Finding Claire Fletcher (30 page)

As his fingers slid over the homemade sheath, the man came at Connor again. Connor grabbed the edge of the bed for stability and turned his body, swinging both legs out and again knocking the attacker to the ground. He drew his legs in to cover his body and once more reached for the knife.

Silently, the blade slid from its sheath. Connor gripped it and flipped onto his back like a landed fish. As the attacker came at him again Connor swung, slicing through the man’s pant leg but hitting nothing save the fabric.

The attacker descended on Connor, both his hands covering Connor’s in an effort to control the weapon. He kneed Connor heartily in his upper abdomen, and Connor instantly felt his breath leave him. Had he had enough wind to curse, he would have. The attacker wrenched the knife from Connor’s hands.

Connor tried to recover, willing his breathless body to move. Somewhere in the back of his mind a perfectly calm voice mused,
this must be what panic attacks are like.
He’d known hundreds of people in his career who were plagued by them after being victims of violent crime. Even a handful of his colleagues had fallen prey to panic attacks after seeing one too many gruesome crime scenes—the worst ones involving children.

Flat on his back, unable to breath, bound and weaponless, Connor braced for death. The knife plunged into his thigh. Connor howled, and his body automatically curled toward the pain in his leg. The calm voice in his head instructed him to pull the knife out of his leg and he reached for it.

The attacker’s hands covered his once again, and they struggled for control of the knife. It had gone deep, and the wound burned as Connor pulled it from his leg. Without conscious thought, he swung at his attacker, aiming at center mass. His breath returned, and he flipped onto his side where he could move more freely with his hands and feet tied.

He felt the blade of the knife clang against bone and saw the dark shape of the man fall to one knee, clutching at his ankle. Gripping the knife so hard his hands ached, Connor withdrew and rolled to his knees. He drew his hands back and arced the knife downward, felt it plunge into flesh and heard the man drop onto his back with a yelp.

Again Connor rose up, falling on the man and bringing the knife with him. The attacker let out a horrendous sound that made goose bumps rise along Connor’s arms. Grabbing just below Connor’s hands, where the blade met his flesh, the attacker pushed and Connor, knife still in his hands, fell to the side.

The man rolled away from him and crawled quickly toward the bedroom door. Connor shrimped his body wildly in pursuit but the man was too fast. He heard glass breaking, feet hitting pavement and he slumped, breathing hard, still gripping the knife as if his life depended on it.

It was no more than a large closet, empty except for a bucket and a very young girl huddled in one corner. The sight of the bucket brought me to my knees. My body tried to vomit, but the pain in my ribs would not allow it. For several moments, I fought back the heaves.

Two large brown eyes stared at me from beneath dirty brown hair. She was naked, hog-tied, curled in a corner. As I approached her, she squirmed crazily, inarticulate grunts and whimpers punctuating her wild movements. Her fingernails scratched the wall as if to escape. I crawled toward her, and the closer I got, the wider her eyes became. I suddenly realized how I must look to her. Grapefruit face. I held out my good hand.

“It’s okay,” I whispered. “It’s okay now. I won’t hurt you.”

She stopped struggling but not whimpering. I glanced behind me. Tiffany stood in the doorway, the flat stare still covering her face. “Get her some clothes,” I said.

“From where?”

“Goddammit,” I said, my voice rising in pitch and volume. “Just do it. Now.”

Tiffany’s shadow receded from the doorway. I looked again at the girl and inched closer toward her. I could see, feel her body tense up.

“It’s okay,” I said again. “Come here. I’m going to help you.”

She shook her head rapidly and pressed herself against the wall.

“My name is Claire,” I said. “I’m here to take you home.”

At the word home, she stilled. I nodded at her. “Yes. Home. I’m going to take you there, but you have to come with me right now. We don’t have much time.”

She stared at me, brown eyes glistening with fear and hope. Tiffany appeared in the doorway again, holding out a tee shirt and pair of sweatpants. “They’ll be too big for her,” she said.

I snatched them from her and moved toward the girl. She held out her hands, which thankfully were tied with only rope. It took several minutes for me to undo the knots with one hand injured and swollen. When her hands were free, I looked her in the eyes. “I need your help,” I said.

She seemed to understand instantly and deftly untied her feet, throwing the ropes aside. I thrust the clothes at her, and she pulled them on with trembling hands.

“Can you walk?” I asked.

She shook her head. She crawled toward me, swaying. He had probably starved her. Made her even weaker than her small body would allow against someone bigger, stronger, and crueler. My right eye blurred again with tears.

I saw it then. I saw what he had done to me in its entirety. How he had stripped away every single thing and left a hollow paper shell where Claire Fletcher used to be. I pulled the girl to me, and she wrapped her arms around my neck, her legs around my waist. She fit her body to mine like a soft barnacle, and I stood, stumbling under her weight.

Adrenaline and the thin, cool feel of her against my body propelled me. Passing Tiffany in the hall, I barked for her to retrieve the truck keys. She pulled the extra set from a drawer in the kitchen, handed them to me and stood in the open door of the clapboard house as I lurched across the road to the truck, a young trembling girl fused to my body.

When we reached the truck, I tried to push the girl in through the driver’s side door, but she would not let go of me. Her whimpers turned to a high-pitched wail. I talked in her ear, stroking her hair with my right hand, which also held the keys. They jangled against her scalp.

“Shhh, it’s okay. It’s okay. I’m going to help you. I’m taking you home, but you have to get in. You have to help me.”

Reluctantly, she disentangled herself and scurried across the seat. I got in, swung the door closed behind me with my good hand and started the truck. She moved back across the seat so that her body pressed against my side.

“Shit,” I said, as I threw the clutch into reverse.

I’d have to steer with my left hand, which was practically useless. But then I realized it would be far easier than having to shift with an injured hand. I let up on the clutch and punched the gas. The truck roared backward, cutting an uneven path to the road.

It stalled and I started it again, shifting into second as I picked up speed. I put the headlights on and glanced at my companion. Her head rested against my shoulder, and her eyes searched my face.

“It’s okay,” I said.

Connor lay on the floor for several minutes, trying to catch his breath and decide what to do next. He could feel blood oozing from the wound in his leg, hot and fiery. When he was certain his attacker was not coming back, he reached down between his legs and sawed through the ropes with the knife.

He tossed the knife aside and stood unsteadily. Collapsing on the edge of the bed, he picked up the telephone receiver from his nightstand. Gingerly, he put it in his lap and dialed 911. When he heard the ringing, he cradled it in his hands and pressed it against his ear.

When he got through to a person, he gave his address. “Officer down,” he said. He repeated his name and badge number twice. The dispatcher wanted him to stay on the line until help arrived but Connor could no longer hold onto the receiver. He slid down to the floor and closed his eyes, waiting for the beautiful harmony of sirens in the distance.

Minutes passed like hours, and then suddenly light blasted Connor’s vision. Paramedics stood over him talking, asking him questions. He tried to answer as best he could. They moved him onto a board, and immediately one of them cut away his right pant leg and began working at the knife wound. The other staunched the bleeding from the gash in his head.

Uniformed officers appeared as the paramedics hoisted and strapped Connor onto a stretcher. They wheeled him down the hall and out the front door. As they moved out of the house, down the driveway toward the back of the ambulance, Connor looked up at one of the paramedics.

“Let me out of this thing,” he said.

They stopped just outside the ambulance. The paramedic looked down at him. “Mr. Parks, you’re badly injured. You need medical attention as soon as possible.”

Connor struggled against the straps. “Detective Parks,” he corrected. “You give me medical attention right here and let me up.”

“You need to get to a hospital,” said the second paramedic.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll go, but you let me up and let me talk to those officers first. I’m not gonna bleed out or I’d be dead already.”

A uniform, whose name badge read Baxter, laid a hand on the shoulder of the first paramedic. “Let him up,” he said.

Clearly disapproving and shooting both Connor and Baxter looks of contempt, the paramedic unfastened the straps. Connor sat up and swung his legs over the side of the stretcher.

Officer Baxter, a stocky man in his thirties with a moustache and bright blue eyes, held up a hand. “Whoa there, Detective. You just sit there for a minute. We checked out the perimeter. Perp is gone.”

Connor accepted an ice pack from one of the paramedics and held it to the side of his head. “You’re going to need stitches,” the man said, but Connor waved him away and addressed Baxter.

“I need you to call Detectives Boggs and Stryker with the Major Crimes unit and tell them to get their asses down here right now. And Mitch Farrell. He’s a PI, he should be in the book.”

Baxter scribbled in his notepad which he’d pulled from an inside pocket. “The crime scene unit is en route,” he said. “And I think your buddies are too.”

Connor glanced beyond Baxter. Two police cruisers sat at the curb, lights flashing. One uniformed officer stood outside the door of the first car, talking to dispatch, having pulled the radio receiver through the open door. Another stood at Connor’s front door ensuring no one entered the house.

An unmarked screeched to a halt in front of Connor’s driveway, blocking the path of the ambulance. Boggs and Stryker emerged.

“What the fuck?” Boggs said, looking Connor over.

Stryker took Baxter aside, the two men talking in hushed tones. The second paramedic changed the dressing on Connor’s thigh. The first wrapped long strips of gauze around Connor’s head.

“How did you know?” Connor said.

“News travels fast, my friend. Someone heard it on the scanner. We were still at the office. Now you wanna tell me what the fuck is going on?”

Connor winced as the first paramedic finished dressing his head. He waved a hand toward the house. “He was already inside when I got home. I didn’t even see him.”

“Start at the top, Parks,” Boggs said.

“Came home, went inside, locked the door. Guy suckered me. Woke up in the bedroom tied up. There’s a knife in there that probably has his blood on it. You’ll need to bag that.”

“You let me worry about the scene,” Boggs said. “Who is this fucker?”

Connor raised his eyes to meet Boggs’. “Claire Fletcher’s kidnapper,” he said.

Boggs arched an eyebrow. “Wow. He works fast. Guess that composite worked.”

“I stabbed him,” Connor said. “Two, three times—I don’t remember, but I got him. There’s probably blood in there.”

Stryker walked up as Boggs was about to tell Connor once more to let them worry about evidence. “Holy shit, Parks. You’re a regular fucking sideshow. You all right?”

Connor pressed an ice pack to his head and nodded. “Call Farrell,” he said to Boggs.

“You’re going to the hospital,” Boggs said.

Her name was Alison, which was the only word she uttered the entire drive. We drove fast, sometimes in fits and starts. I steered mostly with my left wrist, and she grabbed the wheel to help me navigate turns. It was a half-hour drive. I had not given any thought to where we would go, but as I pulled onto the street in the direction of a house I’d been to only once before, I realized where we were headed.

Much to their irritation, Connor waved the paramedics off twice more as he waited for Boggs to finish talking to Stryker.

Someone shouted as an old brown pickup truck careened down the street, going entirely too fast and plowed into one of the parked cruisers. Everyone froze and stared. A puff of white smoke, turned red and blue by the flashing lights, materialized from the hood of the truck. The driver’s side door opened, and a woman got out. She paused at the door and another figure could be seen in the cab of the truck.

When she came around to the sidewalk, they saw that the second figure was a young girl, and she was wrapped tightly around the woman’s body.