When the Flood Falls

by J. E. Barnard

  Terry set down his mug. “You think Jarrad was hiring someone to go after Mick?”

  “I can’t see that. I mean, Mick’s not like Danton’s agent, all controlling and arrogant. And Jarrad was kind to him on that last day, when we saw them down at Dee’s. He wasn’t furious then. But if he had ever been angry enough to mutter about hiring a hitman, there must have been something to be upset about.” The creeping was all over her body now. She stood up, shaking out the ants. More pieces fell into place. “After the Finals party, what did you say about taking Mick back to his closet? Did you get the impression he was gay?”

  “Not entirely.” Rob stacked the last sticky plate onto the tray. “But the deepest, darkest, most rat-infested dungeon of the closet … probably never so much as kissed a man. Peeked a few times in locker rooms and thinks his fantasies are his own private vice. No wonder Camille has to get hers in the basement of the theatre! Her husband is secretly rooting for the other team. If she were anyone else, I might feel sorry for her. As it is, my sympathies are all with Mick. And with Jarrad.”

  Jan shook her head. “Don’t waste your sympathy on Mick. Mike Danton, who hired the hit man? His agent was way more than a business partner. He was closer than family. Danton’s father wanted to sue him for alienation of familial affection. His name was on the deed to Mike’s condo. And this is the clincher: rumour was he’d lured Danton into a homosexual relationship when the young man was barely in the minors.”

  “So, underage and in a power dynamic as well.” Rob shook his head. “Tell me the agent was charged?”

  “Not then. Danton wouldn’t testify. But the point is, there’s only one person who fills such a big part of Jarrad’s life. If Mick’s not 100 percent heterosexual, and if he thought he could keep Jarrad from ever telling …” She reached for the laptop and zipped backward through the footage to a camera angle of Jake’s box full of hockey players. Jake was absent. “Look at the right side of the screen. What do you see?”

  “Mick’s box,” said Terry. “He was behind the curtain, avoiding the stares of his acquaintances after his wife’s little drama on the stage.”

  “My god, he wasn’t!” said Rob, staring. “There are only four chairs and we can see them all. He wasn’t in that box when Jarrad died.”

  Terry shook his head. “Why would Mick, of all people, kill Jarrad?”

  Rob answered before Jan. “Why did Mick buy him a hugely expensive vintage car when he was going off the rails last winter? Buying his silence. Chris said Jarrad billeted with Mick for a minor-league tournament and lived with him afterward. Even after Mick got married, which means, in other words, that it started before he got married. Camille didn’t seduce the kid. It was Mick.”

  Jan nodded. “Mick, who’s been nominated for the Order of Canada. The crowning moment of his career, when his heart is failing and his chance to make his mark is almost gone. One whiff of a sex scandal involving an underage hockey player and he’ll not only lose the Order of Canada, he’ll go to jail.”

  “Jesus,” said Terry, “and he might be in the museum right now.”

  “Yup. He took Camille’s car. Lacey won’t be leery of an old guy with a bad heart. We’ve got to warn her.” She dialed not only Lacey’s cellphone, but every telephone number that rang anywhere in the facility. They all went to voice mail. “We’re going down there. Terry, get the truck. Rob, call the Mounties.”

  Terry left. Rob swiped his phone. “And say what, exactly?”

  “Tell them you’re the curator at the Bragg Creek Museum and you’ve got a report of an intruder. Your on-site security person isn’t answering the phone and may be in danger. You’re on your way there now and could they please send a car ASAP. ”

  “You’re that sure about Mick?”

  “Yes. Too many pieces fit and he wasn’t in his box.” She zoomed across the room. “I need a sweater.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Lacey woke to a cold splash on her cheek, her face stinging where it hit. She gasped as blood-tainted water rushed into her mouth. She was lying on her side while water pooled around her head, rising slowly toward her nose. She tried to sit up, but pain slammed her from her ribs and her head. A hand pressed her cheek back into the water. The flow from the tap splashed into her ear. That hurt.

  Assessment: she was injured and someone else was controlling her movements. Bad situation. Had she called for backup before getting into it?

  As the water rose, she concentrated first on keeping her lips closed and breathing through her nose. Where was she and who was standing over her, patting the pockets of her half-soaked jeans? She cautiously opened the eye that wasn’t in the water and saw a disorienting pattern of jagged light. Concussed again. Was a second concussion more dangerous? She would have to ask Marie.

  When the flashes settled, she saw a flat, metallic surface above the wavering water. She was in the clay room sink. She was lying almost as she had fallen, and the pale light coming in the big window had not changed. Chances were good she had only been completely out for a few seconds. With that much sorted, she remembered who she had been talking to: Mick Hardy.

  Remembering was good news. Probably not a skull fracture. But she also remembered she was not RCMP now. No backup.

  Her waistband jerked as Mick tried to wiggle the little digital recorder out of her pocket. Too bad for him he’d turned on the water first. Everything was sticking. But the jiggling sent stabbing pains through her head and her ribs. It was almost worth wishing the recorder would slide out easily.

  Someone called her name. The watery echo put her, for a brief, disorienting moment, back at Depot, during a torturous swimming-pool session. That hard-nosed training officer didn’t call her Lacey. She was McCrae. Or Pansy-Ass. Or Pond Scum. These were auditory hallucinations. The water turned off. Good. A hand came over her mouth. Bad. Someone called her name again. Not Mick, and not the drill instructor. Backup was coming after all!

  She tried to yell. The hand on her face tightened painfully, cutting off the sound. She tried to kick, to bang the metal sink loud enough to echo. Another hand pressed on her ribcage, sending shockwaves through her torso. Broken ribs. Like that time she and Tom broke up that brawl outside a biker bar. She could recover from that again. The water was trickling down the drain beneath her ear. Soon she’d be able to breathe through her mouth, if the hand went away.

  Just then, it did. Good. Open mouth quick and breathe.

  A smelly, greasy cloth was crammed between her lips. She gagged, gave a muffled shout, and was promptly punished for it by another jab on the ribs. While she was fighting the pain, trying to spit out the cloth, she was dragged headfirst out of the coffin-like sink. Pain crashed through her skull, ricocheted down her ribs, leaving her dizzy.

  When the waves subsided, she was chest-down on a rough stool, her legs still in the sink and Mick squarely in her light-streaked line of sight. He was taping her dangling arms to one leg of the stool. Not stool. Sculpting cart. After a moment he stepped back, yanking her and the wheeled cart with him. Her legs fell to the floor. She scrabbled to get her feet under her, but he dragged the cart too fast for her wet boots to grip. Then he spun her around, cart and all, and shoved her backward into a dark space.

  “I’ll be back to finish this tonight,” he whispered as he wrestled the recorder out of her pocket. The door clicked shut, taking the dim light with it.

  By force of will, Lacey lifted her head, ignoring the stabbing pain in her head and torso. She was in a sculpture locker, a dark, enclosed space that might trigger a claustrophobic panic any second. She, a trained ex-law officer in peak condition, had been tricked, wounded, tied up, and locked up, all without having lifted a finger to save herself. No wonder she had left the Force. She really couldn’t do the job. Quitter. She was a failure at the RCMP, a failure as a bodyguard for Dee, a failure at even protecting herself. Quitter.

  Once the first ra
ge at her helplessness had passed, Lacey found the dark and stillness a relief. Her eyes stopped sending conflicting signals to her brain. Her body, no longer being pushed, pulled, poked, or half-drowned, eased up on the pain flares. If Mick Hardy thought she was sufficiently damaged and cowed to lie here in the dark, waiting for him to come back and murder her, he was in for a surprise. Ignoring the jabs in her side with every movement, she got her feet against the back wall and edged her torso forward on the cart until she could touch the bottom shelf. Please, just one tool with a point.

  No tools, at least not within her fingers’ reach. That was a blow, but it showed her the tape was stuck only to her arms, not to the cart. More contortions brought her tied hands in reach of a dangling corner of the cloth lodged in her mouth. After that, it was a race between the tingling numbness spreading up her fingers and the gag’s increasing looseness.

  With a final, choking spit, she cleared her mouth. Somebody had called her name. Were they close enough to hear her yell?

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Jan sat in the sun-baked truck, staring at the staff door. For the third time, it swung open in the breeze. Any minute now, the shoe would fall out of the hinge and the door would slam shut. No police cars were in sight, no welcome sirens came to her on the wind. The cellphone in her hand showed that ten minutes had passed since Terry and Rob had gone into the building. What was taking so long? They just had to find Lacey and come out to wait for the police. She’d give them another two minutes before panicking.

  Where were the Mounties? It took barely this long to get here from Cochrane at the speed limit. A “possible intruder” might not have merited their priority attention. Should she phone them again and say Jarrad’s murderer was in there? She scanned all the other doors she could see and came back to the staff door for approximately the hundredth time.

  The extra two minutes were up. Now what? Where in the building were they? Still chasing around the hallways looking for Lacey? Locked in a life-and-death struggle with Mick? Could she get as far as the atrium on pill power, in case she was needed?

  Incredibly, families happily biked past while her husband and her best friend might be fighting for their lives inside the beautiful new museum. Asking the bikers for help might put their children in danger. Patience. Terry or Rob would phone her when they’d found Lacey or Mick. She had to be here to direct the police. Anything but sitting would only exhaust her, to no useful purpose. She looked over the bridge toward the village, hoping for the sight of police lights. When she looked back at the museum, the staff door was moving again.

  This time it wasn’t the wind.

  Fingers gripped the door at about shoulder height, showing a forearm in a pale long-sleeved shirt. Rob and Terry were both wearing T-shirts. The door opened wider. In a shaft of sunlight, Mick stood, blinking. She pushed open the passenger door, ready to stop him, her phone already calling Rob’s. As soon as the truck door moved, Mick ducked back into the building. The door swung hard, then bounced off the sneaker.

  “He’s at the staff door,” she yelled as soon as Rob answered. “He went back inside.” Then she dropped the phone and turned the ignition key. No way was Mick getting the chance to use his getaway car.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Time to take stock. Feet free, mouth free, hands tied to a rolling cart. Ignore the trickle of water — at least Lacey hoped it was water — down her forehead. Could she roll to the door and get her hands to the lock? She pushed off from the back wall too hard and smashed into the door. Shock waves shot through her head and ribs. The cart rebounded in the narrow space, bashing her bruised hip. When her head cleared, she tried again, creeping instead of lunging. But the cart sloped upward like a flat-topped pyramid. The bottom shelf reached the door and stopped. Her groping fingers nearer the top touched only dark, empty air.

  She backed up the two feet or so to the rear wall, braced herself for the inevitable damage, and shoved off as hard as her legs could push. Crash. With a lightning storm behind her eyelids, she rebounded, banging against a side wall. The cart skewed sideways, but the door didn’t shift.

  “Shut up in there, or I’ll have to come in and knock you out.”

  Mick was back. Or he hadn’t left. She had only been in this closet for a matter of minutes, with the dripping clothes and hair to prove it. If he needed her silent, somebody else must be in the building.

  As the pain of her last attempt receded, she backed up to the wall again, braced her feet, took as deep a breath as her ribs would allow, and yelled for all she was worth. The closet rang with her voice for a couple of seconds, but it was enough. The lock clicked. He was coming in.

  As soon as dim light showed in the crack, she pushed forward as hard as she could. The cart hit the door and slammed it back. Lacey followed it, swinging around into the little hallway. As Mick staggered back, she got her feet under her, tucked her head to one side, and rammed her shoulder into his midsection. He fell against the opposite bank of lockers. His shirt caught on a latch, holding him for a microsecond. She rammed the cart’s wide lower shelf into his shins and backed off, twisting the cart around so she could stand almost upright. She gripped the wooden top and, ignoring the dizziness, rammed him again. The bottom shelf caught his ankles, and the top, tilting dangerously, slammed into his stomach. This time, when she staggered back to regain her balance, the duct tape parted. Hands freed!

  Mick scuttled sideways, lit by the faint light from the open door to the packing room. While she stood swaying, he grabbed the doorframe, hauled himself through, and started across the big room, clinging to the wide tables to stay on his feet. Lacey lurched after him, the cart keeping her upright. Its base bumped against table legs and chairs, setting the lights dancing in her eyes. She kept moving on sheer adrenalin, stalking him, hunting him down, the way he’d hunted Dee.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Ignoring the stabbing pain of every breath, fighting nausea with each bob of her head, Lacey clung to the cart and staggered across the shadowy room. Mick was almost to the far door, wheezing like an old steam engine. If he got out to the hall, he could go either way. She wouldn’t have the speed or stamina to search the whole building. She could have gone for her phone instead, but rage had propelled her those first dozen steps, and now she was committed.

  Slanted sunlight came in high on the west wall, gleaming on a smear of blood at the edge of a table. A handprint stamped in Mick’s DNA. If he managed to get clear of the building but she didn’t, that was evidence enough to link him to her death. Heartened by that thought, she pushed faster and caught the door before it swung shut. She shoved the cart through and eased her head around to the right, closing one eye to limit the distortion in her vision.

  The backstage stairs. How had he dragged himself up to the third step already?

  She shuffled over as fast as she was able, lifting one arm from the cart long enough to swipe her forearm over the sludge oozing down her right eye. When the bottom shelf hit the bottom step, she clung with her left hand and reached with her right. Puke rose in her throat from the pain, but just a hand span farther.… Snatching the back of his loose shirt, she held on.

  His foot slipped from the fourth stair and he fell to his knees, wrenching the cloth from her fingers. His hand scrabbled for the railing, and he managed to be more or less upright when his feet hit the cement floor. His free hand swung for Lacey’s gut. She got her arm across to deflect but that meant letting go of the cart, and he pushed it farther away as he stumbled past her. She swayed, lurched forward to grab her wheeled life support, and then, clinging to it, vomited.

  A thin trickle of tea drained from her throat. Oddly, although it tasted foul, it cleared her head. She raised her face cautiously, wiping the renewed sludge from her right eye. If the tea was still liquid, part of her brain said calmly, then this endless struggle wasn’t more than a quarter of an hour old. Now, where had Mick gotten himself to?

 
; Not far away at all. Leaning heavily on the wall, leaving streaks from one hand, he hadn’t made it to the corner yet. Ahead, up just six stairs, was the employee entrance, its door bouncing in the breeze, light and air swirling the dust motes up from the treads. At least, she hoped they were dust motes. If not, she was hallucinating something rather pretty. But she couldn’t let him climb those six stairs out of the building. Straightening up, shoving the cart in front of her for support, she shuffled along the hall.

  She heard her name again. At first, between shallow panting breaths, she thought it an auditory hallucination. But Mick was staggering on at twice his previous speed. Grabbing the stair rail, he began to pull himself up. She doubled up her panting and her footsteps and hit the bottom step with a rib-screaming thud. She and the cart tipped forward, crashing against Mick’s legs. His ear smacked the railing as he fell. They tumbled together, cart and legs and arms all sliding in a heap to the floor.

  Mick lay still, face down, groaning. Well beyond the last of her strength, Lacey rolled over onto his back, pinning him by the sheer dead weight of her broken body. She heard her name again.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  The cop car was just peeling off the bridge when Terry burst through the staff door, his arm streaked with something red and glistening. Jan climbed out of the truck to meet him.

  “Lacey?”

  “Rob’s with her. Get paramedics.” He grabbed the truck’s little first-aid kit and ran back inside.