by Jared Paul
“So help me God, Louis, I love you as my brother but if you don’t let that man go I’m going to shoot you where you stand.”
Louis heard himself, and couldn’t recognize the voice that came out of him. “He has Reyna! There‘s no way in hell I‘m letting go of him!”
“Brother, let go of him. We can’t question him if he’s dead, and you’re about to do just that.”
Louis looked down at the mess he held in his hands and saw blood covering the light flesh tone of his fingers. He hadn’t realized he’d punched the man in the face, but he was sporting a broken nose and his lips looked like someone had pumped air into them. One of the man’s eyes was swelling closed and a large gash from where his college ring had caught his cheek was bleeding profusely. The man hadn’t been able to speak because he’d begun to choke on his own blood.
Shocked that he’d been capable of beating a man near to death, Louis let go of his grip and as soon as he took a step backwards, Jon Harper, sheriff of Collie, had him pinned to the floor of the interrogation room and handcuffed.
“You have the right to remain silent; anything you say can be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney, if you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand your rights as I provided them to you?”
The most Louis could manage before Jon picked him up off the floor was a nod.
********
“What in the name of the Virgin Mary were you trying to do, Louis? Do you know that I just barely got you off charges of attempted murder in the name that you were temporarily insane? Even that, you have to spend the night in our custody until those damn Feds make sure you haven’t killed their suspect.”
Louis shook his head, not bothering to look in Jon’s direction. He didn’t know what to say in his defense. The only thing he knew was that he’d been prepared to kill someone with his bare hands because of the need to have Reyna back at his side. Love had been a mystery to him, it still was, and he’d had no idea that it could make him lose his mind.
“I love her, Jon. I don’t know what to do.”
“Look, you’ll make bail because I’m going to keep you in my custody and make sure you don’t run loose and try to beat someone else’s face in. If you shirk me, Louis, I’ll have no choice and you’ll go to the jail in Hadley. As it is, you’re in some deep shit.” Jon waited a second before he leaned in toward the bars he was on the proper side of and added, “But if I thought for one second I had the man in my hands that had taken Cory from me, I’d have done the same thing.” He sighed and backed away, looking thoughtful. “You never did tell me what made you think Reyna had been kidnapped.”
“When you called me yesterday morning and I was at the coffee shop, I had gone there to get Reyna some breakfast because she’d stayed the night with me after we’d made up from the big fight we had. I got home from the shop, found her gone and the room destroyed as if she’d thrown a fit and left. There was a letter on the bed telling me that she didn’t love me and deserved someone better.”
“If I hadn’t seen you beat the shit out of that man, I’d have said that was a plausible story. But I’ve met Reyna once or twice, and she was there at Travis’ going away party. She’s such a sweet girl, I don’t imagine her doing something like that.”
Louis nodded. “It doesn’t make sense; I know Reyna didn’t write that letter. If the letter hadn’t been there, I would have thought there’d been a struggle. I know Reyna was taken, and the fact that her necklace was found on a victim proves the killer was following her.”
Jon put a hand to his chin. “What if someone says that Reyna is the killer, that she pretended to lose her necklace and then left it in the pocket of her victim on purpose?”
“I told you, I saw it drop to the floor of the bar. I would have picked it up, but I was too drunk. Rebecca had to drive me home that night, and considering that the whole fight was in part her fault, I thought it was only fair. That, and Reyna couldn’t have killed that guy or any of the other ones cause she was physically somewhere else when all of them died. She was either at work or with me.”
Jon shook his head and frowned sadly. As Louis looked at him, he knew that there was something he was avoiding voicing out loud. “Say what you’re thinking. I’m already past the point of being spared.”
“Cory told me that the victims, the ones we could identify, were not with the killer long once he decided to kill them. Louis, there’s a chance”
“No.”
“Louis”
“I’d know if she were dead, Jon. I’d know it in my gut. She’s not dead, and every second I was sitting in this damn cell, is a second she’d somewhere lost and afraid. Get me the hell out of here.”
Louis stood from the bench that had been built into the wall of his cell and he came to a stop at the bars that separated him from Jon. He said, “If I had the strength, I’d bust out of here and find her no matter if they shot me full or holes on my way out or not. I can’t just sit here.”
“Believe me, if I could get you out faster I would, but if both of us go around breaking the law, then we won’t be able to help anyone. I’ll be here first thing in the morning, not a second later and I’d advise you not to get chatty with any of those idiots out there making a mess of my station since they might find more to tag onto your charges. I don’t think you know just how pissed they are at you.”
CHAPTER 25
………………………………..
Reyna couldn’t see anything around her, and she couldn’t move save for an inch in any direction. When she’d woken up from the drugs that had been forced into her, she’d come aware that she’d been stuffed into some kind of wooden box. The image of a coffin, for the first few hours had hand her thrash and scream until she’d been thrown into a coughing fit and unable to move because she’d exhausted herself. To think that someone had put her into a pine box threatened to make her lose her mind, save for the absolute knowledge that Louis would come to find her even if he had to kill a few people to do it.
The love she felt for him dictated to her that she not give up, that because Louis wouldn’t give up on her that she wasn’t allowed to give up on him or herself. She had to fight, she had to do anything she could so that when he found her she was alive to throw herself at him and kiss him until her oxygen depleted.
Reyna could tell how long she’d been in the box. To her, time seemed to slow and speed up and then slow down to the point that making sense of what was going on outside of her tiny world was all but impossible. She knew that at times she wasn’t alone, that someone else was in the room with her, and that instead of suffocating like she was supposed to, that there was oxygen pumping into her space at regular intervals. Because she’d worked so long as a nurse, she could recognize the smell, and she knew that whoever had her had access to medical supplies.
From time to time Reyna tried to struggle, even if she knew that it was useless mostly just to keep her arms and legs from going numb. Whatever her container was made of, it had to be sturdy, since when she got into one of her sessions to attain freedom, she created one hell of a noise not to mention by the end she completely exhausted herself.
“I hope you’ve been a good girl. If you have, I’ll let you live a bit longer.”
There, again was the voice. Reyna knew now, that whoever it had been that had taken her from Louis’ bedroom had been a woman, since the sound of the voice was light but not strained. If it was a man, the lighter high pitches would sound forced. The voice also sound knowledgeable, as if the person who owned it knew her personally and hated her with a passion. It made little sense to her, since there wasn’t a person she could think of that might hold that kind of negative emotion for her.
Reyna felt her box shift, felt it tremor and realized her captor was sitting on top of her.
“Did you hear me? Were you a good girl?”
Reyna knew for certain that the questions were to bait her, and no matter what sh
e said, something horrible was going to happen to her. She remained silent.
Reyna felt her world shake again, this time she could hear the slaps to the wooden lid as someone smacked it as hard as they could.
“I said, have you been a good girl?! Answer me! Answer me, or I’ll set you on fire! Now!”
“Yes!”
Silence followed her answer and Reyna prayed that she wasn’t about to experience her own death yet again. She had a feeling that the second time around was going to be far worse than the first.
*******
Louis strained to see the clock on the wall in the main room of the station house yet again for the twentieth time that hour. It was seventeen minutes past eight in the morning and he felt as if his nerves were going to make him fly apart. Jon had promised to crack him out of his cage in the morning, and here it was, morning and no freedom.
He realized, somewhat past his desperation to find Reyna that he’d done a seriously terrible thing. To beat someone’s face in was a crime, hell he’d busted plenty of men for the same thing after they’d had one too many to drink. However, he couldn’t bring himself to feel sorry for the man, no matter how hard he tried.
Louis sighed and turned away from his bars, not interested in looking at the faces of the FBI agents who were crawling around headquarters like a bunch of ants training to be butlers. Their suits annoyed the hell out of him.
“Ready to go?”
Louis wheeled around as fast as his body allowed him. “Are you kidding? You’re late.”
“Sorry but I had to do some things before I came here, buddy. Number one was making sure you hadn’t been bumped into murderer during the night.”
Louis stared at Jon’s face. Reality was such a hard bitch to look at directly in the eye but he was going to do his best to try. He asked, “Well, is he alive?”
“It wasn’t as bad as all that. You managed to punch him all right, but because of the facial wounds and the man’s medication that made him bleed more than he ought to have, it made the wounds look more severe than they actually were. Sorry to say, but all you managed to really give him was a fat lip and a black eye.
“He won’t be pressing charges, since after they gave the man pain medication, he admitted to the murders and to taking Reyna. He’s saying in exchange for her location that he wants to make a deal.”
Jon’s face twisted as the hands he had around the bars of the cell turned white at the knuckles. He added, “I don’t like that bastard for this. He has crazy written all over him.”
Louis went to the bars and used his eyes to look at the lock that still had him contained within the cell. He coughed into his hand and said, “We can talk about this later, don’t you think? Let’s get our asses out of here.”
“Not so fast.”
That last had come from somewhere to Louis’ left and he let his eyes drift in that direction until they landed on the figure of the head agent in charge. He was sporting a decently colored black eye.
“I don’t believe we’ve met properly. My name is Agent Douglas, and this badge here,” he flashed it for emphasis,” allows me to say who comes and who goes from this station. And right now, I’m trying to figure out whether or not you’re going to get in the way of my investigation.”
Louis growled, literally growled. Whatever this love crap was that had filtered into his heart and mind and rearranged him forever was something that made him powerful. This new Louis couldn’t give a damn who this man thought he was, after all, he was just a man. He said, “Listen here you piece of shit, you’ll open that door or”
Jon moved to stand between him and Agent Douglas. “What he is trying to communicate to you Agent Douglas, is that he believes time is running out for a woman that was taken recently by the killer. Since you have him custody, Deputy Kale here thinks she is still alive.” Jon exhaled and added, “I think it might be a good use of our time if you let us look for her at the crime scenes. It would be a way for you to keep us under observation and let us keep someone else alive.”
Louis couldn’t see Jon’s face, but judging by the expression Agent Douglas was sporting, it wasn’t a very inviting one. One day, he’d have to learn how Jon did that.
“Fine. He’s all yours. If he takes one swing at another agent, or steps out of line again, I’ll have him in jail so fast you won’t have the time to mop up his shit again.”
********
“I gave Rebecca a couple of days off. She’s a rookie, she doesn’t need to see those suited jackasses and think that’s the way a cop should behave. That, and she’s not learning the ropes as fast as she should.”
Louis glared at Jon. While Travis Harper was the younger of the two, he wasn’t so seriously minded with a pineapple up where the sun doesn’t shine that he couldn’t see when someone preferred silence to the sound of his voice. Jon Harper was beginning to get on his last nerve.
“Look man, we’re here at my place to look for clues. You talking to me isn’t going to get it done any faster, and it sure as hell isn’t going to help me find Reyna.”
Jon sighed and leaned against the wall near the door. “Are you sure she’s missing? You said you didn’t believe the note, that Reyna wouldn’t have written something like that, but man nothing in relationships plays by the rules.”
Louis stopped what he was doing. “Just shut up for a while, all right.”
The room, although it was obvious the boys from out of town had left their mark all over the place, didn’t seem to move anything around, only poke here and there to see if there was something to be found that was out of the ordinary. The blanket was still where it had been thrown, and in the corner, the letter he’d told them was a forgery was still crumpled where he’d left it. It was clear that there hadn’t been much of an investigation, which told him that the Feds didn’t put much stock in the fact that Reyna was missing.
Louis balled his fist until he felt his fingers go numb. The whole situation was so far out of hand that his brain was struggling to catch up with what was going on. Only a day ago, his life had looked like it was taking a turn into the extraordinary, that he’d finally found the one person on the planet that he could love, that loved him back for every bit of the man he was now and had been. Now, it was as if he’d fallen asleep and fell into a nightmare that he couldn’t escape. The only thing his brain refused to acknowledge was the idea that Reyna was dead. Reyna had to be alive, since if she wasn’t then he wouldn’t be alive; he knew in his soul that if Reyna was lost to him forever, that his heart would stop beating because it would no longer have a reason to function.
He looked to Jon, who was still leaning against the wall that joined the frame of his bedroom door, and he stored the image of him as he was and then closed his eyes. What he was about to do was possibly the last thing he would do as a free man, but in all honesty, he knew that he wouldn’t find Reyna if he was under Jon’s watch. Jon had to abide by rules that no longer applied to him.
“Hey man, I’m going to step out of the room for a minute and hit the toilet.”
Jon checked his watch and then lifted an eyebrow. “When you get out, we’ll leave and check out the last crime scene. If there’s nothing here to find, then we should get to looking somewhere else. Believe it or not man, I want to find Reyna as much as you do.”
Louis nodded, slid past Jon and then walked down the hall to his left to the bathroom. After he’d been taken out of his cell, he’d been given his personal effects back, and the one thing he hadn’t thought to do was to use his cell to call Reyna. At first, he hadn’t called her because he’d thought she might have really left him, and then he’d lost his mind and been put in a jail cell, so this was the first time he’d actually had the space in his brain to think of it.
If the truth was known, to him, the thought of calling Reyna’s cell, whether or not it was answered, was something to him akin to dread like going to the dentist. As soon as he was in his bathroom, he closed the door behind him and pulled his cell phone
from his pocket.
CHAPTER 26
………………………………..
It felt like hours since her captor had been in the same room with her, and strangely, Reyna felt the absence in a way she didn’t think she’d expect. With her captor with her, she knew that whatever happened would happen and then it would be over with and that she wasn’t alone, but with her gone, she felt the passage of time as if it were a hot blade that was slowly being pressed into her unwilling flesh.
Before the deranged woman left her, she’d turned off the oxygen flow into the coffin and pumped some strange gas into it that depleted the available air that she had to breathe making her lungs burn with the need to inhale until she was forced to inhale and then choke and sputter until she nearly suffocated. When the woman found it within her power to turn the oxygen back on, Reyna knew that she had been very close to dying. Even after the woman had left, for nearly an hour, she’d struggled with the pain in her chest until she thought that clawing out her lungs through her rib cage was the only solution. She remembered begging the woman to tell her why she was doing this to her and the only answer she’d gotten had been the return of the foul gas.
Reyna closed her eyes and let the darkness of the coffin coat her. She had tried to be strong, tried to keep reminding herself that Louis was going to find her and rescue her, but she knew in her soul that strength had a limit. Whoever it was that had her, meant to kill her eventually, and eventually, she knew that she’d allow it.
To pass the time, since it had decided to pass regardless of what she thought it should do or how she perceived it, Reyna thought of Louis and how it came to be that she was in love with him. The memories offered her a way to mentally escape her cage, and for short instances, she could really believe that she was with him and experiencing for the first time what it was like to truly be in the presence of the one person in the world that you were meant to be with.