by PT Reade
Seeing me and what I had just done, Chelsea stopped and stared wide-eyed, not sure whom she could trust. In the end, I was relieved when she decided that I looked less of a threat than the guys who had kidnapped and beaten her. She took off, awkwardly running towards me across the debris-strewn floor.
My heart raced as I watched her progress. She dodged a huge rusting pipe and ducked under an ancient railing towards me. She was making good progress against the backdrop of gunfire and curses echoing through the cavernous space.
Come on.
Chelsea was fifteen feet away when she cried out and stumbled to the floor.
I couldn’t tell if she’d been shot by the guy I had clipped or the other one taking cover, but I knew she’d been hit. The only relief I had was actually seeing the blood splatter; it came from her arm, not lethal, but still dangerous. She fell to the ground wailing as I took a shooter’s stance and fired another two Taser rounds at the man that I assumed had shot her. He swiveled back behind the van as more shots boomed from the unseen weapon overhead.
This was a mess. I was outgunned and under-armed, but I wasn’t leaving without what I came for.
I waited for a lull in the gunfire then ran out to Chelsea. I half expected the man behind the van to fire, and I hoped to hell that the unseen sniper was sighting the men with real firearms, not the only idiot running around with a stun-gun.
As I scooped the trembling Chelsea up in my arms, I heard the van doors slamming closed and the squeal of tires as it shot backward, coming at me in reverse.
I dived out of the way, colliding with the car and nearly dropped Andrew’s daughter. As the van passed me, its side mirror clipped my increasingly filthy suit jacket. Amir threw himself across the interior of the car and opened the door. He took Chelsea from me and seemed to regret it. She was bleeding heavily from the gunshot wound in her left arm and every time she was jostled, she screamed in pain.
“What the hell just happened?” Amir yelled. “Where is Aisha?”
“They still have her.”
“Then let’s go! Someone screwed this up and now they’re going to kill my baby!”
“No, they won’t,” I yelled. “We still have the money.”
“Well, who in the hell is up there?”
“I don’t know!”
I looked up to the ceiling. While I did see what looked like metal rafters and a crawlspace up there, I couldn’t see evidence of a sniper.
A pro?
“Blume, we have to chase after them.”
“Wait…give me a second.”
I raced to the wall, looking up. The rafters were about fifty feet overhead and would have been tricky to get to, even from outside the building. Not much room to set up, even less room for the shooter to police his brass.
The concrete beneath me was grimy and dulled by time. The shell casing stood out, a glimmer of copper wedged against an old air duct.
I picked it up and quickly examined it. It was warm. Large. Maybe a 7.62 caliber or bigger.
Pocketing the find, I bolted back to the car. When I got in, Amir was crying.
“We have to take Chelsea to a hospital,” he said, holding a palm against her wound.
I threw the car into drive and we barreled towards the main road, away from the power station. We only got a hundred feet down Kirtling Street when I pulled the car over and stopped.
Amir cried out, “What are you doing? We need a hospital!”
“Wait, think. Someone knew we were here. Someone knew this whole thing at the power station was going down. How?”
“I don’t know.”
“That shooter, he must have set up before we arrived. He had intel on the exchange. Intel no-one else could have. What if the kidnappers weren’t the only target?”
“You think it was meant for us…or Chelsea?”
“I don’t know, but can we take the risk? If we are being watched and take Chelsea to a hospital…”
“So where do we go?”
“We take her to her father. He will know what to do.”
“But Aisha—”
“We’ll find her Amir,” I said.
“You swear?”
It was out of my mouth before I could help it. “I swear.”
ELEVEN
A burning memory.
By the time we reached Andrew’s office, Chelsea had fallen into a near-comatose state. She was drifting in and out of consciousness, and her entire shirt was now soaked in blood. I sped into the parking lot at exactly 7:30 am, and I was having difficulty trying to make sense of what had happened.
I’d been trying to call Andrew ever since we left the power station, and he wasn’t answering. Perhaps the kidnappers had called him, furious at what had happened at the station, and demanded that he not answer his phone for anyone. If so, I could deal with that. It could be a dangerous situation, but after the sniper incident, this whole ordeal had become more than unpredictable. It had become deadly.
“If I’m not back in ten minutes, call for an ambulance,” I told Amir, tossing him my cell phone. “I’ll go in and get Andrew…see what the hell is going on, then we’ll go find Aisha.”
“Okay,” Amir said, pressing the buttons on my cell with fingers covered with Chelsea’s blood.
I jumped out of the car and ran into Andrew’s office building. Though a few early risers and weekend warriors had started work, the building was still generally deserted. I jumped into the frustratingly slow elevator and punched the button for the tenth floor.
As the doors hissed gently open, I stepped carefully onto the plush carpet leading to the executive office. Outside, the day was now streaming through the tinted glass, with the early morning sun casting long shadows. But something didn’t feel right as my nostrils picked up a hint of something familiar.
It was eerily quiet on his floor. No one in sight. I moved to Andrew’s door. It was already partially open. The scent of smoke wafted out of the office.
I pulled out my stun-gun and teased the door carefully open. I checked the corners, an old habit, and then stepped fully into the room, shielding my face at the sight inside.
Andrew had been waiting to meet me—only someone else had met with him first.
He was sitting on the chair behind his desk, slumped over on his right side. There were at least six bullet holes in his chest. Everything was covered in blood. By his desk, the wastebasket was on fire. The flames had licked along the side of his desk, engulfing the papers and books that sat there, and was now igniting the bookcase. Worse still, a pall of flame scorched Andrews leg where burnt flesh gave off a rancid stench.
At least the poor bastard can’t feel it.
Instinct told me to grab Andrew, to check for a pulse, run out into the office in search of a fire extinguisher, or call the cops. But I froze. The man in front of me was already dead, no doubt about it. And the flames were too big at this point. Still, my heart seemed to go cold in my chest as an icy déjà vu crept up on me.
Something familiar about the scene—a murder and a fire to cover it up.
Jesus. It was exactly what happened to my own family, right down to where the flames started. The fire, the bodies still there...
I thought about the shell casing in my pocket, and I was somehow certain that Andrew Hyde would have known where it came from. Andrew had answers…he’d already told me so. Answers about what happened to my family.
Damn it, Blume, why didn’t you make him tell you? Wait, what had he said?
“…it goes deeper than you think. I have files, right in my office.”
“Shit!”
It was right here, going up in flames! Maybe in some of the papers that were even then turning to ash on his desk. Maybe on a laptop or disks that were hidden somewhere in this room. My world was fading around me, turning everything to black.
A wash of adrenaline overcame my sense of self-preservation. This was the lead I needed, and I was prepared to tear heaven and earth apart to find it.
I thre
w over a cabinet, pulled out several drawers and kicked over the waste bin. I had no idea what I was looking for. The acrid smoke was burning my lungs but I didn’t care. I pulled out some files from a box. Tax records, employee documents. Nothing of use to me.
Give me a break here. Please.
I tossed more furniture aside and tore books open in desperation. There was nothing there to help me, and the flames were closing in all around. On the verge of screaming in frustration, I was tempted to go rampaging through the building…maybe looking for the shooter or any answers I could find. To hell with the fire.
I took a step forward, then paused.
It wasn’t about me. I wasn’t thinking straight. The shards of anger poisoning my mind.
Chelsea and Aisha’s lives were on the line, and if this scene was purposefully identical to the one that I saw in my nightmares where my wife and son had died, what did that mean?
The wail of sirens carried from outside. I had no idea how long I had been there, watching the fire grow, tearing myself apart inside, but time was up. Guilt, anger, remorse, it would all have to wait. The emergency services were coming, and if I was found here with Andrew’s injured child in the car, it would look incredibly bad.
This was a set-up, I thought. All along…one big fucking set-up.
I roared and turned away, as the fire alarm blared into life and sprinklers exploded from above.
I paused at the door one last time, looking over my shoulder.
“Sorry, Andrew,” I whispered.
****
I rushed back outside, more fired up than I had been in a very long time. Leaping into the car, I shifted into drive.
“Where’s Andrew?” Amir asked, looking concerned as he noticed my smoke blackened face and soaking shirt.
“Dead,” I whispered, matter-of-factly.
“Oh my God…”
“How’s she doing?” I asked, nodding towards Chelsea.
“Not sure….hey, Blume? Are you okay? You look…bad.”
“Long day.”
I spun out of the Hyde parking lot and into the light morning traffic, trying to come up with a plan as I briefed Amir on everything I had seen in Andrew’s office and what it might mean for me in the coming hours. I then told him the plan that I was forming. The little nods of understanding he gave me were enough to keep me going.
“And I’m taking you to your house,” I said. “Get the blood off of you and get some rest.”
“But I—,”
“I have to take care of Chelsea first but I’ll let you know as soon as I get a trail going on Aisha. You have my word. Don’t do something stupid, Amir.”
He nodded absently, clearly unhappy, but kept quiet.
The day swelled ahead of us. Someone would pay for what had happened.
TWELVE
We were running blind, chasing the horizon.
Chelsea was in my arms now, a blanket from Andrew’s car draped over her. I could feel her blood soaking into my coat and the shirt beneath it as we trudged up the stairs to Nicole Remay’s apartment. I was sure that seeing me with a bleeding and comatose teenager was not how she wanted to start her Sunday morning, but I didn’t have much of a choice.
I kicked the door several times. In my arms, Chelsea let out a murmur. It was weak, but a clear indication that she was still alive. Ten seconds passed, so I kicked the door again, louder this time.
“It’s Blume,” I shouted. “Please, Nicole…let me in!”
Light footsteps approached the door. It opened and Remay appeared, her ash blonde hair was in disarray and her usual nose stud was missing. She was wearing a tattered Rolling Stones tee shirt and a pair of short running shorts. I staggered into her apartment as she stepped aside and took in the mess that had just stumbled through her front door.
“Is that a body, Blume?” she asked. “Or are you bringing your dates around here now?”
“Meet Chelsea Hyde. She’s been shot. She’s alive. The wound is superficial, I think, but she’s lost a lot of blood.”
“One second,” Remay said, rushing to the back of her apartment. She came back with several towels, laying them down in layers on her sofa. I gently placed Chelsea on the towels and removed my coat, the sleeves soaked in her blood.
Remay examined the wound, a wide but clean gash, and felt Chelsea’s pulse, before examining her pupils.
“I can patch her up,” Remay said. “You’re right, she has lost a lot of blood, but she’ll be okay if I can get pressure on the wound. I’ll work on that if you’ll go get some antiseptic and hot water from the bathroom. Oh, and some superglue from the kitchen drawer.” She pointed in turn to the bathroom and kitchen doors.
I trusted Remay’s skills.
Nicole and I had an odd relationship. She was uniquely placed in the city coroner’s office, a position that had helped my investigations on more than one occasion. In return, I helped her get involved with some high-profile cases and progress in her career. Despite the fact that Nicole was normally working on people far beyond saving, she was a skilled medic with brilliant instincts.
Twenty minutes later and after some ingenious use of superglue to close the wound, Chelsea breathed more regularly and some color had returned to her face. Also, her pulse had slowed to a healthier rate. She mumbled, and Remay turned to me.
“Maybe put some tea on. We can get her to wake up, I think.”
“Coffee would wake her up more,” I said.
“We are in England now, darling,” Remay said, smiling. “Tea please, lots of sugar.”
I shrugged. “You got it. But if Chelsea does come around, she’ll ask about her father. When she does, plead ignorance.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s dead,” I whispered.
Remay frowned, nodded somberly, and used one of the towels to wipe the blood from Chelsea’s face. As I filled a kettle, Remay called to me. “It’s a through-and-through, a clean wound. That’s good. I can temporarily help her, but she’ll need to go to a hospital. There’s a high risk of infection. She’ll need stitches at the very least, and probably antibiotics.”
“I know,” I said, returning a couple of minutes later with the tea. “But it’s not as easy as that.”
“Why? Blume, what’s happened?”
I pulled Remay into a corner, away from her patient, and told her about the events of the last 24 hours, Andrew’s murder and the elaborate set up to pin the whole thing—maybe even the kidnapping—on me.
A mumble from Chelsea drew us back to the couch. She was starting to come around, her voice dry and eyes bloodshot.
“Where am I?” she croaked. She then saw me sitting on the floor beside her, and she nodded in recognition. “You were there…you tried to save me.”
“Yeah. And I’m sorry I didn’t do a better job.”
“Here,” Remay said, handing Chelsea the tea. “Drink this, the sugar will help. There’s water, too if you want some.”
Chelsea slowly drank the tea, wincing.
“Let me get you something for the pain,” Remay said, moving towards the bathroom.
While she was gone, Chelsea looked at me, a frown on her face. A tear spilled from her eye, followed by another. “Does my dad know?” she asked.
“Yes,” I answered. “He hired me to find you.”
“So where is he?” she asked, looking around, puzzled.
I hated to lie to her, but I couldn’t tell her. Not yet. Recovering from being kidnapped was bad enough, let alone a gunshot wound. Once I’d saved Aisha, I’d tell her…if the news outlets didn’t catch wind of it first.
“It’s complicated,” I said. “Your father wanted me to keep you safe, so for now let’s focus on that.”
Lying to a seventeen-year-old girl about her dead Pops, I thought. A new low.
“And what about Aisha?” she asked.
“She’s still out there somewhere.”
Chelsea let out a little moan, and more tears ran down her cheeks.
Rema
y came back in with two pills and offered them to Chelsea. “I take these for my migraines,” she said. “Hydrocodone. You don’t have a head injury—I checked—so these should take the edge off.”
Chelsea took them eagerly, washing them down with the tea. “Thanks,” she said.
“Chelsea, I know you’re probably groggy,” I said. “And I know a lot has happened. But time is valuable right now, and I need to ask you what happened. Can you handle that?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“Do you know where the men took you? Do you know where Aisha is?”
“They didn’t speak English, I don’t know.” Her brow furrowed as she remembered the painful experiences of the day.
“I know, but anything you might’ve heard or seen can help.”
Chelsea paused for a few moments, looking pained. I wondered if she was about to pass out again. Finally, a single word came from her cracked lips.
“Regent.”
I looked to Remay with a raised eyebrow, she simply shook her head.
“What’s Regent, Chelsea?” I asked softly. “I need to know.”
The teenager stuttered as the cogs in her brain tried to process the events. “I… I heard a name a few times…or maybe it’s a place. I don’t know”
“Ring any bells?” I looked to Remay.
“None, I’m afraid. Maybe a street or something”
“Maybe. Do you know where the men took you after you left the party?”
“No, I mean, I don’t think so,” Chelsea said. “That guy from the party…it was all fuzzy. The moment we were in the car, we were blindfolded, I think. I was so scared. Oh God.”
“How many men were there?” I asked.
“One at the party, and the driver. They stopped somewhere, and three more joined them.”
Remay took the lead next, kneeling to look Chelsea in the eyes. “Did they hurt you in any way? Do anything to you?” she asked.
“Yes. I mean no, not like that. I got slapped and pushed around but that was about it. If I had been with them longer, though…” She started shuddering as events overwhelmed her again.
