The Masseuse (29 page)

I
n a flash, he’d jerked me away from the glass. I was still wrapped around him, hoisted off the ground, although his grip around my hips and back had ratcheted so tight I could barely breathe.

“Melvin?” I asked. Would he seriously come back to my place after all that had happened?

“Still in the hospital,” Alec answered quickly. For a fraction of a second I wondered how he could know that, but I dismissed the thought as fast as it had come. He’d known the moment Melvin Herman had shown up at my work. Of course he was keeping tabs on him now.

Alec set me down, then tucked himself back into his pants and swiped my sweats off the floor. He kept me behind him, in the shadows.

A dark figure moved across the apartment, making me bite back a scream. It was hard to see details—the only light on was the lamp near the front door. Crouching low, I strained my eyes across the distance, feeling a bolt of anger as my dresser was knocked on its side.

“Son of a bitch,” I said. I searched for my phone to call the police but realized I’d left it in my purse in the car.

“Stay here,” said Alec.

I stared at him incredulously. “You’re not going over there.”

My bed was overturned. The mattress slapped against the glass and then disappeared from view.

“Stay away from the window,” he said. “I’ll be back soon.”

“No.” I grabbed his arm, panic prickling up my spine. “Wait. What if it’s Bobby? He’s dangerous, Alec.”

“He’s not the only one.”

His teeth glinted in the reflection of the streetlights. It was the kind of smirk that made me nervous in all the wrong ways.

“We need to call the police!”

Alec was already striding toward the stairs. “Even if they arrest him, he’ll be out by the end of the night.”

“And if it’s not him?”

“Then it’s your landlord,” Alec said. “Your alarm’s programmed to send an alert to my cell phone if someone tries to break in. Only the three of us know your entry code.”

I pictured my landlord, an old Spanish man with long silver hair. No, this was definitely not him.

Alec registered the concern on my face and kissed me on the brow.

“I’m going to get what I need to end this,” he said.

A confession. If Bobby said he’d had more to do with Charlotte’s death, then this would be over. I didn’t know if he had the FBI wire, but he didn’t seem concerned about it.

He kissed me once more on the mouth and then ran to the stairwell. Heart racing, I sprinted to the darkest corner of the window where I wouldn’t be seen and knelt on the tile, peering across the way. A moment later Alec appeared on the street. He stopped at his car, opened the passenger-side door and leaned in. A silver handgun caught the light as he tucked it into the back of his waistband.

“Shit,” I hissed.

Alec ran across the street, and by the time he’d disappeared inside the stairwell beside the Chinese restaurant, I’d chewed my thumbnail down to the quick.

“Come on, Alec,” I said. “Get in and get out.”

A noise behind me drew my attention. It was probably just somebody downstairs in the restaurant. They were in full swing now; I could see the hostess greeting patrons who walked through the oversize front doors.

I turned back to the window. Someone was still inside my apartment, but the light had turned off. Had Alec done that? Was he trying to catch the intruder by surprise?

Another noise behind me—a clang on the stairs. Someone was coming up. I jumped to my feet and cursed the open room. There was nowhere to hide but the restrooms on the opposite wall near the exit.

It could have been Alec—he might have thought better about his plan and come back, slipping across the street when I’d been distracted by the first noise—but I couldn’t take any chances. Barefoot, I ran for the restrooms, trying to keep my steps quiet. But before I’d reached my destination, the hallway door swung open to reveal a muscular man in a black hooded sweatshirt and jeans. He pushed the hood of his sweatshirt back, showing his buzzed hair and sharp features.

My gaze dropped to the gun in his right hand.

“Anna,” said Bobby. “I’d say I’m surprised to see you here, but that wouldn’t be true.”

I took a step back, a cold fire coursing through me. Was Alec still across the street? Would he realize Bobby was here when he found my apartment empty?

“Are those your clothes?” He assessed the borrowed T-shirt and sweats Alec had given me with a look of disappointment. “I’ve got to say, you’ve looked hotter.”

“What do you want?” I asked.

“I’m glad you asked that.” He moved toward me with a little too much pep in his step. “I’m here for you, Anna. It’s time you and I spent a little quality time together.”

“How’d you know I was here?” I had to keep him talking. That was one of the things my dad had always told me. Keep them talking, get them to lower their guard, then strike when they least expect it.

I sidestepped, trying to keep my moves subtle in hopes that I could skirt past him. He juked in front of me, more agile than I ever would have expected for a slab of meat.

“I was waiting for you to come home,” he said. “You two sure took your sweet time.”

“Well, you know,” I said. “Places to go. People to see.”

He laughed. Deliberately, he cradled the gun, and started flicking his thumb over the safety.

“We have to go,” he said. “There are things we need to do, and this isn’t the place for it.”

I shivered. It was now or never.

I whipped my head to the side, as if I’d heard something to my right. Bobby followed my gaze and in that instant I bolted for the door. With a grunt, he swung back in my direction and snagged my arm. It threw me off balance and sent me careening into a stone pillar. I fell to my knees, the pain ricocheting up my thighs. Before I could rise, he’d hit me on the side of the head with his fist.

The world spun. I blinked, and the decorative tiles made a kaleidoscope pattern before my eyes. A searing pain lit up the back of my skull as he lifted me by my braided hair. I siphoned in a quick breath and kicked out as hard as I could, aiming for his balls. Instead, I got his knee, and with a grunt of pain he wheeled back and slapped me.

I fell to the floor in a heap, black spots taking over my vision. I tasted blood. My cheek felt as though it had instantly swollen an inch off the bone.

“Yes!” Bobby cheered, air-boxing like he’d just won a champion’s belt. “You’ve got some moves. I get why he likes you.” When I could finally look up through my knotted hair, he was grinning from ear to ear.

“Fuck you,” I said.

He laughed again. And then his laugh stopped abruptly. He held the gun out before him and aimed it at my face.

I stared straight down the barrel, the fear turning to ice inside my belly.

Alec, where are you?

Still training the gun at my head, Bobby pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and dialed three numbers.

“Yes, it’s an emergency!” he said when the attendant answered. “Someone broke into my neighbor’s apartment. There’s a woman there, her name’s Anna. I think she’s in trouble, I just heard her scream.”

Frantically, I tried to make sense of what he was doing. He’d clearly called 911 and seemed to be reporting his own break-in.

“I think it’s this guy she used to date—Alec something. He’s about six three, dark hair, sort of shaggy. She’s scared to death of him. He broke into her work earlier today. She said he has a gun.” He rattled off my address.

“Stop,” I said, but Bobby moved closer and pressed the gun flush against my cheek. I locked my jaw to stop the shaking and focused on the bruises and scabs that covered his knuckles.

“Hurry! I’m going to try to go over there. I’ve got to do something!”

He hung up, grinning broadly.

“You’re sending the police after Alec,” I said. “Too bad he’s going to be gone by the time they get there.”

“I doubt it,” said Bobby. “My associate should be keeping him busy.”

A surge of fury took me at the prospect of someone hurting Alec. I was going to claw Bobby’s eyes out the second I got the chance.

“Your associate,” I repeated.

Bobby’s mouth pulled into a tight frown. “I’ll admit, if he’d just grabbed you earlier at the salon, this would all be a lot cleaner now.
And
I wouldn’t have had to pay hospital security to let him go.”

“Earlier?” It felt like someone was jabbing an ice pick into my temple. “Melvin Herman works for you? He’s . . . sick.” The last time I’d seen him, he’d been red-faced from pepper spray and begging for me to read a love letter.

“He’s as sick as I pay him to be,” Bobby scoffed. “Come on, you didn’t think we’d put together a backup plan when Alec jumped in the sack with you? It became clear pretty fast he wasn’t going to do his job effectively.”

“But . . .” I shook my head. “I’ve known Melvin for months.”

“Which is exactly why I recruited him,” replied Bobby, as though I should have known this already. “He was really pissed that you had him kicked out of the salon. When I offered him a chance to get you back, he was . . . eager, to say the least.”

I wasn’t sure who I wanted to strangle more—Melvin or Bobby.

“Alec’s going to kill Melvin,” I said.

“No, he won’t. He’ll knock Melvin around a little, but he won’t be able to leave him there, and then the police will come and wrap everything up.”

Bobby was on a roll now. I had to keep him talking, get him to lower his guard again. There was still a chance I could escape.

“The police will arrest Melvin,” I said. “He’s the one who broke in.”

“First of all, he didn’t break in,” said Bobby. “He told your landlord he was your brother and had forgotten the code to your security system—nice touch by the way. That had to be Alec’s doing.” He scratched his chin. “Second, he was just there to apologize for what had happened earlier. At the most, he’s going to get carted back to the hospital. Alec’s the one who went apeshit and tore up your place. Lucky you weren’t there. He does have a history of beating up women.”

“That’s not the way I heard it,” I countered, but the dread was already sinking in. Alec had assault charges on his record. Even if they’d been dropped, it looked as though he had a capacity for violence.

Bobby shook his head. “Wow. You’ve really got him by the balls, haven’t you? He told you everything.”

I glared at him. “Melvin’s going to rat you out once the police question him.”

“He better not,” said Bobby. “Otherwise he won’t get the second installment of a very nice paycheck.”

From down the street came the sounds of sirens. The police were on their way. I just needed to get their attention.

“Get up,” Bobby said. “We’re going for a ride.”

He hauled me up by the arm and pulled me against his side. My head was throbbing now, and I spit a mouthful of saliva and blood onto his sweatshirt.

“Really?” he asked, clearly disgusted. “That’s unhygienic.” He wiped it off with his sleeve.

“Let me go.” I thrashed as best I could, but my knee had twisted in the fall, and it felt like someone was digging a knife into it every time I moved.

“Soon,” he said. “First we’re going downstairs. You’re going to be a good girl and keep quiet, otherwise I’m going to shoot you.”

“You can’t,” I argued as he dragged me down the first of the stairs. I let my body go limp and made him carry me. “Even your big-shot lawyer wouldn’t be able to save you from prison after that.”

Bobby frowned. He was so strong it barely hindered him to pull me down the second flight of stairs.

“You’ve got a point. I guess I could just have your favorite stalker kill Alec.” He opened the door at the bottom of the stairwell and backed us through. I could hear people talking twenty yards away, but no one passed by.

I tensed, and he pulled me upright. “He wouldn’t.”
He hasn’t yet.

“For enough money, some people would do just about anything.” He opened the door at the bottom of the stairwell. “It would tie things up nicely if Melvin shot Alec with that pistol I gave him. Jealous lovers battle to the death. Poetic, isn’t it? Just one call and I can make it happen.”

“You can’t buy everyone.” Melvin may have been under Bobby’s spell, but that didn’t mean he would kill someone.

“Yes,” said Bobby. “But you can buy some people.”

A cold silence crept through me. Alec was close, maybe hurt, and Bobby claimed he could have him killed if I didn’t play along.

“I don’t believe you,” I said. I didn’t believe Melvin could better Alec—Alec outweighed him in fifty pounds of muscle alone. And if Bobby wanted me dead, he would have done it already.

Rule number one of self-defense: If you can run, do it.

Barefoot, and on a twisted knee, I spun and clawed Bobby’s face. When his hold loosened, I pushed back and sprinted in the direction of the street.

“Goddammit!” I heard Bobby shout behind me.

Twenty feet and I was free. Bobby wouldn’t dare take me down in full view of the restaurant.

Fifteen.

He got the back of my shirt. I powered on, feeling the fabric strain then rip. My breath was harsh in my ears. Gravel dug into the pads of my feet. I opened my mouth to scream; it had to be loud enough to rise over the bass from the clubs.

His forearm latched around my throat. I dug my chin in, scratching at his wrist. I struggled, fought with everything I had.

The air in my lungs was dwindling. The pounding of my heart echoed through my head. I turned my cheek, tried to bite, but my jaw closed on his sweatshirt alone. My throat was on fire.

A black frame surrounded my vision. I couldn’t pass out. I had to keep fighting.

“That’s it.” I heard Bobby’s voice as if he was calling from the end of a long tunnel. “That’s it. Go to sleep.”

The street before me faded, and went dark.

T
he first things I registered were a pounding in my head and a sharp pain in my wrists. I opened my eyes, groaning, then immediately squeezed them shut as another hard throb slammed through the back of my skull. Gradually, a consistent whirring sound filtered through the headache. My cheek rested against a strap of some kind. A seat belt. My eyes shot back open. I was in a car.
My
car.

Another rule of self-defense: Never get in a car with the bad guy. Once he’s got you there, you’re not getting back out.

“Good morning, sunshine. Or I should say, good evening.”

I turned to find Bobby in the driver’s seat. He looked huge in my small car. Four long, pink scratches stretched from his eye down his jaw, lit by the glowing gauges in the dashboard. The gun rested in his lap. It was so dark outside I could barely make out the road ahead in the high beams.

My wrists, resting on my lap, were bound together by a bungee cord so tight my fingers prickled. My ankles were bound as well.

The last events I could remember came crashing to the forefront of my mind.

“Where’s Alec?” My voice was scratchy. How long had we been driving? The clock on the dash said 10:14 p.m. Almost three hours had passed since Alec and I had left his father’s.

“Probably in jail by now, where he’s going to be for a long time,” said Bobby. “Did you know he stole the design for a plane engine from Green Fusion and tried to get a patent on it? That’s a serious offense.” He had the audacity to try to sound shocked.

My throat was dry and aching. I wished for water, but wouldn’t have trusted it coming from Bobby even if he offered.

“Where are you taking me?”

I twisted my wrists a little, stretching the cord. There had to be some way to loosen its hold. I kept working them from side to side, searching for a weak point as we drove into the night.

“Somewhere quiet,” he said.

Dread coiled in my stomach. My teeth began to chatter.

“You’re going to kill me.” I meant to ask it as a question, but it came out as a statement.

Bobby sighed. He tapped the handgun against the driver’s-side window.

“You’re what we call a loose end,” he said. “You’ve seen a little too much. And now with Alec going away, I really don’t have the time to keep tabs on you.”

I glanced at the key in the ignition. It was my spare key—the one I kept in the junk drawer in my kitchen. Dangling from it was the cheesy flip-flop key chain I’d bought at a gas station my first week in Florida.

Bobby had been in my apartment—that had been why my things were out of place. The thought of his thick fingers on my stuff made me ill.

“Why didn’t you just do it back at the restaurant?”

“And do what with the body? Carry it across the street in front of everyone? Or leave it? That would go well. Max wants to develop that property. It’s bad business if one of his previous employees ended up dead there.”

Being referred to as a dead body made the bile rise in my throat.

“Is this what you did to Charlotte?” I asked, unable to hide the tremor in my voice.

He glanced my direction. “Worried you won’t be able to swim with your hands tied together?”

He was going to push me over the edge. Drown me. My ankles worked back and forth, the cord making my skin raw. I tried to be subtle so he wouldn’t hear.

He sighed loudly. “The thing about Charlotte is she had a hard time listening. I asked her nicely to get her ass out of her car, but she didn’t.” He flexed his hand over the steering wheel, showcasing its crisscrossed scabs.

“You punched a hole through her window.”

“She’s a redhead,” he explained. “Stubborn, you know? She liked to taunt. Said she was going to talk to a reporter and send us all to jail. So we raced to see who could get there first. It wasn’t my fault she couldn’t control her own car.”

“You drove her off the road.”

“She drove herself off the road,” he said, making a clear distinction. “I just gave her a little push.”

The scratches on the side of the black SUV I’d seen at Maxim’s house came to mind. Bobby must have sideswiped her while they were driving. I wished I’d had Alec’s wire from the FBI so that I could have recorded our conversation. It worried me that Bobby was talking so freely. The only reason for him to do that was because he knew for a fact I wouldn’t, or couldn’t, repeat what he’d said.

“Someone had to see,” I said. “Bridges have surveillance cameras.” My father had once told me the cops had used the footage off a bridge in Cincinnati to catch a murder suspect. I was grasping at straws now, trying to cling to any hope that his actions would be discovered.

“Did you know just one lonely employee works at the transportation authority after hours?” Bobby asked. “I paid him a little visit after Charlotte and I went our separate ways. That footage is long gone, and if he’s smart he’s not going to say a word about it.”

I had to hand it to him; Bobby wasn’t as stupid as he looked. But the fact that he’d known just what to do made me wonder how much thought he’d put into this ahead of time, or if he’d done something like this before.

A small pop, and the binding around my ankle loosened. I checked on Bobby in my peripheral vision, but he didn’t seem to have heard it. I began working the ties more vigorously. Ahead in the distance was an arcing line of streetlamps. A bridge.

“Where are we?” I asked, desperate to tell someone—the police, my father, Amy,
Alec
, though there was nothing he could do now to help me.

Bobby ignored me.

I wished I had my regular keys and the pepper spray attached to them. Immediately I started a mental inventory of what I could use to defend myself. There wasn’t much. I could unlock the door and jump from the car, but we were going too fast. With my arms and legs bound I’d probably break my neck. I didn’t see his cell phone—it was probably in his pocket. Not that I had time to call the cops anyway. My glove compartment was filled with registration papers and condiment packages. No help there. The backseats were laid flat to accommodate my clunky massage table and my duffle bag filled with oils. There was a silver basin farther back that I might be able to swing if I could get my hands on it.

In the rearview mirror I caught sight of headlights, the first I’d seen since I’d come around. Someone was a few miles behind us, driving fast enough to catch up. If I could turn on the interior lights when they approached, I might be able to wave them down for help.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said.

Bobby wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “People really do say that, don’t they? I thought it was just in the movies.
You don’t have to do this
.” He finished with a sniveling face.

“Well, you don’t,” I said. “You could be, I don’t know, a decent human being and let me go.”

“But what then?” he asked. “You sit at home for a couple days, then start thinking about it—how Bobby and Max fucked everything up for you, and how they should pay for it, and next thing we know, you’re trying to file a statement with the police and I’m right back in the same situation.”

My ankles were free. I’d slipped them out of the stretchy cord. I kept my legs pinned together so he couldn’t tell. I focused on my hands, keeping them low and in the shadows so as not to attract Bobby’s attention. The urgency was beating through my veins. I had to break free by the time we got to the bridge, otherwise I was going into the water.

“I did think about letting you go,” he said after a moment. “This was Max’s idea. If it helps, he was conflicted about it.”

“Yeah, I bet,” I said, hating that I’d once lathered him up with oil and rubbed his tense muscles.

“He was. You don’t understand how upset he is that Alec was going to turn him in. Max loved him. Like a son. Or a really good dog.”
Tap, tap, tap
went the gun against the window. “He needed a suitable punishment for that betrayal, and your death just happens to be it.”

I focused on Bobby’s words. He’d said that Alec was
going
to turn him in, not that Alec
had
turned him in. It was possible Maxim Stein didn’t know Alec had gone to the FBI, that Alec still might have a case against him.

I hoped Stein was going to rot in some dark dungeon for what he’d done.

“How did your uncle find out about that?”

The car behind was closer now—a couple miles back. But we were only a few miles from the bridge. I turned away to hide my wrists in the shadows and began pulling the cords apart with a new desperation.

“Charlotte told me they were going to the police before she went for a swim,” he said. “She was practically bragging about it.”

My wrists weren’t coming loose. The bridge was in sight now, and though there was a stop sign at the base, Bobby didn’t show any signs of slowing.

“You’re not ever going to run the company,” I said. “One day someone’s going to find out everything you’ve done and you’ll get what you deserve.”

He laughed. “Can I tell you something?”

“What is this, confession?”

“I don’t even want Force,” he said. “I still can’t believe that with five wives and a hundred side dishes, Max doesn’t have his own kid to pass it on to. I like my life as is.”

“Being someone’s henchman.”

“It sounds sexy when you say it like that.”

I snorted. “You man the gate. You’re one step above mall security.”

“You didn’t seem to mind that Alec did the same.”

Bobby looked down at my legs and I froze, thinking he’d seen that I’d freed my ankles. Instead, his gaze lingered, and I scooted against the passenger-side door to put more distance between us.

“I know you aren’t wearing panties,” he said in a quiet, creepy voice. “Or a bra. You’re normally not my type, but those tits may have changed my mind.”

Unable to help myself, I curled into the door. The thought of him fondling me when I was passed out was too much to handle. What else had he done? I pinched my legs together, trying not to think of it.

“Don’t get so uptight,” he said with a laugh. “I prefer active participants in the bedroom.”

That came as a relief, but only a small one.

I wasn’t going to make it to the other side of this bridge. I didn’t know if Bobby planned on throwing me over, shooting me, or both, but I wasn’t about to find out.

In a burst, I lunged across the divide, grabbed the wheel, and jerked it as hard as I could toward me. I saw the cement barrier marking the edge of the bridge one second before we slammed into it.