by Max Walker
Hazel’s voice greeted me. “Hey, Detective Hudson. Sorry to bother but Sam—”
“Is he all right?” My throat felt like it was beginning to close.
“Yeah, yeah.” She paused for a brief moment. “At least I think so. That’s why I’m calling.”
“What happened?” I stood up. When had I stood up?
“I’ve been trying to call him from my roommate’s phone. I lost mine and thought he might know where it was. Maybe I had left it in his car or something. But… he’s not answering. It’s been a few hours and it’s radio silence, which never happens with Sam. He’s an instant texter. Plus we were supposed to have dinner together today, and that was an hour ago.”
“What’s going on?” Angel asked.
“Sam,” I said, a bad feeling sinking into me. “He’s not answering his phone.”
“Maybe he’s sleeping? Or watching a movie?” Andrew offered, always the little spot of optimism in the darkness. I shook my head.
“It’s not like him. All right, Hazel, let me give you a call back. Where are you right now?”
“At the mall with Olive, my roommate.”
“Okay. When you’re done there, I want you and Olive to go stay at a hotel. Somewhere safe. Just for today.”
“What’s going on, Detective? Is Sam okay?”
“He will be,” I said. “We’re getting close to tying Nick Ricks to the murder of Jesse, along with a lot of other fucked-up shit.”
“Oh my God… Really? Okay, okay. We’ll stay at a hotel tonight. Please keep me updated.”
“I will.” And I hung up the call, feeling like ice had replaced the blood coursing through my veins. I knew, deep down to the marrow of my bones, that Sam had been taken.
Angel’s hand landed on my shoulder. He gave a few comforting circles. He was standing, too, the rest of Stonewall looking up at us with worry painted in their gazes. I called Sam. The phone rang once before going straight to voicemail. I called him again.
And again.
And again.
Voicemail. Each time. “Hi, this is Sam Clark, please leave a—”
He sounded so upbeat and cheery in his voicemail. It made my stomach twist into knots. I had to sit back down, the room becoming smaller and smaller. It felt like my vision was beginning to tunnel inward.
I shouldn’t have gotten close. I knew this pain would come. I knew this loss would hit.
They were intrusive thoughts. I had no control over them. The same way I had no control over this situation.
Fuck!
I wanted to shout it out. Instead, I looked down at the napkin on the table, the thick black letters seeming to taunt me now. They floated off the page and did a full fucking conga line across my vision. The answer was there, somewhere, I could feel it. And that answer meant saving Sam and Peter’s lives.
But where was it?
“Rocky, you all right?”
The voice came from far away. I looked up, across the room at the computer on the table. Zane was looking at me, his baby girl starting to doze off in his arms.
“I’m fine.” No, I was far from fine. The scar on my thigh pulsed in a phantom pain.
One particular phrase jumped out at me from the napkin. “Heaven’s gate,” I said, more to myself than to the room. I could feel the eyes on me, and I knew the other detectives were wondering if I had snapped.
“Heaven’s gate…” I repeated. Images of Sam filled my head. Images of him smiling and laughing and looking out onto the horizon and being scared of heights and that date we had when he overcame it all, when we could see all of Miami.
When we could see… “Heaven’s gate. The skyscraper they’re building in downtown. That’s the nickname for it.” I stood back up, the chair screeching as it almost tipped over. “Nick left us a clue, right here on this note. He’s taken them to Heaven’s Gate.”
Angel was on my heels as I turned to the door. “Where are you going?” Zane’s voice said behind me.
I answered without turning back. “To save Sam and Peter.”
27
Sam Clark
There were lions. I was tied up in a cage of angry lions, and there was no way I’d get out of this. It was the only way to explain the near-constant roar inside my ears. The lions were furious. Hungry. My heartbeat was loud but not loud enough to drown out the roaring that seemed to be chiseling away at my bones.
My eyes slowly fluttered open. Fear covered me like a bucket of acrid mud being dumped over my head. It was dark. My eyes took what felt like hours to adjust, even though only seconds ticked by. I blinked. There were no lions in sight. Instead, I was looking straight ahead, at what seemed like the sky itself. As if I’d been dipped into the inky black sky, not a star in sight.
I was sitting down, my ankles tied together with my hands tied behind my back. This wasn’t the afterlife, was it? It couldn’t be. I could still feel the burn of the tight rope against my skin. The afterlife wouldn’t have pain… would it?
And then more details started to appear through the dark. I began realizing I was in a room, but it wasn’t a finished room. There were exposed beams all around me. Almost like the columns inside of a coliseum, except these were hard steel beams that reflected the very little light coming from a flickering lantern, swinging wildly in the whipping winds.
Where the hell am I?
I struggled against the rope as my survival instincts began to kick in. Something told me I needed to fight. This wasn’t the afterlife, but this very well could be the end of my life.
“Sam? Sam? You’re awake?”
The voice came from behind me. Hushed whispers that barely carried over the roaring winds. A voice I recognized.
Holy shit.
“Peter?” I struggled harder against the rope, trying to turn my body in the chair I was tied down to. All I could do was turn my head, which was a move I instantly regretted. Turning my head gave me a view that chilled me down to the marrow in my bones. It made my stomach twist into a pretzel, pushing my breakfast up into my throat. I gagged, holding it down by a mere miracle. I no longer struggled against the rope. My entire body went limp with fear, my muscles turning as useful as wet paper napkins, the slightest move ready to tear them apart.
We were on the edge of a building, looking through the scaffolding of a soon-to-be-built wall, down at the entire city of Miami, lights glittering beneath me like a grid of orange and white ants. A tarp whipped back and forth in the wind. I tried focusing on that, instead of the paralyzing view.
“Sam. Sam, we’ve got to get out of here. Sam?”
Peter’s voice sounded like it was coming from the far end of a deep cave, his words echoing and bouncing without making any sense.
“Sam? Sam, snap out of it. We don’t have much time.”
“We’re so high up.” I could have been talking to myself for all I knew. Terrifying fear sunk its rusted claws straight into my heart. “So high up.” My teeth were clattering, my jaw shaking.
“Don’t think about that. Think about getting out. There’s a sharp-looking piece of glass over there, Sam. If we could shimmy together, maybe we can reach it.”
“Heights. I’m scared of heights.” Another ball of bile shot to my throat. This one made it to my lips before I swallowed. All I could think of was how much space was between me and solid ground. So much empty space, so much of nothing. How long would it take to fall from here? To smash against the pavement?
“Okay, then don’t think about the heights. Think about that shard of glass. Come on.”
The chair started to shimmy, but since I didn’t move, it threatened to tip over. I panicked, seeing us tip over and falling straight over the edge. We were so close.
I pushed in the other direction, trying to compensate. But I pushed too hard. The debilitating fear didn’t sap strength from my muscles but instead infused me with it. The two of us went falling onto the floor, still tied to the chairs. My arm took a hard hit against the floor as my world turned upside down o
nce again.
“Fuck,” I said, logic starting to show through the panic, a moment too late. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. It’s okay.” Peter was crying. This wasn’t okay. This was so fucking far from okay.
“Whoa, what happened here?”
Another voice I instantly recognized.
Nick Ricks, the dirtbag of a friend Jesse had brought into our lives. The one who Rocky suspected was behind it all, something I could now confirm.
“Nick?” I asked as the world righted itself. Nick pushed Peter’s chair back onto its feet, too, making us face each other now. I could see Peter was in worse shape than I was. His left eye had swollen into a nasty purple thing the size of a grapefruit, and his lip had been busted down the center, covering his chin in dried blood. Somehow, though, he still managed to give me a smile when he saw me.
It was the kind of resigned smile given to people on death row, where the fates were signed, sealed, and delivered.
“Finally, both of you are up.”
As if he even had some control over the weather, the winds seemed to have died down. Nick stood there, the glow of the dim lantern behind him. His long hair fluttered up and down like the snakes on the skull of Medusa herself. He wore an all-black outfit, his long-sleeved shirt and skinny pants clinging to him as if he were becoming a shadow. His eyes were sunken in and distant. It was the same kind of expression he’d have when he walked out of the room with Jesse, finished doing drugs together.
“What’s going on? Where are we?” Peter asked.
“We’re at Heaven’s Gate. And I’ve brought you two here to prove a point: those who help the sinners will be prosecuted just the same.”
“What… what are you talking about?” The words were hard to get out. My mouth felt like it had been filled with sand. “Who are you prosecuting? Why us?”
“Because you both are important people. You two mean a lot to Angel and Rocky. I saw that when I followed you all on your double date.” Off our surprised looks, Nick continued. “Earlier in the day I realized Rocky was starting to follow me. I knew he must have started to figure things out. That I was the one who killed Jesse. And, even though I told Stonewall repeatedly to shut the fuck down, he was about to nail me. It infuriated me. I knew I had to do something. So, I went to your place, Sam, and I made up some bullshit story about my laptop, when all I really wanted was Hazel’s phone. I needed it for my plan. I got the phone, and then I kept my eye on the date. When it was over, I followed Angel and Peter, waiting for an opening. I found it, knocking you out after a struggle. You’ve got a fist on you, Peter.” Nick rubbed his jaw, but he didn’t look nearly as beat-up as Peter was. The drugs must have given him some kind of strength.
“And then you baited me,” I said.
“Yup.” He lifted Hazel’s phone before he tossed it over his shoulder. The phone went twirling in the air, disappearing over the edge of the building.
It reminded me of how high up we were. How easy it would be for us to follow the same path as the cell phone.
“How’d you even get us up here?”
“Elevator,” he said, pointing toward a steel box that seemed to be suspended in mid-air only feet away from us. “Don’t worry, I cut the power line. No one else is going to use that tonight.”
Black stars popped at the edges of my vision, threatening to overwhelm me. I took in a deep breath and tried not to start hyperventilating.
Nick cocked his head, his expression becoming similar to that of a tiger cornering a mouse. “You’re scared of heights, aren’t you, Sam?”
I didn’t want to give him any kind of answer. I just stared straight ahead. Part of me went back to that date with Rocky, where I thought my fear of heights had been conquered. It was such a perfect time back then, even though my life didn’t seem perfect by any stretch of the imagination.
What I wouldn’t give to go back to that moment right now.
Nick looked to me, to the edge, and then to me again. His sinister smile seemed to spread on his face like a deadly virus.
“Stand up.” He pointed at me with the knife.
I didn’t move. I didn’t want to. I couldn’t.
“Stand up!”
I did, but the bindings around my ankles threw me off balance. I fell back into the chair.
Nick came over and with one swift move, bent down and sliced the rope off my ankles.
“Good thing I kept this,” he said wickedly. “The same knife I used to kill Jesse. I was planning on dumping it in the ocean, but this seems so much more resourceful.” He waved the knife inches from my face.
“Stand up,” he said again, a little more controlled.
This time, standing was more successful. My hands were still tied behind my back, but I could move, even though my legs felt like they were filled with cement.
Think. I’m standing. I can fight.
But Nick’s knife was now pressing against my belly, the sharp point cutting through the fabric of my shirt and pushing into skin. If I tried anything, that knife would find its way into my stomach.
I swallowed what felt like a boulder.
“Come, let’s take a walk.”
He led me toward the edge of the building, where two steel beams framed the horizon like some fucked-up kind of portrait. It felt like I could see from one edge of Florida to the other.
It was beyond sickening. I couldn’t feel my legs or my hands or any other part of my body. A powerful numbness came over me.
“Oh, look at how pale you’re getting. What’s wrong, Sam? You don’t like being so high up?”
He pushed me. My eyes bulged wide as a muted shout tried to tear through my throat, blocked by fear.
I wasn’t plummeting through the air, though. Nick had a hold on me.
“Come on. Let’s get over this fear. Take a step. Go, take a step.” The knife pushed hard into my back now. I took a step. The smallest step I could. I was crying, the wind pushing the stream of tears across my cheeks. The tips of my sneakers were now over the edge, with nothing beneath them except air.
The fear was primal. Fear the cavemen must have felt at the sight of a saber-tooth.
“All right, other foot now.”
“I… I can’t. Please. Stop this, Nick.”
“Other. Foot.”
The knife was drawing blood. I could feel the warm trickle of it down my back. I took another centimeter-long step, my knees shaking. I started to pray they wouldn’t buckle.
“How’s it feel, Sam? Huh? Being so close to the edge?”
I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t get anything out.
“You don’t like it, do you?”
I shook my head, my eyes snapped shut.
“Open your eyes. Look out. Open.”
The knife dug deeper. Through the sharp pain came an even sharper realization.
The knife was also cutting into the rope around my wrists. If I moved just the tiniest bit, I could feel the rope start giving way, becoming weaker, thread by single thread.
I realized that if we wanted any chance of surviving this, I had to keep him talking. I had to stay with my toes suspended above thin air.
I opened my eyes. Strength filled me from some unknown source. “Why’d you kill Jesse?”
The question seemed to catch even Nick by surprise. “Huh?”
“Why did you kill him? Because you loved him? Because you thought loving him was a sin?”
“Because I got too high on ketamine and hallucinated that he was a zombie. So I stabbed him to death.”
Well… that wasn’t what I was expecting.
“But, well, you did love him, didn’t you? Secretly?”
“No. I didn’t. We were hooking up, yes, and I’ve repented for those sins. But I never loved him, no.”
The rope felt like it was giving way around my wrists. The wind whipped at my cheeks, howling in my ears. Bile rose up in my throat but I swallowed it down.
I had to keep asking questions.
&nbs
p; “And then you tried to frame Hazel… did you secretly love her?”
Nick gave a twisted laugh. “No. No I didn’t. I just hated everything Hazel was. I didn’t deserve to be caged for my mistakes, but Hazel did. I was doing everyone a favor. When I smeared the blood on her doorknob, I knew she’d open it, I knew she’d get it all over her hands. I figured it would be the best case scenario.”
The way he spoke about Hazel made my blood boil, aiding me in getting over the crippling fear. I could feel the tension in the rope around my wrists becoming less and less. I just had to keep him talking for a little longer.
“And then Stonewall Investigations had to get involved. Not even fucking bomb threats could get them to shut down.”
Nick pulled me back, away from the edge. I took a relieved breath, but I wasn’t sure if I needed more time. The rope still felt pretty tight.
“Sit back down.” Nick pushed me down on the chair, my hands still behind my back. He moved to Peter now, but he didn’t cut Peter’s ankle ropes. Instead, he grabbed his chair and dragged him, chair and all, to the same edge we had just been standing at.
“All right, now for you. The one who ended up with my actual true love. Angel. The man who condemned me to an eternity in hell.”
“Angel? You loved my Angel?”
“Yes. How do you think I knew when Stonewall was opening an office in Miami? Because I’ve been following Angel for years now. Ever since he walked out on me. I’ve never let him go too far out of my sight.”
Peter’s chair was perilously close to falling right over. Nick had one hand on the back, but I knew that wouldn’t be enough if Peter’s chair tipped over. Behind me, I could feel the straps around my wrists getting loose, almost loose enough for me to slip my hands free.
“You know, I considered myself a fallen angel for a little bit. And I found it ironic that my first real love was named Angel. I went against everything I was taught for him, I made myself a fallen angel.” He shook his head, flashing a wicked smile. “Fitting that I’m creating two more fallen angels tonight. The Holy Trinity is real. Three is a powerful number.”
