by Rick Murcer
Slowly, the sound of her heart pounding in her ears diminished, allowing her to actually hear.
At first, there was nothing. Only her breathing. No ambient sounds like traffic on a busy Chicago street or the muffled echoes of people talking.
Then she heard it. Music. Faint, soft, soothing, and she recognized it immediately. It was the theme from Somewhere in Time by Rachmaninoff. She’d first heard it watching the movie of the same name. As a teenager, she’d been so mesmerized by it that she’d harassed her dad into letting her take piano lessons just so she could learn to play it. And she had.
Hearing it here, in her current state, she became confused again. How could anything so beautiful be a part of such an awful situation?
For a moment, she didn’t care. She simply lost herself in the music, just as she had a thousand times before. The music helped.
After a minute, the song began again . . . and she remembered everything. The music somehow cleared her mind. Kyle wouldn’t be sitting beside her. She knew that now. Her world had gone dark after he’d handed her a bottle of water on the way to the restaurant. He was the reason she was here.
Joannie would have indulged in another round of self-hatred at being so trusting and gullible, but another sound, less subtle but still subdued, brought her to full attention.
Someone, a woman, was weeping. Not in the same room, but very close by. Her heart soared at the thought that she wasn’t alone. Deep down, she’d begun to wonder if she’d ever hear another human voice again. But her elation fell away as soon as it had appeared. The woman was in distress. Close to hysteria. She understood, at least on some level, what the woman was feeling. It was impossible not to go there. Was that to be her destiny?
The music, and the sobbing, abruptly stopped. She heard a man’s voice, then more silence.
Her pulse accelerated.
She wondered again if she was next and what “next” might entail. Joannie didn’t have to wait long for the answer. A door opened to her right. And this time she was unable to contain the panic that she’d managed to hold at bay. She renewed her effort to escape the chair, despite the fact that she knew it was futile. She had to get out, to get away. Now.
Strong hands gripped her bare shoulders and forced her to stop her struggle. Odd. She hadn’t realized that her shoulders were uncovered. Doing a quick inventory, she realized that she was only partially clothed.
She strained once more against the bindings and the powerful hands holding her tightly. It was useless.
“Joannie. My dear Joannie. Don’t struggle so. I’ll take care of you as I promised.”
She stopped at the sound of the soft, reassuring voice next to her ear.
Kyle?
“You’ll only be like this for a little while. Just until you calm down. Then we’ll talk. You’re so beautiful, and I want to spend my life with you. I’d never hurt you. But I have to make sure you’re ready.”
The needle entering her arm made her jump, and she tried to cry out. The gentle kiss on her forehead made her jerk again.
Just before the darkness enveloped her, she remembered the smooth, comforting voice that had initially sounded so much like Kyle Black’s.
But that voice didn’t belong to her perfect man.
Those smooth tones belonged to another.
CHAPTER 13
“Come on, Brice—kick this thing in the ass.”
She didn’t try to mask the anxiety in her voice. Not knowing what had happened to Oscar was driving her crazy.
Keeping his eyes on the road, he nodded, then floored the accelerator.
Ellen felt the cruiser surge forward as he flipped on the siren and lights. She wrung her hands.
Could there be a worse feeling in the entire world than to think someone you care for may be in danger?
When her stress level jumped like this, she didn’t grow angry. It was angst that ruled the roost. Anytime she came close to a situation that resembled her mother’s death, her heart rose to her throat and a sense of dread threatened what was left of her sanity. It had been five years, but no one forgets the news that their mother was dead, or how she died. Ever.
Brice whipped around one car, honked at an old pickup, and then pressed the accelerator even harder. He was doing his best to get them there; she had to do her best to keep it together. Gritting her teeth, Ellen pushed away any thoughts of Oscar being hurt, or worse, and concentrated on what to do when they got there.
“We have no idea what ‘shots fired’ really means, right? I mean, it could be anything?” she asked, searching for some logic that would ground her.
“On this end of town at this time of night, it could be a drunk, a gang hassle, or something else. Who knows? In this business, I keep seeing the unexpected just after I think I’ve seen it all,” said Brice.
She glanced at him. Despite the situation, it was difficult not to notice the change in his demeanor. His voice had been mostly friendly earlier in the day and for most of the evening. She’d have said more than friendly, for at least a moment or two. But now his tone had changed, and he was all business, cold even. She now understood how he’d gotten a no-nonsense reputation from his peers. It seemed that Detective Brice Rogers, Superman, had a side that was not entirely pleasant. But then again, who didn’t?
As though feeling her gaze upon him, he looked at her, then returned his eyes to the road ahead.
“What’s on your mind, FT Harper?”
She cocked her head. There it was again, that Arctic voice. She’d gone from Ellie to FT Harper in the time it had taken to receive the call. His face was expressionless. All cops had their coping mechanisms, their “thing,” and she wondered if this cold, efficient cop mode was Brice’s way of dealing with the hell this job sometimes brought. She understood doing whatever it took to make it through the day, and God knew, the night. She got that. Maybe Miss Rage wouldn’t pop up so often if she spent a little more time practicing some coping mechanisms of her own, keeping her emotions a little tighter to the vest.
Still, she wondered what haunted Superman. What chased him to the icy persona he was so famous for? What gave him nightmares that made sleep a lost cause?
“Oscar’s on my mind,” said Ellen, shifting in her seat. “And I’m wondering what to do when we get there. It’s been a while since I’ve been a part of one of these mad dashes to a live crime scene, and I’ve never seen one involving my partner.”
“It depends on the situation. Follow my lead. And, unless I’m wrong, you won’t have any trouble figuring it out. You don’t seem like the—”
Brice stopped speaking as they made the turn past East 57 and slowed. Her heart dropped to her stomach. The SUV sat under the amber light. Then the light turned green. But the SUV didn’t move. It reminded her of an abandoned ship, listless, unmoving in a calm sea. It was unreal. They were on the vehicle’s right, and the driver’s window was angled away from them so she couldn’t see the driver’s side or Oscar. Why wasn’t the SUV pointed straight through the intersection? Lord in Heaven, she hated how this felt.
Brice hit the brake, stopping completely about seventy-five feet from the vehicle. The cruiser had barely stopped rolling before she was out of the car.
“Ellie. Wait, you don’t know—”
“And I don’t care. He needs us,” she yelled back as she sprinted toward the vehicle, drawing her Beretta. She saw three gawkers on the curb and one standing on the opposite side of Lake Shore. She ignored them. If they’d been a threat, she would have been shot at already. A moment later, Brice appeared beside her, grabbed her arm, and nearly lifted her off the ground, stopping her in her tracks some twenty feet from the vehicle. Fast and strong hardly began to cover the detective’s actions. Surprise barely covered hers.
He pulled her close to his face. He wasn’t smiling.
“Use your head, Harper. You’ll live longer
and so will the people around you. I’m not going through that again, got it?”
Her nose touched his as Miss Pissy Attitude made a quick appearance, trying to displace the real her. But it didn’t happen. She bit her lip and, with surprising ease, sent that anger packing.
“Then get your muscle-bound ass in motion and do your job. Do you get that? And don’t grab me again.”
He stepped back, began to speak, and then stopped. She saw a quick smile infiltrate his jerk-off look. It came and went so fast she wondered if she’d actually seen it at all. Something had happened, because her anger melted into oblivion. The man was far more complex than she’d realized. She lowered her defenses a little more and let him speak.
“Okay. The first thing we need to do is sweep the people standing around the scene. They may look benign, but we need to make sure.”
“Damn it, Brice. We don’t have time for this.”
“We’re taking time, Harper, got it? We do this the right way, or you can get your ass back in the unit.”
He was right, but she didn’t like it. Cops were trained, as the first on the scene, to make sure it was safe for those who came next, no matter the circumstances.
“Come on then,” she snapped.
He nodded, and she stood with her back nearly touching his as they did another check of the area. She saw no threat. The only movement came from a tall man on the opposite side of the street who was walking away from the scene. She watched him dissolve into the dark shadows and disappear. She stared after him, then shook her head. She thought, just for a moment . . .
“Clear?” asked Brice.
She exhaled. “Yeah. We’re good over here.”
“Okay. Let’s check out the vehicle. You go to the right side, and I’ll go to the left. Take it slow and keep checking over your shoulder. The looky-loos seemed to be just that, but you have to cover your fanny. All right?”
He gave her a quick thumbs-up.
In light of her angst, reassurance was good.
As Ellen began moving toward the vehicle, she wondered how a smile from the Ice King could send her pissy alter ego scurrying into the dark, but she liked how it worked its magic.
Come on, woman. Stay focused.
Moving in sync, she and Brice made a Y at the back of the vehicle, looping no more than five feet from the unit. The odor of escaping exhaust from the still-running vehicle was strong as she moved past the rear tire. She wondered how long it had been sitting here before the call. Unmoving.
Her pulse quickened. Oscar would have driven away, had he been able to do so. She took three more steps and listened, hardly wanting to breathe, fearing she’d miss something. Any sound, any movement. But there was nothing. Only the ambient city just after midnight.
A moment later, she heard Brice’s shoes crush shards of glass against the pavement as they approached the rear seat, she and Brice on either side of the vehicle. She could see that the windows on the driver’s side had been broken out, but there was no glass on the pavement under her feet. Why only one side? Why break them at all? What, or who, were they looking for? Oscar?
“Shit,” she whispered.
She was trying to control her imagination, but it refused to be controlled.
Working her way past the rear door, Ellen found a hole, a bullet hole, with the metal pointing at her, coming from the inside out. Someone had pulled the trigger from the other side of the SUV and apparently missed what they were aiming at.
Ellen Harper could stand it no longer. She rushed around the front of the vehicle, slid over the hood and landed on the pavement, standing face to face with Brice. His face exhibited no surprise. He must have expected her to react that way. Maybe because he would have done the same. Hell, she didn’t care. She had to see Oscar.
She glanced inside the truck at the wheel. Oscar’s right hand fell limply over the top of the wheel, covered in blood.
She cried out.
Oscar stared back at her, a strange smile on his face. Her gregarious partner’s eyes were wide open, but saw nothing. The hole in his forehead and the one in his neck explained why. Her partner, her friend, had been used for target practice.
A moment later, she heard Brice swear, but he sounded far away. Distant. Surreal.
Ellen felt the tears stream down her face as she moved her eyes lower. Her breath caught in her throat.
The middle of Oscar’s chest was ripped apart. A large gaping hole exposed his jagged ribs and the cartilage around his sternum.
It appeared as if his heart had been torn from his body.
CHAPTER 14
Standing at the edge of the midnight darkness, just out of reach of the circles of light emanating from the yellow streetlamps, he hugged the small, blue, insulated cooler close to his chest. It felt warm, even now.
He glanced at the Chicago PD Forensic Unit some one hundred feet away, then back at the cooler he’d gotten from his mother for his birthday, and he wondered if the woman had gotten a good look at him. He thought not; otherwise, she would certainly have come running.
He turned and walked in the direction of his pickup.
If Mom could only see me now. My dim-witted brother too. There is just no accounting for family. You get what you get.
Family. Almost everyone had some good and some bad. No matter what happened, they were always family. At least that’s what he’d been taught. Even if he was the black sheep. He liked that analogy. He didn’t belong, at least in the conventional way most people belonged with family. He simply wasn’t like the rest of his relations. But his kin cared for him even so, in their own way. And acceptance was a matter of the heart, was it not? He’d been taught that, too. He only wished he believed it half as much as his naïve, idiotic brother.
“Yes. A matter of the heart. Especially tonight,” he whispered, squeezing the cooler even closer.
But he knew his brother was just holding on to something that kept him going, and he really couldn’t blame him for that. He did the same, albeit on an entirely different level.
After glancing back one last time, he turned down the next shadowy street, heading west and away from the confusion that he had created, the faint echo of his whistling the only sound filtering through the night air.
CHAPTER 15
Her eyes fluttered open.
After a brief moment of disorientation, followed by another spontaneous bout of disbelief and horror, she pulled so hard against her restraints that she thought she might actually pull the chair from its anchor and go completely over. That didn’t happen, but Joannie did have an unexpected epiphany: she could see. Not much and not right away, but slowly her vision returned, and her heart raced with emotion. Seeing was wonderful.
She also didn’t feel as groggy. She squeezed her eyes to get the rest of the fog to dissipate and then slowly took in her surroundings.
The room was dank. The lone bulb hanging to her right ensured that the corners of the square chamber remained in the shadows. No other furniture filled the murky space, and the door just to her right was old-fashioned, with four small, square windows inside a larger square. They let no additional light into her prison. There didn’t appear to be another way out of the room, but she couldn’t see behind her completely, even by craning her neck to each side as far as she could. The floor was warped in a few places, and the wood reminded her of old granaries where she and her friends had played while growing up on the farm. The room also carried a remnant of the smell unique to those old farm buildings. A little dust, a little mold perhaps. Her “cell” wasn’t pleasant by any means, but—thank God—now she could see it. Her heart leapt as her sight continued to improve. The old saying about not knowing what you had until it was gone crossed her mind. It was true. An act as simple as opening one’s eyes and having objects and light register was something most people took for granted. She made a quick promise to herself to appre
ciate that—and everything else—when she got out of here.
Looking down at her bindings, even in the partial light she could see they were made of sturdy, yellow nylon rope. And although her captor had been thoughtful enough to place fleece padding between her body and the ropes, she knew there was no hope of breaking free. He’d simply made it comfortable. What did that say about him? She wasn’t sure.
Crazy and considerate?
She looked down at her legs. She was wearing long, thick socks, which covered her up to her knees, protecting her shins from where the ropes crossed. What the hell?
They were her socks. Her favorite socks. The red ones her then-boyfriend had bought her for Christmas last year. She hadn’t been wearing them when she’d gotten into Kyle’s BMW.
Good God. He’s been in my apartment.
Her euphoria at having the blindfold removed quickly changed to an unsettled anxiety. It didn’t get any worse than being kidnapped and tied to a chair, but the thought of a complete stranger invading her apartment and then rifling through her drawers and closet, through her most personal belongings, brought the violation to a whole new level. She shivered.
What else is this lunatic capable of?
Her mind suggested that he was capable of anything, anything at all, and she had no doubt she was going to be the object of those possibilities.
The panic returned in spades. She screamed against the tape still covering her mouth. She did it again and again as she struggled against the bindings, fearing that any second she just might go completely insane. For one brief, terrifying yet comforting moment, she embraced the possibility. Maybe the madness would protect her from what was going on—and what was coming next.
What was coming next?
Fighting back wild fears and horrifying visions, Joannie began to take control of her emotions. She knew she had to get it together. Joannie Marie Carmen had never quit anything, and she wasn’t going to start now.