by James, Ranay
“You have no idea how close to the truth you are with that.”
“I heard Tony, Lawrence, and a woman I have heard on several occasions talking, or shouting rather. None were very happy about zee treasure.”
“I’ll just bet they weren’t very happy.”
Kate began to laugh, and the laughter became almost hysterical as she dropped to the floor on her knees. The laughter turned to tears.
Chapter 57
She had no idea how much time passed as they sat in silence. She pondered the fact Kyle was dead and that the old man's grandson would probably suffer as well, making the sacrifice of the doctor's career and integrity for naught. To top it off Mr. Lyles was probably dead, too, if they had their hands on the stash.
Sniffing one last time and drying her tears, she got back to her feet. The pity-party was over and it was time for action. She was a Brandenburg, by God, and that had to be worth something. Now, she was also a McKinnon, and that was definitely worth something.
Would Robert realize she was gone?
Yes. She felt it deep down.
He said he loved her, and she had to believe that would be the very thing to draw him back to her.
“Do you want to know what the fabled Brandenburg treasure turned out to be?” she ventured while still looking for a weakness in her holding cell.
“Oui.”
She could feel him nodding through the darkness.
“Documentation and some useless paper money from the 1870’s, that is all. That was it. No horde of gold, no stash of valuable jewels, only papers valuable to a long dead brotherhood.”
She heard him groan knowing his life and the life of his grandson were forfeit.
He struck the lighter again.
“Zen it looks as if you have given zee ultimate sacrifice in the life of your brother, zee loss of your husband, and zee loss of your land. I have sacrificed my integrity and principles, and we have both lost it all for nothing.”
“What do you mean the loss of my husband?” she asked taking a step forward. She would beat the information out of him if necessary.
“Oh, I zought you knew,” he sounded surprised. “Oh, but how could you?” he corrected himself. Time was a predator and it was stalking him more of late. His strength and mind were fading at an alarming rate, and he feared her prediction of him not having long to carry his guilt was closer to truth then he dared consider. Perhaps he could redeem himself after all, at least in her eyes. It was important.
“Knew what?” she felt a dread deep within the pit of her stomach.
“I over heard zis information. Your Robert was arrested for zee murder of someone named Brice Langston. You know him, oui?”
“Yes. Yes, I do,” she nodded.
“I heard Lawrence confessing he did it yesterday while the man was swimming. He shot him twice in zee back of zee head in his pool. The body was found by zee housekeeper zis morning.”
Kate felt her world spinning. She had not found the love of her life just to lose him for a murder he could not have even remotely committed. Frantically, she began to look for a way out. If she could not go out the door, then she would go out the roof.
Rending the sleeves from her shirt, she wrapped them around her hands to keep the old metal from slicing her skin clean through to the bone. Wedging her feet and hands into the old silo panels, she slowly shimmied up to the roof. It was a good thing it was dark. She was afraid of heights, a fact she was not going to dwell on at that particular moment. The rock wall climbing lessons she suffered through were all in an effort to please Daniel. She was now glad she had the experience to pull from in her arduous attempt to escape.
It was no use.
There just was not enough space for her to get a handhold. Twice she almost fell. After the second attempt, she dropped back down to the floor.
“Hey, what do you have in that bag of yours? Anything we can use as a weapon?”
Before he could answer, the lock turned in the door, loud and protesting. As the door slid sideways on the track, light streamed into the holding cell silhouetting a large frame, and she remembered seeing this man at her home during the alarm installation. That explained some things.
“Get your ass over here,” Razor commanded. “Tony wants to see you.”
Kate knew this was her chance to make a break for freedom.
Chapter 58
Pretending to be compliant, she demurely exited the room and waited until he turned Razor back to her to shut the door. Rushing past him, she took off down a darkened corridor. Distracting her captor, she noticed he did not lock the door behind her after closing it. Thinking maybe the old man would have enough strength left to figure it out.
Not moving fast enough, he caught, grabbed, and spun her around to face him. Pinning her using his forearm on her chest, he wedged her back against the wall.
His mouth was inches from her face as she turned her face away to keep from gagging from his breath.
“I told Kyle I would fuck you if I ever got the chance,” he laughed wickedly as he gripped her face and used his tongue to lick her from jaw to temple.
“Umm, just like ice cream.”
She bit him on the cheek. Kicking and screaming, she was not going quietly. He loosened his grip.
Furious, he took her, spun her around, and shoving her face first into the wall pinned her arms behind her. She sensed his threats were not idle.
“I’ll savor you, bitch. I’ll make you scream for good reason, and then I’ll make you beg for death.”
“Don’t you dare lay a finger on me or I’ll kill you!” she said trying without success to free her arms making him laugh sadistically.
“Like you are in any position to do anything except take what I give you.”
She heard his zipper go down.
She screamed in fury, head-butting him from behind. He let her go momentarily. It was enough for her to make a run for it.
“You bitch! You broke my fucking nose! I’ll cut you! I’ll fucking bleed you!” he yelled after her.
She heard him in pursuit as she ran down the darkened corridor lit only by the small amount of moonlight streaming in through broken, shattered windows covered in safety mesh. Ducking into the doorway of a long-abandoned office, she grabbed the fire extinguisher off the wall willing her breathing to quiet. As he came through the door, she swung catching him behind the head, and watched him tumble face forward in a heap of black leather and bleeding flesh. She prayed he was dead. Feeling for a pulse, he was still alive, but so was she for the moment.
Not wasting precious time, she quickly dropped the extinguisher rather forcefully on his back, then fled down the hallway following the maze of crooks and turns. It terminated with a set of doors chained shut and securely locked, covered and protected by plywood. The glass, long shattered, still lay scattered all over the floor looking like diamonds glistening in the moonlight.
She pulled, jerking on the chains in frustration. “Damn it! I cannot catch a freaking break here.” And pushing her shoulder hard into the plywood, it too, held fast.
Not wasting any more time, she looked around for anything to break those chains or for another way out, knowing she had precious little time. Razor was coming and there was no keeping that quiet. He was as furious as a raging bull cursing and spouting all the ways she was going to die.
“Not today, asshole!” she shouted back.
Head-butting him broke open her stitches. Feeling the blood running freely down her back and shoulders, she was faint and nauseous. Leaning up against the wall for a moment, she was waiting for her world to steady. Opening her eyes and looking across the hallway, she saw the stairwell. Seeing it as a gift from the heavens and a means of escape, she prayed for another miracle.
“Please be unlocked,” she asked pushing the doors. They opened. “Yes!” she said triumphantly. Sneaking into the stairwell and quietly closing the door behind her, she was very careful not to let the latch click to give away her position. Maki
ng her way up to the third floor, she doubled back to the opposite end of the hallway hoping he would not follow. But could she be so lucky?
This had to be a part of the original warehouse office complex. There were file cabinets, old desks, and chairs scattered here and there. Opening drawers one after another, she found nothing to use as a weapon. Then she found the janitorial closet.
“Come on, there has to be something in here I can use,” her voice sounded loud in the eerie silence.
Frantically searching for anything to spray in his face, she discarded a number of items tossing them to the floor before settling on an almost full can of bug spray. Testing the spray, she found it worked and was thankful for the second miracle. After thirty-five years it could just as easily gone the other direction. So armed with a wooden handle minus the rag mop head, a light bulb she unscrewed from the socket, and the can of bug spray, she ventured out again.
Willing her breathing to steady, she hugged the walls and made her profile as small as possible. Inching her way along the corridor, she stayed ever alert to any indication Razor was still after her. She took the light bulb into her shirttail and broke it scattering the small pieces behind her. If he walked through it, she would have some warning he was coming. It was very quiet, too quiet in fact. Strange, she would not have thought he would abandon this chase so easily. Yet, she would never be so naive as to think he was not lying in wait either. He was still there. She could smell him.
“Oh Katheeerrrine….Come out, come out, whereever you are! You can run but you cannot hide,” he taunted as he systematically made his way through the abandoned offices.
She sucked in her breath, letting it out slowly. At least she knew where he was now. He was at the other end of the hall.
Increasing her pace, she no longer peeked into the open rooms to see if there were evident means of any easy escape. There was no more time. As she came to the end of the corridor, there was a wooden door with the sign above it directing employees to the warehouse.
She peeked through the grimy glass window to see exactly where she was. It was dark in the warehouse, but she saw streams of light peaking in around the worn gaskets of the dock doors, shining like bright beacons guiding her to freedom.
It was worth a shot. If she could get to the loading docks, perhaps she could escape out one of those dock doorways.
She opened what she now knew was her only means of escape and prayed it did not creek. Crawling through and gently closing the door behind her, she jammed the mop handle under the doorknob, breathing a short sigh of relief. It would take brute force to move it, not that Razor was in short supply of that commodity. It would just buy her a little time.
This landing led to a mezzanine thirty feet above a yawning warehouse floor, and the metal scaffolding spanning the cavernous room was like a suspension bridge used to oversee what was going on below in the once prosperous business.
Running in a squatting position across the platform, she made herself as small as possible, never looking down, and praying the old neglected catwalk held. Breathing a sigh of relief, she made it to the other side encountering a twin door just like the one she had crawled through on the opposite end. Easing this one open, she heard voices as she crawled onto a matching mezzanine spanning an even larger space.
From here she could hear and see it all. The single hanging light illuminated all she needed to see.
Chapter 59
“Tony, you double-crossing bastard,” Kate muttered under her breath as she saw him there with Candi.
Rosa would be heartbroken, she thought, once she discovered her only grandson had resorted to murder and kidnapping. It was making sense to her now. Tony was behind this. He had to be. He knew of the legend. He was Kyle’s friend, so Doctor Death really had not purposefully killed him. Not that it mattered. Kyle was dead either way, so forgiveness was not going to be coming anytime soon.
Then the woman whose voice she heard came into view as she continued to creep across the metal catwalk. She saw Candice lounging comfortably and with too much familiarity on the old sofa. This was not a first meeting, and Candi was not in duress. She was obviously not a captive, lending credence to her theory that she was playing Robert for a fool.
“Bitch! Oh, you are so busted,” she muttered, angry because this woman who had so much in life could not be satisfied with what she had. She had to have it all no matter the cost. Well, Robert would toss her right out on her deceitful ass once he found out she was consorting with the enemy. Life just got better in her opinion.
Creeping ever closer, Kate needed to hear what they were saying. Listening, Tony talked about how he was going to get around the issue of the treasure not being worth much after all.
It was no skin off Candice’s nose, and she told him not to worry. She had enough to get him through.
Candice was saying that she was worried about Robert. She needed to get around him because she felt Robert did not believe her story about the baby.
“You worry too much. The man is a gullible fool. Just keep talking about how wonderful his kid will be, and he won’t notice for weeks that you are still a size 6.”
“I’m a size 4 and he has good reason to be suspicious, Tony. According to the development of the kid in the sonogram you gave me, I should be dreadfully fat by now. Fortunately, he is still not on to me. I think I can get him to marry me before he is the wiser, and then I can conveniently have an accident which will result in the loss of the brat. I will be devastated, of course.”
“Oh, of course,” he chimed in.
“He will believe me. He always does. However, Kate is smart.”
“And you think Robert isn’t? You stupid bitch,” Kate muttered.
“I strongly suspect she knows I’m not pregnant. She still has his ear, regardless of the fact I have crawled into his bed on several occasions.”
“I told you to wear padding,” Tony commented.
“Then I could not have seduced him. Hindsight being what it is I should have done just that. He has refused me at every turn,” she huffed, leaning back hard on the sofa.
Kate almost expected her to throw a temper tantrum. However, it more than pleased her to hear Robert had been telling her the truth. He had not touched Candi since marrying her, and Candi was not having his baby.
Again, life just got a little better. Once she got out of here, there would be no Candice and no baby, and Robert had been faithful. Maybe they did stand a chance after all.
Tony really did not care anymore if Robert believed Candice or not. It served the purpose of dividing him and his lovely wife. Tony knew she was leaving. According to Candice, there was a one-way ticket to New York still waiting on Kate's dresser.
Candi’s purpose was just about worthless. All he needed to do was get his hands on a couple million dollars of her money and he would wash his hands of them all. He might see if she were interested in a quick roll in the sack, but if not, well, her kind were a dime a dozen.
“Where is Razor?” he wondered finally missing him. “I told him to bring Kate to me.” He looked around expecting to see them.
“Make sure he kills her,” Candice said nonchalantly looking at her nails. “I do not want to have to wait for a divorce.”
Kate drilled holes into her. So she wanted her out of the way did she? “Not if I can help it, bitch. You have met your match,” Kate whispered.
Tony laughed at Candi’s command to kill Kate to secure an easier path to Robert. “Well, I hope you are willing to wait ten to twenty years because Robert is taking the fall for Brice’s death. Sheriff Maxwell has already arrested him by now.”
Candice could not believe Tony would double-cross her. No body double-crossed her or failed to give her what she wanted.
“No! That it is not what I planned,” she said quickly reevaluating her relationship with this thug.
“Oh yes, my pretty heiress. As we speak he is probably being cuffed, stuffed, and becoming someone’s bitch in county lockup. However
, for a price I could be persuaded to let Razor take the fall if you will give me some incentive. After all, he was the one to put two bullets in the back of sonny boy’s brain yesterday. Robert was nowhere around, but will have a hard time with an alibi given he was out on the ranch with Kate digging holes.”
“How much, you slimy bastard?” Candice was smiling.
It was not often she met someone more devious than she. It was worth a couple of million just to say she had a worthy opponent.
“Bail me out of debt with Big Johnny, and give me enough to live comfortably on for the rest of my life, and I’ll arrange to have your little Miss Kate eliminated from the picture and leave you free to pursue Robert. Deal?”
“Will five million be enough?” she questioned digging for her cell phone to call her banker. Asking him to transfer the funds, Tony was almost sorry he had not held out for more. However, he was not going to get greedy at this point.
“Done,” she said closing the phone.
Candice pulled her checkbook out of her purse and laid it on the desktop. Pulling out her Mont Blanc pen, she began to write. With flare she ripped the check off the pad holding it out to him as if she wrote five-million-dollar checks on a daily basis. Tony figured she probably did.
He had never seen so many zeros. Reaching across the desk, he took one side before she let the other go. The check, suspended between them, supplied the perfect place for a drop of blood from Kate's head wound to land square in the middle.
Kate could not have agreed more with the sign. It was blood money.
Tony looked up into the darkness of the catwalk drawing his gun just as the explosive charge was detonated on one of the loading dock doors.
Robert and the deputy sheriff burst onto the warehouse first leading the group streaming in two by two.
“Drop it and freeze!” the deputy yelled.
Tony grabbed Candice putting her between him and Robert and fired three shots in rapid secession straight up before Robert could stop him. Candice was screaming as Tony dragged her fleeing off into the darkness of the warehouse using her has a human shield.