by Kylie Brant
There were eleven Bryson drive-throughs in Des Moines and its surrounding suburbs, and it had taken Cam over two hours to get the warrants for the security footage at each. There was no telling how long ago the UNSUB had been at the restaurant. Or even if he’d gotten the food himself. But if he had, and if it were recent enough to still appear on the camera, they just might get lucky and get a picture of the offender.
One security company provided the surveillance packages to all franchises in the chain restaurant, Cam had learned, but each owner chose his own level of security. Gonzalez had reassigned extra agents to the case. Cam had promptly given them the task of picking up the copies of images from the cameras and taking them back to Headquarters for viewing. He’d turn over any images of drivers in white cargo vans that they found to the lab for image enhancement.
During that time he’d also fielded a call from Fenton relaying the news that the blood found in Sophie’s bathroom had indeed belonged to her. Turning his attention now to the emailed toxicology report, he scanned it swiftly, then slowed, as incredulity surged. He grabbed his cell, punched in a number. Then printed out the report, waiting for Franks to arrive.
When he did, Cam held out the pages for the man. It wasn’t long before the other agent looked at him, his expression as grim as Cam’s.
“Etorphine? It says that stuff is fatal to humans.”
“In veterinary strength,” Cam corrected. But the UNSUB would have to know how to lower the dosage to an appropriate amount for humans. A cold river of dread coursed through him. He’d held on to the fact that this offender didn’t kill right away. He found himself newly grateful for the appearance of the profile this morning. At least Cam wouldn’t have to torture himself with worries that Sophie’s abductor might have killed her with that drug.
“At least it comes with a human antidote,” the other agent muttered, still reading. “Have Jenna help you contact all the veterinary places in the area. Large and small animals. See if they’ve been targeted for break-ins for pharmaceuticals. Also get the names of their supply reps. If they’re anything like pharmaceutical reps that call on doctors, they often have samples of the drugs.” He didn’t know if they gave samples of the heavy-duty stuff, but he’d once had a doctor give him a new antibiotic to try in sample form.
“Then get a list from the licensing board of vets in the area and run them for arrests in their pasts.”
“I’m on it.” Tommy’s usually taciturn expression held a glint of excitement. “I’ll also check with DNE. See if they’ve got anything on thefts of the drug.”
“Good idea.” At one time narcotics had operated under the DCI umbrella, but several years ago the Division of Narcotics Enforcement had been formed, and they operated independently of DCI. When Cam had joined as an agent, he’d originally been assigned to the division. Years after he’d transferred to DCI, a long ago contact made in those earliest days had gotten him loaned out to DNE again for the federal multi-agency task force he’d worked a couple years ago.
The memory wasn’t one he welcomed, so he distracted himself by saying, “Let’s hope he didn’t buy it off the web.” There were sites on the Internet that claimed to sell pharmaceuticals without prescriptions. If the UNSUB had gotten the narcotic online, their chance of tracing it was minimal.
But with the threat of international narcotics enforcement, he had to hope that stealing the drug would be easier for the offender. He’d already proven amazingly creative at breaking and entering. What additional challenge would a vet clinic hold for him?
“I’ll keep you posted.”
When the agent left, Cam’s gaze fell to the copy of the new profile he’d made before turning the originals over to the questionable documents section of the lab. The analysts there would determine whether the handwriting belonged to Sophie.
He wanted it to be proof she was still alive. Wanted to believe she’d written it. If she had, Cam couldn’t imagine her wasting an opportunity to give them some sort of clue about her abductor. Or even where she was being held. He jotted down the first letters of each sentence. The last letters. Every other word in the profile. Every third word.
He came up with nothing.
Rubbing his forehead, he considered the fact that he might be wasting his time. Sophie was under duress. Possibly suffering. That thought twisted and tightened in his gut like a tangle of vicious serpents. Her primary concern would be pacifying her captor. Staying alive. That was a helluva lot more important than risking the man’s wrath if he suspected her of embedding a code in the writings.
And yet…the paragraphs contained some awkward phrasing the likes of which he’d never heard her speak, much less include in a profile. Like ‘markings of intellect’ and ‘mood lifter’… The choice of words was puzzling. Had she taken them from the UNSUB’s speech patterns? If so, they were interspersed with wording more commonly found reading Sophie’s professional work. It also included more casual language than she would normally use, and one near misspelling. The first time she’d written genius, she’d had an ‘i’ for the ‘e’, and had to correct by writing over it. And something about the sentence structure bothered him.
It is a sad penchant of society to knock a genius.
Clearly the profile had been written to inflate the offender’s ego. The almost misspelled words genius and intelligence each appeared more than a half a dozen times in the missive.
Knock a genius. The slang didn’t even sound like Sophie. Knock a genius. Knock a ‘ginius’.
Knock. Gin.
Barely breathing, Cam stared harder at the words, afraid to believe it. They’d played gin only the one time. Strip gin, as it happened, and she’d sandbagged him. The hell of it was, he hadn’t even cared. The game had been win-win, rules be damned.
Rules. It took a moment to re-focus. What were the rules of gin? Sets and runs. Ten cards dealt. Play to one hundred. A bonus of twenty-five points for declaring gin…
With renewed focus he bent over the profile, scribbling every tenth word from the profile in one column, every twenty-fifth in another.
Going through the writing on both pages, in the first column he quickly realized he had a jumble of meaningless words. But in the second he’d written the words con, markings, lifter, mouth, missing, bottom, right, bare, headed, color, blew, no, sketch…
Staring for a moment in amazement, Cam let out an incredulous laugh. “Dammit all, Sophie. You’re brilliant.”
Because she was alive. She had to be, this missive proved it. And even in the midst of the most dangerous situation of her life, the woman had had the guts to embed a description of her abductor in the profile.
It hadn’t taken long for Sophia to work the longer length of board loose from its moorings. Moving it back and forth with all her might, the rusty nails holding it in place gave a screech of protest. A few more tries and it was freed. She’d blinked in astonishment at the board in her hand for a moment, before setting it aside to tear off the other piece.
It proved tougher to release than the first. She kept trying, moving it up and down, then pushing and pulling on it. Sweat slicked down her back, the effort sapping her strength. Finally, it gave with a suddenness that had sent her stumbling back across the stall and sprawling on her back.
The aches from her injuries last night set up a howl of protest. Slowly, determinedly, she rose to her feet and picked up the prizes her hard work had wielded.
Here, at last, were the wedges she needed to pry an opening in the wire above her.
She took one of the boards and climbed the gate as high as the wire would allow. Then stuck it in the narrow opening where the ceiling of wire met the gate, and pumped it up down like a handle in an old fashioned well.
Her heart lifted when she saw the wire overhead move as it was forced to bend upward and back with the leveraging motion. She labored over an hour before she had an opening she thought she could slip through. Then Sophia propped the board atop the gate, holding the wire up and stationary b
efore moving halfway down the gate to do the same there.
Only then did she allow herself to look at the dim slivers of light allowed into the structure. Her heart sank when she realized that it wasn’t as bright as it’d been earlier. She refused to consider how much time it had taken to get this far in her escape plan.
Or how many hours she had until the monster returned.
Before she made her attempt, she had the forethought to retrieve the comforter and stuff it through an opening in the gate. Then, focusing on the passageway she’d created in the wire, she decided there was only one way through it. She’d have to snake through the gap headfirst and try to descend the gate on the opposite side, supporting her weight on her hands.
It didn’t bear considering that for a woman for whom power walking was the height of athletic accomplishment, this feat would take more than strength and dexterity.
It would require an inordinate amount of luck.
Easing her head and shoulders through the space pried between the top of the gate and the wire, she was filled with even more doubts. But freedom was much too close to alter the plan now. A sense of urgency was building and scenarios where her abductor returned earlier than usual flitted across her mind on an endless reel of nightmarish possibilities. Perhaps the profile hadn’t aired, further enraging him.
Or worse, maybe he’d examined her writings more closely and decoded the clues she’d included.
The thought had a cold wash of fear cascading through her. But she couldn’t hurry even if she wanted to. Awkwardly reaching for the next lower rung on the bars on the exterior of the gate, she attempted to work her hips through the opening. The wire scraped and abraded skin as she wiggled through, but her progress down the other side was steady.
Until it came time to thread her legs through the portal. While they were still positioned on the on the bars inside the cell, they were taking the bulk of her weight. Once they left the rung, her wrists had to bear all of it, as if she were doing a headstand. Sophia felt herself slipping, grasped wildly at the next rung. But the momentum of her legs swinging to the other side was too great for her to overcome. She lost her grasp and fell the rest of the way to the concrete floor below.
The breath drove out of her chest at the bone-jarring contact. Stars spun before her eyes. Laboring to breathe, she gasped for air. Her lungs were strangled, heaving for oxygen. Long minutes ticked by.
Eventually she attempted a slow cautious roll to her side. Then got up on all fours. Crawling the short distance to the unforgiving metal gate, she hauled herself to a standing position, taking stock of any injuries sustained in the fall.
Her ribs sang a familiar protest, and there was a teeth gritting pain in her hip that was new. Her left wrist throbbed even when she kept it cradled close to her chest.
But her legs held her when she let go of the gate. She awkwardly wrapped the comforter around herself and stumbled in the direction from which the offender always came. Toward the door.
Sophia could see now that this side of the structure was lined with cells like she’d been kept in, although none of the others had wire across the top of them. She crept along, progress slower than she’d like because of the shadows. She peered into each cell but none held a mattress.
And none held the victim she’d heard last night.
Until she came to the cell just inside a huge set of double doors. This cell had wire over the top. And curled upon a blow up mattress in one corner she could make out the figure of another woman.
“Courtney?”
Her whisper had the female inside the cell trying to turn painstakingly in the direction of her voice.
“Go back.” The words were little more than a croak. “He’ll come back and punish you. He’ll punish both of us.”
“We won’t be here when he gets back,” Sophia promised grimly. She moved to the side of the cell, looking for a key to unlock the woman’s cell. But it was too dark inside the building to see it.
Instead, she turned her attention to the big doors five feet ahead of her. If she inched one open, she’d have enough light to be able to search for the key. And once she released the other woman, maybe she could study their surroundings through the narrow opening before attempting to make a run for it.
Did the UNSUB live on the property? Did he reside close by?
The thoughts had her stumbling to a halt, loath at first to even touch the exit that promised freedom. But there was no other way.
Stiffening her spine, Sophia felt along the door for the handle and then pushed with all her might. It barely budged. She pulled inward on it. Nothing. Desperation flickering, she attempted to drag it first one way and then the other. There was no movement.
Panic and frustration warred inside her. Sophia let the impetus of the emotion drive her forward, throwing her weight against the massive exit. Once. Twice. Again.
Battered now in mind and spirit, she finally leaned against it, shoulders slumping in defeat.
Somehow in all the hours she imagined finding a way out of her prison, it had never occurred to her that the doorway leading to freedom would be locked.
Chapter 14
“I’ve never seen you with your hair grown out before.” Entranced, Sophia studied the picture of Cam and another man. It looked fairly recent, but instead of the short-cropped style he and the other agents favored, it was curling over the top of his ears and around his collar in back. It was thicker than she would have imagined. And sun streaked in a way that gave him a more carefree look. “It’s curly.”
He never looked up from the kitchen drawers he was rifling through. “I don’t have curly hair. Wavy. There might be a slight wave. Not curly. Curly’s not masculine.”
She looked at the photo again. “Well, in this picture your hair was going all unmasculine on you. I like it. It makes you look…less stern.”
“You want stern? I can show you stern. Just as soon as you help me find some …” His gaze rose then and the rest of his words died. His gaze went still. Calculating.
Watching the change come over his expression, something knotted in Sophia’s chest. Without knowing exactly why, she had the sensation of tiptoeing through a minefield. “Who’s this with you?”
“My cousin.” He returned his attention to the search again. She didn’t know why it seemed as though the hunt for batteries to replace those in his smoke detectors had suddenly become a convenient excuse.
“I thought you told me once that neither you nor your mother had any living relatives.”
He shut the drawer he was looking in. “I’ll just run to the store and get some. Less aggravation.”
But she was dogged. She, the psychologist who respected boundaries in others and only pressed when she felt more transparency was in her client’s best interest. Cam’s best interests hadn’t even crossed her mind. Nor had her usual consideration for others’ privacy.
It was getting more and more difficult to still the warnings sounding in her own head. She held up the picture. “How can he be your cousin?”
His gaze narrowed, a sure sign of his irritation. “I don’t know the actual relationship. We don’t have any close relatives. He’s my mom’s great-uncle’s grandson or something. I’m not sure. That makes us—third or fourth cousins? No idea. I never could figure that stuff out.”
Slowly, she lowered the picture to the desk drawer she’d opened to help him in his quest for batteries. And when she closed it, she felt as if she were teetering on the brink of a momentous decision.
She was being ridiculous. Repeating the words over and over in her mind like a litany didn’t make her feel better, however. Cam certainly had the right to decide which subjects he wanted to discuss with her and which he didn’t. He had every reason to declare some topics off limits.
But he hadn’t done that. Instead he’d lied. In her profession one became an excellent judge of honesty. She had no problem being warned off when she was skating too close to the personal. At least, usually she didn’t.
But she was finding it more and more difficult to balance their intimacy in the bedroom with the lack of it out of bed.
Her own fault. She crossed to the rattan basket he used as a catch all next to the leather couch and flipped through the magazines and fliers in it blindly. She didn’t do well wit casual. Had difficulty traversing the boundaries and unspoken rules. And it certainly wasn’t his problem that she felt as though she were losing a bit of herself in the process.
Unbidden, the unopened foil wrapper from last night flashed across her mind. Sophia didn’t even recognize herself in some of the choices she’d made recently. Cam’s reticence about something as simple thing as a photo was a dash of cold water that she’d desperately needed. He had no trouble whatsoever throwing up walls whenever she veered too close to the personal.
She was the one finding it difficult to maintain defenses. To keep that healthy sense of caution that had served her well all of her life. She just didn’t know what had her acting so out of character.
“You’re not going to find them in there. Forget it. Changing the batteries isn’t pressing. I can do it later.”
She rose, feeling a little raw from her abrasive thoughts. Not meeting his gaze she went to where she’d left her purse. “I could use a diet soda anyway. I’ll run to the store for you.”
“You don’t have to do that. We’ll both go. Just let me get my…”
“No.” Because the word came out a little more emphatic than she’d meant, she deliberately softened her tone and manufactured a smile. “I have a bit of a headache. This will give me a chance to clear my head.” Clear it of this uncustomary dithering and try to figure out once and for all if she was capable of maintaining a no-strings intimate relationship.
Snatching up her keys and hurrying to the doorway, she felt a sense of loss as soon as she stepped through it.
