The heavy clomping diminished. A click of a doorknob, the rusty squeal of hinges flittered her unseeing eye back and forth. She bit her tongue as the door slammed.
She was barely able to hear a rustle of papers. A dresser drawer, she wondered, in the next room as her breathing threatened hyperventilation. What did he want? What was he going to do? What was he capable of?
Questions, or terror, or minute gasps brought fireflies to her hindered sight. Her head went light as the breath halted in her chest.
She heard the click of the door and rapid footsteps plodding their way towards her again. She raised her head to where she thought he might have stood. There was another smell to him now. It was sweet and pungent.
Booze? Alcohol? Gasoline? No, that wasn’t it, but close.
Diesel? Heather never smelled diesel before. Yes. Yes, she had. Chase would sometimes come home from work reeking of it.
No. That still wasn’t—
A wet rag pressed up against her nose and mouth. It tasted as awful as it smelled.
As the rag fell away, her head dropped, and the red hue of the handkerchief faded to black.
II
“You have to be fucking kidding me! How about we put the fucking donuts down and do our fucking jobs!” Kelsey snapped. Eyes flickered in wild circles and spittle flew from her lips as she continued. “Where the hell is the detective in charge?”
“Following up on a lead. If you could just calm down—”
“Calm down? My best friend’s missing and you want me to calm down? Fuck you!”
Emma wrapped her arm around Kelsey’s and tugged her away from the Sargent’s desk.
“Come on. You’re not helping,” Emma said. Kelsey yanked free from Emma.
“I’m not going to calm down. Heather’s missing, remember? That fucking Chase did this.”
Emma, Beatrice, the desk Sargent, other officers and arrestees halted in their miseries and turned to Kelsey. Silence imbued the police station lobby, save for the ceaseless hum of the overhead fluorescent lights. Kelsey jerked when a man handcuffed to the wooden bench alongside the blue ceramic wall resumed his moaning. She regarded the dried blood encrusted on his head.
“Are you finished?” the desk Sargent said. “We’re following every lead that comes in. Every one.”
“Then why isn’t that piece of shit behind bars?”
The Sargent rolled his eyes. “I’m not at liberty to disclose that. If you could wait until the Detective returns, I’m sure he’d be more than happy to answer your questions.”
Kelsey squared up and growled. “I swear, if you weren’t a fucking cop, I’d jump right over that desk and—”
He shot a look that immediately stymied Kelsey. “You best think about the next words that come out of your mouth, miss.”
She exhaled thick and spun away. Stomping across the lobby, her heels echoed throughout the room as she made her way next to the bench.
“What are you looking at?” she sniped at the detainee. He turned his attention to his soiled, bare feet. Beatrice stepped up to the desk.
“We’ve been to Chase’s apartment, many times, and called his number even more. It always goes straight to voicemail. It’s full. As much as I hate to admit, something tells me he didn’t do it, but is there any way we can know for sure? He has to be on your short list,” she said. He slowly nodded and leaned in close. He gestured Beatrice and Emma closer.
“Some of our CIs said they’ve seen him around. Nothing out of the ordinary. Liquor store, laundromat, dive bars. He hasn’t been home. We know. Detective Lynch stationed plain-clothes cops in the vicinity.”
“Lynch?”
“Yeah. He nearly begged the Captain to give him this detail. Apparently, he and Chase have a little history together,” the Officer said.
“You’ve been incredibly helpful, Officer— Davis, is it?” Beatrice said as she scanned his badge. He nodded.
“Here,” he said and handed her a slip of paper and pencil. “Leave me your number. If anything comes up, I’ll give you a call. In turn, get your friend home before the Station Captain decides to make an example out of her.”
Beatrice scribbled her name and number and slid it back to Davis. “Thank you so much. Please. Call if anything.”
III
“Doctor Campos, Code White, Room Two-Five-Four. Repeat, Doctor Campos, Code White, Room Two-Five-Four,” Rick listened over the loudspeaker as he hoisted his jeans to his waist.
“You can’t do this, you big dummy,” Jackie said as he watched Rick toss the hospital gown to the floor.
“Like hell I can’t!”
“This isn’t like you,” Jackie pleaded. “You seriously need to settle down and get back into bed.”
“I can’t, Jack. I have to find her. No one’s seen or heard from her in almost a week. I’m healed enough. I have to get the hell out of here. The doctors aren’t doing anything for me that I can’t.”
“Really. You have IV bags stored in your fridge or something?”
Rick scowled and pulled the T-shirt over his head. The announcement drifted into the background as his mind raced with question after question. Where to begin? Where to look for Heather. Where to look for Chase, and what to do if he should he find him? His chest tightened, and his breath went short. Jackie dashed over as Rick closed his eyes and teetered.
“You are not healed. Please stay. For me? I don’t want to lose you too.”
“Lose me too. Too? We haven’t lost anyone. Got it?”
He whirled about at the sound of thick footfalls entering the room. Doctor Campos’ dark complexion and round face disappeared in the gloom as he neared.
“Mr. Valenz. Is there something I can do for you?”
It took a moment for Rick to understand the words past the Filipino accent.
“Get me my discharge papers. I’m out of here,” Rick said as he stepped past the portly doctor.
“Against medical advice? Not a good idea considering your concussion was a little more severe than originally diagnosed. I’d like to keep you here for another day or two for observation.”
Rick looked away. “My sister’s missing. I need to find her.” Campos reached for Rick and considered his gaze.
“Will you listen to him, Rick?” Jackie said. He shook his head.
“You can prescribe me any meds I need, but I can’t stay here.”
Rick stepped away, past Jackie and leaned his head against the cold window. Gazing down upon the sidewalk, he watched the rain stream down the glass, each drop unrelenting against the others that fell before.
“I’ll have the nurse bring the forms. I hope I don’t see you back here in a few days,” Campos said. Rick didn’t turn as the doctor left the room.
“Are you sure about this? You still look just as stupid as you did the day you got here,” Jackie said. Rick remained silent.
“Where do we begin?” Jackie said. Rick’s jaw tightened.
“Him.”
IV
Perspiration clung to her brow as she awaited his return. It was summer. July, that much she recalled. The air conditioner was either set to low or on the fritz. Unclean odors wafted from her underarms as she shifted in the chair. Her legs, tingling from immobility, threatened numbness to the point of dead-leg. The knot in the middle of her back spasmed as she attempted some sort of comfort.
The constant nag of a headache thrummed her head. It began in the temples, moved around the back and eventually wrapped her skull in a helmet of pain. Attributing it to eating only a few bites of the slice of pizza she was offered, she feared poisoning more than starvation. She remembered her high school biology teacher, Mr. Herbert, and the differing results of starvation compared to dehydration.
“You can go three weeks without food. It’s not drinking that’ll kill you in a week,” he said.
She allowed him to give her water. After she sniffed it, of course. But between the odors of old, molded carpet and she didn’t know what, it was hard to tell. She w
ould die one day. But not today. Not here.
The zip ties that bound her wrists and ankles dug into her flesh. With every twist of her hand, or shift of her foot, the plastic bands gave little. Her left hand slipped free sometime in the middle of the night. The other, and her feet didn’t have as much luck.
The room was spacious, unfamiliar, empty as she spent most of the night tugging at her constraints. The skyline of Downtown Manhattan gave her pause to realize she was possibly a mile or two from her own home. It wasn’t Chase’s apartment. His no-bedroom studio was smaller and didn’t face the City.
The room, what should have been a bedroom, was empty, save for the chipped and worn thrift-store dresser, filled black plastic trash bags, discarded food wrappers and dust-bunnies the size of city rats about the floor. The padded steel chair was bolted down with angle brackets. That much she could discern. There was no budge when she tested the bolt’s tenacity. The off-white walls, stained and marred, showed little sign of the occupant’s desire to make the apartment a home. A faded blue poster with less than a handful of black-winged seagulls aloft. It sagged under its push-pins as if it gave up after being hung for too many years.
Did he move? Was this his new place? If he continued working with Baz, LB in his phone, Leonard Bazzi as Kelsey referred to him, surely, he should have enough money to upgrade.
She remembered the wad of hundreds in Chase’s wallet. Baz was an imposing monster, that much she knew. The mugshot image of his thick bald head, deep-set eyes lined in crow’s feet, biker mustache, and OUTLAW tattoo across the front of his neck, burst to the front of her mind with every recollection. This was a man that Chase should never have been associated with. It was too many years ago that she knew Chase was up to something, and upon discovery of the infamous Baz, her best-friend, confidant, and lover was gone. The underlying self-hatred pronounced itself with each passing day. And a darkness enveloped him in lies and misfortune.
Within several months of the metamorphosis, Heather no longer asked about the cuts, the bruises and the nights he wouldn’t come home. She couldn’t ask anymore when the leer he shot her was worse than any evil she had ever seen. It was darker than the night before the dawn. And the dawn never came.
The three lashes that held her free hand were thin and black. Or blue. She couldn’t tell in the moonless light. The six on her other hand and uncountable numbers around her ankles hinted at varying colors and thickness. Maybe he got lazy with her one hand. Maybe he ran out. She didn’t know, nor did she care. Heather would wait until dawn when he would come in and offer her over-cooked scrambled eggs, burnt toast, and water. Her blindfold would lie at her feet as she stared him down. The Corelle dish atop the food tray, if he used a food tray, would clatter to the worn floorboards as the din complimented his suffocated gasp.
The ebony backdrop behind Downtown Manhattan distressed and swirled with dark azures and gingers as blades of daylight slashed through its dark oppressor.
A loud rapping at the door jerked her head sideways.
V
Officer Davis knocked on the door again and leaned close to the already battered jamb as he heard a faint rustle on the other side. He turned to Detective Lynch who appeared to have heard the noise as well. The three flanking officers held their breath as they awaited their orders. Nonplussed, Lynch snapped his gum as he nodded.
VI
Clomping footfalls thundered through the adjoining room as Heather held her breath.
Eight, she counted. If he was walking, the front door was near. Ten feet or so of room and hallway, judging by the fatness of the stomp. But if it were a spirited jog in hopes of quelling the disturbance, it might be twenty or more.
Ten feet, twenty, a hundred miles, it didn’t matter. She wanted to be out. She wanted to be free.
She heard the front door swing open wildly and slam against the wall.
“In here!” she yelled.
VII
Davis reared back and swung the battering ram.
“NYPD! NYPD!” the police barked as they stormed through the cramped, Bay Ridge hallway. Two tramped ahead, heads tucked tight beside their rifle stocks, eyes trained through their sights as they swept back and forth.
Davis and Lynch trailed while the last officer plodded backward, guarding the rear against any aggressor that might be stupid enough to follow them. Lynch and Davis paused in the hallway, doors to each side of them as the first two disappeared into the living space ahead. Davis flinched as he thought he heard something behind the closed door.
VIII
Heather shrieked as the door to her room exploded. Eyes clamped shut, head tucked into her shoulder, she shielded herself from the flying shrapnel of the door with her free arm.
“Shut the fuck up, you stupid bitch!” he spewed in a growling whisper. Spittle flew from his lips and his eyes twitched with malevolent fury. Her bladder released as she watched the hunting knife slice through the air in overreaching arcs about the room.
IX
“Clear!” an officer called out as he and the other lead cop scanned the living room. Lynch lowered his weapon as stared into the empty coat closet. Davis continued to aim his weapon in the vacant bathroom. The toilet seat was down in front of the open window.
Lynch snapped his gum. It echoed in the narrow hall as he slipped his pistol back into its holster.
“Clear,” Davis muttered as he stepped towards the window.
An empty easel stood near the tall window that overlooked the apartments and Chinese restaurant across the street. Lynch withdrew and poked a flashlight through the corpses of fast-food wrappers, empty bottles of scotch and whiskey, and loose cigarette butts strewn about the busted coffee table.
“No fire escape off the toilet,” Davis said as he joined the team. “Alleyway’s clear.”
Lynch breathed deep and stared at Davis. “Get forensics up here. I want prints, fiber, whatever they can get. You and I will start with the neighbors. We don’t leave until we know Romano’s last whereabouts.”
X
“D-Bag?” Heather choked. He reeled backward.
“Don’t call me that! Don’t you fucking call me that! I thought you were different! I thought you were the one. You’re just like the rest of them!” he yelled as he stormed at her. The roofing hammer that swung from his belt loop seized her attention.
“You think you’re smart? My pain in the ass neighbor knocks on the door and you think she’s going to save you or something? She wanted to know if I was Okay. Apparently, someone was making a lot of noise here last night.”
“Why are you doing this?” Heather wept. All fortitude dissipated as she slumped into her seat. Douglas grabbed her by the face and growled.
“I have to. When he arrives— she told me he would, we would be together forever.” His tone droned in monotoned pulses. “Do what thou wilt, she told me. This is my wilt.”
Heather’s body trembled from the emptiness of his words and the fire in her belly. Her lips quivered as she spoke.
“Who’s she? Who’s he? Chase?”
Douglas threw her head back as he stepped away.
“Chase? Who the hell is Chase? You haven’t stopped calling me that. Wait a minute,” he paused as his head twitched in bird-like spasms. “The guy from the coffee shop.”
Douglas threw the knife to the floor. The resounding thunk vibrated through Heather’s seat as it stuck. His cracked and faded beige construction boots stomped so loudly, she thought, hoped, he would fall through the floor as he left the room.
Heather gasped as she stared at the hunting knife. Douglas returned almost immediately with a handful of pages. Heather turned her attention away from the blade.
“Is this him?” Douglas yelled as he pressed the photograph of Chase to her nose. The other pages flitted to the floor like autumn leaves. Heather sniffled as she pried her eyes open.
“Yes,” she stuttered. Douglas dropped the photocopy.
“You’re still in love with him? After what he did
to you at the coffee shop? I love you more than he ever could and will take care of you for the rest of your life! Just like I took care of you for the last couple of days.”
The rollercoaster of emotions that poured from Douglas knotted Heather’s belly. She swallowed the bile that burned her throat.
“Chase is not going to get in the way. She told me so.”
“Who?” Heather yelled. Douglas darted across the room to her and pressed his nose against hers. Thoughts raced through her list of friends and acquaintances. Then she recalled Douglas’ words. The same ones she heard on the subway. The same as she heard at—
“That night, at Gary’s? We hit it off. We connected. I know you felt it. But that fucking Rick-guy got in the way. Lying to me that he was your boyfriend. So stupid.”
Douglas’ shoulders jerked as he chuckled. Within a moment, it became a cackling laughter that sickened her.
“He was— he was just looking out for me. He didn’t know who you were,” Heather simpered. Her eyes locked onto his.
“Yeah. He just didn’t know. He was probably— threatened by you.” Heather choked on her last words and peeked at the knife still embedded in the floor. Douglas noticed and stepped toward it. He stared at it as she continued.
“He won’t get in our way anymore.”
“Liar!” Douglas roared as he plucked the knife. “You were with him at the hospital when I took you home.”
“Yes! Yes! I know! I was with him,” she huffed. A broken smile cracked her lips. “I told him I was moving on. I told him about us.”
A grin, just as broken, curled the corners of his mouth upwards. “You did? You mean, you knew? You really knew?”
Heather nodded furiously. “Mm-hmm.”
The Estranged Page 13