by Ali Brandon
Swiftly, Darla tilted the woman’s head back in preparation to start rescue breaths. But before she could begin, she heard a sound, like a footstep, directly behind her, and smelled a faint whiff of stale cigarette smoke. Barely had the import of that registered when something abruptly tightened like a noose around her throat.
Instinctively, she clutched at the narrow strip of thick cloth that was pressing into her flesh. Had she been standing, she could have tried the self-defense techniques she’d learned: stomp to the instep, elbow to the solar plexus, head into the nose. But in her crouched position, she was at a disadvantage. All she could attempt was the last one.
She whipped her head backward, praying that from that angle she could cause enough pain that she’d be released. But her attacker must have been expecting such a move, for she instead hit something hard that she assumed must have been a shoulder. The blow made her head spin, and she sagged toward the floor, her fingers loosening their grip on the karate belt around her throat.
“You’re not very good at this, are you, Darla?”
Mark Poole sniggered as he tightened the loop just enough to keep her from sliding farther. “I mean, you were smart to figure out how to get out of that room in the dark, but you’re pretty bad at self-defense. Now stand up and make yourself useful, unless you want to end up like Master Tomlinson, hanging from a hook somewhere.”
The mocking words stirred her to action. Gasping, Darla dizzily got to her feet, still clutching at the belt as he dragged her backward and out of the gap behind the chair rack. As long as she didn’t struggle, she could suck in enough air to keep breathing. But keeping still meant that she was pressed into Mark’s bony form in a disgustingly intimate fashion.
When I get loose, she frantically vowed, this creepoid is going to need surgery to reattach his man parts! But first, she needed to talk him down.
“Mark,” she gasped out, “let me go. I need to help Grace. She’s still alive.”
“Not for long. I think I’ll hang her, too, just like they did with Tess in that stupid book.”
The nasal voice was harsh and excited as he pulled the belt fractionally tighter around Darla’s throat, so that she clawed at it again. “She deserves to be punished. I took care of her boyfriend, first. Now it’s her turn. Don’t mess this up for me, Darla.”
“I-I’m not. Seriously, y-you’re really hurting me,” she managed. “Let me go so we can talk about this.”
“Talk, talk, talk,” he echoed in the now familiar mocking falsetto, though to her relief he loosened the belt again. “You women, you think you can get away with anything you want, just because you’re females. Well, I’m tired of your crap! Hers, too,” he added, and scuttled forward to give the unconscious woman a vicious kick in the side.
Darla gave a cry of protest that was abruptly cut off when Mark yanked on the belt.
“I should have done that to her when I found out she was pregnant,” he told Darla, his words coming in ragged gasps now. “She was supposed to be my girlfriend, and then she went and got herself knocked up by . . . by him. And I was all nice about it. I told her I forgave her, and that I’d even marry her, but she just laughed at me and went off and had the kid on her own. She was a slut, just like Tess. But I’m no Angel.”
“So you killed Master Tomlinson and tried to frame Grace for his murder?” Darla choked out while desperately wondering why in the hell Reese hadn’t yet torn the bleachers apart to find her.
She felt rather than saw Mark’s nod.
“I figured they’d think she killed him, but the stupid cops never arrested her, not even after I shredded her class registration and left it in the trash for them to find. Since that didn’t work, I left that picture in the file drawer for them to find, and they still never went after her. And then she attacked me in class”—his voice now held a note of injured surprise—“and all they did was put her in handcuffs. So it’s all up to me now. I have to execute her myself if the police won’t.”
Darla was stunned. Execute her? The man wasn’t just off his meds; he was a whole other country away from them! She’d seen for herself that the book club discussion about Tess of the D’Urbervilles had put him into a small frenzy. From what Mark was saying, it seemed he’d known Grace before she’d gotten pregnant with Chris, and had had the idea back then that he and Grace were an item . . . more likely on par with how he’d seemingly decided that Darla was his good friend simply because she’d unwittingly been playing word games with him in cyberspace. Whatever the situation, it seemed that his literary revenge fantasy had spun out of control.
“Mark,” she managed, deciding to humor him, “I don’t blame you for being angry, but there are better ways to get back at Grace than this.”
“Like what?” he demanded, while from the tournament floor Darla heard a sudden distant cheer from the spectators. Frantically, she struggled to propose an alternative to murder that would satisfy the man, but drew a blank. Mark, meanwhile, abruptly loosened the belt from around her neck and gave her a shove in Grace’s direction.
“Yeah, I didn’t think you could come up with anything.”
Rubbing her throat, she whipped about to face him. He was twisting the belt he’d been choking her with in his hands now. With a shock of recognition she saw in the dim light the five red stripes and tiny embroidered dragon at one end. This, then, was what had happened to the sensei’s missing black belt . . . and, as much as any confession, its presence tied Mark to that murder.
The man noticed the direction of her gaze, and he gave a nervous smile.
“Yeah, this makes it all perfect,” he declared, giving the belt another twist. “I’ve got a great plan for this belt, but we’ve got to hurry. Now, grab Grace and drag her up onto her feet.”
Darla hesitated, recalling Master Tomlinson’s credo.
Run when you can.
Mark was still blocking her way, but at least now she had some room to move. Assuming, of course, that he hadn’t locked the main door after him. If she could fight her way past him and reach the electrical room again, she might be able to escape that way. Or, she could finally try for the gap underneath the bleachers. If she moved fast enough, she might be able to squeeze her way out onto the competition floor. But could she pull that off?
Mark must have seen the fleeting indecision in her face. He gave an exaggerated sigh and looped Master Tomlinson’s belt like a scarf over his neck before reaching inside his gi jacket.
“I didn’t want to have to do this, but since you’re not cooperating, I don’t have a choice,” he said, and pulled out a plastic cylinder from which protruded a short, pointed orange cap.
He popped off the cap, and Darla caught her breath as light momentarily glinted from the shining needle he’d exposed. As syringes went, this one wasn’t very large. But she could see that the plunger was pulled back on it, meaning it was partially filled. And she had no doubt as to what was in it.
“You know, I always did like you, Darla,” he told her. “I thought maybe we could go out on a date or something. We had lots of fun playing word games together. But I don’t think you like me that way, after all. So here’s the deal. You do what I say, or I’m going to give you a little shot, just like I did Grace. I think I’ve got just enough left to do the job.”
She had no doubt that Mark meant what he’d just said. Slowly, Darla raised her hands in a gesture that was part surrender, part let’s slow down. For the moment, her only option was to cooperate.
“All right, you’re the boss,” she agreed, trying to keep her voice from shaking. “I’ll try to get Grace on her feet, but she’s in pretty bad shape.”
“Then carry her,” he shot back, a trickle of sweat sliding from beneath the rising sun headband. “And hurry it up. I don’t have all day to spend in here.”
Seeing no other choice, Darla knelt beside Grace again. Carefully, she pulled off the woman’s
spike-heeled pumps and put them to one side. Then she manually bent Grace’s slim legs, one at a time, and slid each bare foot closer to the woman’s body. When she was done, both the woman’s knees now pointed skyward.
She spared a quick look at Grace’s face. The flesh had gone frighteningly slack, and her eyelids didn’t even twitch as Darla moved her about. She was rapidly dying . . . would likely be dead before Mark could carry out whatever plan he had to re-create Tess’s unfortunate end.
Fight if you must.
Swiftly, Darla caught Grace by the shoulders and, with an effort, pulled her limp body into a seated position. Then, maneuvering behind her, Darla slid her forearms beneath Grace’s armpits and tried to lift her. To her relief, she heard a faint moan in return. Hang in there, she silently implored the woman. With luck, Darla had a few more minutes to somehow get her some help before it really was too late.
But first, she needed to disarm Mark.
“She’s heavier than she looks,” Darla told him as she continued to struggle with the limp form. “It’s a two-person job. I need your help.”
“Nice try, Darla, but you’re not fooling me. Get her on her feet, or you’re going to get a taste of Mr. Needle,” he said with a nasal sneer and waved the syringe threateningly.
Darla shot him an outraged look, feeling her redhead’s temper soar past her fear for herself. “You’re not listening. It’s not working,” she clipped out. “She’s unconscious, so it’s like trying to lift a hundred-pound bag of Jell-O. If you want her moved, you have to do it yourself.”
So saying, she let Grace slip down again, so that the woman was once again lying on her back.
Mark’s eyes bugged behind his glasses, and his face flushed. “Keep trying!”
“No can do, Mark,” she replied in a preternaturally calm voice from her spot on the floor beside Grace. “She’s too heavy. You’ve got two choices. Either help me, or move her yourself.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve . . . I’ve got a third choice,” he sputtered. “I’m going to start counting, and if you don’t have her moving by the time I reach ten, this”—he waved the syringe again—“is going to take care of things. One, two . . .”
Three, four . . .
Darla silently counted with him, never taking her eyes from him. Her reaction seemed to unnerve him, for his voice grew steadily more high pitched with each number. What he actually planned to do—leap at her with syringe drawn? flee back into the electrical room?—she wasn’t certain, but she planned to be ready for him.
Never give up.
“Five, six, seven . . .” he continued to count.
Darla began edging away from Grace’s supine form, giving herself space now as she stealthily reached for the only weapon at hand.
Mark’s voice grew higher, more agitated. “Eight, nine . . .”
“Ten!” Darla shouted with all her might as she surged to her feet and charged him, one of Grace’s spike-heeled pumps gripped in each hand like leopard-print kamas.
Her sudden attack accompanied by the slash of stiletto heels in the direction of his face made him stumble back, mouth and eyes wide with shock. Darla took speedy advantage of his surprise and managed a quick swipe with one shoe, knocking his glasses askew and drawing a streak of blood down one cheek.
The attack ended just as swiftly as it began. Mark shrieked in pain and flung his arms up to protect himself—and managed in the process to plunge the needle of the syringe directly into his lip.
“Aaargh!”
Mark’s scream filled the storage room as he frantically plucked the syringe from his face and flung it away. By then, Darla had whipped around him and was well out of range, leopard-print pumps still tightly clutched in both hands and held at the ready in case he attacked. But the fight had already gone out of the man. He sank to his knees, sobbing and clutching his face.
“Dead!” he shrieked . . . or, rather, tried to. The Botox was already taking effect, paralyzing his mouth. He followed that cry with a mumble of sounds that Darla, with an effort, made out to be, “You killed me, you bitch!”
“Never let injustice go unpunished,” Darla coolly told him, though she was already beginning to shake in delayed reaction to what had just gone down.
Behind her now, she could hear the sound of scraping wood and metal, heard Reese’s voice over the sounds of the tournament calling, “Darla, where are you? Answer me!”
“Here, I’m back here!” she managed to shout as, giving the hysterical Mark wide berth, she hurried to check on Grace. Kneeling beside the still form, she dropped the leopard heels and swiftly began rescue breaths on her, praying that it wasn’t too late. And then someone—Reese, she realized—was lifting her away from Grace. He was not alone, she saw. Hank and Hal, along with a security guard and another man wearing a workman’s uniform, had crowded into the space. Pushing past them all, a smaller figure in a black gi rushed to take the spot that Darla had vacated at Grace’s side.
Then the newcomer looked up from where she knelt to meet Darla’s gaze, and Darla saw in surprise that it was Dr. Tomlinson.
“Quickly, tell me what happened,” the doctor clipped out before returning her attention to the motionless woman before her.
Darla caught a steadying breath. “She—Grace—said Mark gave her a shot. I think it was Botox, like with Master Tomlinson.”
“Botox?” Dr. Tomlinson had been running her hands with expert speed down the injured woman’s body. Now, she whipped her gaze back up to meet Darla’s. “You’re sure?”
Darla nodded. “That’s what Mark”—she gestured in the weeping man’s direction—“said he injected her with.”
The woman turned to Hank. “Pick her up, and carry her to the main door, now. We’ll meet the ambulance there. We can’t wait on them to roll a gurney in.”
“We can go out this way, ma’am,” the facilities worker chimed in. He pointed in the direction of the electrical room and then took off at an awkward lope, a key ring as big as his fist jangling from his belt. Hank, with Grace cradled in his arms, rushed after him.
“I’ll go find Chris and bring him to the hospital,” the doctor told Hal. Then, with a cold look in Mark’s direction, she added, “You stay and take care of things here.”
Hal nodded, his expression thunderous as he strode over to where Reese already had Mark flipped over on his stomach and was in the process of handcuffing the man.
“You’d probably better take him to the hospital, too,” Darla shakily told Reese. “He was trying to threaten me with another syringe of Botox, and when I went after him, he managed to stick himself in the face with it.”
“This one?” the security guard asked as, using a handkerchief to preserve any prints, he gingerly held up the syringe that Mark had flung away.
Dr. Tomlinson hurried over to where the guard stood and squinted at the syringe. “Half full,” she declared. “Darla, did you happen to see how much was in it to start with?”
“I’m not sure. But I don’t think it was all the way. He told me that the vial had been almost empty.”
Her expression thunderous as her son’s, the woman stalked over to where Mark lay. “Please roll him over, Detective.”
When Reese obliged, the doctor knelt beside Mark and swiftly examined his face. Then, with a cold little smile, she said, “It wouldn’t hurt to have him looked at, but I think this one is going to live. He’ll just be drooling out of one side of his mouth for a couple of months.”
“Get up,” Reese growled at the man and dragged him upright by one arm. To the security guard, he said, “Follow us out, but block the way until my guys get here.”
“Wait,” Darla cried, “what about Hamlet? He was the one who found Grace, but I haven’t seen him since Mark attacked me.”
“He’s right as rain,” Reese answered with a quick nod. “In fact, he’s the one who led us to you. He was pac
ing up and down the bleachers trying to get our attention. Robert’s babysitting him and the dog now. C’mon, let’s get you out of here, too.”
A few minutes later, all of them had squeezed through the makeshift opening under the bleachers and were back on the main gymnasium floor again. As Darla blinked against the flood of overhead lights, she noticed that the tournament activity had ceased. The only sound now was the echo of footsteps as a dozen uniformed officers came storming into the gym. Dr. Tomlinson had raced ahead to where Chris was standing, and Darla saw the youth’s expression change from shocked to frantic as the woman apparently explained the situation to him before hustling him off the floor, presumably for the ride to the hospital.
Hal, meanwhile, strode in front of their small procession, clearing a path by gesturing competitors and spectators aside. Darla saw Robert and hurried to join him. He was clutching Roma in one arm and petting Hamlet with the other. She grabbed up the unprotesting cat and momentarily buried her face in his soft black fur. As she did so, she could hear Reese reading his prisoner his rights.
“Mark Poole,” she heard him address the man in a cold tone, “you are under arrest for the murder of Tom Tomlinson, the kidnapping and attempted murder of Grace Valentine, and the kidnapping of Darla Pettistone.”
As Reese went on to recite the familiar Miranda litany, Darla looked up in time to see Hal turn again and stride back to where a handful of the cops now surrounded the man, the rest having dispersed to presumably begin securing the crime scene.
Reese gave a fleeting nod to the officers, who stepped back so that Hal and Mark were now face to face. The terror on the latter’s face was apparent, while the tattooed tiger on Hal’s neck quivered as if ready to spring. His beefy hand whipped out, and for an instant Darla thought he was going to flatten the smaller man.