Trouble Comes Knocking (Entangled Embrace)

by Duncanson, Mary

  He stopped talking to me at some point and seemed only to be talking to himself. “Said I was too soft, my old man did. Said I could never take over his business. Weak, he called me weak. Said if push ever came to shove, I’d be the sniveling ball crying somewhere on the floor. Well, who’s crying? Not me.”

  “Why are you doing this?” I whispered, knowing he wasn’t listening to me.

  Apparently, he was. He laughed. “Why not? I get to go on living my life while you rot down here.”

  “So you’re going to shoot me?”

  “No.” His flashlight panned over to one of the columns and landed on a body. What remained had strings of blond hair, missing teeth. The greenish flesh was slightly see-through and something crawled out of one of the eye sockets.

  I screamed, my knees giving out.

  “Shut up! Shut the fuck up!” He covered his ears and then started hitting the side of his head. That only lasted a few moments until he stopped and relaxed. “Actually, scream all you want. No one gives a fuck about you down here.”

  “That’s…that’s Diana, isn’t it?”

  He smiled and crouched down next to me on the cold, damp concrete. “What’s left of her. She used to be a looker. I came down to see her every day after I brought her here. It’s amazing how nice girls get after they’ve been left alone in a warehouse for a few days. After a while she stopped playing nice, so I just used her as a punching bag until she wasn’t anything.”

  “Oh God, you’re sick,” I said, backing away from him and trying not to look at the body. That would be me if I didn’t get out of here.

  Get out! my mind screamed.

  “So all this because of the money?”

  “Fuck the money,” he said, still kneeling, proud of his sick domain. “My family needed me, and I did what I had to do to protect them. Who will protect yours, Lucy?”

  Fight or die, I suddenly thought. Fight or die.

  “Get up,” he said, standing and waving at me with the gun, motioning me forward. “I’m tired of talking.”

  Stumbling to my feet, I walked toward Diana, but in the last moment veered, rushing him and knocking us both to the floor. The flashlight flew from his hand and went out.

  “Fucking bitch, I’m going to kill you!”

  The gun blasted as I rolled out of the way. My ears rang and echoes bounced off my eardrums as I quickly pieced together in my mind how we’d gotten from the staircase to here. One wrong step and I’d be lost in a pitch-black warehouse with no idea where to hide.

  His footsteps matched mine, and I knew if he caught me, I’d be dead.

  “Lucy,” he called in a crazy singsong voice. “Lucy. Might as well come on back to me, darlin’. If you stop now I’ll just shoot you. If you keep going, I’ll make you pay.”

  He was trying to bait me. Trying to get me to say something so he’d know where I was. My heart pounded as I felt my way along the boxes and rubble. I ran into a wall of spiderweb and gasped as I tumbled away from it. Stop shaking, I told myself, my limbs feeling as if they might give out. I’d been lucky; in the dark I couldn’t see what was around me, but I hadn’t run into anything yet. Slowing, I hoped I’d have a better chance of hearing him coming my way, but my ears still rang from the blast. No sight and little hearing left me disoriented.

  “Lucy,” he called again. “Come on out, you little bitch.”

  If Ben didn’t catch me, I might as easily die from pure fear. But if I could make it to the far edge of the room, I could follow the wall around until I found the staircase.

  God, please let me get out of this alive. The ringing in my ears faded enough for me to hear my own heavy breathing. His footfalls moved away from me. I tried to take slower, deeper breaths, but that only hyped up the panic. I squeezed my hands into fists. Get it together. You can do this. You are a warrior woman. That did it. Finally able to breathe again, I moved forward, finding my way toward the wall. When I sensed he was far enough away, I reached for the phone in my pocket and prayed John was still on the other end and that Ben wouldn’t see the light. He wasn’t there.

  There were zero bars, and I was completely alone.

  God, I prayed again. Please don’t let me die here.

  I found the wall and walked along it as quickly and quietly as I could. I stepped on something furry and it let out a screech. A bullet ricocheted in my direction, and I sprinted.

  “Lucy, I know where you are now,” Ben taunted. He raced toward me, pummeling through boxes and tossing things aside. “I’ll be there in a minute, darlin’.”

  I fought my way along the wall as fast as possible, and after an eternity found the staircase. I started up, but his hand closed around my ankle.

  “Got ya.”

  “No!” I screamed, kicking backward. My heel connected with bone, and he let go, falling away from me. Another bullet hit metal above my head as I scrambled on all fours up the stairs.

  Once on the upper level, I ran as fast as I could toward the open doorway, Ben right behind me. “Fucking bitch, fucking little Lucy bitch. I’m going to kill you!”

  Fight or die, I kept thinking as my lungs burned and my heart fought for each beat. My thighs burned, but I kept running, my life literally depending on it.

  “Run if you want, Lucy,” Ben called. “I can just as easily kill Ana tonight instead of you. I know exactly where she is, and it isn’t as if she knows where you are right now.”

  His words slowed me. Oh God, no! I stopped and hid behind a box.

  “You have a choice,” he shouted again, this time not as far away. “You or your friend. Are you willing to die for her, Lucy?”

  I stifled a cry, not sure of what to do. If I came out, I would certainly die. If I stayed hidden, Ana would be this psychopath’s next victim. With shaky legs, I decided to step out from behind the box just as a hand clamped down over my mouth.

  “No,” Eli whispered fiercely into my ear. “She’s safe.”

  I turned to him, eyes wide. “What are you doing here?”

  “John called me. He tracked your phone to this part of town, and we’ve been searching the warehouses to find you.”

  “He has a gun,” I whispered.

  “C’mon,” he said, taking my hand.

  I followed in a low crouch, hoping Eli knew the way out. We only went a small distance before the sound of footfalls grew stronger. “He’s behind us!” I whispered, frantic now that I knew Eli’s life was in as much danger as my own.

  “Run!”

  We made a break for it, but Ben quickly overcame us. He caught me, and we both tumbled to the floor. Up ahead Eli stopped and turned. Ben positioned his gun on me, holding me around the neck.

  “Detective Reyes. Couldn’t save your girlfriend, huh?”

  “Let her go, Ben. She’s not worth it. She’s a pain in the ass and truly not worth the cost of your bullet.”

  “I am, too!” I insisted, before I could stop myself. Eli’s words stung.

  Ben’s gun waivered for a moment. I held my breath as I waited to see what he might do.

  “C’mon, man,” Eli continued. “We know what you did now, and you have nowhere to hide.”

  “Oh, that’s not true,” he said in a deadly calm voice, his gun arm now rock steady. “I have plenty of money. And plenty of places to go.”

  “There are officers crawling all over looking for you,” Eli reasoned. “If you give yourself up now, you might make it out of this alive.”

  “You and I both know that if given even a small chance, I will be shot on sight. Lucy is my insurance. Now drop your weapon.”

  “Not going to happen.”

  Ben cocked the trigger and pressed the gun closer to my temple. “Can’t see me well, can you, Detective. I could easily kill her and still make it out of here. Do you want to take that chance?”

  “Okay, okay.” The gun clanged as it hit the concrete.

  Ben had no reason to keep me alive anymore, and I knew it. Unarmed, Eli had no protection. Ben would kill us bot
h.

  His arm tensed around my neck, and I knew what was coming. “No!” I screamed. I let my body go limp, and heat blasted as the bullet rushed over my head. I screamed again when the entire weight of Eli’s body crushed my hand as he dove past me, tackling Ben.

  Two bodies thudded against the floor as the men fought. I felt around in the dark for Eli’s gun and finally found it at about the same time I heard Ben’s slide across the concrete floor.

  Sickening sounds of knuckles against flesh echoed through the warehouse along with grunts and curses. I aimed the gun but couldn’t tell one from the other. The men bashed into a wall and back to the floor again. With the sound of cracking bone, it was over. Oh, God! Please don’t let it be Eli, I prayed when the body on the floor didn’t move. The other man stood. “Stop!” I screamed, shaking violently, unable to hold my aim steady but praying he couldn’t tell. “I have the gun now.”

  “Lucy, it’s me,” Eli said, weakly. He shuffled forward and leaned heavily against me.

  I welcomed his weight and his warmth. “Eli! I thought I was going to die. I thought you were dead.”

  He pulled something from his pocket. “Suspect in Warehouse 34, grid 5,” he said, not an ounce of energy left in his voice. A few minutes passed, and then the sound of boots on concrete echoed nearer. The lights came on and bodies swarmed through the far doors. I looked around and saw Ben on the floor, hand reaching for his gun.

  “Look out!” I screamed, aiming Eli’s at him. On instinct I pulled the trigger, arm recoiling painfully from the blast.

  The two guns went off as Eli knocked me to the floor. I looked to Eli and saw blood on his arm. “Are you shot?”

  “No. My stitches probably tore. You okay?”

  “Yes.” I bent my head around Eli to see and cried out when I saw Ben, a bullet hole through his neck, head cocked at a strange angle, and blood squirting and pooling all around him.

  Eli turned my head away and shielded my face with his hand as he took the gun. “Shhh,” he said. “It’s over now. You’re safe.”

  “No! No!” Pain made my fingertips numb as I fought my way out of Eli’s arms and over to Ben. I pressed my hand against his neck, warm, sticky blood covering my hands entirely. “No,” I cried out again. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

  I spent the night in the hospital and woke the next morning to a room full of people I loved. Among them Aunt Dolores, Ana, John, and Eli.

  And a few I didn’t, namely Captain Matheson.

  My body was a riot of stiffness and aches all over. There was a giant goose egg on the side of my head from where I’d been cracked with the gun, and the top of my head had staples where the bullet grazed my scalp. My hand was also bandaged and two fingers splinted from where Eli stomped on me on his way to Ben, but the pain didn’t matter. We were all safe.

  “You’re lucky to be alive, young lady,” Captain Matheson said, jowls jiggling as he spoke. “You put a lot of people’s lives in jeopardy and got one of my detectives shot. What do you have to say for yourself?”

  “What do you have to say, sir?” I asked, finally tired of him deflecting the blame to others and not willing to play nice any longer. “You locked the wrong person in jail, someone innocent of all this, and stopped looking for the real killer. If you had done your job half as well as I did, none of this would have happened.”

  His face puffed out and turned red. “Young lady, I will be charging you with obstruction of justice for what you pulled. You might have gotten your friend out of jail, but you just landed yourself in a whole heap of trouble.”

  “Edgar, back off,” an older man said as he walked into the room. He wore a suit, and from the way Eli straightened and Matheson shut up immediately I knew he was someone of importance. “This young lady is right. She, for all practical purposes, single-handedly solved your case, and she will be rewarded for her efforts.”

  “But Commissioner—”

  “No buts. The city will eat this up.” He looked to me and smiled. He appeared grandfatherly with his white hair and big nose, but a keen sharpness shone in his eyes. This man was calculating, his actions precise. “That is, if you don’t mind a couple of press conferences?”

  “Natalie is free?” I asked, priorities first.

  “As of this morning.”

  “And Detective Reyes will resume his normal duties?”

  The commissioner looked toward Eli. “I believe he’ll even receive a commendation.”

  Eli’s chest visibly expanded. “Thank you, sir.”

  I loved how this man didn’t even introduce himself to me, knew he didn’t have to. The reaction of the people around me was enough to let me know he was in charge.

  Matheson’s face stayed red, but he didn’t speak.

  “One more thing,” I said, feeling bold in my backless hospital gown, wrapped in bandages and hooked to monitors. “I’m probably going to lose my job over all this. And my aunt needs me to be working. Is there any way you would consider letting me work on other cases in the future?”

  “That is not something that will be happening,” Matheson said, stuttering in his fast response.

  The Commissioner cut him a look, then turned back to me. “Come by my office Monday, and we’ll discuss bringing you on as a consultant. It isn’t always steady work, but as long as you continue to prove your value, we’ll continue to bring you in.”

  I smiled despite the frown on Dee’s face.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Carver. There are a passel of reporters downstairs. I know you’re set to be released later today, so I’m going to have Mr. Brown, my press advisor, set up our first press conference for two hours from now.”

  I nodded.

  The Commissioner turned to leave, but then motioned for Captain Matheson to follow. He did so, reluctantly, and not before flashing me one last dirty look.

  “Well, that was unexpected,” Dee said. “Now you. What you did was reckless, dangerous—”

  “Aunt Dolores, I’m sorry. I couldn’t tell you what I was doing—”

  She held up her hand. “Stop, just stop right there.” Dee pulled a chair up beside my bed, then sat next to me and took my hand. Her face softened. “Lucy, you did what you did to try to help a friend. Do I wish you hadn’t done it? Hell yes. Do I wish you told me? No. Not in a million years.”

  My eyebrows drew together. “I don’t understand.” I shot Ana a look.

  “You have some amazin’ gifts, baby girl, things I wish you didn’t. And for you to truly figure out who you are in this life, you’re gonna have to do things I don’t always like. You saved someone last night, and you did so knowin’ you might be puttin’ your life at risk.

  “You are brave and loving and I admire you. I also appreciate that you didn’t want me to worry about where you were and what you were doin’ all night.”

  I chewed the skin around my thumbnail, then looked up to Eli and back to Dee. “So don’t tell you?”

  She smiled and pulled my hand from my mouth, then squeezed it. “Tell me what you think I need to know, but understand I love you and trust you no matter what.” She leaned in and hugged me.

  “Dee, you’re sentimental and sappy, you know that?” Ana said, breaking us apart.

  Aunt Dolores sat up and shot a glare her way. “And you’re a pain in my tuchus. Going off on a date with some poker killer and not even thinking twice.”

  “He wasn’t the killer!”

  “You didn’t know that. Lucy, I trust. You, I think, will end up splattered on the ground someday if you don’t keep your head on straight.”

  “I was an integral part of the plan,” Ana said as they left the room arguing.

  “Integral my ass,” Aunt Dolores said before the door closed behind them.

  That left me alone with Eli and John. I looked between the two. “John, do you mind if I talk to Eli for a few moments?”

  He smiled, though slightly strained, and nodded. “Sure. We’ll talk later. I have to go
to work anyway.” He kissed my forehead and squeezed my good hand. Leaning in beside me, he whispered, “Don’t forget those Bond moves you want to show me.”

  My cheeks heated at his reminder. He stopped in front of Eli. “Thank you for saving her,” he said, reaching out to shake.

  “She kind of saved herself,” he answered back. “But of course.”

  The door closed, leaving Eli and I alone in the room.

  “You came for me.”

  He sat in the chair where Dee had just been. “What the hell were you thinking?” he asked. His face broke into a million bits of worry and pain. “You were almost killed. That man murdered other people, and you didn’t even consider that before putting yourself in harm’s way.”

  I sat up straighter, feeling I couldn’t fully defend myself lying back in bed like that. “You heard my aunt. I have things I need to do, and I can’t always have people worrying over me as I get them done.”

  “Bullshit.”

  My mouth fell open.

  “You nearly got yourself killed. If John hadn’t tracked your phone signal to the warehouse district before it went dead, you would have been killed. I don’t care what your aunt says, you had no business being out there.”

  “You didn’t believe me.”

  “I never stopped believing you. I couldn’t protect you,” he said, voice rising passionately. “Goddamn it, Lucy! Can’t you see anything past your own stubborn nose?”