Freak (36 page)

Continuing to pace, he stared up at the warehouse that had been Danny’s home. He had always thought of her as so young, and while in some ways she might have been, it would have taken months of planning, strategizing, and patience to pull this off. He could hear her voice in his head now, sounding exasperated.
You never give me enough credit, dude
.

His phone vibrated in his pocket. His heart sank when he
saw who was calling.
Shit
. He’d forgotten he owed someone a phone call.

“Hi, Morris.”

“Anything?”

“Nothing yet.”

The phone went dead.

Jerry stuck the phone back in his pocket. He would be truly amazed if their friendship survived this night. He turned to Torrance. “Hey, man. Do me a favor and take off your friend hat for a minute.”

“Okay.” Torrance exhaled. A thin stream of smoke wafted out from his nostrils into the cool night air. “What’s up?”

“Tell me the truth. Cop to cop. You think they’re gone?”

Torrance sighed, dropping his cigarette and stomping on it. “I don’t know, pal. But the longer it takes . . .”

He didn’t have to finish his sentence, because Jerry already knew how it would end. The odds of finding kidnapped people dropped dramatically with each passing hour, especially in a situation like this, where no ransom note was expected.

“They could be anywhere by now,” Jerry said quietly, the constant throb in his temples growing stronger.

“Yes, they could be,” Torrance said. “So now I’m putting my friend hat back on. You stay positive, you hear me? It’s not over till it’s over.”

Jerry’s phone buzzed again. He checked it. A text had just come in. It was from a number he didn’t recognize.

CHECK NEXT DOOR
.

“What the hell?” Jerry muttered.

“What?” Torrance said, lighting another cigarette.

“Just got a strange text. Probably a wrong number.” Jerry typed a reply.

WHO IS THIS?

And then a few seconds later:

DUDE. CHECK NEXT DOOR
.

Jerry looked around, half-expecting to see someone playing a practical joke. The street was quiet. Nobody was outside but the two of them. He showed Torrance the text.

“Any idea what it means?” the detective said, frowning.

Jerry stared at Danny’s loft and his head began to pound so hard he could feel it all over. What did it mean, the apartment next door? They’d checked every loft in that goddamned warehouse and had found nothing other than sleepy residents who hadn’t appreciated being woken up at this time of night.

Then suddenly his mind flew back to the conversation he’d had with Danny when he’d dropped her off with her bike.
We practice in the abandoned building next door. Some kind of machinery used to be manufactured there, and the whole place is soundproofed. We can play as loud as we want
.

“They’re in there,” Jerry said, pointing with an arm that felt like it weighed fifty pounds. Torrance followed his gaze to the warehouse beside Danny’s. It looked completely deserted. His hands started shaking and he balled them into fists. “That’s what she’s trying to tell me, Mike.”

“Who?” Torrance said.

Jerry didn’t answer. He simply started walking. He would have run if he could, but his legs felt like lead. He was terrified to see what was inside that warehouse, but he knew he had to look.

He wasn’t entirely surprised to find the main door open.

*     *     *

The warehouse was a maze, and Jerry felt like a rat making his way through it.

Old, rusting machinery filled every inch of the first floor. The windows of the warehouse were filmed over with a thick
layer of dust, allowing a little light in from the outside parking lot, but not much. Torrance had his Maglite but all Jerry had was his crappy pocket flashlight. They weaved their way around strange objects that cast even stranger shadows, careful to avoid anything sharp. After a few minutes, they’d determined there was nobody on this floor.

“Second floor?” Torrance said, but Jerry was already at the back heading for the stairwell.

The second level of the warehouse looked like a series of offices. Some doors were open, some doors were locked, some had bits of old furniture, some were completely empty. As Jerry entered the last room at the end of the hallway, a lightbulb string grazed his face. He yanked on it, and the huge space flooded with light.

Right in the middle of the room was a massage table. And on it, a nude body. Slender, female, black hair that trailed off the table about eight inches. Bloody from head to toe save for a torn, blood-soaked T-shirt wrapped around her thigh.

Annie. Unmoving. Dead.

Jerry sprinted toward the woman. When he reached the table, he looked down, his whole body freezing when he realized it wasn’t Annie.

It was Sheila.

The relief that it wasn’t his wife was so powerful that Jerry’s knees buckled, and he grabbed the edge of the massage table for support. A wave of guilt, almost equally powerful, threatened to knock him over once again. Sheila was his friend. He cared about her well-being almost as much as he cared about Annie’s.

The key word being
almost
.

“Sheila,” he said, when he regained his balance. “Sheila, it’s Jerry.” Morris’s angry face flashed through his head.
Let her be alive. Sweet Jesus, let her be alive
.

Torrance was behind him, and soon the detective had his
fingers on Sheila’s wrist. “She’s got a pulse and she’s breathing. But the cuts, Jesus Christ—” Torrance’s face, normally set in stone, was a mix of horror and concern. He looked quickly at the floor around the table. “She’s lost a lot of blood but I can’t tell how bad it is. I’ll call for an ambulance.”

On the table, Sheila moaned.

“It’s me.” Jerry took her hand and squeezed gently. “It’s Jerry. I’m here, Sheila. I’m here now. You’re going to be okay.”

Sheila’s eyes flickered open. “Jerry,” she whispered.

“I’m here,” Jerry said again. “You’re going to be all right, honey. Do you know where Annie is?”

“I . . .” Sheila looked on the verge of passing out again.

Gritting his teeth, Jerry closed his eyes briefly and prayed for forgiveness for what he was about to do. Sheila was in terrible shape, and yet . . .

He touched her cheek, the only part of her face that wasn’t covered in blood. She had a deep gash on her forehead that was open and oozing. She was bleeding from both breasts, and her stomach . . . there seemed to be a word carved on it, but Jerry would have had to wipe the blood away to read it, and of course he couldn’t do that. There was blood on her legs, but Jerry couldn’t tell if there were multiple open wounds there or if the blood had trailed down from her torso. God, the pain must be terrible. She moaned again.

“Sheila,” he said, leaning in.
God forgive me
. “Sheila, please. I need to know where Annie is.”

Sheila’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. Then her eyes rolled back in her head and she was out again. Behind him Torrance’s phone rang, and he could hear the detective muttering to someone over the phone. He heard Torrance say “Marianne,” but at that same moment, another moan escaped Sheila’s lips.

“Sheila, stay awake,” Jerry said, panic beginning to set in. He touched her cheek again, but this time she didn’t respond. “Stay with me, honey.”

Torrance disconnected his call. “Jerry, the EMTs will be here any moment. You tell the good professor to hang in there.” His voice, normally blunt and gruff, sounded strange.

Jerry turned to look at his former partner. “What do you know?” he said clearly into the silence. “I heard you say Annie’s name. Twice. What do you know about my wife?”

“Stay with your friend.” Torrance wouldn’t meet his gaze. “I’ll wait for the EMTs downstairs.”

“Tell me, you fucking asshole!” Jerry felt like he was on the verge of losing it. He’d never felt such a heated mixture of emotions before—rage, fear, violence. They were rolled up into each other, writhing in his gut, and he felt like if he didn’t get some answers, he just might shoot somebody. “If you know something, you tell me right now.” His teeth were pressed together so hard, his gums ached.
“Where is my wife?”

“I’m sorry, Jer,” Torrance said, his voice cracking. “I’m so sorry. They found her. They found Marianne.”

Stay calm. Keep breathing. Let him finish what he’s going to say
.

“She was on the side of the road. Out on Route Twenty, about thirty-three miles west of Cavanaugh’s house.” His voice broke down. “They’ve got her on a bus, but it doesn’t look good, Jer. I’m so sorry.”

No. No, no, no
.

“You’re wrong,” Jerry said, sounding much calmer than he felt. “You’re totally wrong.”

“I’m so sorry, pal.”

It hit him then. All the air went out of the room, and Jerry crumpled to his knees.

THE SMELL OF
disinfectant, the hushed tones, the mint-green wall paint. Hospitals never changed.

Morris was saying something comforting, but Jerry wasn’t listening. He was staring at Sheila, reminded of a year ago when it had been him in the hospital with bandages around his throat. But he knew Sheila had it much worse.

In a shaking, raging voice, Morris had explained to him earlier that morning that Sheila’s body had been carved up pretty bad. Thankfully none of the wounds had been life-threatening, as most were superficial, other than the one on her thigh which had already been wrapped tight at the warehouse. She would heal. A top plastic surgeon had already been consulted, and while the surgeon was confident he could minimize the scar on her forehead, it would always be visible.

On Sheila’s stomach, Abby had carved the word
WHORE
. Christ Almighty. The surgeon was certain this one could be eliminated entirely, and thank God for that.

Jerry took one last glance at Sheila as if to reassure himself she’d be okay. He shook Morris’s hand, allowed himself to be embraced by the big man, and left the room.

A moment later he was on a different floor of the hospital,
back in the same chair he’d been sitting in for the past few hours until Morris had come up to check on him.

Around him, the machines beeped steadily. Annie was covered with the hospital’s sheets, her face pale but peaceful, the only movement coming from her chest as the machines helped her breathe. There were bruises on her forehead and multiple cuts and scrapes on her cheeks, neck, and arms. The abdominal wound had been operated on, but she had lost the largest amount of blood a person could lose and still be hanging on. She was stable for the time being, but the doctors who’d worked on her couldn’t guarantee she’d make it through the night.

He stared at her, touching her hand, caressing her face. His beautiful, brilliant, vibrant wife. It was his fault.

This was all his fault.

Jerry buried his face in his hands, and sobbed.

VAN MORRISON’S “INTO
the Mystic” was playing on Danny’s iPod, and the song was fitting. It was a warm day, and the windows were down, rustling both Danny’s hair and Abby’s.

“I might never forgive you,” Abby said beside her, her voice low and husky and intimate. Her shoulder, bandaged tightly, was in a sling. “I can’t believe you actually shot me, you bitch.”

A small smile crossed Danny’s lips, but she kept driving, her attention focused on the road, which seemed to stretch on forever in front of them. “You didn’t give me a choice. You’ll be fine. Chill.”

“The hell I will.” She felt Abby’s eyes burn into the side of her face. “Once my shoulder heals, I’m going back for her. And then I might just put a knife in
your
throat for not letting me finish it, you stupid cunt.”

Danny placed a hand on Abby’s thigh and rubbed it lightly. Immediately, Abby relaxed. She always did when Danny touched her. “You know killing Sheila was never the goal,” Danny said again. “The only goal was getting you out. And now you’re out. Be happy, baby. It’s a new day. Everything worked out perfectly.”

“It’s not over.”

Danny looked at Abby, looked at her beautiful face, all fine bones and fair skin and Elizabeth Taylor eyes, and said, “It is over. It has to be.”

“They’re looking for you, too, don’t forget.”

“So what? I didn’t kill anybody.”

“No, but you helped me. You recruited Jeremiah, you got him to do your dirty work, and then you made sure he was attacked in prison . . . you might as well have killed them all yourself.”

Danny’s jaw tightened. “But I didn’t kill them myself. And anyway, I did all of that for you. As a means to an end. I had a plan, I accomplished everything I set out to do to get you out of prison, and now it’s over. We’re moving on.” She looked back at the road. “I know you think you have a choice in this, but you don’t. Let’s be crystal clear about that. We’re never going back. And if you do go back, you go without me, and we’re done.”

Abby was silent. Danny knew she wasn’t accustomed to having people talk to her this way, but she’d damn well better get used to it.

A moment later, Abby said, “Why did you save her?”

Danny knew she was referring to Sheila Tao. There could be several answers to this, and Danny mulled them all over as she drove. Perhaps she’d saved Dr. Tao because she’d had the woman as a teacher, and Danny had learned a lot from her. Perhaps she’d done it to prove to herself she wasn’t a psychopath. Or perhaps she’d done it to make up for what Abby had done to Jerry’s wife, Marianne, who’d been an unfortunate casualty in Abby’s war.

A pang shot through Danny.
Poor Jerry
. Wherever he was, he was hurting. And that hadn’t been part of the plan. Jerry had always been good to her. She forced the thought out of her head.

Ultimately, the real answer was simple. Ridiculously so.

Danny had saved Sheila Tao to let Abby know who was in control here. Who had
always
been in control here. There could only be one alpha female in this relationship, and Danny had never been the submissive type.