Incisions

by Barbara Winkes

  She finally reached the roof only moments after he had slammed the door shut, catching her breath. The wind was whipping her ponytail in her face.

  “Branson, come on, stop this bullshit. Whatever it is, we can talk about it.”

  There was no answer. He had to be hiding behind one of the chimneys—there was no other possibility. “We know you got your life together, and you’re doing pretty well. That’s great. Don’t be an idiot now.” Jordan advanced carefully, hand on her weapon. “Let’s talk, okay? It’s just you and me.”

  The blow from behind blindsided her for a moment, but she got to her feet, drawing her gun within seconds. “Stop running, damn it. Stop!” He didn’t, once again not taking the most logical escape route back down, but climbing onto the ledge instead.

  Jordan felt sick. With the strong winds up here, there was a possibility his escape could turn out to be deadly. She holstered her gun again, taking a brief look at the pipe lying on the floor next to her. Bastard. She still didn’t want him to die.

  “Don’t do this. I hear your mom’s pretty proud of you. Why would you do this to her?”

  “You don’t understand! They come around all the time, just wanting to talk, they say. Next thing you know, they got a job for you, and you can’t say no. I didn’t want to.”

  “I understand. I really do. You know how this works, Tucker. You give me names, I can make this go away.”

  “You’re lying!”

  “No, I’m not. I’ll make sure you’ll be okay, if only to avoid the mess that’s going to happen if you jump. It’ll be my mess, and I don’t want that. Why do you think they let you out after only a few years? You’re a small fish, and believe me, Tucker, that’s a good thing right now. We’re not interested in busting you. We want the sharks. Do you get me?”

  The truth was, she would have said anything to get him back from that ledge, but to her relief, her little speech seemed to make him pause.

  “You promise?”

  He made a small step forward, then stumbled. Jordan reached out for him, and for a moment suspended in time she thought he might fall, but she managed to tighten her grip around his legs and drag him to her side and safer ground.

  Branson made an indulgent sound of protest when Jordan put the cuffs on him, not bothering to be gentle about it.

  “Damn it, lady, that hurts!”

  “Yeah, people might treat you nicer if you didn’t hit them over the head. You could be a little grateful too. Come on, let’s go.”

  He was more docile on their way back down, where they caught up with Doss.

  “Up the stairs, really?” she scoffed. “You’re the heroine in some horror movie, or what?”

  Branson didn’t answer.

  “The thing is, your behavior is giving me probable cause to search your apartment too. You better call in at work and tell them you’re not coming today.”

  His glare vanished quickly. “You promised,” he exclaimed.

  Jordan shrugged. “Like my colleague here said, we had a few questions. You just gave us a lot more. Why don’t we try to answer them downtown?”

  “You promised!”

  “Yeah, we’ll see what we can do for you. Now get him out of here,” she said to one of the officers Doss had called for backup.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Anything in the apartment?”

  Doss shook her head. “Not so far. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay. Let’s see what he can tell us.”

  * * * *

  Waters and Derek were nowhere to be seen when they arrived. Jordan thought about the brothers who had locked up a woman in their shed because of some quarrel with another guy, but had treated her decently, by their standards anyway. Also, they didn’t seem to be too smart about it and had been caught within a few hours.

  If only it could be this easy.

  Branson had been booked and sat in the interrogation room, brooding.

  “This is what you call helping me?”

  Jordan sat a bottle of water in front of him. She had brought a coffee for herself.

  “You’re not dead, even though you could have easily tumbled over that ledge. I haven’t charged you for assault on a police officer yet, so be damn grateful.”

  “Yeah, I heard that before.”

  “I wasn’t lying to you. You give us the names of the people who asked you to do jobs, that will help you. I’d like to talk about Officer Harding for a moment.”

  “I told you I don’t know where she is!” He slammed his cuffed hands down on the table.

  Jordan picked up her cup, leaned back in her chair and waited.

  “Okay,” Branson relented. “I don’t know what happened to her, and I don’t care. Yeah, I was pissed, so what? It’s her first week on the job, and she’s busting me, gloating to her co-workers about it.”

  “You called her names in court. The judge nearly threw you out of the courtroom?”

  “I was stupid, okay?”

  Jordan didn’t share her thoughts, that he hadn’t acted very smart in the present either. “Why did you run? What kind of job have you been offered?”

  He shrugged. “You know, business. Some meth, somebody wanting a gun…They know when you’re just out, they can smell it.”

  “Anybody threatening you because of the deal you made last time?”

  “No. They don’t know.”

  “Good. We want to keep it that way. Now, for some names.”

  “Darius came in a couple of weeks ago, said he could use some men. Since I used to hang out with his cousin, he assumed I’d do him a favor.”

  Darius was a familiar name, but at this point, it was unlikely that this connection had to do with Ellie’s abduction, unless Branson was actually smarter than they thought.

  “Keep going,” she said, jotting down the names he included in his narrative. This was interesting information for the Narcotics unit, at best.

  As for Ellie’s whereabouts, they had nothing.

  Chapter Three

  Ellie guessed that several hours must have passed. She hadn’t made any progress in getting out of the cuffs, or finding anything nearby that could have helped her. She still couldn’t remember how she had gotten from her bed to this place, and she was angry and upset about it in equal measures…This was a disturbing reminder of the night Darby had paid her a visit. Of course, she had never been his real target, but you couldn’t trust somebody like him—or the person who had taken her from her apartment.

  Her eyes had long adjusted to the darkness. There was nothing much to see, a black square where she assumed the window, covered up with some carton. Along with the cot, a small table sat against the other wall. The room was tiny, claustrophobic, maybe a closet even.

  Who had done this?

  She pulled at the cuff once more, as if that could have made a difference.

  There was a small noise. Ellie sat up straight, staying very still as she identified the sound as a key in a lock, a door opening. Footsteps, someone…whistling?

  Maybe she could reason with him. Of course, the setup showed considerable criminal energy, but there had to be a way, any way out of this. She refused to wait around and see what he was planning to do.

  There were other sounds now, of drawers and cabinets opening and closing. He was doing something in the kitchen, she realized. Hopefully cooking something, not sharpening the steak knives for other reasons.

  Stop it.

  She was going to convince him to let her go, and then she was going to sue the jerk for the price of the plane ticket they’d never get back. Ellie listened, tense, until the footsteps neared. She sat up even straighter, back against the wall. That was as far as she could go. From here, she had to see what he’d give her to work with.

  The door opened, and she blinked against the daylight coming in from another room. The dark shape in the doorway moved closer silently.

  “Who are you? Why am I here?”

  There was no answer.
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  Ellie saw that he was wearing a ski mask, feeling light-headed immediately. It couldn’t be. That had been Darby, and he was behind bars.

  “Did you send the texts?”

  He didn’t say anything, obviously not in a hurry to have a conversation. This wasn’t good.

  He carried a tray with him, the smells of coffee and toast out of place, but her empty stomach took notice. He carefully set it down on the bed next to her, but stayed out of her reach as he switched on a lamp on the wall. Ellie cast a quick glance at the plate, toast, eggs, a few slices of tomato.

  “That looks good. Thanks.”

  She thought she’d seen him nod, but with his gear and the light behind him, Ellie couldn’t be sure. Was this his game, trying to intimidate her with silence?

  The man who attacked her on the street hadn’t been silent. He’d snarled at her to stop struggling. Was he worried she’d recognize his voice? The thoughts were tumbling over one another in her head.

  If he tried to keep his identity from her, did that mean he wouldn’t harm her? Kill her?

  “Look.” Ellie cleared her throat when the word came out in a too high pitch. She needed to stay calm. “I see you won’t talk to me, but you can listen to me, right? That’s the least you can do for me. I’m not sure you know, but I’m a police officer. My colleagues are looking for me.” She was making a judgment call by telling him that. Ellie hoped that the criminal in front of her was working alone and low-level enough to be intimidated by the information. Everything about her predicament seemed to point to that. If she was wrong, he might kill her right away. “If you let me go, hey, I never saw your face. I can’t describe you. You could even drop me off somewhere. I couldn’t tell where this place was. You could get away.”

  The man shrugged and shook his head as if apologizing.

  Ellie was not in the mood.

  “Damn it, talk to me,” she yelled, flinging the tray at him with her free hand. He had tried to sidestep the attack, but a bit of the eggs stuck to his sweater now, the coffee spilling on the floor. He turned around and walked out of the room.

  “Hey!”

  Damn, what did you have to do that for? Ellie berated herself, starting to shake as she waited for his return, from anger, from fear. What would he do now? Hit her? Something worse?

  When he walked back into a room, he was carrying a dustpan, a brush and a roll of paper towels, quietly cleaning up the mess.

  “Okay. I’m sorry about that. Can we start over?”

  The man coughed as if hiding a laugh. He was making fun of her.

  “Not funny. Please, think about what I said. The longer you wait, the more likely that they will find me. You already drugged and abducted me. If you don’t do anything for yourself now, you’re going to go away for a very long time.”

  The sad thing was he had reason to mock her. All her threats were utterly empty. She had only one free hand, and as long as he carefully avoided all closer contact, she couldn’t even try anything. Ellie knew her situation was precarious. She refused to believe it was hopeless. Things happened for a reason. Jordan had made it out of Darby’s basement, and Ellie would be okay, too, if only for the reason that they had finally overcome all the obstacles to be together. They were meant to be.

  Then again, Kate and Jensen had certainly thought the same.

  The man had finished cleaning up, left for a short time and then came back again.

  “I’m really sorry,” Ellie tried once more. “I could eat. I swear I’m not going to do that again.”

  He stood for a moment, as if trying to decide whether she could be trusted, then he walked away, locking the door and plunging her back into darkness.

  * * * *

  Danny wasn’t at all surprised at her reaction. He had read about the attack in the newspaper, knew that she had fought, at first, anyway. He knew he had to be careful, not get too close, because she would try every trick from the rookie book. She was privy to all the secrets he longed to know.

  Sometime soon.

  The world, or better, the local police department, wouldn’t be able to overlook him once he had carried out his plan. They couldn’t ignore him any longer. Absentmindedly, he stared at the remains of what would have been her breakfast. More like a late lunch, but she didn’t need to know that. It was better to keep her a little confused as to the timeline. He wondered if he should fix her another plate, but then decided against it. If she was a little hungrier, she’d be less tempted to throw food at him. After all, he’d been brought up not to be wasteful.

  He didn’t want her to suffer, but a little discomfort couldn’t hurt. Opening the fridge, he looked for a bottle of water to realize that he only had a six pack of beer. He’d need to do some grocery shopping before his shift. He couldn’t give her a glass of water, because she might shatter it and use a shard as a weapon, or to hurt herself.

  After some consideration, he extracted one can from the pack. This might help mellow her down a bit. He couldn’t drug her again right away. It was too much of a risk, though he might try later, depending on her behavior. Be cool, make sure everything happened according to plan.

  He went back into the room he’d hidden her away temporarily, aware of her gaze, angry, worried, mind churning as she tried to come up with something that would convince him to let her go.

  He would have liked to talk to her. She might or might not recognize his voice. He couldn’t take the risk. Soon enough, Ellie Harding would be extremely grateful to him. He was looking forward to that moment, but he had to be patient, not get ahead of himself. When he set the beer can on the floor, his cell phone rang, making them both jump.

  “Hang on a second,” he said, then wanted to punch himself.

  He couldn’t make that mistake again.

  Danny closed the door behind him soundly and bellowed into the phone. “Who is this?”

  “Hey, man,” said the caller. “Not sure I’m going to make it tonight.”

  Danny wanted to throw something too, like Officer Harding had earlier, but he forced himself to stay calm. “Okay,” he said. “Tell me what happened.”

  * * * *

  “Carpenter. You have a minute?”

  “What do you have?”

  Jordan could tell from the Narcotics detective’s expression that it wasn’t good, at least not from where she stood.

  “He had some important information for us. We could make a bust as soon as tonight.”

  “Great. You came here to tell me that?”

  “We had to let him go. I’m sorry.”

  Jordan had feared that would happen, but the futility of it all in finding Ellie still struck her. Time was ticking. No contact from the kidnapper or kidnappers.

  Jonathan Darby was still safely locked away and hadn’t had any visitors other than his lawyer since his arrest.

  “I assume you’ll be keeping an eye on him.”

  He nodded.

  “Fine. Keep me in the loop on where he goes and with whom. I’m not entirely sure yet we can rule him out.”

  When he was gone, Jordan got up to go check on Waters and Derek who had brought in the Sampson brothers earlier, dizzy for a split-second. She gripped the edge of her desk until the moment passed, then jumped when the person in question stood right in front of her.

  “Jesus, Henderson, do you have to sneak up on me like that? I was going to find you. How’s it going with the Sampson boys?”

  “They claim they haven’t kidnapped anyone since that last incident,” he said dryly.

  “How are you doing?”

  “I wish I could work on a case, any case, where no one is constantly asking me that. I wish I was sipping cocktails on a beach in Costa Rica. Otherwise, peachy. They’re still here?”

  “What do you think?”

  Jordan didn’t share her thoughts. He was well aware of her frustration. It had been a dead end anyway—given how that case had panned out, it was unlikely that the brothers would be this stupid again.

 
; “Okay. Narcotics got their hands on Branson, but on the bright side, they’ll know if anything happens. We start over. This has got to be related to the text messages.”

  “That didn’t go anywhere, remember?”

  “It can’t be a coincidence that Darby is taking back his confession in Ellie’s case just now.”

  Derek cast her a dubious look. “No. That is taken care of.” He hesitated. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but…You’re not exactly objective in all of this—and I’m not saying you should go home. It’s not what I’m saying,” he repeated when she shook her head, annoyed, “…but you should lay low for a bit. As we speak, her photo is going out to the media, on the internet. Someone’s bound to have seen her.”

  “Everyone is on the case. There’s no laying low.”

  “All right. Are you aware of anyone we could contact, anyone Ellie could have told something to? We know she mostly hangs out with McCarthy and Marshall, they knew about the texts, but Ellie never mentioned being worried or feeling threatened. Is there anything you can think of?”

  “Are you humoring me?”

  “I’m trying to find out what happened to Harding. That’s priority right now, isn’t it?”

  “Of course it is,” she answered curtly.

  Her head hurt, to the point it made her vision blur. She didn’t have time for this. Jordan felt guilty realizing she didn’t know all that much about Ellie’s life outside of the police force, outside of the life that included her.

  No immediate family, just cousins living far away. She didn’t think Ellie would have contacted any of them recently, in a matter like this. There was this one ex, ex-roommate and lover who had convinced her to go blonde—Rhonda. As far as Jordan knew, she had moved out on a whim, didn’t seem to be interested in continuing the relationship at all, but looks could be deceiving.

  Darby had invaded her thoughts and perception far too much—women were perfectly capable of committing crimes. Maybe the landlord would know how to locate her…or one of Ellie’s best friends, Kate McCarthy.