Pieces of furniture, cooking utensils, and torn bedding were strewn haphazardly across the floor. A quick glance into the kitchen showed the cabinets were picked clean, their doors partly torn from their hinges and hanging askew. The books and the magazines that had been neatly stacked on shelves were lying on the floor. Some of them had ended up in the fireplace, their charred remains sticking out of the ashes. Every trace of the intangible warmth that had permeated the apartment during his visit was gone.
Finn swallowed hard. There was no doubt the apartment had been ransacked and trashed. Please, let it have happened after he’d left, he begged silently. Popular culture had always painted an imaginary zombie apocalypse as the most terrifying end-of-the-world scenario, but in Finn’s experience, human beings were capable of so much worse than made-up monsters.
He crept around the apartment, peeking inside the vacated bedrooms and the bathroom, but it was empty. No one was lurking in the shadows to jump him, and he relaxed somewhat, lowering the pipe. His anxiety, however, was growing with every passing second.
“Finn? Can I come in now?” Siobhan called from the hallway.
“Yes.” He hurried to the door to illuminate her path, so she wouldn’t trip on the debris scattered on the floor, when a spot of color caught his eye. He bent and picked up Spencer’s chunky striped scarf, which had been lying there in a heap, like a discarded rag.
It was one of Spencer’s favorite things. There was no way he’d leave it behind so carelessly.
Finn’s pulse sped up like a race car. He nearly jumped at Siobhan’s sharp intake of breath as she came up behind him, taking in the mess.
“Oh, my god. What happened here?”
“Spencer’s in trouble,” Finn said thickly, proffering her the scarf as evidence. It didn’t directly answer her question, but he was vaguely surprised he could even form and push coherent words out of his mouth.
She took the scarf carefully, and he had to stuff his hands under his armpits to stop them from shaking. “Then we have to find him,” she said.
Finn nodded mutely. Her voice came to him as if through a daze, and he had to make a conscious effort to focus on was she was saying. Get a grip, he told himself angrily. Unraveling at the seams wouldn’t help anything, and he needed to stay sharp now more than ever.
He took a long, steadying breath, and cast around to see what else he could glean from the scene of destruction. Whoever did this hadn’t exactly been careful about covering their tracks. There wasn’t any blood that he could see, which was a good sign. That meant Spencer could very well still be alive. Otherwise, the attackers wouldn’t have bothered with hiding the body, simply leaving it to rot.
No, Finn amended mentally. Not “could be.” Spencer was still alive. He had to be, even if Finn was afraid to think what the looters wanted him alive for. But if there was one thing he’d learned from years of survival, it was that giving up was not an option while there was a sliver of hope left.
It did look like there had been a struggle, but it was hard to tell what had been thrown down during the fight and what had been smashed deliberately. In any case, there wasn’t much left to go on. He found a torn glove that clearly wasn’t Spencer’s, but apart from confirming that someone else had been there, it wasn’t much help in identifying the culprits. Too bad his interest in criminal justice had in no way prepared him for solving an actual crime.
Siobhan crouched beside the fireplace, covering her mouth and nose against the dust as she poked at the ashes with a broken chair spindle.
“The embers aren’t completely cold yet. The fire couldn’t have gone out that long ago. Whatever happened, Spencer can’t have gone missing for more than a day.”
“Maybe we could still trace where they went from here,” Finn said, reminding himself not to get his hopes up too much about the possibility. “We better take a look before the fresh snow covers the tracks.”
Siobhan nodded, and they hurried outside. Finn wrapped the striped scarf around his head. If he tried hard enough, he could imagine smelling Spencer’s scent on the wool. He inhaled deeply, the breath more calming than any of the previous self-admonitions.
They exited the building and circled it, paying much closer attention to the ground than they’d done before. Unfortunately, fresh snow was already piling up on top of the earlier slush, making their attempts at tracking more difficult. Having been a city dweller with absolutely zero interest in the great outdoors, Finn had only the vaguest notion of what he should be looking at.
Thankfully, it seemed his quarry had made no attempts at concealment. He picked up on the disturbed patches of snow where someone had made a sort of uneven path. It was probably the result of several people moving in a group rather than just one or two. The path wound behind the building into a shielded narrow alleyway where he could finally discern individual footprints. It also looked as if something heavy had been dragged between them, something that left a deeper groove in the snow—like a sack of loot or an unconscious man.
Finn walked slowly, for Siobhan’s sake, but everything was screaming in him to run as fast as he could, to follow the trail while it was still hot. The evidence had almost disappeared when they crossed into a wider street, where the strong wind had all but blown it away.
Siobhan started coughing, and Finn stopped to hand her a bottle of water from his messenger bag. He looked every which way, but the snowfall was getting heavier by the minute, and by now, the direction Spencer’s attackers had taken was nothing more than a guess.
Finn kicked the curb in frustration. They were so damn close! The weather taking a turn for the worse at just the wrong time was hardly his fault, but he’d never be able to forgive himself if he let this chance of finding Spencer slip through his fingers.
“I think they went that way,” he said uncertainly when Siobhan indicated she was ready to continue. The street looked deserted in both directions, the blizzard slowly picking up, but he had to at least try to follow whatever lead he had.
They started off, shielding their faces against the gusts of wind. After about four blocks, Finn was considering calling for a break to find temporary shelter for Siobhan and then continuing the search on his own, when she stopped and pointed to a red-brick three-story building on the corner, adjacent to some sort of diner or restaurant. The facade boasted a crumbling plaster arch, but miraculously, the darkened glass of the front door and windows behind iron grills had survived with only a few thin cracks running through it. A flicker of light was coming from somewhere within.
“Stay behind me,” Finn whispered. They crept along the side of the building and peered into one of the windows, crouching beneath it.
It was some kind of a quaint office building, and they could see a bunch of people gathered in the cramped lobby around a small bonfire. They were talking and laughing, but the voices were too muffled to discern the words. Finn ignored them as he zeroed in on what at first appeared to be a heap of rags tucked against the far wall of the lobby. The patterns on the mismatched clothing had become familiar by now. There was no mistake, even at this distance. Spencer was there, either unconscious or injured, in the midst of his kidnappers.
Chapter Eight
“SHIT,” FINN SAID, surveying the scene from the outside.
Whoever these people were, this didn’t bode well for Spencer. There were at least five or six men inside, and he caught a glimpse of firearms slung across the back and shoulders of several of them. With Spencer’s weapon probably seized and Finn armed with nothing but a pipe, the odds were seriously daunting.
“Is he there?” Siobhan asked, straining to peer through the window over his shoulder. “Do you see him?”
“Yeah. I think he’s unconscious—wait.”
There was movement among the men. They’d been huddled around the fire, standing or sitting, and passing around a jug—probably some sort of moonshine—but now, two of them went over to the corner where Spencer lay. One of them kicked him roughly until he stirred
and threw out his arm to protect his face.
Seeing he was awake, the two men hauled up him roughly and dragged him closer to the bonfire. There was no mistake—it was indeed Spencer, his features and blond beard clearly distinguishable through the murky glass. His hair was matted, the left side of his head covered with crusted blood, and he sported a black eye that made Finn wince in instinctive sympathy.
One of Spencer’s captors stepped up and punched him in the stomach while the first two held him. Spencer doubled over and struggled to free his arms from their hold. Judging by how feeble his attempts were, it wasn’t the first time they’d beaten him.
The others jeered as another blow was landed, their loud voices urging the attacker on.
“You son of a bitch,” Finn hissed, clutching the edge of the window in impotent rage. The rusted grill, which came out of the plaster at the corner, shook with the movement. The man whom Finn had pegged as the leader broke off from beating Spencer and turned to the window.
Finn ducked below the windowsill and backed behind the corner of the building, grabbing Siobhan’s hand and pulling her along. His heart was pummeling against his ribcage, fueled by a mixture of anger and fear.
It was hard to really be sure from a brief glimpse, but he thought he recognized the thug inside as the one that had almost cudgeled him to death at the hospital. That meant those men had purposefully tracked Spencer down to his home and lay in wait for him to come back.
They weren’t about to let him go. This wasn’t some random case of improvised home invasion. They were most likely going to torture him to death for the fun of it as punishment for trumping them. He had to get Spencer out of there before it was too late—if it wasn’t already.
He must have avoided being seen because no one came out to check up on the noise. Finn slumped against the side of the building, putting his head in his unsteady hands. Think. You have to do something. Spencer rescued you when he knew nothing about you except you were in trouble. Pull your shit together and do the same for him.
He took a deep breath, shaking himself out of the momentary stupor. This time, there was too much at stake for him to give in to panic and despair. Every minute he spent dragging his feet could prove critical when there was a bored and hostile gang involved.
Siobhan turned to him, her eyes brimming with apprehension. The gusts of wind tugged at her scarf, and she struggled to keep it wrapped around her head and neck.
“It’s bad, isn’t it? What do we do?”
“We’ll have to distract them somehow.” Finn kept his voice low, though the howling of the wind would’ve made it impossible to hear their conversation even at a few paces, much less from the inside. “Let’s go see if we can find a way in.”
They crept along the side of the building, ducking below the windows. The back door wasn’t locked, but they had to tread carefully around the piles of trash that surrounded it. The rusted hinges squeaked as Finn nudged it open, the sound partially drowned by the impending storm and the drizzling rain. Evening was already rapidly descending, washing the low sky in saturated indigo. Soon, it would be too cold and wet to stay outdoors, and with the storm gaining force they were risking freezing to death without proper shelter.
They slipped into the dark corridor. Finn took out his flashlight, making sure to keep the beam focused on the floor right under their feet. The last thing they needed was drawing attention by tripping over some junk in the dark.
The short corridor took them past utility closets and a communal bathroom. They halted with the lobby just around the corner, and Finn turned off the flashlight. The men’s shadows moved on the wall in grotesque shapes against the glare of the bonfire, accompanied by whooping and the sounds of impact on flesh. Spencer’s groans were also audible, but just barely.
Finn bit his lip in powerless rage. They definitely had to act fast, but he didn’t have the slightest idea of what to do. He also had to think of Siobhan’s safety—whatever happened, he couldn’t let those men catch a glimpse of her. If they did, his chances of successfully protecting her were slim to none.
He retreated deeper into the corridor to avoid being heard.
“We have to draw them out somehow to get to Spencer without them seeing us,” he whispered in Siobhan’s ear. “I can’t take them on, not when they’re armed.”
Siobhan gave him a look that clearly showed what she thought of that idea. Thunder rolled high above them, the sound distant and muted.
“It has to be one hell of a distraction to force them outside in this kind of weather,” she observed. “Like setting fire to the building.”
That would certainly fit the bill, but even if they managed to start a large enough fire in close proximity to the lobby, they’d risk trapping themselves and Spencer inside. It did remind Finn of something, though.
“There’s a restaurant next door,” he whispered. “We can see if there’s some equipment we might be able to use there. Like a propane stove, or a gas tank. At the very least, we can make some racket there to have them investigate.”
Siobhan nodded, and they shuffled toward the exit as fast as they could without making noise. Outside greeted them with biting cold, though the rain seemed to have subsided. The storm must have taken a different course, swiftly sweeping over the area and raging on southward. Shivering, they climbed over the low concrete fence that separated the back patios and hurried to the rear door of the adjacent building.
There were several dumpsters, filled with refuse that had frozen inside. The smell was still nothing short of revolting, and Finn covered his nose and mouth with Spencer’s scarf, searching with his flashlight across the side of the building and between the trash bins.
“Bingo,” he said, his voice muffled, as the light landed on two large gray cylinders that stood against the brick wall, half obscured by one of the dumpsters. “Let’s hope there’s still some gas left in those.”
Siobhan went into another coughing fit, but joined him by the gas tanks to examine the meter.
“Both are more than half full,” she said in a hoarse whisper and then coughed again, holding her gloved hand over her mouth. “See this little pipe here that goes into the wall? This leads the gas to the kitchen. We have to disconnect it, open the valve, and ignite the flow.”
“That’ll make for a serious explosion.” Finn frowned. “Are you sure it won’t bring down the entire building on all of our heads?”
“A portion of this wall, maybe. But it shouldn’t affect the office building too much, structurally speaking. The fire might spread, though. Let’s hope they scramble fast enough so we have enough time to get Spencer out before that happens.”
“You’re the engineer,” Finn said. What they were about to attempt was incredibly hazardous, but there was no time to weigh all contingencies. This was do or die—and for Spencer, that could be quite literal. “What do we need?”
“Something to act as a fuse. We don’t want to be anywhere near this thing when the spark hits the gas leak. Oh, and some burning material to make sure the fire reaches the nozzle.”
“I’ll go see if there’s something in the kitchen we could use,” Finn said. “I’ll be right back.”
He hurried into the kitchen, pushing aside the rusty door. The beam of his flashlight skimmed across the dull stainless-steel surfaces. The small kitchen, razed for foodstuff at some point in the past, was in complete disarray, with utensils and opened containers strewn across the floor and countertops.
He looked for towels or dishcloths to tear up and use as a makeshift fuse but didn’t find any. He cast about in mounting frustration when his gaze landed on a large industrial-sized fryer. The oil inside had solidified into a greasy black substance that felt almost rock-hard when he poked it with his finger.
Thankfully, Finn’s repulsion threshold had been brought significantly low over the past few years. All he could think about when he touched the solid black goo was that it was probably still flammable—and thus, something they could use. H
e grabbed a small paring knife that was lying on the floor beneath the fryer and used it to scrape some of the congealed oil.
That still left him without a fuse, and he had already wasted too much time searching. Finally, he unwrapped Spencer’s knitted scarf from around his neck. The yarn threads were thick and long, which was exactly what was needed. He hated ruining it, but with Spencer’s life on the line, there was no place for sentimentality. He’d use whatever was necessary if it gave him the slightest advantage.
Finn ripped the edge of the scarf with the small knife, and quickly unraveled the weave. He roughly measured a length of about six yards, judging it to be long enough, and twisted two strands together, to make the “fuse” thicker. It wouldn’t do if the flame died halfway to its target. Then, he smeared the oil along the threads and, as much as he could, along the remains of the scarf.
“God, you stink.” Siobhan wrinkled her nose in disgust when he joined her outside. “Come on, help me open this valve.”
Finn wiped his greasy hands on his coat and put all his strength into turning the round valve on top of the gas tank. It was partially oxidized, but this was not going to stop him, not when he was so close. He grunted and heaved, feeling the burn in his muscles, but the valve finally gave, turning with a loud screech.
Siobhan took the fuse and tied it around the nozzle that connected to the main pipe and then tucked the filthy rag that was once Spencer’s scarf under it, creating a sort of bedding for the flames to build.
“Here’s to hoping it won’t blow in our faces,” Finn said as he disconnected the pipe from the nozzle. There was a moment’s delay during which his heart plummeted in apprehension, but then there was the familiar, and usually disturbing, hiss of leaking gas. It was music to his ears.
“Okay, let’s go.” Siobhan uncoiled the fuse as they retreated across the patio and the low fence.
Finn took a box of matches out of his messenger bag and lit up the end of the fuse. “Here goes nothing.”
Frost Page 7
