True Vision (33 page)

Sixth message, at 8:39 yesterday morning: “It’s me . . .” His voice paused for a long moment, and she could hear his uneven breathing. “I . . . I’m . . . damn it, I’m sorry. I got drunk, and I said some things. I mean, I meant them, I think. But, look, I’m sorry, okay? I just need to talk to you, to clear the air. I’m . . . I’m kind of not in a good place right now. Please call me.
Please.
” Voice thick and sleepy but sober and probably smarting from a hangover. She felt sorry for him, wished she’d been there to take his call. She missed him, too, more than she’d expected.

She picked up the phone to call him back.

“I wouldn’t bother.”

She whirled toward the voice behind her, surprised and baffled to see a young man standing in the door of her office. He looked no more than twenty-two, with thick, brown hair and dark brown eyes. Slim yet muscular, like he worked out a lot or did physical labor for a living. His smile, friendly, even a little apologetic, confused her at first but calmed her initial burst of alarm. Had he entered the wrong house?

“Can I help you?” she asked. So weird to ask that of a man who’d walked in uninvited, but he didn’t look threatening or sinister. He looked like one of those fresh-faced college kids selling magazines to win an exotic trip or a Mormon boy making sure all the souls in the neighborhood were in good repair.

He nodded, that friendly, amenable smile still in place. “I think you can, yes.”

CHAPTER
FIFTY-SEVEN

N
oah set down his coffee. “So you think it’s doable.”

Logan nodded, toying with the slim plastic straw he’d used to stir his own coffee. “I don’t see why not. You should probably run it by Charlie, though.”

“Of course. I just—”

Logan’s ringing cell phone cut him off. “Hang on.” A moment later, the phone pressed to his ear, he said, “Logan.” He listened for a few moments before his brow started to furrow and his eyes went dark. “Are you sure?” Another long pause. “Run it through the database and call me right back.”

He snapped the phone closed and shoved back from the table, his tan already faded into an ashen hue. “Where’s Charlie?”

Noah felt his head snap back in shock. “She’s probably home by now. Why?”

“That was the lab. Donna Keene’s body was moved after she was shot. She didn’t kill herself.”

Noah got to his feet, fear spiking through the top of his head as Logan raced for the door at a dead run.

Noah fumbled his cell phone out as he followed on Logan’s heels. Charlie’s phone was ringing in his ear when he realized something else Logan had said. “What are they running through the database?”

“Hairs inside the balaclava found in Keene’s suite don’t belong to her. If we’re lucky, we’ll get a DNA match.”

“Fuck,” Noah said under his breath. He shouldn’t have left Charlie alone. Damn it, he shouldn’t have let her out of his sight. He remembered Donna Keene’s body under the stairs at the Royal Palm. There’d been no blood spatter. Why the hell hadn’t he noticed that before? But he knew why. He’d been completely focused on Charlie, completely wigged out because she’d tried to get an empathic flash off of a corpse.

“Come on, Charlie, answer.”

Logan didn’t argue when Noah got into the squad car with him.

As the engine roared to life, Logan glanced sideways at Noah. “Anything?”

Noah shook his head. “No answer,” he croaked, dread obliterating his voice.

Logan set his mouth into a grim, determined line. “Where did you see her last?”

“Hospital with Alex. She would have left by now, though. We were meeting at her house in”—he checked his watch—“half an hour.”

“Call and check anyway.”

Noah’s hand shook as he squinted at the keypad on his phone. Don’t lose it, don’t lose it. “I don’t know the number.”

Logan rattled it off. “That’s direct to Alex’s room.”

A minute later, a man’s voice answered. “Hello?”

“Is Charlie there?” Noah asked.

“May I ask who’s calling?”

He bit into his lip. Just answer the fucking question! “Noah Lassiter. Is this Mr. Trudeau?”

“Yes. Hello, Mr. Lassiter. Charlie left about half an hour ago. You can probably reach her at home by now.”

“Thank you,” Noah said, and clicked off the call. He felt sick. Seriously ill. “She should be home.”

“Then she’s in the shower,” Logan said, nodding emphatically. “Let’s not panic.”

Noah sat back and clenched a fist on his knee, his other hand curled around the safety handle near his head as Logan yanked the squad car into a sharp turn at tire-squealing, fish-tailing speed.

She’s in the shower. That worked. That made sense. She’d want to wash away the stench of Donna Keene’s death. They’d get to her house, and she’d be standing in the kitchen in a towel, her silky hair damp around her shoulders, droplets of water glimmering in the hollow of her pale throat. He’d have to move fast to keep Logan from getting an eyeful.

Please, God. Whatever you want, you’ve got it.

Logan didn’t bother pulling into Charlie’s driveway. He slammed on the brakes in front of her house, sending the car into a sideways skid that wasn’t completely finished before Noah scrambled out and raced for her front door. He heard Logan right behind him, heard him shout something. His heart pounded, jackhammered, in his ears, nothing but white noise in his head and a desperate, desperate chant: Please, please, please. Whatever it takes.

The front door was locked. Good sign, but she didn’t come running at his frantic pounding.

Logan started toward the side of the house and the back door that led into the kitchen, and Noah tore after him, nearly losing his balance in the slippery grass.

Logan had his gun out when he stopped and pressed his back to the peach stucco next to the screen door. He signaled Noah to chill, and it took all of his restraint to obey. You’re a cop, act like one. Jesus. But he didn’t have his gun. In shorts and a T-shirt, he’d had no way to conceal it, so he’d left it locked in its box in his hotel room. Big, stupid mistake.

His nerves jumped like sparking electrical wires as the other cop eased the screen door open and gave the inner door a push. Hinges gave an ominous creak, raising the hairs on the back of Noah’s neck.

Logan went in first, gun braced. “Police!” he called.

Noah followed. “Charlie?”

No one in the kitchen. No one, it seemed, in the house, judging by the silence.

Logan moved on quiet feet toward the door that led to the rest of the house and angled his head down the hall, letting Noah know he would check the bedrooms.

Noah was looking around the living room, feeling helpless, when Logan called to him.

“Noah.”

He jogged down the hall and found Logan in Charlie’s office, standing stock-still and staring at something on the carpet, his complexion white.

Noah looked down, and his world contracted down to a narrow tunnel.

Blood.

CHAPTER
FIFTY-EIGHT

C
harlie opened her eyes to noise all around her and blinked several times, trying to orient herself. She was on her side, in a large room or warehouse . . . factory? As her head cleared, her brain started registering details.

The roar of machinery, almost deafening in its metallic clanging and chugging.

Darkness except for an eerie, yellow glow in the distance.

Concrete floor cold and gritty against her skin.

Hot, unmoving air choked with dust.

Hulking shadows of the noisy machines on either side of her.

Where the hell was she?

She rolled to her back and pushed up on one elbow, clenching her jaw against the swirling in her head. As she waited for the dizziness to fade, she took a physical inventory. The taste of blood in her mouth. Grit like sand between her teeth. A steady throb in her jaw.

The bastard had coldcocked her.

He’d kept smiling that pleasant, I’m-not-here-to-hurt-you smile and punched her right out.

Son of a bitch.

She’d been so
stupid
. Standing there like an idiot. Can I help you? Can I
help
you? F-ing moron. He’d just looked so damn harmless.

She started to lift a hand to explore her jaw. Resistance.

She jerked her arm, heard the clang of metal, felt the tug at her wrist. Panic turned the inside of her head white as she scrambled up onto her knees and groped around in the dark, her eyes adjusting now to the lack of decent light.

Her right wrist was handcuffed to a heavy pipe that ran vertically up the wall.

She jerked again, unable to stop herself, and cried out at the bite of pain. Cried out as it finally sank in how much trouble she was in. Serious, serious trouble.

She spent several sweaty minutes trying to squeeze her hand through the cuff to free herself. Pushing and pulling and grunting. Come on, come on. She gave up when the slickness of blood washing her hand did nothing to help.

She shifted, pressed her back against the wall and tried to breathe, to think. The roar of the machines—air conditioners? water heaters? heavy-duty washers and dryers?—seemed to press in on her, thickening the air in her lungs. Don’t panic, don’t panic.

Who was she kidding?

She started to scream for help.

CHAPTER
FIFTY-NINE

N
oah looked out on Charlie’s backyard, everything inside him still. His brain had stalled when he’d seen the blood on the carpet. Not a lot of blood. Just a spot, really. But it was Charlie’s. He was going to lose her. He could feel it in his bones.

If not to a madman, then perhaps to Mac Hunter. He and Logan had listened to the phone messages on Charlie’s machine, knowing it was a stretch but desperate for a clue about what happened to her. Noah had heard the desperation in Hunter’s voice. Hell, if he were Charlie and a former lover wanted him back that bad, he’d give the guy a second chance. Especially if the alternative was someone as fucked-up as Noah was.

Behind him, Logan snapped his phone closed. “Shit.”

Noah turned toward the other cop. “What is it?” he asked, his lips barely moving.

“No DNA hits on the hair inside the balaclava. All we know is it’s not Keene’s.”

“But, clearly, she was working with someone.”

“Or she was set up.”

“Someone at the hotel,” Noah said.

Logan nodded. “Gotta be.”

Noah headed for the door. “Let’s go.”

“And do what?”

“Search Donna Keene’s suite. Maybe we’ll find something that IDs her partner.”

Logan hesitated, and Noah’s patience stretched to the breaking point. “Do you have another idea?”

Logan shook his head. “No. Let’s go.”

CHAPTER
SIXTY

C
harlie let her chin rest on her chest and focused on leveling out the hitches in her breath. She had enough problems at the moment without hyperventilating.

Her throat hurt from screaming for help, but the guy who’d chained her up here had planned well. No one could hear her over the thrum of the machines. When he came back, no one would hear her screaming then, either.

She closed her eyes tight, swallowed against the surge of sickness. Don’t be sick. Don’t freak out. Don’t hyperventilate. Think.
Think.

The scrape of footsteps less than a yard away snapped her eyes open, and she jerked her head up to see the outline of a man coming toward her, the yellow glow at his back. She flinched, her lungs seizing, as he reached above his head and pulled a chain. Light from a bare bulb cast the hot, humid space into harsh relief.

He squatted before her, and she pressed back, turning her head against the wall as the glaring light seared her eyes. She couldn’t see him, didn’t want to see him, didn’t want to accept that this was where she was, this was how she was going to die. Screaming where no one could hear her.

“How’s it going?” he asked, his voice barely audible over the machinery. Concerned, affable. Amused, even.

She closed her eyes, prayed. Get me out of here. Please, get me out. Noah . . .

“Look at me.”

She turned her head to look at him. Don’t piss him off. She knew what he could do when he was smiling. Knock her cold with one punch. What could he do while angry?

His lips curved. Nice lips, really. And teeth. So white and perfect. Not the mouth of a psycho. Not the hair. Not the eyes. A dark-eyed, dark-haired kid who could have been the lean, wiry college quarterback as much as the reserved but jovial genius on
Jeopardy!
But he wasn’t either of those men. He’d kidnapped her and chained her to a pipe. He had plans for her.

She started to shudder and hated that she was so f-ing weak. Do something. Don’t just sit here and shake. Don’t be pathetic.

“What do you want?” she asked, voice hoarse from screaming.

“You’re going to heal me,” he said, and his teeth gleamed.

Heal him? What the hell did that mean?

He moved fast, and in the next instant, he had his hands clamped around her throat.

Charlie crashed back into herself, choking against the strong, steel fingers compressing her windpipe. Air. She had no air.

She tore at his wrists, sinking her nails in, gouging and tearing at his skin. Let go, let go, let go. Breathe, she had to breathe.

He released her as quickly as he’d grabbed her, and she fell against the pipe, coughing and gasping. As sweet, life-giving air rushed into her lungs, the import of the flash hit her.

Mac . . .
oh, God, oh, Jesus, he’d hit
Mac
with a . . . a
wrench
.