We tossed the body into the water, and I begged whatever higher power was out there for forgiveness. I prayed for the old man’s soul and for his family, who he’d been thinking about up to the end. What were his last thoughts just before the bullet tore through his head, I wondered. Did life really flash before our eyes in that last instant, the way it was supposed to? What would mine look like when my time came?
“Come on. We have more to do.” More? I bit back a hopeless sob as, with his gun trained on me, Smythe led me into the pier. If only I knew Lizzie was in there for sure. I could’ve disarmed him and killed him myself in the blink of an eye. I had to think the way he thought, instead of the way I had been trained to for so long. If I killed him, it might have meant saving the old man’s life—but I could’ve been sacrificing Lizzie’s.
The inside of the huge, cavernous building was no warmer than the outside. If anything, it was colder. Sunlight made its way through several broken patches in the roof, high about my head, but for the most part the entire interior was bathed in darkness. There was no chance for it to get warm in there. I shivered uncontrollably and wondered in the back of my mind if it was the temperature or shock making me so cold. I bit the inside of my mouth to bring myself back to my senses—no way could I afford the luxury of giving in to my feelings just then.
“Where is she?” I didn’t think that was a crazy question by then.
“Patience,” he whispered. He was loving it, starring in his own show, making us all dance on the strings he held. Excitement seemed to leak out of his pores. It smelled sour, enough to make my nose wrinkle. Or maybe that was the smell of the river. There was a dead man there in the water. I had helped put him there. I hoped I would be forgiven for that.
The gun pressed into my lower back. “Keep moving,” he snarled. I picked up the pace, then.
There was garbage everywhere, both old and new. The newer stuff was easy enough to recognize—cigarette packs, plastic bottles, that sort of thing. Older than that were the wooden crates stacked everywhere. They were empty, hanging open in some cases. They created a maze, almost, one which my captor had obviously walked through many times. He ordered me to turn right, left, on and on, not even thinking about it. I wondered vaguely if he was only playing a game with me, leading me around until I got dizzy and lost my mind with fear and anxiety for Lizzie. All the while, I kept wondering if she was even there.
Then, a noise. The slightest little noise, but too loud to be a rat or some other vermin. Shuffling. It was enough to keep me moving. Moments later, we arrived at a sort of clearing almost dead smack in the center of the building. The crates were stacked in a circle around an area maybe fifteen feet across. In the center, there was a trash barrel with a fire inside. Not much heat came from it, but it was better than nothing. There was a makeshift bed on the floor—almost instantly, my eyes fell on the metal plate attached to the floor nearby. A plate with a ring, and on that ring was a heavy chain. That chain extended across the floor and beneath a blanket.
Something stirred the way it had stirred before. I heard that familiar shuffling sound as blankets moved around on the floor. A pair of eyes met mine—haunted eyes, eyes that looked far older than the face they were in. I recognized them almost immediately. They were Pax’s eyes, in the face of a little girl.
“Lizzie,” I breathed. I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, scream, or run to her. Maybe all at once.
“See? I didn’t do anything to hurt her. Did I, sweetheart?” She cringed when he spoke to her. So did I.
There was a choice to be made. I could kill him right there—he wasn’t very big and couldn’t be very strong. His brain was his weapon, not the gun in his hand. Sure, he might take a shot at me, but I could withstand that if it wasn’t in my head or a vital organ. I could kill him or at least disarm him and that would be that. I could get Lizzie out of there.
But he might shoot her. And I didn’t want her to see what I would do to him—she had already seen enough. There had to be a way to get rid of him when she wasn’t looking, the way she was then. Those big, haunted eyes of hers. She had watched her mother die, hadn’t she? I couldn’t bear the thought of making her watch even more death.
When I took a step toward her, he didn’t stop me. So I took another, then another, until I was sinking down by her side on the little nest of blankets he’d set up for her.
“My name is Christa. You’re Lizzie. Is that right?”
She only stared at me with a vacant, traumatized look in her eyes. That bastard. What had he done to her? Would she ever be a normal little girl again?
“I didn’t touch her,” he said. “You can check for yourself.”
“I’ll take your word,” I muttered through clenched teeth. He was disgusting. My stomach turned at the sound of his voice.
“I thought the two of you should be together now,” he said. “I always had the feeling you and I would meet, Christa. Now, the real fun can begin.”
Chapter Eighteen – Christa
“What do you mean, the real fun?” I wanted nothing more than to wrap Lizzie in my arms and hold her close and reassure her everything would be all right. Then, I would get her out of there. She would never, ever have to go back. I would see to that—and so would her father, who I was sure would never let her out of his sight again. That would’ve been okay, too, if the poor thing didn’t flinch when I so much as moved. I kept my distance for the time being and focused my attention on him.
His smile as he lowered himself onto an overturned crate was nauseating. “See, now that I have you too, my good friend Paxton is going to really lose his cool.” At the mention of her father’s name, Lizzie flinched. I could just make her out in the corner of my eye. She was in there, somewhere, way down deep in her psyche. The poor thing was far away, far from what was happening to her, in a little world of her own. But she could still hear and process. I didn’t want to imagine the things he must’ve already said to her. He had a whole week to get inside that beautiful little head of hers and mix things up. Torture would be too good for that fucker.
“So, what? You plan on watching him have a nervous breakdown? Is that what this is all about?”
“Something like that,” he winked. “But that’s not the end game. Not the breakdown.”
“What, then?”
“The part that comes after the breakdown.” He put the gun to his head and I wished he would pull the trigger. Instead, he said, “Boom,” and pantomimed falling to the side, tongue hanging out of his mouth. I winced at his crudeness and cruelty. Lizzie let out a small whimper. That bastard—she had watched two people die just that way, but he didn’t think twice about reminding her of it. He wanted to, I realized. He loved tearing her apart. An innocent little girl.
“Why are you doing all this? I mean, why go to all this trouble? You got out of prison. You have your whole life ahead of you. You’re, what, thirty-five? A young man.”
His high, thin laughter filled the space and echoed through the emptiness. “Is that what you think? Or just what you feel like you should say? Because you know as well as I do that I don’t have a life ahead of me. I have nothing ahead of me.”
“Because of what you did,” I whispered.
“Because of what he did to me,” he spat, shaking head to toe. His face turned red. Lizzie whimpered again—how many times had he flown into a rage while she watched?
“What? Arresting you?” I told myself I probably shouldn’t antagonize him, but I couldn’t help myself. The gall of him, blaming Pax or anybody for what happened. “You kidnapped that little girl. He arrested you for it. I don’t understand what you think he did.”
“You just said it yourself,” he pointed out.
“Making sure you paid for a crime you committed? Don’t you see how bogus your logic is?”
“You wanna see bogus?” He stood, aiming the gun at Lizzie’s head with a flourish. She cringed, and I threw my arms around her whether she wanted me to or not. I did what I could to shield
her from him while she trembled.
He only laughed. “Keep pushing me, bitch. You’ll see what I’m capable of.”
“I’ve already seen what you’re capable of,” I said, my voice trembling with rage.
“Oh, you haven’t seen anything. But you will—especially if you don’t keep your damn mouth shut.”
“I was only trying to understand.”
“Understand this, bitch: I’m gonna make sure that son of a bitch never has another happy moment in his life. Do you get it? Not another happy moment, because I sure as hell will never have another one. Why should he get everything?” He sat and relaxed his arm. The gun pointed to the floor. I breathed a soft sigh of relief but still held Lizzie close, if only to keep her warm.
“You could still have done something with your life,” I reminded him.
“You’ve never been in prison, have you? You don’t know what it’s like in there.”
I shook my head. “No, I haven’t.” It was a struggle, keeping my voice low and calm, but I managed it. There had to be a way for Pax and Ricardo to find me. We must’ve left a trail. I would keep talking forever if it meant I was buying us more time.
His eyes took on a faraway look. “It was hell,” he muttered darkly. “You know what they do to guys accused of molesting little girls?” Lizzie trembled again, head to toe. I tightened my grip on her and made a shushing sound under my breath in the hope that it would calm her.
“I can’t imagine,” I admitted.
“No. I bet you can’t. I was a toy, passed around for the amusement of the guys on my block. You name it, they did it to me.” His voice was shaking. I wasn’t sure if he would cry or scream—either way, all that emotion was right at the surface, ready to bubble over.
“Everyone knows that’s how men who hurt children are treated inside,” I whispered. I shouldn’t have come as a surprise to him.
“I didn’t deserve to be there.”
“Why not? You kidnapped the girl, you held her captive. You did things to her.” I wished I could shield Lizzie from all of it, feeling the way she tensed in my arms at my suggestion.
“Lies. It was all a bunch of lies!” He jumped up, screaming, kicking at the crates, flying into the rage I was so sure was waiting under the surface. I shielded Lizzie’s face and head.
“It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. It’ll pass. Shh…” I rocked her back and forth, wishing there was some way I could make it all end without traumatizing her even more. I didn’t know what to do.
When he calmed down, which seemed to take forever, he turned to me with a nasty smirk. “Just wait and see what I do to him after what he did to me. Those two pieces of shit in that car will look like nothing in comparison.”
“What are you going to do?” I whispered, feeling cold inside.
“You’ll see. Or maybe you won’t.” He scratched the side of his head with the gun’s muzzle. “I don’t know yet. You’re sort of a variable I hadn’t planned on.”
“No? I thought you always planned everything in advance.” So I was throwing him off. Good. Maybe I was the one gust of wind that would bring the whole thing down.
“There’s no accounting for the human element, you know.” He smiled like we were friends. Where was his mind? What was going on in it? Not like I wanted to know—looking into the eyes of insanity was enough without knowing how his brain worked. “Whenever you’re doing this sort of work, there’s always a chance somebody will do something unexpected. I mean, it wasn’t like I didn’t expect you to follow me eventually. But I wanted it to be on my terms, when I lured you in. There I was, just waiting to order lunch before coming back here, and you stepped in and turned the whole thing upside down.”
“Gee. I’m sorry about that.”
He laughed. “No, you aren’t. You should see the look on your face right now. You want to kill me, don’t you?”
“Honestly? Yeah. In a big way.”
He nodded slowly. “The feeling is mutual.” He sounded like a hissing snake, or maybe that was my brain playing tricks on me. I saw him as a snake, so I heard him as one. Either way, it was unnerving.
“What are you going to do, now that I’m a part of this?”
Somehow, his smile was even more unnerving. “Oh, I had always planned on you being part of it, eventually. Just not right yet. That’s okay—I can speed things up, take us into the end game a little sooner than originally anticipated. No big whoop.”
When he took a step closer to me, I cringed against my better judgment. I didn’t want him to know how much he frightened me, but I didn’t want him anywhere near me, either. I couldn’t help the way he made my skin crawl. And it wasn’t like he was coming over to give me a hug—not that I would want one from him, anyway.
“Don’t freak out,” he spat, rolling his eyes. “I’m not gonna hurt you. Jeez.” From under the blankets came the rest of the chain attached to that plate in the floor. It didn’t end at Lizzie’s ankle but instead kept going another few feet.
“You’re going to chain me up here?”
He nodded as he crouched down beside me. “And if you make one false move right now, so help me God, I’ll blow her fucking brains out. You know I’m capable of it. To hell with my plans, if that’s what it comes down to. Just try me, bitch.” His face was far too close already, but he moved in just a little closer. “We’ll see what happens when you have to live the rest of your life knowing you got that little girl killed.”
My stomach turned. I fought back the urge to spit in his face. “Okay. I’ll stay still.”
“Yeah. I thought you would.” He chuckled nastily as he looped the chain around my ankle, then hooked a padlock through two links to close it. “Hey, look at it this way: here’s your chance to get to know Pax’s daughter. I’m sure the two of you will have lots to talk about.” He stood, still chuckling at his joke, then turned to go.
“Where are you going?” There was fear in my voice, and with good reason. It was cold in there and getting colder all the time. We had no food. I didn’t even know if there was a place to relieve myself if I needed to.
“You’ll see. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.” He winked at me, then left us alone. Only when his footsteps faded to silence did Lizzie relax in my arms.
What was I supposed to do?
Chapter Nineteen – Pax
The entire active team gathered at headquarters. I had called Lydia and told her to bring them to the office and send out the second stringers for the time being, but hadn’t told her yet why I was doing it. She would be a wreck when she found out. They all would, in their own way.
What the fuck was I thinking, sending her off the way I did? And why did it never occur to me that Smythe would know who she was? He knew who Suzanne and Denny were, didn’t he? He had done his homework.
“Don’t blame yourself for this. Don’t you dare.” Ricardo’s face was blank, stony, as we rode in the back seat while some rookie cop drove us to agency headquarters.
“Who else am I supposed to blame?”
“Him. He’s the one doing this. Not you.”
“If you leave a loaded gun lying around and a kid picks it up and fires it and kills himself or somebody else, do you blame the kid? Or do you blame the person who left the gun where he could get his hands on it?”
He frowned. “The analogy doesn’t quite work out.”
“Sure it does. I left her unprotected. I know his nature. I know the way he thinks. He wants to bring me down so far, I never get back up. God, I know this. And yet I left her right there, ripe for the picking. I was so stupid.”
“He couldn’t have known Christa means anything to you.”
“Fine, but he had to know somebody in the agency would care enough about me to go after him personally. It just happened to be her.” Probably because I had just chewed her out and pretty much pushed her away from me. She must’ve wanted to prove herself. She’d wanted to end my suffering. Instead, it was doubled.
“We’re gonna
find him. He made a mistake, taking that cab.”
“Has anyone gotten in touch with the driver?”
He shook his head, and his eyes were sad and tired. “I don’t think the guy made it,” he admitted.
“You’re probably right.”
“But there’s LoJack in those cars.”
“Shut the hell up!” I almost went through the roof of the Crown Vic as it sped over the bridge. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope. All we need is to track it, and we’ll be that much closer.”
“If he hasn’t already wrecked it or left it someplace else.”
“Even so, we’ll be able to find it wherever it is.”
“I hope so.” And I hoped he wasn’t getting a little too far ahead of himself. There was only so much good luck we could have—still, we were due a little good luck, weren’t we? My daughter was due, too. Overdue.
The parking lot was full when we arrived, telling me we were the last to show up. Good. I didn’t feel like waiting for any latecomers, and I wasn’t about to repeat myself. I strode in with Ricardo on my heels to find the group already gathered in the conference room. Ricardo stood beside me at the head of the table. “Thanks for dropping everything and coming in like this,” I started, and realized I was at a loss for what to say next. How was I supposed to explain what was happening?
“Are we all here?” Spencer asked, looking around.
Dylan shook his head. “Christa’s not. Do you wanna wait for her?” All eyes fell on me.
“No. In fact, she’s the reason I called you all here.” I didn’t know what to say. It was like I lost the ability to think clearly. I turned to Ricardo for help, feeling for all the world like I was drowning.
He cleared his throat. “We have reason to believe Christa has now been kidnapped by Jonathon Smythe.”
The uproar was deafening. I held up my hands, asking them to quiet down even though it warmed my heart in a way to see how much they all cared about her. She thought they had forgotten her after she went off active duty, but nothing could’ve been further from the truth. If anything, they thought of her as the sister they all needed to protect. And I saw murder in each and every one of their eyes.
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