Out Of The Smoke (14 page)

Ringing in his ear.
Comeoncomeoncomeon
. His leg jiggled up and down at an incredible pace, a futile attempt to keep up with his heart.

“This had better be good, asshole. Do you have any idea what time it is?” Jake muttered the words in his ear, groggy from sleep. Alan could picture his face still smashed against his pillow—having seen the move numerous times in college—and almost smiled at his best friend’s bitching, that and the fact he was just so damn glad he’d answered at all.

“I need your help,” he rushed. “The woman who cleans your house? What’s her name? Do you have her number handy?” A slight pause. “I’m kinda in a hurry, man.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Jake sounded only slightly clearer this time. “You fucking call me at this ungodly hour of the morning to get the phone number of…who did you say? My cleaning lady? Are you on something?”

“Listen, man. I’ll explain later. Liz is gone. Please, please just get me the number.”

Low grumbles accompanied the rustling sound of sheets and Meredith’s soft groan.

“You have some serious explaining to do, man.” Jake was breathing heavy.

“I owe you.” Alan jumped up from behind his desk. Impatiently, he paced back and forth.

He listened as rustles of paper, understated curses, and exasperated sighs filled the line. Then finally, “Her name is Dory. Six seven four, ninety-five eleven.”

It was all he needed. He hung up without as much as a goodbye. Jake would understand later. Alan hoped.

His shaky fingers typed the digits into the receiver before he could forget them.

Once again, the ringing wait began. Three, four, five times. At last, “Hello? Who’s this?” Her voice was barely audible. Did no one on earth get up before noon? It was a freaking Tuesday for Christ’s sake.

“Is this Dory?”
Please say yes
…

“Who’s asking?” Her voice was deep, scratchy.

Perfect! “This is Alan McCarthy. Your neighbor, Liz, she…works for me? Cleaning?” He waited a pause for Dory to catch on.

“So?” A hacking sound rumbled through the phone when Dory coughed. The sounds a smoker makes when they first wake up.

“I can’t find her. Do you know if she’s home?” How was he going to convince this woman to give him Liz’s address? He hadn’t thought about that in his haste.

“How the hell would I know where Liz is? Jesus, what’s with you people? Is everyone in the world looking for her these days? Why isn’t anyone ever looking for me?” Her voice was growing stronger, the pitch reaching an ear-splitting decibel.

Alan froze. “Who else is looking for her?”

“Listen, buster. I don’t care who the fuck you are, I’m not about to give you any information about Liz.”

“Dory! Please. Just listen. I’ve been with Liz since Monday and now I can’t find her. I’m worried about her.” Perhaps he was more worried he wouldn’t win her back, but still… He had another thought. “Didn’t Liz call you Monday night about canceling her appointments? She was with me. She got hurt at my house. I’ve been taking care of her.”

“Now I know you’re lying. Liz don’t go out with no man. I don’t care how smooth you are.” The hiss of a match striking followed by a couple of deep inhales sounded through the receiver.

Warmth spread through Alan’s chest at her words. Liz certainly didn’t sleep around. That was for sure.

“I know she doesn’t, well didn’t, but now she does. She’s been with me since Monday. And this morning she was gone.” He sucked in a breath, praying good old-fashion honesty would do the trick. “She bruised a kidney when a heavy object fell on her, and I’m worried. She was in a lot of pain.”

“She said she was injured. Is she okay?” Dory was just being a busybody now, but Alan needed to play his hand right to get what he needed.

“She’s fine. I hope. But I’d sure like to see for myself.”

Please God, let this woman see reason
.

“Maybe she don’t want no visitors. Ja’ never think there’s a reason she snuck out?”

Now what was he supposed to say? He was fresh out of jokers.

“Who did you say you were?”

“Alan. Alan McCarthy. I’m a friend of Jake’s. He gave me your number.”

“Jake. Yeah. Why didn’t you say so? Nice guy. Wouldn’t fuck with no one. Did you know he’s a big-shot lawyer?”

“Yes.”
No shit
.

“Okay. But if you get my ass in trouble, I’m gonna be pissed, Mister.” Dory humphed.

“Promise. No trouble.”

Two minutes later, address stuffed in his pocket, Alan ran through the house, grabbed his shoes and yanked them on while he hobbled from room to room. His cell phone…

He ran to the kitchen and grasped it from the counter, his elbow knocking into something that clattered to the floor with a little tinkling noise. As he spun around, he already knew what he would see. The prescriptions. Two brown bottles now lay on the kitchen tile, rolling in the little circles their slightly larger lids permitted.

Why wouldn’t she have taken them with her?

The growing mystery put a fire in his motions and he flew out the door at a near run.

* * * *

Oh God
. Where was he taking her? It seemed like they’d been driving for hours, though it had probably only been minutes. Liz’s hands and arms were numb. She’d managed to turn herself onto her side to let the pressure off her wrists, but it had been so long now, nothing she did helped alleviate the discomfort of the confined musky space.

Would he kill her immediately? Or take his time? Maybe drag her out into the woods and choke the life out of her? Perhaps toy with her first or even rape her? The more time she had to think, the worse the images she invoked became. There was no telling how he would do it, but little doubt remained that Liz had only hours to live.

A sob ripped from her throat with no place to go under the sticky tape. Her face ached from the skin rubbing against the constrictive substance as she’d tried in vain to free her lips. Her nose and cheeks were raw from tears and mucus ran down her face with no way to wipe it away.

Liz was more scared than she’d ever been in her entire life.

The car veered left and climbed for several miles up a steep hill, tossing her body against the rear of the trunk.

The only part of her that didn’t currently beg for death was her legs. She hoped, given the opportunity, they would be useful to her. Maybe if they stopped somewhere she could kick her way out or at least attract attention at a gas station or something. Who knew? Maybe she’d even be able to make a run for it at some point.
Riiight
.

Suddenly the car lurched to a stop and she held her breath, waiting for the trunk to fling open. Nothing. Seconds ticked by slowly. There wasn’t a single sound besides her rapid breaths and the thud of her heart.

Where were they? Why wasn’t he letting her out? At this point Liz was having trouble thinking of much of anything other than the desire for a swift death. How pitiful had her life become that all she could think about was getting to the grave?

The ache in her arms and side reached a point of numbness that almost dulled the acute pain. How much time had gone by? Not a single speck of light emerged inside the trunk. Had he covered all possible holes before kidnapping her just to add to the fear he loved to torture her with?

The questions kept piling up, just as she knew her tormenter wanted.

What did Alan think when he returned home from his run and found her gone? Would he think she’d gotten cold feet? Was he looking for her?

Liz sincerely hoped not, for his sake. Matthew was not the kind of man she’d want anyone to attempt to find. He would be totally crazed now. Especially after two years of searching for her, only to find her in bed with another man. A shiver shot through her from head to toe, made her hurt in new places she didn’t even know existed.

Liz moaned behind the duct tape and tried not to let her fears take over. If she allowed him to frighten her outwardly like this, he won. The two years of researching abuse on the library internet had been her best form of therapy. She’d not been able to get real help out of fear and lack of finances. But she had sought her own help by learning everything she could about abusers and their victims. She’d been a classic victim.

Now, she was no longer that person. Unless she allowed herself to be. Liz had succumbed to her old way of thinking, abandoning everything she’d learned. She needed to snap out of it. Get a hold of herself mentally and not let him play mind games. He was fucking with her right now. But a person can’t really be bullied unless they allow themselves to be. Even tied up and physically helpless in the trunk of a car, Liz was still a strong, educated, intelligent woman. She wasn’t going to die lying down.

With a renewed sense of self-worth, Liz took a few relaxing breaths and calmed her racing pulse. In the dark silence, she tried to think of a plan that would free her from this monster.

* * * *

When Alan arrived at Liz’s apartment, he was shocked to find the door ajar. Without a thought, he pushed it open and rushed inside. The place was a mess. What little belongings Liz owned were strewn all over the floor and hanging off the couch. There was no way she was always this sloppy. He didn’t believe it. Something was wrong with this picture.

A noise behind him had Alan spinning around to find a woman standing in the doorway.

“You Alan?” she asked deadpan.

“Yes. Dory?”

“That’s me.” She pushed the door open a bit farther. “Holy shit. What happened in here?”

“Did you do this?” she stared at him questioningly.

“Of course not. I got here just two seconds before you snuck up on me.” Alan picked his way farther inside, trying not to step on anything important.

“She never leaves her place like this. I’ve never seen it less than perfect. Well, considering she don’t own anything either really.” Dory came up behind Alan and seemed to hang on his back without really touching him. “Ya think she was robbed?”

That thought hadn’t gotten around to entering his mind. Perhaps last night while she’d been at his place?

“Where is she? Liz? Honey? You here?” Dory headed toward the door that undoubtedly led to her bedroom.

Alan’s heart hammered in his chest. She wasn’t here. Had she run? Perhaps telling him her story, she was completely freaked out and took off, left town. Was she scared her ex would somehow find her?

Alan needed to think, sort this mess out. He righted an overturned chair, one of only two he could see in the kitchen area and sat at the table. He thumbed through the papers on the wooden surface.

Let’s think of the facts here, Alan
.

Liz was scared. She was permanently on the run from a man who’d abused her. How much she’d even gotten over that abuse wasn’t clear. She met a man, fell for him, panicked, and took off in the early hours of the morning. Maybe took a taxi across town, ransacked her own apartment, took very little with her, and left town before he could even track her down. Not to mention the pain she must be in and the antibiotics he had in his pocket.

Alan wasn’t buying it. He had to be missing something.

“Well, I know she didn’t skip town.” Dory’s voice startled Alan as he sat and stared at the tabletop, looking for invisible answers. He’d practically forgotten she was there.

“How do you know that?” Any information she could add couldn’t hurt.

“I just found a wad of money under her mattress. I always did think that girl was stashing money. So quiet. She works day and night and never buys herself nothin’. Not even so much as fast food. I like her, really I do. But, I’ve always thought she was hiding something. So smart. Do you know how smart she is?” Dory gazed at him, the rhetorical question hung in the air.

“How much?” He hadn’t listened closely to her rambling, but he was sure curious about the money.

“Don’t know.” Dory walked forward and plopped it on the table. She walked away. “Wonder if there’s more.” Cabinets opened and closed behind him. Furniture scraped the floor.

There was over a thousand dollars in that tiny stash alone. Why?

Shit.

Suspicion got the better of Alan. This just didn’t smell right. Not one bit. He reached for his cell phone and dialed nine-one-one while he began rustling through the debris in front of him, looking for anything that might be a clue.

“Nine-one-one emergency. Fire. Police. Or ambulance.” A tight clear succinct voice pierced his ear.

Alan picked up an address book and flipped it open. “Police.”

“What’s your emergency?” the voice began while the clicking noise of her typing filled the background.

Alan thumbed to the entry for himself in her little book. The page was missing. He quickly thumbed through the other pages.
Fuck!
“My girlfriend’s been abducted. Please hurry.”

“What address are you at, sir?”

Alan started running for his car. “I’m at her apartment, but this isn’t where she was taken from. Meet me at my house.” He sprinted for his car and prayed he wasn’t too late.
Fuck
.

“Alan?” Dory yelled at him from the doorway. “Where’re ya goin’?”

He ignored her as he raced across the parking lot.

How could he be so stupid? Why had he doubted her? More than an hour had gone by while he’d dicked around thinking the worst of her. Actually believed she would leave him, just like that.

“Sir? What’s
that
address?”

Chapter Ten

They were moving again. Liz had no idea how long she’d been in the trunk. All she could think about since being shaken awake by the engine revving up was how dry her mouth was and how wet her jeans were. At some point in her restless sleep she’d given up holding her bladder and simultaneously grown incredibly thirsty. She knew she was losing it. She could no longer easily focus and sometimes even remember why she was where she was.

Each minute was another mile Matthew took her farther and farther away from the first man who actually loved her. She mourned that love like an acute permanent loss.

It didn’t matter that their relationship had happened so fast. It was nevertheless true and real. She knew it with all her heart.

Her only regret was feeling that Alan would forever believe she’d left him voluntarily. Just walked out.

Hours ticked by. It got hotter and stuffier in the trunk, an area she now began to think of as her coffin. Perspiration beaded on her forehead and across her chest. Sobbing behind the duct tape had made her nose run and it was difficult to breathe now. Her throat hurt from attempting to scream, though very little sound actually reached her ears.

If she concentrated really hard on any one part of her body she could identify each ailment. A dull ache had replaced the searing pain in her cheeks where the tape seemed to have actually eaten the first few layers of skin, leaving her face inflamed like a sunburn. Her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth like a suction cup. Her tears had long since dried up, leaving a tight layer of salt around her eyes.

The thick wetness on her hands would be the blood oozing slowly from where the rope had rubbed her wrists completely raw. Even though she hadn’t really struggled much against the bindings—she knew Matthew’s ability to tie a knot firsthand—the tight pressure alone, combined with the position she was lying in, had created a slow abrasion.

She had to stop this madness of identifying each ache and pain before she drove herself crazy. There wasn’t anything to do as the steady hours passed but
think
. None of the thoughts her mind conjured up were ever good ones.

Tears would no longer fall. They were all dried up. Liz knew this couldn’t be a good sign. She was losing consciousness from dehydration. The heat in the trunk alone would have sweated out whatever fluids her body might have had left.

Finally, the car jolted to another stop. A door opened and slammed shut. Another door.

Please, God. Give me a chance here.

Nothing. Did he plan to just leave her in there until she rotted? The new idea caused a fresh wave of panic in her already distressed state. Would he do that? The resounding answer that screamed in her head was unfortunately “yes”.

The bastard. Awareness dawned. The worst thing he could possibly do to her was leave her to die alone and scared in the trunk. A slow agonizing death that Matthew knew would fuck with her mind until her last breath. Screwing with Liz’s mind was what he did best.

After waiting several minutes in silence, Liz struggled. She tried to scream, but nothing came out. She kicked at the lid of the trunk, praying someone would hear something. Were there even people nearby?

She wiggled around the other direction and slammed her heals into the back of the seats. No luck. They wouldn’t budge or else she was just too weak to make a difference. The futile attempts wore her out and left her in a worse state than she’d been in before, as if that were possible. Her heals ached from the abrasion of the carpeted seatbacks on her bare feet.

Liz gasped for oxygen through her nose, dried mucus now practically blocking her ability to breathe. Exhausted, she stopped struggling. Where were they? There wasn’t a single noise coming from outside. No traffic, no honking horns, nothing. No one could hear her struggles.

*

Matthew calmly walked into the front door of the tiny motel on the outskirts of nowhere. The place would be less than desirable, but he needed sleep and time to think. He needed a plan. It had been days since he’d last lain down on a mattress, and even longer since he’d had a shower.

Adrenaline had held his eyes open so far, but he was out of steam. He could hardly hold on to the overnight bag strapped over his shoulder. It seemed to weigh more than it should.

Chimes rang out and echoed in the empty room when he walked into the front office. There didn’t appear to be anyone else staying at the motel, judging by the lack of cars in the parking lot. He hoped they were at least open for business. The dingy little office area was sparse. No place to sit, no plants. Nothing but a worn Formica counter that had seen better days and maybe been white at one point.

Matthew cleared his throat and angled his head to look around. A door suddenly opened behind the counter, the only entrance to the room other than the one he’d entered from the outside. It squeaked on its unkempt hinges and an older man emerged, his gray hair in a tuft on one side of his head from sleeping.

Matthew glanced at his watch, a gold Rolex that he’d also purchased after Beth’s death,
her first death
. It was after midnight.

“Can I help you?” A gnarled hand reached out to push the mouse pad of his ancient Apple computer and bring it to life.

“I need a room.”
Of course
.

“Well, I have plenty of those,” he mumbled, not raising his head from the screen. “Been a slow week around here.”

“I’ll just be here one night. How much do I owe you?” He wanted to pay in cash and up front. No one could trace him and he could leave as soon as he was rested.

“Thirty-six dollars. Tax included.”

Cheap, but then the accommodations probably fit the price.

Matthew produced the cash from his wallet and reached for the key to room six when the zombie-like creature held it out. Matthew wasn’t at all sure the man was even awake and not just sleep walking. He mumbled something incoherent as Matthew walked back outside, a slight jolt ambling through his skin when the damn bell over the door chimed again.

Room number six was in the front. Matthew had put his rental in the back. Fine. No one would ever know he’d been here anyway and he didn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention to himself.

After a quick shower under the marginally warm sprinkling of water that he managed to duck under from a showerhead that was too low for most humans, he collapsed onto the squeaky mattress. It dipped so low in the middle it seemed to swallow him whole.

He stared up at the water-stained ceiling, tried to remember the last time he’d been this comfortable. Several days ago? A week? Sometime before the wild goose chase that bitch had caused.

Now what? He thought through the day’s events.

Once he’d stuffed her into the trunk, he’d had the good sense to go back in and grab her clothes and leave a note.
I’m brilliant
. No evidence he’d ever been there at all. Alan would have been so confused after his run.

In the early morning hours, he’d swiped the plates off a truck behind a used car dealership. No one would be looking for a generic black four-door with California plates. He’d driven back to the hotel where he was staying and checked out. The place had been too crowded and busy at that hour of the morning for anyone to realize how he’d arrived or left.

Next he’d called the morgue to arrange shipment of his “wife” on a flight for tomorrow to New York. He couldn’t very well leave that Jane Doe behind as though he didn’t know her. The thought brought a sour note to his good mood. It was the worst part of the deal, but couldn’t be avoided.

He’d then driven in a circle around highways 494 and 694, as though in a holding pattern, for several hours. His goal was twofold, plan his next course of action and make Beth think they’d driven hundreds of miles away from Minneapolis, this last part just to scare the hell out of her. He personally needed to be on that flight tomorrow afternoon from Minneapolis back to New York.

Eventually he’d taken a turn and headed out highway twelve to find a cheap out-of-the way motel. That hadn’t been difficult.

As soon as he got some sleep, he’d find a secluded place to torture that bitch in the trunk. He’d leave her dead body in such bad shape no one would even be able to recognize her.

In hours, he’d be on his way back to New York, his twice dead “wife” in the luggage compartment.

Wouldn’t his comrades be surprised and saddened for his double loss? It was a pity, really. His only regret was having to fake mourn again. Would he have to stage another wake? Lord, he hated the idea. Surely folks would understand if he didn’t do it. After all, it wasn’t as though he hadn’t already “grieved” her loss years ago. What difference did it make at this point? Dead was dead.

Did I cover everything?
Matthew tapped his chin with one finger almost absentmindedly. He smiled. It was foolproof. No matter when someone found Beth’s body, they wouldn’t know who it was. After all, Beth Martin would be buried in New York, for the second time. No one was looking for her.

It wouldn’t even matter if McCarthy somehow identified the body. It meant nothing. There was no record of a Liz Parker anywhere. Since Matthew had reported the rental stolen during the night last night, clearly whoever stole the car took the woman Alan knew as Liz.

“Ingenious,” he mumbled aloud. His eyes were so heavy now. If he could just sleep a while, then he’d be able to think straight.