Shiver

by Karen Robards

  Sanders said, “Hey, Marco? Guess what? You don’t give the orders here.”

  “So give the fucking orders.”

  Sanders’s face tightened. He glanced into the rearview mirror. “Groves. Tell Morrison to call 911. You got the address?” Groves nodded. “And tell ’em to haul ass.”

  “Okay, 237 Clark,” Groves repeated, pressing a button on the radio. “I’m on it.”

  “Trey. Are you still there?” Tyler whispered.

  Danny uncovered the mouthpiece. “Yeah, Tyler, I’m still here. We’re on our way. How many men are there?”

  “Two. Or maybe three. I can’t tell.”

  “Okay. Just stay cool.”

  While he had been talking, Danny had been eyeing their progress on the portable GPS that was stuck to the dashboard by some sort of suction device. He covered the mouthpiece again. “Abramowitz, type in 237 Clark Street. Let’s see where it is.”

  Abramowitz, who was tall, thin, bald as an egg, and currently extremely nervous looking, hesitated, glancing at Sanders, who to Danny’s relief gave a curt nod of permission. Even as Abramowitz started to key in the address, another agonized “Please . . .” followed by unintelligible syllables and a soul-shattering scream shivered through the phone. When the scream was abruptly cut off, Danny realized that he was sweating. They’d gagged her, he figured. That was how they operated: give the victim a chance to spill the information they wanted, then if the victim wasn’t forthcoming gag and torture her some more before removing the gag and giving her another chance to talk. They’d never been known to leave a torture victim alive, either. How long did Cindy Menifee have? How long before she gave up the kid? Answer to both: the way the cartel worked, not long.

  “They put something in her mouth,” Tyler said. “They’re hurting her.”

  “Wait a minute.” Danny uncovered the mouthpiece. “How are you seeing all this? I thought you were under the bed.”

  “I got out to look.”

  Jesus Christ, the kid was scaring the life out of him. “You get back under the bed, right now, and stay out of sight,” he ordered, using the tone he would have used to an errant nephew. At the thought that if the kid was somewhere where he could see what was going down, he could also be seen, Danny felt his heart rate hit turbocharge. Covering the mouthpiece, he said urgently to Sanders, “We’re going to need more than street cops on this. Get somebody else on another radio, call somebody higher up the food chain. Get SWAT over there, maybe even the FBI. ASAP.”

  “We don’t have another radio. Anyway, 911’s the best I can do.” Sanders’s shrug brought a string of curses to the tip of Danny’s tongue. He swallowed them as counterproductive. “Can’t let anyone know we’re involved here. Too much at stake.”

  “Trey, are you almost here?” Tyler’s frightened question riveted Danny’s attention again before he could do more than shoot Sanders a lethal look. On the GPS, the route calculator snaked an arrow south, then east. “They cut Mrs. Menifee’s arm. With their knife. There’s blood everywhere. Tears are coming down her face.”

  Tyler sounded like he might have tears coming down his face, too. Danny’s gut clenched.

  “Are you back under the bed?” he asked fiercely.

  A few soft footsteps followed by a slithering sound gave him his answer.

  “I am now.”

  “Stay there.” Beside him, Groves was telling whoever was on the other end of the radio to call 911. God in heaven, glaciers moved faster than these guys.

  “We’ll be there real soon,” he said to Tyler, trying to sound as calm and steady as he didn’t feel. “We’re coming just as fast as we can.” Covering up the mouthpiece again, he looked at Sanders. “We’re going to 237 Clark. Now.”

  “No can do,” Sanders replied. They were nearing the expressway interchange. Danny could tell that by the giant streetlights that he could see clustered together maybe a block to the west. Once they were on that, there was no turning back: they would be on a one-way ride over the mighty Mississippi. “Not our mission. You know that.”

  Danny shot him a look that promised death as soon as he could deliver it. “You listen to me, you son of a bitch. I told her everything. The woman in the truck. Veith and the Zetas get their hands on her, she’ll sing like a bird, I guarantee it. Where the safe houses are. Who I’m fingering. The whole deal.”

  Beside him, Groves was still talking to whoever was on the radio, patiently walking them through the situation. According to the arrow on the GPS, the Taurus was only about five miles from 237 Clark.

  Sanders’s expression turned ugly. “You’re lying.”

  “You want to take the chance? That I didn’t tell her something? Hell, man, they’re torturing a woman as we speak. Somebody doesn’t stop them, they’re going to kill a four-year-old kid. While we drive away, listening on the goddamned phone.” By the end, it was a barely muted roar. He pointed at the GPS. “We’re five miles away. Go.”

  “Trey?”

  Danny took a deep breath and uncovered the mouthpiece. “I’m here, Tyler. We’re coming to get you. Sit tight.” He slid his palm over the mouthpiece again. Fear for the kid—and his mother—made him so antsy he could feel nerves jumping under his skin. Under other conditions, he would have shot the asshole driving if he’d had to and commandeered the car. “She heard me talking to you on the phone, Sanders. She knows your name. She was sitting right beside me when I called you. Think about it: you know it’s true.”

  “Fuck.” Sanders’s face reddened as anger infused it. The look he sent Danny was as murderous as Danny felt. At that moment they reached the next intersection, where the GPS arrow pointed left. Looking like he was ready to explode, Sanders cut the wheel sharply and went left on what felt like two wheels.

  Thank you, God.

  “I’m scared,” Tyler whispered.

  Danny knew the feeling; he was scared, too. “I know you are. Nothing bad’s going to happen to you, I promise. We’ll be there real soon.” Cold sweat slid down his spine as he prayed he could deliver on that promise.

  “This is a mistake,” Sanders said. “I fucking know it.”

  “They’re going to kill a kid,” Danny shot back, his palm over the mouthpiece again.

  All of a sudden Mrs. Menifee screamed like an animal being slaughtered. Even through the phone, the sound was so loud and shrill and full of pain and terror that it filled the car. When the scream cut off, abruptly like it was deliberately stopped, Danny found that he was holding his breath.

  “You hear that?” he asked Sanders fiercely. Even as the other man’s jaw set, Danny heard Tyler whimpering. Please God let them not find the kid. He didn’t have to see it to know that whatever had just gone down had been real bad. Uncovering the mouthpiece, Danny spoke as calmly as possible into the phone. “Tyler. You need to stay real quiet, remember? Is there any way you can get out of the house without them seeing you? You’d have to be real sure they couldn’t see you before you tried it, though.”

  “Locals are on their way,” Groves announced.

  “Then we can damned well leave them to it,” Sanders growled.

  Danny put his palm over the mouthpiece again. “You do that, you abandon this kid and his mother, and the government will never get another word out of me, I promise you. I won’t say a fucking syllable, you understand that?” He cut a look at Groves. “Get back on the radio and tell whoever that this is a potential hostage situation and they’re going to need SWAT. Then tell them to contact the FBI.”

  “Boss?” Groves looked at Sanders.

  “Do it,” Sanders snapped.

  “I think Mrs. Menifee might be dead,” Tyler said.

  Briefly Danny closed his eyes. “Don’t think about that. Remember what I asked you? Can you get out of the house without them seeing you?”

  “When I go to the door of my bedroom, I can see them.” Tyler’s voice was barely audible now, the faintest of whispers. “That means they can see me, right? I have to go out of my bedroom, and run d
own the hall, and get out the front door.”

  “Don’t try it.” Just picturing it made Danny’s skin crawl. “You’re under the bed again, right?” A sound from Tyler confirmed it. “That’s a good place to hide. You just stay put, then. We’re coming to get you. We’re almost there.” According to the GPS, they were a little over four miles away and closing fast. The dark streets were almost deserted. Although Danny realized that he was automatically listening for them, no sirens could be heard dashing to the rescue. Beside him, Groves was once again on the damned radio. Shoving a shoulder into him, he mouthed, “Hurry the fuck up.”

  Groves glared at him, then said into the radio, “Yeah, it’s going down right now. Tell ’em to hurry up.”

  “There’s blood all over the kitchen floor. They cut Mrs. Menifee real bad. She wasn’t moving.” Tyler’s voice caught on a sob.

  “Don’t think about it. Try to think about something else instead,” Danny instructed, sick at the thought of what the boy had seen, what he would see if they didn’t get there in time. Or worse than see. The fact that Tyler was a four-year-old kid wouldn’t even slow Veith and company down. Danny thought about his own nephews, attempted a distraction. “I bet you like the Avengers, right?”

  “I want my mom,” Tyler whimpered, undistracted. Hell, no surprise in that. Danny heard him take a long, shaky breath. Then Tyler added, “What happens if they find me?”

  Danny’s throat went tight. “They’re not going to find you. Just stay where you are and be as quiet as you can.”

  “Mom’s here.” The relief in Tyler’s voice was palpable.

  “What?” Something that felt like a giant fist grabbed Danny’s heart and squeezed.

  “She’s here. I know she is. I can hear Big Red. That’s the truck she drives. It makes a lot of noise. She’s probably parking it out in front like she always does.”

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” Exhaling the words, Danny felt like his insides had just been flash frozen. Then a second, terrifying thought hit him. Would the kid pop out and go running to her? “Tyler, you stay where you are, you hear? Tyler?”

  But the kid wasn’t there anymore, or if he was, he wasn’t answering.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Sam’s heart rate hit about a thousand miles a minute as she pulled up across the street from her duplex. Terrified of attracting any notice at all, she winced at the loud groan of the brakes. The fear that she was being followed—chased—had had her stealing terrified glances through the rearview mirror the whole way home. So far, nothing. At least, nothing that she could spot. She’d practically broken land speed records getting there, helped by the fact that traffic was so light as to be almost nonexistent. The moment it stopped, Sam slammed the transmission into park, grabbed the keys and her gun, and leaped from the truck. Ignoring the engine’s last shuddering gasps, she sprinted across the dark street, trying to look in a dozen directions at once. No streetlamps around here, and no friendly night-owl neighbor types walking a dog, either. The residents had long since learned that their health was best preserved by staying off the streets in the small hours of the night. Nothing but a cat on the sidewalk, and it took off running as soon as it saw her coming. The yard was about the size of a postage stamp, with grass that had gone crispy from the heat and one bedraggled pine tree that was slowly turning brown from the bottom up. Like the rest of the yards on the block, which was an eclectic collection of aging shotgun-style single-family homes and duplexes, this one was enclosed by a saggy chain-link fence. Thrusting her gun into the front waistband of her jeans, yanking her shirt down over it so that Tyler wouldn’t see and ask awkward questions, Sam struggled with the latch on the gate, which was rusty and difficult to work, then flew up the walk toward the front door. The duplex itself was one story, pale blue frame, with two deep blue doors, one on either side of the covered front porch. She and Tyler lived in the unit on the left, which had two small bedrooms, plus a bath, kitchen, and living room. Although by now it was well past 4:00 a.m., some lights were still on inside her unit: she could see the pale glow through the drawn curtains. Mrs. Menifee was almost always asleep on the couch by the time Sam got in. But since she never would admit that she fell asleep, the TV was always left on, along with a fair number of lights.

  A white plastic grocery bag waited on the weathered wood porch by the front door. Kendra. She’d come through with the pancake mix and syrup. Sam’s chest felt tight as she scooped it up. Where would she be in the morning, when it came time to make Tyler breakfast?

  Short answer: not here.

  We’ll head into St. Louis, then keep going toward Branson, or maybe Kansas City, she planned frantically as she thrust her key into the front door lock. Make it Kansas City, because it’s got more people, which means we’ll be harder to find. God, how far can we get on a little over a tank of gas?

  I should ask Mrs. Menifee if I can borrow some money. But she knew already that she wasn’t going to do it. Asking to borrow money would take time; Mrs. Menifee would want an explanation. The last thing Sam could tell her was the truth and coming up with a plausible lie was, she feared, beyond her at the moment. Anyway, time was what she didn’t have. As it was, she was going to have to practically push Mrs. Menifee out the door. Usually the two of them had a nice chat, but Sam had a gut feeling that now every second counted. She needed to get Tyler, and get gone.

  When the lock clicked open, it was all she could do to restrain herself from bursting through the front door. Instead she walked in very calmly, closing the door behind her, glancing around the living room. The room was small, the furniture early Goodwill, but it was clean and comfortable and that was all she asked of it. As she had expected, the TV was on, a lamp burned beside the couch, and the throw that she kept on the back of the couch was flung across the coffee table. Mrs. Menifee had obviously been taking her usual nap in her usual place. Just at that moment, however, she was nowhere in sight.

  Maybe she’s in the bathroom, Sam thought, frowning as she glanced toward the back of the duplex, where the light was on in the kitchen, which was straight ahead at the end of the short hallway. But the bathroom door was open, and the light was off.

  “Mrs. Menifee?” Dropping the groceries onto the coffee table, she headed for the kitchen. It was the only place the other woman could be. Ordinarily Sam would have been careful not to wake Tyler, who should be curled up in his bed sound asleep, but since she was going to be bundling him out to the truck in the next few minutes anyway, being quiet as a mouse wasn’t anything she needed to worry about. Her bedroom was closest to the living room, Tyler’s was next to the kitchen, and the bathroom was in between. Like the bathroom, the bedroom doors were open and the rooms themselves were dark. For the briefest of seconds she pictured Tyler curled up in his cozy bed in the room she had painstakingly decorated with images of dragons and wizards and lightning bolts that she had cut out of a children’s magazine then enlarged with a copying machine so he could be surrounded by his favorite characters. Then her heart contracted as she realized that Tyler wouldn’t be sleeping in his room again for a while.

  How long until it would be safe to come back? She didn’t know. She didn’t know anything, except that she needed to run.

  “I’m home,” she called as, hearing nothing from Mrs. Menifee, she plunged into the shadowy hall, heading for the kitchen.

  Do not forget Ted. Sam was just reminding herself about the small brown Beanie Baby teddy bear that Tyler absolutely loved and couldn’t go to sleep without when something—a sound, a shadow, a feeling—slowed her steps just about the time she found herself opposite the bathroom door.

  Whatever it was, she couldn’t put her finger on it. It felt like—a kind of heaviness in the air. A hush. A sense of expectancy. Sam registered all those things at the same moment as it occurred to her to wonder why Mrs. Menifee wasn’t answering, or bustling through the kitchen door to meet her, or something of the sort. The duplex was small. Mrs. Menifee had to have heard her . . .

&nb
sp; Something’s wrong.

  Her body knew it before she did. The tiny hairs on the back of her neck prickled to life. Her stomach tensed. A shiver slid over her skin. Nearly opposite Tyler’s bedroom door by then, she could see almost a third of the kitchen. The familiar white cabinets, white counters, lemon-yellow walls . . .

  A deep red rivulet snaked slowly across the kitchen’s white linoleum floor. Sam frowned at it for a second before what she was seeing registered.

  Blood!

  Sam stopped dead, her breathing suspended, her gaze riveted on the creeping thread of scarlet.

  Tyler.

  Oh, God, had something happened to her baby? Had the men Marco warned her about already found their way here? That was the fear that catapulted her forward into a run, that made her snatch her gun from her waistband, that wrung a strangulated sound from her throat. A split second later, Sam saw to her horror that the rivulet led to a widening scarlet pool that led to a plump arm trailing limply from one of her kitchen chairs. Alongside the chair’s slender aluminum leg hung a motionless hand with long, deep pink fingernails awash in blood, a limp palm streaked in scarlet—wait, there were only four fingernails. She could only see four fingernails. The truth burst upon her in an explosion of horror: the tip of the index finger had been severed at the knuckle. The mutilated joint was running red. Her heart gave a great leap in her chest. Her pulse shot through the roof. Her stomach clenched. Mrs. Menifee . . .

  She didn’t need to see more than that small sliver of the gruesome scene to know that something terrifying awaited her just steps away.

  A cold hand grabbed hers even as she started backpedaling only a foot or so before she reached the white linoleum, scaring her so badly that she jumped and squeaked and almost fell. Her shoulder crashed into the wall as she whirled to confront whoever it was.