But he was still excited.
Excited at the prospect of ending all of this, one way or another. That was what held appeal to Drake.
It was just the uncertainty that made him uneasy.
Chapter 58
Screech launched his computer mouse across the room in frustration. It smashed against the wall and exploded into dozens of pieces.
Jasmine was there. Jasmine of all people, was there. Drake's Jasmine.
Everything became clear in the moments before the men had grabbed Hanna. Drake had been acting so strangely when it came to Jasmine and their newborn because he knew. He knew that she was involved in this somehow.
Screech had no idea how, but he was sure of it. And it must have torn him apart being trapped between two worlds.
He had to leave this place, not just to track down Ken but to get away from Jasmine.
Screech stared at the video stream on the computer, which was mostly dark now. When the men had yanked Hanna’s earpiece, he’d lost sound, but he still had video.
Was she telling the truth? Could Jasmine really be working undercover this whole time?
He shook his head. None of that mattered now. The only thing that mattered was getting Hanna back in one piece. And now that Leroy's cover had been blown as well, that seemed like a tall task indeed.
“Got damn observational mission,” he spat threw clenched teeth. “You were just supposed to observe!”
He picked up his keyboard and was about to launch it at the remnants of his mouse when the door burst open.
Screech’s first instinct was to go for the gun, the pistol that Drake had given him long ago and that he kept taped to the underside of his desk. But when he saw a dark figure enter the office, sweat dripping off his forehead, Screech rocketed to his feet.
“Leroy!”
The man stumbled into the room one hand on his chest, the other in the air, indicating that he needed a moment to catch his breath.
“Goddamn it, Leroy, what's going on over there? They have Hanna!”
Leroy nodded vigorously, causing sweat to spray off him.
“I-I-I know…”
Things had gone wrong, so horribly wrong.
Screech reached for his phone and started to dial Yasiv’s number before stopping halfway through.
Yasiv had warned him about this. The man had said that they were on their own with this one, that he couldn’t, and wouldn’t get involved. That his life would be in danger if he so much as dipped his toe in the water.
“Like it’s not in danger already,” he muttered as he started to dial a new number. It took three digits before he realized that he was dialing Drake’s phone number. He hung up and then started a third string, but then stopped that one partway through, too.
Beckett had told him less than an hour ago that he wouldn’t help him anymore.
Screech was near tears now. He had no one else to call, no chits or favors to cash in. He was on his own now.
“They've got Hanna,” Leroy said, still huffing.
“I just said that.”
Leroy walked over to him, still wheezing heavily.
“And they almost got me. Our first fucking job, I almost got killed. And they got Hanna.”
“Goddamn it, I know! I know! I know!”
Leroy looked at him, silently begging for some insight, some plan of what to do next.
But Screech could offer nothing. He typically deferred to Drake for these types of decisions.
“We gotta go back,” Leroy exclaimed. “You gotta get some guns or somethin’ and we got go back. Call the police, something. Dude, we gotta get Hanna outta there.”
Screech stared at Leroy. He was just a boy, out of his league. But so was Screech. One thing he knew for certain, is that they couldn't go in there guns ablazin’; they couldn’t do that, because Steffani Loomis’ father was a goddamn Captain in the Army. Or was. Either way, the man probably had more guns in his bedroom than they could grab at the local hardware store.
No, their approach had to be more subtle. They had to find a way in, but how?
The image on the computer monitor suddenly turned yellow. Someone had flicked on a single bulb in the basement where they were keeping Hanna. And now a large figure stood at the top of the stairs.
“Shit,” Leroy grumbled. “This is fucked up, Screech. Somethin’ bad gonna happen. We gotta get there, we gotta get there before—”
Screech hushed him and tried to focus on the screen.
“What are we going to do?” Leroy demanded. “We gotta—”
“Shut up!” Screech yelled. “Just shut the fuck up! I need to think!”
Leroy fell silent.
The figure on the top of the stairs slowly started its descent.
Leroy’s right, Screech thought. We gotta do something. And we gotta do something now.
Chapter 59
Hanna desperate tried to clear the tears from her eyes and focus on the figure that was descending the stairs. Her first thought was that it was Steffani, but as it came near, she realized that this wasn’t the case.
Not only was the figure not wearing a dress, but it was much larger than Steffani.
It was a man, and even though she’d never seen him before when his deeply lined face came into view, she knew who it was.
“Hanna,” he said as he approached.
“Captain Loomis,” Hanna shot back without hesitation.
She expected the man to be surprised that she knew who he was, but his face gave away nothing.
“Hanna, the woman who helped Damien Drake escape from the psychiatric institution, the woman who claimed to have been raped by the Download Killer, the very same woman who’d spent her teenage years turning tricks in exchange for food and shelter.”
“Fuck you,” Hanna spat. The man had done his homework, she had to give him that. She thought that everyone who knew about her past had either fled the country or this earth.
But somehow this asshole had managed to dig up dirt on her.
That’s fine, that’s okay, she thought, trying to calm herself. Because one day you’ll be the one in chains, you and your daughter. And I’ll be there watching. Taunting.
“Yeah, Hanna… and now you're working for Drake, aren't you? Working for Drake and Screech and Leroy of all people. We've been watching you.”
“And? You like what you see? Why don’t you come a little closer and I'll show you a close-up?”
Again, she got the same unwavering and unfaltering demeanor from the man.
“The only question I have is what you're doing here. We know how you got in, pretending to be Greta Armatridge. And we know that Leroy worked the door. It wasn’t really that difficult. But why? Why come here in the first place?”
Hanna pressed her lips together defiantly.
“It's for Steffani, isn't it? Yeah, that’s it. I don’t really know what you expected to find, though. Still, I got to give it to you guys, to Drake, for pushing Ken Smith out like that. There was a time when he and I were partners, you know. But he thought he was better than me, bigger, more powerful. What he forgot is that I was the one who helped him start this whole thing, help him get that first package out of Colombia in the casket of his fallen friend. All that power… it got to his head. But that’s alright. He’s gone now. And the second he left New York, I stepped in. Snatched up all of his existing trafficking routes.”
Hanna said nothing; she did, however, move her shoulders so that her chest was lined up with Captain Loomis’ face as his lips moved. The camera on her pendant might not have sound, but lip-reading technology had come a long way.
“It’ll take time to get distribution back up again, but it’ll happen. Ken’s… the product is just too good and the price too low. People want it, Hanna. And when the demand is there, the supply shall follow. And the beauty of it? My name’s not on anything. I mean, look at this place? This Estate… it’s all mine, and yet I haven’t signed a single paper.”
Hanna still refuse
d to speak.
“And when I'm gone, my daughter will take over for me. A Loomis legacy. She's a tough woman, smart. Determined. Unlike you, you dumb little cunt, with the proper upbringing, you can accomplish more than being just a little whore.”
Hanna lost it. She spat, but it fell well short of the man’s face. Then she pulled hard against the restraints on her wrists and ankles.
“Ha, touched a nerve, did I?”
For the first time since coming down those stairs, Captain Loomis’ face broke into a grin.
“Yeah, I did, didn't I? I can't believe that after all these years you're still sour about what your mother did to you. Your father left you, so your mother whored you out to pay for her drug habit. Funny how these things come full circle, isn't it?”
“My father didn't leave me,” Hanna fired back.
Loomis made a face.
“Oh? Is that right? I'm pretty sure he did.”
“Fuck you. You and your piece of shit daughter.”
Loomis chuckled.
“Yeah, you laugh. You're pathetic, hiding behind your own daughter. That's worse than what my dad did, leaving me. You're hiding not to stay out of the public eye, but because you’re a coward. That’s why your name never showed up with ANGUIS Holdings or the Church of Liberation. Because you’re a coward.”
Loomis’ chuckle became a full-bellied laugh.
“Hanna, I've seen more death and carnage in one week than you’ve seen in your entire life. I've seen bodies of school children still smoldering on the ground. I've seen more horrors than you can even believe. You think you’re going to get to me by calling me and my daughter names? Really?”
Hanna tried to calm herself. The man was right; he’d seen things, he’d done things. Getting angry and spitting insults won’t affect.
Do what you do best, play with his mind. He's a military man; he strives for control.
So, give it to him.
Hanna took a deep breath.
“Just let me go,” she pleaded. The man's face twitched ever so slightly, letting her know that she was on the right path. “I'll do anything. Anything.”
Loomis stepped forward.
“You're tied to a chair in a basement and no one knows you’re here. I can do anything I want with or without your permission.”
Hanna sighed, and she puffed out her chest.
“It's better if I give it to you rather than you taking it.”
Loomis continued his approach and Hanna saw a familiar expression in his dark eyes. She’d seen it many times before.
Lust, the allure of conquest.
“And what is it that you’re going to give me?”
“Anything you want.”
The man’s hands moved so fast that she barely saw them. Captain Loomis grabbed either side of the V of her dress and pulled hard. The material tore nearly to her navel, exposing her bra beneath. In the process, his finger snagged on her pendant and it fell to the ground.
The moment the cool air touched Hanna’s bare skin, she sucked in a deep breath.
“Yeah, I bet you know what a man wants,” Loomis said as he stared down at her breasts and skin that was puckered with goose pimples. Then he started to chuckle. “But you’re used goods, Hanna. Used fucking goods. The only thing you can give me is an STD.”
The man threw his head back and laughed.
“Yeah, yeah, maybe,” Hanna said. “Or maybe it's because you don't need what I've got because your daughter gives it to you every night. I bet that little whore sucks you—
The man lowered his head and his face contorted. It had been a long time since she’d seen such anger.
Loomis reared back with one of the massive hands he’d used to tear her dress.
Hanna heard a dull thud but was rendered unconscious before she even realized that it was his fist connecting with the side of her head.
Chapter 60
“I'm gonna fucking kill him, I’m gonna fucking kill him,” Screech muttered under his breath. Without even knowing it, his hand had snaked beneath the desk and he was now gripping the butt of the pistol hidden beneath.
“We gotta hurry,” was all Leroy could say.
“Think, got damn it, Screech, think.”
He’d already gone through his mental Rolodex of people he could ask for help and had come up empty. There was Mrs. Armatridge, but what the hell could she do? She was old and on house arrest.
But there had to be somebody, someone who can help. Someone who might—
A lightning of a thought crashed in his mind.
“You still have that list?” he asked.
The Leroy wiped sweat from his brow.
“List? What list?”
“The list of people attending the party, did you keep it?”
Leroy patted his chest, eventually pulling out the guest list from the charity auction. Screech snatched it from a without a word.
He scanned the names, trying to find one that looked familiar, but this wasn’t his crowd. He didn’t recognize any of them.
But there was one person he did know who might fit in with this crowd. Someone who might have even performed a service for one or two of the “gentlemen”.
Screech grabbed his phone from the desk and scrolled through his contacts. He found the person he was looking for and quickly clicked call.
“V,” a female voice answered on the first ring.
“Veronica? It Screech. Look, I'm desperate here. I need a favor.”
“Hey Screech. A favor, huh? And all this time, I thought Mandy was more your type.”
Screech ignored the comment.
“Please… I'm going to send you a list of names. You gotta tell me if you know of any of them… please.”
Chapter 61
Hanna's left eye was so swollen that it had sealed shut. Her right eye worked fine, but the basement was so dark that it didn’t matter; she couldn’t see anything. Her first instinct was to stand, but she couldn’t do that either.
First confusion, then understanding.
“Help!” she croaked in a voice that didn't sound like her own. Any notion of remaining calm and collected was dashed when the only reply was her echo. “Help me!”
Hanna struggled for a few more moments but stopped when she felt the straps start to tear into the flesh on her wrists and ankles.
She looked down at herself, at her torn dress, at the dots of blood just below her collar bone. This set her off again.
All of sudden she was back in the cage, wandering back and forth like some sort of animal, shitting and pissing in a bucket.
“Help!”
Somewhere high above, she heard soft music playing.
“Help! If there’s anybody up there, help me!”
A shadow to her right suddenly moved and Hanna whipped her head in that direction, her eyes bulging.
“No one can hear you down here,” a female voice said as she stepped out of the darkness and into the silver moonlight from the basement’s sole window.
Hanna’s hurt was racing again; she’d been certain that she was along.
But someone had been here the entire time.
“Steffani,” Hanna hissed.
The woman took a wide berth around the chair until she was directly in front of Hanna.
“You and your little band of misfits have caused a lot of problems for us,” Steffani said matter-of-factly. “More trouble than any of us would've believed. You know, we met and talked about Drake on several occasions.”
The woman plucked a stray thread from her dress and flicked it onto the floor.
Hanna looked around, desperately trying to locate her necklace with the embedded video camera. Not seeing it anywhere, she decided to focus on the woman's words; if nothing else, she wanted to remember exactly what Steffani said.
“At first, Ken convinced us that it was best to keep Drake alive, that we could use him to clean up our dirty work. To be honest, I thought he was right. With men like Drake, all you have to do is set them
on a path of vengeance and they’d do the rest. Ken thought that Drake would take out the competition. And if it worked, the added benefit was that we could then gain access to his brother, who had connections in South America. And it did work, at first, anyway. But then something happened. Drake lost it. I told Ken not to take out his partner, not to involve Clay, but he didn’t listen to me. He rarely listened to any of us. After that night, Drake became unstable, became fixated on the Skeleton King. That’s when I knew we had to sever ties with him.”
In the back of her mind, Hanna acknowledged that the soft classical music upstairs had been replaced by scuffling feet.
Is that… is that Screech? Leroy?
“That Drake… he’s resilient if nothing else. We tried to set up others as the Skeleton King—first that imbecile Peter Kellington, then Ray Reynolds. But nothing worked. So, there was only one play I had left: set up Ken Smith, make him the Skeleton King. And that, dear Hanna, worked put better than I could have hoped. Drake did everything for me, including taking out the other members of the board: Boris, Horatio, Raul, and now Ken.” Steffani laughed, a sound that grated Hanna’s ears. “I was the one who put Detective Simmons up to taking the bone out of the evidence locker. I was even the one who told Officer Kramer where Drake would be that night by the hangar. Ken thought he was running the show, but I was the little birdie in his ear all along. You know how it is with men like him, whisper something in a seductive voice and they’ll think they came up with the idea. But the most important thing I did, the thing that tipped the scales in my favor, was to hide Dr. Kruk’s storage locker. I was the one who changed the name on the manifest so that the police never found it. I knew that it was only a matter of time before Drake would bring him to it, and then discover the tape. But I had to wait. I had to wait to make sure that I had enough people to take over once Ken Smith went down.”
Hanna was trying to take all this in, process it, but the noise upstairs was escalating.
“Did your daddy teach you how to whisper seductively in a man’s ear?”
Drug Lord- Part II Page 16
