Riptide (19 page)

Adam didn't say a word.

“Yeah, it was you. You saved Senator Dashworth's life. Pretty impressive.”

“You shouldn't know about that,” Adam said finally, frowning at Rollo. “You really shouldn't.”

“Yeah, well, I'm an insider, I can't help it if people tell me everything.”

“I never heard anything about that,” Becca said, her antennae up. “What are you talking about?”

Rollo just grinned at her and said, “Did you find out who tried to off him?”

“You don't know about that, too?”

“Hey, I'm an insider, but the spigot was off when it came to the particulars.”

Adam shrugged. “Well, who cares now? The guy who wanted the senator dead was his son-in-law. Irving—that's the guy's name—had sent him threats, all the usual anonymous bullshit. The senator called me. It turned out that Irving had become a heroin addict, didn't have any more money, and wanted the senator's inheritance. The senator managed to keep it from the media, to protect his daughter, and so we got the guy into a sanatorium, where he belonged, where he's still at. I guess there are only a few insiders who know anything at all about it.”

“You run some sort of a bodyguard business?” Becca said, frowning at Adam over a spoonful of baked beans. “I thought you did security consulting.”

“I like to keep my hand in a lot of different things,” Adam said.

“What I'd like to know,” Sherlock said, handing Rollo another hot dog with lots of down-home yellow mustard slathered on it, “is why you didn't find out who it was right away. The guy was an addict? That kind of thing isn't easy to hide.”

Adam actually flushed. He played with his fork, didn't meet her eyes. He cleared his throat. “Well, the thing is that the son-in-law wasn't around for those three days I was checking things out. His wife was protecting him, said he had the flu, that he was really contagious, et cetera. She swore to me and to her father that Irving wouldn't even consider doing something like that, no, it had to be a crazy, or a left-wing conspiracy. She was so—well—damned believable.”

“Good thing you were there to deflect the guy's knife,” Rollo said.

“That's the truth,” Adam said.

Rollo sat down at the kitchen table, squeezing in between Savich and Becca. Adam said on a deep sigh, “I just heard that the wife is trying to get the husband out of there. It could start all over again.”

“Well, shit,” Rollo said. “Not much justice around, is there?”

Then Chuck came in and Rollo, still half a hot dog left, saluted and went back outside.

“It won't be long now,” Savich said. “I feel it. Things will happen.” He took a last bite of a tofu hot dog, sighed with pleasure, and hugged his wife.

 

T
hings didn't happen until later.

They were all in the living room drinking coffee, planning, arguing, brainstorming. There was no activity
outside. Everything was buttoned down tight, until at exactly ten o'clock a bullet shattered one of the front windows, glass exploded inward, carrying shreds of curtain with it.

“Down!” Savich yelled.

But it wasn't a simple bullet that came through the window to strike the floor molding on the far side of the living room, it was a tear gas bullet. Thick gray smoke gushed out even before it struck the molding.

“Oh, damn,” Adam said. “Back into the kitchen. Now!”

Another tear gas bullet exploded through the window. They were coughing, covering their faces, running toward the back of the house.

They heard men's shouts, sporadic gunfire, sharp and loud in the night. The front door burst open and Tommy the Pipe ran in, his face covered with his jacket. “Out, guys, quick. Through the front door, the back's not covered well enough.”

“He shot tear gas bullets,” Adam said between choking coughs.

“He's probably using a CAR-15, behind our perimeter. Come on out.”

They coughed their heads off, tears streaming down their faces. Savich found himself with Becca's nose pressed into his armpit.

“We've got to get him,” Adam shouted, coughing, choking, his eyes streaming tears. “Just another minute to get over this and we'll start scouring.”

It took another seven minutes before they headed out in the general direction of where the tear gas bullets must have been shot toward the front windows.

They found tire tracks, nothing else, until Adam called out, “Look here.”

Everyone gathered around Adam, who was on his haunches. He held up a shell casing that was four inches long and about an inch and a half in diameter. “Tommy the Pipe was right. He used a CAR-15—that's a compact
M16,” he added to Becca, “stands for carbine automatic rifle.”

Savich found the other shell casing and was tossing it back and forth.

“But how can tear gas come from a gun?” Becca said. “I thought they were canisters or something like that. That's what I've always seen in movies and on TV.”

“That's real old-hat now,” Adam said. “This smaller M16 is real portable, you could carry it under your trench coat. It's got this telescoping collapsible barrel. The SEALs use this stuff. What you do is simply mount an under-barrel tubular grenade launcher and fire away with your tear gas projectiles. It's wicked.”

Sherlock said, “He's obviously connected and very well trained. Got all the latest goodies. And just where would he get all this stuff?”

And Adam thought:
Krimakov.

No one said anything.

They got back to the house forty-five minutes later. It was late, and everyone was hyped. Adam said, as he shrugged into his jacket, rechecked his pistol, “I'm going to take one of the first watches.”

“Get me up at three o'clock,” Savich said.

“I'm outta here,” Adam said. He looked over at Becca, saw that she was white-faced and couldn't help himself. He walked to her and pulled her tight against him. He said against her hair, “Sleep well and don't worry. We're going to get him.”

Becca didn't think she'd be able to slow her heart down enough even to consider sleeping, but she did, deeply and dreamlessly, until she felt a strange jab in her left arm, just above her elbow, like a mosquito bite. She jerked awake, her heart pounding wildly, and she couldn't breathe, just pant and jerk. She was blind, no, it was just dark, very dark, the blinds drawn because nobody wanted him to be able to see into the house. She saw a shadowy figure standing over her, gray, indistinct, and she whispered, “What is
this? Is it you, Adam? What did you do—?” But he said nothing, merely leaned closer and finally, when her heart was slowing just a bit, he whispered right against her face, “I came for you, Rebecca, just like I said I would,” and he licked her cheek.

“No,” she said. “No.” Then she fell back, wondering what the silver light was shining just over her face. It seemed to arc toward her, a skinny silver flash, but then it just wasn't important. A small flashlight, she thought as she breathed in very deeply, more deeply than usual for her, and eased into a soft warm blackness that relaxed her mind and body, and she didn't know anything more.

H
er heart beat slow, regular strokes, one after the other, easy, steady, no fright registering in her body. She felt calm, relaxed. She opened her eyes. It was black, no shadows, no hint of movement, just relentless, motionless black. She was swamped with the black, but she forced herself to draw in a deep breath. Her heart wasn't pumping out of her chest now. She still felt relaxed, too relaxed, with no fear grinding through her, at least not yet, but she knew she should be afraid. She was in darkness and he was close by. She knew it, but still she breathed steadily, evenly, waiting, but not afraid. Well, perhaps there was just a tincture of fear, indistinct, nibbling at the edges of her mind. She frowned, and it slipped away.

Odd how she remembered perfectly everything that had happened: the jab in her left arm, the instant terror, she remembered all of it—him licking her cheek—with no mental fuzz cloaking the memories.

The nibblings of fear became more focused now, she could nearly grasp it. Her heart speeded up. She blinked, willing herself to know fear, then to control it.

He had gotten her. Somehow he'd gotten into the house, past the guards, and he'd gotten her.

There was suddenly a wispy light, the smell of smoke. He'd lit a candle. He was here, just inches from her. She calmed the building fear. It was hard, probably the hardest thing she'd ever had to do, but she knew she had to. She remembered, very suddenly, her mother telling her once that fear was what hurt you because it froze you. “Don't ever give up,” her mother had told her. “Never give up.” Then her mother had gripped her shoulders and said it one more time: “Never give up.”

It was so clear in her mind in that moment, her mother standing over her telling her this. She could even feel her mother's fingers hard on her shoulders. Odd that she couldn't remember what had happened to make her mother tell her this.

“Where are we?”

Was that her voice, all calm and indifferent? Yes, she'd managed it.

“Hello, Rebecca. I came for you, just like I said I would.”

“Please,” she said, and then she laughed, choked, “please don't lick my cheek again. That was really creepy.”

He was dead silent, affronted, even pissed, she realized, because she was laughing at him.

“You gave me a shot of something. What was it?”

She heard his deep breathing. “Just something I picked up in Turkey. I was told that a side effect is a temporary sense of euphoria. You won't feel like laughing for much longer, Rebecca. The effects will fade, and then you'll be heaving with fear, you'll be so scared of me.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

He slapped her. She didn't see his hand, it was just there, connecting sharply against her cheek. She tried to leap at him, but she realized she was tied down, her hands over her head, her wrists tied to the slats of the headboard. So she was lying on a bed. Her legs were free. She was still wearing her nightgown, a white cotton nightgown that came up to her chin and went down to her ankles. He'd smoothed it over her legs.

She said with a sneer in her voice, “Hey, I liked the slap better than you licking me. You're really brave, aren't you? Would you like to let my hands free, just for a minute, and then we'll see how brave you are?”

“Shut up!”

He was standing beside her, leaning down, breathing hard. She couldn't see his hands, but she imagined they were fists, ready to bash her.

She said very quietly, “Why did you kill Linda Cartwright?”

“That fat bitch? She was bothering me, always begging, pleading, whining when she was thirsty or she wanted to pee or she wanted to lie down. I got tired of it.”

She said nothing at all, beyond words, wondering what had made him into a madman or had he been born like this? Born evil, nothing to blame but screwed-up genes.

She could hear him tapping his fingers,
tap, tap, tap.
He wanted her to say something, wanted it badly, but she held quiet.

“Did you like my present to you, Rebecca?”

“No.”

“I saw you puking your guts out.”

“I thought you probably did. God, you're sick. You get off on that?”

“Then I saw that big guy, Adam Carruthers, there with you. He was holding you. Why did you let him hold you like that?”

“I probably would have even leaned against you if I didn't know who you were.”

“I'm glad you didn't let him kiss you.”

“I had just vomited. That wouldn't be fun for anyone, now would it?”

“No, I guess not.”

He didn't sound old, not the age of this Krimakov character. But was he young? She just couldn't tell. “Who are you? Are you Krimakov?”

He was silent but just for a moment. Then he laughed softly, deeply, and it froze her. He lightly ran his palm over
her cheek, squeezed just a bit, made her flinch. “I'm your boyfriend, Rebecca. I saw you and I knew that I would have to be closer to you than your skin. I thought about actually getting under your skin, but that would mean I'd have to skin you and then cover myself, and you're just not big enough.

“Then I thought I wanted to be next to your heart, but again, there'd be so much blood, fountains of it. Too many hands ruin the stew, too much blood ruins the clothes. I'm a fastidious man.

“No, don't say it or think it. I'm not crazy, not like that Hannibal character. I just said that to make you so afraid you'd start begging and pleading. Already the drug's wearing off. I can see how afraid you are. All I have to do is talk and you're scared shitless.”

He was right about that, but she'd give about anything not to show him, not to let him see that she was boiling white hot inside, nearly burned to ashes with fear. “But then when you're all done talking, you'll strangle me like you did Linda Cartwright?”

“Oh no. She wasn't important. She wasn't anything.”

“I'll bet she disagreed with that.”

“Probably, but who cares?”

“Why me?”

He laughed, and she bet that if she could see his face, he'd be smirking, so pleased with himself. “Not just yet, Rebecca. You and I have got lots of things to do before you know who I am and why I chose you.”

“There's a reason, naturally, at least in your mind. Why won't you tell me?”

“You'll find out soon enough, or not. We'll see. Now, I'm going to give you another little shot and you'll sleep again.”

“No,” she said. “I have to go to the bathroom. Let me go to the bathroom.”

He cursed—American curses mixed with English-sounding curses, and an odd language thrown in that she didn't recognize.

“You try anything and I'll knock you silly. I'll strip the skin off your arm and make it into a pair of gloves. You hear me?”

“Yes, I hear you. I thought you were fastidious.”

“I am, about blood. There wouldn't be all those fountains of blood if I just peeled the skin off your arm.”

She felt him untie her hands, slowly, and she supposed that the knots must have been complicated. Finally she was free. She brought her arms down and rubbed her wrists. They burned, then eased. She was very stiff. Slowly, she sat up and swung her legs off the bed.

“You try anything and I'll put a knife into your leg, high up on your thigh. I know just the place that won't show much, but the pain will make you wish you were dead it's so bad. There wouldn't be hardly any blood at all. Yeah, forget about skinning your arm. Don't try to see me, Rebecca, or I'll have to kill you right now, and that's the end of it.”

She didn't know how she managed to walk, but she did. Then, as the strength came back to her feet and legs, she wanted to run, run so fast she'd be a blur and he'd never catch her, never, never.

But she didn't, of course.

The bathroom was just off the bedroom. He'd removed the doorknob. When she was through, she paused to look at herself in the mirror. She looked pale and drawn and gaunt, her hair tangled around her head and down to her shoulders. She looked vague and on the edge, like a woman who had been drugged, knew it, and also realized, at last, that she might very well die.

“Come out now, Rebecca. I know you're through. Come out or you'll regret it.”

“I just got here. Give me some time.”

There was nothing in the bathroom to use as a weapon, nothing at all. He'd even removed the towel racks, cleared everything from beneath the sink. Nothing.

“Just a moment,” she called out. She raced back to the toilet and fell onto her knees. It was old. If the big screw
that held the toilet down had ever had a cap on it, it was long gone. She tried to twist it, and to her utter surprise, it actually moved, just a bit. It was thick, the grooves deep and sharp. She was choking, sobbing deep in her throat, praying.

She heard him, just outside the door. Was he touching the door? Was he going to push it inward? Oh, Jesus. “Just a second,” she yelled. “I'm not feeling too well. That drug you shot into me, it's making me nauseous. Give me just another minute. I don't want to vomit all over myself.”
Turn, damn you, turn.
Finally, finally, it came free in her hand. It was thick, about an inch and a half long, deeply grooved, and those grooves were sharp. What to do with it? Where to hide it?

“I'm coming,” she called out as she gently pulled some thread loose in the hem of her nightgown. “I feel a bit better. I just don't want to vomit, particularly if you're going to tie my hands again.”

If he'd been standing by the bathroom door, he wasn't now. He was back in the shadows when she came out. She couldn't make out a thing about him. He said, his voice deep, ageless, “Lie back down on the bed.”

She did.

He didn't tie her hands over her head.

“Don't move.”

She felt the sting in her left arm, right above her elbow again, before she could even react. “Coward,” she said, her voice already becoming slurred.

“Filthy coward.”

She heard him laugh. And again, he licked her, her ear this time, his tongue slow, lapping, and she wanted to gag, but she didn't because her mind was beginning to float now, and it was easy and smooth and the fear disappeared as she just fell away from herself.

No time, she thought, as what she was and what she thought were slipping away, like grains of sand scattering in a wind. No time, no time to stab him with that screw. No
time to ask him again if he was this Krimakov who'd been cremated. No time for anything.

 

A
dam stood there in her open bedroom door way. She was gone, simply gone. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “No. Oh God, no! Savich!”

But she was gone, no sign of her, nothing at all.

It was Sherlock who said as she sipped a cup of black coffee, “He used the tear gas as a diversion. While we were all outside looking for him, he simply slipped into the house and hid in Becca's bedroom closet. Then he probably drugged her. How did he get her out? Our guys were back in position by the time we came back inside. Oh, no, get everyone together! We weren't exactly organized when we were looking for him outside. Dillon, who was assigned to the back of the house?”

“Jesus,” Adam said. “No, damnation, no!”

They found Chuck Ainsley in the bushes twenty feet from the back of the house. He wasn't dead. He'd been struck down from behind, bound and gagged. When they peeled the tape off his mouth, he said, “I let him creep up on me. I didn't hear a thing. He was fast, too fast. Oh God, what the hell happened? Is everyone all right?”

Savich said matter-of-factly, “He took Becca. Thank God you're not dead. I wonder why he didn't just slit your throat, Chuck? Why waste time tying you up?”

Sherlock said, as she hunkered down next to Chuck and untied both his wrists and ankles, “He doesn't want the police here yet. He realized that if he killed one of us, that's what would happen. It would force his hand. He would lose control. We're really glad you're okay, Chuck.”

Adam said, “He must have knocked you out before he shot tear gas into the house. We came roaring out, everyone trying to find him, and we didn't miss you. There was too much confusion. Damnation.”

Sherlock gave Chuck a drink of cold water and a couple of aspirin once they got him into the kitchen. “If you don't have a headache, you should,” she told him, then hugged him. “Thank God you're all right. Since you weren't at the back of the house watching for him, he must have just slipped out with Becca over his shoulder.”

“We didn't miss you,” Adam said slowly. “I can't believe we didn't have the brains to get everyone together and count heads before we settled back into the house for the night. Hell, we didn't even think to search the damned house.”

Everyone was rattled as what happened sank in. There was nothing to say, no excuses to make. He'd made fools of them all.

An hour later, Sherlock and Savich found Adam in the kitchen, his head in his hands. Savich lightly laid his hand on his shoulder. “It happened. We've all flagellated ourselves. No thanks to us, Chuck is all right. Now we've got to fix it. Adam, we'll find her.”