by Naomi West
Abby squeezed her eyes shut, her breath coming hard and fast as Zed answered the phone. Just listening to his words and hearing the tone of his voice almost made her believe it was possible he'd do that to her—that he'd willingly cut her apart bit-by-bit. She knew, of course, he'd never do that. He'd never seriously hurt her. But, if even she thought he sounded sincere in his promise, what would the world think?
Zed took the phone from his ear and put the call with Kara on speaker phone. “Kara?” he asked gruffly. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” Kara said, her voice tinny and hollow in its digitization, “I can hear you, Zed.”
“Do you have a pen handy? I have a list of my demands.”
“Yes,” she said. “I'm ready.”
“Thirty million dollars deposited for my brother, for payment of his defense fund. Admittance by Pharma-Vitae that Dimalerax is a failure. Publication of the true documentation on their experiments. And an exclusive interview with you, Kara. I want a chance to tell my side of the story.”
Kara sighed into the phone. “Zed, do you know how crazy all this is?”
“I don't care, Kara,” he growled. “This is my brother's, and now Ms. Winters', life on the line. If Pharma-Vitae won't deliver, I'll start putting pieces of Abby aside for safe keeping. Maybe they'll be able to explain to their shareholders why their CEO was cut to pieces, but I doubt it.”
“Okay, Zed, okay. I'll see what I can do.”
Zed hit the end button and hung up. He immediately began to help Abby out of her bonds, taking the tape from her mouth and cutting bindings on her wrists and ankles. “You all right?” he asked, soothing her hair with his hand and kissing her.
She leaned her forehead against his. “You're sure about this, right?”
“I better be. If not, this is all going to go out of control really fast.”
Together, they paced the house for the next hour. Zed kept her from the windows with their closed curtains. His phone rang, finally, with Kara on the other line. “Turn on the TV,” she said simply. “You're making more than just headlines, Mr. Hess.”
They flipped to CNN and saw the anchorwoman talking about the hostage crisis. A crawler across the bottom of screen read: “BREAKING: CEO OF PHARMA-VITAE (PHV -3%) TAKEN HOSTAGE IN HOME BY DISTRAUGHT FAMILY OF CUSTOMER ON DEATH ROW.”
“That making enough waves, Mr. Hess?”
“Yeah,” Zed said. “I think it is. Any comment from Pharma yet? They say anything about releasing their papers?”
“Nothing yet,” Kara admitted. “But, I'm sure we'll hear something soon. Oh, and Mr. Hess?”
“Yeah, Kara?”
“I wouldn't try anything stupid. Cops are on their way.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Abby
With the news helicopters beating their rotors overhead, and the SWAT trucks pulling up outside to form a nearly impenetrable ring of guns and steel, Abby quickly realized how important she was in the grand scheme of things. In less than two hours, they had her entire neighborhood on lock down, with media vans and satellite uplinks dotting the landscape.
To be honest, she almost felt bad for the neighbors. Except for the Johnson family, on the left. They always let their dog shit in her yard, then denied it afterward. They could go fuck themselves.
For appearances sake, she and Zed had decided that she needed to be tied up in her chair again, but, this time, down in the living room with all the curtains drawn. They needed to keep everything on the up and up, like this wasn't just some stunt designed to draw media coverage. Although, even if they tried to pull the curtain back and yell, “Surprise! You've been duped!” at this point, she didn't think anyone would listen to them.
Still, this was definitely not turning out exactly the way she'd hoped. She was growing increasingly worried that things were spinning out of control. He'd never said anything about SWAT, or these many police showing up.
The whole time they waited for Kara to arrive for her interview, Abby's phone rang. Zed ignored it, and he couldn't exactly let Abby answer, either. “It's probably Jackie,” she said, “calling because she's worried about me.”
“She called earlier,” Zed replied. “Mark’s calling now.”
“Letterman?” she asked, rolling her eyes. “Asshole.”
Soon, he got a call on his phone from Kara. He answered it, spoke to her for a moment, then hung up. “Okay,” he said. “She's coming in. You ready for this?” He stretched out a long strip of duct tape and tore it off, ready to put it over her mouth.
Of course she wasn't ready for this! Any of this! But, still, this was the only plan they had going for them, as fraught with danger as it was. “Yes, sir,” she groaned.
She was getting really tired of the tape over her mouth. She much preferred the neck tie.
Kara knocked at the door a short while later. Zed nodded to Abby, then headed up to the front. She strained her neck back, craning so she could get a view of the door. It was far from perfect, but she could at least get a good profile of him as he drew his pistol from his shoulder holster and peeked through the peephole.
“It's her,” he said, before unlocking the door and throwing it open.
“Inside,” he barked, as he reached out to grab the reporter and pulled her inside the house. “Now.”
Abby could see something on his shirt, a sharp, electronic red dot like one of her old professors used to use during lectures. She narrowed her eyes, trying to get a clearer view of it. Yeah, it was a laser pointer. Definitely.
Why would someone be . . .?
Oh no! “Zed!” she wordlessly screamed through the duct tape, kicking as best she could to get his attention.
He glanced down at the dancing red dot and, faster than a cheetah after a pot of coffee, he snatched Kara in front of him, covering his body. He scooted back inside, using her as a human shield, and slammed the door shut, throwing the deadbolt back into place.
“Oh my fucking God!” Kara gasped, as she leaned back against the wall, hand daintily pressed against her chest as she tried to catch her breath.
This was Abby's first good look at Kara. She was a little older than Abby had expected—maybe in her mid-thirties. Her skin was olive, her hair ebony, and Abby could tell from across the room that she had large, expressive green eyes.
“Well,” she groaned, taking it all in stride. “That was exciting, wasn't it?”
“Are you hurt?” Zed asked brusquely as he looked her up and down, pistol hanging at his hip.
She shook her head. “No, I'll live.”
As the two of them walked down the entry hall and back into the spacious living room, with Abby as it taped-up centerpiece, Abby had a moment of clarity. Those were laser sights on guns that were searching all over Zed's body for the proper place to shoot. This was going to end badly. Like, Bonnie and Clyde badly.
The man she loved wasn't going to make it out of this alive.
# # #
Zed
“Off the record,” Zed said as, gun still in hand, he led Abby into the living room, “I have no intention of hurting anyone, and definitely not Abby. In fact, I care about her a great deal. I'm just trying to get my brother's story heard. When the Times turned down the story, despite the evidence I'd gotten, I didn't know what else to do, Kara.”
“Right,” Kara said, clearly skeptical as she glanced down at the big automatic pistol in his hand, “I hope you understand that I'm a little doubtful of your claim.”
Abby made a wordless noise, getting their attention. Her eyes went to Zed's, and she gestured to her mouth with her fingers, the only parts of her hands she could still move.
She was right. Let it come from her lips, not his. “Right,” he said. “Well, here, take it from the horse's mouth.”
The woman he loved glared at him a little bit for his poor choice of words as he removed the piece of tape from her mouth, gently peeling it from her upper and lower lips.
“God, I hate that shit,” Abby groaned as it came free. She immediately
fixed her eyes on Kara. “He's telling the truth. Believe me, he is. This is about Pharma-Vitae trying to cover up their trials on Dimalerax and the damage they've caused with the medication. Nothing more.”
Kara raised an eyebrow and shook her head. “I've heard it all, now.”
This was it, Zed realized. This was his moment. But there was no way he was going to do it without Abby. She was the key in all this, and he knew it.
“You ready to start recording?” Zed asked Kara. “I have a feeling we don't have much time.”
“Uh, yeah,” Kara said, digging in her bag and pulling out her phone. She sat down in a chair adjacent to Abby and fiddled with the device for a moment. She held it up in front of her, saying her name, the date, and where she was recording. With it still recording, she focused the phone on Abby. “Ready when you are. Go ahead, state your name and who you are, so there's no question on authenticity.”
Abby leaned forward, still taped up. “Abby Winters, current CEO of Pharma-Vitae.” She looked to Zed.
“Me?” he whispered.
“You're the one at the center of this, aren't you?” Kara asked, as she trained the phone's camera on him. “You might as well be on record here, too.”
He ran a hand through his hair and scratched at his chin. “Zed Hesse, former Air Force Lieutenant.”
Kara moved the camera back to Abby. “Go ahead, Ms. Winters.”
Abby took a deep breath, going back through her memory and organizing all her thoughts into as succinct a story as possible.
“It all started, I think, about a week ago, when Mr. Hesse showed up at my office. At least, my part in this did . . .”
Over the next few minutes she retold the story, more or less, as they had told Jackie the day before. She left out all the kidnapping details, all the sex, and the other minor events, like the dog collar. From the point of Jackie on, though, the story aligned close enough to reality that there were no hitches in her story at all.
“You're contending that Mark Letterman, the head of sales, and the board of directors, are setting you up to take the fall for Dimalerax, and its poor performance?”
“As far as Mark Letterman has said,” Abby reminded her, “the directors are involved, or at least have knowledge of what is going on with that specific product line. Have I been able to see any direct evidence? No. But, the evidence on the drug trials themselves, I think, speaks for itself. And I have plenty of that.”
“Where?” Kara asked.
“My personal email. I have the files.”
“Anything else?” the reporter asked, eying them both very carefully, glancing down to Zed's pistol still in his hand.
Abby shook her head, then changed her mind. “Actually, one thing. I want you to understand that Zed's not a bad man. Not at all. He's doing this out of love—”
“Okay,” Zed said, as he brought the gun up and pointed it at Kara. “We're done here. Time for you to go. You tell Mark Letterman to get the money together, and get ready for a phone call from me.”
To her credit, Kara just glanced down at the barrel of the gun, slowly blinked twice, then refocused her gaze on Abby. “Can I have that email info, so I can log in from home?”
The women exchanged information. Kara jotted down the email address and password.
Zed grimaced as he thought of all the guns pointed at the house and of the kind of danger he'd put Abby in. They were going to come in after him. They were always going to, and he'd known that from the start. Kai’s voice came to him from a great distance, reminding him that the longer he stayed here, the longer Abby was in harm's way.
“Got it?” Zed asked. “You have what you need?”
Kara sighed and capped her pen with finality. “Yes, I have what I need. It's a fantastical story, you know. I hope the facts back you up.”
“They will,” Abby and Zed said the same time.
“Let's go,” he said, gesturing with his pistol for her to move along.
This position was untenable, and Zed knew it. He needed to get her out, one way or another. Either out of the house, or out of danger's path. He wasn't sure which, yet. But, one way or another, he was going to have to remove the cops from the equation. There had to be away.
And, right now, the easiest way to do that might be to just remove himself.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Zed
Abby's home phone rang minutes after he'd safely ushered Kara from the home and out into the arms of the surrounding police and SWAT.
Zed picked up the receiver.
“This Zed Hesse?” the officer on the other line asked.
“Sure is. Who's this?”
“Det. Reynolds. Tommy Reynolds. Fine if I call you Zed?”
“Mr. Hesse will do, Detective. Are you getting my list of demands together?”
“Listen, it's going to take some time for everything you've asked for, Mr. Hesse. There’s quite a bit you're asking for, here.”
“Well, let me help you out by speeding the timetable along. You call Mark Letterman, Pharma-Vitae's head of sales. You tell him he has four hours to get the money together, and that I'll be meeting him at their home office.”
“Mr. Hesse, I don't-”
“I'm walking out of here with Abby Winters as a human shield, so if you guys want to pull that sniper bullshit on me again, you'll be shooting up a Forbes five hundred CEO on international television. Got it, Detective?”
“This is—I can't agree—”
“Get off the phone,” Zed said, his voice cold and level. “Call Mark Letterman. Now. Her life's in your hands.” He slammed the phone down into the cradle and headed back over to Abby, who was still taped to the chair. He bent down and began to cut through her bonds.
“What's going on?” she asked.
“I'm getting you out of danger, that's what,” he said, cutting through the straps binding her ankles.
She was suddenly frantic. “How, Zed? How are you getting me out of danger?”
“By leaving here, and taking the cops with me. If anything happens, and I don't think it will, I don't want you around it, okay?”
She bit her lip and tightly closed her eyes. “Zed,” she whispered, “I don't want to lose you.”
He frowned and bent to her wrists, slicing the bonds surrounding first one, then the other. “I don't know how I can stay,” he said, as he sliced through the last one. “I can’t stay and keep you safe at the same time, Abby.”
“I don't want to be safe, if it means you're not here,” she said, reaching out for his hand that held the scissors. She wrapped her lithe fingers around his larger hand and squeezed. “I want you, not all this.”
Zed took her hand in his and looked her square in her weeping eyes. “It doesn't matter what we want. I want you, too. But I've still got a mission to protect Kai, and to protect you now, too. Okay?”
She frowned and nodded as she sniffled back some of the heavier tears.
“Good,” he said. “Now, help me out. I gotta make a pile of trash bags look as beautiful as you.”
# # #
Abby
Tears in her eyes, and loss in her aching heart, Abby helped Zed dig through her closet for clothes that would be suitable. They needed to both stuff the garbage bags and clothe the makeshift dummy.
“This isn't going to work,” she groaned, sniffling as she pulled her clothes down from the hangers and handed them to him.
“Of course it will,” he said, his voice infinitely more confident than she was feeling. “Most distractions are all flash and bang, with no substance. That's what this will be about. I'm not walking out of here with your double. I'm leaving in the car.”
Dubious, she looked at him. “My car?”
“Right out of the garage,” he soothed. “They'll never see me coming.”
She pulled down a couple Mark Jacobs dresses she really loved, sighing as she dropped them into the growing pile at her feet. “I just don't understand why you have to go out this way,” she said, trying t
o fight back the real water works.
He came up behind her and wrapped her in his arms. He pulled her close to his chest and leaned down to nuzzle her neck. “Do you trust me, Abby?” he whispered, his breath tickling her ear.
She sniffed. Did she? Even after all this week and after the days in the closet? “Yes. I mean, I've let you . . .” She sniffed again. “Yes, I trust you.”
“Do you think I'd ever hurt you for no reason?”
That was a tricky one. He had masterminded this whole thing on a whim, after all, as he desperately searched for a way to help his brother. But, deep down, she knew he'd come to care for her, as crazy as that all sounded. If he'd asked her these same questions just six days ago, she probably would have had a very different answer on her lips.
