Little Belle Gone (23 page)

“Elizabeth, are you sure you want to go in there?” His tone was serious and she didn’t seem any less so when she turned to look at him. He was glad to see her sigh, loosening the grip her teeth had on each other.

“Matt, I’m fine. Shall we?” Without waiting for his response, perhaps because she knew what it was going to be, she pushed through into the room and he was forced to follow. Walking with all the confidence of a predator, she started the conversation. “Well, pleased to see you again, Mr. Blanchard. Would you mind terribly if I called you Terry? After all, I am usually on a first name basis with all of the guests that enter my home, though you weren’t really a guest were you?” Matt was almost afraid of her in that moment. Her voice, so calm and clear and sweet that it seemed as if she had known the man forever, but the rigidity of her posture and the set of her jaw read very differently. Apparently Terry felt the same unease. The monitor hooked up to him was going haywire.

“Wha...what are you doing here?! Get away from me! Nurse! Nurse! Get this crazy chick outta here! Nurse!” Terry was looking frantically from Elizabeth to Matt and back again as he pounded on the call button. The red rising in his face was followed closely by the terror in his eyes as he tried, and failed, to pull himself out of the bed. Matt watched as Elizabeth moved quickly, so fluid that her movements went unnoticed by Terry before she tugged the call button from his hand and laid her other lightly upon his casted arm. Terry went absolutely still, though not at all calm.

“There, there now, Mr. Blanchard, oops, Terry. We wouldn’t want you to be too upset. Lets just settle down and have a nice little chat, shall we?” At this point, Terry was very obviously shaking, looking panicked at Matt for any sign of help. Matt was about to speak up when Liz glanced over her shoulder at him, winking slightly. At once he understood. Trying to stifle the smile that sprang to his eyes, he took a step toward her, feigning an effort to remove her from the position she had now taken next to Mr. Blanchard’s bedside.

“Detective Cord, I don’t think that you should be in here, actually. Perhaps it would be best if you stepped outside and I spoke to Terry alone.” Reaching for her shoulder, as if to grab her, he prepared himself for her reaction.

As if they had planned it, she rounded on him, “Oh no, I don’t think so Barrow. This man attacked me in my home. I’m not going anywhere until he answers my questions.” Her voice had become shrill and cold, a tone mirrored in her eyes, as the hand on his cast bared down ever so slightly, causing Terry to flinch, but not enough to do any real damage. Rounding on him, with a deliberate cadence to her words, she said, “And, considering what I managed to do to him and his friends when I was bound and drugged, I would rather enjoy seeing you try and stop me.” At this Matt almost laughed, not because she scared him, but because it turned him on, beyond measure, to hear her speak to him that way.

Throwing his hands into the air, and making quite a good show of it, he said, “Sorry Terry, we sparred once and she left me quite undone. You’re on your own.” Though the statement was true, the meaning was completely different, and the ripple he noticed run down her back told him she knew what he meant as well.

“Now, Terry, I’d like to have a little chat about the man who brought you into my home and convinced you to drug, bind, and ultimately kill me.” She smiled viciously at him as the pressure of her hand increased again, ever so gently. Matt watched from the foot of the bed as Terry squirmed under her touch, appreciating how impressive her ‘bad cop’ routine was.

“Hey now wait a minute! He promised us fifty bucks each and told us all we was doin’ was getting sometin’ back from you. Somethin’
you
took! He didn’t say nothing about hurtin’ you. Said we was druggin’ you so that you didn’t hurt yourself fightin’ him. Imagine how we felt when all the sudden you start fightin’ back.” Terry actually seemed indignant now, meeting her gaze with one of his own.

“Fighting back? Was I supposed to simply lay on my bed, still and compliant, while you and your friends ransacked my apartment and he took the chance to touch me anyway he felt like? Did he forget to mention to you that he is a serial killer?” The shocked look that came over Terry’s face was quickly replaced by one of outrage.

“He didn’t say none of that! He said you were his daughter and that you had run away from home, taking somethin’ real valuable with you.” Terry was trying to stay indignant, but it was failing. The idea that he had been used started to wash over him, along with the reality of what he had actually done.

“His daughter? That man murdered my parents! He has killed six other people close to me in the last thirty days, and you
HELPED
him into my home!
Daughter
! No one touches their daughter the way I woke up to him touching me!” Elizabeth took a deep breath. She had only intended to play the emotional victim, not to become one. Calming herself, she continued, cold and cruel again. “Can you tell me what this man looked like? After all, he was wearing that ridiculous mask the whole time he was with me. Strange indeed if he were really my father, don’t you think?” She could feel Matt shift nervously behind her, as hopeful as she was, but they were both disappointed.

“Naw, he wore that damn thing the whole time. All I know is that he’s a big man. Ah...he really wasn’t your father, was he?” Terry’s aggression waned, and she could hear the regret starting to build in his voice. At that moment, she almost laughed. It had never occurred to her that he actually believed what the killer had told him, not until now.

“No, Mr. Blanchard, he is not. In fact, if I hadn’t fought back I’m fairly certain he would have killed me that night, possibly all of you, too, considering his track record.” The moment she said it, she realized she didn’t believe it, at least not the part about her. If he had really wanted her dead that would have been what he did. He wanted her to wake up, abused, bound and alone in her ruined home. He wanted her to live with the knowledge that he could get to her, anytime he wanted, but she did her best to conceal it from her suspect. “Can you at least tell me why I was taken prisoner in my home? What he had you looking for, before I got to die?” She was making a show of it now, and it was working.

Terry’s voice cracked when he spoke again, “Um, well, first off, he didn’t say nothin’ about killin’ anyone, I swear. He just said there were some records, financial records or some such, he needed back. Said that we were druggin’ you so that you didn’t get hurt, I swear!” Terry was starting to sound a bit frantic, but something he had said made her blood run cold.

“Records, what sort of records? Did he tell you what they looked like?” Elizabeth was almost too scared to hear the answer, but she was sure she already knew. There was only one thing she had that he could possibly have any connection to.

“An old folder. He said it was under the corner of the couch. If it had been there we would have been in and out in minutes.” Elizabeth couldn’t control the gasp. She shot up from the side of the bed and made immediately for the door, doing little more than waving to her suspect. “Honest lady, I didn’t know he wasn’t your daddy. We didn’t even get paid for it.” Turning as she passed through the door, Elizabeth gave him a cold, though somewhat sad, look.

“I don’t believe you were ever going to be, Mr. Blanchard. In fact, I’m sure now that I saved your life.” She gave one parting glance to Matt before stepping out into the hall to wait. She could hear Matt asking a few more questions, gathering some further information and necessary details for the interview report. As she stood outside, still and quiet, her mind was anything but. It raced with ideas and questions she desperately wanted to share with Matt, but not here. As soon as he came out of the room, he slid his arm in hers and began leading her rather swiftly out of the hospital. As he helped her into the car she looked up at him and said, “Matt, I think we need to go back to my apartment.” To which he simply nodded before jumping into the drivers seat and pointing the car toward the station building.

“Matt, he was after my parent’s case file. That’s the folder I kept under the corner of my sofa. What’s more, I think he’s been watching me.” She had been afraid to say those words out loud. They were nearly half way to the station before she could get them out. It was the only way that he could have known, the only way that Terry would know what he knew.

“I know. That’s why we are going by the station first. We need an electronics detector and a couple C.S.I.s to go with it. Liz, when was the last time you looked at that file before you gave it to me?” His tone told her that he too had come to the same inexorable conclusion and that he was perhaps even more determined than she was to get to the bottom of it. Unable at the moment to smile, knowing that the man who had killed so many people close to her had been able to watch her at her most vulnerable moments, she did manage to reach out and place a hand on his thigh. She wanted him to know how much she needed him right now.

“I put it there when I moved into the apartment, in college, over four years ago. I used to sit on the sofa at night and thumb through it, especially when I was having a difficult time dealing with everything. Sometimes, Matt, it was the only thing that kept me going. Then, when I got into the bait program, I stopped needing it for support. The program was a great motivator for me, getting to actually take predators off the streets. I hadn’t looked at that file for almost a year, not until the night before I gave it to you.” Her hand on his thigh was growing very hot, though she wasn’t sure if it was her hand or his thigh generating the heat. Just as she started to move her hand from his leg, Matt’s hand descended on it, holding it in place, even increasing the pressure just a bit. No matter how upset she was, Matt was the balm for her soul, the soothing influence that she so desperately needed.

They spent nearly an hour at the station, writing up the interview and justifying the need for the equipment, and the men, for yet another sweep of Liz’s apartment to Jack Arrons. Elizabeth had barely been able to breath as they rode the elevator back up to her rooms. The C.S.I.s insisted that they start out alone. When they had cleared the kitchen and her office space, Elizabeth and Matt were allowed inside. While the investigators moved slowly over the destroyed apartment, inch by inch, looking for what they simply knew was there somewhere, Elizabeth was left to fume. The idea that
he,
of all people, had been watching her was almost more than she could take. Part of her hoped, prayed, that she was wrong, but when the machine alerted on the vent in the corner of her living room, her heart sank. She watched, paralyzed, as the team removed the grate and retrieved a small, very dusty, micro-camera.

“Detectives, we found one. Looks like its been here a while.” As they collected the camera, Matt took the evidence bag to look it over. Moving nearer to her, he placed the sealed baggie in her unsteady hands.

“They’re right, it has been here a while. I know this piece of technology. The department used to use them, but we upgraded about eight months ago to a model that has sound and a wider range of transmission.” As she turned it over and over again in her hands, his last statement rattled around in her brain.

“How wide are we talking, Matt?” She seemed to surprise him for a moment, but he took a deep breath and, from the way his brows pinched together, she was sure he was trying to remember the specifics.

“A hundred yards, no more. It could have been sent to a neighboring apartment, or down to the street, but no further than that.” If there were ever a time she had wished for them to be alone this would have been it, though not for the reason that she would have preferred. At that moment she wanted to scream, to cry, to rail against the invasion and the idea that not only had he been watching her, but that he had done it so close by. Her skin crawled at the thought of him next door, reclining in a chair observing her simple, private moments.

“Elizabeth, judging by the angle of the camera and its position, it looks like all this one could see was most of your living room. When you looked at the file last, did you pull it out and put it back?” Matt was even more upset than Liz seemed to be. The very idea that another man, much less
that
man, was watching the woman he loved at her most personal moments, had his blood about to boil over. Unable to restrain his concern for her any longer, he risked just a little contact. Rubbing the upper part of her arms, he tried to steady her. She looked positively off balance.

“I got it out Tuesday night and flipped through it. Then I decided to bring it to you, so I put it in my briefcase.” With a small gesture of her hand, he understood that the briefcase was sitting on her desk at the time she placed the file in it.

“Then he probably didn’t see where you put it. The camera doesn’t come that far over. That explains the when and the where of this. He either didn’t know you had it, or he did and didn’t know where you kept it. The second he saw it on the camera he decided to take it. When it wasn’t where you normally keep it, they had to search for it. What bothers me more, is how long these cameras have been in your apartment. How did he get in here to set them up, and if he found you months ago, why is he all of the sudden coming after you now?” At the moment Matt was more talking to himself than Elizabeth. When they heard the machine go off again, this time from her bedroom, he had to tighten his hold on her. When she had heard the alert from the bedroom she nearly fainted. Luckily, all of the C.S.I.s were crowded into her room, so they missed the way he cradled her, intimately in his arms, as she regained her feet.

“Matt! In my bedroom! The living room was bad enough, but...
not in there!
Oh my god, what he could have seen, watched...
Matt
!” The tone of her voice, the shame and panic of it, made him bristle.

Pulling her close, so very close, so that only she could hear him as they stood alone in her living room, he asked, “Elizabeth, is there something I should know? Are you...compromised?” He nearly choked on the last word. The very idea of her being watched as she was with another man turned his stomach, though he couldn’t be sure if it was jealousy over her having another partner he hadn’t known about or rage at the viewer that was stronger.