Seven Years of Bad Luck (26 page)

She said nothing in response to my snarky remarks and made hurried strides away from my office. I worked for an hour or so longer after my run-in with the nosey Janis. My ringing cell phone pulled my attention from snooping. Ben was calling.

“Hello?”

“I miss you too much,” he said low into the receiver. I couldn’t help but smile as I leaned back in my chair. I closed my eyes and tried my best to imagine that he was in the room with me, not two time zones away on the west coast.

“I miss you, too,” I murmured into the phone. I heard him breathe deeply as if wanted me missing him.

“It’s driving me crazy thinking of you sleeping in my bed without me. Makes me want to come home now.”

“You’ll be back soon enough,” I reminded him.

“Not soon enough for me.”

“Ben, I have to go, someone is calling.”

“Okay, Kathleen. I will talk to you tomorrow. I miss you. I mean it.”

“I mean it, too. Bye.” I did mean it. I ignored the niggling tug in my chest again while I answered the incoming call on my cell phone. It was Cheyenne, and she was shouting and talking to what sounded like more than one person.

“Chey! What the hell is going on?”

“Kat, you better get your butt over to the apartment now! Someone broke in and trashed the place. The police are here.”

“Oh my God! Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I am fine. I wasn’t here. Tuck just brought me back to the apartment to get some of my things to stay at his house, and we walked into a trashed apartment!”

“I’m on my way!” I hung up the phone before she could respond and began gathering my things. I quickly made copies of the photos and notes that I had gathered about John Murray and sped to my apartment and my very shaken best friend. When I walked into the apartment, I could barely believe that the sight before me was the apartment where Cheyenne and I lived. It looked like a tornado tore through the place, destroying everything in its path. I stepped over broken picture frames and around turned over furniture to get to Cheyenne. She was standing with Tucker. His big arm was draped over her petite frame protectively. A police officer was speaking with them.

“What in the hell happened?” Cheyenne whirled around to see me surveying the state of our place. I was sure the color had drained from my face. I was irate. I could barely believe that someone had broken into our apartment and vandalized the place.

“Kat! See what they did?” Cheyenne screeched and flung out both arms.

“Uh, yeah, I see what the hell happened. Can’t exactly miss it, Chey,” I shot back, disgruntled.

“Hey! Don’t you dare snap at me, Kathleen Cooper! That’s not fair!” Cheyenne ordered with her hands planted on her hips and her cheeks slightly red as they always were when she was getting upset.

“Sorry,” I muttered.

“How did this happen? We always lock the doors, and since the front door and lock are both still intact, I’m assuming that the door was either unlocked or someone picked it,” I stated, looking towards the officer in front of Cheyenne.

“No forced entry, ma’am. So the door could have been unlocked or picked. Difficult to say either way. We are dusting for prints now.” I nodded my head in understanding.

“So what was stolen?”

“Nothing, it seems.” The officer shrugged then looked around himself.

“Nothing?” I asked him incredulously.

“Not one thing.” The officer reaffirmed.

Oh, shit. Definitely Murray.

Realization and guilt crashed down on me like lead. I knew if someone broke in and didn’t take anything, his motives for breaking in could be far worse than theft. He didn’t take any of our jewelry, electronics, the expensive silver that belonged to Cheyenne’s great-grandmother, or either one of the two small safes we kept in our rooms. This brought chills to my skin and caused me to visibly shiver.

“Fuck. Not good,” I mumbled as I turned away from the group and surveyed the state of disarray that our apartment was in.

The wheels in my head began turning. The fact that I had been warned about digging into John Murray’s business more than once earlier in the day did not escape me.

If this has to do with John, then word must travel damned fast.

I instantly felt guilty as well as outraged and worried at the thought of this being the result of my snooping where I shouldn’t have.

So if this is a warning, I will stop digging. That’s it. Just stop. What about Mrs. Kemp?
What about finishing what you’ve started?

I placed my fingers to my temples and began rubbing in a circular motion to ease the firestorm going on in my head. “Any ideas on who may have done this ma’am?” The officer asked. I turned to face the group again.

Yep, and it’s all my fault Murray had our apartment trashed. Brilliant, Kat. Really just fantastic.

I glanced at Cheyenne who was once again in Tuck’s protective embrace. I swallowed down the urge to tell all.

“No clue,” I said with a shrug. It was good thing that Cheyenne was turned into Tucker’s chest because she missed the lie I tossed out. One look at my face, and she would call me on it. I couldn’t tell the police anything they didn’t already know about John Murray and quite simply, I wasn’t sure if the police were under his thumb. If John Murray had the police in his pocket, it made anyone in uniform suspect and therefore a useless resource to me. I decided to push forward, gather what I could as quickly as possible, then go to someone I trusted. Ben. I knew he would be furious with me for digging into something he specifically told me to stay out of, but he would be the only person I could trust to take the information and make things happen. If John Murray did in fact have anything to do with the death of Mrs. Kemp’s husband, then I would gladly take my punishment from Ben if it meant bringing her some peace and some justice.

Neither Mr. or Mrs. Kemp deserved what they had gotten. Mr. Kemp was dead, and Mrs. Kemp was left thinking no one cared enough to look into the circumstances under which the love of her life had died. Mr. Kemp knew that Murray was a criminal who was stealing obscene amounts of money from people. He was trying to do the right thing, and it appeared that doing the right thing had gotten him killed. I hoped that the same fate didn’t await me. I spoke with Cheyenne and Tucker a bit more after the police left and reassured them that I was fine staying at Ben’s house alone. Tucker offered to call Ben and let him know about the break in, but I promised to call him myself once I got back to his place.

I lied again. Tucker took my weary best friend home, and I gathered up the broken bits of my home and tossed them into the trash after taking plenty of photos for the insurance company. I secured the place again and set my car in the direction of Ben’s home. I didn’t call or text him again that night. I wouldn’t know what to say, and I was beginning to think that my lover was honing his ability to see through me, even on the phone. I couldn’t afford for him to find out about my activities. He would be on the first flight back, and my information-gathering efforts would be halted.

I stayed awake for much of the night thinking about everything I had discovered throughout the day. I also couldn’t quite shake the creepy feeling about Janis that shadowed my thoughts. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but that woman’s behavior was strange. Her glares and evil vibe went far past the average catty female behavior. She stirred an uneasy feeling within me that I found impossible to ignore. I decided that I would dig into Janis Harper’s life next. I finally drifted to sleep.

My chest feels heavy. Very heavy. I’m heaving in and out, trying to catch my breath.
Who’s there?
I can hear voices, but I can’t see anything. I beg my eyes to open and they do, but there must be cloth over my eyes because I still can’t see a thing. The cloth is scratchy across my eyes like burlap, and I realize that the same type of cloth is stuffed into my mouth. I can’t breathe through my nose, and the fact that I can’t catch my breath with just the use of my nose is scaring me. I’m covered in a cold sweat. My heart is pounding really hard. I can feel that my wrists are bound, but my hands still shake viciously. A fear-induced whimper escapes my lips. I’m so scared.
Calm down, Kat. Breathe in. Breathe out. I must be having a panic attack.
I am so frightened, I feel like I might be sick, but I push the nausea down deep.

My mouth is stuffed with cloth that tastes like dust, so getting sick is not an option. I strain to hear the faint voices around me. I hear men. Three, maybe four, different male voices. I hear footsteps approaching me, and I let out a muffled, blood-curdling scream from behind the dusty cloth shoved in my mouth. A hard thud rings through my ears and vibrates through my skull. Despite my hindered vision, I see brightly colored spots that remind me of highlighter pens. Something warm is on my face. My hands instinctively fight against the bonds that hold them so that I can touch the assaulted area. The warmth is spreading downward. Down to my cheek. Now my jaw. Now my neck. My face feels like it has a heartbeat.
I’m bleeding
. The warm feeling is blood. There must be a lot of it. I can feel it rolling down the right side of my face and down my neck. I’m crying now. I’m sobbing hard. I can barely breathe.
I want Ben
.
Where’s Ben? He will save me.
I think he loves me like I have come to realize that I love him.
Where is he? I need him. Please, God. I don’t want to die!
I hear the male voices come nearer. I begin hyperventilating.

What are they doing? I am so scared
.

The adrenaline coursing through my veins urges me to fight, to run if given the chance. I know that’s what I’ll do. I will run if I can. I let out another scream from behind the dusty cloth gag. I’m asking for help, but the cloth makes my plea indecipherable. Another thud, but I don’t feel anything except more warmth running down my face. I’m thankful for the adrenaline racing through my veins. It’s pushing me forward. It’s the only thing keeping me going right now, other than my need to see Ben again. I want Ben. A grumbly voice fills my throbbing left ear and all at once, I can smell cigarettes, liquor, and generally foul breath. It smells awful. I want to vomit again, but I remind myself to choke the nausea down. No getting sick with a gag crammed in my mouth.

“Quit trying to scream or it’s going to hurt worse!” the man threatens.

This makes me cry more desperately.
Please. Please. Please, don’t hurt me. I am begging them from behind the dusty cloth. Please, let me go

“Don’t you fucking scream!” he warns me, and I nod.

“I’m going to take off you blindfold.”

I force myself to calm down. I have to figure out where I am and how to get away. The foul-breathed man jerks the cloth from my eyes, and I blink rapidly to clear my vision. Blood has seeped into my right eye, blurring my vision in that eye, but my left eye has cleared. I can see. I am in a dark space that has an echo, and a bright light beams down on just me.
Must be a large room. A garage maybe.
I quickly scan the room, but can’t see beyond the light that is beaming down on me like a spotlight. I look down at my feet. It’s a smooth concrete floor that my fee limply rest against. The large man that I can now see steps off to the side, and darkness envelops him.

The male voices whisper as they stand just beyond the light that would make them visible to me. They are all cloaked.
Cowards.
I’m getting more angry than scared now. It’s the adrenaline, I’m sure, but I don’t care. I don’t think I am going to get out of here. They are going to kill me. I can feel it. Yet the cowards won’t show their faces. They are hiding beyond the shadows that concealed them so well.

“Cowards!” I scream from behind my dusty gag. They laugh at me.
Laughing!
Sick, disgusting, cowards!
I hear the clicking of what must be dress shoes. One set. Wait, two sets of clicking dress shoes against the concrete slab floor. I see the shape of a very tall man come into focus. He walks toward me, and I can see his face clearly now. I want to scream, cry, gasp and get sick all at once, but can’t. I have stopped breathing, and the only thing that jars me from my shocked gaze is the pain squeezing my lungs, demanding oxygen.
Breathe!
I draw in air through flared nostrils. “Aidan!” I scream at him, but he says nothing to me. His lips turn up into a grin and I am sure that he is enjoying seeing me bound and bleeding.