by Paris Morgan
That left the bathroom, but other than the glass shower and bathtub, there were no other places for someone to hide.
Knowing that I’d lost him by this point, I carefully opened the door and made my way out into the hall.
With only three rooms on this floor, he had to have gone into one of the other rooms or back downstairs.
I looked over the banisters, but didn’t see anyone in the lobby. In the interest of peace of mind, I checked each of the other doors, only to find them locked.
As I looked back toward the room I’d left, I noticed a small door that I hadn’t checked.
It opened, but instead of having linens and towels inside, it was empty.
What if it was one of those closets that had a secret back that led to somewhere else? Okay, I was stretching the limits of reality and pulling things from some favorite childhood stories, but it could be possible.
I wasn’t given the option because someone shoved me from behind.
“What the hell?” I muttered as the door slammed behind me.
I pounded on the door, turning the knob, only to find it locked.
“Let me out!” I yelled.
Someone had done this on purpose, but it didn’t make sense to call my name, lead me on this wild chase, and then lock me in a closet.
The only thing I had on me was my key card that hung around my neck. I’d left my gun and phone in the room because no one I knew would be calling, and I couldn’t exactly hide them when I went in for a quick swim before laying out to dry.
“Crap, crap, crap.” I beat my fist against the door.
There wasn’t any give on the door or frame that I could feel in the darkness. If there was a light, the switch was outside.
“Great! This is just great. The one time I leave all my stuff behind, I get locked inside a closet.”
At some point, Ryan and Adam should notice I’ve gone missing, but it’s so crowded in here. I started talking out loud to myself. “Maybe someone will wonder why the closet is talking and come to investigate.”
Every few minutes, I’d bang on the door in case someone was walking by, but as the minutes grew, I started to get sleepy.
I drifted off, or thought I did.
Suddenly I was in room filled with empty chairs, waiting for the people to come in and fill them.
As I was waiting, I noticed a shadowed face standing off to the side.
“Hello? Who’s there?”
“No one,” the voice answered.
“Right,” I scoffed at the non-answer. “Where am I?”
“Where I want you to be. You’re going to be mine. There’s no escaping.” He came into the light, but a mask covered his face so I couldn’t see who he was.
“What do you want from me?”
“This.” He pulled Kara from behind him and shoved her into a chair before tying her up.
He took out a large knife and let the tip touch her neck.
The door banged behind me and I whirled, expecting to have to defend myself. Instead, the room began flooding with people.
Each one was moving to a chair and sitting down in the circle. They ignored him as they sat down, taking their places. They were people from the facility who I hadn’t really met yet.
“What are you going to do to them?” I ran around the outside of the circle, but none of them would let me inside.
“Don’t do this to them. They don’t deserve it!” I cried as he took the knife and playfully touched the throats of his victims, but never harming them with more than a pinprick.
“I’m not doing it, you are. It’s your actions that caused this ripple effect. You saw me in the forest, and now I’ve got to make you pay for ruining my fun that day. Look, you’ll see it for yourself.”
I glanced up, but all I could see were the heads of the people in the circle bowed down.
“No!” I screamed, running toward them, but bounced back as I touched the edges of the circle. I slid across the floor, leaving bloody marks from my hands that were now covered in blood.
“Their blood is on your hands,” he intoned. “You sealed their fate.”
He gave a maniacal laugh as the blood from each person dripped onto the floor. “You could stop this if you could use your powers. It’s too bad you’ve lost that ability. That’s why they were given to you.”
I frantically tried to get up and stop him from leaving, but he vanished from the circle and through the door before I could do anything.
“It’s all your fault!” the victims cried. “You could have saved us!”
“I don’t know how to fix it!” I screamed at the ceiling, but it was the floor that opened up, dropping me into thin air.
“Sure you do,” a voice whispered in the semi-darkness. “Open the door and you’ll be free.”
“Huh?” I looked around, confused. “What door? There’s no door here in the sky.”
“The door of your mind. Open it and you’ll be free to roam anywhere you want,” it urged me.
My body was suspended, and I could only see what was in front of me.
Closing my eyes, I imagined a door, but it was stuck. Something was stopping it from opening. I pushed harder and felt a little give.
With all my might, I pushed against it until it finally opened, and fell into someone’s arms.
The lights blinded me for a moment, but then I saw Ryan’s face and I started crying.
“I’m so sorry. I’ve been a horrible person.”
He looked at me, perplexed, and patted my shoulder awkwardly.
“Let’s get you to the cottage.” He wrapped an arm around my waist to steady me, and I let him lead me away from the closet.
“What time is it?” I questioned as I looked around, but the building was completely empty of people. It was dark outside.
“About 11 p.m.”
“I’ve been in that closet for hours. I think it was about two thirty that I went to lay out at the pool. I was there for at least thirty minutes before I heard someone calling my name.”
“Leslie, that’s nine hours,” Ryan huffed as he unlocked the cottage door.
“Two things.” I unhooked his arm from around me. “I’m going to go to the restroom, but I don’t want to close the door, so stand on the other side of the room.”
He started to laugh, but realized I was serious. “It makes sense. What else?”
“Don’t ever let me go anywhere without my gun and phone again, okay?”
“Gotcha.” He nodded toward the bedroom with the bathroom attached, and walked over to the kitchen where he grabbed two bottles of water.
I came out of the bathroom and sank into the couch, stretching my legs out.
“Thank you. I’d hoped that you guys would see that I was missing, but it took longer than I thought it would. Although, it felt like I was only in there for an hour, not nine.”
Ryan scratched his head sheepishly as he took a seat in the chair across from me. “Well, Adam left earlier, and I realized I hadn’t seen you in a while. I wasn’t too worried because I thought you’d show up for dinner, but then you didn’t. I checked your room, and then went to find Kara. She hadn’t seen you since breakfast, and that’s when I knew something was wrong.”
“I didn’t want to incite a panic like there was last week, so I came back here and started following you on the cameras from this morning. When you left the pool, I was able to track where you’d disappeared to, but then I couldn’t find you. You weren’t on the cameras on the second floor. What happened that you got locked into a closet like that?”
“Someone called my name several times, and then I figured out who it was, but then they were gone. I searched, but found no one. I had just opened that door when I was shoved from behind. They locked it, and while I tried pounding, I realized there were only three rooms on that floor, so my chances of someone finding me were slim.” I shivered, knowing that I wouldn’t be comfortable in small spaces for a long time.
“My guess is that someone wanted y
ou or me, or both of us to be busy while they took care of something.” Ryan didn’t look happy.
“What is it?” I sat up, knowing I wasn’t going to like what he had to say.
“Kara’s gone again. Only this time, she left willingly with three men in a van.”
“Seriously?” I exploded. “Does she not have any common sense?”
“This note was taped to her door. It said that Kara was going to take your place until Adam returned.”
“So she didn’t just walk out of here with several guys?”
“Nope. There’s one problem, and that is Adam’s not answering his phone. He should have gotten home by now, but I’m not getting anything.” Ryan’s face looked grim.
“We’ll just have to wait until he returns,” I said bravely.
“Not much of a choice, but what do we do in the meantime? We can’t just sit here and wait for them to contact us.”
“Ryan, what if Kara went with them willingly because she’s this month’s killer? It would make sense. The buddy-buddy thing with me, and then having a disappearance where she’s returned with a note? Now you’ve found another note and she’s missing, but only until Adam returns.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know, Leslie. She seems so naïve and innocent. I just can’t see her doing something like this.”
“There aren’t any other options that make sense, though,” I groaned, frustrated that I couldn’t help her.
“I mentioned this to Adam earlier, and then he left for a trip to get files needed in a case. But what if Agent Watson has something to do with this?”
“What?” I frowned, thinking it couldn’t be true. “Why would he want me locked in a closet for hours?”
“It might not be him, but he could possibly be helping the Zodiac Master. Adam left, and now there’s no trace of him. His phone is showing up at his home, as is his car, but he’s not answering. Why would he do that?”
“He went off the grid?” I snapped my fingers. “Did you tell him about Mac?”
“Yes, and then we talked about Agent Watson and Mac being compromised.”
I grinned. “He went to get Mac somewhere safe, and had to put all of his stuff at his house so it would look like he was home. There’s not a lot I can do right now, but he’ll be back.”
“Do you think he’s going to bring Mac here? Wouldn’t that just cause more trouble and bring the Zodiac Master here with us?”
“Maybe, but I’m going to guess that poor Mac is now in a safe house for the duration of this case. While Adam would want the Zodiac Master to be drawn out of hiding, he’d sense it was a trap. He’s too smart for that.”
“Sorry.” Ryan rubbed the back of his neck, trying to get the kinks out. “You’re right. It’s been a long day. While I’d love to alert the authorities that Kara’s missing, this time they’re not going to listen. Our hands are tied until we can produce Adam.”
I covered the yawn that slipped out. “I’ve got to get some sleep if I’m going to be any good searching for her.”
“Go ahead and sleep there. I’m going to see if I can zoom in on the license plate and try to run it. Then we’ll be that much closer to a solution in the morning.”
“Ryan?” I pulled the throw blanket up and over my body. “Thanks for coming to find me, even though I haven’t been really nice to you lately.”
“Hey, don’t mention it.” He smiled. “That’s what friends are for, the good days and the bad days. Get some rest.”
He didn’t have to say it twice because I passed out. Exhaustion from hours of battling the Zodiac Master in my mind, and then from nine hours stuffed in the closet.
“Tomorrow, we’re going to find you, Kara.” He whispered the promise to the empty room.
Chapter 9
Leslie
Ryan was exactly where I left him when I opened my eyes.
“Did you get any sleep last night?”
“Nope. Don’t worry, I’ve heard that I’m not going to sleep in the near future, so I’m just practicing.”
“Whatever.” I rolled my eyes at him.
I pulled the throw blanket up to cover me as I got up and walked to the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee.
“Have we heard from Adam?” I made a face at the coffee. It had been on all night and needed to be thrown out.
“Not yet. Nothing from the people that took Kara either.” Ryan ran a hand through his hair, frustrated with the lack of communication.
“Let me go grab a fresh pair of clothes and some breakfast for both of us, and then you can take a nap.” I rinsed the pot and started it for a fresh batch of coffee.
His red-rimmed eyes followed my movements. “Sorry, I got busy trying to find the vehicle that I didn’t even have time for coffee.”
“No, I’m the one who should be apologizing. I slept all night while you worked, and I haven’t been pulling my weight. When you and Shea have the baby, I’m going to make sure that you get time off,” I promised, knowing I needed to make up for the way I’d been treating them.
“What? I can’t do that,” he protested.
“Yes, you can, and you will,” I firmly declared. “We’ve both given up so much, and I’m not going to let you miss out on those first few weeks of new babyness.”
“The Zodiac Master won’t allow for that…and what about the thing Flora told us in the beginning?”
“How we need to stay together?” I nodded. “She’s right. You’ll be available if we need you, but this has gotten ridiculous, and it’s not right that you have to give up so much because he’s an asshole.”
The relief on his face told me I’d said the right thing.
“When you start kidnapping people because you can’t find one of the team, it’s time to take the power away from him. We’ve let him dictate all of our movements for far too long. I’m ready to start turning over all stones that lead to him.”
Ryan looked confused. “I thought you didn’t care if people died? I mean, I hoped that you’d care if one of us did, but you’ve been so distant.”
“Well, I’m just saying that taking Kara is a little over the top.” I backtracked, not because I didn’t care, but because of the ears listening.
“Even if she’s somehow involved, I’ll help make sure that she doesn’t get a chance to kill me or the other people here in the facility. I’m kind of allergic to dying,” I tossed over my shoulder as I left to go get dressed.
Wearing a swimsuit for an entire day wasn’t ideal, but there hadn’t been any way to change that.
This time when I left my room, it was with both my phone and my gun. I patted it with an almost caress because it was a part of me. No matter how much I’d tried to act like I could leave fighting crime behind, it just wasn’t going to happen.
There was a missed call with a message, so I dialed voicemail as I went down to grab some to-go boxes for us to eat.
“Leslie,” A distorted voice said through the phone. “I hope that Adam comes back soon, because Kara isn’t really enjoying our company. All these hired hands are getting antsy and want a piece of her. It would be a shame if something happened to her, wouldn’t it? Tick tock. The clock is running out for her.”
I hit the delete button quickly. I was tired of his ultimatums. There was no way I could pretend that I wasn’t pissed off, but he needed to see that he could still get under my skin.
It was a way for him to think he knew what I was going to do, but I was smarter than him, and had already shown that I could act when I needed to. It was time to step up my game.
The buffet food smelled and looked amazing, but it didn’t really matter what we ate as long as we had fuel to outthink this madman.
When the door banged behind me, Ryan looked up, startled.
All of my anger deflated when I realized that I’d woken him up.
“Sorry. I had a horrible voice message. Why don’t I put this in the fridge and let you go get a nap. This can be reheated when you wake up.”
He yawned.
“You’re right. I’m not good for anything right now.” He stumbled out of the room without any protest and closed the door behind him.
Now that his seat was vacant, I sat down in front of the computer to find out what he’d been looking at all night.
There were surveillance videos of the vehicle that took Kara, and even a few glimpses of it as it passed through town. Hot Springs, Arkansas, and the surrounding area had lots of potential hiding places that were off the grid.
We might narrow it down only to find out that they’d swapped vehicles, and we were walking into a trap.
People always assumed that because we were the cops or working with the FBI, that we could just snap our fingers and things happened. Their unrealistic expectations came from the fact that all mysteries were solved in an hour with commercials in between.
Some days, the field work and interviews alone might be all that a team was able to accomplish. At this point, there wasn’t really any point in spending man-hours trying to find Kara when I knew that he would have her killed the moment we got close.
The phone rang. It was Adam.
“Adam, how far away are you from being back?”
“Um, about two hours. Why? Ryan left a message, or rather several, but they didn’t make sense. Kara’s being held hostage and you’re missing?”
I quickly filled him in. “So the sooner you get here, the sooner they let Kara go, and we can get back to figuring out what’s going on.”
“Barring anything unexpected, I’ll be there as fast as speed allows, and hopefully they’ll bring her back by the time I get there. If not, I’m going to make a few inquiries with the local police department as to who might be for hire in their area,” Adam assured me.
“Perfect. Ryan’s sleeping right now. Poor guy’s been up for almost two days and he needed to crash. Since you’re on the way back, I’m going to leave him alone until you get here, and then we can start working out the problem.”
“See you soon.” He hung up, leaving so much unsaid, but I knew that everything had been heard by the one person we didn’t want to have the information.
Hopefully he’d have something about Mac for me. While I’d been telling everyone that I didn’t care, I had a special place for Mac in my heart. He had always had my back when it mattered the most.
