The Last Friend

by Harvey Church

  “All due respect, Mr. Glass, you sort of were involved.” She glanced over her shoulder, her gaze so different now that she’d changed her hair color and ditched the housekeeping uniform. She looked powerful, or hungry for power, the way a female assassin or spy in the movies might. “If you had done what you set out to do the last time you came to this hotel, there would’ve been a lot fewer graves.”

  He couldn’t believe the accusation in her tone. “But RodgeDam was an informant, maybe even a police officer.” Shaking his head, Donovan gritted his teeth. “I wasn’t looking for anything or anyone except for Elizabeth.”

  “He wasn’t an informant, and you know that. You also know he wasn’t a police officer, either. He was a sexual predator who knew you weren’t interested in his girls. He knew you were interested in one girl, and that’s why he called the police at the last possible moment before meeting you.”

  Frowning, Donovan allowed a guilty nod of acknowledgment. He knew he’d been too specific. “How do you know all of this, Monica? How do you know he changed his mind when he was so close to meeting me?”

  Monica stopped at one of the last doors on the right side of the hall. “Because I was the girl he brought with him, the blonde with the scar. I was the one he was planning to leave with you for the ten thousand dollars in cash that you’d promised him. It was me. That’s how I know.”

  Speechless, Donovan stared at her with a wide-open mouth as she used a hotel key card to unlock the door, but she didn’t step inside right away. Turning her body so that she could face him, she asked again: “Now, can you please go home, Mr. Glass?”

  “Not a chance after what you just said.”

  “It’s really not safe here for you. If Roger hasn’t already seen you in the lobby . . .”

  “Roger?”

  She nodded. “Go home.”

  He didn’t budge. “Let me in. I need to know more. I need to know who this guy in Chicago is.”

  “That’s him. Roger. The man who abducted Elizabeth and me and killed her.”

  “But . . .”

  “He’s the one who’s coming here tonight. To bring me four young girls before I do to him what I promised I’d do.”

  Shaking his head, Donovan rubbed his temples. Still trying to compute everything, which seemed to be rushing at him with a hurricane’s velocity. “But why did you protect him for all these years?”

  Chuckling a little too loudly—her fake laughter echoed down the length of the hallway—Monica stepped aside and motioned him into the room.

  “You should’ve gone to the authorities once you escaped in Twilight Creek.”

  “Yeah? So Roger could go to jail for a few years, teach the other pedophiles how he got away with it for so long, then get released on good behavior so he could do it all over again, only better this time? No thank you.”

  “After they found all of those graves, he’d have been gone for a long time,” Donovan pointed out. “They’d have locked him up for life.”

  She shook her head and stepped deeper into the room. “Not a chance I was going to give him that safety.”

  “But you already have. You escaped ten years ago. You’ve known where he lives, almost all that time, and you’ve done nothing. He’s hurt how many girls in that time?”

  Monica frowned and looked away, blinking hard but not emotional about it. Instead, it looked like she was trying to get into character. “No. He’s mine now. Not some liberal judge’s or courthouse’s social project. All mine, with nobody to protect him.”

  There were two beds in the room, Donovan noticed for the first time. He’d been too caught up in the emotion of their exchange. His attention wandered to the first bed, which was vacant, not even a wrinkle in the bedspread. But the other bed had a small suitcase on it, very similar to the one Donovan had brought when he’d tried to pull off this very same ambush all on his own six years ago. Laid out on the mattress in tidy little piles were bundles of cash. After noticing the money, Donovan glanced over at Monica.

  “You’ve had your opportunity in Chicago,” she said, resting her hand on the concealed weapon again. “And what did you do these past two nights, Mr. Glass? Did you chicken out and watch him from the street? Did you follow him to work? I bet he noticed you.” Monica gave a simple nod. “All right, into the bathroom, Mr. Glass.”

  “What?” He didn’t understand. He also didn’t hold the confusion back from showing on his face. “The bathroom?”

  She stepped toward him and gave him a gentle but solid shove toward the bathroom door, which was adjacent to the main door. With Monica giving him tiny shoves, he didn’t have a choice but to step backward toward the bathroom.

  “What’s going on? Why the bathroom?”

  She shrugged. “You’re going to get yourself and maybe even me killed. I have too much to lose to risk dying tonight.” She pulled the gun out from the waistband of her pants. But instead of using it as a way to threaten or beat him, she handed it to him.

  Donovan took the gun and studied it. The small weapon was a lot heavier than he’d expected, not being a gun owner. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

  “Stay inside the bathroom. Don’t come out unless you know I’m in trouble.”

  “If I have the gun, what’re you going to use?”

  Monica glanced down at her hands. She turned them over, stared at the backs of them. When she raised her attention back to Donovan, she smiled. “My good looks, I guess.”

  CHAPTER 44

  Inside the bathroom in Monica’s hotel room, Donovan paced. He saw his reflection in the mirror and nearly laughed at it. In his hand, the handgun actually looked too large, awkward even. And the rest of him, with his bruised face and quasi-nerdy outfit that was two sizes too large, looked about as badass as a nun.

  He tried to sit on the edge of the tub, but after a few minutes, his lower back pain flared up from the discomfort. So he stood, but then his feet started to hurt. Eventually, he placed one of the unused towels on the bathtub floor, grabbed one of the clean, rolled-up hand towels, and settled into the tub. He used the hand towel as something of a pillow and rested his head against the back rim of the tub.

  It was so quiet in there that, of all the times and places, Donovan fell asleep. Didn’t take long, either.

  * * *

  When the main door closed with the loud clapping sound that hotel room doors make, it felt like the entire tub shook. Snapping awake, Donovan noticed that he was in a bathtub with a handgun in his lap. It took him a few seconds to remember where he was—MGM Grand Detroit, Monica’s room, she put me here because—

  When he heard the man speak, Donovan was surprised by the lisp. But then he remembered Roger’s dining room on Central Avenue in Wilmette. He remembered the coffee-themed border in the otherwise pristine kitchen that could only belong to a man with the kind of particular lisp that Roger had.

  On the other side of the closed bathroom door, Roger said, “Well, well, a woman. Tsk, tsk. I don’t judge but . . . my, what a pretty smile you’ve got.”

  “Don’t touch me, asshole.”

  Roger made a chuckling sound, and Donovan envisioned the most arrogant smirk crossing the curly-haired man’s lips. “And what . . . familiar eyes you have. Hmm.”

  A smacking sound followed, and Donovan wasn’t sure whether it was Roger who’d struck Monica or the other way around.

  When Monica said, “Try that again, I’ll break your fucking wrist,” Donovan deduced it was Monica who’d done the slapping.

  “Oh, Carmen, Carmen, Carmen.” Roger’s voice had changed. His tone was dark now. “I’d never forget a girl like you.” He made an amused sound, not quite laughter. Donovan couldn’t identify it, but he could feel the tension, even locked away in the bathroom like he was, buried and out of sight like all those girls in the unmarked graves. “Hey, now. You know, a lot of the boys I introduced you to, back when you were under my . . . care, many of them commented on just how tight—”

  The smaaaack
was so loud that even Donovan jumped back.

  Roger made that odd, sinister, amused sound again. “Nobody had as many repeat requests as you, darling.”

  “Don’t call me that,” Monica said, but, despite the volume, her voice trembled. “Where are they? Where are the girls?”

  There was a pause.

  And then Monica asked, “What room are they in?” Donovan figured Roger had tossed her a room key.

  “First, I want my money,” he said. “Ten grand a head.”

  “There’s twenty here, the other twenty once you give me the others.”

  Roger grunted. “I always loved fucking you, Carm,” followed by, “Hey, put that gun away, darling, no need for—”

  And that was when Donovan made his stupid decision. Ripping the bathroom door open, he stepped into the main area and aimed his own weapon at the back of Roger’s curly-haired head. He was short, five seven or five eight, a little on the comfortably wide side, not in a chips-for-dinner way.

  On the other side of Roger, aiming her own weapon toward Roger’s forehead, Monica’s red face registered surprise and disappointment at the same time.

  Donovan realized that if they both pulled their triggers, they’d both kill Roger and, very likely, themselves. It was a bad scene, two people on the same team sandwiching their target like this, a scenario that most hunters and gun owners knew to avoid.

  “What’re you doing, Mr. Glass?” Monica asked, her voice trembling and high pitched enough that she didn’t even scare Donovan anymore.

  Raising his hands above his head, Roger turned around. Up close like this, Donovan saw that he had a short, stubby nose, slightly yellowed teeth from the smoking, and beady brown eyes. A white line scarred the flesh next to his left eye, no doubt a permanent memory from when Monica had stabbed him with the branch or tree bark the night she escaped. There was unkempt chest hair reaching up and sprouting out from the collar of his domino-themed button-down shirt, the cuffs rolled up to reveal dark, thick arm hair. Even without those details, Donovan recognized him as the man from the Central Avenue town house, the one who’d driven off in the Dodge Ram a couple of nights ago, the man who leased from James Francis and who knew whom else.

  When their eyes met, Roger smiled. He recognized Donovan.

  “Looks like a support group meeting to me,” Roger said. “How nice to finally meet you, Mr. Glass. Your daughter—Elizabeth, wasn’t it?—well, she was a swell performer, too.”

  Behind Roger, Monica stepped forward and used the base of her handgun’s grip to hit Roger in the side of his head. She moved so quickly that even the surprise in Donovan’s face didn’t happen soon enough to warn Roger. The pedophile stumbled and fell to one knee before getting up, a grotesque grin on his lips.

  “Don’t shoot him,” Monica said, warning Donovan with a disgusted sneer. “Asshole, look at me,” she continued, addressing Roger now. “I’ve got your money in the suitcase. Look at me.”

  Except Roger clearly knew which of them was the weaker link, because he disobeyed Monica’s demands and maintained his stare on Donovan. The way Roger’s lips curled, ever so slightly but enough that Donovan saw it, it was obvious he took immense pleasure in hurting people and killing their spirit. That look alone was enough to weaken Donovan, make him want to turn away and curl into a corner and wish he’d never gone to the Navy Pier that day.

  “You know something, Mr. Glass, that day on the pier when I took your daughter? You and I locked eyes a dozen times before I made my move. It was the riskiest thing I’d ever done; I was sure I’d get caught after that. Even when I was fleeing with her tucked under my arms, her little teeth biting into my hand, her deliciously slim and yet feeble legs kicking as she tried to get your attention—you know something?” He shifted, licked his lips, and his eyebrows seemed to draw closer together in thought. “The other people who saw me, they assumed she was my daughter. I’ll always remember that, the pride I felt at having such a pretty and soon-to-be submissive daughter. They thought she was pissed off that her day at the pier was coming to an end.” He chuckled and shook his head, shook it until the psychotic grimace vanished and was replaced by a stare that gave Donovan goose bumps. “But the real pride came from the good job I’d done once nobody could hear her scream, and then again, later, when she stopped screaming altogether and just surrendered herself to me and every other man who touched her. That pride came whenever I broke one of my girls down, Mr. Glass. But with Elizabeth, I was especially proud.” Licking his lips again, he made a slow and very suggestive motion with his hips. “Each time I—”

  “Shut up,” Donovan growled, picturing the terror in his baby’s eyes. She’d been so perfect, just like the May 8, 2005, version of Carmen Drouin. So carefree, so—

  “Ignore him!” Monica shouted, trying to get Donovan to refocus. She moved quicker than last time and smashed her weapon against the side of Roger’s head once again. He barely stumbled, though. “What room?”

  The amused sound burst from Roger’s lips again. “Oh, that sweet daughter of yours . . .” He started moving those hips again, smirking.

  A loud ringing blasted like an alarm in Donovan’s ears, and he cracked. He saw Elizabeth’s eyes, Monica’s eyes, the anonymous eyes of all those girls in the graves look at him, scared and hurt and robbed of their innocence as Roger moved his grimy hips and licked his lips before they pulled back and revealed those teeth. The thought of this man touching those girls, touching and hurting his daughter, pushed him to the brink. Opening his eyes wide in a way that ensured he couldn’t close them and hoping that Monica would get out of harm’s way, Donovan squeezed the trigger, even as Monica shouted—

  “No, Mr. Glass!”

  Click.

  The empty sound surprised Donovan. The way Roger’s eyebrows rose, it seemed he was just as surprised.

  Donovan squeezed the trigger again.

  Click.

  And again.

  Click.

  The only person in that hotel room who didn’t seem all that surprised was Monica. It made sense when she admitted, “It’s not loaded, Mr. Glass.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “Seriously?”

  He waved the gun in the air and stared past Roger’s amused grimace at Monica. “Yes, seriously! What’s the point in giving me a gun if it’s not loaded?”

  Monica shrugged, aimed her own weapon through the opening between Roger’s raised arm and ribs, and pulled the trigger.

  Donovan fell to the floor, clasping his leg.

  “But mine’s loaded,” Monica said.

  “You shot me!” Donovan yelled.

  Roger laughed.

  Monica shot Roger’s leg next, sending him to the floor. To Donovan, she said, “You don’t trust me, and I can’t trust you with a loaded gun. Especially with someone like Roger in the room.” She started to turn her attention to Roger but then glanced back at Donovan to add, “Obviously.”

  Stepping over the top of Roger, she aimed the gun at his head. “I’m only asking one more time, asshole. What room?”

  Despite being shot, Roger moved quickly. Swinging one leg up and sweeping the other to the side, he simultaneously kicked Monica in the crotch and tripped her to the floor. With Monica on the floor, groaning and scrambling for the gun that had slipped out of her grip, Roger was able to reach onto the bed and grab the suitcase, using it as a shield as he limped to the hotel room door.

  As Roger slipped into the hallway, Monica located her gun and looked for and found the room key that Roger had given her. As she hobbled to the door, she told Donovan not to move.

  “Or I’ll shoot you again when I get back!”

  And then she was gone.

  CHAPTER 45

  Grunting through the pain in his leg, Donovan realized that even if Roger had revealed the room where the children were being kept, Monica didn’t have the room key . . . and if she did, Roger had likely given her the wrong one. Because once Donovan managed to get to his feet, he ignored Monica’
s warning to not move and hobbled toward the hotel room door. And that was when he saw it: the room key on the floor where Roger had been.

  At this point, Donovan wasn’t overly confident that Monica would come out of her chase as the victor. After seeing how Roger had taken her down so quickly, Donovan knew that if those kids had any chance of escape and survival, he needed to take action.

  Bending forward to pick up the room card, Donovan lost his balance and fell over, clasping his eyes shut and releasing an unintentional scream when he landed on his wounded leg. He glanced deeper into the room and noticed the bloodstain he’d left on the carpet a few feet away. He didn’t even want to glance at his leg now, but he chanced a look anyway.

  Dark blood had soaked through his pants. He could see where the bullet had cut through the fabric. He knew he needed to cut off the circulation to stop the blood loss and decided that he could make a tourniquet from a pillowcase. But the pillows were so damn far that he dragged himself into the bathroom instead. It wasn’t lost on him that every second he wasted on taking care of himself worsened the odds for those kids.

  Grabbing a rolled hand towel off the countertop, Donovan shoved the room key into his pocket and went to work. Even cutting the circulation off caused the pain to flare deep inside the wounded area.

  “Come on!” he grunted, angry with himself that it was taking so damn long to make any kind of progress. He imagined the frightened kids in Roger’s room, wondering when their monster would return to take them back to their dungeon. Or worse.

  Once he had the tourniquet in place, Donovan hobbled out of the bathroom and clenched his jaw shut as if doing so might help with the pain. But by the time he reached the hotel room’s door, he was biting down with so much force that the white pain in his mouth was almost worse than the agony in his leg.

  Sucking back a deep breath, Donovan pulled the door open and stared into the hallway. He didn’t exactly expect to find Monica and Roger wrestling outside the room, but a greater surprise was discovering Agent Klein running toward him with his service sidearm drawn.