Edge of the Heat 7 (13 page)

Dr. Velasco pulled his head back in his office and slammed the door shut, but Jerry reached it at the same time, his entire weight and momentum carrying him through the swing of the door, smashing it open. Dr. Velasco fell backwards to the ground, then scuttled away from Jerry on his hands and knees.

"Get out of my office," the therapist screamed.

Jerry advanced on him, then snuck a quick look at Sara. Her head was still on her chest, her face slack, her eyes closed. She hadn't reacted at all.

Dr. Velasco reached the back wall and pulled himself up, his indignant but scared eyes locked on Jerry.

"What did you do to her?" Jerry snarled. "Why isn't she moving?"

"She's hypnotized," the doctor panted. "It's standard procedure." He pulled himself up to his full height and stared Jerry down. "You can't just break into my office like some ... some madman. I'm calling the cops."

"You call them, I'll be sure to tell them how you were telling her to kill herself—but wake her up first."

Dr. Velasco's eyes narrowed. Jerry saw the understanding fill his face that Jerry had overheard what he had said. Jerry saw several emotions cross his face and knew the therapist was seeing his entire practice and maybe his freedom disintegrate in a flash.

But still, he did the stupid thing.

Dr. Velasco sprinted for the door. Jerry saw that he was going to do it a moment before he acted. The set of his body and the shift of his eyes gave him away. Jerry threw his body into the man and they both crashed into the wall. Jerry grabbed the other man around the throat and pounded his head against the wall until the doctor begged for his life.

"Wake her up and I'll let you go."

"I can't wake her up. She'll wake up on her own in forty-five minutes. It's a drug-induced hypnosis."

"Then fix it. Fix everything you said to her. Take back your commands," Jerry ordered, his hands still around the man's neck.

Dr. Velasco just stared at him, his lips moving soundlessly. Finally he spoke, spitting out the words like teeth. "She killed my brother."

"If she killed him, your brother was either a drug dealer or a child molester or both, so I don't give a shit," Jerry snapped, his temper exploding.

Dr. Velasco's face reddened. He blustered but didn't say anything. Behind them, Sara let out a long moan. Jerry turned to her, his hold on the doctor weakening. In a flash, the therapist yanked Jerry's hands away and sprinted past him.

Jerry let him go. The man wasn't going to help him anyway. He watched as the man ducked through the shattered window and ran away into the parking lot.

He went to Sara. "Sara, sweetheart..." he started, but didn't say anything else. He was scared he was going to mess her up more. What could he do? What if she really tried to kill herself tonight?

His mind ran through all the people he knew who might be able to help him. He knew several doctors, but none of them were psychiatrists. Finally he settled on the station psychiatrist, the one he had to see after Norman had shot him and tried to run him over while on duty. The incident that had led to him meeting Sara in the first place. Jerry pulled out his wallet and rifled through it, finding Dr. McNamara's card deep in a pocket. He turned it over, praying that he remembered correctly. Yes! Her cell number was on the back.

Jerry snatched up the phone on the desk and dialed, his throat constricting in fear.

Preston Troy watched out his picture window at the patrol car with the cop sitting inside it that was placed at his curb for the whole world to see. There was another one at the back of the house, he knew.

His blood boiled at the thought. He was a goddamned United States Senator! He should be above something like this. Those pissant cops out there should be scared to be pulling this detail. But there they sat, bright as daylight and ugly as sin.

He hadn't dared turn on the news. He knew the facts about his search warrant had to be all over it. His phone hadn't stopped ringing since the FBI assholes had left but he hadn't answered that either. No one who was calling could help him. The governor hated him, he knew that. His threat to call the governor had been empty. He had gotten the governor to appoint him as interim senator by blackmailing him, using information he had found in his father's house when he snuck in late at night after the cops had left. No, the governor wouldn't help him, he would hand Preston to the cops on a silver platter.

Preston paced in his living room trying to figure out how to get past this nightmare. Those two FBI agents were more clever than he had given them credit for. He never thought they would have traced any of this to him, not in a million years. But they had. And now everything was at stake. He'd already lost his billions, he knew that, but maybe he could still get out of this with his job, his freedom, and his status intact. Damage control, he needed to do some major damage control and quickly.

He couldn't do it trapped in this house. His cardinal rule was to never hire anyone to do his dirty work, that way, there was no one to rat on him, or cut a deal with the cops in exchange for him. He was the only one who could clean all of this up. The first thing he needed was to get out of there, but not let those cops see him. Maybe he could sneak out somehow, then take care of his little
problem
, then sneak back in and no one would be the wiser. He had a car stashed less than a mile away—a car that wasn't traceable to him. If only he could get to it ...

He heard the rumble of a diesel engine down the street from him and an idea started to form in his mind. The rumble sounded like a delivery truck. Could he call for a Saturday delivery or pickup and sneak out that way?

Preston sat on the couch and folded his hands together like he always did when he was thinking hard. He was smarter than the cops. He was smarter than the FBI agents. He could pull this together. All he needed was a delivery truck to pull into his driveway for a moment ... and then a little luck.

And Emma. He had to figure out what to do with Emma. If she hadn't seen him, he would rape her with a mask on a few times, drive her to Canada or somewhere and just push her out into the wilderness, then let the locals find her. Problem solved. A crime of passion that had nothing to do with him and who he was related to—there would have been no reason to turn a suspicious eye on him. But she
had
seen him. She had looked right into his face for a split second before he had wrestled her into his car with a rag soaked in chloroform pressed over her face.

So what did that leave? He had to kill her. Kill her and dump her somewhere, then get back and let the whole thing blow over ... somehow. He'd never been a criminal before and he never would be again once this was done. He'd find another way to get his billions.

Preston sighed and dropped his head into his hands. How had this all spun so far out of control? A small moment of regret twisted through his soul. He wished he could take it all back. Wished he had never heard of Frank Oberlin, never known the man had been his father, never, ever discovered Oberlin had just under four billion dollars sitting in estate, waiting to go to his next of kin, and certainly never discovered that besides himself, there were three other next of kin who stood to receive that money.

Preston felt a tear drop from his eye and stared at the tiny, dark spot on the carpet below him for a long time. A voice rang through his head. A voice chastising him for being weak, for crying when he should be acting. Preston heeded the voice and picked up his phone. He had work to do.

***

Emma blinked in the darkness and stared up into nothingness, her brain reeling in terror of the unknown. She tried to sit up, but her hands were bound, keeping her laying flat on her back, stretched out on some sort of hard, uncomfortable bed or cot.

"Hello?" she whispered into the darkness, her throat scratchy, sore, and dry. The simple movement of her jaw sent her tongue snaking out to wet dry lips. Thirsty. She was so thirsty.

Realization crashed in on Emma and her thin, heady fear began to turn. Anger twisted it and lent her strength. The alley ... the man screaming .. she'd rushed in and knelt next to him ... asked him what was wrong ... he'd muttered something and when she leaned in to hear him better ... a towel over her mouth .. she'd held her breath and struggled, fighting him, but he'd thumped her head against the door of his car and the pain had made her gasp, and that was the last she had known.

Anger turned to poisonous rage in Emma's body. What, did she have some sort of a
Please Kidnap Me
sign on her back? Wasn't two kidnappings in one lifetime enough? Just what in the hell made anyone think they could just take someone, force them into a vehicle and take off with them? Resentment for twisted personalities who thought that was acceptable filled her. She was a person! A living, breathing, thinking person who had feelings and thoughts and rights!

Strong and sour emotions coursed through Emma at the unfairness of it, the awfulness of it, the absolute disgusting truth that some people were so sick as to do this. Sound exploded into the room and Emma realized it was coming from her. A dark and caustic screech that bubbled up from the very depths of her soul.

Emma's mouth shut with a snap, cutting off any further sound as she listened, hard. The scream had sounded ... strange. There was something in that strangeness that was important. Something she needed to make note of. Something that could help her escape maybe. Because that was the only thing on her mind. Escape. Well, escape and a drink of water.

She would make it through this. She'd dealt with the king of corrupt, the master of malicious, and survived. If she could get through what Norman had done to her, she could get through this.

Craig! Her thoughts fell upon her sweet bear of a husband and sorrow threatened to overwhelm her. How long had she been gone? Had he noticed yet? He would find her or die trying, she knew that. But his heart had to be breaking.

Anger filled her again at the thought of this man, this evil man who had disrupted her life like this. How dare he? She tried to remember exactly what he looked like and couldn't. His image was fuzzy in her pounding brain. Emma stilled for a moment and took inventory. Her head hurt, her lips burned, her throat hurt, and her hands were tied tight to her sides.

She pulled at her bonds and grunted in frustration when her hands wouldn't move at all. The strangeness of the sound pulled her back to those thoughts again. What was strange about it? An echo, like she were in a cavernous, enclosed area, like a large cave or a huge church or theatre.

Emma opened her mouth to yell, to see if she could determine anything about the space, when a far off noise caught her attention. A car. She cocked her head and listened hard.

Definitely a car. Coming in slow. Stopping. The engine cut off. Emma held her breath, fear overpowering the anger. Emma fed the anger and tried her best to starve the fear, but it wasn't easy.

A hydraulic, metal against metal sound rang through the large room and light appeared everywhere, blinding Emma and causing her to cry out in pain. She squeezed her eyes shut and pulled her legs up to her chest, wanting to curl into a ball. Someone was coming.

The pain from the light faded a little. Emma heard footsteps coming towards her, then leading away from her. She heard heavy items being moved. Slowly, she blinked her eyes, trying to adjust to the light. She turned her head and her eyes searched out the person who had joined her while she blinked back tears.

She saw him. A man, moving in the corner of the huge room, picking up a box and placing it on top of another box, then lifting the lid of a third. He looked ordinary, maybe on the taller side, with a medium build and dark hair. He could be the guy who had abducted her. She wasn't sure.

She looked around the room, trying to place it. The man had come in through a door big enough to be a garage door, but it didn't lead to outside. It lead to another room just like this one. Smooth metal lined the walls, giving her eye nowhere to rest. The room was as big as a whole house should be—no two or three houses. A small desk and computer sat in one corner, boxes lined one wall, and crates were stacked against another wall. The crates all had red letters reading CAUTION FLAMMABLE on them. Emma craned her neck to look behind her. White buckets were stacked against that wall. At least fifty of them. They all had the same label on them that read FOOD STORAGE.

What was this? Some kind of survivalist bunker? Emma said a little prayer that she wouldn't be here until the end of anything and searched out the man again. He had turned away from the boxes and was looking at her.

He looked plain, but familiar somehow. His face held none of the evil she had grown used to seeing in Norman's expression. He seemed ... normal. The flame of anger flared within her again and she stared at him hard, letting him see it. When he said nothing and did nothing, she felt her anger grow again.

How dare he?

"Hey!" she shouted. "Let me up, now!" She rattled the handcuffs that were holding her to the cot, looking down to examine how she was held on, then looking back up at her captor.

He hadn't moved. He was staring at her like he was trying to make a decision. A hard decision.

Emma kicked her feet, wishing he were closer. She needed an outlet for her anger. Anger was winning again. This guy was nothing compared to Norman. She would make it out, she knew it. She had to.

"Did you hear me?" she shouted again. "I'm not a fucking piece of meat!" Emma's voice broke on the last word and she was distressed to find herself close to tears. She didn't want to cry. She didn't want to be weak and helpless. But she was helpless. Tied up and completely helpless. She hated it like fire and felt her anger rise again. Good. Anger was so much better than tears.

The man finally moved and Emma watched him closely, curiously. She could see in his face he'd made the decision. And he looked terrified of it.

He moved to her side and produced a key from his pocket. He pushed the tiny key into the tiny hole, then pulled the handcuffs open, off of Emma's wrist. Emma didn't plan it, but as soon as her arm was free she lashed out at him with all of her strength. She realized as her fist connected with the side of his head that she didn't have very much strength at all. Her muscles felt like jello. Still the thud of flesh on flesh was satisfying.