“What about you, Leary?” Jessie said. “Are you injured?”
Leary tried to remember the cause of the blinding pain in his head. One of the bikers had slammed the butt of a gun into his forehead. And seconds before that, someone had hit him in the back of his head, probably with the same gun. It was a miracle his skull hadn’t opened like an egg, and he continued to feel sensations of imbalance, nausea, and immense pain. “I’m fine.”
“We need to get out of here,” Jessie said.
“Why do I doubt Vicki left us a key?” Graham said.
“As far as I can tell this room is empty,” Jessie said. “Just four walls and a ceiling, and the one door, which seems securely locked. No windows. No furniture.”
“That doesn’t give us much to work with,” Leary said.
“I’m sorry,” Jessie said.
“Don’t be sorry,” Leary said. “We’re going to get out of here.”
“We’re here because of my stupidity.”
“If there’s one thing you’re not, it’s stupid.”
“I agree with that,” Graham said. “So stop using your brain to feel bad about yourself and start using it to think of a plan.”
“I’ve been thinking,” Jessie said, “and there’s no way out.”
“We don’t need to escape,” Graham said. “We only need to survive long enough for Lorena Torres and her unit to get here. I called them while Leary and I were driving here.”
Leary ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “Jessie, as long as we’re stuck here for a little bit, and given that there is a certain degree of possibility—very small—that we might not make it out, there’s something I want to say to you.”
He strained to see Jessie in the darkness, but her face was only a light blur in the gloom, unreadable.
She said, “Okay….”
He licked his lips, suddenly unable to continue. Graham thumped him hard on the back. “Just ask her already!”
“I don’t have … well … everything with me right now that I need to do this the right way, but what the hell.” He knelt on one knee and took her bound hands in his. “Jessica Black, will you marry me?”
“Leary—”
The sound of locks disengaging interrupted them. Leary spun toward the door. It opened, and two figures stood silhouetted in the light from the hallway. Both of them were female. At the same moment, the room lit up with light as someone hit a light switch on the other side of the door. Leary blinked against the sudden glare. Through squinting eyes, he saw Briscoe and a second woman, battered looking, with bruises and blood on her face and wearing tattered rags. Her hair was a disheveled mess. Briscoe shoved her into the room.
“Thought you might like to reconnect with an old friend,” Briscoe said. Her voice was full of scorn.
Leary blinked rapidly, almost unable to believe his eyes. The woman was Kelly Lee.
She was alive.
39
Vicki Briscoe sat on the porch outside the main building of her father’s compound. The porch had a roof, and she leaned back, closed her eyes, and listened to the sound of rain drumming against it. It was a soothing sound, a sound that brought back childhood memories and felt as comfortable as a warm blanket. But she was not warm. It was cold on the porch, and the comforting sound was an illusion.
She opened her eyes and pulled her coat tighter around her body. Now was not the time to allow herself to be lulled into a sense of complacency. Things were accelerating now, much more quickly and in a different direction than she had intended. She knew she needed to think while she still had the opportunity to think. She needed to make decisions and plan ahead now, before a sense of urgency overwhelmed her.
She heard the sound of the screen door open and slam behind her, but she did not turn around. The familiar odor of her father’s cigar smoke reached her before the man lowered himself into a chair next to her. She glanced at him, saw the tip of his cigar burn bright red in the darkness. He took the cigar from his mouth and offered her the half smile she’d become so familiar with over the years.
“You want one?”
“You know I don’t smoke those things. They can give you mouth cancer, among other negative health effects.”
Her father chuckled. “Listen to the doctor.”
He frowned the second after the words left his mouth, and she sensed his sudden awkwardness. Her father might be a violent man—a man with his own brand of morals, if you could even call them that—but his love for her was genuine and she knew he worried about causing her even a second’s worth of pain.
“Relax, Dad. You can still call me a doctor. I’m not going to break down in tears.”
“I know that. Not my daughter.”
“Fuck no.” Vicki looked away from him. She certainly had broken down in tears—Ray Briscoe’s daughter or not—and more than once. When she’d received notice of the lawsuit. When she’d lost her license to practice medicine. She was tough. Her father had raised her to be tough. But she was still a human being—much more so than he was. She believed her father was a sociopath, or, at least, that he had strong sociopathic tendencies. She wasn’t like him. She experienced the full range of human emotions. Feelings. Her father would consider this a weakness, and to appease him, she’d spent her life pretending not to experience feelings. Pretending to be him. But she wasn’t a sociopath.
A psychopath, maybe, but not a sociopath.
He reclined in the darkness, puffing his cigar. Eventually, he took it from his mouth with a contented sigh. “You gonna tell me who our guests are?”
“You really want to know?”
“I asked, didn’t I?”
Vicki hugged herself tighter. “The same ones who came here before.”
“The DA and those cops? Jesus Christ, Vicki.” Her father took a long pull on his cigar, then blew the smoke out into the night.
“They were too close to finding out the truth about Kelly Lee. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You could have asked me.”
“Is that what you want? Me running to you every time I have a problem?”
“Actually, yes.” Her father sighed. “If you think I wouldn’t want that, then I must have gone wrong somewhere raising you.”
“If the PPD finds out we have them, they’re going to come down on us hard. I’m sorry, Dad.”
Her father did not look overly concerned. “I’m not worried about the PPD. We can handle them, like we always have.”
He did not elaborate, but Vicki knew enough about the family business to understand what he meant. Graft, violence, extortion. “I still have time to finish what I started,” she said. “After that, I won’t cause any more trouble for you and the Hounds.”
“You’re no trouble sweetheart.” His gaze held some warmth, but only for a space of seconds. “You’re not going to finish anything, though. Too dangerous now.” He clamped his cigar in his teeth, leaned forward, and pulled something out of his back pocket. He passed it to her. A passport. Flipping it open, she saw her own photograph and someone else’s name.
“Dad—”
“The rest of the package is in the house,” he said. “In the safe. I’ll take care of our guests. You leave tonight. Start fresh somewhere else. Didn’t you always admire the beaches of Colombia?”
“I’m not leaving tonight.”
His eyes narrowed. They stared at each other as rain continued to pound the roof above them and soak the tall grass surrounding the building. In the distance, she could hear the sounds of his men moving around. Hardened criminals, but not one of them tough enough to stand up to Ray Briscoe. Was she?
She could feel the anger radiating from him. “I didn’t raise a stupid bitch.”
“That’s right. You didn’t.”
“The smart move is to disappear.”
“Yes, at the end. But I’m not there yet.”
“The end of what?”
“You know what,” she said.
“Where’s the upside? It�
��s all risk, no reward.”
“For me, it’s a reward.”
Her father held her gaze for a long moment. She felt her insides go cold and had to struggle not to look away from that stare. Then, after a seeming eternity, he let out a sigh and rose from his chair. “We don’t see eye to eye on this one, sweetheart. But you know I’m always on your side.”
Until you’re not. “I know, Dad. Thanks.” But he had already left her. She sat alone outside for a few more minutes, listening to the rain, looking at the fake passport in her lap.
Her father was right. And she would leave. But not before she extracted her pound of flesh.
Literally.
40
“Kelly?” In the darkness of the windowless room, Jessie stared in shock. After almost a week of searching for this woman’s killer, her brain rebelled at the idea that she had been alive the whole time.
Kelly stared back at her, but there was no look of recognition in the lawyer’s eyes. She looked distant. Absent.
“Kelly, it’s me. Jessie.”
Kelly said nothing, but her body started to shake uncontrollably. Jessie could hear the rapid pumping of her lungs. Almost hyperventilating.
She tried again. “Kelly? I thought you were dead. Can you tell me what happened?”
No response.
How was this possible? “You were in a car accident. The ME identified you. How—” Squinting in the darkness, Jessie saw the amputations. Several fingers missing from each of Kelly’s hands. A chunk of flesh from her right arm. Possibly part of one of her feet, which appeared to be bandaged and bloodied. The driver’s body had been found in pieces. The ME’s identification had been based on fingerprints.
My God.
Jessie felt a threat of vomit in her guts. Bruises covered Kelly’s body, along with dried blood, and stitches where she’d been opened and then sewn up.
Graham’s voice from somewhere else in the dark room: “She must be in shock.”
Jessie heard Graham and Leary moving around. She supposed they were searching the room for an escape route, a weapon, anything. She already knew they would find nothing.
“Kelly.” She tried to penetrate the woman’s vacant stare. “We need to get out of here. Is there anything you can tell us?”
Kelly’s lips moved. Jessie couldn’t hear her. She leaned closer, almost losing her balance with her wrists bound in front of her.
“What did you say, Kelly?”
“Crazy.” Kelly’s voice was barely a whisper. “She’s crazy.”
Jessie touched the woman’s hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “We’re going to get you out of here, Kelly.”
“They took me. They came into my apartment at night and took me. Vicki Briscoe and … some men. She’s crazy. There’s a room. She takes me there and….”
The door opened. Kelly curled up into a ball and started sobbing. Jessie stared at the rectangle of light that was the doorway and the three dark figures framed within it. She recognized Vicki Briscoe’s now-familiar shape. The woman appeared to be flanked by two tall and powerful-looking men. The three of them advanced into the room. Kelly’s sobs turned into a keening wail as the footfalls echoed in the room and the three visitors surrounded them.
Jessie braced herself for a fight, but against three people who were probably armed, and with her wrists tied, she didn’t know what she could do. Headbutt someone? If it came to that, maybe. She’d seen movies where someone broke an assailant’s nose by ramming it with a forehead.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Leary tense up. Graham, standing in another corner of the room, also turned to face the intruders. Both of them were better fighters than Jessie was, and their wrists weren’t bound. But they were unarmed.
Briscoe walked past Kelly and stopped in front of Jessie. She grabbed Jessie roughly by the arm and yanked her to her feet, then toward the door. “Time to see what your pain tolerance is, prosecutor.”
Leary charged at them. The two men with Briscoe blocked him, one of them grabbing him in a bear hug from behind and the other one slamming a fist into his belly, doubling him over. Graham headed toward them next.
“No, Emily!” Jessie tried to break out of Briscoe’s grip, but she couldn’t. She swung her head in Briscoe’s direction, trying for the headbutt she’d imagined, but all she managed to do was flail. Briscoe laughed at her. On the floor, Kelly continued to wail.
“Don’t touch her!” Leary broke free of the man who was holding him and punched the other man with enough force to make him stagger back and drop to one knee. Briscoe cursed and dragged Jessie toward the door. Leary hurtled himself toward them, but the other man grabbed him again and threw him against the wall.
“Let her go!” Graham said.
Briscoe sneered. “Or what?” She tugged at Jessie. “You’ve got loyal friends. But will it last when they have to choose between you and saving their own skins? We’re going to find out after I take a scalpel to your face.”
“You obviously don’t know anything about loyalty.” Jessie wrenched sideways, but she could not get free.
“I know enough about it.” Briscoe’s grip was like a vise. She was much stronger than she looked. Fueled by insanity, maybe. By mindless rage. Against what? What had Jessie ever done to her? She realized it didn’t matter. The world had failed Vicki Briscoe, and the world was going to pay for it.
“That’s why you dumped Trevor Galway the second he got in trouble with the law? That’s your idea of loyalty?”
Briscoe’s face twisted with pain. She glared at Jessie, and drove her fist into her chest. Pain exploded and the breath was forced out of her lungs. Her knees almost gave way, but Briscoe held her up. Her vision swam. She heard nothing but the meaty sounds of the two men beating Leary, the sound of Graham protesting, and the sound of Kelly sobbing on the floor. She struggled to breathe.
“Don’t ever say his name again,” Briscoe said. “You don’t know anything about Trevor and me. You don’t know anything about my life.”
“I don’t want to.”
Briscoe threw Jessie through the doorway and into the hall. She followed her over the threshold and kicked the door shut with her boot. It slammed, cutting off the sound of Leary’s final, agonized shout.
41
Briscoe thrust Jessie outside. She staggered, almost losing her footing. The downpour had ceased, but the grass was still wet and her shoes slid on the slick, spongy surface.
“Keep moving,” Briscoe said.
With the woman shoving her every few feet, Jessie crossed a short expanse of damp grass to another building on the compound. The night was dark—almost pitch black—and the air smelled like rain. Somewhere nearby, a dog barked. She stopped at the door and dug in her heels, all too aware that his momentary exposure to fresh air and open sky might be her last.
Briscoe shoved her inside. She faced another dark and cramped interior. A smell hit her with such force that she almost threw up. Panic flooded her system and she elbowed Briscoe, trying to flee. Briscoe gripped her arm painfully.
“This way.”
Briscoe marched her down a hallway. The smell intensified. It was like something from the morgue, or a crime scene. Blood and death, and the sweaty stink of fear. Briscoe seemed to be watching Jessie’s expression as she thrust her toward a room at the end of the hall.
Briscoe opened the door and thrust Jessie inside a small, square room. The stench of the space seemed to propel itself into her nostrils and mouth. She coughed and gagged, overpowered by it. With her wrists bound in front of her with duct tape, she swayed unsteadily and almost collapsed. She forced herself to stay upright, to stay alert. She needed any advantage she could get. She certainly needed to remain standing.
She blinked to clear her vision. There was an operating table in the middle of the room, but it didn’t look like anything you’d see in a hospital, or even like the table she’d seen in the other building.
This table wouldn’t even pass muster in a hospital from a
hundred years ago, or from a war zone. There was no attempt at sterility, little effort at organization or order. The bed was dark with blood, a collage of dried, crusty stains and fresher, damp puddles, different shades of maroon. Jessie smelled sweat, too, a smell that brought to mind feverish perspiration.
This is where she tortures Kelly.
Beside the operating table was a shelf covered in surgical implements. Scalpels, saws, needles, drills. Unclean, darkly stained. Clumps of something clung to the edges of the blades—skin, she realized with a punch of visceral revulsion. Flesh. Jessie shuddered, not wanting to look.
This was where Kelly Lee had spent the last week while everyone thought her dead. Taken into this room, worked on, made to scream and sob and cry as her skin was cut apart and she was stabbed and sliced and drilled.
And now, apparently, it was Jessie’s turn.
42
Briscoe’s grip tightened around Jessie’s arm. “Get on the table. Or I’ll put you there.”
“Who was the woman in the car?” Jessie said.
“What?”
“The woman whose body was found in Kelly’s car, after the accident. Obviously, that wasn’t Kelly. Who was it?”
“Do you really care, or are you just trying to postpone what’s coming next?”
Jessie tried to remain calm, but the surgical instruments—stained and filthy—drew her gaze. The tools of torture. “A little of both.”
Briscoe let out a short, harsh laugh. “She was nobody. Just one of the many people stupid enough to cross my father.”
“The councilwoman,” Jessie said, remembering what Lorena Torres had said at the diner.
Briscoe’s laugh abruptly cut off. “You should be begging for your life. Instead, you’re giving me more reasons to kill you? I thought you were smart.”
“I try to be.” Jessie forced herself to be smart now. To look more closely at the surgical instruments. Just think of them as tools. How can you use them?
False Justice Page 18
