Dead Burn

by Jennifer Chase

There was nothing for Rick to do, but wait.

  * * * * *

  The breath quietly escaped Emily’s lungs. She didn’t want to think the unthinkable, but her only thoughts were of Rick as her eyes rolled back in her head. Her body went limp in Red’s grip. Fighting for strength due to the lack of food, and the effects of the drugs filtering out of her system, Emily blacked out.

  “Hey…”

  In Emily’s mind, a nice quiet place to rest as her body floated through the gently swaying currents. It was a place she could stay forever, no killers, no crime scenes, and no kidnappers.

  “Get up!”

  A faraway voice tried to get her attention, but she was comfortable sleeping.

  A sharp pain stung the side of Emily’s face. A strong jerk of her left arm made the world come into view again.

  “Wake up. You fainted.”

  Emily replied slowly with a slurred speech. “What do you want from me?”

  Nothing mattered to her anymore.

  Red let out a frustrated sigh. He sat Emily on the floor, leaning against the wall. Gentler this time, he slapped her face several times. The rush of blood flooded her cheeks. The assassin’s face came close to hers. He leaned in and studied her face, which appeared like he wanted some sort of answer from her.

  He slapped her again.

  “Stop… Stop it!” Emily jerked her head and faced Red.

  “You’re lucky.” He stated without compassion.

  Emily felt the blood pump through her arms and legs again with a strange tingling sensation; she clenched her fists allowing her strength to recuperate.

  Her vision sharpened.

  The tight quarters instantly made her self-conscious. It surprised her how strong the killer’s grip had latched onto her body, unable to move with such a severe force that she could not fight back. At the same time, he proved an interesting study for a textbook.

  “Lucky?” She managed to say.

  He showed his cell phone to her again. “It’s a reprieve. Do you understand?” The text message clearly read: confirm kill y/n.

  Emily didn’t know what to say. She searched his desolate eyes for anything that would explain the nightmare.

  As if he read her thoughts, he continued. “It means that the person overseeing him wants clarification.”

  Clarification?

  Rick was still alive.

  “Please…” She said.

  Red glared at Emily, but it didn’t seem to register to him by his expression that love was the most important thing in the world. It was nothing more than an emotionless reaction from the psychopath.

  “Please don’t kill him…” She tried to find anything in Red that resembled kindness and understanding. Her tormented expression softened as she continued to plead with her eyes.

  Nothing registered on his face.

  Red relaxed his posture and typed on his cell phone. He turned the small screen for Emily to see the order: Negative

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Friday 1600 Hours

  Jordan called, left messages, and sent texts all afternoon to Emily and Rick. They never responded. His heart raced as the old scenarios of working at the F.B.I. flooded forward. He held his phone close, rarely taking his eyes from the security icon as he drove. He watched Emily’s necklace move steadily south toward the Los Angeles area.

  Of course, it had to be a day with some of his most important client meetings. His mind relentlessly wandered back to Emily during his lectures on security. Difficult to ignore the absence of his friends, but he pushed through the last meeting.

  Jordan wasn’t the type to panic. He had performed well under pressure during undercover operations, but in some ways, it had felt more like a game, a performance with an endless audience. He loved the challenge of the work, but as with anything in Jordan’s life, it grew boring and lacked any purpose if the excitement stalled.

  Being a part of Emily’s life meant that nothing was ever boring.

  Instinct and experience made Jordan pull to the side of the street and park several houses away from Emily and Rick’s house.

  He sat a moment, staring through the windshield.

  Looking to the left and right, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. A few cars were home in various driveways, SUVs and compact cars, but nothing screamed unusual to him. The daylight dwindled, but it did not obscure the view of the entire neighborhood.

  He followed his instincts.

  Jordan waited until the streetlights came on as the dusk turned into early evening. Luckily, the bright lights were sparse, and he could still move around unnoticed.

  For good measure, Jordan tried both the house phone and cell phones before exiting his car. He obtained the same result, no answer. Emily’s necklace still headed south, past Los Angeles, at least according to his security application.

  It wasn’t like Emily and Rick not to check in. Jordan tried not to worry too much.

  The house next door was dark and provided a perfect cover as Jordan crept in the darkness to get a better view. The well-trimmed and manicured yard with the evergreens made his approach that much easier, without a gopher hole to fall into, or noisy leaves to alert anyone.

  He continued to wind around the yard with a purposeful pace.

  Part of him thought with some sarcasm that the couple just wanted some privacy, and wouldn’t appreciate Jordan’s commando approach. Maybe they would all have a good laugh about it later.

  Jordan flipped up the gate latch, paused a moment, and then slipped through. It was dark where he stood as he observed his surroundings. A lamp was on the living room, which gave a dull glow through the shut curtains.

  He almost felt silly embracing a cloak and dagger entrance, instead of just waiting for a call back. His suspicions quickly were realized as he peered through the small kitchen window, and saw two unidentifiable men searching the living room.

  One tall man pulled out desk drawers, flipped through bills, various pieces of paperwork, and continued throughout the room by tossing books from the tall bookshelves. The shorter, stockier man pulled out magazines from the shelf underneath the coffee table, quickly turning pages, but not finding anything that interested him.

  Jordan leaned back against the side of the house and out of the view of the men. The good news was that he couldn’t see Emily or Rick inside, but the bad news was something had happened to them. Otherwise, why would two goons search the house?

  Sucking in a deep breath, Jordan dared to move forward and peered inside once again. The two men disappeared, but returned moments later from another room. In low tones, they spoke to one another. Jordan strained to make out the words, but they were muddled through the wall.

  With Emily’s insistence, Jordan helped her devise a computer file storage system that couldn’t be hacked or stolen – at least by traditional means. No secret hiding place under the floorboards or inside the wall was safe. It was the age of technology, and using it wisely to hide classified information was the best opportunity.

  She stored all of her cases, both closed and ongoing serial cases, in a file on an unadvertised, dormant website. It was simple, clean, and extremely effective. Her laptop only had a few software programs and access to the Internet, which wiped clean every time she powered her computer off. Certain files she emailed to Jordan. He kept them in various security files with a system that only he knew, and no one else would connect the files.

  Jordan surmised that the men looked diligently for her files, or anything that she was currently working on. A small smirk turned the corners of his mouth upward because the men still didn’t have a clue about Emily Stone. They weren’t going to find anything.

  The front door slammed.

  Jordan slipped around the corner and saw the two men get into a van, which was parked across the street. He waited a few moments until he heard the vehicle drive away before entering the house.

  He quickly checked the home for any kind of scuffle, blood, or anything that would appear that Emily and
Rick had been taken by force. Nothing. The furniture, tables, and lamps sat intact and centered in the correct positions.

  Upon further inspection, Jordan noticed Emily’s wallet, cell phone, and jacket were missing from the usual location on the table next to the front door, which seemed logical if she went somewhere. He quickly opened the hall closet to discover that the suitcases were neatly stored.

  The entire situation wasn’t right; they wouldn’t leave for any length of time without telling him.

  A strange scratching sound came from the bathroom at the end of the hallway. Of course, he thought stupidly to himself. He never checked the bathroom; Emily and Rick could be tied up.

  Jordan hurried down the hallway and turned the knob for the bathroom door. Instantly a big, black blur knocked him backwards. He tumbled down hard onto the hardwood floors.

  Sarge locked in the bathroom, was now excited to see someone, and he licked Jordan furiously.

  “Uggh…” Jordan managed to say as he caught his breath. He wasn’t a dog person, or even a pet person for that matter. Not because he didn’t like animals, he didn’t like the mess and the disgusting things that they did – especially the smells.

  The large Labrador ran back into the bathroom, took several slurps of water from the toilet bowl, and came charging back to Jordan, water droplets flying everywhere.

  “That’s disgusting!” Jordan scrambled to get to his feet, furiously wiping the sloppy mess from his face and shirt. “Sit! Stay! Go away!”

  The dog charged up and down the hallway with unbridled happiness.

  Jordan got a distinct whiff of urine from the bathroom and could see that the dog had to relieve himself on the bathmat. He looked at Sarge with a renewed respect on the innate survival instinct to pee in just one spot. “How long have you been in there buddy?”

  He followed the dog into the kitchen where the canine looked longingly into his stainless food bowl, and then up at Jordan. Quickly Jordan found a large bag of food in the pantry closet and dumped a fair amount into the bowl. Instantly the dog ate, gulping, and smacking until the bowl was spotless.

  Jordan estimated that the dog had been locked away between twenty-four to forty-eight hours. It implied that whatever happened to Emily and Rick, it was planned, and perps knew that there was a dog in the house.

  Jordan projected the timeline from the last time he saw the couple, which was at dinner night before last. He had the loose timeline and the necklace – at least, it was a solid place to start.

  He looked down at Sarge’s big brown eyes, which searched his face for some type of indication of where his masters had gone.

  Jordan said flippantly. “And what are we going to do with you?” The dog moved forward, licked Jordan’s hand, sat obediently in front of him, waiting and watching.

  “Oh no, you can’t come with me. I don’t entertain dogs…”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Friday 1730 Hours

  Letting out a relaxed sigh, Judge Christensen sat comfortably in a leather chair located in his study – his favorite room in the rambling estate. He finished the weekly docket early and took full advantage at home. As he swirled the ice cubes in his glass and hoped to wash away the gruesome images of the cases paraded in his courtroom over the past couple of months, he breathed easy.

  His waking hours consisted of murderers, child pedophiles, rapists, and even a serial killer, which had found its way into his courtroom. After a while, all criminal cases merged, and the faces of the defendants morphed into one living, breathing, wicked entity.

  With all of the justice he dealt out in his court, he remembered every single person he sentenced over the years. In fact, it remained burned into his memory. Their faces, some smug, others showed remorse, but most were emotionless when the years piled up for multiple offenses.

  The judge rose from his chair and filled his glass again. The smooth sound of Scotch against the sides of the tumbler glass swilled among the ice cubes. It entertained him. His day slowly faded, but was never completely forgotten.

  He paused to gaze at a group of framed photographs of his late wife and their three children, along with six happy grandchildren. He was proud of all of his children, but only three years from retirement, he was lonely rattling around the large estate without someone to share it with him.

  Walking to the tall bookshelves with his glass tucked under his fingertips, he scanned for a new book to read for the evening. He prided himself on brilliantly organizing his volumes from classic titles to contemporary fiction. Tonight, he thought only a classic fiction story would improve his mood and solitude.

  His arms and legs felt strangely weak. His vision burred and then focused again. He knew that he needed to eat dinner, but it could wait a little longer before he heated up some leftovers.

  Running his left hand over the spines of the books, the room began to rotate. The titles jumbled into a dark, muddled abyss.

  His glass dropped to the floor and spilled out tiny streams of Scotch.

  The judge’s body crumbled forward. He made a weak attempt to catch himself on the books shelf for support, but succumbed to the darkness on the floor beneath the library of his favorite books.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Friday 1810 Hours

  “Where she’s going? Is Rick’s with her?” Jordan muttered to himself as he glanced to the computer. “Did the arsonist find them?” He was not expecting an answer out of thin air, just a clue to which direction he should venture.

  The big dog watched the laptop screen with mild curiosity where a small icon blinked, indicating Emily traveling South on Interstate-5. With a yawn, Sarge rested his large head on Jordan’s lap.

  “You’d never last on a stakeout buddy.”

  Jordan couldn’t help himself, and petted the dog, scratching him behind the ears. In an unexpected way, he felt closer to Emily in the company of her favorite four-legged companion.

  Pulling out a yellow steno tablet from his desk, Jordan jotted down what he knew for sure about Emily and Rick:

  Not answering phones.

  No sign of abduction at house.

  SUV in driveway.

  Missing her purse, cell and coat.

  Laptop not found.

  Left dog without care.

  After dinner with me went home?

  Two guys tossed house looking for something. But who, and what?

  Last case Emily worked – arson crime scene. Dead lawyer, Defendant, Judge next? Connection? Those who worked on the cases?

  Necklace tracker showed address of Mr. Bishop. How? Why?

  Necklace tracker travelled south to Los Angeles. San Diego? Mexico?

  Jordan paused to run several scenarios, but nothing logical clicked, or seemed to have a plausible motivation for the abduction of Emily and Rick.

  Everything that he came up with screamed abduction, planned, organized, and very specific.

  Extortion?

  After doodling around the list with goofy drawings of people, Jordan circled the names of Mr. Bishop and the Judge on the sexual assault case.

  “Well, Sarge…”

  The dog sat up straight, ears perked, and his tail thumped on the floor three times.

  “You ready for a road trip?”

  The dog watched with increased interest as his tail fanned in enthusiasm.

  Jordan went to his closet, retrieved two handguns, and made sure that they were fully loaded.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Friday 1845 Hours

  Heaviness exploded inside his skull, squeezing the front and back of the head with a vice intensity as he fought to open his eyes. It took every ounce of strength for the judge to lift his chin and to process what he saw through the one-way mirror.

  Horror twisted his soul.

  His breath caught in his throat like a hard knot, he felt his blood pressure rise to a critical level, the rapid booming of his heart quickened, and his stomach churned in acidy discomfort.

  He was inside his own pani
c room, staring into his master bedroom through a glass window, merely mirrored on the other side. A room he had long since vacated because he had chosen one of the more comfortable, smaller rooms to sleep and shower.

  The judge tried to stand but found his body tied securely to a metal chair. He dared not to take his eyes away from the bedroom. Still not entirely believing what he saw. The will of hope flooded deep inside. Surely, it was an appalling joke, or a bad dream.

  In the same type of metal chairs, a man and woman sat, tied with heavy twine, and duct tape pasted across their mouths. Their eyes told the entire story, horror and panic. Terrified and uncertain of what fate had in store for them, the couple pleaded with their eyes, tears flowed down their faces.

  The judge couldn’t pry his eyes away from them. It was his only daughter, and son-in-law, helpless and alone. They must have paid him a surprise visit. There was nothing he could do for them.

  Everything he had witnessed and heard inside the courtroom for decades didn’t compare to what unfolded in his home, his supposed safe haven. He kicked in frustration at his chair to loosen the ropes, but it only pulled them tighter across his chest, arms, and legs.

  A dark figure entered the bedroom.

  The unknown man, tall and painfully thin, wearing a black running suit with the hood pulled firmly around his face. A glimpse of pale skin and sharp features obscured by the athletic wear, gave the only indication of who was behind the macabre performance.

  If there was an existing grim reaper roaming the earth, he resembled it. He moved with agility and purpose, as his hands swiftly checked and double-checked the restraints on his victims, never looking directly at their faces, or reacting to their pleas.

  A strangled cry escaped the judge, but no words formed from his lips. Anguish and misery lent to more inaudible sounds. No one could hear him, and no one would rescue them in time.

  The dark shape left the room for what seemed like an eternity, and when he returned, he carried a large plastic container with a pouring spout. With a quick flick of the wrist, the top of the container dropped to the floor, and the man poured the liquid on the two victims.