The Last Friend

by Harvey Church

  “Who’s in that room with you, Donny?” Klein asked, jumping across the doorway and pressing his back to the wall.

  “It’s not my—”

  “Hand me the card.”

  Not thinking straight, Donovan reached into his pocket and produced the room card.

  “This one?”

  Nodding impatiently, Klein motioned with one of his hands. “Toss it over.”

  “But—”

  “Toss it over, Donny.” Not exactly patient, Klein glared at him with narrowed eyes.

  Donovan tossed the card to Klein, who caught it with the calm and cool motion of an MLB outfielder.

  “Now, tell me who you have in that hotel room of yours.”

  Despite the throbbing in his leg, Donovan managed to sound calm and cool as well. “Nobody. They left. It’s not my room.”

  “Who’s ‘they,’ Donny?” Klein was already moving, sliding the card into the lock.

  “Won’t work, it’s not the right key,” Donovan said, but the light inside the lock mechanism turned green and Klein shoved the door open. So the room key hadn’t belonged to Roger’s room after all.

  “Who’s ‘they,’ Donny?” Klein asked again, this time more impatiently as he entered Monica’s hotel room.

  “Monica and Roger.” Following Klein inside, Donovan watched the older man secure the room, navigating in and out of the bathroom with his gun stretched out before him, then moving into the main sleeping area. Once Klein made sure the room was safe, he lowered the weapon and motioned at the two bloodstains on the carpet—the big one next to his feet and the smaller one closer to the door where Donovan stood.

  “Is that your DNA?” he asked.

  Donovan nodded.

  “I thought I told you to leave this Roger problem to me.”

  “I did, but Monica—”

  Klein wasn’t listening. He stepped past Donovan and into the hallway. “Follow me.”

  “Roger brought some kids here, Mike,” Donovan said, hobbling after the federal agent and working hard to keep up. “They’re in a room. We have to find those kids.”

  Klein glanced back. “We have people searching the building, trying not to alarm the other guests after they heard gunshots from your room.”

  “No,” Donovan said, his voice surprisingly firm and defiant. “Already told you, it’s not my room. And if Roger gets to those kids before we do—”

  Klein’s expression suggested he didn’t like his tone. He turned back to Donovan and latched onto his bicep, squeezing hard as he reeled him closer. “Listen to me. You’re dangerously close to obstructing justice here, all right? For all I know, the rest of the FBI is right about you. You’re the one fabricating this mountain of bullshit.”

  What? Shaking his head in denial, Donovan snapped his arm free of Klein’s grip. “You know I’m not the one with the town house on Central Avenue.” He shook his head some more. “No, I’m not going with you. I’m finding those kids. I’m not letting them die the way you let my daughter die.”

  Suddenly, Klein’s face turned red and he stopped Donovan from limping past him by grabbing his shirt collar and slamming him up against the corridor wall. Then he used his forearm to hold him there. “What are you going to do, Donny? Knock on every damn door? All four hundred of them?” He used the other hand, the one without the gun, to tap on his temple. “Are you listening to yourself?”

  “But Roger . . .” Donovan grunted against the pressure Klein was applying to his chest.

  “Roger, huh?” At last, Klein released him, and even though the agent had been pressing against his chest, the pain in his leg exploded. “The CTA bus driver who rents a Central Avenue town house from James Francis, that Roger?”

  “He’s sick, I’m going to kill—”

  “You’re talking about Anthony Kelly, Donny.”

  Donovan nodded. Monica had said she didn’t think his real name was Roger; nor was it Lucifer, obviously. But Donovan didn’t care if Roger’s real name was Santa Claus; he was going to put an end to him.

  “Your Roger has no record. Not even a parking violation or late filing on his taxes.”

  But . . . “He’s the one.”

  Klein shook his head. “Says who? Carmen Drouin?”

  As crazy as Klein had made him feel these past days and weeks and even years, Donovan couldn’t deny the gaping bullet hole in his leg, the pain that flared with every heartbeat. If Monica had said the Easter Bunny himself was a rapist, Donovan would sooner believe her than the man standing before him.

  “Listen, Donny,” Klein said with a tired sigh. “I’ve followed you all the way from Chicago. I’m guessing you’ve got a bit of money stashed away in your car since I didn’t see any in your room.”

  “Not my room.”

  Klein raised a doubtful eyebrow. “Carmen’s?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Should we confirm that with the front desk?”

  Before he opened his mouth, Donovan took a minute to think about it: anyone could book a room under an alias, and with his luck, it wouldn’t strike him as far-fetched if Monica had booked this one under an alias . . . under Donovan Glass, or some derivative thereof.

  “That’s what I thought,” Klein said, motioning down the hall toward the elevators. He filed his handgun back into the holster beneath his jacket. “Let’s get that wound looked after, all right?”

  What else could he say? As much as he wanted to insist they start knocking on the hotel’s four hundred doors, he realized his credibility was pretty much shot. Besides, Klein had already suggested that the feds were looking for those girls, even though fifteen years of bad experience told Donovan the FBI wouldn’t find them.

  As he limped toward the elevator, Donovan felt the tightness in his chest begin to ache. Not so much because of the blood loss but because of just how close he’d come to freeing Roger’s prisoners and having his vengeance. And if Monica didn’t make it out of this alive, then what? What would Donovan have left?

  When they reached the elevators, Klein pressed the “Down” button. A family of four joined them in their bathing suits. While they waited, the father pulled the youngest child closer and whispered not to stare. Hearing the remark, Klein offered a friendly smile.

  Once the elevator arrived and the doors opened, everyone stepped on board. Donovan leaned against a side wall and watched the family press the button for the pool level. As the compartment descended, the pressure lifted off Donovan’s leg for a few seconds until the elevator stopped. The doors opened and the family started to exit, but everyone froze when a young couple came rushing toward them, screaming.

  “There’s guns! Get back on the elevator!”

  As the family and the frazzled couple hurried back onto the elevator, Donovan and Klein shared a glance. The federal agent withdrew his weapon and pushed past the others on the elevator, telling Donovan to get to the lobby.

  But before Klein could be sure Donovan had obeyed his command, there were two quick gunshots and more screaming, and the agent took off at a sprint.

  The elevator doors began to close, but Donovan snapped his arm out to stop them.

  “You’re bleeding!” one of the elevator’s newcomers shouted, pointing at Donovan’s leg.

  Ignoring the sudden attention, Donovan limped after Klein. Guests in bathing suits and bathrobes rushed past him, headed for the exits.

  In the pool area, Donovan found Agent Klein crouched behind a folding chair on the tiled deck, and he joined him.

  “I told you to go to the lobby,” Klein said, his voice an exasperated hiss. He didn’t look happy.

  Donovan stared back. “Not without the kids.”

  There was another gunshot.

  When Donovan peeked around the side of the chair, he noticed Roger creeping toward one of the exits, his own weapon raised. Donovan didn’t see the suitcase with the money in it, and he wondered where Roger had ditched it. He also wondered why Roger hadn’t produced that gun in the hotel room upstairs, why he’d
opted to knock Monica over instead. Had it been a matter of convenience? Or was something else at play?

  When Donovan reached out for Klein, the federal agent stood up. “FBI! Don’t take another step!”

  Donovan watched Roger swing his aim and attention their way, and that was when Monica jumped out from behind another chair and fired her own weapon. For having such great aim when it came to shooting Donovan’s leg earlier, she couldn’t seem to hit any part of Roger, who was just twenty-five or so feet away from her.

  When that first gunshot rang off, Roger spun and started running. Next, Klein launched into pursuit, yelling at Monica to stand down, but she was closer to Roger and she shouted something at Klein that Donovan couldn’t understand.

  From behind the folding chair, Donovan watched the action. Monica and Roger disappeared around a corner long before Klein ever came close to them, and even then, something else seemed to catch his attention. Klein tried to change direction on the pool’s slippery deck, but he lost his footing and fell, hitting the ground hard and losing his grip on his handgun.

  Watching it unfold in slow motion from his vantage point behind the chair, Donovan winced. When Klein didn’t get up or even move, Donovan approached him. And that was when he noticed another room card, this one on the wet poolside deck, closer to the chair where Monica had been crouched. He wanted to believe it was the one she’d been holding on to, the one she’d taken from Roger that belonged to the room where the kids were being held. But if Klein’s gun had slipped out of his hand, what were the chances that this was the room key he’d taken from Donovan upstairs? As Donovan knelt on his unwounded knee to reach for the card, he heard the rumbling from Klein.

  “Goddammit,” Klein groaned. He reached for his head. The first thing he looked for was his gun. “Pass me my handgun, Donny.”

  Donovan slipped the room card into his back pocket, at an angle that Klein wouldn’t be able to see. Then he moved closer to the gun.

  “Nah, don’t bother,” Klein said, holding his hand to the side of his head as he sat up and crawled toward his weapon.

  Donovan watched him. Klein seemed slow, obviously still dizzy from hitting his head on the tiled deck.

  “Dammit!” the agent screamed as he curled his grip around the handgun and shoved it hard into his jacket. “Where did they run off to, Donny?”

  Pointing in the direction where they’d run, he wondered if Klein would chase after them.

  “Was I out for long?”

  “Maybe a couple of seconds.”

  When Klein shouted again, another federal agent entered the pool area, his weapon drawn. “Agent Klein, you all right?”

  He explained the fall and pointed in the same direction that Donovan had just indicated. “Suspects ran off. Had ’em cornered, too.”

  The other agent nodded. “Leads to another hall, stairwell, and staff area. We’ve got people on all exits, so nobody’s getting out of here. And your guy, Marshall, he’s working through the guest registry with the front desk.”

  Seeing his opportunity, Donovan swiveled on his good foot and produced the room card he’d just lifted off the deck. “When you locate Roger’s room—I mean Anthony Kelly’s room—try this card. Monica dropped it while she was in pursuit.”

  The other agent glanced over at Klein, who shrugged. “Worth a try, right?”

  “There are kids in Kelly’s room,” Donovan said with a stubborn insistence. “It’s where he’s keeping them, and we have to get to them first.”

  Nodding, the other agent took the card and hurried away with it.

  With just Klein there with him, Donovan glanced over. “Everything you touch turns to shit, Donny. And now we’ve got two armed psychopaths running through one of Detroit’s busiest hotels.”

  CHAPTER 46

  As Agent Klein’s hand wrapped around the door handle on their way out of the pool area, Donovan heard a familiar voice. It had become the sound of hope for him these past few weeks. It was Monica’s voice, calm and in control, teetering on the fine line between fraud and absolute honesty.

  “Mr. Glass!”

  Swiveling on the heel of his good foot, Donovan saw Monica with her arm around Roger’s neck. Or was it Carmen with her arm around Anthony’s neck? Regardless of who these people really were, her other hand held a gun to the side of her hostage’s head, a very clear show of who was in control: Monica, 100 percent.

  “I’m sorry for shooting your leg,” Monica said, and her voice cracked a little. Even from this distance, Donovan could see the perspiration on her forehead, and it was the sole fault of the heightened humidity levels in this pool area. Monica’s red face said she’d worked hard to run Roger down and, somehow, by some miracle, disarm him to the point where she had complete dominance over him.

  “Stay back,” Klein whispered, except Donovan wasn’t listening. Like the federal agent next to him, Donovan saw just how volatile the situation was. “I got this.”

  Donovan shook his head. “No, you don’t.”

  “Don’t get any closer,” she warned Klein before pointing her handgun to the ceiling and shooting off a quick round. “It’s a Glock, and I’ve got nine rounds left!”

  After a moment of calculated hesitation, Klein raised both of his hands, allowing her to see his revolver. “All right, Monica, you’re the boss here. All right.” He took another healthy three steps forward, his revolver pointed upward as if to suggest he wouldn’t use it. Still, with the pool between them, he wasn’t exactly about to tackle Monica at that distance.

  “Last warning,” Monica said. “One more step, and we’re done here.”

  Klein nodded.

  The silence seemed to suffocate Donovan. As much as he wished that Klein would take another step so that Monica could bury a bullet in Roger’s head, he wanted to get his own hands on the man she’d called Lucifer. He wanted to strangle him and watch his eyes bulge and his face turn red as he squeezed the last breath of life out of his body.

  Monica was the one who broke the silence. “This isn’t how I planned on things ending tonight,” she said. “But you’ve got people blocking the exits.”

  “That’s right, Monica,” Klein said in the kindest voice Donovan had ever heard from him. “There’s no escaping this mess. That doesn’t mean you’re in trouble, though. It just means we have some questions for you. Maybe help us understand that mass grave site outside the Twilight Creek town limits, for instance.”

  Donovan watched her jam the gun deeper into the side of Roger’s head. “Tell him,” she ordered Roger, her voice hissing out with a sloppy anger.

  “It’s okay, Anthony,” Klein said. “We know who you are. Tell us about the mass graves.”

  Roger licked his lips before curling them into a sinister grin. Donovan had seen the man’s hatred for humanity back in Monica’s hotel room. But here in the pool area, it gave him the chills. For a man whose life rested in the hands of a young woman he’d victimized, he seemed awfully calm.

  Too calm.

  “Mr. Kelly,” Klein said, his voice pleading and his hands still raised, “I’m trying to help here, trying to keep you alive. Tell us about the site in the forest, okay? Because even if I move super quick, I don’t have a good shot from here, and I’m guessing the woman holding a gun to your head isn’t in the mood for games.”

  “But she is,” Roger said, the smirk growing wider and deeper. “This has become her game.”

  “How many?” Monica asked, her voice loud enough to detonate an echo in the pool area. Saliva spewed from her lips, a sign that she was falling apart. “How many of us ended up there over the years?”

  “There were many,” Roger said, the smirk fading. His eyes seemed to narrow. He focused on Donovan. “Including your little sunshine, Mr. Glass.”

  With pain shooting up his leg, Donovan knew he couldn’t do much about the taunting. His eyes burned. “You’re going to die for this,” Donovan said, his jaw locked, his teeth gritting. “You sick motherfu—”

 
; “Stop,” Klein whispered with a firmness that stopped Donovan cold. “We need information.”

  Monica didn’t like the way Roger seemed to be enjoying the moment, so she moved the gun from the side of his head and pressed it to her hostage’s lower back. It happened so quickly that even Klein’s “No!” didn’t happen until midway through the gunshot’s second echo.

  Roger fell to his knees, and Donovan watched a red patch form in the crotch of his pants. Almost as if Monica had premeditated that very moment, she’d managed to shoot him in the crotch from behind. He clearly wasn’t dead, though.

  When Klein raised his own gun and took aim, Monica told him to consider the consequences. “Think about the information you want.”

  “I lied earlier,” Klein said, his voice calm as he tilted his head and stared down the barrel of his handgun. “I can hit a quarter from a hundred yards, Monica.”

  “Yeah, and he’s still alive, Klein,” she said, lowering herself behind Roger for protection. “So shove that gun into its holster, or he won’t be.”

  Klein glanced back at Donovan, who nodded for him to listen to her. There was no mistaking Monica’s resolve after what she’d done to Roger’s crotch. Donovan knew that the federal agent wasn’t an idiot; he didn’t need Donovan’s nod to know that.

  Once Klein nodded and jammed his weapon into his jacket, Donovan watched Monica reach into Roger’s front pockets; the pedophile winced and cried out before turning the pain to his advantage and grinning across the pool at his audience of two. The second pocket she reached into, Monica found what she was looking for.

  Another hotel room key.

  “If you move, I’ll kill him,” she said, waving the room key at Klein. And then she whispered something into Roger’s ear.

  “Two twelve,” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear.

  When Roger licked his lips again, Donovan knew what was coming next. He confirmed his suspicions as Monica’s eyes reached across the pool and latched onto his. They shared a stare that felt like goodbye. Or I’m sorry. Or I wish I didn’t fear this man more than I hate him.