Expire

by Danielle Girard

  A lack of water would kill the baby. Kill them both, for that matter. The effects of the drug were less known but likely less dangerous. The drug wasn’t lethal to her or the baby—at least not immediately. She glanced at the kitchen sink. Drugged. The bathroom sink, too. But the shower?

  There was only one way to find out for sure. On her feet, she dragged the clip along the track to the bathroom and turned on the shower. There, she filled the cup, drinking it down quickly and refilling it again. She drank three glasses, filling her belly until it was uncomfortable.

  Then she left the glass on the sink and returned to her bed, waiting for the drug to affect her.

  Her heartbeat was erratic. Her eyelids heavy. Was that the drug or the effects of adrenaline and fear? Questions bounced about her head—how she would continue if the only option for water was from a drugged source. What she would do. Lying awake, her throat burned as though by some invisible poison.

  At some point, she fell asleep and dreamed of a young man with large blue eyes and a gentle raspy voice with a lisp. His hands felt a little moist, the fingers thick and short against her own.

  “Come on out of there, Roy,” a woman said to him, her voice tired but kind.

  Schwartzman jerked awake, flinching at the sensation of being touched. The room was empty, the sky outside light. She went back through her thoughts, trying to determine what made her feel as though she had been touched. It was just a dream, she told herself. A nightmare. The shower water was drugged, and the dream was a side effect.

  But was it only a dream?

  If the drug was a benzodiazepine, it shouldn’t have been strong enough to sedate her through a physical assault. She squeezed her eyes closed and focused on her body, finding nothing unusual. And yet, it was there, the vague sense of fingers on her face.

  Roy.

  She pitched her head over the side of the bed and vomited on the floor. Then, wiping her hand across the sleeve of her hoodie, she began to undress. Her fingers fumbled with the zipper. Everything here had buttons or zippers—the shirt, the hoodie, a pair of men’s small plaid pajamas, a new addition to the stack of clothes. With the collar, nothing could go over her head.

  Someone had thought through the details. She felt another wave of nausea and paused to lean over the bed again. But she didn’t throw up.

  Stripped down, she examined her skin, studying it in small quadrants the way she would a victim’s in the morgue. Her gaze froze momentarily on the faded handwritten numbers on her arm before she yanked her sleeve down and kept looking. As much as she pulled and twisted, the only imprints she found on her skin were consistent with the folds of her clothing.

  She re-dressed more slowly, trying to calm herself.

  The dream had left her unnerved, but she couldn’t say why. The Roy in her dreams was gentle and sweet and nothing like the man in the van. She smelled something unfamiliar, a mixture of soap and dirt. Except for the pajamas someone had added to the stack of clothes, the room appeared the same, the glass empty on the bedside table.

  Stepping carefully, she made her way into the bathroom and returned with tissue to clean up the floor. Pulling out the cord, she bent slowly. Something shiny under the bed caught her eye. She reached out, and her fingers touched hard metal. She lifted it and sat back, one hand keeping hold of the cord.

  In her hand was a gold-toned key, like the kind that might fit a front door. She turned it over in her hand. Had someone dropped it? Or was it some sort of test?

  But what kind of test would it be? The key was no good if she couldn’t reach the door. She needed a way out of the collar, and the key was clearly not to the collar. If it even had a key, it was some tiny thing, the size of a bobby pin. She wished she had something like that. She didn’t even own a bobby pin.

  She set the key aside and cleaned up the mess on the floor. Outside, the sky was growing lighter. She collected the toilet paper and took it into the bathroom.

  When she returned to the bedroom, she reached down for the key and held it in her palm. First, she needed a way out of the collar. Then she could use the key.

  She looked around the room for a place to hide it. She had no idea what they did in that room when they came. Who came or where they looked, what they touched. The idea made her feel another wave of nausea. They don’t touch me. So she would keep the key close.

  Back on the bed, she pulled off the corner of the sheet and the mattress pad and found a buttonhole in the corner of the mattress. There, she worked the key under the button until all but the top of it was hidden. Carefully, she replaced the mattress pad and the sheet, laying her pillow on top of the bump.

  The key wasn’t much.

  But it felt like something.

  19

  Wednesday, 9:10 a.m. CST

  Now that he was a persona non grata in Dallas, Hal was grateful they were heading to Denver. After the encounter in the restaurant Monday night, Telly’s SAC had gotten phone calls from three different sources complaining about Hal. It turned out that Sapphire was the spot where very powerful people ate, including several members of city and state government. Not to mention that MacDonald’s client was heir to a crane-and-freight-elevator fortune. The irony didn’t escape Hal—another reason to hate elevators.

  At least Telly had convinced his SAC not to pass the complaints on to Captain Marshall in San Francisco, but that was only if Hal managed to fly completely under the radar for the remainder of his time in Dallas. Which meant Hal was hamstrung. Even Telly wasn’t to go anywhere near Spencer MacDonald, and all detail had been pulled off him. Despite his SAC’s warning, Telly had managed to get a couple of agents to tail him at a distance. It turned out, even in his short time at the bureau, Telly had earned some favors.

  While two agents tracked Spencer MacDonald at a considerable distance, Hal and Telly locked themselves in a conference room and pulled data—lists of known associates of MacDonald’s. Not an easy task in any situation but made more difficult for several reasons. One, as best as they could tell, the only person MacDonald knew in Dallas was the older woman he’d been at dinner with. The second challenge was the nearly impenetrable shield MacDonald had from the folks in Greenville. The police department was strangely protective of a guy who’d been to prison.

  Telly had been able to gain the assistance of a single FBI agent in Greenville. While she was both efficient and competent, the agent worked on her own. Originally from northern Virginia, she was an outsider to the folks in Greenville. Her every attempt to gain information had been thwarted, and though she’d tried to obtain warrants, there wasn’t a judge in town who would give her access to MacDonald’s dealings.

  It didn’t help that the mayor of Greenville was a client of MacDonald’s and did not take kindly to insinuations of MacDonald’s guilt. Tuesday evening, Hal put in a call to Harper, but as of 10:00 a.m. Wednesday, he hadn’t heard back. He’d left a message for the PI Anna had hired, Colton Price, but that one, too, had gone unanswered.

  While Hal focused on MacDonald, Telly put together a comprehensive list of cases Schwartzman had worked since her first days in Seattle through her time in San Francisco. A data team would sift through the lists and see if anything stood out. Hal couldn’t help but feel like reading through her cases was a waste of time.

  But he knew what it took to run a successful investigation. Throw the net wide, cover everything, and then reel it in carefully so you don’t lose anything.

  Midmorning, Telly and Hal sat in on a briefing from the pair of agents who’d been watching MacDonald for the past two days. A couple of old guys, heavy and barrel-chested, they were similarly rounded with fleshy noses and full lips—a sort of strange twin phenomena. But one was bald and tall, the fingers on his right hand yellowed from smoking. The other had fiery red hair and a row of tiny pointed teeth that reminded Hal of a mouse. The mouse stood about six inches shorter than his partner.

  In the conference room, the two men struggled to work the projector, bumping around eac
h other like Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Once they sorted out the technical difficulties, they presented Telly and Hal with a ten-minute slideshow filled with images of the back of Spencer MacDonald’s head in front of one building or another. The two men didn’t look capable of catching the old woman MacDonald had dined with, let alone MacDonald.

  After they left, Telly went back through the photographs, sitting on the edge of the conference table a few inches away from the projector screen, studying the images. Hal wondered if his mother had warned him about sitting too close to the television.

  No one seemed able to find a single hair out of place on that bastard’s head. And yet somehow, MacDonald had managed to steal Anna right from under Hal’s nose. Again the blame came around to strike him squarely in the face.

  But MacDonald had pulled stunts like this before. He had successfully seduced a woman into killing for him. He’d managed to get access to Anna’s medical records. He’d killed two women and escaped prosecution.

  MacDonald would not get away with this. Hal would not allow it.

  He sank into a chair and dropped his head in his hands. Where is he holding you? He refused to believe she wasn’t alive. MacDonald was too obsessed with her. At least there was that.

  MacDonald was getting on a plane late that afternoon, heading to Denver. Hal was going, too. And Telly. The FBI had promised the San Francisco Police Department that they’d provide resources until she was found, and Hal was going to hold them to it.

  MacDonald would be in Denver for two days before he moved on to Detroit, then Cleveland, Richmond, and finally back to South Carolina. Hal would follow him to every destination. He would walk on MacDonald’s heels, breathe down his neck until MacDonald took him to Anna.

  Because the thing Spencer MacDonald wanted most was Anna herself. Maybe he also wanted to punish her, but he wanted her to pledge herself to him, to beg for her life, to profess that she couldn’t live without him.

  MacDonald wouldn’t be able to stay away from her, not forever.

  And when he went to her, Hal would be there.

  If Hal couldn’t find her before MacDonald went home, Hal would go there, too.

  Could he be holding Anna in South Carolina?

  Hal kept coming back to the question of how he had transported her. Human trafficking was rampant on the freeway system. At that moment, she might be in the trailer of an eighteen-wheeler, a thousand miles away. She might be even closer.

  Or she might be headed to Alaska.

  Or to Peru.

  Hal sprang from his chair. “I can’t sit here. I’ve got to move.”

  Telly nodded without looking up. “I’m going to stay here and finish reviewing these. Flight’s at five, so we’ll leave for the airport about two thirty.” Telly glanced at him. “Meet you back here?”

  “Sure,” Hal said.

  “Hey, Harris.”

  Hal stopped and looked back.

  Telly was still focused on the report. “We’re making progress.”

  Hal left the conference room.

  People glanced up as he passed, but fewer paid attention to him now than they had Monday. Now he was a familiar face. He didn’t want to be a familiar face. He wanted them to look at him, to focus on why he was there. As soon as he lost his newness, the search for Anna would, too. And with that came a loss of focus and energy.

  He strode down the hall, letting his rage out in the speed of his walk. In the empty elevator bank, he smacked the down button hard enough to feel the sting in his palm. He stood in the center of the elevator and hardly noticed the descent. He would not give in to his fear.

  Not his fear of elevators.

  Not. Any. Fear.

  He shoved open the glass door and walked into the Dallas air. The cold wind whipped across his face, clogging his throat and pressing on his chest. He shivered in his light jacket, yearning to turn back inside. Instead, he charged forward, taking the steps to the street by twos and turning randomly in one direction. He started to walk.

  His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he pulled it out without slowing. Hailey’s number. He halted and fumbled to swipe the screen. “Hailey?”

  “Has Marshall called you?”

  He froze, his feet rooted to the pavement. The fear almost doubled him over. “What’s happened?”

  “There’s a new case.”

  He could hardly breathe. A case meant a murder. What was she saying? He choked the word out. “Anna?”

  “No,” she said hurriedly. “No. It’s not Anna.”

  Something shifted in his chest, enabling him to draw a shallow, uneasy breath. “Does it have anything to do with Anna?”

  “No. It’s nothing about her.”

  He didn’t care about any case that didn’t involve Anna. Why would he?

  “There was a double homicide in Union Square.”

  Hal could only imagine the public outcry. Union Square sat right in the downtown shopping district, a stone’s throw from Neiman Marcus and Tiffany. The city erected its hundred-plus-foot Christmas tree there. San Francisco worked hard to keep the area aesthetically pleasing for tourists, not an easy task considering the number of homeless people who slept on the square.

  “You still there?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Homicide is short-staffed. Marshall requested I come back from the task force to work it. Kong is managing their other cases on his own.”

  Hailey had been working the past year and a half on a domestic abuse joint task force. Kong and O’Shea were normally a team. “Where’s O’Shea?”

  “Called back to Boston. His mom was diagnosed with stage-four liver cancer. They don’t think she’ll make it through the month.”

  Hal searched for something to say. He felt for O’Shea. He would also trade O’Shea’s mother for Anna, no question. He closed his eyes and rubbed his head. He was a terrible human being for even thinking the thought. “You okay with that?” he asked. “Working the case, I mean?”

  “Sure. I want to help.”

  Anna’s name went unmentioned, but she was there, at the center of the conversation. “Have you heard anything?” he asked.

  A silence.

  “Hailey,” he barked, fear taking hold again.

  “No. There hasn’t been any word here.”

  The words sank in like a slow, steady burn. No word. He read it to mean that no one was working her case. What about Roger? What about all the volunteers who had gone door-to-door? But he couldn’t bring himself to ask. He shook his arms to free himself from the cold and began to walk again.

  When Hailey spoke, her voice was soft, delicate. “Are you and she—”

  At Anna’s house the other night, Hailey hadn’t asked. Hal and Hailey had an awkward history around discussing their relationships. He hadn’t been a fan of her husband, John, who had been killed almost five years earlier. For her part, Hailey hated his ex-wife, Sheila. They had each let their feelings known, and as a result, a divide had grown between them.

  Since her husband’s death and his divorce, they had managed to close the distance. She was still a close friend, though her new role in the task force meant he saw less of her.

  “It’s none of my business,” she said.

  He thought about the baby, his baby. He wanted to tell her. He wanted to celebrate the news with his old partner. When he’d spent time with her two daughters over the years, she’d always said he’d make a great dad. And now he was. Or he might be. He would have to tell her. Eventually. Either way. He squeezed his eyes closed and prayed he would be able to share the joy of holding his own child. Finally, he said, “Yes.”

  The line fell silent briefly. “Yes, it’s none of my business?”

  “We are together.”

  “Hal,” she said, her voice a long, sympathetic whisper.

  He imagined all the things she could say. She had lost her husband, her children’s father. She knew about grief and fear. But he prayed she’d say nothing. He didn’t want to talk about
John’s death. He didn’t want to talk about death at all.

  “Listen, I should get back,” he said.

  “Uh, Hal?”

  “What?”

  “Marshall’s calling you back,” she said. “We need you on this case.”

  “I’m on leave,” he said. “I’m not coming back until I find her.”

  Marshall’s voice boomed in the background. “Is that Harris?”

  “I don’t—”

  Hal was interrupted by his captain’s voice. “I need you back here.”

  “Captain, I can’t.”

  “I need you back here now.”

  Hal gritted his teeth. “I’m not coming back to work.”

  “The hell you aren’t,” Marshall snapped. “I’m not asking you.”

  “Captain, I can’t come back now, not without An—”

  “The FBI is working on locating Dr. Schwartzman,” Marshall said, cutting him off. “They’ve assured me that they’re pursuing every angle. You don’t work for the FBI, Inspector. You work for me. And I need you here. Tonight.”

  “Tonight? There’s no—”

  “Tomorrow morning, then, Harris.”

  Hal drew a breath. He was light-headed and nauseated. How many days could he go without sleep? What had he eaten today? He shook his head to clear the cobwebs. “Captain, I don’t think you understand.”

  “No, Harris,” Marshall growled. “I don’t think you understand. We’re all worried about Dr. Schwartzman, but I’ve got a department to run. And I’ve got the mayor on my ass, and I’m not going to tell him one of my best inspectors is chasing a runaway medical examiner.”

  Hal flinched. “She did not run away.”

  “It’s not your case.”

  Hal shook his head, trying to come up with another way to explain to his captain that he wasn’t coming back. He couldn’t. He clamped his mouth shut, walking faster. What choice did he have? He could insist on taking his vacation time, but with O’Shea out, Marshall wasn’t going to approve it.

  Which left . . . what? Was he going to quit his job? He’d quit in a second if quitting would bring Anna home. But if he was no longer working for the department, he wouldn’t have access to the resources he needed to find her. He wouldn’t be able to work with Telly. He wouldn’t be able to track MacDonald or run background reports on the people around him.