Unspeakable Words

by Sarah Madison

  “We’ll get him,” he said aloud, pretending not to have noticed Flynn’s actions. “Someone will give something away that we can use. Though you’re sure he’s not the GFT killer?”

  Flynn shook his head. “No way. He’s a killer, all right, but he hadn’t planned on killing Emily. No, something must have happened that forced his hand.” Flynn looked incredibly weary and slightly rumpled, and Jerry remembered that he probably hadn’t slept well the night before.

  “Come on,” he said. “We’ve done enough for one day on this. You’re getting too tired to focus anymore. Let’s go back to the office, and I’ll set up the interviews for tomorrow.”

  Flynn looked like he wanted to protest, but he acquiesced quietly, confirming Jerry’s suspicion that he needed a break. They walked companionably back toward the car.

  “Derek thought you looked good,” Flynn said out of the blue, casting a glance in Jerry’s direction. “That you’d lost weight.”

  Unaccountably, Jerry felt his heart rate pick up. “I took up running,” he said shortly. “After, of course, I passed my stress test.”

  “Of course.” Flynn bit his lip in an obvious attempt not to smile, and Jerry had to stuff the image of those lush, full, and imminently kissable lips into the soundproof booth.

  A little frown furrowed Flynn’s brow. After a beat, he said, “How come you don’t run with me in the…. Oh, hey, not everything’s a competition, you know.”

  “This from the man who was an Olympic hopeful.” Jerry pursed his lips as though tasting something sour.

  “That was a long time ago. Okay, okay, I get it. Fine. I just thought it would be helpful to run together. You haven’t been running since I’ve been here.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Jerry sighed. He wondered what else Derek had thought about him but was going to be damned if he asked. Flynn’s ear tips, he noted, seemed to be red again. A flush worked its way up from his throat, and Flynn rubbed the back of his neck before he spoke.

  “DeShano knew you. Remembered you from when you used to come to the gallery openings. Back when you were seeing Derek.”

  Alarm coursed through him. “You don’t think Derek is involved, do you?”

  Flynn raised an eyebrow and gave him a funny look. “No. I’m saying that DeShano finds you memorable.”

  “Huh,” Jerry snorted.

  “So,” Flynn added thoughtfully. “You really think DeShano’s gay? Wouldn’t Ms. Marsden have picked up on that?”

  Jerry sighed. “More like bisexual. I think most people are, you know. Bisexual, that is. If they haven’t had preconceived notions of gender and sexuality drummed into them. Attraction is attraction. In DeShano’s case, I think he’s a gay man who sometimes sleeps with women, rather than the other way around. Surely you could tell, right?”

  Flynn’s cheekbones were pink, and he was quite obviously not meeting Jerry’s gaze. “Yeah,” he agreed. “I wonder why he chose to date Ms. Marsden, then,” he added after a beat.

  It was a good point, Jerry conceded.

  HE COULD have waited for Flynn, he thought in retrospect, but for crying out loud, they’d practically been living in each other’s pockets the last few days, and Fielding’s words to him a little while ago had stung. There had been no reason why he couldn’t check out this simple hunch on his own. If it didn’t pan out, no big deal. If it did pan out…. Well, it never hurt to be the smart, brilliant one for a change.

  “It has to be here,” Jerry muttered to himself. It was a stupid little discrepancy, but it was going to bug him until he figured it out, and something told him it was important. If he could just link DeShano to the Weir somehow, that might be enough to get a warrant on him. Jerry knew that he could come back with a team of engineers and they could take the place apart, but just once he’d like to be the one who solved the case. They knew that it was entirely possible for DeShano to have strangled Marsden and staged the scene during viewing of the short film at the gallery. No one would have noticed he was gone, and when the film was over, everyone would have assumed he’d been there the whole time.

  Jerry wanted to see the look on Flynn’s face when he showed him the link between DeShano and the Weir, whatever that might be.

  He might have spent several fruitless hours looking for it, had he not been a man of keen observation and neat habits. There simply was no other explanation for the area of floor wiped clean of dirt.

  “I’ve got you now, you bastard,” he said with glee. He knelt to examine the floor, using the powerful LED light on his keychain to illuminate the pattern he saw in the dust. To his left, a large bookcase was flush with the wall, but it looked as though it had been moved there fairly recently. He tried shifting the case, putting his shoulders into it, and found that it moved more easily than he expected. The smell of fresh glue was evident, and the paneling behind the case definitely looked new. A close examination of the wall revealed that there was a thin groove running from floor to ceiling that was deeper than just the sections of paneling. Jerry fished a penknife out from his pocket and began to pry at the crack. He worked his way upward steadily, forcing the seam to give until it suddenly popped open.

  “A dumbwaiter,” Jerry breathed when he looked inside. Holy cow. A dumbwaiter. It was probably part of the original structure and used as a means of shifting freight from the basement to the upstairs without using the tortuous staircase. His instincts had proven him right—the dimensions of this corner of the basement had not matched the cataloging room. He doubted most people knew of its existence, not if it could be boarded up this easily. He bet Ms. Marsden, who’d loved the Weir, had known. And why wouldn’t she have shared that information with her then-boyfriend, Michael DeShano?

  He must have copied Marsden’s keys at one point. Jerry could picture it now, remembering what Flynn had said about the disturbed art supplies. DeShano was probably using the materials at the museum to recreate forgeries with authentic materials. Maybe even working right there at the restoration station itself. He’d had no idea at all that Marsden was about to turn him in as the potential GFT killer. She must have surprised him in the basement when she stayed late to meet with them that night, and he’d acted in haste. Knowing her fears, he’d mimicked the MO of the serial killer. Flynn had said his actions weren’t the ones of a smart man but an arrogant one. Yes. That certainly fit DeShano’s profile.

  Jerry shone his flashlight into the space behind the paneling and almost missed it at first. The canvas material nearly blended in with the concrete walls. It looked to be about the size of a painting, heavily wrapped in canvas cloth and bound with string. He reached in to grab it, but it was just out of range of his fingertips. He set the flashlight down and grabbed hold of the wall, leaning in as far as he could until his fingers brushed his prize.

  “Gotcha,” he said triumphantly.

  He had an impression of someone behind him a split second before something struck him on the back of the head.

  The first time he regained consciousness, he was aware of being trundled along on some kind of stretcher down a dark hallway. The walls were spinning and closing in around him, and his head was pounding terribly. Where was Flynn? Weren’t they supposed to meet somewhere? He felt like he was going to fall. The cart was too small to be a gurney, and his hands scrabbled to find the edges. Nausea boiled up and over, and he vomited, causing whoever was pushing the cart to stop with a quiet but vehement curse.

  The second time he awoke, he was in a confined space, too small for him to turn around. There was something over his mouth; his hands were bound. His head felt like it was in a vise and someone was cranking up the pressure. He could feel the thrumming vibration of an engine nearby; it sounded very loud to his ears. He was in a cold, dark, small space, and he couldn’t remember how he got there. There didn’t seem to be much point in staying awake, so he didn’t.

  The third time he awoke, he moved without thinking. Pain jerked at his consciousness, immediately cueing him into the abnormality of hi
s situation, and he tried to gasp, only to discover he couldn’t open his mouth. His breathing sounded harsh in the confined space. He held very still, letting the pain die back down, conscious of the fact that he’d drown if he vomited now. His nose pressed down into some sort of fabric that smelled musty and faintly of oil. He had duct tape over his mouth, and his hands were taped together in front of him.

  Oh God. He was in the trunk of a car.

  Don’t panic. Don’t panic.

  It was sound advice, but all he could think of was the statistics he’d read somewhere. Twenty-five percent of all people locked in the trunks of cars died.

  He bet that statistic was even higher for people who didn’t get in the trunks voluntarily.

  Slowly, when he could move without the pounding headache triggering another wave of nausea, he brought his hands to his face and began peeling off the duct tape. Relief swept over him when he got his mouth free. At least now, vomiting wouldn’t prove terminal. Where was Flynn? He was supposed to meet Flynn somewhere.

  Flynn will find me.

  With that comforting thought, he passed out again.

  The sound of seagulls woke him the next time. Seagulls. That meant he was parked near one of the beaches. Maybe. He’d noted that seagulls often liked to congregate in places where there were large parking lots, like shopping malls. Beach. Parking lot. Either way, there was a good chance then that his car would get ticketed and eventually towed, so maybe if he kept his ears open, he’d hear someone approach.

  Hope died when he realized that he might not even be in the Bay Area anymore. There were a lot of remote beaches where no one might find his car for days. Weeks even.

  He yelled himself hoarse anyway.

  Finally, when he couldn’t yell any more, he brought his hands up to his face again, fumbling in the dark to find the tape that was wrapped tightly around his wrists. His hands felt fat and lifeless, as though they didn’t belong to him, and he worried that maybe the circulation had already been cut off too long.

  Flynn will find me.

  What the fuck had happened to him? How’d he get in the trunk of the car? What had he been doing before then? The fact that he couldn’t remember was almost as upsetting as realizing he’d been bound and left in a trunk. Where was Flynn? They were supposed to meet somewhere. Back at the bureau. He latched on to that piece of information like it was a bit of flotsam at sea, and he was the shipwrecked survivor.

  He wondered how long he’d been unconscious and whether he had any brain damage as a result. The sneering, insidious part of his mind suggested that worrying about his brain and his hands was immaterial since he wasn’t going to get out of this situation alive.

  Fuck you, he said to himself and to whoever had left him here to die, and to everyone else who had sold him short in this world. I’m not quitting just yet.

  He began to gnaw at the tape on his wrists.

  IT TOOK him a long time to get the tape off. By the time he was done, his mouth was dry and sticky, and he felt as though there was glue all over his face. It was a relief to get the tape undone, that was, until the blood began pounding back into his hands.

  He lay on his side and rocked against the pain.

  IT MUST have been DeShano, he thought during one of the periods of time when he felt a little more lucid. But why? What had he done to provoke such an attack? He must have gotten close to something, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember what.

  He could clearly remember that morning. He’d been standing over by the window, sipping coffee and looking out at the dreary, cold day when Flynn had thrown open the bathroom door, stalking out into the living room.

  “I’m not primping,” he’d said. “And I’ve already fed my cat. She’s lying.”

  He’d given Phoenix, who’d been shrieking as she’d clung to the bathroom door handle, a dirty look.

  Jerry had snorted. “Your cat,” he’d said. “You just admitted she was your cat.”

  “You don’t have to yell. I can hear you just fine.” Flynn had pointed at his head, the stress of the last few days starting to show a bit. He’d frowned at Jerry’s assessment of his state of mind and hitched up his towel when it threatened to fall off his waist. “Oh, would you quit with the soundproof thing, already?” He’d stomped back into the bathroom and shut the door.

  By the time they’d left the apartment, Flynn had regained his cool self-control again. They’d stopped for bagels on their way in to work for the staffers who’d been helping them lately. Jerry had pulled DeShano’s financials, and they’d been over them trying to find something that would allow them grounds for a warrant. They’d already spent a good bit of time interviewing attendees of the gallery opening, with the exception of a few they’d yet to reach, and Harding had fielded some complaints.

  “Find another way to connect this guy with the case or move on,” he’d warned. “And if you can’t link it to the GFT case by tomorrow, I’m going to turn it back to the SFPD anyway.”

  After lunch, Jerry had begun going over all the witness statements again. Something that someone had said had niggled at the back of his mind, trying to come to the forefront of his attention. He’d pored over them one by one until he realized that it wasn’t anything anyone had said, but something someone had thought. Try as he might, though, the exact discrepancy didn’t come to mind. He’d needed to talk to Flynn, but he was nowhere to be found, so he pulled out the photos of the crime scene, and then, as an afterthought, the photos he’d taken of the artifact on his cell.

  That was something else that was bugging him. The dimensions of the room where they’d found the artifact didn’t match that of the catalog room. It seemed smaller, judging by the photos. Of course, he couldn’t go by them. He’d need actual blueprints or to revisit the museum. He’d been startled to realize that it was almost 5:00 p.m. when he’d looked at his watch. He’d glanced around the office. Most people had left or were grabbing dinner before settling in for their assignments for the evening.

  “Say, you seen Flynn?” he’d asked of Fielding in passing.

  “I’m surprised you misplaced him. I was starting to think you two were joined at the hip.” Fielding had been decidedly full of suppressed glee, enjoying being the bearer of bad news. “He got called into Harding’s office a little while ago. I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for him to come out if I were you.” He’d managed to make the words “come out” have a sneering, double meaning. Jerry’s face had flamed. He’d felt horrible, realizing he’d left Flynn open to that sort of speculation.

  It was probably in part why he’d decided to go down to the Weir and check out the basement before they closed. Without waiting for Flynn. “Tell Flynn I’ll be back to pick him up later,” he’d said to Fielding, as the only agent available to pass on the message.

  He didn’t remember anything else after that. What had happened to him?

  IT HAD to be DeShano who’d placed him in the trunk. At least DeShano hadn’t taken his watch. It was a big, black, bulky thing. An elegant, streamlined affair would have gone better with his business suits. Not that he hadn’t coveted a really nice watch before. He just couldn’t see himself shelling out four hundred dollars for one. That was stupid. The one he had might be ugly, but it had the kinds of multifunctions that he’d found useful in the past, such as the stopwatch function. Always handy to have the stopwatch function when reenacting a crime or determining if a suspect could have gotten from the Crenshaw to the Weir in the time allotted. Yes. Handy thing to have.

  Focus, Jerry, focus.

  It struck him as ironic that he had to tell himself that.

  He tried to remember where he was going with that. Oh. Right. Watch. With fingers as thick as sausages, it took him several fumbling attempts to push the right button to light the dial. 9:23 p.m. It had been a long, cold night with no way to get warm. The cold bit deep into his very bones, even though he knew it was probably only in the forties outside the car. He had no coat, he couldn’t move freely,
and he was shivering. God, he was miserable.

  Hey, Flynn? You out there? I could really use some help right about now.

  Surely someone had to have noticed he was missing by now. He never returned to the bureau to pick up Flynn as he said he would. He hoped that Flynn had at least stopped by the apartment to feed the cats at some point, and then he realized that without keys, Flynn wouldn’t be able to get in. Keys. Wait. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Association had enacted a federal standard requiring that all cars have a lighted internal trunk release for this very reason. All he had to do was locate the prudently highlighted panel and presto! He was a free man. He could have smacked himself for not remembering that sooner.

  He peered anxiously in the darkness around him, but the only luminescent glow he observed was the faint readout from his watch. Cursing his useless and partially numb fingers, he tried unsuccessfully to locate the switch on the side panels within his reach. He craned his neck down as far as he could bend it, feeling the pull of muscle and tendon as he pressed his face around and tried to see behind him. If there was a luminescent switch down there, his body was blocking its access. His head continued to pound, and the words “subdural hematoma” played around in his mind.

  The small confines of the trunk felt like a straightjacket, and part of him wanted to flail and bash himself against the walls. It had to be here. Maybe it was just covered up with something. He remembered the flashlight on his keychain and reached down to feel his pockets. Empty.

  Bastard. His brain ticked over, working slowly but steadily, processing the information at hand. He’d been abducted by a killer and left bound in the trunk of a car. Why was he still alive?