by Coulton, JC
Chapter Fifteen
Blake
Cooper scrambles to his feet and straightens out his suit.
“This is not on me Blake.” He looks around. “She can’t have gone far. I’ll go this way. You go down to the coffee shop and look.”
Together, we form a reluctant team and begin searching the empty streets. She’s not here. She’s not anywhere. Something is very, very wrong.
After fifteen minutes, we regroup, and I suggest we expand the search. “She could have taken a taxi. We should alert the hotel so they can let us know if she turns up there. And if she ran away on foot, we need to send a team through the apartment complexes in this block.”
“We?” He shouts. “There is no we, Detective. You’re off this case, remember? I’ll call my guys and get a team in here. You’re just lucky I’m not in the mood to arrest your ass instead.”
His scathing tone makes me want to finish the job, but I hold my tongue. I’m seconds away from knocking this motherfucker out, but I need him. And more importantly, Carrie needs him. He must be thinking the same thing. Even though his fists are clenched, his voice is calmer now.
“Detective, you have my word on one thing. When this over, I’m coming for you. I’m coming harder than you’ve ever seen and I’m not coming alone.”
I look away. There’s no point giving his threat a moment of acknowledgement. The truth that neither of us is admitting right now is that we lost a valuable witness because of a conflict that never should have happened in the first place.
“We need to get moving.” He says it with determination, and gets on his phone to call in the troops.
“I’ll head back to her hotel. I say, “See if she shows up there.”
For a second I think he’s going to argue with me about going to her hotel. He doesn’t. He turns away; he’s already deep in conversation with whoever it is that answered the phone at the FBI.
I make my way back to the car. My shoulders are already starting to tighten up. My ribs ache badly. For a second back then, I thought he had me. But in the end, even fancy federal training can’t top the skills you learn growing up close to the streets. My instincts for fighting were developed long ago. They still serve me well, even if I haven’t used them for real in a long time.
I do a final check around. I walk down to the coffee shop. She’s not there, and the place is now closed. I take the few blocks to get to my car and head out in a hurry, wishing I had my squad car to speed all the way back to Manhattan. I speed all the way there, anyway. I need to see her face. I park at the entrance of the hotel. It looks the same as it did earlier. I give the keys to one of the valets and tell him not to go too far with it.
I’m getting familiar enough with the floor staff that when I arrive breathless at the front desk they’re already ringing Carrie’s room. “No answer sir. I’m sorry.”
“Do you remember seeing her leave?”
“Ahh yes sir,” says the girl behind the desk, hesitating and blushing. “She was a little dressed up.”
“Did you see her come back?”
“No sir.”
My panic starts to kick in again.
“Please call this number immediately if she shows up here. It’s urgent.”
The girl’s eyes go wide as I pass her yet another copy of my card, but as I don’t have my work cell, I write down my personal mobile number.
“Of course sir. If we see her, we’ll call you immediately. Is there anything else we can do?”
“No thank you,” I tell them. “Just be sure the rest of the staff keep an eye out for her as well.”
I scan the lobby, check the bathrooms and then pop upstairs to the restaurant. There’s no sign of Carrie James. My guts clench at the thought of where she could be, especially dressed up in that little outfit. She looked incredibly sexy, but trying to track down April by herself was the stupidest move ever. Why did I have to fall for such a stubborn woman? Fuck! It’s as if she purposely puts herself in danger.
I could hang around here and wait, but I doubt she’ll arrive. My gut tells me something worse has happened. Instinctively, I want to head back over to the scene where it happened, but it’ll be swarming with feds by now. That’s bad news for me after choking one of their own.
I drop into the men’s room in the lobby of the hotel. Seeing myself is a shock. The mirror shows I’m a bedraggled, tired-looking wild man covered in blood. My face isn’t swollen as bad as I thought. Still, he got in some powerful body shots. My ribs ache. I pull up the side of my shirt to check and see my side is already swelling and red. I wouldn’t be surprised if he cracked a rib or two, but now is not the time to think about that.
I clean up and make an effort to get all the blood off my chin and neck. I look better, but not much. The last time I felt like this was when I was drinking. I’d been out partying, got into a fight, and woke up in a warehouse apartment somewhere in Greenwich. And here I am, years later, a man with his career in shreds, feeling completely alone and covered in blood. Life has a funny way of going in circles.
I think about scotch. The smell, the taste on my tongue. It’s been so long since I felt that burn in my throat. Right now I wouldn’t mind escaping from the insanity of this situation—from the pain I saw on Carrie’s face and the realization that I helped in causing that pain. Drinking is not the answer. It’ll only make things worse. I need to find her. More than anything I need to save Carrie from the danger I’m sure is following her right now.
My phone is buzzing with notifications. I check it, and Lieutenant Jacob has been trying to get hold of me. I ignore her for now. I can accept whatever punishment they decide to dole out, but I don’t want to hear anything about her being sorry she had to do what she did. It’s bullshit. We all make our own choices. She needs to recognize that when push came to shove, she chose not to back her guy. Whatever she has to say to me know won’t change that. If her phone call is about trying to keep things peaceful between me and her, I don’t want to hear it. Besides, biting the bullet is something I know how to do well. If I lose my badge over this, so be it. I wouldn’t take back anything I’ve done on this case. It was all for Carrie. She’s worth it.
I splash a little water on my face and stop indulging myself in this line of thinking. There’s nothing to do now, except the next right thing. If she’s not here, maybe she’s gone back to the club to talk to Jessup. I’ll check there before going back to Jersey. With one final scan of the lobby and the street outside, I climb back into the car. The valet guys are super understanding. They’ve let me pull up just outside here more than once, even if it does get in the way of their operations. If only everyone gave cops the same respect, we’d be able to do our jobs like we’re supposed to.
I make my way to the club with care, cruising to scan the streets for her wherever I can. The chances are low she around here, but it’s all I can do. Stay alert. In my gut, I’m sure that someone took her. Carrie wouldn’t just bolt from the scene of a fight. She’s spent too much time in training, too many hours in the dojo to do that. If only I’d been more alert instead of fighting with Cooper, maybe it wouldn’t have happened. Fuck! I came out to get her back on side once and for all, and now she’s disappeared. I couldn’t have fucked this up any more.
Driving calms me as usual. The familiar path between the hotel and the club doesn’t require much focus. It gives my brain a chance to digest what’s happening and seek solutions. I don't know why, but I still have the feeling Jessup is behind this. It’s something to do with his attitude about April. He treated her like a piece of meat, and he held Carrie against her will before. Maybe he has her now. I need to get in front of him and demand answers.
The club is open and not busy. I head down past the security team and right out the back office. I know where to go now. There’s no need to fuck around. I’d put money down that he’s expecting me. I’m dead right. He’s sitting there as if he’s been waiting for me to walk in to his office. I look around. He’s trying to be s
uch a kingpin, with the flashy equipment and the expensive suits. It’s all so obvious, it’s tacky. Even the smell of his cologne sickens me as I enter his lion’s den.
“You know why I’m here?” I say, not bothering to start with hello.
“I know your little ladies have been causing problems. You cops always have your heads up your asses when it comes to women. You need to shake off the pussy fixation and think. Women are so much craftier than you think.”
“Sure. Whatever you say.” I goad him on purpose, hoping I can push him to say something important, wondering why he said ‘my ladies’, in plural.
“I’m telling you to stop hanging around here and start looking in your own backyard.”
“What's that supposed to mean?" I bark. It's more of a demand than a question.
"Wake up. Stop being a fucking idiot. Check your old lady before you show your face here again.”
Shit. It smacks me hard in the face. He’s talking about Neon.
To Be Continued
Click below to continue reading Seized Part 5 on Amazon at
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VTQ9F3W
AND
Join my exclusive reader list at www.jccoulton.com, for updates and other JC Coulton books and promotions.
Give ‘Seized Part 4’ a Review.
Please leave an honest (and kind) review where you downloaded Seized Part 4, and join my reader list at http://jccoulton.com/.
Thanks for reading Seized Part 4!
Sincerely,
JC Coulton
Website: http://jccoulton.com/
Like me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JCCoulton