by Caryn Carter
He had the world by the tail. Well, almost. He still had to come to terms with his true feelings for Bella, and he had to find out if Bella had come to terms with her feelings for him. He changed from whistling to humming one of the oldies by the Righteous Brothers.
He stopped to fill his nearly empty gas tank at the Chevron station on the corner and on a whim detoured to the little flower shop a few blocks away, mentally keeping his fingers crossed that it was still open. It was, and luckily, there were still a few bunches of fresh cut flowers in the refrigerated case. He selected the best of the lot, hoping at least one of the flowers was a favorite of Bella's. That was one of the small, intimate things he hadn't had time to find out about her, yet.
Back in the car, the spray of flowers on the seat next to him brought back to mind the ones he'd bought for Bella's mother, and with regret he realized he hadn't even asked Bella how the operation had gone. He'd just assumed since she was able to spend some time with him tonight, everything had gone according to plan.
He reminded himself to be sure to ask Bella about her mother the moment she opened the door. Yeah, sure. Like the first thing he wasn't going to do was take her in his arms as fast as he could and get his fill of those soft, delicious lips. He'd ask about her mother afterward.
Oh, yeah. Like he'd be able to stop with her lips. Like his hands wouldn't be playing hide and seek all over her body at that point. And then he'd ask? Who was he kidding? There was no way he was going to be able to think of anything but getting her naked and sinking himself as deeply inside her as their respective anatomies would allow.
He blew out a breath of heated frustration. If he could get hot over Bella just making the transition from flowers and her mother's operation to the two of them in bed there was little hope for him. What he felt for Bella in any context seemed to naturally transition into having sex with her. That was just the way it was. And damn, he liked it that way just fine.
He glanced at the dashboard clock. Ten minutes to eight. He calculated another five minutes or so before he was in Bella's neighborhood. That should put him at her door precisely at eight. He would have been there at seven if he hadn't restrained himself, knowing she needed a little time to herself after spending the entire day at the hospital.
Bella had set the time for their rendezvous. That morning, with tons of work ahead of him and with his usual Saturday afternoon errands and then the excitement of the college football games, eight o'clock that night hadn't seemed all that far away. But by three o'clock he was already chomping at the bit to see her, never mind how great the games were.
Once he'd finally settled himself into a relaxed mood with a couple of cans of Miller Lite, the next few hours hadn't been too bad. Whenever his mind had drifted a few hours forward, he'd just enjoyed his thoughts for a while, knowing that his fantasies were nowhere near the pleasure of the reality he would soon experience.
He turned the corner onto Bella's street, and like a teenager getting ready to pick up his girl for the prom, his heart broke out in a wild dance. A few beads of perspiration even popped out on his brow. He was in a bad way. At this rate, he might have to bypass the kisses and the fondling and go straight to tearing off her clothes.
The first thing he noticed when he pulled behind Bella's car in the driveway, was the lack of bright lights shining from any of the windows. His testosterone kicked into overdrive. She had already set the mood for them.
In the few seconds it took for him to leave the car and make it to the front door, he formed some quick visions of what she'd be wearing--or not--when she opened the door. He hit the doorbell, the flowers in his other hand shaking a little.
While he waited, he took up humming the Righteous Brothers song he'd abandoned when he stopped at the service station. He shifted and pressed the bell again. He leaned closer and angled his head so his ear was up against the door. Nothing. No footsteps heralding her approach. He tried the bell again and listened intently to be sure it wasn't broken. It rang as clearly as a church bell.
Leaving the porch, he walked around the side of the house to the kitchen window. The shade was drawn but he could see a faint light inside the room. He decided Bella had probably come home later than she expected and was likely in the shower and either couldn't hear the bell or was scrambling into some clothes to answer the door. Hell, she could damn well forget the clothes if that's what was keeping her.
He tried the doorbell again, leaning on it for a good ten seconds. He put his ear back to the door. Still nothing. He shifted again, this time with some apprehension. He checked his watch. He'd give her a few more minutes and if she didn't come to the door, he'd call her on the phone. He took up the humming again to pass the time.
After one more try with the bell, and getting the same results as before, he unclipped the cell phone from his belt. He was just about to punch in her number when the phone rang. Bella's sister Franny's number flashed in the LED window.
He answered the phone, anxiety knotting his throat as a strong sense of foreboding settled over him. Since Bella's car was in the drive, the call surely had nothing to do with her. Did it?
Franny's voice, a note above panic, came over the connection and confirmed his unnamed fear.
He held his breath until she finished.
Bella was in trouble, Franny told him. She'd called Franny for the combination to their storage unit. Bella had originally rented the unit for Franny and used her own birthday as the storage unit combination. Then, before she hung up, Bella had asked Franny to call Nick and tell him not to count on dinner that night; she was going back on her diet. Franny thought that odd since Bella obviously could have called Nick herself.
Of course she could have. Unless...
Unless something--or someone--was keeping her from doing so.
He was the one in the grip of panic, now. He did his best to calm Franny down, although his own heart was clenching and unclenching in a furious rhythm that had his mouth dry and his throat threatening to close.
It hadn't been necessary for Franny to mention her biggest fear--that Bella was with Kevin. His name had come to mind the second Nick realized something was wrong. If Bella's seeming forgetfulness over the combination wasn't enough to clue him in, the fact that Bella had mentioned dinner would have been. Because they hadn't discussed having dinner together in either of their conversations that day.
He managed to get the location of the storage unit from Franny and after several promises to get back to her as soon as he knew something, he disconnected the call.
When he turned the engine over and backed out the drive with one hand, he punched in Vince's number with the other. He hated to disturb Vince now in the midst of his partner's other problems, but this was an emergency. If what he suspected was true, he was going to need a backup.
Vince answered immediately. Nick heard the blare of horns in the background and figured Vince was in traffic, probably on his way to see Gloria. He felt a momentary twinge of guilt that he was infringing on Vince's private time with his wife. But this really was an emergency.
He was in such a hurry to get the information about the storage facility to Vince so they could plan some type of action, while at the same time keeping his eye on the road, that he was surprised he made enough sense for Vince to understand what he was talking about. Apparently, he had, because Vince's excited response came back immediately.
"Wherever you are, Nick, stay there. This has gone beyond our ability to act on our own. It's time now we got official help. I'll get in touch with one of my contacts in the department and get back to you as soon as everything is under control."
"But Vince, listen, I..."
"Dammit, Nick, stay where you are. This is a police matter, now. Let me handle it. Trust me."
The line went dead.
Nick dropped the phone on the seat next to him and gripped the wheel harder.
He had the greatest respect for his partner and his ability to marshal whatever forces he needed from the police with the sna
p of a finger. Under ordinary circumstances, he would heed Vince's advice without another thought. Under ordinary circumstances he would trust Vince with his own life.
But these circumstances were anything but ordinary.
Bella was out there with a madman.
And he wasn't about to entrust her life to anyone but himself.
* * * *
Bella's knuckles ached from gripping the wheel of the car Kevin was forcing her to drive. She stole a quick glance at her passenger out of the corner of her eye, then quickly shifted her gaze back to the road in front of her.
It wasn't the early Saturday night traffic or the rain that had begun to fall that kept her eyes riveted straight ahead. It was the aversion she felt for the sinister stranger who had taken her hostage. A stranger who was an evil counterpart of a man she had once known and loved.
The years in prison had taken their toll on him. Deep lines furrowed his brow and etched the corners of his mouth with thin, sharp lines. Even his hair had begun to gray at the temples. But it was his eyes that told the true story of what his life had been like in prison. Those brown eyes that had once been soft and tender, were now hard and mean as if they had seen into the depths of hell itself.
She forced herself to bypass the image of the hardened criminal sitting next to her and remember instead the sensitive man she had once thought him to be.
"Why are you doing this, Kevin?" The minute the question was out she knew it was a foolish one to ask, but in some small way it restored a measure of control to her.
Kevin's laugh was as hard and bitter as his eyes. "You're not that stupid, Bella. You must have learned something in these seven years."
"Yes, Kevin, I have. If nothing else, I've learned how foolish I was to trust you, to love you and to believe you loved me." She almost choked on the words now; they seemed so out of place.
"For what's it's worth, honey, I did love you. What I did wasn't about you at all. It was about me. All about me. I was tired of being poor."
"You weren't poor, Kevin. You had everything. Friends. Family. A good job."
"Yeah, a job that barely paid enough to support a family. For risking my neck every day, eight hours a day while fucking sacks of shit on the street made enough in one week to live like a king for the rest of their lives." He snorted. "Yeah, I had it all."
"You had me." Even as she said the words it was hard to believe now that the two of them had actually planned a life together. That this was the man with whom she had spent countless hours dreaming of the house they would one day build, of the vacations they would take. Of the children they would have.
He turned toward her and she could feel the heat from his tortured eyes on her face. "Oh yeah, I had you alright. I had you so well that the only thing you could think to ask me the first of the two times you spoke to me after the accident was, "'How could you have done this to me, Kevin?' You walked away, Bella, and never looked back. Look at how far you've come today. Nice house, nicer car than you'd ever have had married to a lousy cop. A successful business."
She braked for a light and took the opportunity to look at him directly for the first time since they'd gotten in the car.
"How do you know about the business?"
He laughed again, that gritty, raucous laugh that made her feel like the devil himself had scorned her.
"Oh, I know a lot about you, Bella. You may not have given me a second thought while I was gone, but you were in my mind all the time. All the time." He reached over and put a hand high on her thigh. She nearly rear-ended the car in front of her that had suddenly stopped at an intersection. Angrily, she brushed his hand away, even more unnerved now than when she had first become aware of his plan.
"What's the matter? Afraid that new boyfriend of yours might not want you if he finds out I put my hands on you again?"
She gasped in spite of herself. "How do you know so much about my life?" There was something frightening about him now. An evil that was palpable.
"I told you I didn't forget you as easily as you forgot me."
This was crazy. Here she was, kidnapped by the man she had once planned to marry, the man who had cheated on her, and he was talking as if they had had a lovers quarrel and she had run out on him. In spite of herself, the question that had burned her soul for seven years burst forth. "How long were you cheating on me with her, Kevin?"
There it was, that awful laugh again. "That's what really bothered you, wasn't it? Not that I had become one of the low-life's I had sworn to apprehend, but that I had screwed somebody else."
His coarseness was another layer of sordidness that was foreign to her, but one she could tell had ground itself into his psyche.
"What you had become was very important to me Kevin. But the other--as terrible as it was-just didn't seem as personal as the other woman."
He reached over and put his hand on her thigh again, this time even higher up than before. She felt the evil crawl under her skin.
"If I could afford the time, baby, I'd make you take a little detour to one of those seedy little motels on Airline Highway and we could get it on again."
Nausea rose to her throat and she swallowed back the bile. "Please take your hand off me."
He gave her thigh a rough squeeze before he did as she asked. "Afraid your boyfriend might not want you after I've had you? He hasn't seemed to mind so far. Or maybe he was only getting back at me for fucking his broad better than he did."
Oh, God, she didn't want to hear any of this. She knew he had a gun under his jacket, a gun he'd use even on her if he had to. But bad as the thought of being killed was, listening to his malicious taunting about Nick was worse because it was so very personal.
"You want to know why I took to screwing her? Well, I'll tell you why, since it don't mean jack-shit anymore. I slipped it to her because she was hot for me all the time. Seems that guy who's poking you now couldn't get her off most of the time." He leaned over, so close she could smell the evil on his breath, now. "Does he get you off, Bella?"
"Stop!" The scream surprised her as much as it did him. "You're not the same person I once knew. You're a ... a..."
"A what? An evil, dirty, perverted, low-life ex-con? Well, guess what? You're two hundred percent correct, baby."
She could see the bright security lights of the Safe and Secure Storage Sheds up ahead. Suddenly, she wished she had taken a couple of wrong turns so that she could have bought some extra time. The thought of being in such close quarters with Kevin now seemed much more threatening than before.
She thought of Nick and wondered if Franny had called him as she hoped she might when her sister realized she was sending her a coded message. Suddenly, her fear was magnified. She didn't want Nick here now. She didn't want to think about what Kevin might be capable of if Nick interfered with his plans.
She turned onto the paved driveway of the storage facility and stopped the car in front of the iron security gates. She turned to Kevin. "I need to key-in the entrance code."
He nodded for her to get out of the car, opened his door, got out and joined her. He waited at her side while she punched in the numbers in the computerized panel next to the gate. When the gate swung open she started back to the car. "We only have 30 seconds before the gate closes again."
Back in the car, she drove the short distance down the main entrance road, took a turn to the left, then another to the right and stopped in the concrete alley between two brick buildings. The area around each individual storage unit was well lit by security lights but it did little to make her feel safe.
"This is the one," she said, pointing to the building directly to their right. Her insides were quickly turning to ice. Frantically, her mind sought an escape from Kevin. She didn't want to be alone with him.
The look on her face must have given her away, because she felt Kevin's hand on her forearm. "Just in case you're thinking about doing something stupid--don't."
She sat frozen, unable to turn the ignition off. Kevin reached
across and turned the key. The engine died and he switched the headlights off.
"You have a flashlight in here?"
She began to shake, inside and out, and barely managed to answer his question. "In the glove box."
Kevin removed the flashlight, turned it on and directed the beam to the floor.
"Get the paper with the combination."
She had stuffed the paper in the pocket of her slacks after she had called Franny with the message she hoped her sister would relay to Nick. She dug it out now. It was creased and crumpled. She opened it, looked at it and pushed it back in her pocket. "Okay," she said, trying to mask her rising panic.
Kevin held his hand out, palm up. "Let me have it."
"I remember it."
"Let me have it," he repeated in a threatening tone.
She fished the paper out of her pocket and gave it to him. He shone the flashlight on it. She held her breath while he read.
"You bitch," he hissed. He tossed the paper to the floor, grabbed her arm and forced her to look at him. "You didn't need to call for any combination. Those numbers are your birthday. Are you playing some kind of game with me? That's it, isn't it? You're pretending to go along with me, but all you're really doing is stalling for time."
He turned the flashlight off and threw it down, grabbed her other arm, held both of them in a vise-like grip. He came in close with his face, so close she could smell his evil--and his fear.
"That little bit about the dinner date with your boyfriend was your hope of getting a message to him wasn't it?"
She cried out when his hold on her arms tightened so much the pain shot up to her shoulders.
"Wasn't it?"
She clenched her teeth against the pain. He would have to kill her before she admitted that. Instantly, she realized he would have no hesitation to do just that. Or to kill Nick when he showed up.
Kevin put his mouth to her ear. She shuddered. Somehow she had to get through to the Kevin Pitre she had known since college. She swallowed, looked straight ahead and gathered every ounce of strength she could to speak to him.