By stride three, Kendra was in a full sprint, any lasting effects of her hangover that morning usurped by the adrenaline surging in her blood. Not even bothering to check if Brett was following, she ran down the hallway, thankful that she had worn flats again today. When she reached the intersection, a nurse, a female, although she was nearly the same size as the orderlies that had helped her in Mrs. McGuire’s room, stepped out from behind the desk and directly into her path.
There was no way for Kendra to avoid her. Instead, she swiveled toward the desk, hoping that the woman would look up in time to avoid impact.
No chance.
They collided with such force that Kendra was literally sent airborne, her feet pinwheeling as they tried to grab traction out of air. A split second later, her back smashed hard into the nurse’s station, forcing the breath from her lungs. Only her curled spine prevented her head from cracking into the solid desk.
Kendra instinctively twisted into a ball, making horrible errp errp errp sounds as she tried desperately to convince her paralyzed diaphragm to contract.
Fuck! Where the fuck is Brett? We need to catch the man who delivered the milk!
Still trying to inhale, Kendra struggled to unfold herself. She blinked hard, and when she opened her eyes her lungs finally expanded.
It was as if she had just been given an electric shock. Kendra went from fetal position to crawling position in only a second, and a second later she was back to her feet. As she stood, she scanned the hallway; from her vantage point, Kendra could see all the way down all three hallways.
But there was no man. The nurse who had crashed into her was lying in a heap on the ground near the center of the hallway, her thick fingers holding her head and face.
She was moaning.
Kendra ignored her. Standing up straight, wincing at the pain in her back, she shouted loud enough for everyone in the building to hear.
“Where are you?”
And then something drilled her between the shoulder blades, once again sending her careening through the air. This time she missed the nurse’s station by two feet, and slid on her stomach down the linoleum hallway. Her blouse pulled up, and her bare skin squeaked on the floor, her scars stretching and tearing.
Realizing that the person that had hit her was still on top of her, sliding with her, Kendra pushed her palms into the floor and bucked with her back and hips before coming to a complete stop.
She felt the weight on her lift—the man, it’s the man—and the pressure on her bruised back relinquish. A grunt escaped her lips, and she tried to shift her body, to make sure that the person on top of her flew all the way over. And at first, she thought that was exactly what was going to happen. In her mind, she pictured herself scrambling to her feet and pouncing on the man, who would still be dazed after flipping over her.
But this didn’t happen.
Instead, at the last second, the man reached back and instead of flying completely over her, his hand hooked beneath her chin. Kendra felt her neck stretch, and for a second she thought that her head might literally be pulled off. But then the man dug his heels in and his forward momentum stopped.
Somewhere behind her, Kendra heard shouts, but with her face pushed into the floor and the hand still digging into the soft skin beneath her chin, she couldn’t make out who it was.
Brett; it has to be Brett.
She reached up and tried to pull the man’s hand off her, but he was too quick. He used his grip to force them closer together, and then before she knew what was happening, he yanked them both to their feet, turning her and snaking his arm completely around her throat.
Wheezing, still not fully recovered from the slide, she struggled against his arm. But he was too strong, and responded by tightening his grip.
She stopped struggling, and instead focused on Brett running toward her, the two orderlies in tow. He was hauling ass, his face a deep red, but when the man tightened his grip a third time, he stopped roughly a dozen paces from her.
Kendra tried to crane her neck around, to look up at the man who was now holding her hostage, but his grip was too tight; she could barely breathe, let alone turn.
For only the second or third time in her twelve-year career as an FBI agent, Kendra wished that she and Brett carried their guns with them at all times. They had guns, both of them did, of course, but they needed them so rarely that they usually just left them in the car or in their suitcases when they were traveling. After all, she solved cases with her mind, not with brute strength. Now, however, with an arm around her throat, and something hard pushing into her bruised spine, she wished she had her gun on her hip.
“Stay back!” the man holding her warned. His breath was sweet, almost cloyingly so.
A candy? He was sucking on candies before attacking me?
Kendra’s mind never stopped working, and even something as simple and benign as this fact worked its way into her memory.
Brett showed his palms and took a small step forward.
“Easy now,” he said calmly.
“I said stay back!”
Brett’s forward movement stopped.
“Okay, okay,” he said. “Take it easy.”
The man behind Kendra took a step backward, drawing her with him. As they moved, her arms fell to her sides and her fingers brushed against something hard in her right pocket.
“I’m taking you with me, Kendra,” the man said in her ear, his breath so impossibly sweet now that she felt her stomach lurch.
Another step backward, and Kendra started to wonder what the fuck was in her pocket.
Keys? Do I have Brett’s car keys?
“What do you want?” Brett asked, his eyes fixated above Kendra’s left shoulder.
No, I gave those back to him after we parked. Phone? Is it my phone?
“Stay back!”
Brett’s voice was calm, even.
“I’m not moving.”
No, my phone is in my other pocket.
“I’ll shoot her.”
Kendra felt more pressure on her back.
No… it’s—
And then the black case full of syringes flashed in her mind.
The two syringes of B52 that she had stolen from the orderly were in her pocket.
“No, you don’t want to do that. Just be calm and tell me what you want.”
Kendra didn’t know if Brett had seen the expression on her face change, but either way he was doing a good job of slowing things down, of letting her work out a plan.
The two fingers of her right hand slipped into her pocket and pinched a syringe. Trying to avoid any obvious movements, she slid a needle out, all the while mentally screaming at Brett to not look at it, to not draw attention to what she was doing.
“Be calm. Just tell me what you want.”
The man seemed to mull this over, during which Kendra tried to work her fingers down the shaft of the needle to pry the cap off. Her first attempt failed, and she nearly dropped the syringe.
“I’m taking her with me.”
Kendra tried again, and this time she felt it move a little.
“You know that can’t happen—I can’t let you take a federal agent.”
The man chortled.
“Let me? Let me?”
Yes!
The cap came off and fell to the floor. Worried that it might make a sound when it hit, Kendra wheezed loudly.
Don’t look, Brett—don’t fucking look at it.
Neither of the men seemed to notice. Even the orderlies, who were now flanking her partner, had matching, and unchanging, dumbfounded expressions on their faces.
“I’m going to take her with—”
Someone behind Kendra cried out, and it was the exact distraction that she needed. She felt the man’s arm loosen ever so slightly as he turned to look behind him, and that was all it took. Kendra folded at the waist, feeling the pressure from the gun on her bruised back alleviate. In one fluid motion, she jabbed the syringe into the man’s leg, t
he sharp needle sliding effortlessly first through his thin white scrubs and then his thigh.
The man yelped and he tried to grab her again, but Kendra squeezed her sore back as much as possible, desperate to stay hunched over as she pushed the plunger all the way down. He shouted again, and she felt his grip tighten. But this time when he pulled, instead of resisting, Kendra went with it, uncoiling herself and driving her head backward.
She heard a crack and then an oomph sound as her skull smashed into the man’s nose, immediately breaking it. Warm liquid soaked her hair as the man was sent sprawling. Kendra turned, spying the nurse that had initially run into her a few feet away, a bedpan in her hand as if she had thoughts of braining the man.
It had been her that had provided the distraction, but Kendra had no time to consider this now.
She jumped on top of the gray-haired man who clutched his bleeding face with both hands.
The gun… where is the gun?
As she mounted him, her eyes darted around, trying to find the weapon. But all she saw was a spoon roughly three feet away, glinting in the artificial lights as it wobbled before finally settling. In this moment of heightened adrenaline, she actually felt a smile form on her lips.
A spoon—I was held up by a man with a fucking soup spoon.
But then the man squirmed, and Kendra forced her weight down on him, her smile turning into a sneer.
“No,” she said, pulling the second syringe out of her pocket. “You are coming with me.”
For some reason, in the moment before she jabbed him in the neck with the syringe, the origin of the smell on is breath came to her.
It wasn’t candies or gum.
It was milk; the man’s breath reeked of sickly sweet milk.
PART III – KIDNAPPED
~
CHAPTER 25
FIRST INTERVIEW - FBI AGENT KENDRA WILSON
May 21, 2018
1:37 p.m.
FULL TRANSCRIPT - CERTIFIED BY FBI AGENT BRETT CHERRY
KENDRA: You are being recorded.
MARTIN: Okay.
KENDRA: Please say your full name.
MARTIN: Martin Trevor Reigns.
KENDRA: And you understand that you are under arrest for assaulting a federal agent?
MARTIN: Inaudible.
KENDRA: Speak louder.
MARTIN: Yes.
Paper shuffling.
KENDRA: All right, so let’s start with this: what were you doing at Wikstrands Psychiatric Facility?
MARTIN: I was delivering milk.
KENDRA: Fuck—
Inaudible.
KENDRA: Tell me what you were doing there, Martin. Do you work at the facility? Do you know Jenna McGuire?
MARTIN: No.
KENDRA: Then what the fuck were you doing there?
Knock on glass.
Tape paused - 1:39.
Resume - 1:41
MARTIN: Still taking orders from a man?
KENDRA: What’d you say?
MARTIN: I asked if you were still taking orders from a man.
KENDRA: Who the fu—?
Knock on glass.
KENDRA: Listen, Martin, here’s how it’s going—
MARTIN: No, you listen. This is how it’s going to go: if you want me to tell you something, you are going to tell me a little something about yourself.
KENDRA: Fat chance of that. You aren’t running the show, Martin. You might think you’re pretty clever for masquerading as a nurse in a psychiatric facility where the only security is a pair of bald Serbians with a collective IQ barely breaking a hundred. But sorry, pal, this police station? Well, it ain’t Wikstrands, and my name ain’t Rocko or Rocky.
Laughter.
KENDRA: Don’t fucking laugh at me.
Knocking on glass. More laughter.
KENDRA: I said don’t fucking laugh at me, Martin, or I’ll break more than your fucking nose next time. Yeah? And you know that hangover that you are experiencing? Well, I have more B—
Knocking on glass. Door opens.
MARTIN: Kendra. If you want to find little Lacy McGuire, you are going to do as I say and not the other way around. So, as I said before, you tell me a little something about yourself and I’ll tell you something that you want to know. That’s the game, and you are going to play it.
Tape paused - 1:47.
CHAPTER 26
Brett waited for the door to close behind them before addressing Kendra.
“Kendra, what are you doing?”
She lowered her gaze, and for the first time in a long while he detected something akin to shame on her face.
This is new.
Although he was had no idea what it meant, he knew he didn’t like it. Even considering Kendra’s frequent outbursts, he had never seen her like this before.
“Fuck it, I’m taking over.”
He turned to grab the door handle, but Kendra’s arm shot out and stopped him.
“Please, Brett—I need to do this.”
Her eyes were pleading, and he detected a sadness circumscribing their icy edges.
Brett broke. Seeing her like this, so unlike the Kendra that he knew, was completely disarming. He thought of the phone call that he had placed to the director immediately after they had brought Martin into custody. After he had held her up with a fucking spoon.
A spoon, for Christ’s sake.
He had left that part out. It would come out in the report, anyway, but he saved them the embarrassment for the moment.
“Erratic—that’s the only way I know how to describe it.”
“Erratic?”
“Yes… even for her.”
The director sighed heavily into the receiver.
“Do you think it has to do with…?”
Brett didn’t hesitate.
“Yes. There is just something about this case, something that touches a little too close to home for her. Four-year-old girls, murdered or kidnapped… yeah, I’d say too close to home.”
The director’s decision was immediate.
“Pull her.”
“Pull her?” Brett repeated; a stall tactic. He imagined trying to break this news to Kendra. It wouldn’t go over lightly, least of all coming from him. He would have to restrain her… and not the way either of them were used to. “She’s the best chance we have.”
“You second guessing me, Agent Cherry?”
“No, but…”
“’No, but’ sounds like a second guess. I’ll tell you what, you think she should stay on?”
Brett paused, not sure if he should answer.
“It’s not rhetorical, Agent Cherry. Do you think she should stay on?”
His thoughts turned to little Steph Black, squashed by her parents, her throat slashed. Then his mind filled with Martin’s smiling face, his shock of gray hair, the salt-and-pepper stubble on his chin, and his oddly charming smile.
“She’s the best chance we have,” he repeated.
The director cleared his throat.
“Okay,” he said, surprising Brett. Evidently, his decision had not been as unilateral as he had first thought. “But it’s your ass. And this doesn’t give Kendra carte blanche to do whatever the fuck she wants—she starts losing it, acting ‘erratic’ again, as you say, then pull her. Pull her right away. She may be the best chance we’ve got of finding the missing girls, but she can also bury that chance if she goes off the rails.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Keep an eye on her, Brett.”
And then the phone went dead, leaving Brett mulling over the director’s words, about how this was the first time he could remember the man using his first name.
Clearly, the director, like he, had a soft spot for this scarred woman.
“Brett?”
Brett shook his head to clear it and stared at Kendra again.
If she starts losing it…
She had already lost it completely, he knew. But for reasons he didn’t fully understand, he felt himself nodding.
“Keep it clean, Kendra. I have to sign off on this transcript, and if—”
Her eyes hardened.
“You’ll what? Call Director Ames?”
Now it was Brett’s turn to avert his gaze. He had never been a good liar, and trying to lie to Kendra was like trying to beat Phil Ivey at Texas hold ’em.
It just wasn’t going to happen.
He let go of the door and allowed Kendra to pull it open. For a second, right before it closed behind her, Brett thought he caught a hint of a smirk on her face.
It’s your ass, Agent Cherry.
“All right, Martin, I’ll play your little game,” Kendra said. “But if you lie to me, you will be sorry—I promise you that.”
Brett hurried back to behind the one-way glass and pressed record.
CHAPTER 27
SECOND INTERVIEW - FBI AGENT KEDNRA WILSON
May 21, 2018
1:58 p.m.
FULL TRANSCRIPT - CERTIFIED BY FBI AGENT BRETT CHERRY
KENDRA: I go first.
Inaudible.
KENDRA: That wasn’t a request.
MARTIN: Okay, that’s fine.
KENDRA: Where is Lacy McGuire?
MARTIN: She is with her mother.
KENDRA: Go on.
MARTIN: No; you had your question.
KENDRA: Bullshit—you lied. We were with her mother in the ward. Lacy wasn’t there. Why are you smiling? Think this is funny? I told you what would happen if you lied to me.
MARTIN: No.
KENDRA: Then why are you smiling? Look, I fucking told you that if you lied, the game is over. Either you tell me where she is, or this ends now.
MARTIN: I told you already, Lacy is with her mother.
KENDRA: All right, you piece of—
MARTIN: Go ask your friend behind the glass—go ask him. I’ll wait.
Pause.
There was nothing that Kendra hated more than having to take orders from the piece of filth sitting in front of her, his hands placed on the table as if he were praying and not handcuffed to it. But she saw no other way out of this one. They were on the forty-eighth hour, figuratively and probably close to literally as well, and she knew that this man, this Martin Reigns, was their only chance of finding Lacy. Alive, at least. Because the longer that Martin was here, the longer Lacy was with… someone else. Someone else that could move her, take her to a place that even Martin wouldn’t be able to find.
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