Cold as Ice

by Allison Brennan

  The corrections officer was silent as he led Sean to his cell. Most of the men didn’t pay any attention to Sean; everyone was already locked in. It was after hours in a medium security facility, and most of the men here were waiting for court dates. They hadn’t been convicted. Most were guilty. Some weren’t.

  Like Sean.

  “At oh-six-hundred, the doors will automatically unlock, but wait in your cell until the announcement before you step out and line up for breakfast.”

  “When are visiting hours?”

  “Ten A.M.”

  “Thank you.”

  He wanted to stay on the good side of the guards. If something happened in here, he wanted them to help him. If he caused problems, they might not be as inclined to jump to his defense if he needed it.

  Less than thirteen hours and he could see Lucy. He hoped between the two of them, they’d find answers to get him out.

  Mostly, he needed to tell her he was sorry. To tell her face to face that he was innocent. He knew she believed him, but explaining the situation over the phone wasn’t good enough.

  The lights turned off automatically at ten P.M., only minutes after he was put in the cell.

  He lay on his bunk in the seven-by-nine-foot room and stared at the dark ceiling. Sounds everywhere. Quiet talking. Snoring. One guy far off, sobbing. Steady footsteps of the guards patrolling.

  The smell of fear, of acceptance, of despair.

  His heart raced, knowing he was trapped, knowing he couldn’t leave if he wanted. He sat up on the thin mattress and willed his pulse to slow down. Panic wouldn’t help him.

  You’re in prison. Your life is not your own.

  He put his head in his hands and for the first time in years, Sean wept. Silently, his body shook as he fought to control his pain, his fear.

  And the realization that he might not be getting out—on Monday, or ever.

  * * *

  Erica Anderson rolled over and wrapped her arms around the man she loved.

  It was almost over. Three months of hell.

  “What’s wrong, baby?” Tim turned on the nightstand light. “It’s late, I thought you were sleeping.”

  She had barely slept this week. Hell, she’d hardly slept in months.

  “Bill left three message on my voice mail today. A federal agent wants to talk to me.”

  Tim sat up. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because what can we do? I talk to her, they’ll kill you, they’ll go after my kids.”

  “Tell Bill to get the kids out of town. Maybe—”

  “What? Maybe what? We got ourselves in this mess, we can’t talk our way out.”

  She’d tried. When she realized what Elise Hunt was up to, she tried to get them out of this disaster. But they were already in too deep. Tim had committed a crime—a felony—because of her. She wasn’t going to send him to prison because he was trying to fix a mess she got them into.

  But the bitch who ran the operation made it clear that there was no turning back.

  So Erica and Tim took the money and worked any job required. She had no other choice. And it wasn’t like any of these people were saints. So what if a prick got jammed up for murder? From what she’d been told about Sean Rogan, he was no better than Elise herself.

  At first, it was about the money. She was tired of being broke all the time, and what Elise asked her to do was no big deal. She’d opened up an account for the kids for college. Bill didn’t make enough money and her babies were smart. Smart enough to go to college—something neither she nor Bill had ever been able to do.

  The jobs went from borderline illegal to actual felonies. But by that time, she and Tim were in way too deep to get out clean. First time she complained, the bitch in charge showed Erica pictures of her kids walking home from school.

  She hadn’t said a word since. Just did what they asked. Everything, pretty much, short of murder.

  “Tomorrow,” Tim said. “One last assignment and we’re free.”

  “Are we? If her federal agent wants to talk to me, maybe she knows something…”

  “No one knows anything.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  He turned her to look at him. Waves of emotion washed over her. She loved this man so much and he shouldn’t have to pay for her mistake. But he was, and she was, and that was fucking life. Because life sucked.

  “When this is over, we go away. Disappear for a while.”

  “My kids…”

  “Just for a while. Just lay low and make sure everything dies down.”

  “I’m scared.”

  “I have it covered. I love you, Erica. I love you more than anything.”

  She held him tight. They made love, hard and fast and desperate. Then slow and hard until she was so satisfied that she could hardly move. She had to remember every muscle in his body, the way he touched her, the groan he made when he was about to orgasm. She had to remember the way he made her feel because she feared this would be the last time.

  Chapter Twenty

  OUTSIDE SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

  Torture was mostly ineffective.

  This was a truth Brad knew from a half dozen years in the military and nearly two decades fighting the drug cartels.

  Mostly because human beings were resilient and could be trained to withstand physical pain and psychological pressure.

  But emotional torture accompanied by well-planned physical torture could turn even the strongest of men to mush.

  It was the games Elise played that had him on edge. Psychologically, he could withstand it. She hadn’t even asked him for information. It was like cat and mouse—he was the mouse and Elise was a psychopathic cat who wanted to see how long he would last with her claws at his throat. Why he wasn’t dead baffled him, but clearly there was a reason.

  After he’d been grabbed only blocks from DEA headquarters, he’d been unconscious for hours. There was no clock in the dark, windowless room where he was being held, but one of the men who checked on him had a digital watch. It helped him keep track of the time, because once he had a starting point, he could mentally keep count.

  At three thirty-four P.M. he saw Elise Hunt for the first time. He suspected that they’d injected him with drugs and he was still mostly out of it. She talked and he tried to listen, but it was as if she was at the end of a long tunnel. The room was hot and stuffy, but he felt cold and his every muscle was sore from being tied up for so long. But he wasn’t dead, and he had to hold on to that.

  At seven ten he felt more himself; whatever they’d drugged him with had passed through his system. His head ached, his mouth was parched, but he was alive and needed to regain his strength.

  Then bright lights came on, nearly blinding him after being in the dark for so long. Instinctively, he fought against the restraints, but they were secure.

  “Take off his shirt and roll him over,” Elise said.

  His survival instincts had him fighting, but to no avail. Hands that belonged to faces he couldn’t see grabbed his shirt and tore it off, then pushed him facedown on scratchy, thin carpet. It smelled like oil and cleanser. “Hold him still, I don’t want to kill him yet.”

  The pain that seared into his back made him scream and she laughed.

  “Scream as loud as you want, sugar. No one can hear you.”

  It wasn’t until she was done and he felt the throbbing from her knife that Brad realized Elise had carved an H into his back. Branding him. Marking him.

  She talked almost the entire time. She was excited, energized. She talked about Lucy.

  “She can’t touch me,” she kept saying in a singsong voice. “I knew she’d go crazy. Maybe I’m the psychic one!”

  Then she’d slapped him.

  “You killed my sister! Do you know how that scarred me? For life? Watching my sister and aunt die so violently?”

  He didn’t believe it for a minute. The girl was insane.

  Lucy said she’s a psychopath, plain and simple. Not legally i
nsane. She enjoys these games and knows right from wrong. She loves doing bad things. Inflicting pain, humiliation.

  What had Lucy said? She was impulsive and unpredictable. So Brad didn’t bait her. He couldn’t afford to be so seriously injured that he couldn’t escape if presented the opportunity.

  She kicked him in the balls and the pain was so sharp that he couldn’t breathe for a long minute. He felt men tugging at him, Elise giving orders, but he couldn’t distinguish the words over the ringing in his head.

  By the time he gathered himself together, the lights were out, the room was empty, and his feet were chained to a metal desk. His hands were free. He tried to get out of the chains as soon as his fingers stopped shaking, but they were secure.

  He hadn’t seen anyone since then. They hadn’t fed him or given him water, but every once in a while bright lights would blind him unexpectedly. Not a basement—there were few basements in Texas, especially in this area—but it felt secure. Like a storage room or a garage or reinforced shed or something similar. Thick walls, and when he leaned against them they had some give, as if there were padding to them. Soundproofing.

  Scream, no one can hear you.

  The first time someone threw firecrackers into the room, he thought it was gunfire and he was dead. Elise laughed hysterically outside the door.

  Not bullets. Fireworks. Just fireworks.

  The second time firecrackers were set off in the room, one got so close to him it seared his skin. He was pretty sure it was the young guard this time—a kid named Donny, not more than twenty-three—because Brad recognized his voice. He’d said something when he opened the door, like, “You sure?” Then he tossed in several firecrackers and closed the door.

  It was Donny’s watch that gave him a good basis for tracking time, and he figured it was between nine and ten about now. Maybe a little later.

  His back ached from where Elise cut into him. If they didn’t kill him, he’d probably die from an infection. Elise had used a pocketknife, laughing that she was branding him for her family.

  He tried to shake his chains, see if he could get loose, but the connection was solid and the desk he was tied to wasn’t budging. He moved around as much as he could. The chain was about ten feet long, and there was a small bathroom right next to him. No electricity but the bathroom at least provided him water—metallic tasting water that dribbled out of an old sink, but it was better than nothing and he had to keep up his strength. When Elise had been down here carving his back, he’d memorized the layout. It looked almost like a den—nothing inside, everything built into the walls. There was padding on the walls—soundproofing—but it looked old, like it had been installed years ago. A window looked out into another smaller room—dark. No chairs, no pictures, no windows. Beyond that was a door. He hadn’t been able to see on the other side of the door, even when they opened it. The other room was dark, but based on the smell he thought it might be a garage.

  A residence? Whose? Donny’s? A property they’d missed when they seized of Nicole Rollins’s holdings? Were they still in San Antonio? Out of town? It was an older home in a quiet area—he didn’t hear traffic or kids or neighbors. They hadn’t gagged him, which told him Elise was right and she wasn’t worried about any sound he might make. Possibly because of the soundproofing. Possibly because they were in the middle of nowhere. Or both. Besides, screaming would deplete his strength, and he needed every ounce.

  Other than the bathroom, he couldn’t reach anything else in the room, including the door that was locked from the outside. He didn’t have a mattress, blanket, or pillow, but he didn’t care about comforts. He’d already searched the bathroom—it was bare. He’d felt around for anything he could use as a weapon—there wasn’t even a towel rack attached by the sink and the toilet didn’t have a water tank.

  He didn’t hear anyone unless they came into the room.

  He was cold because he was still mostly naked. At one point an hour ago he heard the AC turn on; it was still on and he was even colder. Did they want him uncomfortable? Or were they not even thinking about him anymore? Drug withdrawal also might have affected his body temperature. They’d taken his shoes and his belt, though he didn’t remember when; he still wore his pants. He could tell by the lack of weight in his pockets that he didn’t have his wallet, badge, or gun. He vaguely remembered pulling his gun when his car was shot at, but he didn’t remember what happened to it. Everything was fuzzy.

  He drank some more of the foul-tasting water, then sat down. His back smarted. But that was the least of his concerns.

  What the hell did she want?

  He heard someone talking—not Elise—it was a male voice and another female voice. He couldn’t see them, and he wondered if he was imagining things. He heard words here and there, but couldn’t put them in context.

  He must have dozed off for a while because he woke to a click of the lock, then blinding light. He blinked, couldn’t see who’d come in. His body was sore, telling him he’d been asleep for some time.

  There were at least two of them in the room, maybe three. He narrowed his eyes, but was still nearly blind from the light.

  He heard voices, one definitely Elise’s.

  “Ready, set, go!” she said.

  Suddenly, a sharp, stabbing pain hit him all over. He had no idea what the hell happened, but it was like every nerve burned him, and he couldn’t help but scream out. It was so sudden, so unexpected … another bright light, this he now knew was a flash, and then icy cold water was poured over his body.

  A moment later, the room went dark, the door shut, and the lock engaged. The last thing he heard was Elise’s laughter.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

  Aggie acted far more confident than she felt as she explained to SAPD officers the events leading up to the murder of Mitts Vasquez. Fortunately, no one questioned Nate’s presence, and none of the cops who had searched his truck earlier were there—a different precinct coupled with a different shift. Nate even chatted with one of the cops he’d worked with in the past.

  She stuck with her story that her boss, Brad Donnelly, had assigned her to locate Mitts Vasquez, who had an active SAPD warrant and Brad believed he had valuable information about drug shipments in the area for another case he was working. Observe and report, she said, call in if she spotted him. Yes, she knew that Donnelly was missing, but were they supposed to stop working? It was a potentially important case, and she didn’t want it to fall through the cracks.

  No one questioned her. She didn’t lie about her interest in Aunt Rita, or the shooter coming out of the downstairs apartment—which they now knew was vacant—nor did she lie about Nate’s pursuit of said shooter. There was no reason to, and technically she didn’t really lie about her assignment. Brad had asked her to work on the drugs found in Nate’s truck, and the cops didn’t have to know that her stakeout of Mitts Vasquez was related to those drugs. Besides, that was her theory, one she hadn’t had a chance to share with Brad before he was taken.

  By the time they were done and cleared to leave, it was after ten at night. She was tired and worried and starving even after all the snacks earlier. “Want me to drop you off at Lucy’s?” she asked Nate.

  “You’re staying.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I don’t think you should go home right now. If one of the players was staking out the apartment, they could have seen you, figured out you work with Brad, might go after you. Until we know what the hell is going on, we stay together. There’s plenty of room at Lucy’s house.”

  Aggie didn’t think that was necessary, and she was about to argue with him, when he continued. “When the shit hits the fan,” Nate said, “we need everyone together and on the same page. Brad would have my hide if we didn’t put you under our protective wing.”

  That irritated her. “I didn’t take you for a sexist, Nate.”

  He stared at her so intensely that she almost stepped back. He looked genuinely ins
ulted. “Lucy is a woman and my partner and I fucking respect her as much as anyone on the job. But we watch each other’s backs.”

  She shouldn’t have said it. Nate was right. She’d seen no sign that he treated Lucy different than he treated Brad. “I didn’t mean it like that, I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

  “Look, Aggie, we don’t know what’s going on. Vasquez was gunned down in front of us. He had answers; he’s never talking. Brad is missing. We have Sean in prison and who the fuck knows what’s going on with Kane and Jack right now. You’ve been making calls and talking to people, you’re in the middle of this now. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she mumbled. “Can we stop by my place so I can pick up a bag and feed my cat?”

  “Sure.” Then he smiled, just a bit. “Cat?”

  “I wanted a dog, but my work hours are crazy, and Solo came with the house. When I bought it, I realized the owners had left him behind.”

  “Solo?”

  “I’m a Star Wars fan, have a problem with that?”

  “No, ma’am. Let’s go feed Solo the cat.”

  * * *

  An hour later, Lucy listened to Nate and Aggie report on their evening. The death of Vasquez hit her hard—whoever was orchestrating this … attack for lack of a better word … on her friends and family didn’t have any qualms about murder. Vasquez might have been a drug dealer and thief, but he’d been killed because of what he knew.

  Which meant Brad Donnelly was in grave danger. The same people had him, and they wouldn’t think twice about killing him when they were done with him.

  You have to accept the fact that Brad might be dead. Just because they didn’t kill him in the street doesn’t mean they didn’t kill him later.