by Kathi Daley
“Answer it, but put it on speakerphone.”
I shook my head. “He’ll know.” I clicked the Answer button and tentatively said hello.
“I’m at Chloe’s Café. Join me for breakfast.”
I glanced at Landon. “You’re at Chloe’s? Is she okay?”
“For now. Meet me in fifteen minutes or that could change.”
He hung up.
“I have to go,” I said, grabbing a jacket. “The killer is at Chloe’s Café. He said if I’m not there in fifteen minutes, he might do something to hurt Chloe.”
Landon grabbed his keys. “I’ll drive. You call Houston. Hopefully, by the time we get into town we’ll have come up with a plan, because there’s no way you’re going anywhere near that café.”
“He has Chloe,” I argued.
“And if you join them, he’ll also have you.”
Landon wasn’t wrong, but there was no way I was going to stand by and let a madman kill Chloe. Arguing with Landon was going to get me nowhere, so my plan was to hold my tongue until we got there and then do whatever the madman wanted in exchange for letting Chloe go free.
When we arrived at the café, Houston and his men were already there, along with Jake, Dani, Jordan, and Wyatt in a wheelchair. Not only was the lunatic holding Chloe hostage, he had an entire café full of customers out for a Saturday morning meal inside as well.
“Oh my God!” I said when I saw the thirty or so people, including children, lined up in front of the large picture windows at the front of the café. “He isn’t threatening to blow the whole thing up, is he?”
“Actually,” Houston said, “that’s exactly what he says he’ll do.”
As I struggled to overcome the instinct to flee, my phone rang. I answered and put it on speaker. “Are you nuts?”
Okay, that might not have been textbook hostage negotiation, but I wasn’t a hostage negotiator by trade, and in that moment, it was all I had.
The man actually chuckled.
“Please,” I said after a minute. “Let everyone go. Whatever’s going on between us, don’t hurt any more innocent people.”
“The people inside the café are nothing more than bargaining chips. Do what I say and no one gets hurt.”
“Okay,” I agreed. “What do you want?”
Jake and Houston were shaking their heads, indicating a huge nooooo, but I ignored them. There was no way all those people were going to end up dead just because my friends felt it was their duty to protect me.
“I want to talk to you. Come inside. Alone.”
I paused for just a moment. “Let the hostages go first.”
“How do I know you’ll come in if I do?”
Jake tried to grab my arm, but I shook him off. “How do I know you’ll let them go if I come in?”
“Fair enough. I’ll let everyone other than your friend Chloe go. Once you’re inside, she can leave too.”
“There’s no way we’re going to agree to that,” Jake said.
“Before you arrived, he said the place was rigged to blow,” Houston said. “I don’t like this either, but we can’t let him blow the place up with all those people inside.” Houston’s face hardened. “Harmony knows what she’s doing. She has the ability to know what’s going on in his mind. She’s our best hope of getting him to surrender without any more bloodshed.” Houston looked directly at me. “See if he’ll allow me to come in with you. Tell him I’ll leave my gun behind. We’ll both be totally unarmed.”
I nodded.
“The policeman said he’ll only allow me to come in if he comes with me,” I said. “We’ll both be unarmed.”
“I told you I want you to come in alone.” He hung up.
“I’m going with you,” Houston said.
“No. I have to do this alone. If you approach the café, he might kill everyone. I’ll be all right.”
Houston slipped one of the police radios in my hand just before I started forward. When I was about halfway, I called out to the killer, insisting he send out the hostages. In a few minutes, the front door opened and men, women, and children began to walk out.
“We should just storm the place,” I heard Carl, one of the other police officers, say over the radio.
“No,” I lowered my hand and replied, “Houston said the place is rigged to blow. I’m not risking Chloe’s life.”
“The killer is in there as well,” Carl pointed out. “He’s not going to blow himself up. He’s bluffing.”
“No,” I said again. “I don’t think he is.” I looked at the front of the café Chloe had worked so hard to buy. “I don’t think he’s planning on coming out either.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t go in,” Dani said, through the radio. “If he isn’t planning to come out, it seems like his plan might be to take you with him.”
“Maybe.”
Once all the customers had cleared the building, the killer called me back on my cell. He told me to lose the radio and walk forward. It was the longest walk of my life, but when I reached the door, it opened.
“Hello, Zane,” I said as I entered. It was dark; he’d turned off all the lights.
“So you know who I am.”
“I do. Where’s Chloe?”
Zane walked across the café. He opened the broom closet, where Chloe was tied up and gagged.
“We can talk when she’s outside. Not before,” I said firmly.
He untied Chloe’s feet so she could walk but left the gag in place and her hands tied.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said to Chloe, who had tears streaming down her face as she passed me and walked to the door. I felt like crying myself as she went out the door, but somehow I managed to hang on to my last thread of control. I could see her join Houston and the others outside and turned back to Zane. “Is that everyone?”
He nodded.
“If you’re lying, we’re done.”
Zane crossed the room and sat down. “You’re the mind reader. Feel free to have a look inside my mind. You’ll see I’m not lying.”
I thought about pointing out that I couldn’t actually read minds, but his belief that I could might come in handy, so I held my tongue and sat down across from him. “So,” I started. “What’s so important that you went to all this trouble to have a conversation with me?”
“You’re the mind reader. You tell me.”
I nodded. “Okay.” I had a few things I felt could be of worth up my sleeve, but I hoped by the time I reached the end of what I planned to be a very lengthy monologue, I would have connected with him and would know what he was really after. “You grew up the only child of scientists who were so completely devoted to their work they didn’t have time for their child. Although you craved intimacy and human contact, neither parent was capable of providing either. You did have a nanny you bonded with, but as soon as you were old enough, your parents got rid of her and sent you off to boarding school.”
“Very good. Maybe you can read minds.”
I decided to be honest. “My friend found all of that out through his research once we began to suspect you were the killer.”
“I should have known. Continue. What else did your research tell you about me?”
“Once you started boarding school you never lived at home again. You developed a fascination with blowing things up somewhere along the way, which resulted in you being kicked out of one boarding school after another, but somehow your parents always managed to find another place willing to take you. That hurt you deeply because what you really wanted was for them to bring you home to live with them, but no matter how deviant your behavior, they never did.”
“Is that your entire theory? The poor, neglected kid blows things up to get the attention he craves?”
I wound my fingers together and rested them casually on the table in front of me. “I’m just getting started.”
“Of course. Continue.”
“When you were sixteen, you ran away. My friend wasn’t able to find out what you wer
e up to in the years between running away and arriving in Rescue. We spoke to Vern, and we know the two of you started the fire that killed the kids and counselors in the church group. Vern is scarred both physically and emotionally, and I’d be willing to bet beneath that beard, which probably isn’t real, you bear extensive scars as well. And no, I don’t think that’s the only thing that sent you over the edge.”
He nodded.
“Somehow—and I have to tell you, I’m really interested in how—you managed to survive the fire and six months up on the mountain. We know you helped Walter, who’d come up the mountain with his fraternity buddies only to be trapped by a storm. I also know you were with my sister Val when she died.” I took a hard look at him. “The main reason I’m here is because I need to know about that. Why were you with her? Did you kill her? Were you trying to help her?”
“You tell me,” he challenged.
“I’ll need you to let me in.”
“Fine with me. What do you want me to do?”
I unlocked my hands, which were still entwined with each other, and laid them palms up on the table. “Hold my hands. Clear your mind of everything else. Try to remember everything that happened that day.”
He placed his hands on mine. He didn’t close his eyes, but it didn’t matter. Suddenly, I was there. I experienced his memory like a slow-moving motion picture. He’d seen the team on the mountain. He’d watched as Val veered away from the others for some reason. I realized I would most likely never know why. He watched as she stumbled over something and fell into a deep snowdrift. He watched from the cave above the ledge as she fell. When Val failed to get up, even though a significant amount of time had passed, he left the cave and started down the mountain to the ledge. By the time he reached her, she was unconscious. He picked her up and brought her to his cave. He tried to help her, but she had a high fever and was delirious for most of the time right up until she died. I wondered if she had been sick before she even went out on the rescue. That might explain why she’d become disoriented and separated from the others.
He stayed with Val while the team looked for her unsuccessfully. During the hours he tried to help her, she spoke to someone only she could see. During the last moments of her life, I’d connected with her, but in doing so, I’d also somehow connected with him. In Val’s final moments, he experienced my love for her.
“When I connected with Val, you were there,” I whispered.
He nodded.
“It was an intense moment for you. My love for Val caused you to experience a depth of connection you’d craved but had never experienced. It caused you both intense joy and intense pain.”
His hands tightened on mine. It was then I knew. The reason he was here was because, over the years, he’d become obsessed with experiencing that same pain-filled love again. He craved it. He needed it. He was willing to die for it.
I opened my eyes. “You have no intention of leaving this building, do you?”
“No. But you knew that when you came in. I know you could sense my thoughts, but I could sense yours as well. We’re connected, you and me. I’m not sure how and I’m not sure why, but I am sure that in the moment of your sister’s death, something happened that forever bound us, one to the other. It seemed fitting that because we’ve been bonded in this life, we should move on to the next life together.”
I leaned back just a bit. I felt like I was suffocating. I needed air. I needed space. But I also needed to finish this. “If you’ve been seeking a connection with me all this time, why did you hurt the others? Why not just come to me in the first place?”
He smiled. “Don’t you see? Your pain is the key to my pleasure. I knew we’d only connect to each other during times of intense pain. Intense pain for both of us. I didn’t initially set out to hurt you, but years behind bars with nothing but time convinced me that I needed to feel that connection one more time before we left this earthly plane.”
I honestly felt as if I was going to throw up. This psycho had killed three men just so he could get his jollies in the only way he’d ever found to do so. Talk about sick.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” I said.
“I think it does.”
“If you die, you’ll never feel anything again. Not joy, not pain, not anything.”
“And that would be better than what I’ve endured for most of my life.”
I looked him directly in the eye. “I guess I can accept that, but while you might be ready to die, I’m not.”
Zane narrowed his gaze. “The ultimate release will only come with death.”
I took a risk and sought a connection. I held his eyes with mine as I prodded in his brain. Suddenly, I saw something he’d managed to block from me before. “Luciana would want you to let me go.”
His eyes grew big. “She would.” He pulled out a detonator. “I’m going to count to five and then blow this place. Run.”
I got up and ran as fast as I could. By the time I reached the door, I could hear him say five. I’d barely cleared the threshold when a huge explosion lit up the dark sky.
Chapter 16
Wednesday, October 31
“I’m sorry you were hurt, but it’s nice to have someone to share the gimp section of the room with,” Wyatt teased me as we both looked out at the dance floor where our friends and neighbors, all dressed in costume, were moving and swaying to the latest hits.
I looked down at the casts on my left arm and right leg. “Trust me, I’m extremely happy to be here. If the name of Zane’s nanny, who I suspect was the only person he’d ever really connected with, hadn’t popped into his head at the last minute, I think I would have been toast.”
“He did have a difficult life,” Wyatt said. “I can’t help but feel for the guy. He was born into a home with absent and negligent parents, but at least he had one person who truly cared for him. But then Luciana was brutally killed in an explosion set off by rebels after his parents canceled her work visa and sent her back to Nicaragua when he was old enough to go away to boarding school.”
“It’s true, he did suffer trauma in his life, but so do a lot of people, and most of them manage to endure without killing a bunch of other people,” I pointed out.
“I’m just glad you made it out. I think the entire experience took at least a decade off Jake’s life. Landon and Houston’s as well.”
“Yeah.” I sighed. “It would have been tough to be the one waiting to see how it all worked out. I’m just glad it’s over and we can begin to heal, although I feel awful for Chloe. She worked so hard to buy the café and now it’s gone.”
“Yeah, that was a tough break.”
I watched as Chloe hugged Landon after they finished their dance. She whispered something in his ear, turned, and looked at me, then headed in my direction.
“Your cat costume is really cute,” I said.
“Thanks. It’s pretty simple, but after everything that’s happened, I needed simple.”
I lowered my eyes. “I know I’ve said this a million times, but I’m so sorry about the café.”
“And I’ve said this a million times, don’t apologize. It wasn’t your fault and you risked your life to save mine. I’ll never forget that. Besides, everything’s going to work out okay for Chloe’s Café.”
I raised a brow. “Work out okay? There isn’t a single piece of it standing more than a foot tall. How can it be okay?”
“It’s okay because I’m rebuilding. By next summer, I’ll have a brand-new café with brand-new furniture, brand-new appliances, and brand-new paint and flooring. It’s going to be so perfectly awesome, I can barely contain myself.”
“That’s great, Chloe, but how are you going to afford that? I know you had insurance, but I thought you said it wouldn’t cover the entire cost to rebuild.”
“It won’t. But I took on a silent partner with deep pockets who’s willing to let me rebuild the place however I want.”
“Partner?” I asked.
“Har
ley Medford.”
I smiled. “Really? Harley’s going to be your business partner?”
“Silent partner. But yeah. He felt bad about what happened, and the town really needs a place to gather for breakfast, so he offered to help out. Isn’t that great?”
I leaned forward and pulled Chloe close. I gave her a long hug. “That is great. And I can’t wait for Chloe’s Café 2.0 to open.”
“Oh, I like that. I might have to change the name. Anyway, I wanted you to know so you’d stop worrying.” Chloe looked at Wyatt. “Wanna dance?”
Wyatt looked down at the wheelchair he was sitting in. “I’d love to, but I’m not sure my body is quite as willing.”
Chloe grabbed the handles on the back of the chair. “Don’t worry. I’ve got this. I’ll drive and you just enjoy the ride.”
I couldn’t help but grin as Chloe pushed Wyatt onto the dance floor. Not long after they left, Houston joined me.
“Nice party,” he said.
“Jake throws the best Halloween parties. Christmas as well. If you don’t have other plans, I’m sure he’d love to have you attend our traditional Christmas Eve dinner. We decorate the bar and close early. The whole team usually shows.”
“It sounds wonderful and it does look like I’ll be on my own for Christmas. I thought about going to my sister’s, but I realized I’d rather just stay here in Alaska.”
“Christmas is great here. The days are ridiculously short, so there’s that to get used to, but everyone decorates the town and there’s sure to be snow. It feels like a holiday movie.”
“I can’t wait. It’ll be fun to decorate my house, not that I have any decorations, but I’m sure I can buy some.”
“I’ll help you. We can cut a tree for your great room, and it’d look awesome to string lights in those little trees that border the lake. I think we can create something wonderful.”
Houston smiled. “I like your enthusiasm.” He looked at my leg. “How’s the leg today?”
“Hurts like a demon, but I’ll survive.”