by Karen Rose
Wednesday, May 5, 10.20 A.M.
He was coming. Lucy could hear his steps echoing as she lay in the car’s dark trunk. She had no idea what time it was, but knew enough time had passed that something was wrong. If JD had been able to track her, he’d have been here by now.
The trunk popped open and she closed her eyes, hoping he’d think she was unconscious.
‘I know you’re awake, Lucy,’ he said. ‘You might as well open your eyes.’
But she kept them closed, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing her fear. He leaned into the trunk and lifted Gwyn out, and she heard the creak of a wheel. Then a thump.
‘I’m going to take you out next,’ he said. ‘I have a gun in my hand. I will shoot you if you struggle, but not to kill you, just to stop you. I will then gut your friend Gwyn while I make you watch. I guarantee she will feel every slice. Nod if you understand.’
Lucy thought of Nicki Fields, her stomach turning over. Then she let out a startled yelp when he yanked her head off the trunk floor by her hair.
‘I said, nod if you understand,’ he snarled.
Lucy nodded and he released her hair. He lifted her out of the trunk with one arm wrapped around her waist. She clenched her body when she was dropped on a cold steel surface.
She smelled rust. She heard the wheels squeak. She opened her eyes to find that she and Gwyn were on a flatbed cart. They were in a large loading dock and from the corner of her eye she saw a garage door, tall enough for an eighteen-wheeler to pass through. But the room was deserted.
It was just Evan, and us. Help should have come already. You’ll have to take matters into your own hands.
Evan loomed over her, large and terrifying, the hand of his uninjured arm clenched into a fist. ‘I’ve waited a lot of years for this moment,’ he said. The blow came fast and hard, straight into her face. The pain was blinding and her eyes filled with tears.
Warm blood covered her face. Her nose was bleeding and her mouth was covered. She struggled to breathe, white lights dancing in front of her eyes. Suddenly the tape was ripped from her mouth and she gasped, wheezing.
‘That,’ he said, ‘was for breaking my nose.’
Lucy gagged and had to force herself to take slow breaths as the blood gushing from her nose threatened to choke her. ‘I’m sorry. I . . . didn’t . . . I don’t . . . remember.’
Evan’s face grew darker. ‘You don’t remember?’
‘I fought . . . a lot. I’m . . . sorry.’
‘You’ll be sorrier, I guarantee. Because we aren’t even close to being even.’
Wednesday, May 5, 10.30 A.M.
Daphne was waiting for JD and Stevie at James Cannon’s apartment where CSU was already searching. ‘The warrant is for plain sight and only for any documents you find linked to Cannon’s involvement in the Bryan girl’s assault. Sorry, it was the best I could do quickly.’
‘Let’s hope it’s good enough,’ Stevie said, pulling on a pair of gloves. ‘Drew?’
Drew looked up from a pile of paper on the dining room table. ‘The neighbors recognized Evan when we showed his picture. They said he moved in about six weeks ago. We’ve found loads of documents, but so far nothing to tell us where he’s gone. Good news is I got a match of a fingerprint to one that my team took from the black Lexus in Anderson Ferry.’ He hesitated. ‘They also found a knife in his trunk. Long filleting knife, very sharp. Based on the photos they sent to my email, it could be the murder weapon for the valet, the hooker and the PI.’
JD searched Cannon’s desk, trying not to picture the knife while Stevie tackled the hall closet. In minutes, JD hit paydirt. ‘Daphne?’ he asked, his pulse hiking. ‘Reardon has no expectation of privacy here, does he? Since he’d be squatting?’
‘No, darlin’, he most certainly does not.’
‘Good,’ he said fiercely. ‘Stevie, look what I found.’ He held it out to her. ‘It’s a user manual for a flash freezer. He printed it out from his computer. Look at the date.’
‘Two weeks ago,’ Stevie said. ‘The day after Bennett went missing. Nice, JD.’
‘Let’s find out where the freezer is. Before it’s too late.’
JD pulled out another drawer. Yes. ‘Got something.’ He brought out a handful of architectural drawings, spreading them on the table next to the credit card statements. ‘It’s a factory.’ He pointed to one of the pages. ‘Right there is the freezer. It’s enormous.’
‘Big enough for a man?’ Stevie asked.
‘The manual says it’s big enough for six tons of meat in sixty-pound boxes,’ Drew said. ‘That’s damn big.’
‘I saw something on that,’ Daphne said excitedly, searching through the pile of documents she’d been reading. ‘Here it is, dated two years ago. James Cannon applied for a loan to renovate a fish processing plant. It was supposed to go operational a year ago, but the bank withdrew the loan. Credit crisis. James Cannon must have run out of money.’
‘So his factory’s been sitting abandoned,’ Stevie said.
‘Until Reardon decided to make himself at home,’ JD said, his heart pounding now. Lucy, we’re coming. Hold on a little longer. ‘What’s the address?’
Wednesday, May 5, 10.40 A.M.
Lucy lifted her head when the cart shoved two swinging doors open. They’d left the darkened corridor that connected the loading dock to . . . what? She blinked back tears and looked around her. It was a factory. A dead one. In the dim light she could see conveyor belts that sat unconnected and unmoving. Big pieces of equipment gathered dust, and, surprise, surprise, there was a big flash freezer. It was the perfect size for about a million frozen peas. Or one man.
She lifted her head a little higher and froze. On the floor beyond were two people. Her father lay on his side, tied and gagged. Several feet away was her mother and Lucy’s heart clenched. Kathy Trask sat up, propped against a support post. Her legs were stretched out, her ankles bound. Her hands were tied in front of her. She looked sick, her face gray. But she was alive.
Against the back of her leg, Lucy felt a tiny tap. Gwyn was conscious. Lucy’s first thought was to give thanks, but then she reconsidered. If Evan planned to hurt Gwyn, he’d want her to feel it. Lucy wished Gwyn hadn’t come to, not yet.
Past the equipment and her parents were two steel tables. On the large table she could make out the form of a man. She blinked again, bringing him into better focus. Sonny Westcott. He was naked and spreadeagled, his wrists and ankles tied to the corners of the table, the rope secured to the table’s legs. She couldn’t tell if he was still alive.
On the smaller table were . . . tools. Knives, hammers. The Sawzall. Lucy closed her eyes, unable to shake the image of the bodies she’d seen. He cut out their hearts. He’s going to do that to us.
She heard herself whimper and gritted her teeth. Stop it. You can’t lose it or you won’t get out of here alive.
She forced herself to look up into Evan’s eyes. ‘You were shot. You’ll need stitches.’
One side of his mouth lifted cruelly. ‘And you’re offering? But first I’d have to untie you, right? Do I look that stupid to you? Don’t worry about me. I stitched it up myself.’
She couldn’t hide her surprise. ‘How?’
‘Lots of experience with doing doctors’ dirty work.’
She studied him as he stared down at her. He had medical experience, which came as no surprise. The cuts on his victims had been dead on.
His face was still pale and he held his arm against his side gingerly. He was still weak, but gaining back his strength. If she was going to do something, take advantage of his blood loss, she’d need to do it soon.
‘Is Sonny alive?’ she asked, stalling for time.
He smiled at her, as if guessing her purpose. ‘Unfortunately he is. I’m waiting for him to come to so I can finish him off.’
‘You realize the police will be looking for you,’ she said quietly.
‘I realize the police will be looking for you,’ he c
ountered. ‘Nobody knows to be looking for me. I’m dead. I paid a lot of money to be dead.’
His being dead made no sense, so she let it go. ‘You’re Ileanna Bryan’s brother. They are definitely looking for you.’
Fury flared in his eyes. ‘Don’t you even say her name.’
‘Wasn’t that what you wanted us to do? Guess her name? Isn’t that why you burned the letters into their backs? Russ and Janet Gordon and Ryan Agar?’
‘Don’t you dare try to play me,’ Evan snapped. ‘I know what you’re trying to do.’
‘What am I trying to do?’ she asked.
He smiled again and Lucy wondered how she’d missed the flashes of madness in his eyes all those weeks she’d thought he’d been Royce. All those weeks he’d been close to Gwyn. And me. He could have killed me a dozen times. That he hadn’t made her think he had a bigger plan.
‘You didn’t have to guess her name,’ he said. ‘You always knew it. You had her things.’
# 1 Sister. ‘I had her bracelet,’ she agreed. ‘I thought it was mine. I thought my brother had bought it for me. But I never had the necklace.’
‘You are such a liar.’ Evan crouched beside her, trailing his fingers over her face in a way that made her shiver in disgust. ‘Who did you sell my necklace to? I want it back.’
‘I don’t know where your necklace is,’ she said, then cried out when his fist plowed into her jaw. The impact sent the flatbed cart on which she lay rolling. White stars danced in front of her eyes as he grabbed the cart and stopped it. ‘You sold it. You know you did.’
‘No, I didn’t. I never had—Ugh.’ He dragged her from the cart to the floor and kicked her ribs. She curled up, feeling like she’d throw up. ‘I swear it.’
‘You’re as big a hypocrite as your father.’ He cast a sneer to where her father lay. ‘Stealing jewelry off of bodies, throwing families on the street because they want justice.’ He crouched beside her, grabbed her chin and got in her face. ‘I gave you a chance to make things right but you were just as big a bully as he was. I came to you. I thought you’d help me.’
She thought of what he’d said before he punched her in the face. ‘Did I hit you?’
‘You know you did. You broke my fucking nose. Looks like I returned the favor.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, unable to keep the desperation from her voice. ‘I hit some kids after my brother died. I’m sorry you were one of them.’
‘I wasn’t just one of them,’ he gritted. ‘I was the kid whose family was ruined by your father. I was ready to beg you that day. I wanted to save my family.’
She hurt. Her ribs were burning. ‘What did my father do?’
‘You know what he did.’
‘I don’t. I was only fourteen,’ she cried and something flickered in his eyes. Belief?
‘He threatened to frame my father,’ Evan said. He looked over at her father with such hate. Lucy could understand. She’d hated Ron Trask all of her life.
‘How?’ she asked softly and Evan turned his hate-filled eyes on her.
‘He said he’d make it look like my father stole money.’
‘So why did you come to me?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Your father had my mother’s property. If you’d just given it to me that day, my parents would have been fine. My father wouldn’t have lost everything.’
Her heart sank. And then Evan’s father took his own life. ‘I didn’t know what my father had done. I didn’t know what my brother had done. If you’d asked me, I would have told you.’
Evan’s eyes went cold. ‘I tried to ask you. You wouldn’t stop to listen.’
Lucy closed her eyes, trying to remember, but she couldn’t. ‘I’m sorry I hit you. I don’t even remember doing it.’
That was the wrong thing to say. Lucy knew it as soon as the words left her mouth.
‘You don’t even remember?’ he whispered. ‘My father shot himself. My mother drank herself to death. You could have stopped it by just giving me the necklace.’
‘I never had it,’ she said, trying to calm him. ‘I never had your necklace.’
He straightened abruptly, his body tense with new rage. ‘You lie,’ he shouted. He ran over to where Sonny Westcott lay tied on the large table and grabbed a wooden bat. Before Lucy could shrink away, Evan was back, the bat raised high. ‘You had it. You had it all along. And you sold it. You sold it to pay for your damn club.’ He brought the bat down hard on her thigh and Lucy felt the bone snap. She screamed, unable to hold it back.
My leg. Broken. Oh God. The searing pain took over until it was all she knew.
‘Did that hurt, Dr Trask? Let’s see what else I can do.’ He ran to the steel table, pushed Sonny Westcott to the floor, and ran back to her, his face florid from the exertion. Large beads of sweat covered his forehead. He grabbed her from the floor with one arm, yanking her to her feet and dragging her toward the table. Lucy thrashed and fought and bucked, trying to get away. His steps faltered and he brought his wounded arm around her throat.
Lucy threw her shoulder into his bandaged bicep. With a yelp of pain he staggered and together they fell.
‘You bitch,’ he snarled. ‘You’ll pay for that.’ He rose to his knees, his good arm around her waist and started to haul her to her feet again. All she could hear was the pounding in her head. All she could feel was the burning in her leg. Like an animal she fought, throwing her body back, crying out when the back of her head connected with his forehead. Crack.
The arm around her waist was suddenly gone. Breathing hard, Lucy rolled away, lifting her throbbing head. Evan was lying there, motionless. Out cold. The bandage on his arm was bright red. His stitches had blown and he was bleeding again.
Desperately she looked around, then up – and saw the small table. Knives. She’d seen knives. Struggling to one knee, she hooked her chin on the edge of the table and pulled. It toppled, then crashed to the concrete floor, the corner hitting Evan square in the forehead.
Hammers and knives scattered. Yes.
She needed to breathe. She didn’t have time. Get away. Get away. Cut the ropes. But her hands were tied behind her back. She needed help. She looked back over to the flatbed cart. Gwyn was watching numbly.
Lucy twisted her body, maneuvering her hands until she grabbed one of the knives. Then she began to roll toward Gwyn, clenching her teeth against the pain and hoping like hell she didn’t stab herself in the back.
Ocean City, Maryland, Wednesday, May 5, 10.30 A.M.
Clay stopped the car. ‘Alyssa, we’re here. Wake up.’
Alyssa stirred, yawned, then blinked in surprise. ‘This isn’t Anderson Ferry.’
‘No. I was almost there, then I started thinking. We know Nicki went to Anderson Ferry a week ago. Mazzetti said we should have found a package. But we didn’t.’
‘So either Nicki’s got a hiding place you don’t know about, or Evan took it.’
Clay nodded. ‘I got to wondering why Evan killed her that night. If it was because she got information from Anderson Ferry, how did Evan know she had it?’
‘She might have told him.’
‘She might have told me,’ he murmured. Why didn’t you come to me, Nic? ‘That she didn’t meant she didn’t want me to know, which meant it was really bad.’
‘And if I had something that bad, I wouldn’t have let him in my apartment.’
‘She didn’t let him in. She was in bed when . . .’ He had to swallow back the bile that burned his throat every time the images of Nicki’s mutilated body filled his mind. ‘He caught her sleeping. He knew she knew. He was furious that she knew.’
‘So how did he know?’ she asked, then let out a breath. ‘He hid a tracker in the little girl’s backpack. I bet he hid one in Nicki’s car too.’
‘Very good,’ Clay said grimly. ‘He knew she’d been to Anderson Ferry and he knew she’d gone home. Then I wondered why the tracking device Nicki put under her own car was here, in Ocean City.’ He pointed to a motel whose p
aint had long faded to gray. ‘Specifically there.’
‘She left you the package.’
‘She left me something.’ Now that he was here, Clay was afraid to go inside. But he knew he had to. ‘Come with me. I don’t want you alone until the cops find Reardon.’
‘How do you know they’ll find him?’
‘He shot that cop this morning, the one who was guarding the doc at the morgue last night. Left him in critical condition. And he kidnapped Dr Trask. It’s all over the radio.’
‘Oh my God.’
‘They will find him, it’s just a matter of time.’
‘That poor woman,’ Alyssa said as she followed him into the motel.
If he kills her, her blood is on my hands too. Clay rang the bell on the desk and an elderly woman came out to greet him. ‘My name is Maynard,’ he said. ‘Nicki Fields sent me.’
‘Oh. All right. Can I see ID? Nicki asked me to make sure you showed ID.’
Clay obliged and the old woman hurried away. When she returned, she held a thick manila envelope. ‘Thank you,’ Clay said, forcing himself to take it.
When they were back in the car, he opened the envelope and pulled out a stack of papers. On top was a note, in Nicki’s precise handwriting and Clay’s throat closed.
Dear Clay, if you’re here, I’m dead and Evan Reardon is responsible. As I write this, I’m hoping I can find him and deal with him myself. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to know how badly I fucked up. I trusted Evan. I fell for him. I even considered running away with him, becoming Mrs Ted Gamble. Now I just want to take a few days off and fix this.
When Evan first approached me, I did a routine background check. One of the things I requested was his and his mother’s documents from Newport News. The documents came weeks later – after I’d already fallen too hard to see what I should have already seen.
The marriage license listed his mother as Yvette Bryan, not Yvette Smith as Evan told me. Evan had told me his mother’s maiden name was Smith and that Timothy Reardon was her first marriage, that she’d had Evan out of wedlock. This was inconsistent and it bothered me.
