Identity--A Tale of Murder, Mystery and Romance

by H. D. Thomson

  “Stop it!” Skye cried out. “Don’t hurt him. David has nothing to do with me and you. Let him go.”

  “Hell no,” Weaver spewed as the sound of his footsteps retreated. “Shut up, or I’ll pull the hair from your skull.”

  Skye’s cry broke over David’s labored breathing. Oh, God. Weaver was hurting her because he’d goaded the other man. Her whimper sliced at David’s heart and tore at his insides.

  “Take me instead.” David gasped through the pain, twisting his wrists back and forth behind him to pry off his binding but the tape didn’t loosen. What sounded like a glass shattered to David’s left. Grappling for some fraction of calm, he ground his teeth together. He needed to reign in his telekinesis. If he let his control slip, he could inadvertently hurt Skye or Tyler. “If you want your revenge, let them go and use me.”

  “Just who the hell are you?” Disgust thickened Weaver’s voice as he moved back across the room, his step brushing to a stop approximately a foot in front of David’s face. “You’re just as strange as the kid, but with you, it’s breaking things.”

  David tensed. He waited for a kick to his head or gut and smothered the urge to curl his legs into his chest.

  “Do you think your powers are going to save you, Skye or the boy?” Weaver’s voice drew nearer, as if he’d hunched down in front of David. “Are you hoping to be her hero?”

  David blinked into the room’s light. Not even a discerning shadow to latch onto. Weaver must have strategically planted the lights in a way to keep them all victims. And the crazy bastard was enjoying how they were flying around like fish in the desert sun. If David could just use his telekinesis on some object, any object to use as a weapon, he could turn this around.

  “Answer me, damn it!”

  David ground his jaw. He’d learned all too well that verbally lashing out would only hurt Skye again and ruin her and Tyler’s chances. He slumped against the floor. Right now, he didn’t see an immediate way out of this alive. “Hero? No. I’m just someone who cares.”

  “Someone who cares,” Weaver said, his sarcasm grating across David’s nerves. “How touching. Obviously, you haven’t learned caring doesn’t get you anywhere. But you’ll find that out soon enough, and Skye, here, will be the one to show you. Isn’t that right, Skye?”

  David didn’t like the change in Weaver’s voice. His snide tone now held too much confidence, too much arrogance. Almost as if he was gloating over a secret joke.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Skye’s words heavy with anxiety carried across the room.

  “Then how about I explain it to you in simple terms, hmm?” A short pause of silence, pregnant with menace followed.

  The bastard enjoyed enacting this unholy parody in front of a captive audience. But if David had a say, this play wasn’t going into the next act. From behind his back, David dug under his taped wrists. He worked a thumb between his skin and the binding’s sticky underside but stilled at Weaver’s next words.

  “I want you to choose,” the other man ordered, his words laced with unmistakable pleasure. “Who lives and who dies. Your son or...lover. Their life is in your hands.”

  “You’re crazy,” Skye replied in a strangled voice. “I can’t do that.”

  “You’re going to have to,” Weaver returned. “Otherwise I’ll choose for you.”

  “Leave her alone!” David bucked against the floor, hitting the back of his head against a bottom cabinet. He twisted harder at his bindings. His ties didn’t give, didn’t even slacken. Helplessness clawed at his insides. “You’re insane.”

  The lights. If he could just break a bulb.

  “So who is it going to be?”

  Weaver’s question slammed into David. He couldn’t let Skye chose. The guilt would kill her. He didn’t care about dying, not when living would ruin her life and that of her son. He loved her. She had such determination, fierce loyalty to her son. He’d never met anyone like her, and he wouldn’t again. He knew that.

  “Take me,” David growled. “Kill me.”

  “No,” Skye whispered. “Don’t, David. How do we know he’s telling the truth? Please...” She took in a rattling breath.

  “I don’t see any other choice,” David insisted. Tyler was a boy with a full life ahead of him. Just a kid, with years of learning, of discovery, of being. David would never recover if he knew his life depended on the death of not just another person, but Skye’s innocent son.

  “Don’t do this,” Skye insisted, unmistakable panic rising in her voice.

  “I’m not asking you,” Weaver said, a rabid edge to his voice. “I’m telling you. If you don’t choose and soon, I’ll choose for you.”

  “Me. Kill me.” David dug his thumb deeper between his wrist and the tape binding his wrists together. The binding didn’t give. A snarl slipped past his gritted teeth. Next, he twisted and turned his hands, chaffing his flesh until moisture—probably his own blood—clung to his skin. He swung his bound legs out in front of him and then backward in the hope of connecting with a floor lamp, but his feet hit nothing but space. “Damn it. You’re crazy.”

  The sharp edge of a shoe rammed into David’s stomach. He gasped as another cutting kick from Weaver drove into David’s gut. Pain knifed into David’s muscles and beyond. Groaning, he tucked his legs toward his chest. Jesus. Struggling to regain his breath, David fought from blacking out as fog clouded his thoughts. He took in a slow, deep lungful of air and managed to clear his head.

  “Shut up. I’m tired of your mouth.” Weaver took a step back from David, his heel scraping lightly across the tile floor. “Another word and the kid gets it.”

  David bit down on his lip to stop the words of outrage from spilling into the room. There had to be a way to stop Weaver.

  “Decide now, Skye,” Weaver demanded.

  Silence. Then crying. Skye.

  The sound of a cough resounded within the kitchen.

  David flinched. His fingers stilled along the tape around his wrists. At the odd noise, dread squeezed the breath from his lungs.

  “Did you hear that?” His step quick and as if with purpose, Weaver crossed the kitchen floor to the left of the room and where David’s suspected he had Tyler tied. “That’s a gun with a silencer.”

  Another cough. David jerked, stunned, wildly wondering who’d been hit as he opened his good eye. The light, as savage as any knife piercing into his brain, forced his lid shut. Air sawed loudly from David’s lungs. He flipped onto his back. When he didn’t feel a new fissure of pain, he realized if he wasn’t shot...then that would mean—

  “Tyler? David?” Skye asked in a hesitant whisper.

  Pressure squeezed David’s throat, making the words come out as if strangled. “I’m okay.”

  “You bastard!” Skye yelled. “Tyler? Are you there?”

  A smothered response to the left of the room, but a response none-the-less. Still, David didn’t relax. The boy could be bleeding. Jesus.

  Weaver laughed. “Skye you should see your friends face here. What a hero. He doesn’t look like much—other than terrified.” His voice thickened with amusement. “You’re not shot yet. Either is the kid. At least not yet.”

  David fought back his rage, knowing he needed a clear head, because he had to do something. Now. Panic propelled him off the floor and onto his knees.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Weaver asked, his voice rising in disbelief. “Are you that stupid?”

  He was to David’s left. If he could just launch himself at the man and take him down. But if David made a mistake, then they were headed to the morgue. Still, he had to act.

  Metal slammed into David’s face. The force flung his head to the side. He reeled backward, almost lost his balance from the blow but some miracle kept him on his knees.

  David opened his good eye, saw a shadow. Weaver. Right in front of him.

  It was enough.

  David launched himself at the other man. His shoulder rammed in
to flesh and bone.

  It wasn’t enough.

  The gun went off again. This time the bullet didn’t hit the air. There was no mistake this time. The bullet entered flesh. His flesh.

  Chapter 29

  Skye heard the cough of the gun. A sigh, then groan. Her pulse drummed against her temples. Bile rose in her throat as she opened her eyes. The light had faded. Discernible shadows. Two forms. One standing, the other on their knees. Then another shadow off to the side. A smaller form. Ty. Oh, God. It had to be her son bound in a chair.

  Hurt? Alive?

  When she heard a soft whimper from her son to the left of the men, Skye struggled with renewed vigor. If David could keep Weaver occupied for just a bit longer... From beneath her, the chair tipped, hit the leg of the kitchen table to her left, but righted itself. The light around her wavered, then flared. A lamp. There had to be one on the table. Squinting, she made out what looked like the base of a lamp on top of a large, round table. Jaw clamped with raw determination, she twisted in her chair and jerked all her weight to her left in hopes of overbalancing the lamp and breaking the bulb. Once, twice. Light bounced. Again—this time with more weight behind her—she collided harder against the table. Metal clanged against wood. A blinding flash. The sound of shattered glass rained across the table’s top.

  The shrill ring of a telephone broke into the room and over the noise of both men struggling. Skye jumped, her gaze skating off the table as the sound of a siren’s cry broke through the night and into the fractured chaos of the kitchen. A man towered over another as he swung back a hand. The drops still distorted her vision and masked his identity.

  The phone stopped ringing, but the blare of the siren strengthened.

  Skye struggled to move her ankles. The tape dug into her jeans and kept her legs firmly bound to the chair. Frustration gnawed at her insides as she gritted her teeth. Help was still too far away. Someone would be dead before the police arrived.

  Flesh connected against flesh. A grunt erupted into the room. A shoe scraped across the floor.

  “David?” she called out, despair thickening her voice. “David?”

  No answer. Tears slipped down her cheeks. The phone started to ring again. If she could just find the blasted thing and distinguish it from the other shapes, she could use her telekinesis to answer it.

  Skye glanced back to the table. The sharp glare from the kitchen’s one remaining light from the ceiling bounced off three knives and slashed across her vision. All neatly lined up to torture and maim. Shivering from the sweat coating her nape and underarms, she blinked, squinted. A butcher’s block, inches beyond the knives on the table.

  She whipped her gaze back to the two shadows. One standing. Thinner with shaggy hair. He had to be Weaver. Ignoring the urge to hesitate, she zeroed in the butcher’s block and willed all her mental energy on the knives’ holder. She latched onto the block with her mind and flung it physically through the air. The sickening sound of wood against flesh carried across the room.

  A cry. The man standing went down. The phone stopped ringing. The siren died. Complete silence.

  Oh, God. They were both on the ground. Maybe she’d hit David by accident. Frantic, she fastened her gaze on the knives, pulled one from the table with her telekinesis. She used her power to saw through the bindings above her hands with the blade, nicking her flesh in her hurry. She broke her wrists apart and yanked the tape’s remains from her body. She caught the knife in mid-air with one hand and sliced through the bindings around her ankles. Still holding the weapon, she sprang from the chair toward Tyler. When she reached her son, she crashed to her knees, quickly cut through the tape binding him to the chair and dropped the blade. With hands like frenzied hummingbirds, she searched her son’s body.

  “Are you okay?” No wounds. But he still might have internal injuries.

  At his nod, a new wave of trembling rolled through her body, keeping her knees locked to the ground. The relief was mind-numbing. She shivered and struggled to peel the corner of tape covering Tyler’s mouth but failed.

  Okay. She needed control. Now. Jaw tensing, she focused and managed to calm the quaking in her fingers long enough to ease the tape from Tyler’s mouth. When he dove against her chest and his arms, thin, fragile and young, wrapped around her neck, she shuddered in relief. She slipped a palm over the soft cap of his head. His silken strands teased her fingers.

  “Oh, Mom...” He snuggled deeper in her arms and hiccupped twice. “He said you were dead. He made me think—”

  “Shhh...it’s okay. Everything’s okay now.” Skye squeezed her eyes shut. But they’d never be the same again.

  “Is he dead?” Tyler snuffled by her ear.

  Tension clamped across the muscles of her back. She shifted on her knees and stared at Peter sprawled across the tile on his back. Motionless. Eyes shut to the world. But was he dead? The effects of the drops in her eyes lingered, making it still difficult to see clearly.

  Then she saw David’s prone body to the left of Peter. Oh, God. He lay on his side and to the left of Tyler’s kidnapper. Tape bound his wrists and ankles together.

  “Let me see if he’s okay. Just stay here,” she urged, but Tyler’s arms wrapped tighter around her neck. “I’m not leaving the room. You’ll be fine, but I’ve got to check on David. Peter doesn’t look he’s going to hurt anyone for a long time.”

  She stared at Tyler’s large brown eyes, waited a moment, then unwound his thin arms from her body. When he didn’t latch onto her again, she grabbed the knife by her knee and crawled toward David’s body, while watching Weaver’s motionless form.

  When she reached David’s side, she wanted to cry again. His face. His dear, beautiful face. Congealed blood clung to a wound at his temple. Oh, God. His left eye was swollen shut with the surrounding skin bruised and scraped. A cut scored a path along the corner of his mouth. She bit down hard on her lip and blinked several times. Tears weren’t going to help David. She glided a hand over his jaw, the prickle of beard scraping across her palm.

  David jerked back. His good eye flashed open. He winced. For a moment, he stared at her as if unsure of her or his surroundings. Then he blinked a couple of times, glanced over at Peter to his right and appeared to relax. “What the hell happened?”

  She followed David’s gaze. Peter’s chest rose and fell. Uneasiness scraped across her senses. Tyler’s kidnapper still remained a threat. “I hit him with a butcher’s block.”

  He smiled and winced again. “I always knew you were resourceful.” He leaned away from the cabinets and nudged his thigh against her knees. “Here. Cut me out of this before he comes to.”

  Skye sliced through the bindings at his ankles, but when he twisted around so she could get at his wrists, she sucked in her breath. Sweat and blood coated the gray duct tape and clung to the creases and the skin on each side of his bindings. He’d rubbed his flesh raw. This time, she cut through the tape with gentle strokes until the strips gave.

  She sank back on her heels and noticed his dark gray polo shirt for the first time. A stain ate into the fabric by his waist. In a loud hiss, air rushed into her lungs. Nausea curdled inside her stomach. “You’ve been shot.”

  He glanced down to his side and eased the shirt up over his waist, exposing a wound to his left side. The bullet had grazed his skin. Several inches inward and it might have hit a vital organ.

  David touched the edge of the wound. “He just nicked me. I’ll be okay. Believe me, I’d be dead if he’d wanted me that way.”

  Skye’s lips firmed. He didn’t look okay. His bruised face, wrists rubbed raw and torn skin at his waist spoke of pain, and sacrifice.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” David insisted in a fervent whisper. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be damned if a couple of scratches are going to keep me away from you.”

  David caught her upper arm and tugged her toward him until her lips whispered across his own. She closed her eyes and took in his scent. Earthy, male, and pure
David. She dragged in a ragged breath. With a distinct tremor in his fingers, he cupped her chin and touched his lips to hers in a soft, tender kiss. A kiss that left her shattered as she eased back on her heels.

  He stared at her with intense brown eyes. “I thought I’d lost you. I swear to God. I don’t know what I would have done without you or Tyler—”

  “It’s okay.” She kissed his mouth, lingering on the full sweep of his bottom lip. God, how she loved him. Because of her, David might have ended up dead by risking his life to save Tyler.

  Pounding against the front door resounded into the kitchen. “Police. Open the door. Now.”

  Skye wrapped an arm around Tyler who had shifted up behind her as the lights from a squad car flashed through the sides of the closed kitchen blinds that Tyler’s kidnapper must have closed previously. With eyes almost restored to normal, she stared at Peter lying on the floor. His breathing carried across the distance. He was alive. And soon in police custody. She glanced back at David. “See? It is okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  But the next couple of hours didn’t feel ‘okay.’ She’d avoided the kitchen and moved into what looked like a game room to shield Tyler. They hadn’t watched the police handcuff and take away Peter or wheel Ferguson out in a body bag. Tyler didn’t need additional trauma. He’d been through too much for a boy of nine, and Skye honestly couldn’t stomach facing Peter or a dead body right now.

  David stepped into the room. A uniformed policeman with a wave of thick gray hair and jowls rivaling a boxer’s followed him. The bruising and swelling around David’s left eye were more pronounced than ever, magnifying their ordeal of only hours before. Paramedics had already looked at his wounds, and the gunshot to his side had actually turned out to be superficial like David had insisted. Thank God.

  “Can we leave now?” Skye asked the officer as she sat on a low, slung leather sofa with Tyler snuggled up against her. A lamp on the end table to her right cast the room in muted light. Still, her eyes had adjusted, the drops having lost their effects a good thirty minutes earlier.