Killer Heat (35 page)

“You don't need to justify anything, Pam,” I said.

Mike was on his feet again. I didn't need him to tell her that
her abductor was a veteran of a different kind of system. She would
blame herself for another error in judgment-an almost fatal
one-when she learned that news.

I held a finger up in Mike's direction, warning him to hold his
tongue.

“What did Wilson say, Pam? What did he say when he left you
downstairs? Did he say he'd be back?”

“He left me several times. He came and he went-I don't know. I
don't know what he did when he wasn't here.”

Mike was pacing like a caged tiger. “Pam, did he say anything
about what he was going to do to you?”

“There was nothing left for him to do, Detective,” she said,
hanging her head. “He was going to kill me.”

“Did he say that? Did he ever say those words?”

“When he was-was raping me-I don't know-the second time, maybe
the third time,” she said, trying not to break down again.

So much for the short-lived effectiveness of chemical
castration. I couldn't begin to imagine what had happened during
her ordeal. After her medical treatment, the rest of her day-and
mine-would be spent in an excruciating retelling of these
events.

“He kept asking me how I wanted to die. That's what he said to
me. 'How do you want to die?' Then he took his knife and ran it all
over my body,” she said in her hoarse whisper, dragging out each of
the words, as I suspected Troy Rasheed had done. “ 'I could stab
you in the heart. I could carve you in pieces. I could tie the rope
around your neck. Or maybe you'd like to starve to death?' Then,
when the storm started getting really bad-was that last night? He
said he could just leave me here to drown. I figured that's what he
had done.”

How would Pam Lear ever sleep again? How would she get these
memories, these images, out of her mind's eye?

“The island, Pam,” Mike said. “Did he say anything at all about
how he was going to leave the island? The storm's letting up. I've
got to go meet up with my partner at the ferry office, to look for
Wilson, figure out if he got off here before the boat stopped
running. We need to lock him up so this never happens again.”

Fear overtook the girl's exhaustion. She grasped Mike's hand.
“What do you mean he isn't locked up yet? How did you find me? He
must have told you I was here,” she said. I didn't think she had
enough fluid in her body to form more tears, but they were running
down her cheeks. “I can't believe he's gotten away.”

“We'll get him,” Mike said. “That's what I'm here for.”

He tried to pull away but her small hand, with rope burns
creasing her wrist, dug tightly into him. She was trembling from
head to toe as she pleaded.

"I beg you not to leave me here. I don't want to die. I don't
want him to come back and kill me.

FIFTY-THREE

I'll go for Mercer," I said.

“Not happening, kid.”

I started to walk to the door, after tucking the drapes around
Pam's body. It wasn't a conversation I wanted to have in her
presence. I lowered my voice. “Something's holding Mercer up. The
only phone is in Russell Leamer's office and-”

Mike followed after me. “Don't do this.”

“If Rasheed were still around, we'd all be locked in that
dungeon by now. He had his moment. And he doesn't carry a
gun.”

“How do you know?” asked Mike.

“Because he didn't threaten to shoot Pam, did he?”

Mike glanced over his shoulder at her.

“And I run faster than you can, so you do some hand-holding for
a change,” I said.

“I'm going to stand right here in this doorway.”

“And what do I do, fire the cannon when I reach the office, just
to give you a heads-up?”

“I can see you most of the way there,” he said. “Get going,
Blondie.”

I was off the porch and jogging down the rain-soaked path that
bordered Nolan Park. In less than three minutes I reached the side
of the rangers' office and turned the corner to get to the door.
Governor's House was out of sight at this point. The river was
still churning, but the flooding seemed to have crested. The little
ferry was nested below the terminal on the Manhattan side, and I
guessed it would be some time before boats made the passage again.
I went up the steps and pushed open the door.

I could see Russell Leamer's back. He was leaning over the desk,
his Smokey Bear hat and oversized slicker outlined against the
cloudy harbor. The door slammed closed behind me.

“Ranger Leamer,” I said. “Mercer never got to the Governor's
House. Where did you send him? Is it possible he went to the wrong
building?” He stood up straight and turned around, pointing a gun
at my chest.

It was Troy Rasheed, wearing Leamer's outfit. He smirked as he
studied the NYPD hostage squad logo embroidered on my jacket,
taking a step in my direction. With his left hand, he stroked the
long thick scar that ran down that side of his neck.

“Well, well, Detective, why don't you talk to me? I
have to say I really like your uniform.”

FIFTY-FOUR

Irecognized Mercer's gun. “Where's Mercer? The
man whose gun that is.”

“What's that old saying about the bigger they are and how hard
they drop?”

I needed to stay calm. I was no use to any of us if I let this
monster outsmart me. I needed a way for Mike to know that Mercer
was down and that Rasheed was now armed with a semiautomatic
weapon. I needed to keep her attacker away from Pam Lear

Mercer!" I screamed out. Maybe one of the cloudbursts I thought
was thunder had been gunshots. I took a deep breath.

“Now that's a stupid thing to do, Detective.”

I didn't think Rasheed would shoot me so quickly. He would
torture me first, like he had the others, if time and the elements
favored him. That scared me far worse than the thought of a single
bullet.

“I'm not alone. There are other officers here,” I said.

“That's a pity, isn't it? You all get shipwrecked or something?”
He laughed at what he must have figured was his own joke. “The
whole island seems pretty damn quiet to me. Your friends hiding?
You think they'd like to watch?”

I glared back at him, willing myself not to tremble like Pam
Lear.

“Now where is it you keep your gun? You got no hips, girl.”

“I-I-uh-I didn't have my gun with me last night. I do U/C work.
No guns. They pulled me off a detail to come out in the middle of
the tour.” This was hardly the moment to deny that I was a cop. He
was going by the clothes I had on, and I knew he'd understand the
lingo.

“An undercover police lady. Undercover what?”

“Narcotics.”

“Not in Harlem you haven't been no undercover. Nobody stupid
enough to sell horse to you,” he said.

“Cocaine's my thing. Coke and Ecstasy. Upper West Side.
Yuppies.”

“You bring any along?” Rasheed asked, still stroking his scar.
From under the cuff of the jacket, I could see the letters tattooed
on his left hand, the initials of one of his victims. “What's your
name, girl? Just hold on to your jeans with one hand, right there
on the thigh. Pull on it and let me see what you've got.”

I kept my eye on the gun while I obeyed his command.

“Now the other one.”

He seemed satisfied that I wasn't wearing an ankle holster.

“Where's Mercer?” My beloved friend had been through one
shooting on the job not too long ago. I couldn't bear to think he
had been hurt again. “That's his gun.”

“Fine piece.”

“Sig-Sauer. Nine millimeter.” I figured I might as well use the
little bit of knowledge I'd picked up at the range the previous
week. Maybe he'd think he'd be better off if he kept the gun away
from me. Maybe he'd think I'd know how to use it if I got my hands
on it. “Same as mine.”

“I guess I'd better find out where that's at then. They'd make a
pretty pair,” he said. As he moved toward me, I took a step
back.

“In my locker,” I said. I lifted my windbreaker up and showed
him the waistband of my jeans. “No Sig.”

I started to reach into the pockets to turn them inside out.

“Hold it, bitch. I'll be doing that myself.”

I knew the door was just inches behind me. I didn't want Troy
Rasheed's hands anywhere on me.

“You're not leaving yet,” he said, thrusting an arm over my
shoulder to hold the door in place.

My back was flush against it. He was practically leaning his
body on mine, and the handle of the knife he'd abandoned-the one
I'd found with the canteens-was pressing into my spine. I didn't
mind the discomfort. I just didn't want him to find it.

Rasheed put his left hand into my deep jacket pocket and pressed
it in place, rubbing up and down slowly, then from side to side. He
may have been looking for a gun or a waist holster, but he was also
delighting in repulsing me with his touch.

He leaned back so he could reach his arm between our bodies to
check my other pockets-jacket and jeans on my left side-raising the
gun above my head with his right hand.

“You're sweating, girl,” he said.

“It's August.”

He laughed.

The warm moisture from my pores was mixing with the cool
dampness of the rainwater that had saturated me.

He found something in my jeans pocket and slowly pulled it out.
“A Yankee fan. I like that in my women.”

It was the ticket stub from a game I had been to earlier in the
month. While he read the small print, I looked out at the river,
but not a single boat was plying the choppy water yet.

“Who'd they play?”

“Boston. We crushed them.”

Troy Rasheed was so close to me I could smell his stale breath
and foul body odor. I couldn't take the chance of closing my eyes
for a second, so I focused on a door to the side of the desk that
opened into a second room. Maybe Mercer and Russell Leamer had been
forced in there.

“Now I think it's time for the seventh-inning stretch. You and
me, we're going to-”

“I need water,” I said, putting my hand to my throat. “Is there
any water inside?”

His head whipped around in the direction I'd been looking and
back at me. He placed the Sig in the front of his waistband.

“I'll be deciding what you need for the time being,” Troy said,
holding his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger. “Shit, I
don't even know your name. You didn't answer my question.”

I didn't speak.

“Now why don't you just tell me your name?”

“You don't need to know my name.”

His right hand smacked the side of my face faster than I could
blink, and he laughed again. “I told you, I'll be deciding what you
need, and I'm certainly deciding what I need. I always
do.”

Then he placed a finger on my jacket, directly above my left
breast, and pressed into my chest as he drew an imaginary line
across it, a couple of inches long.

“Now, if you weren't working undercover, Miss Detective, you'd
have a shiny gold plate right here and I could just read your
name.”

I swatted his hand away. “Alex Cooper.”

“Alex Cooper,” he repeated, nodding his head up and down. Maybe
he was visualizing how the initials would look on his forearm.

Troy Rasheed slipped out of the Park Service uniform raincoat
that he must have taken from Leamer and let it drop beside him on
the floor.

He was wearing a plain white T-shirt, and now I could see the
flourishes of the monograms up and down both arms, each one marking
the heartbreaking experience of a woman who had crossed his
path.

I needed to keep him talking. It would be only minutes before
Mike figured a way to come check on me. There wasn't any room for
an “AC” to be added to his skin museum.

“The first thing you're going to do for me, Alex, is take
off-”

The desk phone rang and Troy Rasheed was as startled as I.

“Well, you can't be quite so tough as you're acting, Detective
Cooper, can you? Get all out of breath just 'cause the telephone
rings?”

He took a step toward the desk but didn't answer, waiting out
the sixth, seventh, and eighth rings, before the insistent caller
gave up.

“You're gonna take off your shoes first, Alex. Those sneakers is
not sexy,” he said, pulling on his lip again, extending it away
from his teeth, as though it hurt him.

There was another noise-behind Rasheed-from within the second
room. He didn't act as though he'd heard it. Thank God someone was
alive in there.

“Get them off, sugar.”

I bent down to untie the laces of my sneakers. He was too far
away from me, for the moment, for me to try to surprise him with
the knife.

The ringing started again. Rasheed picked up the receiver and
slammed it back down, then took it off again and rested it on the
desk. In seconds, a shrill busy signal was bleeping at us,
rendering the phone useless.

Another noise behind Rasheed. Not a voice but some kind of
movement. He jerked his head in that direction.

“Let me see my friend Mercer. Let me see what you've done to
him.”

He picked up an object from the desk and turned to face me. Troy
Rasheed was holding a grenade.

“I'm gonna save the show-and-tell for later, Detective Cooper,
when he's feeling a little better. But we'll take another one of
these with us.”

“Take it where?” I raised my voice. I wanted Mercer and Leamer
to know I was just a room away. “That's how you got Mercer's gun.
You used a stinger on them. Let me see him, please.”

“Now you've been well-trained, girl, if you've been playing with
one of these. I hope you've never thrown this son of a bitch at any
of your perps, Detective Cooper. That would make me very angry at
you.”

Stingers, or Hornet's Nests, are less-than-lethal grenades made
up of small rubber balls inside two spheres of hard rubber, instead
of shrapnel in metal casing. Law enforcement agents use them to
break up prison riots, and I had seen a SWAT team clear a small
room with several of them, incapacitating their targets, dropping
men to the ground, by the blunt force of the projectiles.