by Amy Faye
She pushed the brake pedal in, put her hand on the shifting knob, and then the car door opened and a powerful hand reached in, grabbed her jacket and pulled.
38
Caroline's head hurt, and for a moment she was too hazy to remember more than that. Then she jerked and kicked awake, and remembered. There wasn't much to remember.
Hands grabbed her, ripped her out of the chair, and then she was stood up. The cold nipped at her cheeks, and she'd thought distantly that she'd only just started to get warm. The big man's hand pulled back from her jacket and moved forward, leaving her with a split-second to wonder what in the hell she was thinking. Of course someone was going to come for her, but the turnaround was a surprise.
Then everything went black.
When she awoke her hands were zip-tied in her lap. They might have searched her for weapons, but they would have found that there was nothing to find. It wasn't like she was going to go away.
They were driving, though she didn't immediately recognize the neighborhood. If they'd taken one turn off the main roads, though, then she wasn't likely to know where they were even if they were only a few short miles from her house. She hoped that was the case, rather than being a million miles from nowhere.
The one thing that gave her some degree of hope, at least, was that they were surrounded by houses as they drove. It was still too cold to have anyone out in force, but there were some people, at least.
They probably weren't going to murder her in the open like this, surrounded by people and property. Right? It wouldn't make sense otherwise. She tried to repeat that in her mind. It wouldn't make sense to kill her. There would be too many witnesses.
They pulled up in front of an unremarkable little house, not much bigger than her own, and the guy in the driver's seat, short and wiry, got himself out. The guy in the passenger's seat, turning to regard her, didn't move to open his own door.
She tried to speak, and found that she couldn't move her lips. The duct tape hadn't been so bad when she was just coming out of unconsciousness, and the few intervening moments between then and now didn't offer enough time to notice it.
"You're up? Good."
The door behind her opened and Caroline started to fall before she could catch herself. She wasn't sure that she could have caught herself if she wanted to, except that she had better make sure to catch herself. Otherwise there wasn't going to be much that she could do to protect herself.
"Come on, up," said the guy behind her. He had a strange airy quality to his voice. Breathy. He had his arms under her shoulders in a second and hauled her up that way. It hurt, but it could have hurt a lot worse. She tried to help him, trying to push with her legs to keep them under her.
In turn, he tried to pull her out, backwards, head-first. She made a noise that was supposed to be 'let me,' and would have gone on from there to add that she could at least get out of the car by herself. But the duct-tape pulled at her lips painfully and she stopped before she could hurt or frustrate herself any more than necessary.
"You alright?"
The man looked at her with genuine care, but only on a professional level. The same way that Caroline herself might have looked at an unresponsive patient. Carefully taking in anything that might be causing a problem and making a mental note of it, to be dealt with when the time arrived.
She nodded dimly. Her head was still woozy, but it was clearing fast, and the cold air cleared it still faster. She wasn't thinking straight, but she already felt like she was over-sharpened, her mind overly sensitive to lights and sounds. She wanted to be inside, and hoped the rooms were dimly lit.
The guy started moving, his hand grabbing her arm firmly. Caroline let him, and followed behind, first because she had no other choice, and second because she hoped that maybe, if she were very cooperative, this wouldn't go as badly as she feared it might.
"Stand here," he said, and let go. There was a moment where she thought about running, but with her hands bound and her mouth covered, precisely what was she going to do? Hope that someone took a risk on saving her?
In the meantime, she would be chased by two men, no doubt used to people running from them, and they wouldn't have any of the hobbles that she had. They had clear minds, they weren't woozy, they had unbound hands.
It would be a slaughter. There was no way she could try to run. As if on cue, the big guy's door swung open and he was suddenly pressed in against her, his eyes on her as if he thought she might be having ideas about running.
The little guy got the door open and the bigger guy held the screen as she was pulled inside. Immediately to the right was a set of stairs leading down. He took her down slowly, walking sideways to ensure that he could keep his eyes on the stairs and on her at the same time.
The basement was finished comfortably, and from what she could see, it was surprisingly large. The carpeted floor led down a hallway that couldn't have been any shorter than the length of the house itself. At the end was a room, also carpeted. The light inside seemed to come from a single overhead light, and she could see the edge of the halo of light that was coming from it, blocked by the shade.
That was the room that Caroline was led into. In the middle of the room was a chair, wooden and upholstered in leather. She was sat down, and the big guy who had followed them down pressed down on one shoulder with a meaty hand as the little guy cut the zip-tie with a wicked looking knife.
Then the little guy pulled the duct tape off her mouth with a perfunctory tug, and they were out of the room, the door closing behind them again. Like repair men who were behind schedule that day. Caroline looked around. The room was large. Perhaps twenty feet square.
There was, as she'd thought, one overhead light. The shade over it prevented the light from reaching the edge of the room, and though it was not pitch dark, the light that practically shone directly in her eyes made it seem as if there wasn't much outside that halo of light.
A man's voice spoke, then, from outside that light. He had a voice like old leather, rubbed smooth, warm and familiar.
"I hear you've been asking questions about me," he said, and then the old man stepped into view and Caroline came face to face with Sean Coogan.
39
"What did you do with him?" Caroline hoped to heaven that she was going to be able keep herself under control, because at the moment she wasn't feeling she could keep doing it.
"I'm not sure what you mean," the old man said. He pulled up a chair and straddled it, leaning on the back.
He had a strange look to him, not at all what she'd expected. His boys, to a man, had the look of people who had been in more than their fair share of fist fights. They were tough, rough, and more than that they were built for dishing out violence.
Coogan wasn't like that at all, she saw. He was thin, with a pointed, severe face and a sour expression that never seemed to quite make it all the way off. His lips pinched together in a way that seemed to fit him as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
At the same time, for all the trouble that they'd apparently gone through getting her there, or all of the violence that the man inspired, he didn't seem to be upset in the slightest. He was just waiting for her to say her piece, before he said his own.
It set her on edge.
Caroline's eyes closed and opened again. "Shannen. I want to know what you did with him."
"Your boyfriend is indisposed at the moment," he said, and the expression on his face was so plain that she thought for a moment that he might not have known if something was happening to him. Maybe they all had Coogan wrong.
The very fact that he'd known exactly who she meant all along, though, that he'd known their relationship, and that he'd just apparently chosen to feign ignorance, told her otherwise.
"Why are you doing this?"
"Doing what?" He took a deep breath and rapped at the wooden chair's back. She was surprised to note that his seat, unlike hers, lacked any upholstery of any kind. It was plain and well-worn.
<
br /> "All of this. You took him, didn't you?"
"No," he said, but his dismissive shrug told her a very different answer.
"I know you did. Don't lie to me. I just want to talk."
"I know you want to talk. I don't want to talk to you. If I did, then I would have come to find you."
"You could at least tell me what I want to know."
He shrugged again. "I could do that, if I wanted to, certainly. But I don't think that you're really appreciating my position here."
"I appreciate everything about it, but…"
"But you think you know better than me what my business is?"
"No, sir," she said. Her heart thumped in her chest. "I just…"
"You just, what? Speak up, girl. I'm not deaf but I'm very old, and I'm liable to die soon waiting for you to tell me what precisely you're asking me for."
She took a deep breath, and then let it out slowly. "I want you to let him go."
Coogan snorted. "I can't do that, darling."
"Why not?"
"He stood up to me. Not only that, he embarrassed me, my organization, my men. I'd have a riot on my hands if I let him go without taking my pound of flesh. You have to understand my perspective in this."
She did understand. That was part of the problem.
"Can you at least let me see him?"
Coogan's lips, pinched by default, neared to puckering at that question. "I don't know that I can."
She took a deep breath. "I need to see him. You can't keep me here."
"I didn't intend to," he answered. "You'll go home. And you'll forget about all of this. I can make sure of that much, at least."
"No, I won't," she assured him. "I'll make your life hard, so help me God, if you don't let me see him."
"Why do you care so much, anyways?" He let out a long breath and looked down at her. "I don't understand what you're losing your temper over, young lady. He's a big boy, he made his bed, and now he's going to lie in it."
"Would you let it go if one of your men went missing? If someone took Harry?"
"So you're saying Shannen was working for you after all?"
"He's an idiot," she answered simply. "But he was only trying to help me."
"Then you should have discouraged him from pissing me off," Coogan answered. His expression never changed, though.
He looked at her like he was perfectly willing to sit here the whole day until she saw things from his perspective. As if, in the end, he was convinced that she would see things from his perspective. It was only a matter of time, and he was willing to take the time.
"I did."
"And he didn't listen to you?"
Caroline decided to risk a joke. "You've had him, what, two days? Has he listened to you?"
Coogan snorted, and a hint of a smile crossed that pinched expression of his, but it was gone in a moment. "Fine. I'll let you see him. You get two minutes."
"Not good enough," she answered, hoping she could push that laugh into something like compliance. "But I do understand you. You want him to play nice? You've got the tools to make that happen."
Coogan looked at her again, reconsidering. Weighing his options. "You're telling me to take you in?"
"I'm telling you to let him go, or to keep me. I don't expect you'd go for the first option."
Coogan let out a long breath, pushed himself up to standing, and then stepped around the chair to fix his sour expression on her a little longer. Weighing his options. He looked less like a gangster than an investor who worked from home.
"You'd be putting me in a bad position, you know."
"I know," she said. "But I'd be giving you something you wanted."
"And when the hospital starts worrying about why you haven't shown up for work?"
"Take me to work in the morning. Easy."
"So you can bring the cops back with you at the end of your shift?"
"You'd kill Shannen, if I did that, wouldn't you?" The idea seemed so obvious that it was hard to imagine that someone would do something as stupid as risk the possibility.
Coogan shrugged, his slender expression still fixed on her. He must've been eighty years old if he was a day, but he was sharp as a tack.
"Okay, fine. Done." He reached out and she took his hand. He was rough, she realized. For a man his age, he lifted her up easily. Then he carried her momentum further, pulling her by the neck of her shirt until she could smell his cologne. "You fuck me on this, and I guarantee, you will regret it."
40
"You fuck me on this, and I guarantee, you will regret it." The look on Coogan's face as he said the words drove them home even stronger. Caroline shivered without meaning to, and tried in vain to regain the confidence that he'd shaken in her.
"I promise," she said, though she wasn't sure that she could promise that. After all, it was relying on Shannen to keep up his end of the bargain, and there was a good chance that he would do no such thing.
After all, he'd done whatever he thought was best since the beginning. She hoped that seeing her would provide some sense of perspective for him, calm him down, let him know that these people could be negotiated with, without using your fists.
There was a chance, nearly as good, that she would prove to him that they could be safely and conveniently defied. Or perhaps he'd take her presence as a threat, and try to fight back against that threat, no matter the cost.
He could go a thousand ways, and she had to hope that he'd be willing to go just the right one.
The old man guided her out of the room. With her hands free, unwatched by anyone save for Coogan himself, and in what appeared at least ostensibly to be a public space, she might be able to escape now.
But if Coogan told her the truth, then she was going to leave here eventually, anyways, unless she should have proven herself a danger to him. Even then, she suspected that there were contingencies in place. Ways that any danger she might have posed could be dealt with easily and efficiently.
She waited by the door, uncertainty starting to grip at her. If Coogan noticed that she wasn't right behind him, she couldn't see any sign of it. He stopped at one of the four doors on the left side, opposite an identical door on the right, and then turned and looked at her flatly.
She waited a moment, uncertain what she ought to be doing, and then forced herself to follow. Once she was close he opened the door to allow her inside, and waited. His hand rested on his hip patiently, though it occurred to her after a moment that there was more to it than that. He had it near something. She guessed there was a gun secreted on his person, one that he was unafraid to use.
She turned to look inside the room. It was small, and the contrast to the former room made the size even more drastic. If she spread her hands to the furthest reach of her fingers, she thought she could probably brush the left and right walls, and it was only just large enough to permit a bed.
Calling it a bed was an insult to beds; it was little larger than a cot, and the mattress was little more than a few blankets laid out one on top of the other. Shannen blinked up at them.
"Inside," Coogan said. "Go on. I'm not leaving the door open all day."
She hesitated a moment and he put a hand on her back and pushed. It wasn't rough, nothing like a shove, but it left no room for arguing, either. Caroline stepped inside the room, too small for one, let alone two, and the door closed behind. On the other side of the door, Coogan made no effort to hide the sound of the bolt shutting.
"You look like hell," Shannen said, his lips twisting up into a halfway smile.
"You're an idiot," Caroline answered, doing her best to hide whatever positive emotions she might have been feeling at their reunion. She needed to drive home the seriousness of their situation, not encourage him to do something stupid like trying to escape.
"Yeah," he agreed. "Sometimes."
"No, not sometimes. This time."
He shrugged. "Well, that's fine."
"How's your side?"
He lifted his shirt
to show a badly bruised but ultimately still-intact stitching job around the wound. It was impossible to be certain, but she was almost certain it was her own stitches, right where she'd left them.
"I can't get you out of here, you know," she told him. "They're pretty pissed off."
"So what did you come for?"
"I came because, in spite of my better judgment, I couldn't just leave you to get yourself killed."
"Well, there's your mistake," Shannen responded, his voice low. "You need to learn when to cut and run."
"Time's up," Coogan's voice from outside called in. The door opened behind her and Caroline felt herself being pulled out, the same gentle but insistent force being applied that had pushed her inside. "You ought to try to behave, you know, and listen to your girl," he said. His tone never changed from the contemplative one he'd used when he talked to Caroline. "You'll live longer."
When the door closed behind her, Caroline thought she could hear the sound of movement behind the door, but it was too quiet to make out and hint of what it was. She was halfway up the stairs when a noise followed it. The sound of something crashing against wood.
Caroline froze. Coogan didn't. He turned on his heel, his face still as calm as ever, and grabbed her. This time it wasn't polite but firm by any stretch. He dragged her behind by an ear, and she allowed it, keeping as silent as she could, suspecting that things would only get worse for her if she tried to speak up.
The bolt slid open easily and Coogan pulled the door open. He was rough and violent without a doubt, but she could see he hadn't lost his temper. He'd decided what to do, and he was doing it.
"You don't get it, do you?" Coogan twisted Caroline's ear and this time, in spite of herself, she did cry out, reaching to try to slacken the force he had on her, but there was nothing to be done. Out of the corner of her eye, Caroline could see him thinking about what to do next. "You screw up, and she pays for it."
