Seven Years of Bad Luck (28 page)

“Still digging, Kathleen Cooper?”

“WHO IS THIS?” I shouted as I jumped from my office chair. The electronically distorted voice didn’t say anything else, and the line clicked dead.

This is way out of control. This is crazy! It’s okay, Ben will be back in the morning, and it will be time to come clean about snooping around and how I really feel about him. He will know what to do.

I glanced at the clock in the corner of my computer screen and was glad to see that the day had zipped by, and it was close to the end of the day. I began gathering my things and thinking about the distorted voice on the phone and Ben saying he loved many things about me. But most of all, I was confused about Janis’s past. I found out rather easily that she had suffered a terrible tragedy five years before, and she had obviously changed her name, but I couldn’t quite piece together the rest.

Why would she want to leave everyone and everything she knew, move across the state, change her name, and live alone and apparently miserable?

It made no sense to me.

There has to be a reason she came to Dallas. She would have to have good motive for legally changing her name. People don’t just change their names and uproot their entire lives for no reason.

I milled around my small office gathering my things and my research as I struggled to make sense of Janis’s choice to abandon her past. I, of all people, could understand wanting to start over someplace new, but Janis took it to a new level. The information I gathered throughout the day only led me to more questions. I made copies of everything I had printed out and written and hid the copies in a falsely labeled folder in the filing cabinet in my office. I was smart enough to make copies, to hide things, to send messages to people who would know what to do in the event that something happened to me, but I was not smart enough to procure a can of pepper spray, a folding knife or even a well sharpened pencil to carry in my purse in the event that I would need to defend myself.

I sat in Ben’s remarkably comfortable bed that evening with notes and photos scattered like confetti all around me. I made more notes and took stock of John Murray’s felonious activities and associates. I knew that if by some miracle I was able to finish what I had started, John Murray was going to go the prison for a long time if someone with a score to settle didn’t get to him first. I hoped, not for his sake, but for the sake of justice, that he was alive and well enough to stand trial and answer for his crimes. As far as I was able to tell, he likely murdered Mr. Kemp; he had also stolen more money than I knew how to sum up in words and had committed a host of other felonies that merited jail time. I wasn’t sure how to get the truth out about Mr. Kemps death other than getting John Murray to admit to it, which I was certain would never happen.

“If the police get hold of the information I have, maybe they can squeeze some of people in John’s inner circle. Someone is bound to sing like a bird if there’s a deal on the table,” I rambled aloud, talking to only myself and my research. I am not sure what time I fell asleep since I don’t exactly recall falling asleep. I woke up feeling refreshed and caught up from the previous night’s lack of rest. I made quick work of showering and getting dressed, taking extra care while applying makeup to accentuate my green eyes. I let my auburn hair flow instead of restraining it in my usual clinical bun. Ben preferred my hair loose, and I knew I would need to please him and kiss a little gorgeous lawyer ass before confessing to my activities during his trip to California. I sprayed my best perfume a couple of times over my favorite sleeveless shift dress and headed out the door with my things clutched in my arms. I came to a halt right outside the driver’s side door of Ben’s Cadillac while I dug for the key fob through my purse that could double for a small sized replica of a landfill. Random contents hid the keys to Ben’s luxury SUV at the bottom of my cheap purse that was filled with plastic and paper wrappers, elastic hair ties, cords and chargers for my cell phone, tablet and one dead iPod, a multitude of pens and pencils, lip gloss, and a misplaced half eaten cracker that I had zero memory of ever seeing.

“Ah, what the hell, Kat?” I scoffed at myself and tossed the extremely stale cracker into the grass and went back to searching for Ben’s keys. I knew I needed to hurry, or I would be late picking up my lover from the airport. I heard the sound of shoes shifting across concrete, and with no warning, I felt a sharp prick of pain in my neck. A few seconds later, I was slumped over in a large meaty man’s arms, and he was dragging my limp body into the back of Ben’s SUV. I heard muffled talking between men as everything went dark.

This is another nightmare. This can’t be real. I’m sleeping. Wake up, Kat!
I screamed at myself, but still nothing. No light spilled into my eyes, and my body seemed to not be my own. Oh, God, please wake up. I felt so sleepy. What little grip on awareness that I had was slipping. I was being pulled into someplace dark, and I couldn’t fight it.

“Is this bitch ever going to wake up?” I heard a faceless voice say with pure ugliness in his voice.

My body. Move! Open your eyes!

“I don’t know, you idiot. How much did you give her?”

Give me what? What did he give me? Drugs? What kind?

“Enough to get the job done.”

Two voices. Two people.

“Yeah, enough to knock her buck and a quarter ass out for over eight damn hours! He’s going to be pissed when he calls, and we ain’t got nothin’ to tell him.”

Him? Who him? John Murray? You two are Murray’s muscle?

“Fine. I’ll wake er’ ass up right now!”

Shit! Don’t hurt me, please!

“Wake up!” A big hand tangled into my hair and wrenched my head back from its slumped position with my chin resting on my chest. Another big hand came down hard across my cheek. Then again and again. I whimpered, and the man who was still pulling my hair stopped for a moment. My face began throbbing, and my skin lit on fire from his calloused hand slapping my face with brute force. I could feel welts surfacing on my cheek. My eyes cracked open slightly, but everything was fuzzy and unclear. Tears welled in my half-open eyes.

“See, she’s awake now.” The meaty man who was slapping me turned his head and craned his neck to look over his shoulder at a man whom I assumed was his partner.

“Good. Quicker we get this shit over with, the quicker we get outta here. I’m starvin’”

Get what over with?

“Please,” I whimpered in a tone that scarcely resembled my normal voice. One of the men laughed boisterously. The other guffawed loudly sending chills down my spine. “Please let me go. I’ll do whatever. Just… please,” I sputtered out in desperation.

“Bitch, I got news for ya: Pissin’ off the wrong man wasn’t a bright idea. He wants the info you dug up. Now.”

“I, all I know is what I had with me. In my bag…” The meaty man released my head, and I righted my posture as best as I could. But being bound to a plastic lawn chair made sitting comfortably impossible. I could see the two men once my vision became clearer. They were both large. One was muscular and built much like a wrestler, while the other was simply overweight, but big nevertheless. The muscular man bent at the waist and quickly swept up my messenger bag and purse from the floor. He brought them to me and turned both bags upside down to dump the contents in front of me. It was then that I looked around at where the men had taken me. I realized that the building we were in was the sketchy-looking warehouse I had been so confused about John Murray owning. Obviously, the building was used for illicit activity. Both men pilfered through my belongings and gathered up my copied research papers.

“You tellin’ me this is all you got? Everything you know?” The overweight man stepped forward towards me and waved papers in my face as he bit out his question in a caustic tone.

Don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt me. Please! Ben. My Ben.

I wanted Ben more than anything in that moment, and I began sobbing as I nodded my head feverishly trying to convince them that I had no other information about John Murray. At least, not with me. I had set a plan in place that was playing out as I sat bound to the cheap plastic chair. I doubted the men knew about my rented mail box, the copied letter from the grave, the duplicated hard drive, or the letter I sent to Mrs. Kemp. They were all things I had to believe no one knew about. If the men and John Murray somehow knew about my plan, they would foil my attempts at securing the information that Mr. Kemp had lost his life digging up. His death and my abduction would all be for nothing. Not to mention the fact that in the event of my death, the information in my rented mailbox would be in Ben’s and Mrs. Kemp’s hands. I would be putting both of them in danger if it came to that. I had to make sure it never got to that point.

“I s-swear. I am just a paralegal. I was just curious. Please just take my stuff, but let me go.” I was trembling so fiercely that my bones shuddered and ached. The heavy-set man looked at me skeptically and then moved forward. He bent down, grasped the front two legs of the seat I was bound to, and flipped me backward. As I went crashing backward to slam into the floor, I sealed my eyes and held my breath, waiting for the pain.

Oh God!

Despite stiffening my neck, my head cracked against the floor. I knew the man was screaming at me, but my eyes rolled around in my skull aimlessly, and my ears rang loudly.

“Don’t lie to me girl! I’ll cut the tongue outta that pretty mouth of yours!” he roared. I gathered as much air into my lungs as I could and screamed back at the man.

“That’s all I know!” A painful sob tore through my scream, and my shoulders began to rock with my heavy weeping. “Please. That’s all I have. All I know,” I croaked out weakly still lying bound to the chair that lay back on the cold floor. The utility tape that wound around my ribs and over my thighs held me easily to the chair. My wrists were bound in front of me and the men fashioned a loop of sorts out of tape to fasten my bound wrists to the wide strips of tape across my thighs. It was all very rudimentary, but nonetheless effective. My wriggling, tugging, and pulling did nothing to free me from the chair I was strapped to. The heavy-set man tilted his chin towards the other man as he stepped away from me to take an incoming call on his cell phone. The muscular man righted my seat from the floor with one hand and watched me closely while waiting for the other man to rejoin my interrogation.

“Please,” I whispered. The man was unmoved by my plea. I scrambled to pull my thoughts together.

Think, Kat. Think!

“Gotcha,” the other man muttered into the phone and shook his head up and down. He hung up his phone, and I watched warily as he approached me. He said nothing just before he cocked back his balled fist and brought it down forcefully, connecting perfectly with my jaw. I sputtered and spit blood everywhere. It dripped freely down my chin since my jaw hung slackened.

“Seems you’ve made a bigger mess of things. Some lawyer is makin’ a bunch of noise over you. Now we gotta go do damage control.”

Ben! Ben knows I’m gone. Of course he knows I’m gone. He will find me. What if they get to Ben? What if they hurt my Ben?

The muscular man fastened a blindfold around my head, and I heard the distinct rip of utility tape. He secured the tape over my mouth and lightly slapped my face. More panic and worry consumed me as I listened closely to both of my captors walking in what I could hear was an easy stride out of the warehouse. Sobbing overcame me. I cried for some time, and my body rocked and shuddered as I resigned myself to these circumstances. My head hurt like never before. I was groggy. I had dried blood all over my face. I felt the skin across my jaw tighten as swelling grew from the spot where the overweight man’s fist had landed. I was nauseated and unbelievably thirsty. I had no way to be sure, but it felt like a considerable amount of time had passed since the men shoved me into the back of Ben’s SUV. I remembered hearing the men talk about not having any dinner and how I had been knocked out for a long while after they drugged me with whatever was in the needle that I’d been stabbed with. At some point during their absence, I must have passed out or simply fallen asleep, but either way I was out cold when the men came waltzing back into the warehouse. I lifted my head weakly and listened to their approach. The two were speaking casually about common things as if they were neighbors or friends, and there I sat, kidnapped and beaten at the demand of John Murray. The men came directly to me, and in an instant, the tape was ripped from my mouth stealing the breath from my lungs. I gasped to calm my thumping heart and aching lungs. The blindfold was next. It was jerked from my head, and my entire brain and face was consumed with extreme pain anew. My stomach roiled and threatened as I fought to gain my bearings through the anguish that was tormenting me physically and mentally.

Don’t vomit
, I admonished myself as I swallowed down the powerful urge to be sick.
Focus, Kat! Find out what is going on
.