maybe there would be somewhere to hide.
She didn't bother trying to walk down the dock. If she had, she would have seen Michael's clothes and thought twice about getting in the water. She eased herself in and started to swim. What she didn't know was that beneath her, Michael had started to resurface. He was looking at a strange shadow in the water above him trying to figure out what is was. As he got closer he could see it was a person swimming. Then he saw the bandaged ankle and knew immediately who it was. His temper flared. Even though he knew she had every reason to want to escape, he was frustrated. His anger got the better of him. Swimming up just beneath her, he grabbed her good ankle and pulled her under.
Not expecting it, she took a mouthful of water on the way down. He let go and she quickly swam back to the surface gasping for air, trying frantically to swim away from whatever had grabbed her leg. She felt the hand around her ankle again and was pulled below the surface once more. This time, she kicked and managed to knock the mask right off his face. The hand let go and she tried to swim away again, panicking and gasping for air. Michael replaced his mask. This time, he was really angry. He pulled her down even further and held her under, trying to break her, to make her surrender. But she did something, he didn't expect. She gave up. She stopped fighting and her body went limp.
Quickly swimming to the surface, he pulled her head out of the water.
He pulled off his mask. “Jessica?!”
She was unconscious and she wasn't breathing. His heart raced as he swam her back to the dock as fast as he could while trying to keep her head above water. He pulled her out and immediately began CPR.
It only took a minute or two before she was coughing up sea water and gasping for air. Relief washed over him as she came around. He couldn't believe he had almost killed her. She looked up at him, then closed her eyes. She was too tired to fight. She couldn't move. She wished she had just died in the water.
He carried her inside and laid her on the futon. He grabbed a clean towel, one of his t-shirts and a pair of sweats. “We need to get you in some dry clothes,” he said softly.
She didn't care. She didn't know why he cared. With a catatonic look, she stared off at something only she could see. Michael was worried that maybe he had broken her, just not in the way he intended. She started shivering.
“Jessica, I'll go in the other room, can you please change your clothes?”
There was no response. She just rolled on her side and curled up in a ball shivering. He couldn't leave her like that. With her wet clothes, even blankets wouldn't keep her warm. It's not like he'd never seen a woman before, he reasoned. He replaced her wet clothes with his shirt and sweats. They were much too big for her, but at least they were clean and dry. He dried off her hair and re-bandaged her ankle. She lay back down and he covered her in blankets.
He returned his diving equipment back underwater attached to the rope and changed back into his clothes. He stood for a minute looking out at the water, thinking about what he just did. He berated himself; he should have been able to control his temper.
Returning to the hideout with his new gun and ammo, he was strangely relieved to hear quiet sobs coming from the futon. At least she wasn't comatose. He didn't know if he should try to talk to her about what happened or leave it for later. He decided on later. For now, he would just let her rest.
He regretted not buying a book at the grocery store. He was bored out of his skull. He didn't want to turn on the TV in case there was news about the men arrested in front of Jessica's apartment. He didn't want her to know about that yet. He would tell her himself.
She eventually stopped crying, but barely even shifted in bed. It was dinner time and he knew she must be hungry.
“What would you like for dinner, Jessica?” There was no answer. He crouched in front of her. She closed her eyes. “I'll get you whatever you want.”
“I'm not hungry.”
Deciding not to push it, he warmed a plate of leftover Chinese in the microwave. He offered her some, but she just turned away.
It grew dark. He had planned on telling her everything tonight, but she was in no state of mind for what he had to tell her. He turned out the lights and sat on the floor by the door preparing himself for a long night. He wouldn't handcuff her, so that meant he had to babysit. He must have dozed off because he awoke startled by Jessica crying out.
“No, don't. Please, let me go.”
He rushed to her side. She was having a bad dream. He wondered if she was having nightmares about him drowning her. He touched her shoulder and said her name.
She sat up and appeared relieved when she saw him. He found that curious. If anything he thought the sight of him would make her scream more. She didn't say anything, she just lay back down. He adjusted her blankets and started to return to his post.
“Don't leave me,” she pleaded.
He turned and looked at her. The request was puzzling. Why would she want him near her after what he did? He took a moment trying to discern if maybe it was a trick, but her distress was real. She closed her eyes and buried her face in the blankets. He didn't understand, but he wasn't going to argue. He probably would've done anything she asked at that point he was so racked with guilt. He crawled over her and took the spot next to her in bed, thoroughly confused.
Jessica felt Michael's body move over her. He didn't touch her, but she knew he was there. Memories from her past were creeping in on her and she was desperately trying to push them back. She felt a strange sense of security when Michael was near. It didn't make any sense to her. In between the blows to the head, handcuffing, and nearly being drowned, he treated her with a dignity she rarely felt. She never caught him leering at her. He barely touched her unless he had to. Even when he changed her clothes, he did it quickly rather than taking his time. It was as if he had no libido at all, she thought.
Chapter 6
Morning seemed to come too soon for Jessica and not soon enough for Michael. She didn't smell brewing coffee. She glanced around the room. There was no trace of Michael. She remembered him lying next to her. Was he still there? She rolled on her back and turned her head. There he was, awake and watching her.
“Good morning,” he greeted her.
She let out a nervous smile. Her smile was greeted with a smile from him which sparked an intense feeling of butterflies in her stomach. He saw her expression change. She looked afraid. He thought maybe it was time to give her some space and hopped off the futon.
“Do you want coffee?” he asked, trying to divert her focus, as he walked towards the kitchen.
“Yes,” she replied.
She found herself feeling strange emotions about this man who was holding her captive. On one hand, he seemed so cold and emotionless, but she kept seeing glimpses of someone who was warm and caring. It was like he was two men in the same body. She didn't know what to make of him.
“Can we watch the news?” she asked as he was making the coffee.
“Not right now.”
“I want to see if there's more on the shooting.”
He knew that's what she wanted. He also knew they probably connected bullets at the cafe to the guns on the men in the car and eventually would connect the blood at the scene to the passenger. And it was probably all over the news.
“Later. I just want some quiet right now,” he said, hoping she would drop it.
She wanted to ask him when he was going to let her go, but she didn't have the
courage to bring it up.
After the coffee was brewing, Michael went into the bathroom, relieved himself and washed his face. He looked at his reflection in the mirror and wondered what had happened to him. Almost four years on the run and he didn't know who he was any more. He had to leave everything and everyone behind. The closest thing he had to a relationship with anyone in the past four years was this woman he was holding captive. His face looked tired, weary. He had been on the run too long and it was catching up to him. He thought about giving up more and more over the past few months, but couldn't. Lives depended on him. And now, one more life depended on him. It was a heavy burden to bear. He opened the door and was surprised to see Jessica standing there.
She bounced up and down on one foot. “I didn't think you were ever going to come out. I have to pee.”
“Sorry. Why didn't you say something?”
“I was about to when you opened the door.” She squeaked by him and closed the door.
She thought about trying to run when he went into the bathroom. The door was unlocked and she could have just hobbled out. She wouldn't get far in her condition though and she had no idea where the keys to the truck were. If he caught her trying to escape again, there was no doubt he would restrain her again. And then there was the urgent need to pee. She decided her best bet was to try to gain his trust and perhaps a better opportunity for escape would arise. Either way, she didn't want to be handcuffed any more.
Michael carried two cups of coffee to the table. It was time he told Jessica what they were up against. He looked at his watch. It was 8:43 a.m. He was tired already. He dreaded what he was about to do.
Jessica came out of the bathroom and saw Michael at the table.
“Sit down,” he said. “We have to talk.”
That made her nervous.
Talk about what?
She sat with angst, wondering what he had to say.
He took a sip of coffee.