by CJ Lyons
“Take all the time you want.” He rested his palm on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “I’ll be right outside.”
The door clicked shut behind him. She sat there, nestled in the corner of the couch. All she wanted was Seth. His arms around her, his grin to cheer her, just to have him near. How could she have been stupid enough to ever send him away?
“You didn’t tell him everything, Nora,” a man’s voice whispered through the air.
Nora jerked her head up. The room was empty. Had she imagined it?
“Tell him how much you liked it,” the disembodied, distorted whisper returned. She leaped off the couch. The door was closed tight; the room was empty except for her. She clapped her hands over her ears. God, was she going crazy?
“Tell him how I made you come over and over again, harder, faster than any other man could. Tell him how much you wanted it, how you begged me for more, how I made you scream with pleasure. Tell him, Nora.”
“No. No!” Her voice shattered against the walls in a brittle scream. She was surprised when Tommy didn’t rush in, but realized that the counseling office was soundproof. Which meant it couldn’t be Tommy or someone from the outside. It was all in her head.
Had the session with Tommy opened the floodgates to her unconscious? Revealing the final secret, the one thing she’d kept locked away, refusing to acknowledge even in her own mind . . . that at some point during those two days when the rapist touched her in every way possible, not only had she surrendered to him, but her body had responded to his touch . . . It wasn’t something she could help; it was just physiology, hormones, reflexes. Nothing in her control. But the memory filled her with a burning shame. As if she’d been a partner in her own violation.
She spun around in a tight circle, wrapping her arms around her chest, swinging her head back and forth searching for escape like a caged animal.
“You want me, Nora. Just like I want you,” the voice returned, insistent.
“No.” The syllable emerged shredded and torn.
“We’ll be together again, I promise.” The voice sounded so certain, confident.
“No. Go away. It’s not true!”
Laughter filled the room, washing over her like a tsunami. She crumpled to the floor, trying to block it out. Trying to block out the fear and revulsion and primal urge to scream. Curling up in a ball, making herself smaller and smaller, she fought to disappear entirely. She wasn’t really here, it wasn’t really happening, oh Lord, not again, she couldn’t survive, not again. . .
An eternity later, she opened her eyes to silence. That one act of defiance gave her the determination she needed to uncurl herself and sit up. She had survived. She would survive.
She remembered the feeling of invincibility that had surged through her last night when she and Seth had made love. Shaking her fist at an unseen assailant, she climbed to her feet, wobbling, but standing on her own.
“I’m not afraid.” She tried the lie on for size. It was an awkward fit, made her feel small and childish, like when she was little, checking under her bed for monsters even as panic made her heart race out of control.
She was very afraid—as afraid that her mind had betrayed her as she was that the killer would return for her.
Either way, she wasn’t going to do any good standing here in Tommy’s office. She needed to get out of here, find a place to hide, to regroup and figure out what was happening to her.
Before it was too late.
52
Gina’s ID gained them easy access through the fire door. The man hustled her through the dimly lit hallway to the elevator and up to Ken’s lab on the seventh floor. He glanced up and down the corridor, nodding at the rows of darkened offices. “You were right. Deserted. Open it.”
She held her breath, had to try her ID in the card reader twice, but then was rewarded with a click as the door unlocked. The man shoved her inside, turning the lights on, before he entered with his gun aimed at her.
Except for the two white mice, the lab was empty.
“Wait here,” he said as he looked around.
Gina backed up against the incubator holding the tissue cultures. It had taken only a few moments with the door opened wide for the alarm to alert Ken this morning—that was too fast. Last thing she needed was Ken rushing in, getting shot. What she needed was for him to get concerned, bring more people—preferably armed people. Or, best-case scenario, run into Jerry and alert his suspicions.
She settled for pulling the door ajar—just enough to break the magnetic seal holding it shut. The man opened Ken’s office door, turned the lights on, and seemed satisfied with the layout. He motioned for Gina to join him in the office. He used the duct tape to bind her hands behind her back and positioned her behind the desk, against the window, where she was visible through the office door.
“Stand there, don’t move, don’t say a word,” he ordered. He tore out the office phone and backed out of the room, his gun never wavering.
He clicked off the lab’s lights, leaving Gina in the center of the only light in the two rooms. Then he wedged the lab’s door open to the hallway and stood to the side of the door, hidden in shadows. “Now all we need to do is wait.”
“Nora, what’s wrong?” Tommy was on the phone in the reception area when she burst through the door and started out of the offices at a headlong pace. “Wait! Where are you going?”
She stopped, gasping for breath. “I heard him, Tommy—inside your office, inside my head, I don’t know. But I need to get out of here.”
“You heard the killer? In my office?” He stretched the phone cord as long as it would reach and came around the desk, peering through his open office door. “Nora, there’s no one there.”
“I know.” She edged toward the exit, trying to hide the shaking that devoured her body.
“Wait. There has to be a rational explanation. Let me play back the session tape. We’ll see what really happened.”
She shook her head, the man’s voice still crowding her thoughts. The last thing she needed or wanted was confirmation that she had lost her mind. Tommy’s attention darted back to the phone.
The phone! He could have set the inner office to speakerphone, opened a line before he left. The knowledge hit her like a fist striking a mirror, shattering everything she had believed. Her vision fragmented, everything too bright, too focused, as she searched for an escape.
Tommy turned, his mouth opening in surprise, and she realized her expression must have given her away. Before he could say another word, she bolted through the door. And ran for her life.
Lydia was happy to see both Pete Sandusky and Jim Lazarov squirming under the watchful eye of the guard left manning the security office.
Well, maybe not exactly squirming. “Lydia!” Pete called out when he saw her. “Care to comment on finding Seth’s body?”
“Seth’s not dead,” she told him. Pete looked disappointed. She turned to the guard. “Did he have a cell phone with him? I think he swiped mine, and there are some sensitive pictures on there.”
The guard pulled out a plastic bin of personal effects, and Pete lunged forward. “She’s lying—that phone is mine!”
“Hey!” The guard’s hand went to his gun and Pete froze, hands up in surrender. “Back up and sit down.”
“You can’t do this, Lydia,” Pete shouted.
Too late. While the guard had his back turned, she clicked through the photos of Nora, deleting them.
“Sorry,” she told the guard, sugaring her performance with a sweet smile. “My mistake.”
“Lydia.” Jim Lazarov spoke up for the first time, his voice edging on despair. “Tell them I didn’t do anything, tell them to let me go, will ya?”
“Sorry, Jim. That’s up to the police, and they’re a bit tied up right now.”
“Hate to put a damper on your party,” Sandusky said, “but the kid’s right. He’s not the guy who talked to me. Much too young. And much too short.”
“So you d
id see him.”
“Only in silhouette, he stuck to the shadows. But he was at least six feet, maybe six-one. Walked like a soldier, talked like one, too. Always giving orders.” Sandusky smirked. “I might remember more if you give me the inside story on what’s really going on around here.”
Should’ve known Sandusky would try to take her for a ride. He probably didn’t even see the killer. Lydia started to tell him to go to hell when she noticed the monitors at the desk start to wink out, one by one. “What’s going on?”
The guard turned from his prisoners to focus on the monitor display. “That’s funny. But those are all from the research tower, and that place is empty tonight. The boss must be shutting them down so we can focus on the folks at the gala.”
“How can you be sure it’s Glen shutting them off?”
“Easy. ’Cause it wasn’t me and the only way to access the research tower security system is from here or from Glen’s handheld.”
“Really?” Lydia felt her body tense as if preparing to strike out. She touched a hand to the small of her back, reassuring herself that her gun was still there. Suddenly Pete’s ramblings made sense. “What else can he control remotely?”
“It’s a pretty cool setup—he can control the cameras, even access the room-to-room intercom system, the panic alarms, the lights, door locks. All from his phone.”
Lydia stared at the dark screens. “Can you override his command? Bring up the hallway outside Tommy Z’s office?”
“Sure, why?” The guard started punching in a command, then frowned. “That’s funny. They’re not responding.”
Lydia’s stomach plunged. “Call the police, get some men over to Tommy Z’s office. Now!”
“I’ll have to call Glen,” the guard hedged.
“You do that and you might get someone killed.” She couldn’t trust him not to tip off Glen. But she could trust Jerry Boyle. As Lydia raced from the security office, she dialed Boyle’s cell. Damn it, pick up, pick up.
No answer.
53
The wait was agonizing, but Gina knew it was only a few minutes. Jerry appeared at the doorway and spotted her immediately. He stepped inside. “Gina, whatever you need, I hope it can—”
The man lowered his gun and placed it at Jerry’s temple. Jerry’s muttered curse easily carried through the empty lab to Gina.
“You were right, angel-lady, this place will do nicely,” the man said as he took Jerry’s gun from his belt and then used Jerry’s own handcuffs to restrain his wrists in front of him. He closed the lab door and shoved Jerry into the office. “Deserted for the weekend, building to ourselves, no worries about noise or unexpected visitors, especially with the shindig going on downstairs. Perfect.”
“What do you want?” Jerry demanded, placing himself between Gina and the gun.
Without warning, the man smacked him across the face with the gun, then brought the butt down so hard on Jerry’s clavicle that Gina heard the snap from where she cowered behind Ken’s desk. Jerry staggered but didn’t fall. He braced himself against the desk, as if he expected more to come.
Of course he did—he was powerless as long as Gina was there for the man to threaten.
Jerry wiped his bloody nose and mouth against his jacket collar. “Look, I can’t help you until you tell me what you want,” he said in a reasonable tone. “Let Gina go. I’ll give you everything you want.”
Using her name, smart, it would make her seem like more of a person to the man with the gun. Only the guy wasn’t buying it. Instead he smirked at Jerry. “I know all about you, Detective Gerald Boyle. Tough guy. Smart guy. Worked SWAT until you blew out your shoulder.”
He brought the gun down hard on Jerry’s broken collarbone. This time Jerry dropped to his knees, his jaws clenching as he bit back his pain.
“Stop it!” Gina cried out.
The man aimed the gun at her face. She backed into the corner behind Ken’s desk, the farthest away she could get.
“Sure thing. See, I know a tough guy like him will never talk. Will never break.” The man stepped around the desk. Too late, Gina realized she was boxed in, nowhere to go. “Not by hurting him. But hurting his woman—well, that’s more than most men can take.”
“No, don’t!” Jerry somehow pushed himself up, putting all his weight on his one good hand, dragging the other along, the handcuffs stretched to their limit. “Tell me what you want.”
The man stopped in front of Gina, the muzzle of his pistol below her chin, leveraging her face up until she was choking for air. He ground the muzzle into the soft flesh there, pain searing through her vision.
“Where is she?” he snapped, glancing over his shoulder to keep an eye on Jerry, who was collapsed half across the desk.
“Where is who?”
The man forced Gina’s head back even farther. She could no longer even see Jerry. All she could see were red spots dancing before her and the overhead ceiling tiles. The pain was unbearable. Tears escaped her. She tried to stand on tiptoe to relieve it, but the man merely followed her movement.
“Marie Ferraro’s little girl. I know you found her.”
Gina could barely comprehend their words through the pain. Marie? Who was Marie? Someone who worked at Angels?
“A friend of mine in L.A. was the lead detective on Marie’s homicide,” Jerry hastened to explain, his words spraying Ken’s desk with blood as he spoke. “He’s retiring, and the case always bugged him, so he asked me to take a look. A fresh pair of eyes, in case he missed something. That’s all. I don’t know anything about the kid. Check with L.A. County social services; they took her.”
The man released Gina. She dropped to her feet, her bound hands catching her weight on the ledge of the filing cabinet behind her. Before she could drag in a breath, the man sucker-punched her, doubling her over. She fell to her knees, retching, fighting to both vomit and breathe at the same time and unable to do either as pain shot through her belly.
“Don’t lie to me again or I’ll hurt her for real. I know you’re the one who contacted Epson. By the way, his retirement was cut short—I paid him a little visit before I flew out here. How’s it feel to know your buddy is the one who gave you up, put you in this spot? Right before I killed him. And that other cop—who knew there’d be two Jerry Boyles in one department?”
The words sliced through the terror and pain clouding Gina’s brain. This man wasn’t the rapist. This man was the one who had tortured and killed Officer Boyle. And now he was after Jerry.
And she’d led him right to him.
“Epson’s dead?”
“Stop stalling. Tell me where she is!”
“I’ve never met anyone named Marie Ferraro. Or her daughter.”
The man reared back, ready to aim a brutal kick at Gina, but Jerry shouted, “I’m telling you the truth!”
Instead of kicking Gina, the man whirled on Jerry and brought his gun down across his head in a slicing motion. Jerry’s face bounced against the desk. As Jerry lay there, gasping, the man pulled a copy of a photo from his back pocket, holding it in front of Jerry.
Gina finally caught her breath. She wanted to crawl under the desk, but she couldn’t leave Jerry.
It was killing her, watching him suffer. Then she caught a glimpse of the faces in the photo as the gunman dangled it before Jerry.
Her gasp broke the silence. The gunman cocked his head in surprise. He pivoted to her, lowering the photo to her eye level. “You know her, don’t you?”
“She doesn’t.” Jerry was practically on top of the desk, trying to crawl across it to get the man’s attention away from Gina. “She doesn’t know anything.”
But she did. The photo showed a girl, maybe ten or twelve, and a dark-haired woman. The same woman she’d seen in the photos of Lydia Fiore and her mother.
54
Nora’s footsteps rang against the concrete floor of the fire stairs. She stopped, listened. Someone was definitely coming down the stairs behind her.
She grabbed for her cell phone. It was gone—she must have left it behind in the locker room when she changed. She sprinted to the door on the next level.
There was a panic button beside the door.
The bright red button taunted her—should she push it?
She hit it just as she heard the footsteps start again. Now they sounded like they were coming from below her—but that was impossible; Tommy was above her.
“Hello, this is Angels of Mercy Medical Center,” a tinny, disembodied voice blasted from a speaker above her head. Nora tried to squash it with her hands, but it was too late. Anyone in the stairwell would know her location now. “Can I help you?”
“I’m in the research tower and there’s a man following me,” she said, her face lifted up to the grill. “Please send someone.”
“Ma’am, I need your location.”
“Fourth floor, stairwell.”
The footsteps grew louder, faster.
“Hurry, please.”
“Don’t worry, Nora.” A chuckle exited the speaker and clawed its way down her spine. She jerked her hand away. “I’m on my way.”
Nora’s head buzzed—was she imagining the voice? Or had Tommy somehow taken control of the intercom system? She ran through the door, pressing herself against the wall, hoping that whoever was in the stairwell would keep going past her. The corridor was dark except for a few scattered overhead lights.
As she cowered, gasping for breath, covering her mouth so that she wouldn’t be heard, she remembered this feeling. Paralyzed with fear. Exactly like three years ago.
The door from the stairwell slammed open, bouncing against the cement block walls. “Nora, thank God I caught you,” Tommy Z said, leaning forward, huffing with each breath. “I figured out how you heard the voice in my office.”
“No!” Nora backed away from him, holding her arm straight out, as if that could stop him. “Leave me alone. Please.” She hated the way the last word came out, as if she were begging.
