Shaken [JD 07]

by J. A. Konrath

  I released him, rolling off the other side of the bed, grabbing my dress as I hit the floor, beelining into the bathroom and slamming and locking the door behind me. I tugged the Versace over my head, feeling less vulnerable now that I was no longer naked, but my emotional state was a wreck. I was near hysterical, feeling like laughing and crying at the same time, amazed to have him off me, sick at what had happened so far, terrified at what was still going on.

  I bit back the encroaching nervous breakdown and threw open the medicine cabinet, looking for a razor or scissors or anything sharp, listening to Brotsky howl in the bedroom, the howls getting louder as he came after me. There was nothing usable, so I spun around, searching for something. I saw towels, on a cheap rack. Brotsky’s underwear and shoes, discarded on the floor. A basket in the corner, with a scrub brush and a roll of toilet paper.

  I turned my attention to the toilet, grabbing the heavy porcelain lid on top of the tank, swinging it around just as Brotsky came barreling through the door.

  The lid connected with his forehead, cracking in half, the impact hurting my fingers. Brotsky backpedaled, his arms pinwheeling as he fell onto his butt. I ran right at him, jumping over him as he fell.

  Somehow, a nanosecond later, I wound up face-first on the carpet, bright stars blinding my vision from the impact.

  Brotsky had grabbed my ankle. And he still had it.

  I kicked out with my free leg, trying to drive my heel into some sensitive part of his body. But all I kept hitting was fat and flesh, my blows thudding off harmlessly. Then Brotsky turned, pinning my ankle, his weight forcing it into an unnatural position.

  The SNAP! was loud enough for both of us to hear.

  The pain was the worst thing I’d ever experienced.

  Chapter 19

  I’d heard the cliché sharp pain many times in my life, but that’s exactly what it was when Brotsky snapped my leg—like someone was stabbing a skewer into my bone.

  I jackknifed around, swiping at his eyes with my fingernails, getting him to let go of me. Then I crawled like crazy for the bedroom. Each time my knee hit the floor, the skewer dug deeper. My stomach felt like I’d swallowed a whirlpool, and my head got so light I could literally feel the blood draining from it. I went straight for the bed, pulling myself underneath the dust ruffle, waiting for Brotsky to come storming in.

  But he didn’t come storming in.

  “I’ll find you, tee karova! Victor Brotsky will find you!”

  But his voice was further away than the bathroom. It sounded like he was coming from the kitchen.

  Maybe, between the crack in the head and the scrape across the eyes, he hadn’t seen where I’d gone.

  Taking advantage of this, I peeked through the dust ruffle on my left side, looking for my gun.

  Not there. I tried the right.

  Also not there. But I did remember something that was there. Brotsky’s gigantic cellular phone.

  I inched closer to the side, gasping at the pain when my leg was jostled. The gasp filled my mouth with a giant dust bunny, sticking in the back of my throat. I slapped my hand over my mouth so I didn’t cough.

  “Where are you, sooka?”

  Brotsky was closer now. Maybe in the hallway. My lungs spasmed, but I wouldn’t let the air out.

  “Did you go back downstairs, to play with Brotsky’s collection?”

  I heard his feet creaking on the basement steps. Now was the time to act. Inch by painful inch, I dragged myself out from under the bed, pulling my broken leg behind me.

  Above me, on the nightstand, was the Motorola DynaTAC. The pain was becoming so bad I was going to either scream or pass out, and I didn’t see any way I’d be able to sit up and grab the phone. So, from a prone position, I reached for it, stretching my hand up, brushing it with the tips of my fingers.

  The stairs creaked again, getting louder. Brotsky was coming back up.

  I strained, grunting with effort, pinching the base of the phone between my thumb and forefinger.

  Brotsky’s footsteps, in the hallway.

  Finally getting a firm grip, I pulled the phone from the nightstand. It was heavy, about two pounds, eighteen inches long with the antenna. I shoved it under the bed, then pushed myself backward, trying to get under the dust ruffle before Brotsky came back.

  Holding my breath, I listened for the killer.

  I didn’t hear anything. Not a single sound.

  Turning my attention to the phone, I pressed one of the buttons. The keypad lit up, bright green.

  Still no noises from Brotsky.

  I tapped a number, the beep so loud it made me flinch. The red LED screen displayed a digital number 9. Sure Brotsky must have heard it, I tapped 1 and 1 again, waiting for the operator to pick up, hoping they didn’t put me on hold.

  It rang.

  And rang.

  And rang.

  Then they put me on hold.

  I could feel my leg throb with my heartbeat. I had no idea how serious the break was, but there was no way I’d be able to get out of there without assistance. If they didn’t pick up soon…

  “Nine one one, what is the nature of your emergency?”

  The connection wasn’t the best, and the operator’s words fluctuated in volume. “This is Officer Jacqueline Streng,” I whispered. “I’m in a house with a killer. There are eleven dead, possibly more. His name is Victor Brotsky.”

  “Where are you located, Officer?”

  “I don’t know. Can’t you pinpoint the call?”

  “We can’t. Are you using a land line at the location?”

  I forced myself not to yell. “Goddamn it, just look up his goddamn address.”

  “I’m looking it up, Officer. But I don’t have any Chicago addresses for Victor Protsy.”

  Goddamn bad reception. “His name isn’t Protsy. It’s—”

  Then the mattress and box spring were lifted off the frame and tossed aside, and Brotsky was reaching down for me, a sharpened broom handle clenched in his meaty fist.

  Chapter 20

  The Motorola DynaTAC cellular phone was an expensive, state-of-the-art communications device on the cutting edge of technology. It also weighed about two pounds and was shaped like a brick.

  It hit with the force of a brick, too, when I smashed it into Victor Brotsky’s forehead as he pulled away the box spring and mattress and reached for me.

  The fat psychopath dropped to his knees, stunned, blood erupting from the goose-egg on his head. I’d managed to hit him in the same spot I’d whacked him with the toilet. Figuring three times is a charm, I did it once more.

  The phone held up surprisingly well. Brotsky, on the other hand, did not. His eyelids fluttered and he fell forward, crushing me under his elephantine weight.

  The sudden pressure on my leg also pushed me to the brink of consciousness. Pushing, hard as I could, I leveraged him off me and he rolled onto his side. Then I crawled out from under the metal bed frame. I still didn’t see my gun, and now the mattress and box spring were covering most of the bedroom floor. But I was able to locate some of the contents of my purse, including my police-issue handcuffs.

  Staring back at Brotsky, who had begun to snore, I knew cuffing him was the best move. But every instinct I had told me to get the hell out of there, get away. It was a moment right out of every bad horror movie. The psycho is knocked out, and the heroine runs rather than finishing him off.

  Killing Brotsky wasn’t an option for me. I was a cop, and I respected the law. Every part of the law. Too many older cops I knew bent rules and broke laws in the course of their jobs, and I was determined to never let that happen to me. Besides, killing a helpless, unarmed human being, cop or no cop, was something I knew I’d never be able to do.

  But cuff him? Absolutely, I should cuff him.

  Now all I needed was the guts to do it.

  Mark Twain once said that true bravery isn’t the absence of fear, but the ability to act in the face of fear. I was certainly experiencing fear a
t that moment. Fear, pain, exhaustion, disgust, and myriad other emotions, none of them pleasant.

  So this was my chance to be brave.

  Clutching my handcuffs like they were a talisman, I dragged myself back to Victor Brotsky. The closer I got, the more I thought of another horror film cliché. The one where the killer suddenly opens his eyes and grabs the victim.

  When I finally reached Brotsky, I tried as hard as I could, but I couldn’t force myself to grab his wrist. The image of him, naked and writhing on top of me, threatened to make me physically ill, and my hands were shaking so bad the cuffs were rattling.

  But that moment, that test, was the reason I had become a police officer. I joined the force to catch bad guys. Real bad guys, not the pathetic idiots paying street hookers for BJs.

  Victor Brotsky was as bad as they got. And if I didn’t have the guts to do this, I had no business being a cop.

  My teeth had begun to chatter from fear, but I managed to get a cuff open and snick it around Brotsky’s fat wrist.

  That’s when he stopped snoring.

  Moving quickly, I pulled on his arm, forcing it behind him, looping the chain around the metal support beam in the center of the bed frame. Then I reached for his other hand.

  He was lying on it, pinning it beneath his massive bulk. I dug my fingers under him, breaking out in goosebumps at the touch of his moist, warm flab.

  Brotsky groaned, shifting his weight, exposing his free wrist. I yanked on the cuffs, desperately trying to get the chain to reach.

  Then he turned his fat head and opened his eyes, staring right at me.

  I felt myself pucker in horror, and the adrenaline surge gave me just enough strength to pull the cuff that extra inch and lock it around the monster’s other hand.

  I jerked away from him as he suddenly sat up, jostling the bed frame. His shoulders flexed, his hairy fat jiggling as he erupted with a string of Russian words that I didn’t understand, but was pretty sure weren’t flattering. On my butt, I pushed myself away with my good leg, while Brotsky tried to get up on his knees and come after me. But his position, and the bed frame, kept him in place.

  Red-faced, flecks of foamy spittle flying from his screaming mouth, he finally said something I understood.

  “I WILL KILL YOU, YOU FILTHY COP WHORE!”

  I’d been threatened by a lot of perps, but none sounded as wholly convincing. The pure hate and rage made me want to shrink into a ball and hide.

  Which is why I stuck out my chin, defiant. “You’re going to prison forever, asshole. Your killing days are over.”

  Brotsky roared, quaking with fury. I backed the hell away from him, scooting my way to the bedroom door. My leg still throbbed with my heartbeat, but strangely, it seemed more bearable.

  Once in the hallway, I turned to face my new nemesis: the phone on the wall. The receiver was still hanging on its cord from when I’d dropped it. Moving slowly, the carpeting warm under my butt, I made my way toward it as Brotsky continued to thrash and scream, his efforts making the floor shake.

  I reached the phone, putting the receiver to my ear. The line was dead. There wasn’t even that annoying, off-the-hook beeping.

  I knew what I had to do—stand up, hit the bar to get a dial tone, and call 911 again.

  Putting my back against the hallway wall, I pressed both palms against it, then pulled my good knee to my chest. My injured leg was swollen, like someone had inflated it with an air pump, but it didn’t look bent or misshapen. Perhaps the break wasn’t as bad as it felt.

  Pushing hard, flexing my healthy leg, lifting with my hands, I was able to shimmy up the wall and balance on one foot. Beads of sweat had sprung out of every pore on my body, and I closed my eyes and controlled my breathing and slowed my heart rate in an effort to keep from passing out.

  Brotsky continued to rage in the bedroom, and the clanging of the metal bed frame against the floor sounded like he was tearing it to pieces. I turned my attention to the phone, reeling in the receiver on its curly cord, tapping the disconnect cradle a few times, getting a dial tone, sticking my finger in the 9 of the wheel—

  —just as Victor Brotsky filled the bedroom doorway.

  I dialed 9, hands trembling, thinking about how easy it was to screw up a number on these phones, and how it took forever to dial again. I couldn’t afford to make a mistake.

  Brotsky thrashed, trying to force himself into the hall, but the bed frame was too big and wouldn’t pull through.

  I stuck my finger in the 1 and spun the dial again. The rotary seemed to turn in slow motion, taking forever for the click-click-click-click to get to 0.

  Brotsky spat more invectives at me in several languages. He managed to get his shoulders through the door, but the frame still held him at bay.

  My finger found the last 1, the dial taking impossibly, ridiculously long to register the number, and then, blessedly, I heard ringing on the other end.

  Brotsky bellowed, more animal than human. His head shook, his shoulders straining, and then there was a tiny, almost insignificant ching sound.

  His hands came free, and Brotsky stumbled forward.

  He had broken the handcuffs.

  Chapter 21

  “This is Officer Jacqueline Streng!” I yelled, dropping the receiver and hopping away from the phone as Brotsky rushed at me. “Officer needs assistance! Officer needs fucking assistance!”

  I limped backward as Brotsky charged like a bull, panic overriding my pain. He would be on me any second, and I had two choices of where to go: the basement, or the kitchen.

  I threw myself into the kitchen, climbing over the upside-down table, belly-flopping over Shell’s cooling corpse, scrambling for the utensil drawer in the cabinet. My fingers sought, and found, the handle, and I jerked my arm back, silverware exploding into the air and raining down on me, the tarp, the counter.

  Locking my hand around a steak knife, I twisted onto my back and faced Brotsky’s attack, my weapon outstretched and clenched in a death grip.

  But Victor Brotsky wasn’t there.

  Still brandishing the knife, I felt behind me for the counter, painfully pulling myself up to my good foot while wondering where he’d gone. My imagination fired into overdrive, conjuring up scenarios. Was he going to get a gun? Had he heard me calling the police and fled the house? Or was he on the phone with someone, maybe the person he’d been talking to earlier?

  “I’ll take care of her soon,” he had said. “In fact, I’ll do it right now.”

  What if Victor Brotsky was calling for backup?

  I needed to get the hell out of there. Right now.

  Keeping one eye on the doorway, I began tugging open drawers, looking for keys. The back door was right behind me. If I found the damn deadbolt key, I was sure I’d get to safety, because once I had an out, I would break the world record for the hundred yard dash, even if I had a compound fracture.

  The drawers contained more utensils, loose change, various plastic toys from cereal boxes, bendy straws, pens and pencils, and an assortment of maps. But no keys.

  Expanding my search, I began opening cabinets. Plates, glassware, plastic containers, pots and pans, but nothing else. No key hooks on the walls. No key bowl on the counter. I hadn’t noticed any keys in the bedroom, or the bathroom. And he was naked, so he certainly didn’t have them on him.

  So where were they? Men don’t have purses, so where did they put their goddamn keys? Their pants?

  Could the keys be in Brotsky’s pants?

  I pictured him taking off his clothes so they wouldn’t get bloody when he murdered Shell. Brotsky excited. In a hurry. He might very well leave his keys in his front pocket while he undressed.

  I tried to envision the bedroom. I’d seen my clothes in there. But had Brotsky’s been in there, too? On the bed? On the floor?

  The bathroom! I’d stepped over his stained underwear in the bathroom.

  Though my pulse was still pumping like a thrash metal song, the adrenaline in my system
had faded enough for the pain to become debilitating. With one hand on the counter-top, I hopped once toward the kitchen entryway. The exquisite agony that shot through me literally pushed tears right out of my eyes.

  How many more hops to the bathroom? Fifteen? Twenty? Then twenty back?

  Crawling, or scooting, would hurt less, but take longer. Any second, Brotsky might make an appearance. Speed was paramount.

  I scooped up a wooden spoon from one of the open drawers, jammed the handle in my mouth, and ground my molars on it as I hopped for the door.

  Keeping quiet wasn’t a concern anymore. Whimpers soon became cries. Cries became deep moans. Then moans turned into full-wattage screams. Halfway into the hall, my entire world had been reduced to the incessant throb in my tortured leg and my raw throat, which ached like my vocal chords were bleeding.

  When I reached the bathroom, throwing my hand on the doorframe, I almost wept in relief.

  But my relief was short-lived.

  Victor Brotsky was standing next to the bathroom sink, zipping up his pants.

  Chapter 22

  Seeing Victor Brotsky, standing in the bathroom within arm’s reach, flipped a switch in me. I knew it was a turning point. Whatever I did next would shape the rest of my life.

  If I ran, I was also running away from this career. And it would have made perfect sense to run. I’d witnessed more horror in the last hour than most had in their entire lives. I could picture life with Alan, being a housewife, having children, never having to deal with crime or murder or psychos ever again.

  That scenario certainly had a lot of appeal.

  But there was another side to that coin. Instead of running, I could attack. If I did that, I saw the life I always wanted, living it as the woman I wanted to be. A Homicide cop. A police lieutenant. Someone that others would respect. Admire. Look up to.