Legally Tied (9 page)

Chapter
Ten

When Nick woke up, he
had a throbbing headache and no idea where he was. All he knew was that he was sitting on a rock hard wooden chair with his arms tied behind his back. His hands and arms had gone numb and he was in a pitch black room of some kind with only a slight trace of light coming in from a door.

As the fog started to clear, he tried to recount where the hell he was, how he had gotten
there and by whom. His throat was bone dry, his stomach was growling, and he then realized that his ankles were also tied together. As his memory slowly came into view, the last thing he remembered was heading out of his office for lunch thinking about his 1 p.m. appointment and how anxious he was to see his completed house with Lyndsay at 3 p.m. Nick was planning on taking her out to a celebratory dinner to thank her for all her hard work and being that it was a Friday, he was hoping she would spend the night and they could break in his new bed together.

As he tried valiantly to work through
the pain of his aching head and figure out what happened, he remembered walking along the sidewalk heading to his favorite deli. It was a sunny afternoon with a light warm breeze and he was contemplating eating his sandwich outside at one of the deli’s sidewalk tables. As he racked his brain trying to think logically about what happened next, all of a sudden his memory came tumbling back. There had been a white service van parked about a block from the deli. As he started to pass by it, a man had flung open the side door and called out desperately, “Sir, do you know CPR? My wife isn’t breathing and I just called 911.” Nick remembered that the young man seemed genuinely frightened. Having had CPR training and not wanting the man’s wife to possibly die or become brain damaged before the ambulance arrived, Nick forgot about everything else and ran to the man sitting just inside the opened van. As Nick jumped in beside him to help what he thought was an unbreathing woman, he remembered feeling something hit the back of his head with such force that he fell in the back of the van and passed out before seeing if there was a woman inside. As Nick tried to listen to sounds around him, it seemed like he was in some kind of warehouse or abandoned factory due to the echo of small noises he was hearing. Nick had absolutely no idea who would do this to him and he was downright scared wondering if he had been left there to slowly die.

About
a half hour later, he could hear footsteps out in the hallway getting louder and louder as they approached. When the footsteps stopped, he then heard a key being fit into the lock on the door and his heartbeat pounded. Was this person coming to finish him off? Was he being rescued? When the door finally opened, Nick was blinded by the light that shone in after being in the dark so long. He was petrified as he couldn’t see who it was. All he could make out was the shadow of someone rather large approaching him. Trying to move his arms and feet to no avail, Nick knew he was at the mercy of whoever had done this to him.

When a large figure stopped right in front of him, Nick looked up and asked,
“Who are you? And why do you have me here?” Hearing a low menacing laugh coming from the man, Nick’s body froze in fear. When the man started to talk, Nick recognized that it was the voice of the man from the van and he realized instantly he had been set up.

“Shut up!” the man yelled as h
e hit Nick hard across the face, causing blood to roll down onto his shirt. Nick’s blood turned cold as he listened to the man saying, “You’re the fucking bastard that put my brother away for life. Nobody does that to my brother and gets away with it. When I’m done with you, you’ll be begging me to kill you. But killing you would be too easy and not nearly as fun as what I have in store for you.”

At that exact moment, Nick
realized it was Mike Johnson. He must have been wearing a disguise when he got abducted. Mike had been in the courthouse every day of the trial and Nick would have instantly recognized him had he not been disguised. Seconds after realizing who it was, Nick saw Mike pull something off a table that was located a few feet from his chair. He had not seen the table until now because the room had been pitch black. But now with the light shining in from the hallway, Nick could see a table with things he couldn’t make out on it and a bucket on the floor.

Hovering over Nick with the item in hi
s hand, Mike said in an emotionless tone, “I hope you enjoy your stay. I know I’m going to.” And with that, Nick felt an intense pain as Mike stabbed a knife deep into his thigh. Nick was writhing in pain and his body went immediately into a cold sweat. Even with the dim light, Nick could see his pants getting soaked with blood. Just before he passed out, he heard Mike say, “We’ll be seeing a lot of each other in the next few days. This is just the beginning.”

***

“The first thing we have to determine,” explained Carl to Lyndsay, “Is where Nick’s car is. We know it’s not at his condo or house. Let’s go to his office and see if it’s in the parking garage.” When they entered the garage below Nick’s office building, it didn’t take long for them to find his black BMW. Although it was locked, they could see there was nothing suspicious inside. Just a pack of mints and a parking slip on the dashboard. Carl was now in full control of their own investigation and Lyndsay felt grateful for his military training and his calm manner. “Okay,” he continued. “Now let’s go upstairs and talk to Gracey. You told me she said he never returned from lunch. That tells me that wherever he went to eat, he was either picked up and went to eat with someone or he walked.” As they rode the elevator up to the 11
th
floor to the offices of Stettler, Stettler and Olson, Lyndsay was quiet. When Gracey saw them, she ran to Lyndsay and hugged her with tears in her eyes.

After
Lyndsay introduced her to Carl, she asked, “Can we talk with you for a few minutes? We’re trying to piece together as much as we can.”

“Of course,” Gracey said.
“Please come sit down in the conference room and I’ll put the answering machine on while we talk.”

Taking control, Carl asked, “Do you have any idea where Nick was going for lunch that day? Did he have a lunch appointment with someone who could have picked him up? Or do you think he went by himself
?”

As Gracey thought about that for a
minute, her eyes lit up and she said, “Now I remember! I’m sure he went by himself because he asked if I wanted him to bring me some lunch back. He wouldn’t do that if he was meeting someone for a more formal lunch.”

Feeling good about that little bit of progress, Carl further inquired, “
Do you know where he might have gone to lunch if he wasn’t taking his car? Was it somewhere within walking distance?”

Suddenly Gracey got even more excited as she explained, “There are two restaurants that Nick really loves. There’s a Chinese restaurant that’s about ten blocks from
here, and then there’s Rosen’s Deli—that’s only about three blocks. Based upon the time he left at 12:15, he never could have made it there and back to the Chinese restaurant and been on time for his 1 p.m. appointment. Also, he knows I don’t like Chinese food, so if he had been going there, he never would have extended the offer to bring me back something to eat. I’m 99% sure he walked to Rosen’s.”

Scratching his head, Carl said thoughtfully, “Is Nick a regular there? In other words, does the staff know him
well enough to be able to tell us whether they saw him on Friday?”

Positively
beaming, Gracey said, “Absolutely! He’s friends with not only the owner but all of the wait staff and the cashier. They all love him because he’s a good tipper and I think the girls have taken a bit of a fancy to him.”

Jotting down notes as
Gracey talked, Carl asked, “Does Nick have any enemies that you know of? Someone who would want to hurt him?” Shaking her head, Gracey couldn’t imagine anyone who would want to hurt Nick. As Carl probed further, he asked, “Has he had any cases lately where he may have made an enemy who wants revenge?”

At that very moment,
Carl heard Lyndsay shriek. Whipping his head around to face her, Carl demanded, “What do you know?” All of a sudden she remembered the whole story of the Neal Johnson case and what Nick had told her about the brothers’ horrible childhood and how close and protective they were of one another. As Carl listened to the story, his heart started to pound slightly, because from what Lyndsay described, there was a very good chance that the brother Mike had something to do with Nick’s disappearance. The only question was how, and what had he done to Nick. If Mike was involved, it was a very ominous thought because Carl understood gang mentality and revenge very well due to his military experiences.

Facing back toward Gracey, Carl asked, “Do
you guys have an address on where Neal was living before he got arrested? It’s entirely possible that his brother may be there.”

“Wait just a minute
,” Gracey said as she stood up and left the conference room. As Carl and Lyndsay talked quietly about the information they had just uncovered, Lyndsay didn’t know whether to feel positive at the possibility of finding out what happened to Nick or more scared than ever. She had remembered the details Nick had shared with her about the brutality of the brothers’ upbringing and the havoc they wrought on the streets of Providence from such an early age. She knew the boys were deadly and not ones to be messed with. As Gracey returned with a piece of paper in her hand, Lyndsay knew she and Carl would have to move quickly if there was any hope of finding Nick alive.

***

It didn’t take much time to find out that Nick had never made it to Rosen’s Deli on Friday. All of the employees were adamant that he didn’t show that day because it was so unusual. They explained that he came almost every Friday and they always looked forward to joking around with him while he waited for his sandwich. That told Carl that something happened to Nick somewhere along the three block stretch between his office building and Rosen’s. As Carl and Lyndsay went from store to store along that section of road asking the shop clerks if they had seen anything suspicious that day, Carl and Lyndsay became increasingly frustrated that no one had seen anything untoward. Just when they were about to give up, their luck turned at the last minute. They had been talking to Mr. Summers, an elderly man who owned a small grocery store one block up from Rosen’s Deli. When Mrs. Summers appeared suddenly from the back of the store, she overheard who they were inquiring about and said, “Oh my! Are you talking about that nice, handsome attorney who has been on TV lately?”

Hoping again
st hope that she had seen something, Carl responded, “Yes. He’s been missing and we’re trying to find out what happened. We think something happened along this stretch of road last Friday. Did you see him by any chance?”

Looking at Carl with a serious expression
, Mrs. Summers answered, “Why yes, I did! He’s such a handsome man that he’s hard to miss.” Trying not to sound frustrated or impatient as Mrs. Summers prattled on about how she loved seeing him on TV during the Neal Johnson case, he gently guided her back to the question at hand.

“When did you see him, Mrs. Summers? Was he with anyone? Did you see where he went?”

Looking thoughtful, Mrs. Summers recalled, “I was right over there sweeping by the window when I saw him coming up the street. I remember chuckling to myself that it must be Friday because I see him most Fridays walking by the store around lunch time. All of a sudden he stopped and I saw him walking at a quick pace over to a white van that was parked right over there. I saw a man in the van calling out something to Mr. Olson but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. Right around that moment, my husband called me to the storage room and that’s the last I saw of Mr. Olson or the white van. They were both gone by the time I got back to the front of the store.”

Upon hearing Mrs. Summers
’ account of what she saw, Carl asked, “Did you see what the man looked like?”

Scrunching
up her eyes as she tried to remember, Mrs. Summers said, “I believe the man was wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses. It was hard to see what he looked like because those items covered his face. I’m so sorry, but I can’t remember any more than that.” Thanking her profusely for all her help, Carl and Lyndsay said goodbye to the store owners and promptly left with the new set of clues.

***

Nick had not been given anything to eat in three days except water and a stale burrito from God knows where. He spent much of the time passed out and only woke up briefly when Mike would untie his arms from the chair just long enough to give Nick access to the bucket to go to the bathroom. Nick was so weak from being starved, tortured, and beaten that there was no way to overtake Mike during those brief moments when his hands were free. He couldn’t even stand up to piss. The only strength he could muster was to pull the bucket between his legs and relieve himself sitting on the chair. Every day when Nick heard footsteps walking down the hall toward his room, he knew he was about to get tortured and beaten again. By this time, Nick was bloody and bruised from head to toe and he had numerous burns all up and down his arms from Mike’s cigarette and he had been stabbed three more times in his upper legs. Mike took particular pleasure in punching Nick with all his might in the stomach till Nick threw up. Nick’s whole body was in excruciating pain and he could tell that Mike was ramping things up as each day went by. The few times that Nick would wake up briefly during the night, he could hear rats running around the room and he knew it was just a matter of time before Mike or the rats killed him. He could tell his nose was broken, some ribs were cracked, and the knife wounds were starting to get infected. As he went in and out of consciousness, all he could think about was Lyndsay and the life they would never share together.