Knorath, Joe - Jack Daniels 03 - Rusty Nail (29 page)

“I do,” McGlade interrupted.

“Do you have the rings?”

Harry shook his head. “No rings. Tonight we’re both going out and getting our nipples pierced.”

Reverend Antwerp stared at Holly’s chest and was momentarily at a loss for words, until McGlade kicked him.

“Okay then, by the powers invested in me, by the state of Illinois, and by the planet Mars, I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

McGlade and Holly kissed. Phin and I exchanged a glance like, “That was weird,” and then there was more hugging, including a hug from Reverend Antwerp that a less liberated woman would call a grope.

Then we gathered around one of the rotten picnic tables, Phin and I signed some witness papers, and McGlade gave Antwerp fifty bucks and told him to take off.

“I was hoping for a glass of champagne,” the reverend said.

“Go hope for it somewhere else.”

Antwerp, looking confused, walked back to his car.

“Hurry!” McGlade said. “There’s a wascally wabbit stowing away on your spaceship!”

“Oh, dear!” Antwerp hurried.

Holly dug into Harry’s car, coming out with a large cooler. She set it on the lawn and removed two bottles of champagne, an open carton of orange juice, some plastic cups, and two packages of bologna.

“Harry, this is all you packed for lunch?”

“Ah, shit. I forgot the raspberry Zingers. Sorry, babe. Maybe we can grab a bite somewhere local. In fact, I think I’ve got a take-out menu.”

Harry pulled something out of his pocket. He handed it to Holly, and she squealed.

“Paris! Harry, we’re going to Paris!”

“Plane leaves tonight, cupcake. Which will give us plenty of time to get loaded beforehand. Mix the mimosas, Phin! I’ll pass out the bologna.”

Phin opened the champagne and poured.

The first toast was to Harry and Holly, may they live happily ever after.

The second toast was to Holly, may she stay out of prison.

The third toast was to Phin, whom Harry called his new best friend.

When McGlade raised his glass the fourth time, I was in his sights.

“To the best cop I’ve ever met, a woman who is twice the man I’ll ever be. Jack Daniels.”

The alcohol must have hit him pretty quick, because he was slurring. It must have hit me as well, because McGlade’s words touched me, and when I reached over to pat his shoulder, everything got blurry.

“Something’s wrong.” Phin shook his head, like a dog drying off. He backed away from the table and dropped to his knees.

I stared at Holly. She was staring hard at her plastic glass. Then her eyes rolled up into her head and she fell to the ground.

McGlade reached for her and he also fell over.

Drugged. We’d been drugged.

My thoughts were all scrambled, like a drunken dream, but I knew I had to call for help. My cell phone was in my car. I tried to walk to it, but I couldn’t feel my legs, and every step I took, my car got farther away.

“Jack . . .”

Phin held out a hand to me, then collapsed face-first onto the ground.

I kept walking, but I forgot where I was going. The car. But why? What was so important about the car?

Sleep. That’s what I needed to do. I needed to sleep.

I fell to my knees. Then to my butt.

This spot looked comfortable. Nice and grassy and comfortable. I could sleep here, no problem.

I laid my head on my arm and curled up my legs.

So nice to finally sleep.

When I closed my eyes, it was to the sound of someone laughing.

CHAPTER 40

H
EY, LADY, YOU
okay?”

I’d been having a disturbing dream, where I was tied to a chair at a dinner table and everyone around me was a rotting corpse. When I tried to pull off my ropes, I realized I was dead too, and my blackening flesh began to slide off my bones like BBQ ribs.

Opening my eyes, I stared up at a cop with a funny hat. I read his badge. Park District Ranger.

I startled, wondering how he got into my bedroom. Then I realized my bedroom didn’t have trees in it, and my bed wasn’t made of grass. I sat up. The action made me dizzy, and provoked an unhappy reaction in my stomach.

The ranger grinned at me. “Celebrating a little too much, huh?”

“Where am I?” My voice sounded strange, far away.

“Busse Woods. I’m going to check your friend.”

I watched him walk over to a woman lying on the ground a few yards away. Holly.

I touched my temple, which had begun to throb, and looked around. Spotted a cooler on a picnic table, a bottle of champagne next to it, a carton of OJ, two packages of bologna . . .

The wedding.

A nice surge of adrenaline helped cut through the fog, and I remembered toasting to Harry and Holly, and then realizing we’d all been drugged.

I craned my head around, searching for Harry and Phin.

They weren’t there.

I saw Harry’s car in the lot, along with mine. My watch told me it was a little after six o’clock. I’d been out for over five hours.

The ranger was having some difficulty rousing Holly.

“Is she alive?”

“Pulse is strong, but she won’t wake up.”

I felt like curling up and going back to sleep myself. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation; more like a fever dream that accompanies the flu.

I managed to get to my feet and began to walk to my car, a little unsteady, but better with every step.

My cell phone was plugged into the cigarette lighter. I needed to call Harry, to find out where he was.

The message light blinked at me. I dialed my voice mail.

“Jack, it’s Captain Bains. Lorna Hunt Ellison escaped from custody this morning, and then grabbed Bud Kork at Mercy Hospital. Six cops, two Feds dead. A few miles away the Indiana Highway Patrol found an abandoned FBI vehicle. No sign of either perp. It might be a long shot, but there’s a chance they could be headed your way. Stay on your toes.”

Yeah. Some long shot.

I wondered how they found me. Tailed me from my apartment? Possible. I was so high from Latham’s call, I could have had a dozen Abrams tanks following me and wouldn’t have noticed.

But if Lorna and Bud were after me, why’d they let me go?

Another adrenaline spike, which made my hands shake.

They took Phin and Harry.

I tried to reason it out. Lorna escaped, went to get Bud, and then came to Chicago. They followed me here from my apartment, and probably watched the ceremony from the forest. Then one of them snuck into Harry’s car and doctored the orange juice we used for the mimosas. The drug was probably Rohypnol, or GHB, or some other easily obtainable tranq currently popular on the nightclub date-rape scene. Odorless, colorless, and a tiny amount could take effect within ten minutes and knock out a bull.

Bud must have assumed Holly was a cop, my partner. They might have also assumed Phin was my boyfriend.

They wanted to hurt us by hurting our men.

But how did they find my apartment? And how did they find tranquilizers so quickly after escaping?

And how did Lorna, who had the IQ of a tennis ball, escape from prison and rescue Bud?

Apparently I’d misjudged her.

“What’s going on?” The ranger had awoken Holly, who appeared to be panicked. “Where’s Harry?”

“Take it easy, miss.”

“Jack? What happened, Jack?”

I gave my head a brisk shake, but the fuzzies clung to me. I managed to get over to Holly without falling on my face.

“We were drugged, Holly. Bud Kork escaped, with his girlfriend. I think they’ve got Phin and Harry.”

Holly stared at me, her mouth hanging open.

“My husband . . .” she whispered.

I reached down and squeezed her shoulder.

“We’ll find them, Holly. I promise.”

“But will they still be alive when we do?”

CHAPTER 41

P
HINEAS TROUTT OPENS
his eyes. His vision feels lopsided, off center, and his shoulders hurt. He’s in a chair, but when he tries to move his arms and legs, they don’t respond.

He takes in the scene. It’s a warehouse of some sort, concrete floors and thirty-foot ceilings, row after row of empty aluminum racks. The windows are boarded up, but there’s a light on somewhere behind him, illuminating a decade’s worth of dust in swirling motes.

Phin does a body inventory checklist, flexing his toes, legs, fingers, arms, neck, and jaw. Nothing seems damaged. But his legs are bound to the chair legs, and his hands are bound behind his back.

He jerks himself to the side, trying to get the chair to tilt or move. It’s secured to the ground somehow. He pulls on his arms, hard, and feels wire bite into his wrists.

This isn’t a good situation.

Phin closes his eyes, which helps him push away the panic. How did he get here?

The last thing he remembers is the forest preserve, toasting to the newly married couple.

Someone had drugged them.

Okay, but why?

Phin has enemies, probably more than his share. But no one knew he was going to that wedding. And during the cab ride to Busse Woods, Phin kept a careful eye on the rearview mirror, a subconscious paranoia that served him well in the past. He hadn’t been followed . . .

That left Jack, Harry, and Holly. Jack was a cop, Harry and Holly private investigators. They undoubtedly had enemies too. Phin might have gotten caught up in someone else’s revenge scheme.

A sound, a low rumble, comes from behind him. Phin can’t turn far enough to see. It comes again, louder.

Snoring.

“Hey! Wake up!”

“I’m awake. I’m awake.”

More snoring.

“Goddammit, McGlade, wake up!”

“Huh? What’s happening?”

“We were drugged at your wedding.”

“I got drunk at my wedding? There’s a shocker.”

“Drugged, McGlade. We were drugged.”

“Is that you, Jim?”

“It’s Phin. Wake up and tell me what you see.”

A long pause. Phin wonders if the moron fell asleep again.

“I’m in a chair, tied up. Looks like some kind of factory or warehouse. There’s a cargo docking bay off to my right, but the door is closed.”

“What else?”

“We gotta get out of here, Phin. If I don’t get this tuxedo returned by tonight, they’re charging me for another full day.”

“Concentrate, Harry. What else is around you?”

“There’s some kind of office in the corner. Door closed, no lights. On my left . . . holy shit!”

“What is it?”

“This has got to be some kind of bad dream.”

McGlade yelled in pain.

“Harry? You okay?”

“I bit my tongue to see if I’m dreaming. I don’t think I am. Or maybe I bit my tongue in my sleep . . .”

“You’re not asleep, Harry. Tell me what you see.”

“I think my tongue’s bleeding.”

“Harry!”

“Okay. I see a long steel table. Got a bunch of equipment on it. And some stuff, new in boxes.”

Phin doesn’t like the sound of that.

“What kind of stuff?”

“A blowtorch. A power drill. A set of vise-grip pliers. And a chain saw.”

This has gone from bad to worse.

“Maybe they’re building a birdhouse,” McGlade said.

“I doubt that.”

“There’s also a big bottle of ammonia, and some paper towels. Spring cleaning?”

“The ammonia is to wake us up when we pass out from pain.”

“Oh. That makes sense.
CAN ANYONE FUCKING HELP ME! HEY! HELP! GET ME OUT OF
HERE
!
”

McGlade screams for several minutes.

“You’re wasting your breath, Harry. No one’s going to hear us.”

McGlade continues to scream anyway.

Phin tunes him out. He wonders where Jack and Holly are. Were they taken as well? Are they at another location?

Are they already dead?

He has no idea how long he’s been out. A few hours? A day? He rubs his chin against his shoulder, feels some facial stubble, but not much. Less than twelve hours.

Harry stops yelling. Phin listens to him grunt and struggle for a while. The sounds eventually stop.

“Man, I’m thirsty.” This from McGlade. “You thirsty, Phin?”

“Don’t think about it.”

“I am thinking about it. How can I not think about it? If I try not to think about something, I think about it even more because I have to think about it to try not to.”