I nodded.
After checking to make sure the safety was on before climbing out of the van, I stuffed the gun into the waistband of my jeans, recalling the last time I’d felt the same uncomfortable pressure against the small of my back.
Brad flicked the hazard lights on and got out as well, and I watched as he opened the van’s back doors and removed his toolbox. We proceeded down a short flight of stairs that terminated at the mouth of the alley. I did a quick check behind me and saw the van perfectly blocked any pedestrian’s view. Well done, Brad.
The basement of the warehouse had three windows, each maybe a bit larger than a transom, spaced evenly about ten feet apart. Brad opened his toolbox and removed an instrument the size of a pencil, with three break-out notches, a tapping ball on one end, and a hardened steel cutting wheel on the other. He also took out a suction cup attached to a small plastic handle.
“A good plumber is always prepared,” Brad said.
The cutter made a slight scraping sound as Brad worked the tool along the edges of the glass. When he finished cutting around the window’s perimeter, Brad pulled on the handle of the suction cup. The window came free without a sound. I watched as Brad carefully wrapped the glass in bubble wrap and put it in his toolbox along with the suction cup and cutter. He slid through the window headfirst and I waited until he reached up before handing him his toolbox.
Then it was my turn. I went through the opening, feeling the rough edge of the windowsill scrape against my belly, aware of the gun against my back. I emerged into a massive concrete basement with floor-to-ceiling support posts spaced throughout. The fluorescent ceiling light fixtures were off, but diffused sunlight spilling in through the basement windows lit the space well enough for me to see. It was a dusty basement, somewhat littered, but it was definitely maintained. It was obvious this was a working business.
Soon enough Brad had his flashlight trained on the oil boiler on the opposite side of the room, directly across from the window through which we had entered. While Brad went to inspect the boiler, I took a look around for the staircase leading to the upper floors. Brad was working at a nearby fuse box when I whistled for him to come join me.
He looked pleased with something. “The sprinkler system and fire alarm won’t be a problem,” he said in a whisper. “It will buy us more time to get away.”
“Good,” I said, whispering back. “If we stand on either side of this doorway, we’ll be able to surprise Roy when he comes to check on the disturbance.”
“It’ll be smoky, but this space is big enough that it’ll take some time before it becomes unbearable.”
I looked around and found a flat piece of wood, big enough to cover the window we broke to gain entry. “I don’t want any smoke spilling out to attract someone’s attention. We can remove the board once we get Roy,” I said. I tried to calm myself, but even my breathing wouldn’t settle. My eyes were pinwheeling in their sockets.
“Time to get to work,” Brad said. “I’m going to separate the electrodes, which will give us a delayed ignition. It should create a loud-enough boom to get Roy down here. I’ll come join you in a minute. Stay on guard.”
I knew what Brad meant. I took out the gun and undid the safety.
Moments later, Brad, toolbox at his side, started working on the boiler like he’d been paid to fix a problem, not create one. I was feeling the pressure, like a boiler ready to explode myself.
Would this work? Could we rescue Anna? Could we get away?
In the cracks of my nervous thoughts, I tried to make sense of the Roy and Jack Hutchinson connection. Why would Lily have pretended to be pregnant? Why would Jack Hutchinson pretend to be a guy named Nicky Stacks? Why would he pretend to own a restaurant? What’s the common thread? I thought I had the glimmer of an answer, something too nascent for me to grasp, when Brad came running over with his toolbox in hand.
“We’ve got about a minute,” Brad said. He bent down and removed a monkey wrench from inside the toolbox, slapping the heavy metal end against the meatiest part of his palm.
“You sure it’s going to be a loud-enough boom?”
Brad glanced at me with a slight twinkle in his eye. I was reminded of the anticipation I felt before the launch of one of my rockets. It was always an exciting moment, those anticipatory few seconds between the fuse igniting and the rocket blasting off, screeching skyward to reach for the stars. My pulse began to pound, and I found myself gripping the gun tighter in my hand. Brad checked his watch.
“Yeah,” he said. “It’ll be loud enough.”
A few seconds later a loud bang, like a dozen cars simultaneously backfiring, shook the floor beneath me. I went flat against the door frame, knocked off balance by the force of the explosion. Almost immediately, an inky black cloud began billowing out from the boiler, enveloping everything it touched.
“Now we wait,” Brad said.
We watched as smoke poured out from the ruptured boiler, knowing soon enough we’d be consumed in its wake. Brad checked the time.
“Thirty seconds,” he said. “We’ve got about thirty seconds before it’s going to get ugly down here.”
I shut my eyes, keeping my back against the door frame to the basement’s only exit, and held the gun close to my chest. I started to count.
“One . . . two . . . three . . .” My thoughts went to Anna. I said silent prayers for her safety.
“Fifteen . . . sixteen . . .”
My throat began to close as the first poisoned air seeped into my lungs. Spellbound, I watched the black smoke roll on inch by inch as it consumed more of the basement.
I will not fail you, Anna. I will not fail.
And then I saw Max and Karen, their faces coming to me like angels from the darkness, piercing my heart.
“Twenty-five . . . twenty-six . . .”
The black smoke crept closer.
“Twenty-seven . . .”
I heard footsteps, fast and furious, racing down the stairs. I pressed my body even flatter against the wall and saw Brad do the same. He wielded the wrench in his fist like it was a club. I took a short, sharp breath.
A figure emerged through the doorway and took several steps into the basement. It wasn’t Roy, I could tell, even though his back was to me. He was much broader than Roy. He seemed to be dressed up, wearing a suit, but he wasn’t the man I knew as Nicky Stacks. This man was much smaller than Stacks. Another figure came racing through the doorway, dressed the same as the first. The two men stood together with their backs to me, surveying the mayhem. Like mirror images, each man put his hands on his knees to seek out purer air while coughing out the bad stuff.
They turned around, the heels of their fine leather shoes spinning and scraping against the concrete floor, getting ready to make a fast exit.
I stepped away from the wall and pointed my gun at them. I was about to shout “Freeze!” but something made me stop.
Behind the two men, impenetrable black smoke billowed and rose like a dark blanket settling across the barren room. With enough light seeping in through the basement windows, I could just make out their faces, more specifically their startled eyes.
Brad is right. The dead do walk among us.
I was staring into the eyes of a ghost: Jorge Moreno, standing next to his brother, Lucas.
CHAPTER 59
The two men charged us as though a starter pistol had gone off. Lucas came roaring at Brad, reaching in his suit jacket for a gun. Jorge mirrored his brother’s movements while setting his sights on me. Jorge Moreno—the Jorge I had supposedly killed—had the skin coloring of a healthy man and the speed and agility of a highly conditioned athlete.
I raised my gun as Jorge closed the short gap between us. He was ten feet from me, and the time I had to react could be measured in hundredths of a second, or five-point-five pounds of pressure. Instead of pulling the trigger, I flashed on the memory of blood exploding from Jorge’s chest. In that split second, I relived the sickening feeling of becoming
a killer. I couldn’t take his life again; instead of juicing the trigger, my finger froze.
Jorge had his gun drawn and pointed in the general direction of my head, closing in on me with a final quick burst of speed.
“Get down!” he shouted. “Get on the floor and drop your gun!”
With his heels digging in, Jorge slowed to a stop, close enough for me to feel his hot breath. The stench of oily smoke burned my nose and lungs. My eyes were watery as the tear reflex kicked in. Soon I’d be gagging on each breath, but the more immediate threat was Jorge and his gun.
I put my hands over my head, moving nice . . . and . . . slow. But I opted to remain standing and I didn’t drop my weapon.
To my left, Brad and Lucas had squared off against each other. Brad was still holding onto his wrench and Lucas was still holding onto his gun, not quite even odds, but I had something to tip the balance of power dramatically in our favor. I had the truth.
“You’re looking good for a dead man, Jorge,” I said.
“Get on the ground,” he growled.
The smoke continued to close in on us. Brad’s calculation of thirty seconds of good air was a bit off, but not by much. All I needed to do was delay Jorge long enough for the inevitable.
Jorge reached for me and I lowered my weapon and pointed it at his face. Lucas turned his head but kept his gun trained on Brad, who showed no sign of fear. Maybe Brad’s window into life after life gave him a sense of peace in the face of mortal terror, or maybe he just had stones the size of grapefruits.
“Go ahead and shoot me, Jorge,” I said. “Take me out. Go ahead and do it. I’ll be useless to you.”
“Get on the ground,” Jorge said again.
“How much is it worth to you? Forget how you managed to fake your death. How much do you stand to make?”
I looked over at Brad once more. I hoped he understood my intention. Jorge looked to Lucas, the older brother, the leader of this dynamic duo, his watery eyes seeking guidance. Behind him the black smoke, a moving wall of soupy tar, swarmed and swirled as it occupied all available space. Panic tore through me as I readied myself for the coming collision.
The smoke closed around Jorge’s face like two hands reaching out from within the darkness. He coughed at the same instant I kicked. My right ankle locked as my foot lifted higher up between Jorge’s legs. I kept my toes pointed down, striking the soft flesh of his groin with the laces of my shoes, just as I had taught Max how to shoot a soccer ball on goal.
Jorge dropped to the floor, clutching between his legs. Lucas shifted his gaze from Brad to Jorge as the black smoke enveloped his head. Brad took advantage and swung the wrench in a wide arc, smashing the steel against Lucas’s temple, catching the man completely off guard. I heard a sickening crunch as metal met skull.
Before I could rejoice in our victory, my foot got jerked out from under me. I was falling backward, arms flailing for balance, foot skidding in search of purchase. I slammed onto the concrete floor hard enough to rattle my teeth. Air exploded from my body as the gun bounced out of my hand. I tried to take a breath, but I was like a fish dying on a dock. Nothing was getting into my lungs.
Jorge held onto my leg and began pulling me toward him. I kicked frantically, trying to free myself from his grasp. At least the smoke was thinner down here, so whenever I could finally take in some air, there’d be some air to take in. My vision went dark and my eyes filled with tears. I felt increased pressure on my legs as Jorge began to crawl up my body, grappling me like a wrestler going for the pin.
Air began to tease its way into my lungs, partially fueling my fight, while Jorge continued his crawl up my body. Instead of fists, I made claws with my hands, raking them blindly in search of a target. I heard Jorge grunt. Like a bat seeking its prey by echolocation, my probing fingers connected with his face. Once I hit pay dirt, I dug until the tips of my fingers sank into the fleshiest part of Jorge’s eye sockets. He yelped in pain and rolled off my body to get away.
I didn’t hesitate or back up. I attacked. From a prone position, inhaling sips of air whenever I could, I rolled across the floor until I came into contact with Jorge, also prone on the floor. I unloaded a furious volley of punches at his head, but punching while lying on the ground was a pretty ineffective way of doing battle. Without any leverage, my blows landed but inflicted little damage.
Though my blurred vision had cleared, it was getting tougher to see by the second. The tar cloud of smoke was descending at a rapid pace. As Jorge and I exchanged feeble blows, I did manage to make out the faint outline of Brad’s gun on the floor just a few feet away.
Jorge broke away from me and struggled to get to his knees, mindful to keep his head bent and away from the smoke line above. I could see the clear and distinct boundary between smoky air and the breathable stuff, like oil on water. I could also sense Jorge getting ready to pounce. There was almost no chance I would get to the gun before Jorge got to me. I made a frantic scramble, using my fingers to paw for the weapon as I slid along the floor, shimmying forward like a snake on the move. All the while, oily smoke stung at my eyes and burned my lungs.
Jorge lumbered toward me. I braced myself for the impact when I caught a shimmer of movement flash in front of my eyes. Brad zoomed past me and barreled into Jorge without slowing, knocking him to the floor. As they fought, I crawled the remaining three feet to the gun. With the handle in my grasp, I rolled in their direction. I guessed Lucas was out for the count.
Brad had Jorge in a full nelson hold. Jorge was struggling to break free and gasping for air, but Brad had the better leverage and wasn’t letting go.
I shoved the barrel of the gun into Jorge’s open mouth. “Stop fighting!”
Jorge went still. I took the gun out of his mouth but kept the barrel pointed at his head. Together Brad and I dragged Jorge to the exit. We made it to the stairwell, where the smoke hadn’t yet invaded. Jorge and I both started to cough, but I kept the gun trained on him.
Brad went back into the smoke-filled room. He kept low to the floor and vanished within a few feet. Moments later, he emerged, dragging Lucas. Brad’s toolbox was perched on Lucas’s barreled chest.
With both men in the stairwell, I put the gun an inch from Jorge’s knee.
“This gun doesn’t fire blanks,” I said. I figured that was how they had staged his death: a gun firing blanks, a remote-controlled blood bag attached to his chest, a first-rate Hollywood-type special effects job. “I don’t want to kill you—again—but I won’t hesitate to blow off your kneecap. Do you understand me?”
We were all coughing, except for Lucas, who was unconscious but breathing. Brad used some wire from his toolbox to secure Jorge’s hands behind his back, forming a makeshift pair of handcuffs, while I kept the gun pointed at Jorge’s knee.
“The smoke shouldn’t get much worse,” Brad said. “We’ll call the fire department and an ambulance for this knucklehead once we get Anna out of here.” Brad tapped his foot against the ugly red welt already discoloring the side of Lucas’s head.
I closed the door to the basement, thinking it would help keep the smoke contained, and waited with Jorge on the stairwell landing while Brad dragged Lucas up to the first level. Brad came down, and together we got Jorge to his feet. I kept the gun against the small of Jorge’s back as I escorted him up the basement stairs.
We came out on the first level of the storage warehouse, entering into a narrow hallway. The floor was lined with the green stuff used on minigolf courses. Lucas was facedown on the floor, his hands secured behind his back with wire.
“Where is Anna?” I said.
“Upstairs,” Jorge answered.
“Where is the stairwell?”
Jorge nodded to our right, and again we were on the move.
We walked down the narrow hallway with corridors to our left and right. Down those corridors were rows of concrete storage rooms secured by heavy doors. The walls were made from thick concrete. It looked like something out of an old dungeon.
Jorge directed us down one of those corridors, and we came to a stop at a stairwell entrance to the upper levels of the storage warehouse. The corridor was big enough to wheel a cart full of stuff to one of the storage units lining the walls but not wide enough to turn that cart around.
“Call up to Roy,” I said.
Jorge looked at me, confused.
“Call up to him and tell him you need help. Tell him to come quick.”
Jorge followed my instructions. His voice sounded raspy from all the smoke, but he spoke loudly and his words were intelligible.
“Roy, we’ve got a problem,” Jorge called. “Come on down here right away.” He could have been more convincing. I dug the gun hard into his back. “Hurry, man, I mean it!”
Brad came over and covered Jorge’s mouth with a big piece of duct tape so he couldn’t issue Roy any warnings.
Footsteps raced down the scuffed wooden stairs in the darkened stairwell. We lined up on the wall beside the stairwell entrance, Jorge sandwiched between Brad and me. Jorge’s gun was somewhere in the smoky basement, but Brad had Lucas’s weapon, so he could keep Jorge in line while I got ready to take on Roy.
As Roy emerged from the stairwell, I stepped forward and stuck my foot out. Roy tripped over my leg and slammed his face into the wall in front of him. The gun he carried fell from his hand, and I kicked it away. Stunned, kneeling on the floor, Roy turned around slowly.
I stood over him, pointing my gun at his face.
“Hey, shithead,” I said. “You have my wife and I want her back.”
CHAPTER 60
He was the same Roy I’d come to know: jeans and a black T-shirt, tattoos, rippling muscles, and a hard face. Only now that face was red, from the wall or anger I couldn’t say.
“How’d you do it?” I asked him. “How’d you fake his death?” I nodded at Jorge.
Roy didn’t answer. I hoisted him to his feet by the front of his shirt.
“I’m guessing you’re the leader of this pack, the man in charge. So tell me, where is Nicky Stacks? Oh, I’m sorry, Jack Hutchinson. Is he here?”
Desperate Page 30
