Operation: Endgame (28 page)

“They’re making arrests tonight. They think they’ve figured out who this psychopath is, although,” she looked over at Jake, “it sounds like it’s psychopaths, plural, doesn’t it?” Cassie shook her head. “I can’t believe this is finally almost over.”

Julie reached into Cassie’s fridge and pulled out two beers which she handed to Jake and Cassie. “You two have had a long day. Why don’t you go out on the back patio and get some fresh air. Penelope and I will make some dinner and then you all can catch us up on what exactly has been happening while we eat.” She pushed them out the door.

***

Cassie sipped her beer and looked at Jake who was staring pensively out over the lighted terraces along the back fence. She felt a sinking feeling in her gut that had nothing to do with the stalker’s actions, at least nothing directly related to the stalker.

As she watched his face, a face she knew almost as well as her own, she realized she honestly had no idea where things stood between them. The sex was phenomenal. She loved him and she had no doubt he loved her, but that didn’t change the fact he was tied to the Air Force and she was tied to her career here at Texas Tech. Now when it looked like things were wrapping up with the stalker, would he even want to stay in Lubbock through the holidays or would he want to head back to his life in the Air Force in Arizona?

She felt a chill wrack her body at the sense of foreboding. Jake saw her shiver. “You’re getting cold. Do you want to go in?” he asked her.

Mutely, she shook her head, suddenly not trusting her voice.

“I’m gonna go grab your jacket for you, then.”

She gave a terse nod and made an attempt at a smile before he turned away and walked into the house. As soon as he turned his back on her, she felt the tears coming. She sniffled and silently berated herself for being a drama queen. This was ridiculous to react this way when they had just received the good news an arrest was imminent and finally, they were all going to be safe. She wiped at her face and started to take a fortifying drink of her beer, but before the bottle met her lips a strong hand reached around to cover her mouth with an acrid smelling cloth. She felt another arm grasp around her waist and haul her roughly out of her chair. The bottle slipped out of her grasp, but that was her last conscious movement before the darkness enveloped her.

***

While Jake walked around the house, Julie was stirring something in the skillet at the stove and Penelope was sipping wine on a barstool, watching her. Penelope glanced up as Jake walked in. “Is everything okay?”

Jake nodded. “Yes, it’s just a little chilly so I came in to get Cassie’s jacket.” He looked around the living room. “Have you seen it?”

Penelope walked over beside the fireplace where the hall tree stood and snagged the coat which was hanging there. As she turned to hand it to Jake, he saw her focus catch on the miniature Thompson. Her eyes widened slightly. She picked it up, along with the coat, and looked over at Julie. “Julie, do you remember when Cassie got this the day of the funeral? Didn’t it come from someone who signed the card Bernard Kleptofine?”

Jake’s gaze snapped to the gun as he took in her words.

Julie nodded, “Yes, we both thought it was weird at the time.” She walked over into the living room. “Wait a minute…do you think this came from the same guy who’s been stalking her all this time?”

Jake strode over and took the miniature from her and turned it over to look at it more closely before he cursed, “Son of a bitch! Julie, call the detective now! There’s a camera and microphone on that thing. He’s known exactly what we were doing every step of the way.” Jake rushed and flung open the back door. “Cassie…” but the only thing on the back porch was her beer, slowly spilling over the edge of the table where it had been overturned.

Cassie awoke to a pounding in her head and a cottony taste in her mouth. She groaned as she tried to roll over, but quickly discovered she couldn’t move her arms. As she tried, she heard a clanking sound above her head and a sharp shooting pain along her right shoulder where she’d broken her clavicle. She looked up and realized she was lying in a bed and her hands were handcuffed to the metal bedframe. She quickly took stock of her body and was relieved to find she was still clothed. Besides a raging headache and the pain in her broken shoulder, she didn’t seem any worse for wear. She glanced around the room, trying to find some detail about where she was and who had brought her here.

It looked like a normal bedroom in any house in America. The bed she was attached to was an old wrought iron bed which looked like it would belong in a grandmother’s house, if you could ignore the handcuffs holding her confined to it. The room had wall to wall beige carpeting. A huge antique mahogany armoire dominated one full wall of the room. From what Cassie could see, there wasn’t a single window. If she had to hazard a bet, it was probably hidden behind the massive 7 foot armoire. There was even art on the walls….not very good art, but art nonetheless. The room was illuminated by a single lamp sitting on the nightstand about 2 feet away from the bed. She couldn’t see any other decoration to the room.

As Cassie became more cognizant, the pounding in her head settled to a dull roar. Using her hands to hold onto the bars of the bed, she managed to pull herself into a sitting position. She knew eventually whoever had brought her here, would be coming back in and she didn’t want to be flat on her back when that happened. Jake was going to be frantic when he discovered her gone. Obviously, she’d been drugged, so she had no idea how long she’d been here…wherever here was.

She listened hard, but couldn’t hear any sounds to give her a clue about where she was or where her captor was at in the house, if he was even still in the house. She tugged at the cuffs holding her hands, but they were locked tight and there was no way she was going to be able to slide her hands out of them. Next she examined the bed. It looked old so there might be a weakness there, but if there was one, she wasn’t finding it.

Her eyes sprang to the door as she heard the door knob rattle with the sound of someone coming into the room. Cassie tensed up, but her mouth dropped open in shock with the sight of who walked in the room.

“Melissa?” Derek’s girlfriend was the one behind the stalker? How? Why? Cassie had never even met her before Friday night when she came to the party with Derek. Melissa looked her in the eye as she walked into the room, but she didn’t speak as she entered. She simply smirked. She was carrying in a tray filled with food. Cassie tried again, “Melissa, I don’t understand. Why did you kidnap me?”

Melissa ignored the question and glanced over at Cassie’s hands where they were handcuffed to the bed and reached into her pocket and pulled out a key. “I’m going to let one of your hands out of those,” she glanced at the cuffs, “so you can eat. Don’t try anything though or I’ll make you regret it.” Cassie tensed as Melissa entered the key into the keyhole. As she turned the key, Cassie kicked her foot up, catching Melissa across the side of her head with the heel of her boot. Those kick-boxing lessons paid off. Luckily, while Melissa stumbled backwards, the key stayed in the handcuffs. Cassie reached around and quickly finished opening them and released herself. Melissa stumbled trying to get back over to her, but Cassie grabbed her arm and quickly attached Melissa’s arm to the bed while she screeched and fought back.

Cassie dove toward the door and was relieved to find it unlocked. Melissa was screaming and making a horrible racket so if there was anyone else in the house, Cassie needed to haul ass before they came to help her. As she ran into the hall, she frantically looked up and down the long corridor trying to gain her bearings. There were stairs at one end of the hallway going up. She was obviously in some sort of basement, but she heard footsteps start to come down so she quickly grabbed the closest doorknob and prayed the door would open and no one was inside. Luckily it did and she slid into the room silently shutting the door behind her.

She turned to examine the room she stepped into and was surprised to find what appeared to be a hospital room. There was a hospital bed over on the far side of the room behind a curtain. She could see someone’s blanket covered feet sticking out from behind the edge of the curtain. A heart rate monitor machine was beeping a steady rhythm and was the only sound she could hear. She quickly looked around the room for someplace to hide, but just like her room, this one was sparsely furnished. She looked back towards the curtained area. She had no idea who was in that bed, but maybe she could slide in with him or her unnoticed until her captors stopped searching, but with the footsteps pounding down the hall, she knew she had to move quickly.

With her heartbeat beating a frantic rhythm, she scrambled around the edge of the curtain. The sight which met her eyes had her gasping audibly at the same time black spots started dancing around the edges of her vision. She grasped the end of the bed to steady herself and the man in the bed opened his eyes. Eyes which looked exactly like hers. Her eyes swam with tears as she reached to physically touch him. “Chris?” she whispered in disbelief.

Jake felt the impatience and frustration thrumming through his veins. Cassie had been missing for six hours already. Police officers spent the night crawling over every nook and cranny of the property, but there was no sign of Cassie anywhere. The camera that looked out into the backyard had been disabled and no one could explain how that had been done.

The arrests which had been imminent just hours ago had fallen apart, because the suspects had completely disappeared into thin air, even though they’d been under surveillance the entire time. It was assumed their disappearance occurred because of the forewarning the stalker had from the camera and microphone that had been in the replica Thompson gun.

Jake continued to silently berate himself over the fact none of them had caught that before now. The clues had all been there, but no one caught the gun had been a gift from Cassie’s stalker. How could they all have missed that? And now Cassie was in the hands of the psychopath who was doing God knows what to her. Jake stopped himself. He couldn’t do Cassie any good if he became obsessed with all the thoughts of the ‘what-if’s’.

As far as who the stalker really was, Jake was still trying to puzzle that all out. So far, the puzzle pieces just weren’t fitting together right yet.

It turned out the police had kept Melissa Ruiz under surveillance ever since her “emergency” which had left Cassie unprotected at the school leading up to the shooting. As a result, the police connected her to the suspect in War’s shooting, Philip Cortez. They were seen together only hours after that shooting discussing something at length during a meeting at The Mocha Mermaid. His build matched that of the shooter caught on video leaving War’s building. The police lucked out when there had been fiber remnants found on the edges of the duct tape which matched fibers found at Phillip’s apartment. By the time they had enough evidence to issue an arrest warrant for both him and Melissa though, they’d dropped off the face of the earth. At the time, they’d both been under tight police surveillance, but they disappeared into thin air. Those disappearances just happened to coincide with the discussion which took place with Brian in Cassie’s living room. The same living room where that damn replica gun with a camera and bug sat all along.

Jake continued to pace around Cassie’s bedroom as he tried to figure it all out. Julie sent him back to get some sleep, but he knew he’d never fall asleep while Cassie was missing so he simply used her push to sleep as an escape. He needed some space from everyone in the living room. They all kept looking at him like he was going to lose it at any moment. He figured they were probably right, so he might want to lose it in privacy rather than in front of everyone. In here, he could sense Cassie. If he closed his eyes, he could feel her presence in the smell of her which lingered….wintergreen and plum with slight undertones of her body splash she always wore. The smell of her comforted him.

He felt the pull of the pictures on her dresser. There were about a dozen framed snapshots there….mostly group shots of the three of them: Cassie, Chris, and Jake, but there were also photos of just her and Chris as well as a few of Colton with them also. One drew his attention. It was a picture of Colton and Cassie which had obviously been taken over the summer while they were in Europe. It was the two of them standing in front of the Eiffel Tower eating ice cream. Jake could see the lingering sadness and strain in Cassie’s eyes as he studied her face from the stress of the events in May. He picked up the photo and looked at it more closely and what he saw sent his blood running cold. Off to the side, obviously watching them stood Cassie’s favorite coffee barista, Ricky. Son of a bitch!

Jake looked at the man in the photo with his brain scrambling to catch up with what he was seeing. It was most definitely Ricky, but his hair was longer and he was dressed in the height of fashion. He was wearing a high dollar suit, his shirt open at the throat. Off to his right stood a big hulking guy who looked like he could be a bodyguard. So the question was, what was a guy like Ricky, who obviously had money to travel to Paris, wear custom made Italian suits, and have a bodyguard, doing working a minimum wage job in a coffeehouse in Lubbock, Texas?

Jake quickly ripped off the back of the frame and removed the photo and ran into the dining room where Cassie’s scanner was set up while he dialed Colton’s number in England. Penelope and Julie looked up startled when he barreled into the living room, but he just held up a hand to tell them he would tell them what was happening in a moment.