by Saul, Jonas
“Shit.”
He grabbed the black container and pulled out another long, thick one, placed it near his wisdom teeth and shoved it down in between. His tongue found the nail and began to coax it around.
He had studied Sarah ever since she was rumored to have saved a news anchorwoman from a car accident on the St. Elizabeth Bridge almost five years ago. He knew she had recently been in Hungary and she would want to come back to North America soon.
“Knowledge is power, and Elmore is knowledge,” he said to the empty room.
Sarah was everything he desired. The only small problem, which he felt he could get over, was her age. She was at least seven years older than he would normally look for in a hostage. At twenty-four, she had been used up too much, but Elmore was willing to let that go, if only for a year of her time. One year in the cage, her food drugged, blacked out most of the time, she’d become dependent on him and learn to love him. Then, when completely docile, she would bore him, and he’d give her a proper burial out back. She deserved it after all the people she’d saved. If only he could tell where she’d be next.
“Where will you turn up next, Sarah?” he asked out loud.
A few of the newspapers he’d read suggested that Sarah had died in the Danube River outside Esztergom, Hungary, but he knew that to be false. Sarah was too tough, too strong. She’d turn up again, and when she did, he would be waiting.
Elmore picked up the black container and spit the nail back in. He replaced the container in his desk and stood.
“Sorry, Jackie, but you have to go. Sarah’s coming. I’m sure of it, and I want to be ready. Gotta make room for her. She’s on her way and wherever she lands, I will find a way there and find her. Then I will bring her back here. I will own Sarah Roberts. She will be my little pet.”
Elmore walked away from his desk and headed for the basement, a crooked smile on his face. Maybe he should have Jackie one more time before he killed her. Or, maybe one more time after he killed her. He’d decide when she showed him how much she loved him.
He opened the basement door and started down the stairs, becoming aroused with each step.
Chapter 3
The pain never seemed to stop. Sarah woke slowly, sprawled out on the hard floor of a small, dank room. Any sort of movement caused her headache to flare. It felt like a brain-eating cockroach worked on her insides and the little light in the room caused it to scurry through her frontal lobe searching for a hiding spot, but finding none.
With both hands on her temples, massaging in slow circles, Sarah tried to roll over and get to her feet, but she did this act of bravery as slow as her fingers moved.
A single bulb hung suspended from the ceiling, lighting what looked like an interrogation room. She had been in many over her short life. This one was no different other than the wet, musty smell.
A wooden table and chair sat to her right. She crawled over and got on the chair with great effort. She eased her head down to the table and rested it, forehead to wood, until the pain rescinded.
Her right hand felt around the back of her head and then her neck, pushing the muscles in that area to loosen them up. Something flicked across her fingers. She shouted out in pain.
“What the fuck?”
She touched the back of her neck again, this time more careful to not push or cause further damage. Stitches were sewn into her skin behind her ear, just under the hairline.
Did that guy hit me with the baton so hard it split my skin? No wonder I’m in so much pain.
She raised her head high enough to look at the two-way glass.
“Assholes, get me some fucking Advil. And get me Rod Howley. Tell him I want to talk. But not until I have a conversation with Mr. Advil. We have business to attend to first.”
She lowered her head slowly and rested it on the wooden table, her fingers at work on her temples again.
She wondered why Vivian hadn’t warned her about Rod. Or maybe told her to take a different flight. Was this one of those, let Sarah walk into a trap, only to break her out and in doing so, catch the bad guys as that was the only way to nail them? If that’s the way it’s supposed to be, that sucked. She hated having to figure shit out as it happened. People got hurt that way. Sarah got hurt that way.
She knew Rod was powerful. His government gave him more control over others than he should have. They had an agenda and it was to be achieved at all costs. She wondered what their real agenda was and why the urgency. If they really believed Sarah had some kind of psychic powers, which evidently they did, then Rod had shown her he could do anything to detain her. If she was really psychic, couldn’t she have seen him coming? Would she ever get out, or were they that powerful? Could Rod and his group make her disappear?
She understood that her situation grew increasingly dire each and every day. The longer she stayed locked up, her chances of escape worsened. But if she showed them what they wanted, Sarah felt she’d never get out. Their appetite would never be sated.
The door to the room cracked open and something got tossed in. She looked down at a small bottle of Advil as it settled a few feet from her chair. Moving her head ever so slowly, she scanned more of the floor but couldn’t find any water.
Fuck it. I’ll chew the little bastards.
She lowered herself off the chair and slumped to the floor. The pain stayed constant, but didn’t spike as she took care to move slow and calculated. The Advil bottle held six tablets. She popped all six in her mouth, chewed and swallowed them as fast as she could, then lay back and stared at the ceiling.
Ten minutes, maybe fifteen, and I’ll feel this knife lift out of my skull.
The door opened again. Someone stepped in and closed it behind them. Sarah didn’t bother to look. She knew whoever it was would present themselves soon enough. Her visitor walked the few steps to the table and slammed something on the top hard enough to flare her head.
“Fucking asshole. I asked for Advil because I have a headache the size of Texas. Don’t slam things around or I’ll get pissed off. Right now, I’d prefer to not have any fun, so stay quiet.”
“I’m afraid I can’t stay quiet,” Rod Howley said. “We have business.”
She opened her eyes and toward him. “We don’t have any business. Unless that business is you opening that door over there and escorting me outside to wave goodbye with that funny hat you wear on your head. By the way, how long have I been here? What day is it?”
She closed her eyes again and heard him walk closer. When she opened them, his face took the place of a ceiling tile. It really bothered her to see him every time she turned around in Europe, and now here he was again. She had tried to evade him. Almost died in the Danube, only to be pulled out by Parkman. They had been flown by helicopter to Romania and escorted to a private airport after most of her wounds had healed. Parkman had taken an earlier flight and was supposed to be in Toronto waiting for her. Rod had somehow seen through all that and here he was again.
He nudged her with his foot. “Get up. It’s Wednesday morning. You’ve been here for two days. Now, get up, I have pictures to show you.”
Two days? Wednesday? Drake is going to be shot Wednesday afternoon. Could there still be time?
“You talk first. Let the Advil get a grip on my headache. Hey, by the way, why the hell did your guy have to hit me hard enough to cause stitches? What was that for? I was handcuffed and shackled, for fuck sakes.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. That was excessive. I ordered everyone to think of you as an enemy combatant who had infiltrated our rank to kill all of us. By the time we had you cuffed, my men were pretty pissed at you. I didn’t think it would go that far.”
“Thanks, dick fuck. Now I’ve got a nice-sized migraine and you’re still a dick. Help me up and we’ll walk out of here together and forget this whole misunderstanding.”
Sarah raised both her arms and waited.
“Forget it, Sarah. I won’t be touching you. I’m still healing from Hungary too. I won�
��t risk my life tangling with you right now. Get up on your own, or I’ll have the men standing behind that mirror come in and put you in that chair. You don’t want that, so get up.”
Sarah lowered her arms and rolled onto her side. Doing her best to avoid any sudden movements, she got up and sat in the chair. The pain in her head showed signs of receding already.
Oh Advil, blessed Advil, oh how I love thee.
“Sarah, I need you to show me how you do your automatic writing. Work with me and I will make your stay with us much more comfortable than this. Trust me. The ones who comply get whatever they want. Your life would be so much better and less dangerous than it currently is.”
Sarah raised a hand for him to stop. “What are you talking about? What’s automatic writing?”
“Don’t bullshit me, Sarah. Before I came to Europe I talked to Esmerelda, Dolan, and many others. I know what you are and how accurate you can be. Your talents have to be clinically tested. We have to show it working and have proof.”
“You lie,” Sarah said, her head clearing even more. She blinked slowly and then watched Rod for every facial movement, every nuance in an attempt to figure out what he was up to.
“About what?”
“There’s no way Esmerelda or Dolan would have betrayed my confidence. They would have never talked freely with someone like you. Not about me, anyway.”
“Ahh, but they did,” Rod said, holding up his right index finger. “What they didn’t know was who I am. They thought I was a writer who had been saved from that burning building a few years back. They thought I already knew about your abilities. Neither one thought what they told me was news to me.”
“Let me get this straight. You just knocked on their door and chatted about me? That’s it? Is that how it happened?”
“Not exactly. I posed as a cab driver for Dolan. We chatted for an hour in New York traffic. I told him that you and I talked once in a while and that I missed you. Esmerelda and I talked it up when a bouquet of flowers were mistakenly sent to her home address. I delivered the flowers and told her I recognized her name. Wasn’t she the friend of Sarah Roberts, who was also my friend? Boy, can that woman talk. She was so appreciative of what you did for her daughter.”
Sarah stared at him. If she had a weapon of any kind at that moment, she would have used it and screw the consequences. Rod had gone too far.
“I refuse to be your guinea pig.”
“Look, Sarah, you tracked Armond Stuart around the world with no resources but your own wits and your sister, Vivian. Do you expect me to believe you’re just lucky? That you’re an average twenty-four-year-old girl? How do you manage a task like that without help? Some of our best FBI agents can’t do what you’ve done. Give me something to go on.”
Sarah moved her head back and forth slowly.
“What?” Rod asked. “What’s that? Your answer?”
“I want a glass of water.”
Rod raised his right hand and snapped his fingers. They waited, looking at each other. The door opened and a man walked in, set a bottle of water on the table and promptly left the room.
Sarah opened the bottle, drank half of it and addressed Rod.
“You can’t hold me,” Sarah said. “Maybe your government gives you extra powers, but twenty-four hours tops and I’ll be out of here. Save your bullshit for someone else.”
Rod shook his head. “I’m afraid not, Sarah. Unless you work with me, you won’t be free to walk the streets until you’re in your fifties or later. Trust me on that.”
“Bullshit. How could you pull that off? You guys aren’t Gods. You can’t make people disappear.”
“These,” Rod said and shoved a manila folder across the table at her. He stepped away from the table and started pacing in front of the door.
She flipped the folder open. Inside sat a series of pictures. The first one was the image of a man who looked to be in his early twenties. He was clearly dead, his eyes wide open, slack jaw, body askew. She knew he wasn’t sleeping. Too much blood. Someone had stabbed the guy in the stomach in a crude attempt to offer him a free vivisection.
The next picture was more of the same. Different angles exposed every gruesome detail of a life exterminated.
“What’s this got to do with me?”
“That’s Joseph Singer. He was murdered by his girlfriend who has never been located. Until now.”
Sarah looked up at him. Rod stopped pacing and knocked on the two-way glass. A moment later four men entered the room, two of them carrying machine guns strapped across their shoulders.
“What do you mean, until now?” Sarah asked, her mouth barely moving. She started to put it all together.
“I have multiple witnesses who will place you at the scene of the murder. Joseph’s sister saw a picture of you and will testify in court that you were the Sarah that Joseph Singer was dating at the time of his murder. I have enough proof and numerous witnesses to bury you with this charge and get a first degree murder conviction which will keep you behind bars for a very long time.” He stopped and crossed his arms, staring down at her. “Think on these things, Sarah.”
Real fear set in. She had killed before. Many times, but they were all in self-defense. She had never committed the act of murder for the sake of murder itself. Although she could make an exception with killing Rod. It would be a pleasure.
Her bladder tightened. She needed to pee. She needed to think. She couldn’t show weakness. But who really cared now? Did Rod think he could toss this at her and nail her to his cross? She had to admit, his play was solid, but it wasn’t checkmate yet.
“I’ve never heard of Joseph Singer. The charge is bullshit and you know it. Others will too. We both know I’ve killed before, but those people deserved to die. You have nothing on me.”
“We’re talking about a college kid here. A jury will eat this up. No amount of pleading will offer a reasonable doubt to them with the case I’ve got. But, Sarah, help me, work with me, and this Joseph Singer case goes away.”
“You’re delusional, you know that. You’re fucking gone. Loco, crazy, whatever … you’re just fucked. You can’t ruin people’s lives like this. It’s unconscionable.”
Rod stepped toward his men and the door behind them. “Sarah, you may be a hero to the public with your recent media exposure, but they don’t know about Joseph. This case will bury you. Forever.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, riddle man. I didn’t do this,” she said, gesturing at the pictures.
Rod stopped at the door, his hand on the knob. “You haven’t figured out who you’re dealing with yet, have you? That’s a mistake. Know your enemy, Sarah, know your enemy.”
Sarah looked away, her headache all but forgotten as the Advil had done its job. She sat on the verge of tears.
A nightmare. That’s what her life had become. The more she helped people, it seemed the worse things got. The stakes had risen and she wasn’t sure she could deal with it. What if Rod really did charge her with the murder of Joseph Singer and led her away to face a courtroom? It would take years to deal with something as serious as murder. Could she ever shake it? And what about Drake? He’s to be shot later in the day and there was nothing she could do about it because she was in Chicago and he was in Toronto. Ultimately, Rod has killed Drake by bringing her here.
Who’s the real murderer now, asshole?
Rod stood by the door, surrounded by his bodyguards. How many men made him feel secure around her?
“I know who I’m dealing with,” she said. “An asshole.”
“That’s right Sarah. Call me names. No problem, but remember this. You’ve seen what I can do with a commercial airliner in federal airspace. A simple murder cover-up is the next face on a milk carton, filed as a missing persons indefinitely. Refuse me and I’ll see you go down for first degree murder. Work with me and in a few years you’ll have more freedom to move about. Maybe one day you’ll even get married.” He stopped talking, covered his mout
h as he chuckled and opened the door. “Sorry about that. I wouldn’t want to joke about something that’ll never happen. Sarah Roberts, married … imagine that.”
Then he stepped from the room, followed by his men, and slammed the door shut.
They left in time to miss her tears.
Chapter 4
Drake Bellamy got out of Spencer’s police-issued, unmarked car and stepped in line at the ticket office. A light breeze ruffled his hair. It proved to be a great day. Spencer Milton had called yesterday and offered to take him to the Blue Jay game at the Rogers Centre, downtown Toronto. Drake had accepted as only recently he had been out of the hospital and mobile again. After what Monika and her brothers had put him through, he was lucky to be alive.
