by Jack Lance
He knew whose ring this was.
And he remembered something else.
Jason closed the door behind him and walked back to Phil’s house. He didn’t linger; he had other preparations to make. He wanted to get back to Los Angeles as soon as possible. The 10.37 p.m. flight for tonight, the last flight out, was no longer an option; he would have to take the 6:00 commuter flight tomorrow morning. He was restless, agitated, confused. He called Kayla.
While talking to her, he remembered the eerie voice in Chris’s attic and that made him even more worried about her. He insisted that she not stay at home alone, but instead spend the night at Simone’s. He would come back home tomorrow on the first flight out from San Francisco. He was on to someone and it was more than a theory. He needed to go see this person, and then, he expected, things to become crystal clear.
TWENTY-NINE
Abduction
Jason awoke from a light slumber and glanced yet again at the digital clock at his bedside: 1:55 in the morning. Tossing aside the sheet, he got up, took a shower, got dressed, and tiptoed through the silent hallways of the Surf Hill motel. He left a note for the night clerk and sufficient money to pay his bill. At a quarter to three, he slipped inside his Ford and left the parking lot; moments later he was swallowed up in the night-time traffic of San Francisco.
Jason’s head throbbed, his eyes were bloodshot, and he was exhausted beyond measure.
But he was on his way home.
Although he didn’t understand why, he called Kayla from the car. It was the middle of the night; if she had her cell phone turned on, the ring tone should have woken her. He had no clue why he felt so compelled to call her. It was as if his inner voice was ordering him to and he could not ignore it. Nor could he understand why she didn’t answer.
I’m too late, he thought. Another cause for anxiety, but it made no sense. A few more hours and he’d be home. Then they would talk things through and make a fresh start. After he made one final trip, of course.
This was not over. Not yet. Not by a long shot.
But now his worries were focused not on him, but on Kayla.
You’ve lost her, the malevolent little voice inside his head whispered.
Behind the wheel, driving through the night-time streets of San Francisco, he felt a chill snake through his body, the likes of which he had never known. He thought of Canyon View and the small and cozy living room, which would be much too spacious without her. Everything in that room was Kayla. The oriental vase she had bought at some obscure little shop in Los Angeles. He thought it was hideous and kitschy, but she had been overjoyed when she brought it home, happy as a child. Look, Jason, don’t you just love this? The antique kitchenware cabinet she had bought for a song and had fixed up herself, spending weeks scraping off old paint, sanding it, re-coating it. The elegant tan flower basket on the glass coffee table in front of the sofa. Now that was lovely.
‘No,’ he mumbled. ‘I’m not too late. I can’t be.’
At a quarter to four, he was in the terminal waiting area, the first passenger on deck for United Express 3126 that didn’t leave for another two hours. He tried again to phone her. Her cell phone rang; she had not turned it off. But she did not pick up. He tried the land phone in Canyon View. Again, no answer.
A sickening anxiety assailed Jason’s gut. He was becoming increasingly convinced that something bad had happened. Something irreversible.
Waiting until six o’clock was tantamount to torture, and the flight itself seemed even longer. Still, it was only 7:30 on a sunny morning when his plane touched down at LAX. As soon as he was allowed to, he turned on his cell phone and saw that three messages had come in while he was in flight.
Kayla, he thought, as his spirits rose.
He listened to the messages in the tunnel between the plane and the terminal building. The first voicemail was not from Kayla, but from Simone.
‘Jason!’ her recorded voice said, in a panic.
Shit, he thought, something is very wrong.
But it was worse than anything he could have imagined.
Jason slammed the door of the airport taxi and burst into Pacific Valley Hospital. He wanted to see his wife now and he brushed aside everyone in his path until a tall, well-built doctor in a white coat stopped him and struggled with the help of two male physician assistants to calm him down. Although Jason was in no mood to cooperate, he did not resist. Instead, he felt suddenly deflated. As the doctor talked to him in as soothing a voice as possible, Jason gathered through the fog that Kayla was in surgery and that there was nothing definitive to report yet. She was in good hands, the doctor assured him. Jason had to be patient.
‘Will she live?’ he heard himself ask. ‘Can you at least tell me that?’
The doctor didn’t answer and made him suffer through the worst of it: the wait. Sitting and waiting.
A physician assistant guided Jason into a stark room where five people he knew were seated. The first to acknowledge him was his father. Edward Evans wrapped his arms around his son, patted him on the back and whispered, ‘My God, son. My God.’
Next to him were Daniel and Tonya Sheehan. Jason barely recognized Daniel, who sat there passively with none of the joyful successful businessman appearance that normally consumed his character. Daniel Sheehan had always reminded Jason of Blake Carrington from Dynasty, the soap series he had watched with his parents when he was a child. Daniel had the same distinguished gray hair and powerful eyes that radiated authority.
But today that self-assurance was gone, and what Jason saw instead was a distraught old man. Much like his wife Tonya, normally a stylish and smiling woman who this morning looked utterly defeated.
Simone and Cliff were also there. Cliff was pale, shocked, silent, his hand clasped around Simone’s. Simone’s eyes were red and puffy. The moment she saw Jason, she broke out in sobs.
‘Jason …’ she choked.
Cliff stood, seemingly considering whether to hug Jason or shake his hand. In the end he did neither and sank back on to his chair.
‘What happened? Who can tell me more?’ Jason asked the five of them. It was a plea, not a demand.
‘Jason, I … I can’t …’ Simone stammered when everyone else in the room looked at the floor and remained silent.
‘Yes you can, Simone. Tell me.’
He needed to hear it. He needed to hear something. If no one spoke, he could only conclude that she had already passed away.
‘She was attacked last night,’ Simone managed between sobs. ‘There is no trace of the suspect. She was stabbed with a knife, several times.’
Jason already knew this. But still his heart wrenched.
‘The man left her for dead, but she was able to call nine one one. She was conscious for a few moments in the ambulance. She said the attacker was a large man, dressed in black. That’s all she said, and that’s all anyone knows for now.’
Phil’s words came back to him like flaming arrows.
Built like an outhouse. He was wearing black.
Simone faltered again. Cliff pulled her close and she buried her face against his chest. Jason wondered whether he would have anyone left to console after today. If Kayla died …
No, it hasn’t come to that yet, he fought to believe. She’s still alive, hold on to that!
It was hard. What he had feared most in the darkest recesses of his mind had now happened. It was inexplicable, but that didn’t make it any less true.
He stared at the gray floor, swiping at stinging tears in his eyes, desperately trying to stem the flow. Nobody would blame him for crying, but what good would it do? It wouldn’t help her, or him. He had to keep his mind clear.
The six of them waited. And waited …
Through the window Jason saw the sun on its upward arc. He felt, nevertheless, that it had gone completely dark. Wandering around in darkness – henceforth, that would be his fate.
At eleven thirty the door to the waiting room opened. Curls of smoke wafted
in past the door frame. Jason felt searing heat, just before flames leapt into the room, like the tongues of fiery dragons from the underworld. Jason stared at them in horror, then at the others in the room with him. Incredibly, they hadn’t noticed anything.
From the center of the fire, Kayla appeared. It was her, no doubt, a body in flames from head to toe. She was grinning horribly, like a witch. Her hands, claws now, stabbed at him.
You left me, and now I’m dead. You abandoned me. But I won’t be going alone. I’m taking you with me!
He squeezed his eyes shut.
This isn’t happening, this is impossible, he thought, horrified.
He waited a few seconds. When he opened his eyes, the doctor stood in the doorway. The fire was gone. Everything was gone, except for the man in the white coat standing in the doorway.
The man looked at him with a grave expression.
Jason’s heart sank.
You left me, and now I’m dead.
Now I’m dead.
The doctor had some bad news for them.
Three hours later, Jason shuffled red-eyed along the hospital corridors. He could not stop sobbing. A burly male nurse stared at him with compassion, and then quickly averted his gaze. Jason needed to be alone for a while, alone with his sorrow. He found himself outside the hospital’s chapel and went inside.
Sitting in front of a small altar decorated with a bronze statue of Jesus, on a scuffed, saddle-brown bench with its paint peeling, The Car Song cut through the serene silence. He listened to it for a few moments, then pulled his cell phone from his pocket. He chose to ignore the call and turned the phone off. He closed his eyes and prayed. For Kayla.
He heard the door open behind him. Someone entered. It was the burly male nurse who had avoided his gaze. What was the man coming to tell him?
When he came close, Jason thought he recognized him.
Although it was not far off in his memories, it was too far to spring to mind immediately. But when the man grinned, it came back to him; not because of the grin, but because of the chipped tooth among his yellow teeth. Suddenly Jason remembered, like a recollection of a spoiled dinner he’d had the day before.
That tooth. It went with the sour brown eyes of—
He jumped up as if he had been stung by a deadly insect.
‘My God,’ he whispered. ‘You!’
The male nurse grabbed his arm. His grin had disappeared.
‘Hello, Jason,’ Doug Shatz said.
The man who had once raped a young woman named Maria and who had been convicted after Jason had convinced the Spanish girl to report him, had changed considerably. He was no longer a rangy adolescent; he had sprouted muscles and looked like a bodybuilder.
‘Let go of me,’ Jason yelled.
Doug gave him a venomous stare just as a tree trunk seemed to crash down on to the back of Jason’s neck, forcing him to his knees. Dizzy and stunned he looked up at the hand Doug had hit him with. As white-hot pain spread from one shoulder to the other, Shatz crouched down beside him.
‘You do not tell me what to do, you understand?’
He said it like a teacher reprimanding a headstrong child. Jason smelled booze and cigarette smoke on the man’s breath. Suddenly Doug drew a knife and held it up close to Jason’s eyes.
‘What I want you to do is come with me, very quietly. You hear me?’
Jason nodded.
‘One move and I’ll do to you what I did to your wife.’
Doug yanked him up. Jason had no strength to resist. The man wrapped an arm around his midsection, as if supporting him. The tip of the knife cut into Jason’s back.
He considered resisting, or fleeing. Later, it turned out that his best chance to flee was during those few minutes, while Doug was leading him through the hospital toward the parking lot, where a white Mercedes Benz was parked off in a back lot. But Jason didn’t try anything. He was stunned, defeated, shattered.
Doug opened the doors, hit Jason in the back of the neck with a karate chop again, and tied him up with rope he had retrieved from the van. Jason felt dizzy. His world was spinning around him as first his hands were tied behind his back, and then his ankles were trussed. Doug shoved him into the back compartment of the van and closed the doors. As Doug slid behind the wheel and drove off, Jason noticed a heap of black clothes in a corner of the van.
THIRTY
Mitch
Jason had no idea how long he lay bound like a wild animal in the back of the van. He had lost all sense of time. The man who had murdered his wife was behind the wheel, and he felt utterly broken.
Finally, the van came to a stop. Doug disappeared from behind the glass partition between the back of the van and the front seat. Jason heard the clatter of a garage door going up. Then Doug reappeared and drove the van inside. After that, he opened the back door.
As he had expected, Jason found himself looking out into a garage. One he recognized.
Another door opened, and a man in a wheelchair appeared. Jason stared at him. His missing ears, nose, lips and eyelids were not as noticeable today as were the scars on his face. They seemed to be more prominent, as if betraying emotions that smoldered beneath the skin.
There were people, Jason knew, who thought Lou Briggs looked like Frankenstein’s monster. And with good reason. Lou gave him an amused look, as if he were wondering what den of evil Jason Evans had landed in this time.
Jason continued to stare at Doug, who, like a bouncer, had taken up position before the open back door. He had his arms folded over his chest.
‘Been to visit the hospital, Jason?’ Lou asked.
Despite the murderous glance Jason threw at him, Lou remained unmoved.
‘Doug had a minor slip-up. But he’ll finish the job later.’
Jason shut his eyes and opened them again. ‘My wife is dead. She died at twelve fifteen. I was there.’
The words that spilled from his mouth were hoarse, almost imperceptible.
Lou’s eyes widened. ‘Really? Well, what do you know? The problem solves itself.’ He made a harsh, metallic sound that could have passed for a cruel laugh.
Jason bit his lip. Impotence, anger and grief were merging and rising up uncontrollably. ‘You filthy bastards!’ he screamed.
Lou made a gesture as if he had felt a mosquito bite. Annoying, nothing more.
‘You and I have a lot to discuss, Jason,’ he said impassively. ‘I know this is all a terrible shock for you. Believe me, I know. But will you behave, or won’t you? If you refuse, I’m afraid I will have to make this quite unpleasant for you.’
‘I don’t give a damn!’ Jason cried out. ‘Just kill me too, you son of a bitch, and get it over with!’
Lou sadly shook his head. ‘How disappointing. Don’t you want to know why Kayla had to die? Or your Uncle Chris, for that matter?’
Jason’s jaw fell.
‘But before I tell you, I need an update from you,’ Lou said. ‘So I’ll know where to start. What have you found out for yourself? You told your wife, God rest her soul, that you discovered something in San Francisco. What was it?’
Despite his horrifying mix of emotions, Jason’s gaze turned inquisitive.
‘Ah yes, you don’t know this,’ Lou said. ‘Just before Doug delivered the first photograph to your office, he broke into your house. It wasn’t hard. You always forget to lock the porch doors. He planted a few bugs inside your house. In the phone, behind the cupboard. They kept us pretty well informed about everything that went on between you and Kayla. Including the last conversation you had with her, when you said you were returning to Los Angeles.’
Jason shook his head in disbelief.
‘Those photographs came from me, you know,’ Lou continued. ‘Doug was only the delivery boy. And you won’t be surprised to learn that he was driving this very same van when he pushed you off the road, that night after your dad’s party.’
Jason bit his lip.
‘I asked you what you discovered in San Francis
co. I’ll be honest, that phone call was my cue to act. I thought you were on your way over to my place, and I wanted to beat you to it. I wanted to get revenge on Kayla first, and then on you.’
Still lying in the back of the white Mercedes Benz van with his arms and legs tied, Jason was unable to move, convinced he was about to be murdered. He felt a powerful urge to give his anger and sorrow free reign. After all, what difference would it make? He was in Lou and Doug’s power, and they could finish him off whenever they wanted. And they would. Lou had told him so himself.
Something else inside him awoke. A different kind of anger. These men had taken Kayla away from him. He was still alive. And as long as he lived, he could fight. He wanted to fight. He wanted his own revenge – although it would be hard to come by under these circumstances. But as long as he was alive he could at least hold on to the possibility. He had to use his head. He had to stay calm and collected. Lou wanted to talk, and as long as he kept the man talking, he was still alive, still able to act.
‘Yes, I was on my way to your place,’ he said. ‘I found out that you had been inside Chris’s house. I found your ring. It had rolled beneath a cupboard. That’s why you were rubbing your right hand the last time I came over to see you. You were missing your ring.’
Lou grinned. ‘So that’s where it went. Do you have it on you?’
Jason bit his lip again.
‘Search him,’ Lou said to Doug.
The wide-shouldered man, still dressed as a male nurse, crawled into the back of the van and started searching through Jason’s clothing.
‘Doug never forgot that stunt you pulled on him, you know?’ Lou said. ‘Thanks to you, we became partners. Without you I would never have heard of him. Still, Doug mostly has a business view of things. I’m his best paying customer. For me, there are other priorities. But I’ll tell you about them later.’
Jason processed that remark. Lou was not done with him yet. That meant they weren’t going to kill him right away. He didn’t know how much time he had left, but he had some time, it appeared.
Doug found the ring in Jason’s pocket and handed it to Lou, who rubbed the piece of jewelry on his pants and slid it on his finger.
