The Hostage (7 page)

“Thanks. Oh, and I was kidding about hurting you. I never would do that sort of thing.” She smiled. “Have a good one.”

She had to try to make him feel better. He looked like he had just shit his pants.

Sarah turned away and ran, looking for a clock. She still had to get to Drake’s seat which, based on how the colors worked, was coming up a hundred meters ahead.

The whole time she watched her back. Somewhere a cop wasn’t to be trusted. She would hate to be gunned down because some asshole wanted her dead. Too bad her sister couldn’t have been more specific to which cop she was supposed to be cautious of.

She reached the blues with less than five minutes left. At the top of the stairs that led down to Drake’s seat, she stopped and looked for any cops. Even though she hated them and one was hunting her, she needed their help with Rod.

Two uniformed officers were walking her way, talking animatedly about something.

She ran over and stopped in front of them, making the two cops cease talking. They both took her face in and looked at each other.

“You recognize me? I was told all the cops here got my picture.”

They nodded in unison. “How can we help?”

“You’ve all been had. The American, Rod Howley, is lying. He’s the one behind everything. He’s not the shooter, but I suspect he has ties to the shooter.”

“The shooter? What are you talking about? We were told they’re here to apprehend a suspect or a witness. That was it.”

Sarah shook her head. “No, listen. A man is here to shoot someone named Drake. Because Howley is behind it, he used his influence to deflect the Toronto Police force. I don’t want to be killed, but he has a gun and someone will be shot within five minutes. Tell the rest of your men.”

“Are you absolutely certain? I’m going to have to verify this story.”

“Go ahead.”

The older cop of the two stepped a few feet away and repeated on his radio what Sarah had said about a shooter and that a man was supposed to be shot.

At the right moment, with only minutes to spare, Sarah waited until a trio of baseball fans were walking past them. She turned toward Drake’s aisle and hit the stairs running as fast as she could, using the fans as cover.

The crowd roared as someone at bat hit the ball. She couldn’t look up or she’d fall down the wide stairs. A quick glance at the seats told her she had about ten rows left.

She also knew she was down to a minute.

She slowed her pace and started looking ahead at all the people watching the game in their seats. Two uniformed officers were running along the front rows, heading toward the bottom of the stairs she was on. It relieved her to see that she’d make Drake’s seat before they even started up.

Three rows away now. She slowed and looked behind her. The two cops she’d stopped were coming down the stairs after her.

Shit. This is unwinding too fast.

With cops running at her from both directions and time running out, Sarah stepped up to Drake’s row and scanned the seat numbers until she saw seat number 126.

It was empty.

Chapter 8

Drake watched the action on the field with a lack of interest. This was his first time back in public since his life had been turned upside down. He thought he’d be dead or spending the rest of his life in prison for what happened two weeks ago. But now a lot of other people were dead and he was watching a baseball game with a police officer.

Even though that made him shake his head at how strange the world could be, he still couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched.

The bat cracked out a ball that looked like it might be a home run. The crowd went wild, with people all over the stadium jumping to their feet. Drake stayed seated beside Spencer.

“Things are really getting heated up, eh?” Drake said.

Spencer nodded. “You enjoying the game?”

“Sure.”

“It doesn’t look like it.”

“I’m just feeling a little off.”

“I hope you’re still not worried about Ferenci. You can’t put your life on hold because
maybe
this guy is after you.”

Drake looked down at his hands as he fiddled with them on his lap. “You’re right. It’s just, those Hungarians are non-stop. I don’t think it’ll end until they’re all dead.”

Spencer slapped Drake’s leg. “Don’t worry a second more. We’re on it.”

The fans settled down as the ball went foul. Drake scanned the crowd. Two police officers ran along the front row. He watched as they hit the stairs that led toward them and started up.

“I wonder what that’s all about,” Drake said, pointing at the cops.

“Who knows,” Spencer said.

Drake could hear the inquisitive cop voice in Spencer. He wanted to know what was going on as much as Drake did.

The announcer came on over the loudspeaker and announced that they were looking for an escaped prisoner.

The Sony JumboTron lit up with the picture of a gorgeous blond girl. Drake stared at it and frowned. He’d seen her before somewhere.

Then it hit him.

The newspaper on the train two weeks ago when he headed to his grandparents’ house in Oshawa. The front cover featured a girl who had exposed some kind of kidnapping ring at a Mormon Temple somewhere in the states.

The girl, he remembered from the Toronto Sun newspaper, was considered a hero. Her name eluded him at the moment.

The cops down below were coming up the stairs fast.

Drake turned in his seat and saw two cops running down the stairs heading his way too.

Without turning back around, he said, “Hey, Spencer, something’s definitely going on.”

Then he looked at the back of a girl standing two seats over and four rows up. She stared at the seats they had vacated.

As the announcer repeated the message about an escaped prisoner, the girl turned and in that moment Drake remembered her name.

Sarah Roberts.

He saw her face. She looked up at the JumboTron, an expression of shock mixed with anger crossed her lovely features.

“Be right back,” Drake said and jumped from his seat.

Sarah had turned away and stared up the steps at the approaching officers.

Drake stepped in behind her and tapped her shoulder.

Chapter 9

Sarah turned at the sound of
escaped prisoner
shouted from the stadium’s speakers. Her live image was plastered on the huge screen. She couldn’t believe it. Rod must’ve got the call that she had removed her bracelet and when the Toronto Police radioed in that there would be a shooting, he had ordered her taken back into custody.

He was attempting to stop her while she was still in sight. Having the JumboTron track all her movements and plaster her image for everyone in the stadium to see was something she hadn’t expected.

Oh, Rod, you are so full of tricks.

She turned to look at the cops approaching from above. They were only three rows away now and slowing down.

A hand touched her shoulder.

She jumped, spun around and pulled the guy’s wrist down, twisting it on the way around.

“Sarah, wait!”

She stopped. The man in front of her wasn’t a cop and it wasn’t Rod. Then why did the guy sneak up behind, use her name and touch her?

“Who are you?” she asked.

The guy stood to his full height. “Hello, Sarah Roberts, I’m Drake Bellamy. Pleased to meet you.” He said all this with a huge smile, his eyes alight and his teeth perfect. She hadn’t seen a man so gorgeous in all her life.

What horrible timing. Reality set in.

“Get down!” she shouted and grabbed his shoulders, shoving him to the stairwell.

A crack like the sound of a whip and a snapping of broken wood resounded quite close to her head. Then another. She chanced a peek. The officers who had come down the stairs were laying down, flat out. Blood seeped from a leg wound on the cop closest to her.

“I told you Rod was part of the shooting,” she shouted at the cop.

Even though the cop was wounded, he lifted his lapel radio and began speaking into it.

“Constable Jerkins here. I’ve been hit. Officer down. Sarah Roberts is not the problem. I repeat, Sarah Roberts is not the problem. We have a shooter aiming at us. We’re under fire. Backup needed.”

Great. Eat shit Rod. I got you this time.

Another crack snapped a piece off the plastic chair beside Drake’s head.

“What the hell is going on?” Drake shouted over the noise.

“Someone’s trying to kill you. We have to get you out of here, now.”

“I’ll help,” someone said. “Come on.”

Sarah looked up at the man who was offering a hand.

“That’s Spencer. He’s a cop. He’s safe.”

Sarah nodded and got to her feet. Spencer stood in front of Drake and guided them down the stairs.

In the few seconds that the shooter got off two shots, the patrons close to Drake and Sarah were coming to their senses. The Sony JumboTron had been aimed at Sarah, so it caught her pulling Drake to the ground and the cop getting shot in the leg. Almost everyone in the building had watched, riveted by what they were seeing. Even the baseball players had stopped the game to watch.

Like the flip of a switch, the fans panicked. Almost like the wave conducted during a baseball game, people got up and ran for the stairs and exits beyond. By the time Spencer, Drake and Sarah had gone five rows down, a flow of people entered the stairs in mass hysteria, similar to a dam bursting.

Spencer pushed past as many as he could, yanking Drake through with him. The cops who had been coming up the stairs moved aside to allow Spencer room to pass.

In a pile of bodies, arms and groping hands, Sarah stayed close to Drake. At the bottom of the stairs, Spencer jumped the small retainer wall and helped Drake over. Sarah cleared it with one jump off the last stair.

With all three of them on the turf, they were in the direct sun. Others had seen what they had done and followed them onto the turf. In seconds, running and screaming baseball fans rushed the field, running for the dugouts and exits with a wanton abandon only having a gunman in their midst could cause.

Sarah stayed close to Drake as they all ran across the field. She couldn’t let him out of her sight. He was her witness that he’d been shot at. If Rod somehow got his way, she’d at least like to prove what she does works.

Beware the cop
.

Sarah remembered the message from her sister. Could Spencer be the cop that wanted to kill her? That would make sense because Drake was at the ball game with Spencer. Maybe he brought Drake to the game to hand him over to the shooter.

Without any way to be sure, she had to play it safe. She followed close and waited for her opportunity.

They neared a large door that sat open, people exiting through it to the outside. It felt like they were running with half the people of Toronto on their tail.

At the last second, before they exited the stadium, Sarah grabbed Drake’s arm and leaned in close. “Come this way. Trust me or you’ll die.”

She yanked him to the side and lost Spencer in the crowd within seconds. More than twenty heads separated Drake and Sarah from Spencer when he turned around and tried to locate them. She ducked her head and got Drake to bow at the waist.

Twenty feet into the new corridor, she spotted another exit sign.

“This way.”

Sarah cautiously opened the door, which was unobstructed and led to the outside. They stepped into the summer sun and walked away from the stadium with no one on their tail, and no one knowing where they were.

Chapter 10

Elmore dipped the mop in the bucket and continued scrubbing the basement floor. With each swing of the mop he collected more blood, slowly removing proof that Jackie had ever been in his home. Later he’d wear protective clothing and use various bleaches and ammonias to finish cleaning her cell. The mattress would be burned and every piece of clothing he wore. Not a single CSI unit would ever be able to prove Elmore used the cages for anything other than role play with his panty photos that he shipped out weekly, which was a licensed, legitimate business.

He wondered how Sarah would hold up being locked away from the world. Maybe she would tell him things. Prophecies like she did for other people.

Jackie had been the longest girl he’d kept prisoner, coming in at six months. Maybe he’d keep Sarah longer. He could make an exception if she proved to be a good girl.

He had read a biography on serial rapist and killer Ted Bundy and remembered a quote that Ann Rule had said. Something about Ted being a sadistic sociopath who took pleasure in another human’s pain and the control he had over his victims to the point of death, and beyond. Elmore couldn’t believe that. Of all the brilliant people he had read about, Ted was once married and functioned well. Sure he did mean things, but who didn’t nowadays?