An Eye for Danger (6 page)

"My captor or whatever you want to call him. He protected me from that monster."

"They're both monsters, Julie."

At this point I nodded, choosing submission over defending Sam's actions. Or mentioning that he nearly said "thank you." Or explaining the Kevlar under his sweatshirt. Any fool could buy a vest off the Internet. Including me. But something communicated through Sam's eyes sealed my lips. Thugs didn't typically send evidence to police or warn their victims to stay out of harm's way. So which side was Sam on? Hell, which side was I on? I had yet to tell the cops Sam's name.

"If that's all," I said, peeling away. But Stone blocked my path. I crossed my arms, as if I could ram my way through his brick body. "I need to find my dog, Detective, since you're clearly not sending out a rescue party."

"And I need you to come down to precinct for a full statement and a sit-down with our sketch artist. Besides, I don't think you should be alone right now. We got an all points bulletin out on this guy, but that's no guarantee we'll find him before he finds you. This crew obviously doesn't like witnesses." Stone inched forward and his voice softened, a professional smile crossing his face as he tried to ameliorate his rankled witness. "He'll be okay, I promise you."

I wrapped my arms around my chest, still wrestling with how much to divulge to NYPD's finest. The thought of cops finding Sam dead, or discovering him alive
and then
shooting him made me tense down to my toes.

"Dogs have a way of surviving better than humans," Stone added, and I realized he was talking about Max, not Sam. His hand landed on my shoulder before I could shift away from him. "You're my key witness, Julie. My only witness. I need your help. I'll even buy you a cup of Joe at the station, if you don't mind the mud we serve in-house."

Stone's smile lines seemed genuine, rising from cheeks to eyes and penetrating his icy veneer.

Good job, nutcase, you've made yourself indispensable.

I swallowed, half proud, half tentative, half out-of-my-mind confused. Dumbfounded-me yielded to his request with a nod.

"Good, I'll meet you there later." He gave my shoulder a quick squeeze, then ducked under the crime scene tape. "Petosa. Escort Miss Larson to the station. Be sure to give her our special treatment."

***

My toes curled over paper-thin flip-flops the color of overripe cantaloupe, as I stood on the icy sidewalk, gazing at the brick façade of my 1920s apartment building. I crossed my arms over the white coveralls CSU had issued me, which wouldn't keep me warm on a hot beach in Florida, let alone in autumnal New York.

"He could come back," said Petosa, hanging his arm out the squad car that had driven me home, snapping his fingers nervously.

"You're right. He read my address on my license."

"I meant your dog." Petosa shook his head. "You sound more paranoid than Stone. Trust me, these punks are too busy running from cops to bother with a princess like you."

He rolled up his window and zoomed away, and I was happy he departed before I flung more than sour looks his way. Like these useless flip-flops.

God, I hate cops.

Besides receiving Stone's "special treatment", which consisted of a full background check, having my clothes absconded, my witness statement taken three times, and my "exclusionary" fingerprints smudged and reprinted—I didn't bother mentioning they were already in the system—I'd now had my sanity questioned by a lousy beat cop.

Still, Petosa was right. Max always came home. Maybe he was already here, upstairs. Cicily, my neighbor, let Max inside last time he escaped and gave him one of those stinky cheese treats that makes Max stink up the apartment in the middle of the night. I could only hope she was feeding him one of those damned treats now.

Opening the beveled glass front door, I listened for barking, whining, scratching. Nothing. My fingers clung to the crackled egg-white walls. I could climb the creaky oak stairs, see if Max waited by my door. Or I could slink to the local café, surround myself with people, avoid the truth. Denial was a familiar elixir.

If I don't go up, Max won't be gone.

With my foot on the first stair, I said three times, "Thanks be to God," the only Catholic thing my mother ever said. Religion wasn't my style, but I'd kept the prayer as a reminder of her watching over me. And today I'd definitely needed watching.

A bark jolted me.

"Max?" I jumped two steps at a time, tripping in the damn flip-flops, then resurging. The hall smelled like wet dog, renewing my hope of a happy canine reunion. But this old building filled with retirees smelled like a hundred years' worth of wet dogs and dirty laundry and bean soup. Doubt returned, and by the second landing my feet grew leaden.

Silence stilled my progress. Probably heard the neighbor's terrier, I reasoned. I could turn back down the stairs, resume the veneer of hope, or I could face my empty home and a long night alone.

You've been alone three years.

Another bark. Then another. Though distant, Max's tenor was unmistakable.

I ran the final stairs to my landing. No Max. Then his whimper came from behind my own door. The building super must have let him into my apartment.

As I fumbled the key into the door's multiple locks, Max's whining intensified.

"Almost there, buddy." I'd barely squeezed inside when he jumped on my thighs, his nails clawing through the coveralls, his licks coming fast and sloppy. "Hey, handsome." I scratched his neck and sank my face into his fur. "God, I'm so glad to see you. You little scruff-monster, I thought you deserted me. Bad, bad dog." I hugged him tight as the door clicked shut behind me. "Don't ever leave me. Ever, ever again."

Another
click.
Like a slide racking on a gun. And that husky voice. "Found your dog, lady. Hope there's a reward."

CHAPTER 4

"Welcome home," said my former captor. His barfly cologne permeated the room, though I couldn't see him because my vision was still adjusting to the shadows. Finally, I spotted Sam's torso reclining the length of my red vinyl banquette, his gun silhouetted by the glow of the microwave clock. "Go ahead, turn on the light."

"An officer is right behind me." I flipped the switch, illuminating my butter-yellow kitchen.

"If you say so." Sam rubbed his eyes and blinked, like he'd been sleeping. "Only one set of footsteps on the stairs, though."

"He's waiting for me downstairs."

Max trotted over to the thug and panted happily at his side, while my feet clung to the checkerboard linoleum through the flip-flops, my legs like steel posts.

Run, damn it.

"Ain't worried about cops, lady. Now that other guy, you don't want to meet him again."

"You mean your buddy in the park."

"'Buddy.' That's funny. I remember him shooting me." His head fell back and he scoffed at the tin-paneled ceiling before pushing himself higher on the banquette. A gunshot would explain his pain, and the vest account for the lack of blood, but he could still be bleeding internally from broken ribs or ruptured organs. And he could still fall over dead on my kitchen table. If only I were that lucky. "If he's out there, he's searching. For both of us. We're safer holing up here till we're clear."

Safe?
The word flew like a dagger at my ears. For years I'd used that argument, declining both company and dinner invitations alike, hiding in this run-down ancestral home like a hermit. This was my last sanctuary in a world of violence. A sanctuary now breached.

I reached for the doorknob. He'd freed me before...

"Going somewhere?" He scraped the gun across the Formica of my '50s dinner table, his forefinger flat along the barrel. "Just take a seat and relax."

Sam whistled, and Max hopped onto the bench by his side. Sam snapped his fingers, and Max sat like a sentry guarding him.

"Smart, like his mamma," Sam said, rubbing Max's long velvet ears while his other hand remained glued to the gun. "Loyal, too. Told him 'go home,' and home's right where he led me. Nice neighbor, that old lady. Pretty dumb letting strangers up like that. Gets folks killed in my business."

"They know you have my address," I said. "They're combing the neighborhood as we speak."

"Who, the cops? Wouldn't be so confident in those bozos. Trust me, there's a shelf date on their attention span." He snorted and then wiped his bloody mouth on his sweater sleeve. His leg reached and he kicked a chair from under the table. "Sit down, will ya. You're giving me an ulcer." When I held to my white square, he sighed. "I'm not gonna hurt you."

"Then maybe I should run."

"Fine. Go find my buddy." He spun the gun on the table, like we were about to play a game of Russian roulette.

"The neighbors might hear you if you shoot me."

"Christ, I'm not gonna fucking shoot you." Sam sat up a bit fast and froze, his face squinting with pain.

My ears registered his words, but my body replayed the gun tapping a hole in my chest. My instincts were in a standoff with the evidence of his crimes and his claims of innocence. Considering the muscles in his neck flinched whenever a noise sounded from the hall, he seemed more tense than in the park.

Resentment came in waves: first, because he'd used me as a hostage; second, because I'd felt sorry for him; third, because I'd spent my morning in a scum-infested police station being interrogated for helping him evade capture; and fourth, because he was stinking up my kitchen with
my
dog under his arm.

Max whined and nudged Sam's shoulder. With a grunt, Sam yanked off his wool cap and raked his fingers through his matted hair so the longer strands rested in waves behind his ear.

"Besides, do I look like a killer?" A smile cut through his scruffy beard.

Hell, he looked like an actor in a toothpaste commercial, if they advertised toothpaste to feral cats. Yet through his layers of scruffy clothes and blood, he looked too Hollywood to get away with crime outside of the big screen. Thick, symmetrical brows, a broad forehead, penetrating eyes that followed my every move, and full lips that flatlined when pain coursed through him. Sometime in his life he'd been the prom king, or the star soccer player, or a hookup in college to make one's girlfriends jealous. Now he was his mother's worst fear: a gun-toting fugitive on a crime spree taking hostages. Ted Bundy was handsome, too, and he was still a serial killer, I reminded myself. Sam could brutalize me, shoot me, give me nightmares the rest of my life (adding to my busy roster). And not one person would hear the assault through these foot-thick brick walls.

Yet my instincts doubted such evil in him. The vest, his actions, the coat—nothing added up. Lord knew I'd made wrong calls before, and his hand still gripped that Glock well enough, but there was a story to uncover here.

I lowered myself onto the chair facing Sam. "Looks can be deceiving. You smell like a rat."

"Rat, eh? Interesting choice of words." His eyes registered amusement, and he scrubbed at the beard under his chin, the way he'd done in the park when he was analyzing me. Then he glanced at his hands, his clothes and smelled his armpit. "Fair enough. I feel like a toad." Sam waved the gun side to side. "Which nosy neighbors do I need to worry about?"

I looked at Max, who panted, happy to be Sam's new sidekick and abandon his needy mom. I could reiterate that people were listening, but that would risk innocents, folks who'd loved my Aunt Leslie when she lived here, folks who'd tolerated my wild adolescence after she adopted me. Worse, that was a lie.

Nodding up, I said, "The Buckleys. In Florida for the season." Nodding toward my feet, "Old deaf couple. Gal on the left stays at her fiancé's. Guy on the right used to be the dog walker, but he moved, so that apartment's empty."

"She always tells the truth, doesn't she, Max." A statement. Sam rubbed Max's head, scanning me with those laser eyes. He extended his long legs till he was half-sitting, half-standing, lifted his oatmeal sweater and sweatshirt and rapped his knuckles on the thick black shell. "Help me out of this. I can barely breathe." When I didn't move, he leveled his sights on me. "For fuck's sake, lady, just help me."

I inched toward him, but when I latched onto his sweater, Sam grabbed my wrist.

"Slow," he said. "Real slow."

Again those lustrous green eyes burned into me, so that I froze for a moment. With steady, predictable moves, I lifted his sweater, bunching it under his armpits before slowly raising his arms and pulling the sweater northward. He moaned with every inch.

By the time his elbows jutted in the air, he yelped. "Slower. Christ."

After a few seconds of panting, he signaled for me to continue. I carefully wriggled the material up and past his chin, so his face was buried inside the sweater.

"Down, down," he whispered, sucking hard for air through the fabric so it pulsated.

As I lowered his arms, Sam slumped, his face pale and sagging.

"I can't get you out like this," I said. "I need to cut it off."

Sam nodded, squeezing tears through a surge of pain. I'd seen grown men cry and knew they could be even more dangerous. I went to find the kitchen shears. Over the knife drawer I lingered, my fingers lacing around the red handles. If I waited till his guard was down, I could shove the blade into his gut. Then he'd really squeal. And I'd escape. With or without Max was the question.

When I neared him, Sam turned his head, his bloodshot eyes imploring me. Trusting me. How desperate he looked. How strained my nerves felt. And my humanity too precious to forfeit.

"Hold still," I said, taking the weight of his muscular arm, the one latched to the Glock. He noted my hesitation and released the weapon to the table.

My blades opened for their first bite. With his pupils dilated, his mouth gaped and panting, Sam looked like a cornered dog.

So now you know how it feels.

Sam grabbed the belly of my coveralls with his other arm, watching the shears cut through the knitting with a nervous eye. I kept the scissors parallel to his arm as they traveled toward his neck, easily slicing through the weave till I hit the inch-thick collar.