A Spill of Blood Ch. 07

She shook her head. "Anyway, let's start getting you ready. He'll be a while yet before it's time for us to go in. We need to get those clothes off and get you shaved down.

"First, though, you can't go anywhere, but you can certainly struggle and make it very difficult for me to get you ready. So, a little general anesthetic. Propofol has a very rapid induction and recovery time, so it's perfect for what we want. Your blood is going to be quite the cocktail before we're done."

She stood and started sorting through her table of goodies. I saw her wince slightly when she picked something up with her left hand.

"So you were shot. It wasn't part of the act to throw us off the scent."

The anger came back, but this time it wasn't directed at me. "No. that wasn't intended. That bitch shot me. She'll pay soon."

"Who's 'she'?"

"Akina Jeong. We knew about her, and Kimi knew that the only thing keeping her safe was good behavior. She's a pretty one. We'll find her and then she'll take her sister's place."

I remembered the photograph of two laughing sisters; it was in a file drawer back at my office. One was in hell now, the other lost to fury.

Rachel pulled herself back from contemplating her wound and Akina's fate. The delay was over. My expectation that she was going to have to get close and hold still long enough to stick a needle in me was dashed when she picked up a gun-like thing. A jet injector. She talked over her shoulder as she worked on stripping the packaging from a vial.

"I've used this on you once already. Maybe you feel a burning sensation in your shoulder? Propofol can cause that, plus the injector doesn't help. You probably don't remember me giving it to you because it has a mild amnesia effect.

"When you come to, you'll be all bare. Which is good because, trust me, skin is so much more alive when it's freshly bare. You'll shiver if someone just blows warm breath on it. Which I will. I'm going to make you feel so good." Despite the words promising pleasure, I knew what they truly foretold.

At this point, I should have been gibbering with fear. I wondered if that was what Rachel wanted—prey that saw the hounds closing in and no way to escape—or whether she truly did want me feeling good for the first part. And I was scared, incredibly so. More than I'd ever been in my life. But I knew something she didn't. A simple little rule of thumb.

Don't send an amateur to do a job meant for a professional.

If you believed her, Rachel was the idea person who started their empire. Maybe even the driving force that pushed it to garner millions upon millions of wealth carved from the bodies of men and women. But she wasn't the one who dragged those bodies into cages. The closest she came was luring a young woman blinded by dreams onto a jet. She was management, not labor.

My hands were in handcuffs. The chain attached to the collar around my neck pulled me back against the wall. I felt naked without the P220 pressing into my kidney.

But in squirming to a sitting position, I'd lifted my leg a few inches, testing its weight. I'd been satisfied. Now, while her attention was away, I jerked them up and in. "Padmāsana ... lotus position," a smooth-talking fitness trainer Amber had dragged home one day had described it. I ignored the shot of pain in my stomach muscles. Day-to-day movements had finally become comfortable, but occasionally I got a reminder of the beating they'd taken a while back.

Don't send an amateur to do a job meant for a professional ... like securing someone's hands. There's a reason cops handcuff you behind your back. Or disarm someone. There's a reason pat-downs go all the way to the ankles.

"Hey, bitch!"

She whirled to me, her face creasing in rage that a mere mortal had dared speak to a goddess in that manner.

"Even gods die."

She had a fleeting moment. I'd seen that same shock years ago on the face of a pedophile ... the realization that their invulnerability wasn't absolute, that they had an Achilles heel. And Nemesis had found it.

Me.

I hadn't entirely shaken off the taser, and I was off-balance and cramped up. The first was too low, a gutshot. The second ripped through a lung as she doubled over.

I heard the shout from the other room and didn't wait for her to complete her collapse so I could take a third. I lowered my feet back to the floor. I pushed to set my back firmly against the wall and stabilize my uncertain body. I rested a wrist on my knee.

Bertram burst into the room as naked as the day he was born.

As naked as the day he died. Two to the chest, just as I'd done with Mitchell. They weren't as tightly grouped, but I cut myself some slack. It didn't matter. One or both did what I needed them to do.

Then I went about the process of freeing myself. It took a while just to stand enough to undo the chain. Hands shaking from a taser and propofol and, let's face it, fear adrenaline still in my bloodstream didn't help. I tried to ignore the muffled sounds of distress from the other room as I worked.

Sydney was kneeling on the floor. Her arms were drawn up behind her in a painful strappado by a chain running up to one of three rings set in a ceiling beam. Her face was distorted by the gag and by terror. It was wet with tears.

I fumbled at the buckle until the gag came off, then her wrists. The naked form collapsed against me, sobbing. We huddled there for perhaps a minute, maybe two. Then, "We need to get moving," I said.

At first, she just clutched me more tightly. Then her grip slowly loosened and I felt her nod. I looked around and found her clothes. They were surprisingly intact; I'd assumed they'd been ripped off her.

"He told me to undress myself. He said he wanted me to feel like I was a participant in what was going to happen. He told me that, if I didn't, it was my choice, but then things would happen that made me regret that decision." Her tone was matter-of-fact, like she was describing something that she'd seen rather than experienced. It was a way to distract and distance herself from the actual memory. "He said Rachel does the opposite with men because it makes them feel powerless to be stripped by a woman against their will."

"Get dressed," I said gently.

As she moved slowly to her clothes, I looked around the room. In the corner was the familiar red gym duffle. I peered inside. A million, give or take, in greenbacks, along with a piece of paper that had a series of letters and numbers scrawled on it in my handwriting. That had been in my pocket. I wasn't the only one who recognized what they were. I shook my head at everything they represented and went back into the main part of the basement, closing the door behind me. There was one more thing to do.

She was curled into a keening ball, almost unaware of anything but her internal world. It was the broken sound of an animal that didn't understand why it hurt.

I looked at Rachel and suddenly I was afraid she'd make it. Some ambulance driver would manage the impossible and patch her up. And then she'd find a way.

It didn't matter whether it was a bought-and-paid-for cop who "lost" evidence or merely a jury whose eyes were misled as mine had been when I met her, a jury taken in by the image of an elegant, genteel woman deceived by a husband who was nothing but a vicious whoremonger. Whatever it would be, I had a gut feeling this woman would never see the inside of the criminal psych ward she belonged in.

Sure, she'd violate the social dictum that you should appear in the newspapers only three times: your birth announcement, when you got married, and your eulogy. But it wouldn't matter because millions squirreled away ... and the Bertrams had them, no doubt about it ... millions squirreled away and she'd start over somewhere else.

She'd start over because she couldn't help what she was.

I had learned over the last weeks to trust those gut feelings.

I lined up carefully and put the final bullet between her eyes.

It wasn't punishment for what she'd done. Nothing I was capable of doing could deliver that kind of justice. It was the eradication of an infection in the world, a diseased cell that had to be cut out.

There was a startled shriek, quickly muffled, from the bedroom. I went back in. Sydney's eyes met mine and melted with relief. Then they moved past me to the naked figure of her assailant on the floor and she paled.

"Please. Can we get out of here?"

I nodded.

"Come on," she said, tugging my arm toward the door, looking anywhere but at the bodies.

"No, just you. I need to stay so the police don't go looking."

"Harry!"

"Go! Take this. Wait! Don't touch it in case it gets into police hands." I grabbed a towel from the attached bathroom and wrapped up the Centennial. "I'm going to claim there was one more person who did all this before he fled, taking his gun."

A puzzled frown appeared.

"There was a falling out among thieves. A tall guy. Swedish accent." She got it and a smile flickered across her face for a millisecond.

"Come with me," she said. "We can say we both got away."

I shook my head. "No, this is better. Gives them someone to focus on, especially that dick who half-believes you were a recruiter. I've got taser marks on my skin and drugs in my blood. Convincing them I was incapacitated won't be hard. They'll look at me and won't even think about you. You've been through enough."

She wrapped her arms around me and kissed me thoroughly. "You're the best thing that ever happened to me, Harry. Thank God I met you. Hurry back."

"Go, and don't lose that. It's important to me."

She turned to go, then darted to the corner. She grabbed up the red bag. "I'm taking this. I told you there'd be a way we'd come out okay."

I didn't argue. "I'll see you at the hotel whenever they get done with me. Now go in case some neighbor heard shots and called them in."

Maybe neighbors had already called in the shots, but a basement with no windows was pretty soundproof. And something told me that New Canaan residents didn't expect gunfire anywhere but the skeet range and might write it off to teenage hijinks with firecrackers. I might as well get it over with. I'd call after I did a few things.

I'd wipe down anything she might have touched. I'd search the house until I found my other pistol and then fire a round or two like I'd fought back before being taken to explain the powder residue on my skin.

I called Jess and told her I was okay.

"They're gone," I said.

"They got away?"

"No."

She heard it in my voice, the finality of what "gone" meant.

"Good."

We sat in silent, shared understanding for a moment.

"I'm staying for the cops, plus I'm not sure I'm able to drive just yet." I didn't explain that. Time enough for what might have been later. "Call my lawyer and tell him where to go."

"Yeah."

It was a long day that went well into the night when Special Agent Shithead showed up in New Canaan. When I was finally free to go, it was too late to drive home. I found a hotel out by I95. I lay on the bed and tried to let it go. I listened to the tri-state news and found out the reason for Dutter's even-more-pissant attitude earlier.

"Working on a tip from Detective Darryl Murray of the New York Police Department, the New Jersey State Police, acting in concert with relevant federal agencies, conducted a raid on a residence on Long Beach Island. This raid resulted in the apprehension of several members of a trafficking ring as well as the release of several women being held in captivity. It is with great ..."

I leaned back and smiled as the woman droned on.

"Relevant federal agencies" was all the mention you got, Dutter. Heh. Breaks my heart. Next time, maybe don't diss the locals. They don't like it.

I rolled over and went to sleep. Tomorrow would be plenty of time to wrap things up. I'd call Murray and tell him about the Corvette parked a block down the street with some papers I'd ferreted out of a desk in the glove compartment. Maybe they weren't important, but they sure looked like they might be to me. He could figure out who should get them. He'd sigh, but there'd be no heat in it because he wasn't completely unlike me.

I wasn't an angel. "Turn the other cheek" would never find a home in my moral code. I was okay with that. The world was one tiny iota freer of filth now, and that eased something that lived down in the deepest part of who Harry Morgan was.

But right now I was tired. And tomorrow I'd go curl up in the arms of a beautiful woman, and the world—especially Special Agent Dutter—could go fuck themselves.

I carded the door, and Jess and I stepped into the hotel room.

I knew as soon as I saw the folded paper with "Harry" handwritten on it. That and the empty red gym duffle discarded on a chair. I moved what was holding down the note, a lump wrapped in a towel, a lump that was vaguely pistol-shaped, and read it.

Dearest Harry,

I know it would have been more honorable to do this in person, but I'm not strong enough.

I have to go. You know that Anders Lindqvist is still out there. He's right to say no court will ever go after him just on hearsay from you. That makes you no real threat to someone that rich. Plus, you're a tough guy underneath even though I saw the soft side. He's learned to fear you. If you leave him alone, he'll leave you alone. I'd never forgive myself if you got hurt. Please leave him alone! You might not be so lucky next time.

But I'm different. Richard called Anders to tell him he had me and they were going to use me as bait to lure you in. Anders wanted to sell me to a man who collects women. He was careful not to say the name, but Richard said some things before Anders cut him off. He knows I heard the conversation. I'm not going to tell you my guess because I don't want you hurt but, trust me, it's someone who could hurt you.

I can't go through the rest of my life with Anders wondering how much I've figured out and what Richard might have told me after they got off the phone. I can't go around never knowing if they'll come for me and I end up sold to someone who collects women or just killed. I'm not tough like you. I'm a loose end who can be squashed easily. I need to hide.

But, dearest Harry, I can't ask you to live that life. You're not made for a life away from everything that was yours.

I'm sorry, but I need to disappear and it's going to take a lot of resources to do that.

Please, don't judge me too harshly, and think kindly of me occasionally. It tears me up, but you couldn't be happy in the life ahead of me.

—Sydney

Couldn't be happy? Someone who made me laugh and a bank account with more zeros than I had pairs of shoes? Living in Mallorca or the Algarve? I might have been damn happy. Let's not even mention that much talent in the sack.

I guess you won't have a chance to find out, though, will you, Harry?

She'd said she wanted to run away with me, that I was the best man she'd ever met.

But I'd forgotten the cardinal rule of the demimonde: it's all illusion ... you see what they want you to see.

Jess took the piece of paper from where I dropped it on the counter.

"Crocodile tears," she snorted, "and bullshit justifications." She bent and pulled a discarded piece of paper out of the wastebasket, a printout from an airline. "JFK to NCE. What do you want to bet that NCE is some place warm and sunny?"

I stared belligerently.

She wasn't fazed. "A woman like her? The money would flow like water. Then she'd wonder where the next spigot was. She'd have been faithful for six months if you were lucky." She shook her head in exasperation. "You're not a Romeo, Harry, and you're certainly not a sugar daddy. You're meat and potatoes and a shot of rye. She's caviar and Champagne ... and neither of those fill a body up worth shit. So, fuck that bitch and the mattress she rode in on."

I stared. I saw her rein it in, though the twin spots of color on her cheeks remained. I turned so I didn't have to face her and looked around the room.

There'd been thirteen people at Jordan Regan's party.

Seven were monsters. Six of those monsters were dead—five men, one woman. I wouldn't grieve their deaths, not for a millisecond. One monster was still alive. There wasn't much I could do against a foreign millionaire, but I'd be watching as best I could. If Anders Lindqvist set foot in the United States again, he'd get a visit from Harry Morgan, and he'd join the others. Darryl Murray would sigh and say, "Another one? Jesus Christ, Morgan, you leave corpses around like other people leave cigarette butts." But again, there'd be no fire in it.

Two of the victims were women who went for the wrong prize with the wrong man. Who would have won their tug of war, Sasha or Regan? My money was on Regan. He was crueler, and cruel usually wins. As for Nikki, I'd never know if she really should be in the first category with the monsters. But in memory of our evening together, I gave her the benefit of the doubt: too blinded by dreams of a better life to see the reality of Larry Beck.

Another was a woman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Murray had told me that the people who contacted Cara Gowin's parents had glossed over her Emerald alter ego when talking to them. Cops can be kind sometimes too.

And finally, a woman I'd never laid eyes on. A woman shanghaied from her family in Korea into an existence she hadn't wanted by the promise of a better life in a new country. When she'd rebelled, the monsters had consigned her to hell. Maybe someone could track where she'd gone once they'd torn apart Excelus and Eroticos. Probably not.

I'd grieve for four people I'd never really known.

No, five. Officer Kenneth Hopkins ... Kenny to someone who cared about him. He would be mourned also.

I looked around the room of one of the two lucky ones, feeling the emptiness. I dropped into a chair to put the Smith & Wesson back where it belonged.

I felt like shit.

"Let's go," Jess said. She laid a hand on my shoulder. "Hey!" She chucked me under the chin so I looked up. Her eyes held a world of understanding. "I'm buying and there's no limit. It'll get better in a few weeks, and there's nothing urgent we need to be doing for a while."

Then, because she was Jess. "But if you go back to Lexie, I will shoot both of you. I have a gun."

I thought about that pistol tucked under her desk—I'd told her it was hers to keep—and smiled in spite of myself.

Thank you for sticking with the story. I hope you enjoyed it. Drop a note if you're inclined.

—C