Here I come, asshole.
Ninety
The muscle car was there, parked at the outskirts of the construction site. I stopped about ten feet behind it and flashed my high beams, seeing that no one was inside. Fifty yards ahead of us was a nine-story office building under construction. I didn’t know much about construction, but at first glance it appeared that the building’s frame was up with some of the exterior walls. None of the windows were put in yet. The construction site was dark, but on the inside some of the floors were lit. I wasn’t sure if that was how it was supposed to be or if the lights were for me. Nevertheless, I reached for my gun and had it aimed as I slowly stepped out of my car.
I first went to the muscle car and reassured that it was empty. The night was warm, but I was sweating heavier than normal. I wiped my forehead with the back of my free hand and slowly headed to the building. It was a surreal feeling knowing that I was walking into a trap. There was nothing else it could be. One of two things was going to happen this morning: either I was going to walk out of the building alive or he was. He’d said it more than once in his letters. Either I was going to die or he was. He was prepared to die. I wasn’t.
When I got to the building, I looked up and then around. There wasn’t a front door to the entrance, and the foyer area was a big, dark, empty space. I stood and calmed my breathing to try and hear anything, but it was quiet. Then again, what was I supposed to hear?
Around the building there were scaffolds for workers to climb between floors. I figured this lunatic wouldn’t make it easy and was probably on one of the upper floors. I tucked my gun into my belt and proceeded to slowly and cautiously climb each floor. When I got to the sixth floor, I finally heard the sound of another human being.
I hopped off the scaffold and pulled out my gun. This was one of the floors that was lit by a series of exposed light bulbs across the ceiling. I walked slowly with my gun aimed. My heart was pounding. My breathing was accelerated. My eyes were wide open. My senses were on such high alert that I probably could have heard a conversation between two ants.
The floor that I was walking on had some of the walls already in place, and the hallway was carved out. The closer I got to the center of the building, the louder I heard a female’s whimper. Pat. In the center of the building, there was a cross hallway and it was there that I heard Pat’s whimper even more pronounced and coming from my left. I turned in the direction of the noise and came to a more open section of the building that didn’t yet have the walls up.
That’s when I saw her.
Pat was tied to a chair, and her mouth was covered with duct tape. But that wasn’t the bad part. The bad part was that her chair was at the edge of the building where I assume a large floor-to-ceiling window was going to be. The rope that was tied around her appeared to be coming from the next floor above. Her eyes were wide, and I knew that she was afraid for her life. I wanted to drop my gun and run to her, but my senses kicked back in and told me that this was a trap.
The next thing that happened couldn’t have surprised me more. The rope had a little slack to it, but it suddenly tightened up and Pat’s chair slowly came off the floor and hung partly out the window.
“Pat!”
I started to rush toward her but stopped four steps later when the maniac climbed down from the above floor and came in from the open window area. He stood right next to Pat’s hanging chair. He looked exactly as he had the night he broke into my house: large, muscular frame, black T-shirt, blue jeans, and a mask covering his face.
I aimed my gun at his chest as we stood about twenty feet from one another.
The man opened his arms wide, but his right hand was clenched, “You got me, Detective. Take the shot, and you can end this right now and save your friend.”
I straightened out my arms and moved my index finger to the trigger.
“But before you do that, let me show you something.”
He unclenched his right hand, revealing a small black object that looked like a detonator.
“One press of this button and your friend falls to her death. Once your bullet hits me, my hand will clench tight and push the button. Is that how you want your friend to die?”
“Why are you doing this?” I said.
“Honestly? For the thrill.”
“You’re insane.”
“You’re right. I am. Now, we can continue to talk, or we can finish the game.”
“I’m not finishing anything with you.”
“Your choice. But if you don’t, then your friend dies. You have ten seconds to decide.”
I didn’t take that long to decide.
“Fine. I’ll play.”
“Figured you’d see it my way.”
“What now?”
“For starters, you have to drop your gun and kick it over here.”
I slowly lowered my weapon and dropped it to the floor, kicking it over to him. He bent down and picked it up. I was now at his mercy. If he decided to shoot me, there was nothing I could do about it. But he did something that I wasn’t expecting. He tossed my gun over his back and it went outside and fell six stories to the ground.
“Here’s the game,” he said. He took four steps to his left to a makeshift workbench. “There’s a four-minute timer on the floor above us that’s attached to a small explosive. The explosive is tied to that rope. This little thing starts the timer. If you can get to your friend and bring her in before the timer goes off then you can save her and yourself. Two for the price of one, if you will.”
“I thought that thing released the rope?”
“I lied.”
He placed the object on the table.
“Ready?” he said.
I didn’t respond.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
He pushed the button and the four minutes began. He then stepped away from the workbench.
I didn’t move at first because I wasn’t sure what he was going to do. Then the clock started ticking in my head. I sized him up and knew that the only way to end this thing was to take this guy down. My eyes moved around the room, and I noticed objects all over the place. I didn’t have my gun, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have access to weapons.
I narrowed my eyes on the lunatic and changed my stance into attack mode. He saw my feet adjust, so he adjusted as well. My hands were loose. The one thing I’d learned from Rule was to always keep my hands loose until the moment of impact.
We looked like caged fighters ready for a brawl to the death. The clock in my head continued to tick. Pat only had minutes to live if I didn’t do something. So I bent my knees and started my attack. I ran toward the lunatic, and he ran toward me. We were going to collide in the middle of the room and fight to the death. I couldn’t see his face, but I was sure it was rigid and tight.
As we got closer to each other, I saw that he was ready to wrap himself around my waist and tackle me to the ground. Instead of giving him that opportunity, I dove, tucked into a spin, and picked up a two-by-four that was lying on the ground. I came out of the spin swinging the wooden stick and took out the lunatic by his knees.
He wasn’t expecting the blow. He gasped and fell down. I stood up and swung the board like I was chopping a piece of wood, but the lunatic moved at the last second and the stick hit the concrete floor. He still had strength in his legs because he swung them and connected at the back of my knees, forcing me down. He quickly pushed himself up and then came crashing down on my back like he was a WWE wrestler. It felt like my spine had broken. Sharp pains ran through my body and down my legs. He hopped off of me and backed up.
Time was ticking away.
I slowly pushed myself up, and with each movement came pain like knives cutting through my skin.
“We can do better, Detective,” The lunatic said. “You’d better hurry if you want to save Pat.”
Hearing him say her name gave me a whole new strength. I shot to my feet and threw a combination of punches. Some landed, but most didn�
��t. I felt like we were in the Ali vs. Foreman fight where George wore himself out by throwing power punch after power punch; all the while Ali had allowed George to get tired so that he couldn’t defend himself anymore.
The lunatic must have finally gotten tired of bobbing and weaving because he just moved in and wrapped his large arms around my body and commenced to squeeze as hard as he could. He was much stronger than me and he was proving it. I headbutted him once, but that only made him squeeze harder. I was having a hard time breathing. My chest was constricted, and the pains running through my back were horrendous. I felt like he was literally squeezing the life out of me.
He raised me off the ground and squeezed harder. I could hear in his voice that he was straining with everything he had. My breaths were choppy, and I thought that I might black out. If I didn’t do something to loosen his grip, I was going to die. I wiggled but nothing gave. My feet were dangling off the ground, and then a thought suddenly slipped into my mind.
I raised my right leg back as far as it would go and then with as much power as I could muster, I threw my knee into his balls. His grip didn’t loosen. I did it again. And again. And again until he finally let me go.
I dropped to the ground, and he hunched over. With the little strength I had left, I punched him in the balls again. He grimaced but didn’t fall. I crawled back to the two-by-four that I’d used earlier. This time when I picked it up it felt heavier than before. Probably because I was weakened. But it didn’t matter. I swung the board across the lunatic’s head, and he finally fell down.
I dropped to my knees, winded and trying to catch my breath. I looked over at the guy. He slowly stood up, but I could tell that I’d done some damage. I gripped the two-by-four again and swung it, this time striking him across his chest. The force caused him to move back a few steps. He grabbed at his chest and coughed. I dropped the stick and yelled at the top of my lungs while charging him. When we collided, I drove him toward the windowless opening and we both went over. I let go and grabbed onto Pat’s chair. He kept falling until he slammed into the ground.
The clock continued to move in my head. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but I knew we didn’t have much of it left. I swung my legs back and forth trying to get momentum to get back into the building. Three swings later, I hopped off and landed back on the sixth floor. Pat swung back out. Her momentum kept her swinging. She swung out and started swinging toward the building when I heard a loud pop.
She was moving toward me as the rope went limp. I instinctively grabbed the wall and reached out as far as I could. I grabbed the chair, but her momentum was lost and her weight nearly caused me to fall over. However, I maintained my grip. I was hanging onto the side of the wall while Pat was dangling in the chair. I knew I couldn’t hold her much longer. My back was killing me, and my hand was starting to lose its grip on the wall.
If I let go of the wall, then both of us would die. Pat looked up at me and pleaded with her eyes. She didn’t want to die. My fingers were slipping. I couldn’t pull her up. I wanted to tell her that I was sorry and that I couldn’t save us. I felt my fingertips sliding to the edge of the wall, and there was nothing I could do about it.
“I’m sorry,” I finally said.
Then my hand slipped off.
Ninety-one
We didn’t fall. At the last second, someone grabbed my hand. And then an arm leaned over and another hand grabbed Pat’s chair. Two men pulled us up to safety. If I didn’t know better, I would have said that they were our guardian angels, but turns out they were the morning shift coming into work.
They said that they saw us from down the street. They saw a woman hanging from a chair and called the police. They rushed up to help her and then stopped us from falling. I was on my knees as I thanked them. Both of my hands hurt, and the muscles in my back and arms were throbbing with pain. One of the men took the duct tape off of Pat’s mouth and then untied her. As soon as she was loose, she fell to my level and gave me a big hug.
Ten minutes later, the place was crawling with Fairfax County police, and the remaining hours of the morning were a blur. We explained to several different detectives who we were and what had happened. I spoke to Captain Hellsworth, and he offered to pick us up, but I guess I told him that we’d be okay because somehow I drove Pat and myself back to D.C. She didn’t want to be alone, so she crashed at my place for the remainder of the day.
“The one time I decide to open up to a guy, he ends up having a woody for you.”
We both laughed as we sat on my couch sipping hot cups of coffee.
“Is this what your life is like, Jacob? I mean, ever since we became partners it’s been nothing but chaos.”
“Hardly. To be honest with you, it almost feels like someone is making this stuff up and writing me into a story.”
We talked for a few more hours and then both of us fell asleep on my couch. When we woke up, it was late afternoon. Henry was licking my hand and giving me the old “I gotta go” look. I told Pat to make herself at home and grab something to eat while I took Henry out.
I walked by Hal’s house to check on my old neighbor. He wore a neck brace when he came to the door, but said that he was fine. The doctor wanted him to wear it because of the slight bruising. He didn’t blame me for what happened, but I couldn’t help feeling that he would never have been put in that situation if it wasn’t for me.
“Jacob, you and Theresa were like family to me,” he said. “Anything you need, you just come right over. And don’t worry about Henry. I’ll still come over and let him out when you’re on shift.”
I thanked him, and then Henry and I were on our way. We walked slowly around the neighborhood. I breathed in deep breaths of fresh air and just looked around and admired all that was around me. I was thankful for being alive. There aren’t many people who can say that they were given a second chance at life. Earlier in the year, I was. Last night’s fiasco made it my third. I was lucky. There was no denying that. If it weren’t for those two men, I’d be lying in a morgue right now.
Earlier in the morning, before Pat and I had fallen asleep on my couch, Captain Hellsworth called and gave us the backstory on the lunatic. His prints matched up to a Brice Stewart from Texas. Brice apparently had been in foster care most of his young life and then spent some time in juvenile detention. A year and a half ago, Brice Stewart escaped from a psychiatric institute. When he was nineteen, he apparently murdered a sheriff and his son. During trial, he was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial and spent the next ten years locked away. He had a nickname for himself that he wanted the psych staff to call him, The Game.
Captain Hellsworth called the psych institute and told them what happened. When he mentioned my name, he said that they’d found an article in Brice’s room about me from two years ago, when I was the lead detective on a child murder case.
“Wonder if that’s how it began?” I said.
“Who knows with these nuts,” Captain Hellsworth replied. “I’m just glad that you two are okay.”
So was I.
As Henry’s walk was coming to an end, I decided to call Jadyn. I filled her in on what had happened last night with the lunatic. She wanted to come over, but I told her that Pat and I were okay.
“But, I was wondering if you’d like to get together tonight?” I said.
She hesitated before answering.
“Sorry, if you don’t want to.”
“No, that’s not it. I’m just surprised that you asked.”
“I know. And I’d like to thank you for giving me time. But I think I’m ready now.”
I could almost feel her smiling through the phone. “In that case, I’d love to go out with you tonight.”
“Good, good. There’s a lounge that I’d like to check out. An up-and-coming singer that I keep hearing about is playing tonight and I’ve heard that she’s really good.”
“Really? Who?”
“Chanel Narcissus? Have you heard of her?”
&nb
sp; “No, but I’m sure she’s good.”
Now I was the one who was smiling. “Good. Okay, I’ll pick you up around eight?”
“I’ll be ready.”
We said our goodbyes and then Henry and I went back into the house. I was smiling when I walked inside. Pat was still lying on the couch and gave me a curious look.
“What’s up with the goofy smile?” she said.
“Goofy? Really?”
“Yeah, you look like an eighth grade boy was just had his first kiss.”
“Jadyn and I are going out tonight.”
“Aw, isn’t that sweet? Jacob’s got a crush.” She sat up. “So what are you going to wear?”
At that moment, Pat caused my goofy smile to fade away. Damn, what am I going to wear?
“Don’t worry. I’ll help you out.”
Pat walked me to my room and for the next two hours we tried on everything. I didn’t realize that dating again would be so complicated.
Epilogue
Two months later—Barrow, Alaska
The first snow of the season had started falling nearly three days earlier and hadn’t stopped. The temperature was just under freezing, and the winds had the snow spiraling in the air. Rule had come into town earlier in the day and was now trekking across open land wearing a backpack, thick snow coat, pants, and boots. The snow was knee deep, causing Rule to raise his feet above the snow in order to step.
He was heading for a cabin, which he’d learned was a retreat that his father had built. Another interesting fact about his father that he hadn’t known before. The cabin was totally off the grid with no running water or electricity. Rule learned that the point of the cabin was to allow his father to be isolated at times if need be. No one else knew of the cabin until now.
After Rule had left Jacob’s house, he went straight to his parents’ home where he stayed for the next two months. He left the house once for the funeral and then a couple of times to get groceries. Other than that, he stayed inside. He didn’t take any calls or answer the door whenever someone came by. He wanted to be alone. He needed to be alone if he was ever going to sort out his family’s trouble.
The Game of Life or Death: A Detective Series of Crime and Suspense Thrillers (The Jacob Hayden Series Book 3) Page 22
