Flee, Spree, Three (Codename: Chandler Trilogy - Three Complete Novels)

by J. A. Konrath

  No one could resist waterboarding. That’s why it was such an ineffective method of gathering intel. Victims would lie like devils, agree to anything, make up insane stories, just to get it to stop. There was no way to be sure if what they were spilling was truth or what they thought the interrogator wanted to hear.

  I looked my sister straight in the eye. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know,” I said, working to keep my voice even.

  “I know,” cooed Hammett, rubbing her index knuckle cross my cheek. “But let’s have a bit of fun first.”

  She reached behind me, and I heard the sink go on. I closed my eyes and felt a towel dropped over my face. I wondered if Kaufmann was dead. If not, maybe there was a slim chance they’d leave him out of this. At least I could tell myself that and hope that they didn’t realize how much he meant to me.

  I thought of how much I wanted to say to him, how I’d failed to form the words before he’d slipped into drug-induced unconsciousness, how I might never have the opportunity now.

  I heard footsteps, someone else coming in.

  “I thought you were going to wait for me.”

  Victor.

  “How’s the old man?” Hammett asked.

  “Just gave him something to wake him up. He’ll be around soon.”

  My throat closed. I’d told Victor that Kaufmann was like a father to me. In my need to open up, to trust Victor, to forge what I thought might grow into some kind of bond, I’d betrayed the only person I had in the world.

  I felt Victor’s hand on my thigh, traveling up between my legs. I flinched, trying to twist away. Except for a small twitch, I couldn’t move.

  He chuckled. “Wow, you go from hot to cold pretty quick. A little while ago, you couldn’t get enough of me.”

  I thought I might be sick.

  “How was she?” Hammett asked.

  “Adequate,” he said, pinching my left breast. “But too needy.”

  “What I needed was a bigger cock,” I said. “Rather than child-size.”

  I sensed the punch before it came and was able to clench my stomach muscles as his fist hit. Even so, the blow shuddered through my body and made me gasp for air. Before I had a chance to recover, I was slid, table and all, under the kitchen faucet. My hips lifted, tilting my shoulders downward, making blood rush to my head. Tepid water soaked the towel. Victor punched my belly again and again, and I fought not to breathe, squeezing my eyes shut, keeping my air passages closed.

  I lasted maybe a minute before my body betrayed me, and I had to take a breath. The water rushed into my lungs. I coughed and gasped and choked on more water. A roar rose in my ears, blotting out all sound. My body convulsed against the restraints.

  Then I went away. No more Chandler. No more memories. No more humanity. I was a blind, panicked animal, struggling for survival. The fear of dying, the pain of my lungs sucking in liquid, the blackness of death clawing at me, reduced me to nothing but pure, terrible sensation.

  When they finally pulled off the towel, I couldn’t stop coughing. My nose and throat were raw. My lungs felt like I’d inhaled fire. My whole body trembled. I couldn’t control my weeping, but managed through raw, brute force not to beg.

  Not that begging would do any good.

  “Do you know what we’re looking for, Chandler?” Hammett asked.

  I continued to cough, gasping in air like I’d never get enough.

  “This must be so terrible for you. The memories it brings back. I’d really hate to be you right now, dear sister. Your pain and fear must be unimaginable.”

  “Nice…scar,” I sputtered. “Your pimp do that to you?”

  Hammett’s eyes got big, and she cracked a smile. “You’re feisty. You’ll be fun to break.”

  I went under the faucet once more, no towel this time, the water running directly up my nostrils. I coughed and gagged and eventually retched all over myself before they pulled me back.

  Victor leered down at me. “What, no more jokes about my cock?”

  “What…cock?” I managed. “I thought you…finger-banged me.”

  He jammed the wet towel against my face and shoved me under the water again. This time, rather than punches raining down on my stomach, the stun gun zapped my side.

  I really had a lousy track record when it came to men.

  The pain went on until I couldn’t take any more. And then it kept going.

  Choking, gasping, and then drowning. The water pulling me down, closing over my head, filling my lungs, like I was in the car again with Cory. No…not with Cory…with Kaufmann. And this time, I was the one who had driven into the water. It was my fault. All my goddamn fault. And yet there he was anyway, kind, beautiful Kaufmann, looking at me with that softness in his eyes, saying he was proud of me, that he cared for me, giving me more than any human being ever had.

  And it still wasn’t enough.

  I must have died, because next thing I knew, warm lips were on mine, blowing air into me. I tried to bite down, but they pulled away too fast. Coughing took hold of me, vomiting, spitting out water. Bile seared the back of my throat. But the rest of me felt like I was floating.

  “Bitch,” Victor said, jolting me back to earth.

  “Easy!” Hammett commanded. “You want to kill her again? We need information, dumb ass.”

  A light slapping on my cheeks.

  “Chandler! Where is your phone? The one Jacob gave you?”

  “It’s…” My words gave way to more hacking. I thought my throat would shred, my lungs erupt from my body.

  “Where is the phone, Chandler?”

  Somehow I managed to laugh between coughing fits. So The Instructor was telling the truth. She wanted my cell phone. “It’s…up your fat ass,” I said. “With your head.”

  I felt the stun gun press against me, then abruptly pull away.

  “We’re wasting time,” Hammett said. “Bring the old man in.”

  A pain descended over me, worse than anything physical. I thought about begging. Not for me, for Kaufmann. But I knew it wouldn’t make any difference. All I had left was the truth, and I knew that wouldn’t help either of us. The Instructor’s orders to die rather than give my psychotic sister what she wanted raced through my mind.

  So when they brought him in—my friend, my only friend, the only person in this whole cruel, terrible world that I cared about—the only thing I could do was apologize.

  “I’m sorry, Kaufmann. I’m so, so, very sorry.”

  His eyes found mine. “Don’t tell them shit,” Kaufmann said. His hands were shackled in front of him, wearing the cuffs I’d last used on Victor.

  Victor shoved him into the kitchen chair and held up a remote control. “My neighbors won’t be home for a few more hours. But just in case.” He pressed the button, and the stereo began to blast. AC/DC, “You Shook Me All Night Long,” the volume cranked up to the max.

  Then Victor went at Kaufmann with the stun gun.

  Kaufmann managed to hold it together, at first. Stoic grunts. Minimal tears.

  When Victor applied the stun gun to his more sensitive areas, the screaming began.

  “You can stop it at any time,” Hammett shouted close to my ear. “Just tell me where the phone is.”

  Tears blurred my vision and streamed down the sides of my face. “I threw it away.”

  “Where?”

  My body shook in a sob. I had to tell her something. Anything. “The Hancock building. Lobby entrance, first bank of elevators. The can under the ashtray. Make Victor stop.”

  Victor didn’t stop.

  “Make him stop!”

  Hammett patted my cheek and made a tsking sound with her tongue that I could see more than hear. “Dear sister, I was trained in identifying microexpressions, just like you were. Your face tells me you’re lying.”

  Kaufmann’s cries grew louder, more uncontrolled.

  “I’m not lying! Make him stop!”

  “He’ll stop,” Hammett cooed, “when you tell me the tru
th.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my old friend’s face, a rictus of agony. He let out a long, keening howl that wasn’t even identifiable as human.

  Something inside me broke.

  “It’s on the ninety-sixth floor!” I screamed. “Above the restaurant! It’s above the restaurant!”

  Kaufmann stopped screaming. Victor cut the music off.

  “I swear to Christ it’s above the restaurant on the ninety-sixth floor of the Hancock building,” I said. “The bar above the Signature Room.”

  Hammett was studying my face. “She’s telling the truth. Where in the bar, Chandler?”

  “Kaufmann…” I could see him in my peripheral vision. He slumped between the wall and the chair, his face turned away from me. “Kaufmann…”

  “Where in the bar is the phone?” Hammett leaned close to my face and spoke slowly and clearly, as if talking to a small child or an idiot.

  Victor gave Kaufmann a shove. His head lolled against the back of the chair, eyes staring into mine. But Kaufmann wasn’t there anymore.

  “He’s…not…breathing,” I heard myself say.

  Victor brought his fingers to Kaufmann’s throat, feeling for a pulse. “Must have had a heart condition.” He made a face of fake concern. “Oops.”

  No. No-no-no-no-no-no-no-no…

  The towel again. The faucet. I kept repeating the ninety-sixth floor, over and over, but after all that had just happened, I was willing to die before I gave them any more than that.

  “We’re not getting anything else out of her now,” Hammett said, stepping away and wiping the sweat from her brow with the sleeve of her silk blouse. “How long will it take to get your team together?”

  “An hour. Perhaps less.”

  “You all have credentials?”

  “Of course.”

  “We’ll call in a bomb threat. Clear the room, give us time to find the transceiver.”

  “What about her?” Victor said, pointing his chin at me.

  “We may still need her. She’s not going anywhere. Besides,” Hammett smiled and turned away from me. “I’ll bet she wants some alone time with her dear friend.”

  Victor chuckled. “He was like a father to her, I hear.” He gave Kaufmann a shove, and his body slumped off the chair and fell to the floor, his dead eyes accusing me.

  “Emotions are a liability. Despair is a slippery slope. Keep your emotions in check, and remember your training. You can function at a higher level than other people. Use your logic, your reason, your senses. Bury your emotion. If you’re crying, you’re not in control. If you’re not in control, you’re dead.”

  Hammett left the kitchen, Victor following. I heard them stirring elsewhere in the apartment for a minute or less, then the door opened and closed, and I was alone.

  “Kaufmann?” His name rasped from my throat half-whisper, half-plea.

  He didn’t make a sound, but then I had known he wouldn’t.

  “I’m so sorry. Oh God, I’m so sorry.” A sob shook my chest. I tried my best to choke it back.

  I am ice.

  I am ice.

  I am ice, goddamnit.

  Another sob came then another. They took control of my body, like dry heaves, ripping my guts out, tearing me in half. I wanted to curl up, to forget.

  More than anything in the world, I wanted to die.

  For a while, I let the flood of emotion carry me. I didn’t cry, not in the normal sense of tears rushing down my face. But I didn’t think, either. I didn’t try to control the flood of pain. Wave after wave shook me, and I did nothing to stop them.

  Even after the worst subsided, I couldn’t regain control. Emotionally I was a mess, and my focus wasn’t helped by whatever shit Victor had injected me with. My heart was beating so damn fast I could feel it in my throat. My whole body quaked, and even though my hair and blouse were wet and I was freezing cold, sweat slicked my skin. I guessed he’d given me norepinephrine or noradrenaline, fight-or-flight hormones administered to make the waterboarding even more intense.

  As if that needed any enhancement at all.

  When the sound reached me, coming from the living room, I almost jumped out of my skin.

  There it was again, the doorknob rattling.

  It was too soon for Hammett and Victor to be back. And a cop called to investigate the earlier screaming would identify himself.

  The door opened and shut again. A soft shuffle of footsteps moved across the living room floor, slow, tentative. Two sets, one heavy, one light.

  A scent reached me, almost too faint to discern. But even though it was light as a whisper, I could tell it wasn’t Claiborne for Men. It wasn’t cologne at all.

  It was a scent I had known far longer, a mix of cigarettes, leather, and sweat.

  The scent of a very bad man.

  “At some point you might believe that death is inevitable. Once that thought enters your head, you cease fighting. Once you cease fighting, death will be inevitable. The only way to stay alive is to never give up.”

  “Looking good, babe,” the familiar voice said.

  I probably should have felt something, but after all that had happened in the last hour, I had nothing left to feel. “Hello, Cory.”

  He must have followed me from the John Hancock building. I’d been more focused on Kaufmann’s health than avoiding tails. Careless of me, but at this point it didn’t really matter.

  The second set of footsteps apparently belonged to the girl. Cory’s replacement for me.

  “Don’t tell me the two who just left did this to you,” Cory said in an amused tone. His face loomed into my field of vision. The girl lingered like a shadow behind him.

  Even in the midst of my despair, I couldn’t help noticing the irony of the moment. If I’d been free, I would have had little to fear from Cory. He was insane, certainly, but of the two-bit variety, not the highly-trained, I’m-going-to-dominate-the-world type, like Hammett. He’d controlled me as a vulnerable girl, but that had been a long time ago.

  Yet, here I was, once again at his mercy.

  Cory’s thin lips widened in a grin. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a twin?”

  I didn’t particularly feel like talking about my sister, so I kept my mouth shut.

  “I see your precious Kaufmann didn’t come to your rescue.” A fleshy thud reached me, the unmistakable sound of Cory’s boot striking Kaufmann’s body.

  I closed my eyes.

  “It’s too bad. It really is. I was looking forward to cutting off the rest of his body parts while you watched.”

  My throat felt thick. I couldn’t summon the energy or the will to answer.

  “Don’t tell me your sister did this to him. You must have pissed her off.”

  “Cory?” The girl’s voice wasn’t much more than a whisper. She hovered near the kitchen entrance, her big brown eyes darting around like those of a hunted animal expecting an ambush. “What if her sister comes back?”

  Cory grinned and winked at me. “Then I’ll fuck her, too. I’ve never done twins before.”

  “Cory, I’m serious.” A touch of whine worked around the edges of her voice, reminding me what Kaufmann had told me, that even with the makeup and short skirt, she was only fourteen.

  Twenty years had passed since I’d been in her place, but I still remembered the feelings that had driven me to Cory and convinced me to stay. Still, I could muster no pity for this girl, no understanding. If anything, I wanted to shake her, slap her, punish her for staying with Cory, for folding to his will, for being afraid of him.

  Like I had been.

  “Why don’t you go outside for a bit, Di? Have a smoke or something. Let me get reacquainted with my old friend, here.”

  “Come on, Cory. You said—”

  “Shut the hell up and let the grownups talk.”

  The girl flinched, as if Cory had physically hit her. She pressed her lips together and focused a look of pure hatred on me. “Cory, you said you were going to kil
l her.”

  “I am.”

  “Why don’t you then, so we can leave?”

  He gave me a look full of swagger. “After I’m done having some fun.”

  “But, Cory…”

  “Go watch the door. I won’t be long.”

  Normally I would have gone for the obvious insult, but I was too busy watching the girl. When I’d been in Di’s place, I’d never questioned Cory. At first I’d been too afraid of his disapproval. Later I’d been too afraid of him.

  “What am I supposed to do if someone comes in?”

  Cory rolled his eyes. He glanced around the room and then focused a glare on me. “Where’s my gun?”

  “How the hell do I know?” I answered.

  “You took it. Where is it?”

  I’d never realized how dim Cory actually was. “If I had a gun, do you think I’d be in this position right now?”

  He turned away from me and stepped to the kitchen table. When he returned, he was holding the stun gun Victor had used to…

  I swallowed into a dry throat.

  “Use this.” He handed it to the girl. “Now get out of here.”

  She grasped the stun gun and took a few steps before pausing in the kitchen doorway and glancing back. Jealousy was written all over her face, an emotion common to teen girls, especially when they’d convinced themselves a manipulative psycho was the man of their dreams.

  Cory didn’t wait until she was out of the door before he grabbed my blouse and yanked. Buttons popped. He gave me a grin, as if waiting for me to gasp or plead or give him some kind of satisfying show of fear.

  He’d wait forever.

  Whatever he did to me, I didn’t care anymore. He might as well be raping a mannequin. I looked in the direction of the hall, trying to catch a glimpse of the girl. I couldn’t help but wonder how often she’d talked back to him like that. Cory chose young girls for a reason. They were pliable, easy to control. If she kept showing signs of having a will of her own, I doubted an inadequate, narcissistic shithead like Cory would keep her around much longer. And he wasn’t the type to break up peacefully.