by D. Humphries
“Yeah. We did. Streets are safe for now.” He led the way down the stairs to the courthouse’s reception area.
“For now? Don’t be so pessimistic.”
“I’ve got to be honest with myself, I’m not going to feel safe until he’s convicted and behind bars for good.”
“I suppose that keeps you from being disappointed.”
They made small talk from the courthouse to the parking lot, but from there they walked quietly, only ever disturbed by yawns. “Still a lot of paperwork to do,” Connor sighed. Then he quickly smiled.
“This is child’s play compared to everything else.”
“You’re right about that.”
Upon their return to the station, it was impossible to avoid the crowd of officers anxious to hear the verdict of the trial. Many of them sustained injuries during the station shooting, many more than Connor was comfortable thinking about.
The pain of losing two friends was enough weight on his conscience. He didn’t need any more. As for Olivia, she was only happy everyone made it out safely; and the officers were happy to learn that Warren’s new home would be in a cell.
In the weeks preceding the initial trial, paperwork from various other cases piled up on Connor’s desk. He and Olivia faced the pile with indignation. Alas, it was work, and much better work than risking their lives on the frontlines.
“Olivia?” Connor leaned back in his seat. Olivia was familiar with the posture. He never got like that unless he wanted to discuss something significant. She took the cue and closed the door shut.
“Connor?”
“I’m grateful that you transferred here, whatever the reason. I did some thinking in the courtroom and it became all too obvious to me how close I am to Warren Simmons.”
“Well yeah, you were in the same room.” Olivia laughed. Seeing as Connor refused to share in her humor, she let the giggles fade away without ceremony.
“I had good parents and a good upbringing. I’ve always done my best to honor the badge. But after that guy killed my partner, I felt things I’ve never felt before, and if you weren’t here to calm me down, who knows what I could have done.”
“Don’t beat yourself up over it.”
“It’s hard not to. It’s not as if those things I felt appeared out of nowhere. They’re a part of me. I don’t express it very often but that doesn’t change the facts. Under different circumstances, I might have been pushed to kill. I might have been on a different side of the law.”
Olivia let the words sink in. She felt the weight of Connor’s internal dilemma with all her heart. Now more than ever, she wished him nothing but happiness and the strength he needed to overcome whatever crucibles life sent him through.
“A gun in the hands of the wrong person…” Connor whispered under his breath. He was beginning to see the reality of it, the coldness of a world that enabled anyone to become a killer. But Olivia saw a new light in it too.
“We have to trust in the goodwill of people. Regulations will only make people upset. As much as I hate what happened, I think it’s more important to trust in our neighbors than to be wary of them all the time. That’s no way to live either.”
“There must be a middle ground.”
“There always is. The thing is, I don’t think people will ever be ready to reach it. We have to compromise with what we have and do the best with the tools we’re given. That’s what justice is about.”
Connor nodded and yawned. He mindlessly shuffled the paperwork about. “You know, I think this can all wait until tomorrow. The Commissioner would want us to take some time off. We had a big victory today.”
What little positive energy had been in the room then simmered out. The Commissioner had sustained severe injuries during the shootout. He was still in the hospital and Connor was the only officer who had yet to visit. He simply couldn’t bring himself to go out there and see the man who held the department together bedridden and useless. He refused to.
Olivia didn’t push the situation. She only nodded back and the two of them made their way out. As they were leaving, she thought, “Taking off early…well-deserved! Time to go pick up Nicholas and head home to spend time with him.”
The two parked on opposite sides, so they said their final goodbyes and walked to their respective cars. Connor’s was closest to the entrance. He got in, turned the ignition, and his car screeched to life.
But that wasn’t all that screeched.
Though barely audible over the rumbling of the engine, Connor couldn’t have mistaken the panicked yelp of his new partner from across the lot. He peered through the windshield to where Olivia was standing. Behind her stood a tall, lean man dressed in fatigues and holding a gun to her head.
He escaped? The thought. Fear, panic, and anger ran freely through Connor’s mind. He threw open the door of his car, hurried out, and drew his weapon. “Don’t you move!” he called across the lot, but the assailant knew he wouldn’t fire. He wouldn’t risk hitting his partner.
“Negotiate the release of Warren Simmons from confinement or there’s going to be a lot more slaughtered pigs.” The lean man backed up against Olivia’s car, the door of which was already open. Carefully, he pulled the two of them into the car.
Connor stepped forward, stabilizing his aim.
“Don’t come any closer! And don’t follow me. Do what you’re told and you might get her back alive!”
Bloodied images from the night of the first shooting flooded back to Connor. His head pounded. He felt it again—the weakness, the helplessness—and in that moment, he wanted for nothing more than to see this new man slain. He wanted to replace the bodies of his friends with the bodies of the killers, to breathe life back into those good men.
Why did that voice sound familiar? He couldn’t get a good look at his face with that hoodie on.
Olivia’s car lit up, this new perpetrator at the wheel. He flashed white teeth through the side window as he pulled out and sped down the road into the darkness.
Chapter 9
ALL THE OFF-DUTY OFFICERS WERE CALLED TO RETURN TO THE STATION but there was only one whom he trusted to manage the operation he had in mind.
According to Commissioner Casey, Anna Gaines had managed to dig up intel regarding the killer during an initial prior search. If she was as skilled on that front as Connor needed her to be, it wouldn’t take long to pin down the guy who took Olivia.
In a stroke of luck, Connor’s expectations were realized. Along with two others, Anna Gaines entered the station. They made their way to the Commissioner’s desk where Connor stood waiting.
“How can we help?” the young computer tech asked.
Connor looked her over. He’d never paid her much attention before. His assessment of her was that she was too caught up in technology and not devoted enough to police work. But as the current case proved, the two weren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.
“He took two of our own,” he preached from the front of the room as soon as everyone entered.
“The Commissioner is still hospitalized. Until he gets the clear, there’s no telling how his condition might change or what complications will come up.” The three faces turned even grimmer.
“Tonight, he has taken a hostage—one of us—and we’re not going to stop working this case until she’s safe. No one else is going to die on account of these twisted fucks.”
No applause followed. No smiles, no congratulations. They didn’t have time for any of that.
Instead, the four officers were assigned to Anna who was to split the responsibility of perusing each of the department’s social media sites. Anna was to train and oversee all interactions on social media.
It was a last-minute ordeal getting them up to speed on the best way to approach information online, but Anna taught them well. They were all willing students because it was one of their own who had been kidnapped.
As for Connor, he had to make sure that Olivia’s son was taken care of. He searched through the
rolodex on her desk and discovered the name of the babysitter/childcare provider who watched him after school. He phoned the house to see if she was still there and asked her to please stay with Olivia’s son and he would fill her in on the details later.
Once he knew that important detail was out of the way, he delegated himself to going through Warren’s files for any associates who might fit the bill for the kidnapping.
While he worked on that, an image of Olivia’s car was uploaded onto Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook by each of the three officers overseeing one of those accounts. Anna kept Facebook for herself to work. Then, all they could do was wait.
It was late, far too late for them to expect immediate results. The darkness would shelter Warren’s accomplice throughout the night, but at the very least they could get a head start on circulating the information.
Connor made the call to Olivia’s childcare provider and filled her in. Since her son was so small, he told her to be discreet as to why his mom was not coming home tonight. He also told her not to worry and that he would be getting her back safely. Before he hung up he told her he would keep her informed.
By the morning, Connor expected to have a few decent leads on where Warren’s accomplice planned on taking Olivia.
Connor clenched his fists. It wasn’t a typical ransom situation. The kidnapper wouldn’t betray his location since they didn’t need to actually deliver verifiable goods to him. That meant he had the upper hand…for now.
The night wore on, and the officers eventually slowed their work. Only so much could be done that night, and when Connor felt they’d worked to the best of their abilities given the tools of each platform, he let them know they no longer needed to stay.
All three refused to leave the office. Everyone decided they would spend the night at the station. Not one of them wanted to be far away if something popped in the middle of the night. Besides, they didn’t mind nodding off at their cubicles. After all, this was one of their own who was missing.
Just like that, the night passed. The sun rose at its usual time and the day shift officers flooded into the station. Like the night before, few words were exchanged. Every man and woman who stepped through that door knew the game, and they could play it without instruction.
It wasn’t long into the day when Anna came up with something on Twitter. “Connor! You’re going to want to look at this.”
“On my way.” Connor practically leapt over desks on his way to analyze the new information.
The officer pointed at the screen where in response to the post describing Olivia’s car—a bright red, four-door Ford—someone posted an image of an identical car sitting outside an abandoned garage.
“That’s on the edge of town, isn’t it?”
Anna said, “Let me bring up a local street camera view/image.”
“Save the image. Check it for a geotag. Meanwhile, follow up with whoever posted that. I want to know everything. I want to know when they first saw it, when they took the picture, who else was there. And get someone to clear that up.” He pointed at the license plate. “I want a match.”
“You got it.” She dug her head back into the monitor. Then, from a few desks down, another called out to her with more information: a video taken late last night of a car stopped on the side of the road.
The lights were on and there was movement between two figures, though it was too dark and blurred to see exactly what was going on. The one certainty was that the car was red, just like Olivia’s.
“Where’s this?” Connor asked.
The officer scrolled down through the list of responses. One of them pointed out a faint yellow glow moving horizontally across the image. Police tape. The officer stopped scrolling.
“So he went back to the scene of the crime, then out to the edge.” A thousand thoughts ran together in Connor’s mind. The most pressing of these was the fear that the kidnapper didn’t plan on releasing Olivia at all. He feared they’d find her months later in another city, dead and buried. And he refused to let that happen.
“I want two men on every social media account, five to hang back here for security. Three cars head over to the garage, and everyone else blockade the main roads. If he planned on escaping, he would have left already, but we’re not taking that risk. There might be something he still needs to do before he leaves. We’re not giving him a chance to do it, whatever it may be.”
As de facto leader, Connor commanded a great deal of respect. No one dared question his orders. They carried out his orders immediately.
“I don’t care how you split it up, but I’ll be going down to the garage myself. Social media teams, keep me updated.” With that, he suited up and strode out to his car. He had a good feeling about the garage. He thought, “If he’s there, I’m going to get that son-of-a-bitch.”
If nothing else, it was good enough to alleviate his fears about the kidnapper skipping town. His sirens blared through the town as he zipped across the bridge and through the residential district. That old garage used to be part of the first neighborhood built in Summit Springs. It fell into disuse after the town expanded. It was the perfect backdrop to frame a murder.
But it was no time to think. It was during this moment that actions would be of the utmost importance.
One hand clutched the steering wheel and the other rubbed against his holster. “You’re not getting away with this.” Simply hearing his own voice, so full of rage and desperation, fueled the fire within.
His foot pressed harder on the pedal. Even from inside the vehicle, he could smell his tires burning against the asphalt.
One neighborhood after the other whirred by him. Morning commuters heading in for work slowed and pulled hastily to the side for him to pass by.
He swerved through intersections, barely checking traffic as he crossed over and turned, maneuvering through the web of roads.
Halfway to his destination, Connor’s dashboard lit up. His phone, mounted onto the control panel, displayed a call from the station. He slowed just enough to comfortably accept the call.
An officer’s voice came through the car’s speakers. “We’ve got a call in from the kidnapper. He’s threatening to kill her if you show up there. He knows we’re coming and specifically he knows you’re coming.”
“How, damn it?” Connor didn’t need to think long for the answer to come to him. Social media. A double-edged sword.
In the same way citizen contributions brought them to the kidnappers doorstep, so too did it alert him to the cops every move. On the other line, the officer confirmed as much. Connor thanked him curtly and screeched to a halt.
Was it a bluff?
There was no way to know for sure what the kidnapper was thinking. Meanwhile, all Connor could think of was Olivia sprawled out on the filthy garage floor, blood pooling around her unmoving body.
His foot slammed on the gas. The car screeched and skidded, then finally gained traction and jerked forward. Whoever this new cop-hater was, he’d regret ever picking this fight.
Somewhere along the route, houses stopped looking like homes. They became broken down. Some were renovated into family-owned stores, others collapsed under the weight of neglect.
The garage stood surrounded by a field of dirt. Discarded cars littered the cracked parking lot. And parked adjacent to the garage proper, Connor put eyes on the one car he wanted to see.
He smiled at his luck for being the first to arrive on the scene. The other officers wouldn’t have cut through the residential areas to get there—too many opportunities to injure a civilian on the way.
Perfect. It gave him the opportunity he wanted: to put a proper end to the case.
Connor parked next to Olivia’s car, slowly exited, and drew his weapon. The garage had two entrances.
The first was the garage door. The second was a plain steel door on the far left side. That would be his point of entry. Given as long as the grounds had been nonfunctional, he didn’t presume the door would lift.
; By that same logic, he banked on the door being heavily broken down. Without thinking, without planning ahead, he rushed towards the door and kicked it in.
Dust of rusted powder sprayed up from the handle. The door flew inwards, snapping off its hinges and flipping wildly. Connor followed close behind the trajectory of the door.
A gunshot sounded out and clanged hard against something metal, then pain ran through Connor’s leg.
“Son of a—”
Connor rolled forward, keeping his pistol gripped tight all the while. When his momentum slowed to a halt, he raised his head to two pairs of shoes. Cold metal pressed against the back of his head.
“Now I’ll have to kill her, won’t I?” the kidnapper laughed dryly. Connor tilted his head just a bit, enough to see that the kidnapper had the same twisted sense of humor as his killer friend. It seemed that both enjoyed desecrating the honor of army fatigues.
“He’s outside,” Connor coughed. His heart felt like it might beat a hole through his chest. “I came in first to secure the building.”
“You’re lying!” The kidnapper pressed the gun harder against Connor’s skull. Olivia tried to shriek but couldn’t. Duct tape bound her mouth.
“I’m not. He’s right out there. I promise you.”
“I want to hear his voice.” The kidnapper’s voice changed as he said this. Connor sensed something there, a shred of compassion. He truly was Warren Simmons’ friend, it would seem.
“I can’t do that. He only comes in when I give the signal that the building is secure.”
“Get up.” They walked toward Olivia.
Connor wouldn’t argue with that. He surprised even himself with the success of his ruse, but he’d have to comply with some of the kidnapper’s demands if he wanted to save Olivia.
The kidnapper was already walking towards a higher level of the garage to get a view of outside. The gun now primed against Olivia’s head. He told Connor to walk along beside Olivia and no funny business or he would blow her head off.