I do know I love her.
I do know that I hate her in ways I can’t explain.
Ha!
I’m a poet.
Finally, the fucking door is open and I step out into a huge cavern of a building that smells like last week’s Chinese left overs. To my left an oversized garage door rumbles to life, the door sliding up into the ceiling.
A black van drives in. She’s here! My heart rate begins to sprint.
Chapter 15 - Ken
As my truck pulls away from the curb on the back of the flatbed, for the first time I realize I’m stranded. I figured one of the guys would give me a ride back to the station, but they’re still working the case, interviewing possible witnesses, or have been called away for another assignment.
The huge number of grocery bags are at my feet; the ice cream must be liquid sugar in the carton. I’ll buy more tomorrow, pay for it out-of-pocket if I have to. The beef stew meat is probably ruined too.
I realize I’m focusing my attention on the groceries because it’s the only thing that makes sense right now. Why did Jerome order this hit on me? It must have been him because of the connection with the bomb threat. This wasn’t random, but well thought out.
I pull my phone out of my pocket to call Steph and check on her. Damn. The battery’s dead. How the hell did that happen? It was half full just an hour ago. Freakin’ disposable. I look around to see who has a phone I could bum.
Just then, Ellen Grimes and Bill Ramsen, the feds on the case, pull up in front of me. I stick out a thumb like a hitchhiker. Grimes smirks and opens the door. “Lucky day for you, seems we’re going in the same direction.”
“Never thought these words would leave my mouth, but I’m glad to see you two. I’m stranded. My phone’s dead. Could use a little help right about now.”
“Hear you’ve had a bad day,” Ramsen says as he walks around his car.
“Could have been worse,” I say.
“Heard that too. Damn lucky you had your partner with you and he was carrying.”
“Damn straight. I hope you all don’t give him hell; everything he did was in self-defense.”
“No,” Grimes shakes her head. “He’ll be fine. His permit was legit and we have a dozen witnesses who confirm the shooting was necessary.”
“I owe him my life,” I told her.
Grimes smiles. “I’m sure in your line of work you’ll be paying him back soon enough. In the meantime, take him out for a nice steak dinner.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that.”
Ramsen got down to business. “We need to sit down, talk through a few things, see if we can piece all of this together.”
I look around. One man is mowing his lawn. A couple of kids are playing hoops in their driveway. Life has gone on in this quiet neighborhood that had been disrupted just a little while ago.
“Yeah. Let’s sit down. But can we do it at the station?”
Grimes’ lips curve up a little. “Sure. Let’s get you loaded up.”
“Before we do, can you try calling Steph for me? I’m worried about her. Be nice to check in.”
Grimes pulls out her phone while Ramsen and I load everything into the back of his Suburban. “Voice mail,” Grimes says. A second later, she leaves a message: “Stephanie, this is Agent Grimes. Please call me back at this number as quickly as possible. You’ll need to use the encryption sequence we showed you.”
We all climb into the car. Maybe she’s in the shower, or taking a nap. I open my mouth to ask Grimes to call again. Reading my mind, Grimes picks up the phone and hits re-dial. This time I can hear Steph’s voice: ‘Hi, thanks for calling, you’ve…’ Grimes hangs up.
“We’ll give her ten minutes and try again. If she doesn’t answer, I’ll have the agents on duty check in on her.” She turns in the seat to look back at me. “Sound good?”
I want to tell her to do that now, but she’s probably right. Ten minutes. I can do that. I lift my chin in a half nod.
Back at the station, the guys unload everything while I run into the bathroom to hit a sixty second shower and change clothes. My shirt is drenched and I smell like a rotting hippo. I hit the high spots and am in the captain’s office in two minutes flat. I stick my phone on a charger, willing it to juice up to see if Steph has tried to call.
There, I find the agents and the captain huddled around his computer. “Ken, come on in,” Captain Frank says. “We’re watching the street camera out front, reviewing the shooting that took place here.” He gives me a hard look, a ‘we’ll talk about all this later’ look. He’s going to give me hell for going after the car. I don’t blame him. In hindsight, it was pretty crazy. But as I stand there watching myself roll across the driveway to avoid the blast that breaks through the concrete, I know I’d do it again.
“Has Steph called back?”
Grimes looks at her phone and shakes her head.
“Can you go ahead and call?” My unease is growing by the second.
“Sure.” She pulls out her phone and then shakes her head. She punches in more numbers, waits and says, “Jerry, it’s Ellen. I need you to check on Miss Vonnegut please.” She listens. “Already done that, she isn’t answering.” Pause. “Yeah. Call me back. Thanks.” Pause. “Yeah. Now.”
I stand and pace the room, unable to continue the torture of sitting still. “Do you all have any idea who those guys were?”
Ramsen shakes his head. “Not yet. The Impala was stolen, plates stripped off. The phone was a burner. No ID on the dead guy or the one in custody. So far the one we tagged isn’t talking.”
“Can I have a word with him? Alone?” I ask, loving the idea of getting my hands on the fucker.
The captain steps in. “You need to focus on keeping your ass out of trouble or I’ll be having a word with you. Alone.”
I owe the cap an apology. “I screwed up back there, Cap. Sorry about that. I just couldn’t let them get away.”
“Truth be told, I’d have done the same thing. But you gotta think before you act, son. You damn near got yourself and Gage killed.”
I wish he was yelling at me, kicking chairs and throwing things. The gentle tone is as sharp as a knife, cutting through my consciousness.
“I know. I’m sorry. It’s just…”
“I know what it just was,” he interrupts me. “It was just stupid, which I guess is how you’ve been trained. You run into burning buildings when everyone else is running away. It’s instinct by now to charge into the action. As a department, we need to do a better job of helping you guys see the difference between being foolish and being brave.”
I snort, remembering the kid. “I said something similar not an hour ago to the kid who videoed everything. I told him that courage and stupidity were kissing cousins, or something like that.”
The captain scoffed. “Hope he does a better job of listening to you than you have listening to me.”
“I…” I’m interrupted by the ringing of a phone.
“Grimes,” the agent answers, short and to the point.
Pause. She stands up from her chair, every muscle in her body on high alert.
“What do you mean she’s not there?”
Pause.
Dread burrows in my gut. Grimes turns, not looking at me. The door opens and Gage walks in, takes one look at me and mouths, “Now what?”
I don’t have words or time enough to say them if I did. Grimes says, “We’re on our way. Knock on the neighbors’ doors. See if anyone has seen anything.”
I grab Gage’s arm and pull him toward the door. “What’s going on?” he asks, allowing himself to be pulled.
“Stephanie’s missing.”
“Fuck.”
“Fuck is right. Drive me over there, will ya?”
Gage puts his hands on my shoulders and I try to shake him off. “Man, my truck is still in the shop. I have no wheels, remember?”
Agents Grimes and Ramsen are past us, racing down the hallway.
Captain Frank is right beh
ind them. He stops, looks back and says. “Need a ride? You better move your ass.” He doesn’t have to ask twice; Gage and I are right behind him.
In the back of Frank’s truck, I hear Gage say, “Damn.”
I turn to look and he’s holding his phone to his ear. He hangs up and curses again. “Can’t get hold of Beth. Straight to voice mail again.”
This can’t be happening. We thought the girls were safe. Stephanie protected and Beth not a target.
I press the heels of my hands into my eyes, willing the nightmare to be over. Maybe the agents are wrong; Stephanie is a deep sleeper. Bombs could go off right beside her and she’d never even flinch. She’s only taking a nap. That’s it.
Cap turns sharply into my apartment complex and pulls his truck into the fire lane. I’m out before he can slam it into park. Gage is right behind me.
I fly up the steps and my front door is wide open, agents streaming in and out. I burst in and immediately see the back door is open too. I point at it. “Was it like that when you all got in?”
An agent I don’t know shakes his head. “It was shut, but unlocked.”
I find Grimes and take her over to the door. “The door was secure. I had two locks and a chain, and we’d shoved a chair under the handle.” I look around and point. “That one.”
“Ken, there’s no forced entry. It looks like Stephanie opened this door herself.”
That was already the conclusion I was coming to myself. It hurt to hear it out loud. Why would she do that?
“Ken, is there anything else missing?”
I look around—all my electronics are here; nothing seems to be out of place. I search for Steph’s purse and find it in the bathroom. It’s sitting open. Her wallet. ID. Money. Credit card; everything is there but her phone. I correct myself; both phones are missing.
I search every room, looking under the bed and furniture to make sure the phones are really gone. Grimes asks, “What are you looking for?”
“Her phones. The disposable and the one you gave her. Her purse is in the bathroom. Driver’s license, wallet, everything is there.”
I turn as I hear an officer call out, “Beth Richards’ car was found at the Jones Market on Pecos. They’re interviewing the store clerks now.”
Gage sinks into a chair and drops his head into his hands. He lifts it and yells, “I thought she was safe. You fuckers said she was safe.”
Someone put a hand on his shoulder, but Gage shook him off.
Calm. Control. Focus. Think.
I replay those words in my head. Stephanie and Beth are missing. I walk in the kitchen to look at the door again and, for the first time, realize there are smells coming from the stove. I walk over and lift a lid; she had been making Mexican rice. Knowing it makes everything so much more horrible. She was doing normal things; being a normal human being one minute. The next minute she’s gone.
I pick up another lid and drop it quickly. The pan is fiery hot. I turn to Grimes. “Was the stove on? This is still hot.”
Grimes steps into the other room and is back in a few seconds. “Yeah. The agent turned it off. Contents are burned. Luckily it was on low or you could have lost your place.”
Yeah. Lucky me.
I look around the room again, at the chair she’d taken out from under the door handle. I sit down on it.
A flare of hope. “She has the encrypted phone with her. Have you tried tracing it? It’s tagged isn’t it?”
Grimes pulls up a chair and sits across from me, our knees nearly touching.
“Yeah. We tried it. Don’t know how, but it’s gone offline.”
It was my turn to drop my head in my hands.
Chapter 16 - Steph
My teeth chatter as I’m pulled from the van. When I asked the men to turn down the air, they’d ignored me. Now I’m so cold I feel stiff. It’s painful. Is that a strategy to keep people tame? It’s pretty effective.
Rough hands grab my shoulders and push me forward; I nearly stagger and fall to my knees. The other man yanks me backwards and I stay on my feet. I ping pong between the two of them.
How did I ever think I could rescue Beth? I was so stupid. I’ve only made things worse. If there was a silver platter, I’d go lie down on it and stick an apple in my mouth. That’s exactly how I have served myself up.
Stephanie on a silver platter. Har de har har. My gullibility pisses me off.
I push back against the hands forcing me forward and fingers dig painfully into my collarbone. As I’m shoved around the front of the van, I see him walking toward me. His smile is broad and his arms are outstretched. Welcoming.
“You made it! So glad you didn’t get lost.”
“Where’s Beth?” I ask, looking him in the eye.
He slaps me. Hard across the face. The force sends me backwards, into the two men standing behind me. One of them chuckles.
“Now see what you’ve done?” Jerome sighs. “Have your manners deserted you along with your good sense?” He shakes his head. “It happened to your little friend too. She needed a little etiquette lesson as well.”
My ear rings and my face burns, but I realize my mistake. I confronted him in front of these men. I tested his masculinity. I should have known better.
“I’m sorry. I’m just scared. Please forgive me.” I plead, desperate. I lower my head, but meet his eyes through my lashes, hoping for some small connection.
“Mmm…” he strokes a finger down the cheek still singing with pain. He lifts my chin. I cross my hands in front of my stomach and lower my eyes. This is how he always wanted me. Submissive.
Apparently he approves because he says, “Better.”
Turning his attention to the men behind me, Jerome waves his fingers at them, dismissing them as casually as he would brush away a fly. They don’t like it. They don’t like him. Can I leverage that? Or would it make things worse? I don’t trust my judgement. I don’t know what to do.
I want to save Beth. She deserves so much better than this. But Jerome hates her; he’s told me that often enough. Hates her independence and for speaking her mind. I can live through what’s about to happen to me, but Beth will struggle. She’ll fight and be beaten into submission. When she finally breaks… I shudder, unable to bear the thought of it. I remember the goon’s words just before he pulled the trigger that ended his life… there are things worse than death.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask him quietly, still meek in front of him, my voice barely above a whisper.
“Cold. Hard. Cash. I didn’t realize sex could be so lucrative. Besides, you seem to like fucking” he growls out the word “so much recently that this job seems right up your alley.”
Bastard.
He grabs my arm and pulls me behind him, walking us to a concrete wall. I look around, wondering what is happening. He moves aside a little panel that I didn’t even notice was there. He taps in some numbers—I catch 9723. There was another one, but I missed it.
To my amazement, the entire wall begins to shift. Very slowly, but it grinds its way open. Beyond it is a staircase heading down into hell. A red light filtering up from the bottom gives it a hellish appearance.
“Please don’t do this,” I beg.
“Why not?” he says as he drags me through the open door. He turns and punches in the code again. I watch more carefully this time—97234. I commit it to memory, giving me one thing to hold on to.
“It’s wrong.”
“Only for you.”
He drags me down the concrete steps and a huge hallway opens up at the bottom. He pushes me down it.
“Steph!”
Oh my god. It’s Beth, her hands reaching through the bars she’s been caged in. I break away from Jerome and run to her, clinging to her through the bars.
“Are you hurt?” I ask, stroking the bruise on the side of her face.
“I’m okay.”
“I’m so sorry.” I crumble then, unable to say more.
“I love you, Steph,” she says and
strokes my tears away.
“Oh Beth, I love you too.”
“Hate to break up this little reunion, but I’ve got a schedule to keep.” He yanks at my arm, but Beth doesn’t let me go. We cling to each other through her prison and I whisper, “97234, door” in her ear. I say it again and she nods. I have no idea if the opportunity for either of us to use it will ever present itself.
The phones!
I remember they are both in my pockets; I still can’t believe they’ve not taken them from me. They must be so secure in their plan, they must not see the phones as a threat. As covertly as I can, I slip a hand into my shorts and pass it to her through the bars. I don’t trust it to work, but you never know.
Jerome yanks at me again. Harder. Impatient.
“It’s going to be okay,” I say, nearly choking on the lie.
“Piece of cake.” She smiles and lets go of me, giving me her brave face. I give her my best brave face too. But I hear her begin to cry as I’m yanked away.
Six cells down, Jerome opens a door and then bows and waves me in. “Your accommodation, my queen.” I lift my chin and move to walk past him. At the last second I whirl, taking him off guard. I push him into the cell, the element of surprise my only leverage. I try to slam the cell shut on him, but he reacts quickly and blocks it from closing with his shoe. I slam harder and he reaches through the bars, grabbing my hair and pulling me hard, face first, into the bars.
I shove a shoe against the bottom of the door, desperately trying to keep it shut. He’s slamming his shoulder into it while not letting go of my hair. I’m losing the battle, the door inching open; my hair is coming out in his hand. I’m able to turn my head and sink my teeth into his arm. He howls and lets me go.
I turn and run and his force bangs the door open and he tumbles out into the hallway.
I run as if the devil is after me. “I’m coming back,” I scream as I pass Beth’s cell.
“Go!” she’s screaming too and I hit the stairs full-force. Turning the corner, I get a glimpse of Beth sticking her leg out of the bars, just enough to trip Jerome up and have him crashing down again.
I’m at the top and punch in the code. The door begins to open with maddening slowness. I hear his feet hit the steps, but the door is only open a few inches, not wide enough for me to slide through.
Stoking the Embers (New Adult Romantic Suspense): The Complete Series Page 32
