by C. D. Samuda
When he pulled into the sublevel parking area, it was deserted except for three cars. Quinn’s car was not there and he breathed a sigh of relief. It was now 10:13 and Quinn would be off somewhere with one of his women.
Alan never once thought that one of the cars in the area was Leah’s. He made his way to the office and withdrew the documents from his desk drawer. Good, they were where he left them. He folded them and stuffed them into the left breast inside pocket of his jacket.
As he put away the documents, his hand brushed his phone. When he pulled it out, he noticed it has no charge. Turning out the lights, he returned to the car and plugged the phone into the car mobile charger. He then waited a few minutes before switching it on.
Several missed calls were from Quinn and most of all from Nicole. A voice message from his wife revealed how upset she was that he wasn’t home yet. She threatened to have his balls cut off if he wasn’t home by ten. It was already near 10:30. Without thinking further, he sped toward home.
“I’ll see about Leah tomorrow. For now, I have to talk to Nicole about all this.”
* * *
“Sir, he just left the office,” an officer from the surveillance team told Lawson. “Yes, I did as instructed … yes, Mack knows what to do.”
As Alan Smith drove into his apartment premises, Mack called it in. No one was supposed to approach him. Alan Smith parked rather badly, cutting across two spaces. He slammed the door shut and ran through the front door of the building, not stopping to give his usual greeting to the security man. The officer watching the apartment leaned back in his seat, doughnut and coffee in hand.
“This is going to be a long night.”
~23~
Leah groggily opened her eyes to darkness and dampness. With no clue where she was, she tried to remember what happened, but her brain seemed to have frozen. She could not concentrate hard enough to remember anything. Squeezing her lids shut she tried to focus. Opening and closing her eyes several time to adjust to the darkness yielded little fruit. She could barely make out anything.
The floor was cold and hard, like concrete. She twisted and tried to get up. Only then noticing that her hands and feet were bound with a gag over her mouth. She laid still for some time, trying to get a sense of where she was. In the stillness, she heard a sound. It was a feint tapping. Was it someone walking? She wondered. No, the sound was constant, like a rhythm, but it was the same. It didn’t seem to be moving. It had a familiar ring to it like she’d heard it before. She listened keenly and then it occurred to her that it was dripping water.
Leah strained her eyes to see through the darkness, but there was nothing. It was too black to see anything. Soon, drowsiness overcame her and her eyes slowly closed as sleep overcame her.
* * *
“Where is he now?” Lawson asked Nolan.
His partner was responsible for GPS tracking of Alan Smith. In Nolan’s hand was a tablet, which showed a red dot moving along the roadway. Each time the dot paused, a name would flash, indicating the place where the dot stopped.
“He stopped in Cali Mall for about ten minutes and is now on Steven Creek.”
Lawson was driving while Nolan kept his eyes on the tablet. Behind them were three patrol cars with back-up. The senior detective turned on to Steven Creek Blvd and drove below the speed limit, waiting for Nolan to update him.
“He stopped,” Nolan said. “Nowhere in particular … he’s off again.” Another ten minutes passed before Nolan spoke. “He turned unto Berkeley Close... he’s slowed the vehicle.”
“What’s on Berkeley Close?”
“That entire area belonged to the McKinley’s. Their old mansion sits on that property.”
Lawson didn’t need much more than that. The McKinley mansion was the ideal place to conceal a hostage. He knew his gut had been right. That’s what made him the detective he was. The tracking device that had been attached to the car by one of the officers from the surveillance team, led them straight to him. Alan didn’t even know it was there.
Before reaching the location, he made a call to the IT department. “Do we have a trace on the perps?”
“We traced Bolin’s cell phone to Clarendon Street. The other two cell phones are in the same area,” was the reply.
“Keep a lock on them, don’t lose them,” he instructed.
“Sir, a 911 call was placed from the area of Berkeley just a minute ago. Some woman has been held hostage there.”
“That idiot just dug his own grave.” Lawson chuckled before ending the call.
Lawson pulled up outside a Victorian style house that looked to be more than a hundred years old. With the best of the department at his service, he split the men into teams. One team, including himself, would enter the house while the others he placed at pivotal points around the old mansion. Nolan was in charge of the men outside.
There were two floors above ground, but his instincts told him to follow the footprints in the thick dust on the floor. There was a door in the old kitchen that led to a cellar of some kind, footpaths led there. With hand signals, he motioned for the men to back him up. Slowly he pushed the door open and stepped into the dark stairwell.
“Smith, this is the police, we know you’re down there!”
Silence returned to him and he glanced at the officer beside him. Smith’s vehicle was parked outside so he must be inside somewhere. He signaled to two of his men to search the rest of the house.
“Alan Smith come on out now with your hands in the air!” he repeated. “We’re coming in and we can’t promise we won’t hurt you.”
“Don’t shoot,” a voice came at him from the darkness below.
A light switched on and Alan appeared with his hands in the air. The officers with him rushed forward, cuffing him and flanking him on both sides.
“Where is the Miss Brooks?” Lawson asked.
“She’s down there,” Alan replied quietly. “How’d you find me?” he asked. “I didn’t take her, I was set up.”
Lawson ignored his plea of innocence. “You are under arrest for the attempted murder of Quinn Harrison and the kidnapping of Leah Brooks, you have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney and if you can’t afford one, then scum like you may just rot in hell.”
Alan flashed a look at him on the last few words and lowered his eyes. “I must talk to Quinn, please….”
“Keep silent,” Lawson advised. “Take him away.”
They escorted him and shoved him into the back of one of the patrol cars. Three officers came up from the cellar with Leah, while the patrol car with Alan rolled away from the broken down mansion. She squinted her eyes from mid-morning sun, raised her hand to shade them from the glare. When she saw Lawson, she gave him a weak smile.
“Did they hurt you?”
“No,” she said, her voice was hoarse. “I want to see his face. I want to know who did this.”
Lawson’s brows knitted in confusion. “You didn’t see his face?”
“The one who brought me here, he drugged, gagged and bound me. But that smell I will never forget.”
“What smell?” Lawson frowned.
“Like … let me see,” Leah closed her eyes and furrowed her brows. Her eyes popped open and her face brightened. “Gym shoes!”
Lawson made a note of this. Harrison described the perp as smelling like dirty socks, now Leah said gym shoes. Gym shoes – dirty sock – it was all the same.
“Gym shoes. Are you sure?”
“The smell made me wanted to vomit,” she told him. “But the voice I heard a while ago is new. I never heard that voice before. Who was it? He came yesterday as well … or was it today… I’m confused. But this guy gave me water.”
“Is there anything else you can tell us?”
Squinting her eyes, she placed a hand on her brow. “There was something else, but I can’t quite remember it all.”
“Don’t worry Miss Brooks, it’ll all come back soon.” This was Nolan speaking. “The a
mbulance is on its way.”
“Thank you for finding me,” she said and then her eyes widened. “Lila, my cat!”
“Don’t worry about the cat, he’s in good hands,” Lawson chuckled. She looked at him with a puzzled expression. “Your boyfriend is taking good care of her.”
END OF BOOK 1
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Titles by C.D. Samuda
The Love’s Abandon Series
His Sacrifice for Love
Breath of Fire
Complete Abandon
Angel Wishes (Christmas Novella)
Also, check out these books by C.D. Samuda’s alter egos:
Diana Flame
Awakening: The Prince of Xygor
The Cinderella Plan
The Red Cape
The Dragon Curse
Seduced by the Vampire Prince
* * *
Check Mate by Emerald Kingston
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
C.D. has been a fiction and non-fiction writer for many years, creating compelling stories, web content, articles and poetry.
She lives on the island paradise of Jamaica, where she spends most of her days writing. She has always known that she would be a writer. She spent her adulthood dreaming of writing her own novels while working a 9 to 5 job. With determination, she quit her job and started working at home full-time as a freelance writer. In 2016 resigned freelancing, dedicating her time to pursuing her dreams of being a novelist.
She is a lover of animals, and has two dogs, a cat and several goats. There are four things she cannot live without: cheesecake, chocolate, good ice-cream and coffee.