Her vision blurred through the heavy sheen of tears covering her eyes, Della managed to blink herself into focus for just a moment. Staring down at the screen, she honed in on the square inch of the screen before her, the phone model one she hadn’t seen in more than a decade.
Barely able to remember how such a device operated, she checked each corner in a quick loop, finding what she was looking for in the bottom left.
The instant she managed to press mute, cutting off any sound that might come from her end of the line, she unleashed the full fury of what she felt.
Starting with the tears, she allowed them to pour down the side of her face. Thick and fast, they ran hot over her clammy skin. Striping her cheekbones, they dripped down into her ear canals, disappearing into her thick hair.
Accompanying them was the slightest bit of snot, her nostrils filling, liquid seeking to leak from any opening it could find.
Rolling the top of her head back, she parted her lips, a deep and guttural wail rolling out of her. Emanating from low in her diaphragm, she didn’t care about the string of saliva running over her bottom lip. Not about the feel of the wooden box beneath her head or the scratchy feeling in the back of her throat.
Instead, she just pointed her chin to the heavens and screamed. She yelled with everything she had, knowing now that she had nothing to fear from it. There was nobody standing outside, no one watching, wanting to hear her suffer.
Already she was stuck in the ground, a head start on what was surely her fate.
Pushing out the longest, harshest wail she could, Della drew back another lungful of air and let it burst forth a second time.
And then a third.
By the end of it, the sound coming from her was no longer mournful. It wasn’t full of fear, pity, and loathing mixed in equal parts.
Instead, it had given way to anger. The sort of pure and unbridled venom that her mother had once been famous for. The type that would allow someone to proceed to complete hostility in just seconds.
Balling her hands into fists, she lashed out to either side. Pounding them like makeshift drumsticks, she alternated from one to the other, mashing the sides of her hands against the boards, feeling pain shoot up the exposed knot of her ulna bone.
And with each shot, she heard the same bass thumping that she’d identified moments before, the sound doing nothing but pushing higher the emotion she felt.
Giving up on the sides of the box, she twisted her hands upward. Bending them over her torso, she scraped them between the top above her and the phone on her chest, pinning her wrists by her armpits on either side.
Her left hand she kept balled into a fist, smashing it straight upward. Like a piston, she pounded it time and again, the concentrated anger she felt driving it on, expelled from her in a primal yell.
This was not how it was supposed to go. This was not to be her ending, another statistic, folded into a box and left for dead. A punchline – or even worse, a footnote – in somebody else’s story.
She had come too far. She refused for it to be like this.
A realization that was buffeted just as fast by a second one, one even more sobering than what she’d just felt.
Right now, there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.
Reaching up with her right hand, Della ran her fingers over the board around her. She wriggled her way to the head of the box and jammed them into the corner, feeling for any spot of weakness. Flexing them at the first knuckle, she traced along the seam where the top and side came together, desperate for any sort of gap.
Anything that she could get a finger into. That’s all she needed. Just the slightest opening. From there, she would do whatever it took. Sacrifice whatever was asked.
She just needed a start.
So focused on the task at hand, she barely even heard as the detective began to speak again.
Hardly noticed as he said, “Della, I’m going to cut the line right now. Turn the phone off again to save battery and call me back in another twenty minutes.”
Pausing, Della stopped what she was doing just in time to hear him add, “Hang in there. We’re coming. I promise.”
Chapter Twenty-One
The silence in the wake of the call with Della Snow was almost deafening. Standing in the center of Deke’s basement, Reed had barely realized he was holding his breath. Or that sweat was rolling off his face.
Instead, he had been focused on the myriad sounds coming in over the line.
The girl must have thought she had muted the call. It was the only way to explain the contained quiet they had heard during the first half of it. Barely able to breathe, every response was slow and stilted.
It was drawn out with heavy breath, sounding like she was just on the edge of a psychological break.
Once Reed had given her the go-ahead to simply sit and wait, to just leave the line open while Deke worked, a single tone had been heard. Like an aborted attempt at cutting off the sound on her end, it was just a brief pockmark, barely audible over the line.
But it was followed by the most gut-wrenching series of sounds Reed had ever heard in his life. Screams and yells, the sort usually reserved for extras in bad horror movies.
And the fact that for as terrifying as they were, they paled in comparison to the beating Della gave the box she was trapped in. One time after another, she had pounded against it, surely destroying her hands in the process.
Not that she seemed to care in the slightest.
“Was that...?” Deke asked, the first words either had said since the line cut off.
Bobbing his head just slightly, Reed shifted his gaze away from the phone. Caught in the glow of the computer monitors, he could see fresh moisture underlining each of Deke’s eyes.
“Yeah, I believe it was.”
His lips parting slightly, Deke appeared like there was more he wanted to say. Unable to find the words, he simply stared, his face ashen.
Reed knew the feeling.
Standing in the center of Della’s apartment, he had felt the familiar clench take hold in his stomach. That telltale feature that seemed to grab him during every big case, the one that told him something major was happening.
And that he was going to have to be at his best to help ensure someone’s survival.
Still, this was on an entirely different plane. Raw and unfiltered, it took him to a place he hadn’t been since sitting in his car outside the funeral home that housed Riley’s body, trying in vain to make himself go inside.
A place of helplessness, far and away the worst possible spot for a man that did what he did for a living.
“That was a good thing you said at the end,” Deke managed.
A ripple of sensation passed through Reed as he nodded. “We had to say something. If for no other reason than to let her know she wasn’t alone.”
Rocking his head back just a few millimeters, Deke said, “I know you think the reason I help you is because of Riley and the alcohol and all that. And to be fair, in the beginning, that was a big part of it.
“But that right there is why I do it now.”
Creases appeared across Reed’s forehead, horizontal lines denoting his confusion. “How’s that?”
“You care. Maybe too much, but you’re genuinely trying to help these people.”
Shifting his attention to Billie, Reed could see that she had risen to her feet. Like him, she seemed to practically be bouncing in place, anxious to be on their way again, off to fulfill their promise to Della.
Deke was right. There were people that would argue that he cared about the job too much. That he was scraping precious years off his own life to try and help people that weren’t always even doing their part to save themselves.
Sure as hell weren’t looking out for his well-being.
But he refused to succumb to such thinking. It wasn’t the reason he had gone into law enforcement to begin with. Definitely wouldn’t have been abided by Riley for even a moment if she was still with him now.
“So, I’m sorry,” Deke said. “When you first showed up, the case sounded crazy, but it wasn’t personal. Now, it is.”
How anybody could have listened to what they just did and not felt the same way was something Reed didn’t want to even guess at. “Were you able to trace it?” he asked.
The hair on either side of Deke’s face shifted slightly as he shook his head.
“Not yet, but I will. I may not have an address for you, but I’ll have something by the time she calls back.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Fueled by the urgency of Deke and the sounds of the call with Della Snow still in his mind, Reed raced back across town. Again running with the flashers on, he pushed as fast as he dared, hitting triple digits on the freeway before settling into the sixties in the neighborhoods of Hilliard.
Just ten minutes after leaving Deke pecking away at his workstation in the basement, he and Billie pulled up to 215 Hudson Lane to find just a single aberration from their previous trip. Parked along the curb in the same spot he had used earlier was a white panel van, the back and side doors standing open. Around them moved a trio of individuals, their shapes and genders hidden beneath the white paper suits they were already wearing.
Standing watch beside them on the sidewalk was the man Reed had hoped would be waiting for him, silent and unmoving with his hands on his hips.
By every conventional definition of the word, Earl Bautista was a big man. Standing several inches taller than Reed, he outweighed him by at least a hundred pounds. Donning his preferred outerwear of bib overalls, a nod had been made to the warming outside temperatures by swapping the thermal he’d been wearing under them all winter for a plain white t-shirt.
Most of the five-month beard he’d been sporting the last time Reed saw him was gone as well, nothing more than a thin layer of stubble belying his head shaved clean.
Staying far enough back to allow the criminalists room to work, Reed shoved the gear shift into park.
“Stay.”
Doing as told, Billie remained in place as Reed climbed out and retrieved her short lead from the footwell behind him. Clipping it to her collar, he said, “Come.”
Most of the time, the two preferred to work free of a lead. It gave them both unfettered freedom, allowed Billie to best employ her skillset.
Sometimes, they were forced to swap that out for the long lead, an eight-foot tether that Reed could fasten to his waist. It wasn’t optimal for either, but it worked, giving them both the room to operate and whatever control was needed.
By far the worst of the three – and an option neither one cared for – was the short lead, reserved almost exclusively for moments like this, when they were about to enter an active crime scene. The sort of place where, no matter how good she might be at her job, the fact that Billie was still a dog could present problems.
“Thanks for getting here so soon,” Reed said, he and Billie stepping up onto the curb.
Meeting them halfway, Earl extended his hand, swallowing Reed’s in his meaty grip. “Grimes told me what you were dealing with. This thing for real?”
Considering telling Earl he was about to find out, Reed simply answered with, “For sure.”
Again, the echoes of what Della had just endured rippled through his mind, matched by a sensation that traveled the length of his spine.
With it came a covering of goose pimples.
Which in turn caused Billie to press into his leg, letting him know that she was near.
“Then no thanks necessary,” Earl responded. “That is some crazy shit.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Reed replied. Thrusting his chin up toward the apartment in the back, he asked, “Shall we?”
“Hell yeah.” Turning to his crew, Earl said, “Lady and gentlemen, I’m going up with the detective to see exactly what we’re dealing with. Go ahead and bring around whatever you need, but leave it outside.
“I’ll come get you when we’re ready.”
A trio of murmurs was the only response as the three barely paused, continuing to unload hard plastic tubs from the back of the van.
Not much for socializing, Reed had never seen them when they weren’t the epitome of professionalism. Not that he could ever remember actually even seeing what was beneath their paper suits, if he really thought about it.
Casting aside the thought, knowing there would be far better times to address such things in the future, Reed turned up the driveway. With Billie’s lead in hand, he said, “First trip, I went through the main house before the girl told me they were gone for the winter and she lived out back.”
“The winter?” Earl asked. “It’s damn near June.”
“Yeah,” Reed agreed. “Snowbirds. Apparently, they’re returning fairly soon.”
As they walked past the main house, Earl cocked his head toward the home, peering in the windows. “Anything there?”
“Not really. You guys get done out back you can take a swing through, but it doesn’t look like anybody’s been home in a while.”
Grunting a response, Earl said nothing more until they arrived at the door of the apartment. With the casing still shattered from Reed’s previous entry, he hooked his fingers back, using his knuckles to nudge it open.
“We did this last time.”
“Any signs of forced entry?” Earl asked.
“Nothing that jumped out,” Reed said, “but I’ll be honest, I already had PC, wasn’t really looking that close.”
“Right.”
Holding a hand out to stop Earl, Reed released his grip on the lead. “Clear.”
As if fired from a cannon, Billie shot across the foyer and up the stairs, her paws having no trouble with the slick tile. Moving in long strides, they could hear her move through the place before coming right back down the steps and presenting herself before them.
Less than twenty seconds in total.
Reed hadn’t expected anybody to have returned to the apartment, but he hadn’t quite been expecting anything that had occurred throughout the night. No need to risk anything on an assumption.
“Good girl,” Reed said. “Down.”
Flicking her tongue out over her nose once in acceptance of the praise, Billie did as directed. Starting with her haunches, she went to the floor before laying herself flat.
No need for all three to be making the trek through the place.
Leading the way up, Reed said, “The girl gave me the address on our second call. At the time, I still wasn’t sure if she was legit or just giving me a line.”
“Right,” Earl said, following him across the middle landing and on up into the apartment.
“So I came over here to check things out.”
Barely glancing at the common space as he walked through, Reed went straight into the bedroom. Hooking a finger into the hem of his t-shirt, he flipped the light switch on and stepped along the end of the bed.
Once Earl was inside, he turned to the mirrors behind them and said, “And then I saw this.”
For several moments, there was no visual or audible response from Earl. Nothing but a long draw of air, followed by the big man raising a hand to his face and rubbing at his stubble.
“Any significance to the words?” he asked.
“Don’t know yet,” Reed replied. “Captain’s digging now, we’re headed that way as soon as we get done here.”
Grunting again, Earl nodded slightly. Setting his jaw, he took a few steps closer to the mirror, peering at the surface of it.
“Looks like a standard magic marker. Block letters to appear as generic as possible.”
“Think there’d be any use in getting a handwriting expert to take a look?” Reed asked.
Pushing out another loud breath, Earl said, “Couldn’t hurt. I’ll have one of the guys email you a few shots first thing, just in case.”
“Appreciate it.”
Taking a step back, Earl looked over the perimeter of the mirror, folds of skin appearing along the base
of his skull as Reed watched him.
“I’m guessing this guy was super clean, but glass is one of the best surfaces out there for catching prints and fibers. If there’s anything left in this place, we’ll find it.”
Knowing that they both had work to do, that they were operating on a truncated timetable that would dictate whether or not Della Snow saw the next morning, Reed decided against discussing it further.
Instead, he merely said, “I need you to serve as a witness on something.”
“Yeah? What’s that?” Earl asked.
“I’m bagging a pair of Della’s socks and taking them with me,” Reed said. He didn’t add anything more, knowing that both men understood what it meant.
That there was a decent chance that before the night was over, Billie would be needing them for scent identification.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Reed and Billie burst through the front doors of the 8th Precinct eight minutes after sprinting away from Della Snow’s apartment. Parked haphazardly just feet away from the main entrance, Reed was barely able to pull the keys and kill the flashing lights before sliding out of the car.
Not bothering to wait for the rear door to be opened, Billie was right behind him, spilling down onto the concrete and falling in on his hip.
The interior of the building was only nominally more awake than it had been on their previous visit, a pair of lamps on in the sea of desks sprawled throughout the left side of the building. Figuring they must belong to Officers Greene and Gilchrist, Reed didn’t bother to so much as break stride.
The back of the building was separated from the front by a pair of frosted doors, bright light visible behind them. Housing the administrative offices for the 8th, Reed pushed straight through, going no more than a couple of steps before hooking a hard left and passing into the open door of Captain Grimes’s office.
As he did so, a voice he had never heard before became audible, the sound distorted slightly by being played over a telephone speaker.
“So you’re telling me Della is in trouble?” a man asked. In his tone was confusion and concern.
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