Feet pounded on the steps as they raced up the stairs. The two officers that were with them approached the door on the second floor. One was a blond jock O’Malley called Parker and the other a red-haired freckled face man who looked like he should still be playing in a sandbox, not cops and robbers. O’Malley called him Opie. Markie didn’t think it was his real name.
Parker opened the door on the second floor and they moved into the hallway of the unit. The once beige walls were now the same color as the worn out brown carpet.
The heavy food scent of something Markie didn’t recognize hit her right in the gut. She swallowed hard to keep her breakfast down.
Unit 220 was to the left of the stairwell door a few feet away. O’Malley followed the officers and she was right behind him.
“Clear,” Parker said chomping on a piece of gum he popped in his mouth. She wasn’t the only one trying to keep her breakfast down. They moved towards 220 with precision and speed. A man opened the door to exit his apartment unit across the hall and O’Malley waved him back inside.
“Police! We have a search warrant. Open the door!” The red-haired officer’s voice boomed in the corridor as he banged his fist on the door. What he lacked in appearance he definitely made up in lung power.
A crashing noise came from inside the apartment and the red-haired officer reared back and kicked the door in on O’Malley’s orders. Markie followed O’Malley when he entered the apartment holding her weapon in a firm two-handed grip. Let Sydney be okay, she prayed and adrenalin took over.
The kitchen and living room was cleared with one sweep of the eye. There was a small balcony that could be seen from the living room window. It looked like there were stairs leading from the balcony to a fire escape.
“See where the stairs lead to,” O’Malley said to Parker pointing with the barrel of his gun.
The rest of them headed to the bedroom just steps from the living room. Markie could see the inside of the bedroom from the living room. Nothing fancy just a bed covered with a white sheet. Her heart rolled over in her chest when she saw a large red stain on the sheet.
Blood?
“No.” O’Malley stopped her with a firm hand on her shoulder when she started towards the bedroom.
Markie followed O’Malley. The bedroom was empty. In a room off the bedroom Malcolm lay bleeding on the floor. From the blood on the chair and desk it appeared he’d fallen out of the chair. That may have been the noise they had heard outside the front door. She didn’t see Sydney. Whose blood was on the bed? Her heart pounded in her chest as the blood rushed to her head.
“Sydney’s not here,” Markie said willing herself to stay calm.
O’Malley dropped down on his knees to check Malcolm’s pulse. “I need a paramedic in 202!” O’Malley shouted in a radio unit attached to his bulletproof vest. “I have a male, late forties, his breathing shallow.”
“Malcolm,” Markie said when O’Malley looked up at her. “His name is Malcolm Rivers.” The last time she’d seem him he was grinning at her. Now he was clinging to life. Phoenix had done this to him. Her eyes searched the room again. “Where is Sydney?”
“There is a storage unit in the basement. The stairs on the other end—”
Markie raced out of the apartment towards the back stairs.
“Brooks!”
Chapter Thirteen
“We need a paramedic on the second floor,” the officer with the brush cut manning the door said.
“What’s going on?” Beck asked but the officer ignored him. Along with guarding the door like it was the Holy Grail, the officer didn’t let him or Carlos out of his sight.
Beck hated waiting. Half an hour had passed since he had watched Marklynn walk through the door into the apartment building and disappear from sight. He’d wanted to follow and would have if it weren’t for the threat of being arrested by the gatekeeper.
“Move, move it!” The officer motioned to the two men standing beside the ambulance and held the door for them.
“What’s going on up there?” Beck asked inching closer to the open door.
“I’m here with you. How am I supposed to know?” he said and closed the door when two paramedics ran pass them into the apartment building.
Beck stood by the front door of the apartment building eyes fixed on the wall of glass window as he watched the men hurry up the stairs carrying the gurney. No one else had been allowed to enter or leave the building since they arrived and residents of the apartment complex started to complain. A crowd began to gather outside the building and Carlos was pulled on duty to help with crowd control until more officers showed up.
The mid-day sun beat down on the back of Beck’s neck, but all he could feel was the chill that had taken over his body. In the last three months, his relatively calm life had turned into a nightmare with each passing day. He could very well lose everything—his company and Marklynn.
Who was he kidding? Marklynn wanted nothing to do with him. He had chosen his company over her sister’s life and she would not forgive him for that. It couldn’t end this way between them. He wouldn’t let it. She needed to understand why he couldn’t give up his company.
The front door of the apartment building burst open fifteen minutes later and Malcolm was wheeled out on a stretcher towards one of the waiting ambulances. His face was gray, swollen and covered in blood. What about Sydney?
“Parker where are you?” Beck heard O’Malley yell over the radio. “Brooks is heading for the basement.”
• • •
“Brooks! Wait!”
Markie heard O’Malley’s voice. It sounded far away in the distance instead of two flights of stairs above. His footsteps pounded on the steps echoing in the narrow stairwell as he raced to catch up with her.
Markie reached the basement and yanked the door open. There were several storage areas with items behind chain-linked fencing.
The basement was dark and dingy and the smell of mildew hung in the air. The only light source came from under the door of the storage room at the end of the long narrow hallway. As she neared the door she noticed the deadbolt.
Markie turned her head away and fired one shot. The lock broke and fell off the door on the ground. Sydney was curled up in a fetal position on the cot when she entered the room. The noise from the gunshot blast hadn’t aroused her and she feared the worst.
“Sydney. Can you hear me?” Markie lay her gun down on the cot and checked for Sydney’s pulse. “Oh God.” She worked frantically to loosen the rope from her wrists but couldn’t. A tear slipped down her cheek and she wiped it away quickly.
O’Malley entered the room and swore. He yelled for medics in the basement in his radio.
“I got it.” He took a small knife from his vest.
“No. Let me do it.”
“I got it, Brooks.” With one swift slice of the knife the ropes fell away from Sydney’s wrists. He checked her pulse. “She’s still alive.”
Within minutes the small room was filled with some of the officers he had given orders to earlier.
“Where are the paramedics?” Markie yelled at O’Malley. She couldn’t get this far and loose Sydney. Not now. “Call them again.”
“Right here.”
“She’s barely breathing,” Markie said to the dark-haired man as she moved out of his way so he and his partner could attend to her sister.
Sydney lay like a rag doll on the cot, head to one side, her breathing labored. The deep red marks around her right and left wrists stood out against her pale skin. Markie had never seen her sister so wan and frail.
The feeling of wanting to do something but couldn’t left her feeling empty inside. She watched as Sydney was hooked up to an IV.
“She’s dehydrated,” the other paramedic said. “We need to get some fluids into her and get her to the hospital. She seems like a fighter. I think she’ll pull through.”
Markie let that sink in then drew in a ragged breath. O’Malley gave her shoulder a gentle s
queeze then turned to Parker to fill him in.
“She’s long gone,” Parker said looking apologetically at Markie. Then he addressed O’Malley. “We found nothing. Opie is still checking the units on her floor.”
“We need to get the forensic guys up in her apartment to see if we can figure out where she went.”
“Let’s go,” one of the paramedic said. Markie walked beside the gurney as they pushed it out into the narrow hallway. She helped as they tried to get it up the stairs from the basement. After what happened to Malcolm, it was a miracle that her sister was still alive.
Yes, Sydney was alive, and was going to be okay. She had been found a week to the day she’d disappeared. Markie wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. Fear overwhelmed her. Would Sydney survive this emotional experience?
Then there was the woman that had caused all of this emotional upheaval. She was still on the loose and no one knew how to find her. That more than anything left an unsettled feeling in her stomach.
• • •
Beck jumped when he’d heard the gunshot over the radio. Moments later O’Malley’s voice had boomed over the radio for the paramedics. In went the paramedics and one of the officers guarding the door. That was ten minutes ago. Marklynn’s face appeared before him, and on impulse, he started towards the apartment building.
“Stay put and keep calm,” the officer guarding the door said with a hand on Beck’s shoulder.
“Can’t you at least find out if anyone is hurt?” Beck asked, anxious. Marklynn was still inside the building. There was no way he was going to be anywhere near calm until he saw her walk out the door.
“If someone was down they would have said so.”
It had to be about Sydney. His mind raced. Carlos made his way over to Beck and stood beside him, arms folded across his chest. Reinforcements had arrived to relieve him from duty. He too had heard the call for medics in the basement.
Beck wanted to go to the hospital with Malcolm, but he also wanted to be there for Marklynn if she needed him. If they found Sydney then she would need him. There was a chance it may not be Sydney, he thought trying to convince himself.
“It may not be Sydney,” Carlos said a few minutes later mirroring his thoughts.
“You’re right. It could be someone else.”
They both knew the odds of it being someone else was slim, but it was better than facing the truth.
Carlos followed his gaze as he watched while they placed Malcolm into the ambulance.
“I’ll go with Malcolm and you wait for Markie.”
“Thank you.”
• • •
“Nan?” Sydney moaned.
Markie turned from the window watching her sister. She was sleeping, but it wasn’t a peaceful sleep. Her head turned from one side of the pillow to the other. She’d even cried out a few times.
Sydney had been that way since they had brought her into the hospital a little after one in the afternoon. That was almost seven hours ago. When Markie had called Nan to tell her about Sydney, she knew. It didn’t matter how Nan knew. All that mattered was that Sydney was okay.
Moving towards the bed, Markie sat down on the chair taking Sydney’s hand between hers. It was as cold as ice and she began to rub her sister’s hand, first the left then the right. Sydney’s eyes were still closed, yet her head turned from side to side on the pillow. Then she bolted up screaming.
“Nan!”
“Shh. It’s okay. You’re safe.” Markie folded Sydney into her arms and held her until she stopped screaming. “Nan went to get something to eat. She’ll be back soon. Okay?”
She nodded and calmed down.
“I saw her in the light,” Sydney said and lay back down in the bed.
“What light?”
“I’m sorry she’s dead. It’s my fault.”
“You’ve nothing to be sorry about. Nan is very much alive and we’re both glad you’re okay.”
“Nan is alive?” She asked looking confused. “Are you sure?”
“Positive. Now get some rest.”
“Thanks for coming for me,” and with that Sydney closed her eyes again.
“You don’t have to…” before she could finish Sydney was asleep. She smoothed Sydney’s hair from her face, “…thank me.”
Markie heard voices in the hall and turned her head towards the door. For a moment she thought it was Beck.
Beck.
She remembered seeing him briefly when the paramedics had placed Sydney in the ambulance, but she wasn’t close enough to tell him Sydney was okay. But she figured he knew by now.
His friend was dead. Carlos said Malcolm had died on the way to the hospital. She’d caught a glimpse of Beck in the hall when she left the room in search of the washroom earlier, but they still hadn’t spoken.
Markie wasn’t ready to talk to Beck. There were too many things whirling around in her mind clouding her judgment and she wanted time to sort it all out.
She looked at Sydney, her chest rising and falling gently. The doctor said she would be fine physically, but it was too early to comment on her emotional health. Would she pull through?
Then there was Jared. As much as she’d tried to suppress his memory, he kept pushing through whenever she thought about Beck. He hadn’t been a part of her life in a long time, yet since meeting Beck he’d become a ghost between them.
Jared wasn’t honest with her. He had said she was enough when they had the discussion about children. Then he changed his mind. Not being able to have children was something she’d told herself over and over again that she could live with. Even accepted it.
Yet the question that was always in the back of her mind whenever she met someone was would he change his mind? It wasn’t about anyone else. It was about Beck. Would he change his mind? That she could not take and she wasn’t willing to take the risk no matter how much she loved him. And she did love him.
“Go grab a bite,” Nan said as she came into the room with a bottle of water. Worry creased her brows. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m tired,” Markie lied. It wasn’t a total lie. She didn’t want to get into it with Nan.
“Mmm,” Nan said not believing her for a minute, but she didn’t press the issue. “I got some water for Syd. Did she wake up?”
“Briefly. She asked for you and something about seeing you in the light.”
“She’ll be fine,” Nan said looking at the red marks on Sydney’s wrists. “My baby will be just fine.”
Markie got up from the chair so Nan could sit down, but before she did Nan hugged Markie.
“What was that for?” Markie asked when she pulled away.
“To thank you. Because you needed it. Because whatever is bothering you I hope you sort it out. Take your pick. Now go on and get something to eat.”
Markie wasn’t hungry, but she left the room in search of the lounge to be alone. If she was honest with herself, she didn’t really want to be alone. She wanted to be with Beck, but he had lied to her.
She had always tackled problems head on, not allowing her fear to paralyze her. Yet, this was different. Very real. More real than any battles she had fought.
And because he did lie to her, she was afraid to trust him. Afraid to want him… Afraid that if she gave him her heart, he would leave her.
• • •
Beck saw Marklynn enter the lounge and hurried to follow her. After he’d called his office to get the number for Malcolm’s parents, he called them. It wasn’t something he had ever had to do and hoped he would never have to report the death of a loved one to a parent again.
He had met the Rivers’ when they visited him in the hospital after his car accident. They had flown in from Texas to see him because he was a friend of their son. They didn’t deserve this.
Once that call was completed to Malcolm’s parents, he then notified his parents. Malcolm had an open invitation to his father’s annual barbeque. His father was in shock. He wanted to come and pick him up. Any othe
r time Beck would have told his father he wasn’t fifteen any more, but he understood the cause of his father’s concern.
When someone close to you dies it changes everything. Even though his father had remarried, he still mourned the dead of his mother.
“I’m going to be here for a while dad,” he had told his father.
And the reason why had just walked into the family lounge area, right across from the nurse’s station. He didn’t want to leave the hospital without her.
“Hi,” he said hesitating for a brief moment before entering the lounge.
A lamp on an end table in the corner of the lounge lit up the room. A worn brown leather couch was pushed up against a wall with a wooden coffee table in front. A vending machine hummed in the background.
Marklynn turned from the window and glanced at him over her shoulder.
“Hi,” she said turning her attention back to the window. “I’m sorry about Malcolm.”
The sadness he heard in her voice tore at his heart. Sydney was alive. She should be happy. Yet, she wasn’t. Had Sydney taken a turn for the worst?
“I’m sorry about Malcolm too. How is Sydney?”
“She’s doing better,” Markie said running her hands through her hair. “She’s sleeping.”
She breathed in deep lifting her shoulders letting them drop. Weary. It was as though she was carrying a heavy burden and he wanted to pull her into his arms.
“Marklynn, look at me.”
She turned around slowly to meet his gaze. She’d built up a wall between them closing him out and he wanted to tear it down.
“I’m sorry I lied to you,” he said with regret in his voice. “I should’ve told you the truth about the picture or what I suspected.”
“Doesn’t matter anymore.” She shook her head. “You did what you had to do.”
She faced the window again looking off into the darkness at something only she could see. He came up behind her and turned her around to face him holding on to her arm. It mattered if she was going to use what he’d done as a roadblock to distance herself from him.
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