Play Dead

by Meryl Sawyer

  “Yes.” Ryan’s voice was calm but his mind was moving at warp speed as he looked around. Could they find Hayley before the kidnapper figured out the police were on the scene and decided to kill her?

  A panda car roared to a stop beside them. Ryan didn’t bother to wonder how they’d made it here through the crush or how they knew not to blare their siren. Five uniformed officers got out and rushed up to Detective Wells.

  “She’s in that building,” Ryan said, moving closer to Wells. “The tracker shows she hasn’t moved in the last five minutes. She must be tied up or confined somehow.”

  The group eyed the waterfront complex. It was one of the newer, more innovative structures in the area that had once been home to a fishing industry that had long ago moved north. The area had fallen into decay. It had been taken over by boat shops and repair yards. In the last few years the real estate boom had transformed it into swank offices and expensive condominiums. It was only a few blocks away from Hayley’s waterfront loft, which was one of the newest SoHo-style developments.

  Above the subterranean garage in the complex where Hayley was being held were first-floor offices—mostly attorneys and real estate agencies according to the sign. The next two floors were private condominiums with premium views of the water.

  “Does the tracker tell you what floor?” Wells asked.

  “No. It’s not that precise, but if I turn it to face the water like the building—” he positioned the computer and showed Wells “—we can see that she’s in the far corner, but we don’t know which floor.”

  “There’s nothing much in the garage but a few cars,” The Wrath told the group in a low voice, “and they’re on the other side of the building from the tracking light.”

  “Here’s what we’re going to do,” Wells said, obviously accustomed to taking charge at crime scenes. “Disable the elevator. Start searching with the top floor.” He pointed to two officers. “Guard the bottom of the stairs.”

  “What about us?” Ryan asked when the group began to move away.

  “Stay here. Other units will be arriving. Tell them I said to surround the building so the perp doesn’t escape.”

  “Check the closets,” Ryan called as they walked toward the building. The noose around his heart tightened. Hayley’s tracker had been stationary for so long that he imagined her unable to move—possibly unconscious. He was thankful for the gun concealed at the small of his back by the T-shirt.

  “What do you think?” asked The Wrath. “The officers are guarding the stairs, but could the guy jump from one of the balconies in the middle where they couldn’t see him?”

  Ryan shook his head. It didn’t seem likely—the drop was too far—but you never knew. This guy had proven how cagey he could be. “Let’s look around front.”

  They headed to the left with a wave to the officer off to their right, guarding the staircase. It bothered Ryan that Wells hadn’t assigned anyone to secure the front of the building facing the bay. As soon as he rounded the corner of the complex, Ryan saw why. The building was set flush against the water. It was impossible to run around the front of the building. No one could jump from a water-facing balcony—the private condos—without landing on a boat moored in front of the building and being killed or seriously injured.

  They hurried back toward where they’d parked. Ryan looked down into the subterranean garage. The Wrath had been right. Nothing on this side, where the tracker showed Hayley. A dozen or so cars were parked on the other side.

  Ryan silently nudged The Wrath down the steps into the garage. It had a dank smell as if water had leaked in through the sea wall, but he didn’t see anything other than mold growing on the cinder block wall. In one corner was a trash can like something found in an office. His sixth sense kicked in. Holding his computer in front of him, Ryan walked up to it.

  “Oh, shit!”

  In the trash can was a single tennis shoe. Hayley’s left shoe—the one with the GPS tracker.

  “Her shoe?” The Wrath said. “Where’s the other? Why leave the one?”

  Ryan retrieved the tennis shoe. “He ditched the shoe with the tracker. Somehow he knew it was there.” He showed The Wrath the shoe and pointed inside to the heel section where Ryan had removed the inner liner to insert the device. To anyone looking at the shoe, there wouldn’t be any trace of the tracker.

  “How’d he know it was in there?” The Wrath asked.

  Out of the blue, the answer hit Ryan. “Hayley was sprayed in the face with something just before she became sick, right?”

  “Yeah. Water. The Evian g—”

  “The woman in the red suit wasn’t spritzing Evian. It was scopolamine. It’s used to treat nausea, motion sickness, and eye problems. It dilates the pupil, keeps you from focusing. If the spray went up her nose or into her mouth, which it undoubtedly did, it causes hallucinations and difficulty speaking. You pass out.”

  “She was trying to talk,” The Wrath said as he followed Ryan out of the garage.

  Ryan snapped his laptop shut and realized what must have happened. “Scopalamine in liquid form can be put in drinks or sprayed on an unsuspecting victim. They pass out.” He held up the shoe and stared at it. His thoughts rocketed into a new trajectory. “Christ Almighty! The military used it as a truth serum. The killer asked Hayley and she told him about the tracker.”

  “Without knowing what she was doing?”

  “She’d be too out of it to realize.” Ryan covered his eyes with one hand and tried to open his mind, to think like a lunatic. He commanded his brain to go into game mode. Block out the opposing team the way he’d always done when playing pro ball. Ignore the noise of the crowd, disregard anything distracting. Focus. Concentrate.

  After a moment, he asked, “How would you get away from this crowded peninsula with a semi-comatose woman?”

  “By boat,” The Wrath instantly responded. “But Wells had Harbor Patrol close the exit from the bay and search boats that try to leave. Same with the ferry.”

  “Exactly, but who says this prick’s leaving the harbor? He could take a boat to one of the islands or across the bay to a number of public docks.”

  “We know he was here. How far would he risk going, dragging or carrying a woman?”

  “Not far,” Ryan replied. “There may be several of them. At least two were posing as EMTs. They might have a boat waiting at a dock or one in a slip near here. Let’s look.”

  “What about the cops?”

  Ryan’s intuition said to go it alone. He’d ignored his instincts earlier. He wouldn’t with Hayley’s life at stake. “We’ll call them if we spot anything,” he replied. “Could be a wild-goose chase.”

  He rushed around the corner of the building to the waterfront. Several boats were moored there but the only way down to the boat slips was along the gangway one building to the left.

  He sprinted down the gangway and saw a young guy washing a huge yacht called Long Tall Sally. The kid had probably been at it for the better part of a day. He might have seen something.

  “Did you see a man and a woman come this way?” he yelled.

  “Yeah.” The kid stood up to wring out the towel he’d been using to dry the chrome railing. “She had too much sun. He was taking her home.”

  “Where was his boat?”

  “In front of Mirage.” He pointed to the nearby waterfront restaurant that wouldn’t open until evening.

  Just as he suspected, Ryan thought. “What kind of boat was it?”

  “A Sunseeker,” the guy said without hesitation. “A sixty-footer.”

  Wow. Ryan didn’t know a lot about boats but this one was very expensive. “What’s its name?”

  “Didn’t see a name. It was facing the other way.”

  Of all the damn luck! “Hey, can we borrow your dinghy?” The tender to the yacht was in the water behind the boat.

  “No, it’s not mine. I’d get in a lotta trouble. Hey—” He spotted The Wrath.

  “Aren’t you—”

/>   “I’m The Wrath,” the fighter said. “How about ringside seats to my next fight to use your dinghy for a few minutes?”

  “Sure. Key’s under the seat.”

  Ryan and The Wrath raced for the tender, Short Fat Fanny. In a heartbeat, they were in the boat and churning water as they sped away from the yacht.

  “Which way?” called The Wrath over the roar of the outboard motor.

  “Damned if I know.” Ryan tried to think. Even with the exit to the harbor blocked, there were lots of ways a boat could go. The only thing he was certain of—the boat wouldn’t be speeding. That would attract too much attention from a Harbor Patrol already on high alert.

  “Call Wells and tell him where we are. See what he can do about backup.” Ryan wasn’t too confident the detective could help much with a water search. Technically, the harbor was in the sheriff’s jurisdiction. They had only two boats to patrol one of the largest harbors on the West Coast.

  Hayley’s life depended on him.

  HAYLEY’S EYES WERE GRITTY, as if someone had spooned sand into them, but she finally managed to open them. Where was she? Why was it so dark?

  She struggled to think, tried to swallow, but her mouth felt like wads of cotton and her throat was as sore as the time she’d had strep throat. Without saliva she couldn’t run her tongue over her parched lips. She vaguely detected a familiar smell in the air but couldn’t decide what it was.

  Hayley inhaled deeply and fluttered her eyelashes to make certain her eyes were really open. Yes. They were open, but all she could detect was a pitch-black oblivion. There were no shadows, no hint of any light at all.

  She couldn’t recall ever experiencing blackness like this. Was she dreaming? Yes. That would account for this all-encompassing darkness and the familiar yet unidentified smell.

  What was that sound?

  Her ears didn’t seem to be working much better than her nose. She realized that she knew what the sound was…but no name came to mind. It seemed her senses were functioning—partially—yet her brain didn’t comprehend or it would tell her what the smell was, what the noise was.

  Her vague feeling of alarm became full-blown panic. A rumble like thunder over the ocean sent another wave of terror through her like a deadly poison. This seemed too vivid to be a dream. What she was experiencing felt…real.

  “Hello! Hello!” she tried to call out but didn’t hear any sound come from her sore throat. What was happening? She had spoken, hadn’t she? With strep throat, she couldn’t talk—only whisper. If she whispered, no one would hear her.

  In a remote corner of her perplexed brain, scattered images returned in bits like a shattered mirror she needed to reassemble from jagged pieces that didn’t fit. The Wrath yelling in her face. Fighting dizziness and nausea. The booth spiraling out of control.

  Someone asking her questions. About what? The answer was trapped in the rubble that once was her mind.

  When had these things happened? Not long ago, she reasoned, although she couldn’t say why. What happened next? Why couldn’t she remember? It was as if she’d fallen through some crack in the universe into a Black Hole.

  She lifted her hands to touch her face, but it was hard work. Her numb arms were like cement logs—difficult to move and unbelievably heavy. Her fingers finally managed to prod her face with jerky little movements. Her head seemed to be all right, if hot and wet with perspiration wasn’t troubling. Her eyes were open, she knew when an errant finger poked a dry eyeball and pain registered somewhere deep in her head.

  Next she tried wiggling her numb feet. Her legs were another set of cement logs but her feet seemed much lighter and tingled as if they’d been asleep. The toes on one foot actually wiggled! Encouraging. What was wrong with the other foot?

  Then she groggily realized one foot had on a shoe while the other didn’t. With this thought came a fleeting memory of answering a question just before a shoe was yanked off her foot.

  What would anyone want with her shoe?

  If only she could see a shadow…or something, she could think. But it was hard to concentrate when you were in darkness as black as hell. For some reason, hell made her think of death. And an underground coffin. That would account for the darkness. Could she be dead? Or left for dead?

  What kind of nightmare was she trapped in? A fresh wellspring of fear surged through her. She had been abandoned. No one was around to help her. She couldn’t function well enough to save herself. She was going to die.

  Think! Don’t give in to panic! Be logical. There’s an explanation.

  Am I sitting up or lying down? she asked herself to keep from going nuts. Focusing on determining the extent of her predicament might help. Panic certainly wasn’t doing her any good.

  With an effort, she moved her carcass that felt like an arthritic old lady’s body and determined she was lying down on something firm—but not hard—and narrow. A bed? She didn’t remember going to bed.

  How could she forget something as exciting as sleeping with Ryan Hollister? Where was he? From somewhere in her foggy brain she recalled Ryan promising not to let her out of his sight. Why not?

  She couldn’t remember. Something to do with danger, she thought with a tremor of unease. Oh, yes. Now she recalled. Ryan had gone to the hospital. His father wasn’t well.

  All right, concentrate, she told herself again. You’re not in a bed, she decided, but maybe a sofa or something like that. Good news. She wasn’t in a coffin. She was in a place larger than that. Some loony hadn’t buried her alive.

  She forced herself to remain still with her eyes open to let them adjust to the darkness. Time passed. A minute, maybe two. Nothing. Her eyes didn’t register the faintest glimmer of light.

  Closing her eyes, Hayley let her mind drift. A thought popped into her head unbidden: ESPN was coming any minute. Oh, my God! Were they already here? They couldn’t be. She didn’t hear any voices, just a muffled rumble that was too steady to be thunder.

  She must have been in the booth not so long ago for the image to be so vivid, Hayley reasoned. So why couldn’t she remember how she’d gotten here?

  In frustration she lashed out, kicking both feet. And hit a wall or something with the one shoe she seemed to have kept. Thunk! Thunk! She kept kicking the wall. It was a relief to hear a sound she could identify.

  Tears welled under her lids and she blinked rapidly. They stung as if someone dropped acid into her eyes. Straining to see something—anything—she realized she was still suspended in darkness.

  Her senses were gradually becoming more acute, she realized. Thank God! She was drifting or floating or something. She wasn’t in bed; her muddled brain had already confirmed that. A hammock? No! The word was on the tip of her tongue. It was…what?

  A boat! Yes! Yes! That accounted for the slight rocking sensation and the rumbling noise of the engine. And what she smelled had to be diesel fumes.

  A boat? Whose boat? What was she doing on a boat when she should be in the booth? Was she in the hold of a boat? No. There wouldn’t be a bed or sofa down there, but it would be dark like this.

  “Oh, my God,” she cried. If she could hear and smell, why couldn’t she see anything? Even deep in the hold, she should be able to distinguish a shadow or something. Right?

  Suddenly a gust of air blew over her, and she realized a door had been opened.

  “Hayley? Hayley? Are you awake?” asked a muffled male voice that she couldn’t quite identify.

  Something told her not to answer, but her kicking must have given her away. He knew right where she was. She sniffed again, ignoring her sore throat and picking up the scent of imminent danger. Any second might be her last.

  She heard him but still couldn’t see even a shadow or a ray of light. Like the blow of a bat to the head, the extent of her peril overwhelmed Hayley.

  She was blind.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “DETECTIVE WELLS said to come back to the dock and pick him up,” The Wrath reminded Ryan. The fighter
had called Wells to let him know about the Sunseeker they were after.

  “I’m not taking the time! They could have Hayley off the boat and into a car or something, if I turn around now.”

  “You’re right,” The Wrath agreed. “We’re finding Hayley together.”

  Ryan wished he could be as confident as the fighter sounded. He knew the harbor from back when his father had been better and kept a thirty-five foot Tiara at the Balboa Yacht Club. They’d cruised the harbor often and Ryan had learned its channels and secret coves like a local.

  Lido Isle, the largest island in the harbor, was in the middle of the bay not far from where they’d found the shoe. The Sunseeker they were after could have gone around either side of the island. The boat Hayley was imprisoned on could be at any dock on Lido or going to several other islands. Since it was such an expensive boat—close to a million dollars—it stood to reason that it was headed to one of the more luxurious homes at the tip of Lido, on Bayshores near John Wayne’s old home, or on either of the two most exclusive islands, Harbor and Linda.

  “The prick wouldn’t go to one of the yacht clubs,” said The Wrath.

  Ryan had already decided as much. Going down a gangway carrying Hayley had been a risky move, but to bring her up from a boat in front of a club’s restaurant that faced the docks would be downright stupid. And if Ryan was dead certain of one thing, it was that this monster was as clever as they came.

  “I’m thinking he won’t use a public dock, either. Too many people around washing boats, hanging out, you name it. A private dock—”

  “They’re pretty close together. Would he risk being seen?”

  “I doubt it.” Ryan ground the words out between his teeth. “But you never know. I wouldn’t have expected anyone to snatch her from the booth the way he did. He must have a plan.” Again Ryan went into game mode and tried to think like the killer. “He doesn’t know we’re after him. He’s likely to keep her on the boat until it’s dark. Then he’ll move her.”

  “If he hasn’t already killed her by then.”