Freak

by Jennifer Hillier

  Sheila didn’t know how long Danny had been gone. It felt like hours, but for all she knew it could have been five minutes.

  Her body burned all over. Letters that Sheila couldn’t make out were carved into her stomach. The wounds were deep enough to hurt like hell, but they weren’t fatal. Yet.

  It wasn’t that she wanted to die, but she finally understood that by begging Abby to kill her, it was prolonging Abby’s satisfaction in torturing her. The begging made Abby want to draw out Sheila’s pain.

  It was a fucked-up, twisted way to try to stay alive, but it was working.

  “What time is it?” she said, her eyes closed and her teeth clenched.

  “And why would that matter to you?”

  “Danny’s been gone a long time.”

  Abby scowled. “Yes, I know. It’s something we’re going to have to discuss once we get out of here.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Mexico. Soy fluido en español.” Abby smiled. “I learned Spanish in prison, picked it up pretty quick. Gonna work on my tan. If I get dark enough, I think I can pass for a Mexican. Danny, too.” She sighed and glanced at her watch. “I wish I could prolong this a little more, but we’re almost out of time.” She smiled fondly at Sheila. “I feel so close to you right now, you know. Death brings people really close together. It always did for me and Ethan.”

  “Danny’s a poor substitute for Ethan, though, don’t you think?” Sheila said. “I mean, she’s nothing like him.”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Abby snapped.

  “Ethan was an alpha male. Danny’s . . . softer. How could that possibly turn you on?”

  Abby snorted. “You thought Ethan was an alpha male? Wow. You really didn’t know him at all, did you?”

  “You and Danny have been arguing half the time we’ve been here. How is that supposed to work?”

  “That’s not arguing, darling. That’s foreplay.”

  “What if she doesn’t come back?”

  Abby paused over the knife. “Why wouldn’t she?”

  “Why would she?” Sheila looked up at her captor. “You’re the one who’s into this sick shit. Not her. She hasn’t hurt anyone. And now all your game-playing is going to get you caught. Why would she stick around for this? Sure, she might have been fascinated by you when she didn’t really know you, when she only knew the image you were trying to portray, but now that she does know you, I’ll bet anything she’s going to split.”

  “Shut up,” Abby hissed, holding the blade to Sheila’s throat. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. We’re in love. And she set me free.”

  “Just like you and Ethan were in love?” The blade, cool and smooth, pressed against Sheila’s throat, making it difficult not to gasp. “Look how well that worked out.”

  “Oh, shut the fuck up, you stupid, arrogant, petty bitch.” Abby leaned in, moving the knife away so she could get close, her spittle hitting Sheila’s face. Sheila could now feel the cold steel brushing against her hip. “You’re not going to psych me out. She’s coming back.”

  “I bet she’s not. So you might as well kill me and move on, because they’re coming for you, Abby. They’re coming for you and they’re going to put you back in prison and you’re never, ever coming out, and everyone will know what a sick, twisted bitch you really are.”

  Sheila would have liked to say something more, because she could see that her words were stinging Abby, but the knife was now slicing into her thigh, and she could feel that this time, it was cutting very, very deep.

  And then she heard a popping sound.

  Before she could decipher what it meant, the world went white again.

  You win, Sheila thought. You win.

  chapter 44

  TORRANCE’S UNMARKED WAS already parked in the lot in front of Danny’s loft when Jerry pulled up behind him. Jerry got out of the Jeep, his heart on fast-forward but his legs in slow motion. Everything seemed surreal. It felt like this was happening to somebody else. What did Danny know? Had she helped Abby snatch Annie and Sheila? Would she actually hurt them? She was a sweet girl. Why would she do this?

  He had a bad feeling. A bad, bad feeling, and no matter how hard he tried to reprogram his brain, the bad feeling wouldn’t go away.

  Torrance was watching him closely. “You all right, pal?”

  “I think I should go in alone,” Jerry said.

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Danny has worked for me for the last year, Mike.” Jerry looked up at the warehouse. He had never understood why anyone would want to live here. He supposed a twenty-three-year-old would find it cool in a grungy way, but he was a long way from being in his twenties. There were lights on in some of the converted residences, but other than that, the whole street was dark. And quiet. “We have a good relationship. I can make her talk to me.”

  “Talk to her all you want. But you’re still not going in alone.” Torrance’s eyes lingered on his backup Glock, which was holstered to Jerry’s side. “You know how potentially dangerous this could be.”

  “Danny’s probably not even in there.”

  “Probably not. But the warrant says we can search, and we will. It’s gonna be okay, pal. We’ll find Danny, we’ll find Annie, we’ll find Sheila, it’s all going to be fine.”

  His former partner’s reassurances were not helping. If anything, they were grating, like nails on a chalkboard or the sound balloons made when they rubbed together. He didn’t want to hear it.

  “After you,” Jerry said, gritting his teeth.

  They entered through the main doors and buzzed Danny’s apartment. Of course there was no response, so Torrance pushed all the buttons until the inside door finally buzzed open.

  Danny lived on the second floor, and they took the stairs two steps at a time until they were outside her door. A quick knock, again no answer, and then Torrance used his shoulder to push his way in.

  Empty. A few bits of mismatched furniture, a bed that was neatly made, but the whole loft was one large space and it was clear there was nobody here. Torrance checked the apartment’s one bathroom, then pulled open the doors to the freestanding wardrobe in the corner.

  “She’s gone,” the detective said. “Looks like most of her clothes are gone, too.”

  Shit. They really weren’t here. Where the hell could they be?

  “Let’s start canvassing the neighbors.” Torrance was already heading toward the door. “There were only a dozen names on the buzzer downstairs. Shouldn’t take long.”

  “We’re not going to find them, Mike,” Jerry said, his voice faint. He could feel his hope slipping away with every passing second. “We’re not going to find Annie in time.”

  “You can panic later.” Torrance punched his arm. “Right now, we’ve got a job to do. Start moving. I need you, pal.”

  chapter 45

  WHEN SHEILA OPENED her eyes again, it was Danny’s face that loomed over her. “Hi, Dr. Tao,” she said.

  Sheila tried to speak.

  “Don’t try and talk. Just listen.” Danny looked down at the floor and grimaced. “I shot her. God, I hated to do that. I love her, I really do, but this was just getting ridiculous. Vendettas get people killed. Abby’s always been too emotional. It’s the reason she got caught in the first place. I’ve been telling her to chill out when it comes to you, but she’s just so obsessed with you, you know?”

  Sheila blinked and tried to focus on the young woman through her haze. She opened her mouth to say something but all that came out was a moan. Every part of her body was screaming, especially her face. The paralysis was wearing off, but she didn’t dare try to look down again. She didn’t want to see how bad it was.

  “Try not to move too much, okay?” Danny said. “There’s a lot of blood, and I’ve wrapped your leg really tight so you won’t bleed out. I hate to leave you like this, but I gotta go.” Her voice seemed filled with regret, or maybe that’s what Sheila wanted to hear. “You’ll
tell them I saved you, won’t you? You’ll tell them that, okay? I never wanted this. I just wanted Abby. This wasn’t part of my plan. I hope you believe me. And tell Jerry . . .” A pause, and then in a softer voice, “Tell Jerry I’m sorry about Marianne.”

  Somewhere in her delirium, Sheila thought she could feel her head nodding, but whether she was actually moving, she didn’t know.

  “Hang in there, Dr. Tao.”

  Those were the last words Sheila heard as she drifted out of consciousness and into a warm place where there was no more pain.

  chapter 46

  TORRANCE WAS LEANING against the unmarked, smoking a cigarette. His efforts to quit hadn’t lasted long. The detective was annoyingly calm, lost in thought.

  Jerry, on the other hand, couldn’t stay still. They had opted not to leave Danny’s parking lot just yet, on the off chance she might show up. It was a long shot, but hey, stranger things had happened.

  And frankly, they had nothing else to do. They were fresh out of leads. A whole goddamned police department was searching the city for Abby, Danny, Sheila, and Annie, and yet nothing had turned up.

  He paced the side of the road, feeling hot and bothered despite the chilly night air. He was trying to think of something, any possibility for where they might be. There were four of them, for Christ’s sake, and one of them was a high-profile escaped convict. How the hell could they all just disappear?

  Continuing to pace, he stared up at the warehouse that had been Danny’s home. He had always thought of her as so young, and while in some ways she might have been, it would have taken months of planning, strategizing, and patience to pull this off. He could hear her voice in his head now, sounding exasperated. You never give me enough credit, dude.

  His phone vibrated in his pocket. His heart sank when he saw who was calling. Shit. He’d forgotten he owed someone a phone call.

  “Hi, Morris.”

  “Anything?”

  “Nothing yet.”

  The phone went dead.

  Jerry stuck the phone back in his pocket. He would be truly amazed if their friendship survived this night. He turned to Torrance. “Hey, man. Do me a favor and take off your friend hat for a minute.”

  “Okay.” Torrance exhaled. A thin stream of smoke wafted out from his nostrils into the cool night air. “What’s up?”

  “Tell me the truth. Cop to cop. You think they’re gone?”

  Torrance sighed, dropping his cigarette and stomping on it. “I don’t know, pal. But the longer it takes . . .”

  He didn’t have to finish his sentence, because Jerry already knew how it would end. The odds of finding kidnapped people dropped dramatically with each passing hour, especially in a situation like this, where no ransom note was expected.

  “They could be anywhere by now,” Jerry said quietly, the constant throb in his temples growing stronger.

  “Yes, they could be,” Torrance said. “So now I’m putting my friend hat back on. You stay positive, you hear me? It’s not over till it’s over.”

  Jerry’s phone buzzed again. He checked it. A text had just come in. It was from a number he didn’t recognize.

  CHECK NEXT DOOR.

  “What the hell?” Jerry muttered.

  “What?” Torrance said, lighting another cigarette.

  “Just got a strange text. Probably a wrong number.” Jerry typed a reply.

  WHO IS THIS?

  And then a few seconds later:

  DUDE. CHECK NEXT DOOR.

  Jerry looked around, half-expecting to see someone playing a practical joke. The street was quiet. Nobody was outside but the two of them. He showed Torrance the text.

  “Any idea what it means?” the detective said, frowning.

  Jerry stared at Danny’s loft and his head began to pound so hard he could feel it all over. What did it mean, the apartment next door? They’d checked every loft in that goddamned warehouse and had found nothing other than sleepy residents who hadn’t appreciated being woken up at this time of night.

  Then suddenly his mind flew back to the conversation he’d had with Danny when he’d dropped her off with her bike. We practice in the abandoned building next door. Some kind of machinery used to be manufactured there, and the whole place is soundproofed. We can play as loud as we want.

  “They’re in there,” Jerry said, pointing with an arm that felt like it weighed fifty pounds. Torrance followed his gaze to the warehouse beside Danny’s. It looked completely deserted. His hands started shaking and he balled them into fists. “That’s what she’s trying to tell me, Mike.”

  “Who?” Torrance said.

  Jerry didn’t answer. He simply started walking. He would have run if he could, but his legs felt like lead. He was terrified to see what was inside that warehouse, but he knew he had to look.

  He wasn’t entirely surprised to find the main door open.

  * * *

  The warehouse was a maze, and Jerry felt like a rat making his way through it.

  Old, rusting machinery filled every inch of the first floor. The windows of the warehouse were filmed over with a thick layer of dust, allowing a little light in from the outside parking lot, but not much. Torrance had his Maglite but all Jerry had was his crappy pocket flashlight. They weaved their way around strange objects that cast even stranger shadows, careful to avoid anything sharp. After a few minutes, they’d determined there was nobody on this floor.

  “Second floor?” Torrance said, but Jerry was already at the back heading for the stairwell.

  The second level of the warehouse looked like a series of offices. Some doors were open, some doors were locked, some had bits of old furniture, some were completely empty. As Jerry entered the last room at the end of the hallway, a lightbulb string grazed his face. He yanked on it, and the huge space flooded with light.

  Right in the middle of the room was a massage table. And on it, a nude body. Slender, female, black hair that trailed off the table about eight inches. Bloody from head to toe save for a torn, blood-soaked T-shirt wrapped around her thigh.

  Annie. Unmoving. Dead.

  Jerry sprinted toward the woman. When he reached the table, he looked down, his whole body freezing when he realized it wasn’t Annie.

  It was Sheila.

  The relief that it wasn’t his wife was so powerful that Jerry’s knees buckled, and he grabbed the edge of the massage table for support. A wave of guilt, almost equally powerful, threatened to knock him over once again. Sheila was his friend. He cared about her well-being almost as much as he cared about Annie’s.

  The key word being almost.

  “Sheila,” he said, when he regained his balance. “Sheila, it’s Jerry.” Morris’s angry face flashed through his head. Let her be alive. Sweet Jesus, let her be alive.

  Torrance was behind him, and soon the detective had his fingers on Sheila’s wrist. “She’s got a pulse and she’s breathing. But the cuts, Jesus Christ—” Torrance’s face, normally set in stone, was a mix of horror and concern. He looked quickly at the floor around the table. “She’s lost a lot of blood but I can’t tell how bad it is. I’ll call for an ambulance.”

  On the table, Sheila moaned.

  “It’s me.” Jerry took her hand and squeezed gently. “It’s Jerry. I’m here, Sheila. I’m here now. You’re going to be okay.”

  Sheila’s eyes flickered open. “Jerry,” she whispered.

  “I’m here,” Jerry said again. “You’re going to be all right, honey. Do you know where Annie is?”

  “I . . .” Sheila looked on the verge of passing out again.

  Gritting his teeth, Jerry closed his eyes briefly and prayed for forgiveness for what he was about to do. Sheila was in terrible shape, and yet . . .

  He touched her cheek, the only part of her face that wasn’t covered in blood. She had a deep gash on her forehead that was open and oozing. She was bleeding from both breasts, and her stomach . . . there seemed to be a word carved on it, but Jerry would have had to wipe the blood away
to read it, and of course he couldn’t do that. There was blood on her legs, but Jerry couldn’t tell if there were multiple open wounds there or if the blood had trailed down from her torso. God, the pain must be terrible. She moaned again.

  “Sheila,” he said, leaning in. God forgive me. “Sheila, please. I need to know where Annie is.”

  Sheila’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. Then her eyes rolled back in her head and she was out again. Behind him Torrance’s phone rang, and he could hear the detective muttering to someone over the phone. He heard Torrance say “Marianne,” but at that same moment, another moan escaped Sheila’s lips.

  “Sheila, stay awake,” Jerry said, panic beginning to set in. He touched her cheek again, but this time she didn’t respond. “Stay with me, honey.”

  Torrance disconnected his call. “Jerry, the EMTs will be here any moment. You tell the good professor to hang in there.” His voice, normally blunt and gruff, sounded strange.

  Jerry turned to look at his former partner. “What do you know?” he said clearly into the silence. “I heard you say Annie’s name. Twice. What do you know about my wife?”

  “Stay with your friend.” Torrance wouldn’t meet his gaze. “I’ll wait for the EMTs downstairs.”

  “Tell me, you fucking asshole!” Jerry felt like he was on the verge of losing it. He’d never felt such a heated mixture of emotions before—rage, fear, violence. They were rolled up into each other, writhing in his gut, and he felt like if he didn’t get some answers, he just might shoot somebody. “If you know something, you tell me right now.” His teeth were pressed together so hard, his gums ached. “Where is my wife?”

  “I’m sorry, Jer,” Torrance said, his voice cracking. “I’m so sorry. They found her. They found Marianne.”

  Stay calm. Keep breathing. Let him finish what he’s going to say.

  “She was on the side of the road. Out on Route Twenty, about thirty-three miles west of Cavanaugh’s house.” His voice broke down. “They’ve got her on a bus, but it doesn’t look good, Jer. I’m so sorry.”