by J. R. Ward
Chapter
Sixteen
“Blah-blah, blah, blah!”
As Cait stopped screaming, she had to struggle to make her hearing work over the din of the alarm—and her adrenaline gland. Too much input in too tiny a space with too little air to breathe.
And maybe that was her brain along with the elevator.
“Police!” came a holler on the other side of the closed doors.
“Ms. Douglass? What’s happening?”
Oh, right, and the 911 call was still live in her ear.
“Ah—the police say that they’re here—but I’m not opening these doors until I know for sure.”
“Hold one moment.” Like this was a catalog call and they were verifying her credit card. “Ms. Douglass? The officer’s name should be Hoffman. Peter Hoffman. Ask the individual who they are.”
“What’s your name!” she yelled over the alarm.
“Hoffman! Pete Hoffman—badge number ten forty-one!”
She addressed the phone. “Ten forty-one? The badge?”
“That checks out, ma’am. Open the doors.”
“I’m staying on with you if I do.”
“I’m right here.”
Cait watched as her hand went forward and her fingers tripped the red switch downward. Instantly the alarm was extinguished, but the ringing continued, her ears struggling with the sudden silence.
She did hear another ding, however, like the elevator was clearing its throat and preparing for a redo. Then the doors slid to the left, stacking in on top of each other.
The navy blue uniform and the shiny badge on the other side? Best. Thing. Ever.
She nearly launched herself at the guy. Wait—actually she did. “Oh, thank God.”
“Ma’am?” The cop grabbed her arm and hoisted her up. “Let’s sit down.”
Yes, let’s, shall we?
The shaking was pretty unparalleled, as if her insides had come to a rolling boil. And nothing much registered, not whatever Peter Hoffman, badge 1041, was saying to her, not the cold, hard concrete her butt was on, not the words she was apparently speaking in response to questions. The largest part of her was still in that elevator, lunging for the alarm, praying that the locking mechanism of the doors held, wondering how the evening had mutated into nightmare.
“… didn’t see them clearly,” she heard herself say. “Someone was rushing toward me. They were coming from the ramp, walking quickly—then breaking into a run.”
“And then what happened?”
“I raced into the elevator and hit the button.” Every time she blinked, she saw her fingers in the strobe lighting, punching, punching, punching. “I just … and then I called nine-one-one. Oh … God … I can’t stop this shaking.”
“You’re in shock, ma’am.”
Guess so. The thing was, talking about it to law enforcement made everything concrete, any vague fantasy that this was just a bad dream concocted while she was asleep in her own bed dissipating into the cold air.
The good news was that the officer was calm and even-toned, and that—along with the gun holstered on his hip—made her feel a lot safer. “Backup has just arrived and they’re going to search the perimeter and the floors. But whoever it was? They’re probably gone. I hate to say this, but a woman alone in this part of town? We get a lot of these calls—and unfortunately, the aggressors are very good at disappearing.”
She was inclined to agree with the get-gone theory. Seemed only logical. Trouble was, the lack of closure was a black hole for her—and now that the primary wave of anxiety had passed and she couldn’t see her attacker, she was stuck wondering whether she had overreacted.
Or had she just saved her own life?
Pickpocket or violent mugger?
Rapist or just someone trying to tell her she had toilet paper stuck to her shoe?
No, she decided. As she remembered the wave of menace, she knew the answer—and had to wonder yet again how God made the choice between who survived and who didn’t. Who was granted a lickety-split save … and who ended up in a living hell.
Strangely, the prospect of that decision making made her feel bad for whoever was up there in the clouds watching all the drama on Earth. If you went on the theory that God was a beneficent creator of all things? You had to assume He felt the pain of victims as they didn’t so much cross into the afterlife, but were thrown over in pieces.
Horrible…
As two other officers appeared and reported that there was nobody in the parking facility, things took a turn for the paperwork, the whole event downshifting sharply into procedural territory—confirming her statement, receiving a case number, a business card, an escort back to her car.
Normal. So amazingly normal that she was nearly as rattled as she had been while in full panic mode.
After she had belted herself in and started her SUV, the police officers, all three of them, watched her back out of her space—and their expressions were like those of parents watching a sixteen-year-old go off alone for the first time.
Fragile optimism backed up by a whole lot of hope-she-calls-if-she-needs-us.
Cait barely remembered the drive home, but the one clear part was checking and rechecking that she’d locked the Lexus’s doors. Then, when she parked in her garage, she waited for the panels to come back down before she got out—and she threw the dead bolt as soon as she was in the house.
Shower was the first and only goal—after she initiated her ADT alarm. And when she got into her bathroom? She turned the lock on her loo as well.
Wonder how long that habit was going to last.
Cranking the shower on, she undressed, and for the first time in recorded history, left her clothes where they lay: shirt in the sink, loafers and socks kicked off around the base of the toilet, pants sloughed onto the bath mat in front of the tub. Usually she stripped in her closet by her three wicker laundry baskets, one each for whites, darks, and delicates/colors—the last a twofer because she had few colors. Oh, and her dry-cleaning bag was in there, too.
Amazing how fearing for your life could prioritize things.
As she got under the spray, she wrapped her arms around herself and hung her head. The water was a balm inside and out, as solid and warm as a blanket over her shoulders and back, as calming as an ocean breeze as the steam rose up and went down deep into her lungs.
It wasn’t until she had dried off, gotten into her robe, and gone downstairs to make herself some tea that she realized…
“Shit.”
Going over to the counter by the stove, she did another dive into her mangled purse. Pulling out her phone, she called up G.B.’s number out of her Received List and hit send. As it rang, she ran through her apology in her head.
I’m so sorry, but I was nearly … mugged?
Not really accurate.
I’m so sorry. I … was chased in the parking garage, and ended up trapping myself in an elevator and calling 911 and having a chat-up with the police—such nice guys, by the way ….
Flustered, she ended the call before he picked up.
Pacing around in her bare feet—which, P.S., kind of grossed her out even though she’d cleaned the floor on her hands and knees the day before—she tried to pull things together.
Cursing again, and thinking that it was a rare night for her to have dropped so many R-rated words at all, much less in the matter of an hour, she tried to get her brain working.
What a no-go that was. It was like she had a hangover, everything clogging up, moving slow, making little sense.
But that was no excuse to leave G.B. hanging. How long had he waited for her in that lobby?
Feeling awful about so much, she brought up her phone, and—
She had a voice mail. From G.B.
It had just come in, but she’d put her phone on mute because she’d assumed she’d be in the theater all night long.
Bracing herself to feel even worse than she did, she initiated the recording, putting the phone up to her ear
.
His voice sounded so rich and deep. “Cait? Oh, my God, I’m so sorry—I hope you didn’t wait very long for me? I got tied up backstage, and I couldn’t get free forever—they were doing publicity shots, and interviews, and I tried to send someone out there for you, but everyone who was affiliated with the show was running around like crazy. Please … give me another chance? I blew it. I know I did.” As he exhaled in frustration, she pictured him dragging his hands through that long hair of his. “I’m really, totally sorry. I’m going to finish up with the other folks now, and then … I guess I’ll go home. Call me if you feel like it, okay? Again, I’m so sorry.”
Cait put the phone facedown on the table. Curled up a fist and rested her chin on it.
As she stared across the linoleum, she felt weird. Not exactly depressed—because that would be ridiculous. In the first place, she was alive. And secondly, as it turned out, she hadn’t been the one to let things down with G.B.: If she hadn’t been chatting with the uniforms, she’d have just been cooling her heels in the foyer of the theater, stewing on whether or not to call him and when she should leave.
The evening had turned out to be a total bust.
Glancing down at her feet, she flexed her toes.
Her lack of footwear, at least, was an issue she could do something about.
Getting up, she hit the stairs in search of fresh white socks and her UGG slippers. And as she went, that odd off-kilter feeling followed her to the second floor, staying on her close as a second skin.
Maybe it would help if she put a label on whatever it was … but she was too afraid to.
As she came back into her room, she thought about Sissy again, and prayed that the afterlife was easier than the stuff that went down on the earth.
At least if you were a ghost, or an angel, or whatever you turned into, you didn’t have to deal with being chased in parking garages. Or talking to the police.
As Jim sat behind the wheel of his truck, making turns like he knew where he was taking him and Sissy, he felt pretty damn castrated. Even though there was a lot about this situation that wasn’t his fault? Didn’t matter. Someone had to take responsibility for the unfairness and there was no one else in line with him.
Plus, he didn’t like the way she was just sitting there. Especially as she put the visor down and looked at herself in the credit card–size mirror. When she flipped it back up, he wasn’t sure whether she’d seen what she wanted. Probably not.
“McDonald’s,” he repeated, in case she’d been too distracted. “Okay?”
When he didn’t get a response, he let her be. A Big Mac, large fries, and a Coke were probably not first on her mind right now, but if he didn’t get some food in him, he was going to—
“Fuck!”
Wrenching the wheel to the right, he narrowly missed a black cat that ran right out in front of them. Which was the good news. The bad? As the damn thing shot off in the opposite direction, the truck beelined for an oak tree big enough to be in a Harry Potter movie.
Without thinking about it, Jim threw an arm bar across the seat, catching Sissy at chest level, as if that would somehow work out better for her than her goddamn seat belt. At the same time, he tried to course-correct by yanking a hard left and slamming on the brakes.
As time slowed, he watched the tree rush for the front grille, all defensive lineman and then some.
Wasn’t this perfect timing—a car accident right in the middle of—
Boom!
Okay, really getting tired of explosions at this point. And the impact certainly sounded like the discharge of a small-bore cannon—or at the very least a bazooka. But he had more important problems than pegging a decibel match.
Unlike Sissy, he’d forgotten to put his seat belt on.
And also unlike her, his air bag failed to deploy.
He caught the steering wheel in the pecs and the windshield right in the face, a brilliant flash of light making him feel like someone had hit his good self in the puss with a roman candle.
Man, there had been waaaaaaaaaaaaay too many light shows and loud noises…
… lately.
“What the fuck!” he yelled as someone came at him.
Instead of waiting for an answer, Jim grabbed whatever was in front of him and hauled the weight to the side, rolling with it and mounting up with every intention of beating the ever-living—
“Stop! Stop! I’m a paramedic! I’m here to help you!”
As his “attacker” cringed into the pavement, Jim frowned and noticed that there was a stethoscope around the man’s neck. And the guy was wearing a uniform with patches. And there were red and blue strobe lights going off everywhere.
He looked around, still keeping one hand locked hard on that throat, and the other curled into a fist and held high over his shoulder.
Over to the right, like something out of an ad for insurance policies, his truck was wrapped around a tree trunk—
The tackle came from the other direction, the one he wasn’t looking in, and whoever it was had some experience knocking people down. Jim bowling-pinned it to the ground, the force sliding him across the asphalt, ripping a hole in his arm, driving the breath out of his chest.
Unlike him, however, his wrecking ball was not prepared to beat the shit out of his target.
As Jim was all but bolted face-first to the ground, a sensible voice said in his ear, “You’ve been in a motor vehicle accident. You were unresponsive when we arrived on scene. The EMTs are in the middle of their medical assessment, and with your consent, they would like to continue.”
Jim strained the one eyeball he had with any upward trajectory. The mountain heap on top of him was an African-American CPDer with a goatee and a bald head. And the heavy bastard seemed perfectly content to take a TO on Jim’s backside for however long the situation required it.
Sissy! Where was—
“What’s that, sir?” the cop said. “Sissy? You were alone when we found you, sir.”
“No! Sissy was with me!” Oh, great. He had the enunciation of a three-year-old, the words coming out with all kinds of ths where they shouldn’t be.
“Look, how about we take this one thing at a time. Do you consent to be treated?”
“I need to find her.”
The EMT Jim had welcome-matted came over, walking with a limp. “I think he’s got a head injury—”
“Sir, I’m going to have to cite you for—”
As they both started yammering at him, Jim figured he’d change his tactic. “Fine, treat me,” he spat.
The main issue was that he had to find out where Sissy was— so he needed his booty-sitter up and off of him.
God, please let Devina not have shown up with her normal fucking impeccable timing.
The cop dismounted slowly. “You’re going to have to lie still. Your head went through a lot of glass, and we’re also worried about your spinal column.”
Roger that, occifer.
Jim immediately flipped over onto his back with every intention of getting to his feet. But the instant he tried to do the upward-mobility thing, his body went weak on him.
“Nah,” the cop said, “you don’t need to be doing that—”
“I’m right here.”
Jim wrenched his head to the female voice. And as he did, a sharp shooter rode up right into his brain, making him wince.
“Let me get a collar on him,” another medic said.
“Can you tell me your name?” the cop asked.
But Jim wasn’t tracking, and he didn’t care what they did to him. Sissy was standing under a streetlamp just on the periphery of the action, watching over the drama, her arms wrapped around herself.
Talk about an angel.
Maybe it was his injury … but man, all he could think of was how beautiful she was—and not in the ways of a girl, but as a woman. That illumination she was under cast a beckoning thrall around her, her long, straight blond hair teased by the wind, her eyes grave and serious, not wide and
scared: In spite of the accident, she stood tall and strong, even though there had been way too many traumas tonight.
“Thank God,” Jim breathed.
“Really,” the cop said as the EMTs crowded around and various medical devices were taken out of carry-ons and attached to him. “Didn’t think parents went with Thank anymore as a first name. And God’s pretty unusual.”
Wha—oh, the name question. “No, I found her,” Jim muttered.
“Who?”
“Sissy.” Jim tried to lift his head again. “I’m okay,” he called out to her.
“Have you had anything to drink, sir?” the cop asked.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Sissy said.
“Yes,” Jim replied. “I’m sure.”
“We’ve got a confirm on the alcohol,” the cop interjected.
Another uniformed somebody or other came over. “Have you found a wallet on him?”
“Sir, do you have a driver’s license?”
“Don’t worry,” he told Sissy.
“Well, I’m supposed to be concerned about this,” his cop said. “It’s my job.”
“Give the man your license,” she interjected.
Shit. He probably still had his old one with him, but if they searched the name and photo? “I’m dead,” he mumbled.
The paramedic who he’d clotheslined laughed. “If so, you’re the first stiff I’ve ever met who has blood pressure.”
Wait for it, Jim thought.
“I’ll put a spell on them,” Jim said as a cuff was put around his neck. “It’ll take care of everything.”
“Bring over the stretcher,” a voice shouted.
“I’m not going to the hospital.”
The cop leaned in and smiled at him. “A spell, huh? You’re just going to blink and this is all going to go away?”
Jim met the man right in the eye, locking on, locking in. “That’s right.”
With a force of will, he sent energy outward, pushing it through the air molecules between them, assuming control of the man’s mind, and through it, all of his thoughts and actions. The solution out of this mess was to do the same thing one by one with the others, and then he and Sissy were free.