The Warning Sign

by Mia Marlowe

  “This painting is obviously finished, but it’s not on the wall yet,” Ryan said. “The others are all dead. That must mean she’s alive.”

  Matthew nodded. “We hope.”

  “We’re waiting for instructions. That means this guy has a plan. From what I can see here, Rede’s gifted in a sick bastard sort of way. That means it’s a damnably clever plan. We have to figure out what it is,” Ryan said. “If he’s stringing us along, it means he hasn’t killed her yet.”

  Matthew’s lips formed a tight line.

  If he disagreed, Ryan would knock him into next week. He needed to believe Sara was still alive.

  “Let’s see if this guy is planning on going anywhere,” Matthew finally said.

  “Check the closet?”

  “You can if you want to, but people leave clothes all the time. If they’re planning to bug out, they’ll use up all their food and not restock,” Matthew said. “I’m checking the fridge.”

  He pulled open the aging Kenmore. Matthew’s face went white as a fish belly and he rushed to double over and empty his stomach into the small sink.

  “Holy God,” Matthew whispered.

  Ryan’s hand was unsteady as he pulled on the refrigerator door. The old appliance shuddered as he pried it open.

  The contents of a two gallon pickle jar stirred.

  Chapter 34

  “No!” Matthew collapsed in a shaking mass of knees and elbows, hands clamped to his ears.

  “It can’t be her.” Revulsion squirmed in Ryan’s belly as he looked at the pickle jar. It was a human head, preserved in a cloudy, amber-colored liquid. Ryan could tell that much. The head bobbed in a macabre dance. He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t force himself to move. Ryan’s gut lurched and he held his breath as the face turned into view.

  “It’s not her. It’s not her.” Ryan sucked in a deep breath and slammed the refrigerator shut. Then he plopped down next to Matthew, fighting back tears of relief. “Thank God, it’s not her.”

  “I thought—” Matthew gasped for breath.

  “I know, buddy. Me, too.” His heart pounded as if he’d run a mile. He bit the inside of his cheek, trying to get a grip on his insides. His face felt like it might shatter at any moment.

  “Where is she?” Matthew pressed the heel of his palms against his eyes. “What kind of sick sonofabitch keeps a head in his fridge?”

  “We’re about to find out. Let’s get out of here,” Ryan said as he dragged himself to his feet. “She’s still alive. Let’s go find her.”

  He offered his hand to Matthew and was pleased when he took it. Matthew had lost the cultivated ‘tough cop’ patina with his reaction to the severed head, but Ryan decided he liked him better for it. At least, Sara’s ex was human instead of the heartless, selfish bastard Ryan had initially taken him for. Ryan hauled him to his feet.

  “We’re gonna find her and we’re going to bring her back safe,” Ryan said between clenched teeth, willing his words to be true. “But if he’s hurt her, I’m not going to let you take him in alive.”

  Matthew drew his sleeve across his face to clear away the last trace of the tears he tried to hide. He looked at Ryan squarely, taking his measure.

  It was one thing for Ryan to decide to kill Neville Rede. His uncle’s paid assassin had to be a total waste of skin, irredeemable. Ridding the world of him would be a great service. After all, Ryan might have to do much worse for Uncle Nick in the future.

  But if Matthew agreed, it meant he was willing to do whatever it took to save Sara.

  Even if it wasn’t strictly legal.

  “You got it,” Matt finally said. “However this goes down, we kill the bastard.”

  They took the stairs in tandem while Matthew called dispatch. His training took over and his voice didn’t even waver as he gave the officer Rede’s address.

  “Send a team to secure the premises. Get the captain to call Judge Kowalski for a warrant. We don’t want this thrown out. There’s enough evidence here to close a dozen cold cases and reopen some closed ones. And not a word of this to the Feds till we get our people in. This is gonna be the Boston PD’s collar,” Matthew barked into his phone as they reached street level. “What have you got on the limo?”

  “Look, Matthew, this is your day off and I couldn’t reach your partner.” Ryan overheard the nasal voice of the police dispatcher crackling on the push-to-talk connection. “Besides you’re too close to this one. Cap said—”

  “Let me worry about the cap. I’m good to go. I got a partner,” Matt said with a quick glance at Ryan. He nodded grimly back to him. “Now give.”

  “Ok, if you’re sure,” the dispatcher squawked back. “Traffic cop thinks she’s found the Bay State limo parked illegally in an alley off Devonshire, near the State Street T. Black-and-whites enroute.”

  “On my way. Keep me advised.” Matthew pocketed his phone and climbed into his unmarked vehicle. “Open the glove box, Knight.”

  Ryan found a Beretta wrapped in oilcloth.

  “My spare,” Matthew said as he nosed into traffic. “You know how to use one?”

  Ryan checked to see if a round was chambered. It wasn’t. “Beretta 93R, semi-automatic single shot or fully automatic with a flip of the thumb for three round bursts. 20 shots total. Got another magazine here?” He dug through the compartment and found the spare ammunition. Ryan shoved the pistol under his belt. “I got this, detective. If other units are on their way, will there be sirens?”

  “Probably.”

  “Then one more won’t hurt.” Ryan fastened his seatbelt and gritted his teeth. He closed his eyes to blot out the insane darting traffic. “Why don’t you stomp down and give this POS some speed?”

  ~

  “They’re too quiet.” Neville laid aside his headphones. All he’d heard for the last hour from the bugs in Sara Kelley’s apartment was some yelling and grunting and the damn dog yipping her head off. The voices had to be something on TV. He hadn’t heard either the boyfriend or the ex say anything at all. Neville realized they’d figure the place was wired, but he still expected to hear something from them even if it was nothing more than male posturing and swearing. “Think it’s time for a little diversion. What do you think?”

  Sara Kelley didn’t stir.

  He snorted. He’d forgotten for a moment that she couldn’t hear him.

  “Are you really out or just shamming?” Neville stood to stretch his cramped muscles. He was nearly finished with the sketch and needed a break. It was going to be a ground-breaking piece. He could feel it. The tortured lines of her form, the stark lighting, the surreal elements he’d already incorporated into the drawing. This work would take its place beside the masters in a heartbeat. He’d have plenty of time to finish it once he was on the beach.

  He walked toward Sara studying the shuddering rhythm of her breathing. He fished one of her hearing aids from his pocket and fitted it into her ear canal.

  “What you’re doing is a purely animal defense mechanism, you know, rather like playing possum or a turtle pulling into its shell,” he said, careful to enunciate clearly. “Some predators are put off by it.”

  Her breathing didn’t change.

  “Bears, for example.” His voice echoed back in retreating sibilance. “Play dead and a bear will lose interest.”

  Not an eyelash quivered.

  “But I understand if a mountain lion attacks,” Neville said, “you better fight like hell because it intends to eat you.”

  No response. Maybe she needed to see him to understand him.

  He cupped her chin and lifted her face so he could examine it in the lantern’s ghostly light. A mottled bruise bloomed from temple to jaw on one side. Her left eye was nearly swollen shut, but she opened her good one and glared at him.

  “I am not a bear,” he told her.

  “But you are an animal.” One side of her lip lifted in a sneer.

  He chuckled. “So are we all. Predator and prey. Hunter and hunted. Animals a
ll.”

  Surely she understood that. He was the taker. She had to give. Even with her ravaged face, she was beautiful in a way. She reminded him of something. Neville wracked his brain trying to remember what. Then it hit him.

  Warm and alive amid the cold ruins of the subbasement, she was like a crushed orchid sprouting from the walls of an ancient vine-choked Balinese temple. He’d seen a picture in an old National Geographic as a kid. Of course, he used to beat off to the obligatory bare-breasted native photos, but there was also something subliminally erotic about that flower, its drooping petals concealing its secrets, like bruised labia hiding a fragrant vagina.

  Maybe he’d go to Bali someday and remember Sara Kelley and how he’d taken her here in the dark just before she was no more.

  He leaned in to taste her lips, but she turned her face away from him with a grunt of disgust. Then a slightly hysterical laugh slipped from her. “Is this the only way you can get a date, pal?”

  His growing erection shriveled at her giggle. He squeezed her jaw until she cried out with pain. It still didn’t help. He was flaccid as a dead mackerel.

  Neville pulled out his Browning and pressed it against her forehead. She swallowed back a chuckle, but he saw her ribs shake with suppressed laughter.

  He needed her to be afraid but that drug he’d given her seemed to have erased her fear and substituted misplaced hilarity.

  “You won’t be laughing long,” he said. He checked his watch. 11:05. The building implosion was scheduled for noon. “Time to give the boys a little nudge.”

  ~

  Cops were swarming around the limo like ants streaming from a disturbed hill. Ryan counted six black-and-whites. Already, Boston’s Finest were busily disseminating pictures of Sara to passers-by while a team of crime scene investigators processed the Bay State Limo’s vehicle for prints and trace evidence.

  The trunk lid yawned open.

  Ryan took comfort from the fact that there was no ambulance in sight. No body had been found.

  Gawkers were gathering, hovering beyond the yellow tape hoping for a peek at some grisly discovery. Even the homeless man, sprawled by the dumpster behind the Dunkin Donuts, sat up and eyed the police working around the vehicle with interest.

  “Vultures,” Ryan said with disgust.

  “Yeah, but one of those vultures may have seen something useful,” Matt said, striding toward the line.

  “Are there more people around this crime scene than usual?”

  “There’s a demolition scheduled a couple blocks over,” Matthew said. “Taking down the old Chandler Building to make room for a new high-rise condo. An implosion always attracts lookee-loos. Parking’s a nightmare at the best of times. Triple or quadruple the traffic and it’s impossible. I wish they wouldn’t publicize these things so much. It’s a damn nuisance.”

  Even as he spoke, a couple other drivers parked their cars illegally along Devonshire, effectively blocking off the alley.

  “Well, I’ve got no problem seeing them get towed—”

  “Wait a minute,” Ryan interrupted. Sara’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket again. “Incoming text.”

  He held the screen so Matthew could read it along with him.

  PRUDENTIAL BUILDING. OBSERVATION DECK. WAIT FOR INSTRUCTIONS.

  “That makes no sense.” Ryan shook his head. “Why leave the car here in the center of town and then send us a message to go to the south end? It’s a trick. They’ve got to be close by. Once Neville and Sara left the vehicle, she wouldn’t go with him willingly.”

  “I’m sure she didn’t have a choice,” Matthew said. “Besides, just because he stashed a car here, it doesn’t mean they’re on foot. He might have had another one waiting here and transferred her. For all we know, she could be half-way to Canada by now.”

  “Or he might have forced her onto the T,” Ryan said. That would send her into panic. His heart pounded in sympathy.

  Matthew turned back to his car. “The text said to go to the Prudential Building. I’m going. You coming?”

  Ryan dogged him along the alley. “He told us to wait at the apartment too, but we didn’t.”

  “We had another piece of information then. We knew his address. This text is all we’ve got.” Matthew lengthened his stride. “Rede knew the two of us were in the apartment. What if he’s watching to see if we go to the Prudential? What if he stops sending messages? We’ll have nothing. Do you want to take that chance?”

  “I don’t know,” Ryan said. “It just doesn’t feel right.”

  “Don’t feel right,” the homeless man mumbled Ryan’s words like an echo as they strode past him. “Amen, amen, that’s right. Pass the biscuits.”

  One of Ryan’s military buddies had told him that sometimes a guy on an op will feel an imaginary tap on his shoulder. It was a warning not to open a door or to duck and wait for the bad guys to pass by before proceeding. Ryan had laughed at the time.

  “Whatever, man,” Ryan had said. “As long as you make it back to the Reservation in one piece.”

  Ryan felt that strange light tap as he passed the homeless dude. He stopped and turned back to him.

  “You know something,” he said.

  The man squinted at the limo, then back down at his empty lap. “Don’t do nobody no good they be messin’ with the devil’s car.”

  “What did you say?” Ryan squatted beside him.

  The man adjusted the greasy lapels on the sports coat that was several sizes too big for him and looked up at Ryan. “I said they best be leavin’ the devil’s car alone they know what’s good for them.”

  “And that’s the devil’s car?” Ryan pointed at the limo.

  “Sure is.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I seen him,” the man said. “Him come down to the bottom o’ the world. Light come out his forehead, shine like day, but I see his face. He tell me judgment be comin.’ Tell me skies be fallin.’ Run to the rock. Hide me, rock.”

  “Come on, Knight,” Matthew said. “Can’t you see he’s fried?”

  Ryan waved him away and pressed on. “My name’s Ryan. What’s your name?”

  “My friends, they calls me…” His matted eyes went out of focus for a moment. “They calls me Roscoe.”

  “Ok, Roscoe,” Ryan said, wondering if Matthew wasn’t right after all, but he’d felt that tap. “So you saw the devil in that car?”

  “Just this morning,’ yes, sir.” The man nodded. “Carryin’ away the soul that sins.”

  Matthew scoffed. “We’re wasting time. This guy’s spent too many nights in soup kitchens that serve hellfire and damnation along with their bologna sandwiches.”

  “No, wait,” Ryan said, but Matthew kept walking toward his car. Ryan turned back to Roscoe. “The devil had somebody with him?”

  The man nodded and placed a sly finger along the side of his nose. “Sister be gone, man. Way gone.”

  “Matthew, he had a woman with him,” Ryan called and he heard the pounding of Matthew’s feet on the asphalt as he ran back toward them. Matthew knelt and whipped out his wallet. He flashed a picture of Sara in a yellow sundress in front of the man’s face.

  “You’ve been divorce how long and you still carry her picture?” Ryan said flatly.

  “Later, Knight.” Matthew forced the man to look at Sara’s picture. “Is this the woman who was with the devil?”

  The man squinted at the dog-eared photo. “Could be. She have hair same color. Like flames out the pit. She be wasted though. Her wake up in Hell, she not know how her come be there.”

  “So that’s where the devil took her? To Hell?” Matthew said, commandeering the interview now that Ryan’s initial questions had born fruit.

  “O’ course.” Roscoe nodded. “Where else the devil be takin’ somebody?”

  “Roscoe, listen. This is really important,” Ryan said. “Do you know how to get to Hell?”

  Roscoe snorted. “Get there? Hell, I lived there. Devil done kicked me out. I told
you.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Live at the bottom o’ the world and man ask me if I know where Hell be. Devil he come walkin’. Him say get out ‘fore come the judgment. Walls come tumblin’ down. Tumblin’ down.”

  Ryan straightened and looked east. The top floors of the Chandler Building rose above its neighbors. “When is that implosion set for?”

  “Noon.”

  Ryan’s wristwatch read 11:30. “We haven’t got much time.”

  Matthew’s gaze followed Ryan’s. “Tumbling down, he says.”

  “Can we stop it?”

  “We can try.”

  Chapter 35

  “I’m telling you, Kelley,” the dispatcher said. “Security around the Chandler Building has been in place for a week. The foreman says they conducted three searches of the building just this morning. It’s clear. Once they give it the final green light, these controlled detonations are set on a computer timer. It would take an act of Congress to stop the implosion now.”

  “But we think Sara’s in there,” Matthew yelled into his phone.

  “You’re not listening to me. She can’t be.” The dispatcher managed to sound bored and annoyed at the same time. “You’re grasping at straws. And, if you weren’t too emotionally involved you’d know that the word of a homeless junkie isn’t much to go on. Certainly not enough to stop a permitted implosion. You have any idea the trouble that would rain down on the department if we force a stop and nothing turns up?”

  “But—”

  “Look, you’re not thinking straight. The captain wants you to go home and let the team assigned to the case handle it.”

  “Can’t hear you. Signal’s breaking up.” Matthew turned his phone off. “Now what?”

  Ryan closed his eyes and let the facts tumble around his brain. Their homeless informant had seen Rede with Sara. He’d been taking her someplace on foot. Someplace close. Someplace underground since Roscoe referred to their destination as Hell. Someplace where the walls would be tumbling down. But the Chandler Building had been searched and declared clear.