“Blue?” she whispered, lifting her weapon, ready to fire but knowing she hadn’t racked a bullet into the chamber.
The sound of—what was that? The soft whistle of something moving fast through the air propelled her to lie flat, then roll again. This time she ran up against a real tree. Something grazed her right shoulder, and shooting pain erupted down her arm as she scrambled to the side and got ready to run.
Except she didn’t know where Blue was. Was he halfway back to the car by now, or was he unconscious at her feet?
She faltered, undecided, until rough arms wrapped her up tight. With her hands pinned at her sides she couldn’t cock the pistol. It was useless as a weapon now. Even if she had managed to load the chamber, the only place she could have fired was down at the ground, risking her own feet as much as her captor’s.
Mitzi tried to twist her way free but couldn’t budge. Then she tried to drop as dead weight, but her captor was ready for that too. Every self-defense move she tried—from stomping on his feet to kicking back at his groin—failed. She even tried a backward head butt, but only heard a grunt of laughter for her efforts.
Whoever held her had the same training she did, and could anticipate every move she made. Mitzi redoubled her efforts, trying to break free by sheer violent panic. She nearly succeeded, except that someone else joined in, sweeping her feet off the ground to steal away what little leverage she had.
“We’ve got your pet cowboy.” The words came from the darkness at her feet. She recognized the voice of the man who had been with Chief Hatfield last night, the man who had shot at them in the truck, the same man who had been there the night of the payoff. “He will die if you don’t behave.”
Chapter Fifteen
Blue heard someone speaking in the darkness. He shook his head to try to clear the ringing in his ears. He started to reach up but realized his hands were bound behind him with something that cut into the skin of his wrists but didn’t feel like metal handcuffs.
With surprise he became aware that he was lying on the ground. He didn’t remember going down, didn’t remember anything but seeing the unexpected light from the cell phone.
“Don’t hurt him,” he heard Mitzi say from somewhere off to his right. “He’s just a dumb kid I paid to be my muscle. He’s clueless, doesn’t know anything.”
“Hatfield don’t see it that way.”
Blue thought the voice sounded vaguely familiar. He tested his bonds again, clamping down on a twinge of panic when they didn’t budge at all. He shifted his feet and found they were bound too.
“If I had my way,” the voice went on, his tone menacing, “we wouldn’t be having this conversation. We’re going to bind your hands now. Try anything stupid and the hick gets to find out what my solution is.”
He heard some movement, then the ratcheting sound of a cable tie being tightened. That answered his question about what was binding him, and he realized it would surely be a thick gauge too strong for him to break.
“Get up,” a different voice—also familiar—said at the same moment a foot kicked him sharply in the thigh. He stayed still, hoping they would think he was still unconscious. “I said get up. I can see you, hick. Don’t mess around.”
“Borrow the precinct’s night vision goggles, did we, Officer Gary Neil?” Mitzi asked, and Blue realized it was the officer who had spoken to Mack over the radio, the one who spotted them at the library. Mitzi was informing everyone that she knew who he was.
“Shut up,” Neil said, and Blue felt another kick, this time in his stomach. He grunted and doubled up in an effort to protect himself. “Get up, or I stop playing nice.”
“Can’t stand with my legs tied,” Blue pointed out, trying to imitate Mitzi’s calm. It worried him that they knew who these people were. In the movies that always meant the bad guys were intending to kill the good guys.
In response to his comment, he heard the sound of a switchblade flicking open, and he tensed. “You know what that sound means, eh, hick? Behave or I’ll shove all four inches up your...in your gut.”
At any other time the fact that Neil had almost made an accidental innuendo might have gotten a laugh out of Blue. But he didn’t dare to even smile, knowing the other man could see in the dark, and he was armed while Blue was not.
Instead he held still while Neil took three passes to saw through the hard plastic cable tie around his ankles. Either the knife was dull, which he doubted, or the cable tie was the strongest kind on the market.
“Now get up,” Neil commanded, and Blue drew his feet under him before Neil could kick again.
“Mitzi?” Blue asked as he stood up awkwardly, staggering slightly without the freedom to use his arms for balance.
“I’m here,” she replied, at the same moment Neil said, “Shut up,” and a hand pushed him from behind. He staggered forward and the hand pushed him again when he leaned back, unsure of the terrain at his feet. Another push and Blue felt the surface under his feet change to something that gave way like sand, or more like sawdust chips. They were crossing the playground.
When the small group moved out from under the trees, the shadows lightened a little, but Blue still couldn’t see well enough to know where to put his feet. Another push sent him tripping over something metal that spun away from him—a merry-go-round? Blue sprawled on the ground.
“Knock it off,” the first man growled when Neil snickered. “We don’t have all night.”
Blue struggled to get his feet beneath him again, and stood up awkwardly only to have Neil grab him by the arm and pull him forward.
After a few short minutes of walking, Neil called out “Got ’em.” A light flared in the stairwell of the apartment, making Blue blink. By the time his eyes adjusted, Neil was pushing him toward the stairway and he started up, turning to look over his shoulder for Mitzi.
She stood there behind Neil, also blinking in the light. The man from the rainstorm held Mitzi’s own gun at her back. She had dirt stains on her sweats and had lost her hat, but Blue could see no physical injuries.
“Up,” Neil said. “All the way to the top.”
Blue climbed the steps as slowly as he dared, trying to plan something, but his head ached and he couldn’t come up with anything. He was acutely aware that Neil, who had changed from his uniform into street clothes—jeans, a gray Colts hoodie, and a plain black ball cap—had replaced the knife with a pistol at some point during their short walk. The feel of the barrel against his ribs kept Blue from trying anything that might get him shot before he could help Mitzi escape.
Neil was short and stout, and Blue thought he could take him in a fair fight. But in Blue’s experience, short men were either harmless funny guys or fierce scrappers prone to fighting dirty. Neil looked like a real nasty piece of work. Even if Blue knew nothing more about him, the expression on his round, pale, angry face would have told him that.
At the top of the stairs Neil motioned him to the right, not to the unit where he had seen Leigh Ann, but to the one across the hall. The door was open and Blue walked in, not knowing what to expect.
It was just an empty room, almost ready for tenants. No furniture, just the overhead light fixture that cast a yellow glow all around. A dark gray, Army-style blanket hung over the window. He detected no smells other than the chemical odors of recently applied paint and new carpet.
When he paused, Neil pushed him into the center of the room, then he pushed Mitzi to stand next to him.
“On your knees,” Neil said. “Both of you, facing the window.”
Blue looked at Mitzi, and she looked back at him.
“It’s okay,” she said, voice soft. “They wouldn’t have brought us up here if they were just going to kill us.”
“You think you’re so smart,” the first man said, walking up behind Mitzi and putting her own gun against the back of her head. He pushed down with the barrel of the gun and Mitzi dropped to her knees, though she refused to cower. Blue followed suit, not knowing what else to do.
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“Hatfield said you’re one tough ho, and I guess I can see it.” The man walked around in front of them and stooped down to peer into Mitzi’s face, giving Blue his first good look at him.
He wore his dark hair slicked back from his high forehead, and his prominent nose and pasty pale skin strongly suggested a specific ethnic heritage, though Blue couldn’t say what. The nose looked puffy, and Blue remembered Mitzi had punched him last night. Was it only last night?
The man’s clothing looked snazzy, like he was just stopping by on his way to the opera. A silver-gray, pinstriped vest buttoned over a light pink dress shirt tucked into slacks that matched the vest. He wasn’t wearing a suit jacket, revealing sleeves buttoned at the wrist with silver cufflinks. A narrow red tie sporting a diamond tie pin finished off the look.
He looked like he was trying to be someone out of The Godfather.
“Did you really bust your own brothers?” he asked into Mitzi’s face, and her nose wrinkled as if she smelled something bad.
“They were mules, running drugs,” she responded, as if that explained everything.
“Dude. That is ice cold.” The man guffawed, standing up straight. “What a lonely little life you must lead. If you don’t have family, what have you got?”
“I’ve got plenty of family,” she said coolly. “Brothers and sisters in blue.”
He laughed. “Then you’re so screwed, since Papa Bear is the one who set you up.”
“Oh, then I may as well give up right now,” she snapped, her tone denying any hint of defeat.
The man leaned in close again, giving her a greasy smile. “Ain’t no giving up tonight. This is only going to go down one way.”
Blue started forward, as much in reaction to the man’s proximity as to what he was implying, but he got just one foot under him before the gun was pressed against his head. He found himself looking cross-eyed at a fist holding the weapon, finger on the trigger.
In a moment of clarity, Blue saw no trace of sweat, no quiver, nothing to show that this man hadn’t pointed a gun at a hundred other heads, hadn’t executed a hundred other victims.
“Go ahead,” the man said, his voice low and menacing. “Give me one reason to pull it and end you.”
“Don’t!” Mitzi cried out, and Blue wasn’t sure if she was talking to him or the man with the gun.
Blue had never thought of himself as a coward, but in that moment he was terrified. His world narrowed down to the feel of cold steel against his temple, along with the sound of his heart hammering in his chest and blood rushing in his ears. He was frozen in place, afraid to make the slightest move that would give the man with the gun his one reason to pull the trigger.
⋘⋆⋙
Mitzi stared in horror at the scene unfolding in front of her, at the sight of Blue with her gun pressed to his forehead and the cold-blooded man with his finger on the trigger.
Seeing the perversely pleased look on the man’s face brought the memory of his mug shot to her, and she put a name to the face at last. William Gration, suspected pimp for a prostitution ring. He was processed two years ago in connection to the brutal murder of a young runaway. He had been released before it even went to Grand Jury due to a procedural error during his arrest.
The word “Don’t!” had slipped out of Mitzi’s mouth, but she bit back any other words. Guys like Gration fed off abject fear, she knew, and begging would only incite him to a vicious act.
“Hey,” Officer Gary Neil said sharply from behind them, and she let her breath out slowly and quietly. She hadn’t realized Neil had left the room, but she was eminently grateful he was back. “Chief said these two gotta make it to sunrise alive for his plan to work. Don’t ruin his plan.”
Mitzi watched the fierce smile fade from Gration’s face, though he hadn’t removed the gun. “I could shoot him in the gut so it would take him until morning to die,” he said, tipping his head to the side. “Keep him fresh for the ME.”
“Come on,” Neil said, as though they were debating whether to order pizza now or later. “Why make a mess? Then we gotta listen to him piss and moan all night. Just stick to the plan, tie them up, and we wait for the boss.”
Mitzi heard the sound of duct tape peeling off the roll, then she felt Neil grab her ankles and start wrapping them. He took a moment to slap the bottoms of her bare feet with a snicker.
“Nice,” he said. He also took a moment to tug on the Cobra Cuffs around her wrists to make sure they were tight.
Gration still had the gun trained on Blue, though he had backed off a step. Mitzi watched helplessly, sitting back on her heels to keep from falling over, as Neil turned his attention to Blue.
“Come on, knees down,” Neil ordered. When Blue brought his knees together Neil grabbed his ankles and started wrapping them together with tape. He also tugged on Blue’s Cobra Cuffs to make sure the military-grade plastic cable ties were snug and secure. Then he slipped Blue’s clasp knife out of its belt sheath.
“Chief doesn’t want it obvious that you two were tied up,” Neil commented, slipping the knife into his back pocket. “But I don’t want you to get free, so here’s what we’re going to do. You both are going to kneel here, facing the window, and either one of us will be checking in on you to make sure you haven’t moved. The door is going to stay open, so you won’t know when we pay you a visit. You so much as sit your butt on the floor, and I’ll wrap you up into a duct tape mummy. You get me?” He paused meaningfully. “Don’t think forensics will tell the story, ’cause the boss has them in his pocket too.
“And,” Neil went on, “in case you think we won’t shoot you because of ‘the plan,’ I happen to agree with Gration that we really only need one of you to make it fly. Plans go wrong all the time.”
Gration walked behind them, and Mitzi heard both men retreat across the carpet and out the door. She turned her head to look over her shoulder and confirmed that they had indeed left the room. The door was propped open, just as Neil had specified. Then she looked over at Blue.
He was staring straight ahead, and she couldn’t tell what was going through his mind. She noted that his hat was gone, and a reddened bump on his forehead indicated he’d received a blow at some point, undoubtedly while they were outside in the dark.
“You okay?” she asked, calmly trying to lean back and test the tape job on her legs. She knew she wouldn’t be able to get through the cuffs around her wrists, but she might be able to use her fingernails to tear or cut the tape. But the tape was high enough on her legs that she was sitting on it. She couldn’t lean back far enough without significantly arching her back, which would give away her actions to anyone watching from behind.
“Don’t know,” Blue replied, and she heard raw honesty in those words. He shook his head slightly. “Back home, my friends and I talked about the city, and the violence we heard about and how we wouldn’t be scared of drug dealers and bullies. I remember thinking it wouldn’t be a big deal, that I could take care of myself. But when I saw that gun pointed at me...I couldn’t move. I thought I was going to die.”
Mitzi closed her eyes in sympathy. “You did all right, Blue. If you had moved, he would have killed you. You did good.”
“I thought I might mess my pants,” he confessed with a rueful chuckle. “I have a new appreciation for the term ‘scared the crap outta me.’”
Mitzi did not smile. “I once saw a twenty-year veteran completely fold in a similar circumstance.”
“I was just following your cue. I don’t think you even flinched when he had that thing at the back of your head.”
“I’m too stubborn, or stupid, to be scared,” she said.
“Knock off the mutual appreciation society,” Neil remarked from the doorway. They both turned, and Mitzi saw him leaning in, his pistol pointed down at the floor. She didn’t like Neil, but she would rather he had a firearm than Gration. At least Neil was trained not to point a weapon unless he was ready to use it. “Turn around and shut up.”
&n
bsp; As they turned back to face the window, Mitzi realized it was going to be a long night. “Hey, Neil,” she called out. He didn’t answer. “This place have a functioning toilet?”
Chapter Sixteen
“Understood,” Hatfield said into his phone, then ended the call before letting himself smile. “Perfect.”
“Who was that?” Murray asked, holding the door to Hatfield’s office open for him when he stood and made his way around his desk.
The precinct’s war room was nearly empty since the day shift had gone home and the night shift was already out working cases. Hatfield glanced over at a lone detective hunched over a computer keyboard on a folding table in the far corner of the room, then back to Murray.
“FBI. They said they want us to have a team in place in Englewood before dawn, ready to move on the kidnapping case.”
“Uh-huh,” said Murray. “Just like you thought.”
“And I have just the guys for that team.”
“Uh-huh. The ones who take real good care not to make a mess out of a delicate situation, right?”
The detective at the table reached out and lifted a phone to his ear without looking up as Hatfield and Murray pushed through the double doors and walked down the hall.
⋘⋆⋙
“I’m serious,” Mitzi called out again after about half an hour. “We’ve been running and hiding all day. I gotta use the head!”
She heard a scuffle at the doorway, followed by Neil’s voice. “Shut up. I couldn’t care less if you piss yourself.”
“You will care if you have to smell me all night,” she responded, with acid in her tone. “Not to mention having to listen to me complain about being uncomfortable.”
She heard Neil back off and swear, then heard his steps returning, along with Gration’s. Not what she had hoped for. They must all be in the other apartment with Leigh Ann. At least she hoped the girl was all right.
Neil grabbed her under the arm from behind and hauled her to her feet as Gration came around front and trained a gun—still her Mosquito, she noted—on Blue. Blue stayed put, as she had warned him to do.
Last Shot at Justice (A Thomas Family Novel Book 1) Page 13
