“No,” she cried, turning her head back and forth, “Please just let me go, and I won’t tell anyone anything. Please!”
But it was no use. Reno sat down on her abdomen and planted his knees on her arms. Just then, the door flew open, and Niles hurried inside.
“Sirens!” he cried. “Let’s move.”
Together, they jerked her up off the floor and carried her kicking and screaming out to Niles’ SUV. They tossed her in the back seat. Reno climbed in and sat on her. Niles started up the engine, wheeled away from the parking slot, and raced away.
“You know where I want to go?” Reno asked Niles.
“Hundred and Third Street, right?”
“Exactly.”
They raced through sharp turns and sped up on straightaways. Weeping and swaying the whole time, she became car sick and vomited on the carpet. the SUV slowed and pulled over to the curb.
“This okay?” asked Niles.
“Perfect. Help me with her.”
Niles came with a length of rope and bound her ankles together. The men then carried her into the crosswalk and stood her upright. While she was left standing in the crosswalk, swaying up and back, Reno ran back to the SUV, backed it up, and slipped it into low. Then he stomped on the gas and drove straight at her. When his front bumper contacted her body, the SUV was breaking twenty miles per hour. She flew up and over the hood, and he hit the brakes, causing Chloe to slide off the front end. He then drove over her body, both sets of tire setting fire to her chest and stomach. The vehicle rocked to a stop just beyond.
She was conscious. She hadn’t died. At least not yet.
Reno ran up to her and removed the length of cord from her ankles. He ran to the SUV and climbed in the passenger seat. The SUV did a quick 360 in the road as if they were coming back for her again. Chloe barely registered it as she slipped into unconsciousness. Drawing abreast of Chloe’s still form, Niles paused the vehicle while Reno rolled down his window and tossed her purse at her. The driver’s license and Social Security card and credit cards identified her as Chloe Soulé. Then the car sped away from the dark intersection into the night. During all of this, no other car passed in either direction. Her body was there in the roadway for the next motorist to run over.
She couldn’t move; her eyes were slits. Before everything went black, she saw the SUV’s brake lights flare at the intersection before Niles made a screeching right turn, and then the vehicle disappeared from view.
Reno whooped and slapped his knee. She was now a statistic on some life insurance actuary’s spreadsheet.
A statistic worth five million dollars. Dead.
Chapter 37: Detective Davidson
Nurse Carrie’s report of Chloe’s plight reached Detective Joe Davidson. Davidson hadn’t let up working the missing persons case like a dog on a bone. Even though they believed they had found where she had been held in the house in Alton, there’d been no trace of the occupants for almost a week. Their lieutenant had allowed them to keep men watching the property for forty-eight hours, but then pulled them for other duties. It was the usual. Not enough manpower for the crime in a city.
But if Davidson knew anything, it was that criminals rarely crept far from their nests. It was their comfort zone where they felt most confident and powerful. So Davidson and Rabinowitz had been cruising a three-mile radius around the rambler where they’d found a sewing room turned jail cell, complete with handcuffs at the headboard. The rest of the house seemed settled, not much evidence of foul play, almost as if a young couple lived there. But in two of the rooms, there was nothing but stained carpet and an awful smell.
Nurse Carrie‘s phone call had them scrambling. The call was traced to the Holiday Inn Express, so Joe and Frostbite rushed Code Three to the vicinity. They spotted a black SUV on Edwardsville Road, same make and model as described by Rivera’s neighbors. They lost it at a traffic light, but Davidson thought it had gone right just before the Shop N Save. Just as Rabinowitz lit up a smoke, Davidson turned onto 103rd Street, a dark road dotted with industrial warehouses and a lumber yard. The car’s beams fell across a body in the middle of the road. Davidson slammed on the brakes and both men jumped from the black Ford and rushed to the body. Flashlights shining and headlights on high beam, they identified the person who lay broken and bleeding, clinging to life.
“Make the call,” Davidson whispered, kneeling beside her head and feeling for a pulse on her carotid. “Stat!”
Rabinowitz used his cell phone, and then Davidson ordered him back to their vehicle to wait in case other cars should come. With his flashlight, he needed to direct them into the oncoming lane and keep them there until they were past the accident scene.
Minutes later, there was the far-off howling of the emergency vehicles. The sounds came nearer, but Davidson continued to administer CPR.
Rabinowitz knelt beside him. “Anything?”
Davidson didn’t stop to respond. She was special to him. He would not lose her.
He was amazed that somehow she had survived the hit-and-run. Bones were broken, organs smashed, but her heart still beat. When Davidson looked at her, his eyes filled with tears. How could one woman withstand so much?
Minutes later, the EMT’s were rushing from their vehicles. Patrol units were into traffic control carving a secured zone into the scene.
They ordered Davidson to stand down as the EMT’s took over. Vitals were taken, fluids infused, then a backboard to load her into the ambulance. Off they wailed into the night, Davidson and Rabinowitz bringing up the rear. A police vehicle was running interference. Something locked Davidson’s hands in a death grip on the steering wheel, white knuckles shining in the dashboard lights.
“That bastard did this,” Davidson hissed under his breath.
“He sure as hell did,” Rabinowitz agreed. “We take him down. Today, we find him and run him to the ground.”
“And put a bullet in him.”
“Did you see that face? Battered by fists.”
“Didn’t notice. She was run over though. Her bottom half didn’t match her top half,” said Davidson hoarsely.
“Torqued by the impact.”
“Motive?” the Davidson asked.
“Probably insurance money. He kidnapped her from the hospital, and he insured her. Obvious, partner.”
“Bastard. Today’s his day, though. I mean that," Davidson vowed.
The two cops fist-bumped. They had serious pain planned for Reno Rivera.
The surgery and recovery room took up the first twenty-four hours. Davidson and Rabinowitz dozed while waiting to speak with her.
A full day later, Davidson came alive when the ICU nurse came to tell them she was awake. The nurse said they could have five minutes with her. Davidson went to her room.
“We’ve got uniformed officers watching you,” were the first words Davidson spoke to Chloe.
She couldn’t speak. Coming and going under the veil of the anesthetic, she nodded, or at least Davidson thought she did.
“We won’t leave you alone until he’s taken into custody and put away.”
“Attempted murder,” Rabinowitz told her.
“We’ve done more checking around,” Davidson said. “I ran missing persons for the whole state, but this time I’ve searched by scars and tattoos and got a hit. It seems a woman matched your description from Chicago. Married to an Andrew Constance.”
She reached for his jacket, trying to pull him down. He leaned over her bed until his ear was just above her lips.
“Don’t call him,” she whispered. “No one can know.”
Davidson didn’t understand, but he wanted to keep her confidence. “I won’t,” he promised. “You and I will talk first before I make any calls.”
Chapter 38: Michael Gresham
We found Verona on our third try at the second hospital on our list, St. Petersburg Psychiatric Hospital. It was one of eight Russian psychiatric hospitals under federal control for “the treatment and rehabilitation of me
ntally ill persons who committed socially dangerous acts in a state of insanity and were released from criminal responsibility under court decision.”
The hospital director, under request from the U.S. Consulate in St. Petersburg, before it was closed by the Russian Federation, went back to his records and just happened to come across the records of Verona Sakharov Gresham, a naturalized U.S. citizen.
We had her. Marcel and I all but stormed the place, demanding to see the patient. We were rudely turned away and told not to return. The hospital had been declared off-limits to us by the FSB, we later found. We faced serious repercussions if we went there again trying to contact Verona Sakharov Gresham.
So, I sent Marcel back to the states. I told him I wanted him on the Chloe Constance case as soon as he was released back to work. He said he was already released. He would get up to speed by the end of the week. Only when I was sure he was safely on a KLM Airbus bound for Amsterdam did I return to the hospital.
This time, I took Essine along. Plus, sixty—five-thousand Russian rubles in my pocket. That would be the equivalent of about $1000 USD. A small price to pay for access to my wife. The building itself was a two-story red brick, with two wings, one on either side of the entrance. Together, they all formed one imposing structure. In reading up on it, I discovered the hospital was used during Soviet times for the separation of females from society and that it had 816 rooms, 123 solitary confinement cells, and 67 medical cells. It made me want to throw up, reading about this hell-hole where my wife was being held. Verona deserved no such thing and it enraged me as we walked inside at the “state” conformity of the wall-hangings and printed notices plastered all around.
Essine preceded me to to the General Service window. She spoke in rapid-fire Russian to the matronly woman behind the first desk. She was one of those who had earlier turned me away. This time I kept my hat low across my eyes and never looked directly at her. After her exchange with the woman, Essine returned to me. “Give me the money.”
My heart leapt with joy. She was going to accept our bribe. But I immediately fell back to earth when I realized she could just as easily take our money and turn us over to the FSB as she could take us to Verona. We were out on the proverbial limb and someone had brought a saw.
I passed the rubles to Essine and she returned to the woman’s desk. The woman switched off a small electric sign on her desk and stood. We were told to follow her.
We were led through two electric doors that snapped and buzzed as our guide placed her security card to the readers. Essine said the woman had warned that video cameras were recording every step we took. Essine told the woman never mind, we were proceeding anyway. The woman said, “Well, you’ve been warned. And if they ask me about your visit I will tell them you showed me FSB ID. That I thought you were FSB officers.”
We ignored her warnings and alibi. Once we were beyond the second door, nothing could have stopped us.
We walked ahead fifty paces—I counted—turned right, followed her down another half-hallway, then entered a room without knocking.
It was her. Sitting up in bed, reading a book open on her lap. She looked up.
“Yes?” she said.
“Verona!” I cried and ran to her. I bent to take her in my arms and she recoiled.
“Who are you?” she demanded in a voice I only dimly recognized. I heard it used only once or twice while we were married and then it had been directed at automobile drivers who cut us off in traffic. It was just one notch below all-out rage.
“Very?” I said, trembling head to toe, “it’s Michael. Your husband.”
Verona looked from me to Essine. “Who is this one?”
“Your niece,” I said, “Essine.”
“She was trouble,” said our guide, the woman from admissions. “She’s undergone treatment.”
“Yes, but my God,” I cried, “she has no memory of me! I’m her husband!”
“So you claim,” said the woman. “Now, I’ve brought you to her; she obviously wants nothing to do with you and so it’s time to leave. Follow me, please.”
“Wait, wait!” I cried. “I can’t just leave her here. I’m taking her back to the U.S. with me.”
“Not until FSB releases her, you’re not. Am I going to have to call someone to get you out? You won’t like that, I promise.”
I turned back to my wife. Her focus was again directed down on her book. She was oblivious to me and what was transpiring. In anguish and despair, I followed our guide. If I remained and raised hell, God only knows what they might do to me. So, I followed the two women back the way we had come five minutes ago.
Essine and I spoke very little on our drive back to her flat. The Lada chugged along, trailing a not insignificant plume of gray exhaust, but so were all the other vehicles leaving their exhaust too. Suddenly I hated Russia and I wanted to cry.
That night, four armed policemen came to Essine’s flat. The pounded on the door. She finally let them inside. They were looking for me. I was handed an official-looking document, which Essine took from me and read as the police officers ogled Verona’s pretty niece. She passed it back to me. “You have until noon tomorrow to leave Russia. If you’re still here at 12:01 p.m. you will be arrested. They will put you in jail, Michael. They are watching the house, and you, until they see you board an international flight out of the country.”
It would do none of us any good if I were arrested.
The next day, at 10:55 a.m., my KLM flight departed for Amsterdam, Detroit, and Chicago.
As we passed back over Saint Petersburg, I didn’t look down.
I couldn’t.
Chapter 39: Chloe Constance
Chloe underwent two more surgeries, one on her crushed pelvis.
Two weeks after the last time in the OR, Davidson and Rabinowitz visited again. She was still lying flat in the hospital bed, which Davidson attributed to the broken pelvis. She was staring at the TV. Jeopardy was playing, and she was following along.
“Hey, Chloe, Detective Davidson. Remember me? Detective Rabinowitz is with me.”
She looked them over and smiled. “I do. You’re my detectives. Where’ve you been?”
The squat, balding man took a stance at the end of her bed. “Your surgeon told us to stay away for at least two weeks, and we have.”
“Good. I had no idea who or where I was there for a while.”
“So they told us. Is this a good time to update you?”
“Please do.”
“First, we’ve made calls, and we think we’ve located a man you might know. He might even be your real husband.”
Chloe gave him a puzzled look then looked at Rabinowitz, too, who only shrugged. “All right, I’m game,” she said. “Who is this man?”
“His name is Andrew Constance. He’s in Chicago. He’s married to a woman named Chloe, just like your name. Any of this ring a bell?”
Busted. She played it dumb. Why? Because Chloe wasn’t going home to Andrew and her kids until someone did something about Reno. Reno would never leave them alone otherwise. Something bad needed to happen to him. She faked it with the detectives. “Wait. Does she have children?”
Davidson nodded. “Boy and girl. There’s more about that when you’re ready.”
“Wait, wait. Slow down. Other images are coming back.”
“Wonderful,” said Davidson. “Now for the big question. Do we call your husband—the man who might be your husband?”
“No!”
“Why is that, Chloe?”
“Reno is my husband now. I don’t think the man in Chicago is my husband anymore.”
She had decided. Reno would die, and she would do it herself. Unless Justin had a better idea.
Davidson looked at Rabinowitz, whose face reflected Davidson’s confusion.
“Let me see if I understand you. You believe Rivera is your husband?”
“It’s coming back. Reno got me from the first hospital. He showed me pictures. He showed me my sewing stuff. I f
ound this other woman’s diary. This Chloe you’re talking about—I read her diary. That’s not me at all.”
Davidson raised his hands. He looked around and then backed up to the visitor’s chair before he sat down. “Let me see if I’m following you, Chloe. You believe Rivera is your husband. Is a little boy, Andrew Junior, your son with Rivera?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. But now someone else has him. Someone named Andrew. I want my son. Can you help me get my son?”
“First, we need to make you safe before we can even think about Andrew. This Reno Rivera tried to kill you. He ran over you. Do you hear this?”
“I think so. But I don’t believe you. I’m sorry, but I think you’ve got it wrong. You think Rivera tried to run over me? Is that what you think?”
“We were following your car and lost sight of you. The next thing we know, you’d been run over. Do you remember any of that?”
Chloe looked out the window. Across the street was an Italian restaurant, a Walgreen’s, and a pawn shop with the windows covered with black paper. Reno should have killed her, she thought, because that was his last chance. When he failed, he died. He didn’t know it yet.
She kneaded the sheet she’d drawn across her chest to show them she needed some distance, that she wanted to think, that it was all too much at once. She let them think they were asking for more than she could give. So she became difficult.
“I remember no one running over me,” she said, not meeting Davidson’s eyes when she spoke. With a memory lapse, she could be anyone. It had happened before to Chloe after the previous accident. It could happen again now. Then she added, “I want to speak to my husband.”
“You don’t mean Reno Rivera?”
“I do.”
“Hold on, Chloe. Let’s talk about one more thing. It appears to the doctors someone beat you. Does that ring a bell?”
The Fifth Justice (Michael Gresham Legal Thrillers Book 10) Page 14