The Marine Next Door (23 page)

And did she really need to hear the words from John? Danny had always been quick to tell her he loved her, even after the rape. From him, the words had meant nothing. From John, could she trust that they meant more?

But John said nothing further beyond, “I’ll be there. Nobody goes in that apartment except Travis and me. Understood?”

Her disappointment rushed out in a soft sigh. She still had a lot to learn about a healthy relationship apparently. “Understood.”

Once Maggie had ended the call and clipped her cell phone back on her uniform belt, she knocked on Joe Standage’s door. The super had agreed to “clock her in” whenever she entered the building. But there was no answer at his door. Maggie knocked again and leaned her ear closer to his apartment door. There was no indication of movement inside. Had Joe been called to an emergency elsewhere in the building? Or was he not even going to get the simple request of being there to say hello right?

By the third knock with no answer, Maggie had already decided to head up to her own apartment. If she waited any longer than five or six minutes—ten minutes, tops—to check in with John again, she had a feeling he would be calling her. Or even more worrisomely, skipping his promise to pick up Travis and heading straight here to make sure she was okay. So she punched the elevator call button and dialed Mr. Standage on his cell.

It went straight to voice mail. For a brief moment, Maggie considered trying his door again. But she hadn’t heard another phone ring. If he was in there asleep or in trouble, surely she would have heard the ring. “Hey, Joe. Maggie Wheeler here. I just knocked on your door to let you know I’m home. Why don’t you call me back when you get this message. Thanks.”

The elevator dinged and the doors opened. She peeked inside to make sure it was empty, then swallowed her fear and stepped across the threshold. She clipped the phone back to her belt and punched in number 7.

Her breath caught in her chest as the doors slid shut and the car jerked, before beginning its slow rise up the shaft.
I should have taken the stairs.
But the groceries were heavy, she was a grown woman wearing Kevlar and carrying a gun, and John really would worry if she didn’t call him soon.

When the elevator jerked a second time, Maggie gasped and grabbed on to the railing. Apartment, house, RV or tent—whatever her next home might be—she vowed that it would be located on the ground floor.

The
5
lit up over the doors and the elevator slowed its ascent. A scuffling sound on the outside of the car above her startled her. She glanced up at the fluorescent lights and decorative plastic grate on the ceiling. She trusted her eyes and willed her apprehension to dissipate. The light for the sixth floor lit up and she heard a thump. She glanced up again, a riot of goose bumps pricking across her arms and neck. Something was malfunctioning in the pulleys and machinery above her.

“Oh, God.”

Some
one
was up there. The nightmare was happening again.

Maggie dropped her bags before the elevator jerked to an unnatural stop. She unholstered her gun before the service door opened. She flattened her back against the wall before the lights shattered and the ceiling crashed in and Danny Wheeler jumped down into the elevator with her.

“Hello, Mags.” She raised her gun and he grinned. “At last we’re together.”

Chapter Twelve

Shock or terror or the adrenaline roaring through her blood created a moment’s hesitation, giving Danny a split second of time to slam his arm down over her wrists as she pulled the trigger. The shot deflected off the ancient carpet and sparked against the steel wall. In the same follow-through of his swing he clamped his hand around her throat and pinned her against the railing.

Maggie kicked at his shins, shoved at his throat.

He snagged her wrist as she brought the gun to bear again and he slammed it into the wall beside her. One smack stung her knuckles. With a second blow her fingers went numb. With the third her grip popped open and the gun crashed to the floor.

Danny kicked it away before she could even gurgle a cry through the choke hold on her throat.

“Danny,” she growled, “you’re going to prison.”

“I don’t care.” Picking her up by her throat and wrist, he hurled her across the elevator.

That was his first mistake.

She was closer to the gun now. Maggie pushed forward with her knees, stretched, reached.

“I saw you kiss another man.” He kicked the gun away. He whirled around and kicked out again, his foot catching her in the abdomen below her vest and robbing her of breath. “You kissed him!”

Curling up into a protective ball, Maggie fought off the bruising pain and the flashback to another time and another blow.

“You were with him last night, weren’t you?” He made the healing beauty of her time with John sound like a damning curse.

Truth or lie, there was no need for her to answer. He wouldn’t listen.

“You promised to love me forever.” Danny picked up her gun and pressed it against her belly. Maggie held herself still against the bruising poke of the barrel as Danny grabbed her phone and handcuffs off her belt. She inhaled a deep breath when he pulled away, then bit down on a fearful curse as he slipped the cuffs and gun into the pockets of his sweaty, grimy coveralls. Wherever he’d been hiding for the past twenty-four hours, soap and clean water hadn’t been a part of it. “And now you’re bangin’ some other man?”

“Danny, don’t.” That one plea sneaked out as she watched him drop her cell phone into the empty hole where the elevator’s emergency phone was supposed to be.

He reached up behind the panel and did something to the wires. The lights of the panel blinked on again. The machinery above her hummed to life as he pulled out his arm and straightened. He punched the
G
for the parking garage and the elevator began to descend. Maggie’s heart sank with it.

“I made that same promise. I love you. I have always loved you. I always will.”

His promise had ceased to have meaning long ago. “You have to let me go, Danny,” she wheezed through the pain in her gut. “This is kidnapping.”

He smoothed his fingers over his bald head, his hand coming away from his skin in a fist. She made the mistake of watching the fist when she should have been watching the boot.

“Shut up!” She rolled up at the last minute, deflecting his kick to a glancing blow off her vest. He kicked her again. “Nobody…” And again. “Tells me…” And again. She was saving herself from broken ribs, but the blows were robbing her of breath. “What to do! You’re mine, understand? He can’t have you!”

No,
she argued with herself.
You’re a different woman—stronger, braver.
She was smarter now than she’d been ten years ago. She had a son to live for, fight for. She had John Murdock in her life. She had hope for something better. Maggie knew how to fight back now. She wanted to fight back. She had to fight back.
Do it!

With a primal scream, Maggie kicked out with her own feet, catching Danny’s leg on the next blow and knocking him flat on his back. And then she was up on her knees, attacking him for all she was worth. She put her fists together and hit him square in the gut, stopping his cursing by stealing
his
breath.

She pushed to her feet, staggered to the control panel and pushed every button, ensuring a quicker stop. She sensed Danny rising behind her, smelled him closing in and rammed straight back with her elbow. His grunt of pain told her she may have cracked an unguarded rib. When he lunged for her again, she kicked straight for the groin and doubled him over.

“Help me!” She turned and pounded on the door. “Joe! Anybody! Call 9-1-1! Help!”

She had to get her gun. She had to stop the damn elevator.

“Why aren’t we stopping?” she shouted.

“Because I’m smarter than you, bitch.”

Too late, she felt the hand in her hair. She whirled around, kicked, punched. But Danny had her now. He slammed her head down against the railing and pain splintered through her skull.

Maggie dropped to her knees as the design in the carpet swirled into a blur and she felt like she might throw up.

She was going to die. She had a son to raise, a job to do and a man to love. And she was going to die.

She heard the click of the handcuffs and felt the pinch at her wrists. And then Danny was hauling her to her feet, capturing her, limp and woozy, against his side.

“I rigged the elevator, Mags. Just like I’ve rigged it before.” He sounded triumphant as the
G
lit up and the elevator slowed to a stop. Blood was warm and sticky where it dripped into one eye, half-blinding her to the gun he pulled from his pocket. “You may be too stupid to learn that. But know this.” He pressed a kiss to her temple and she nearly retched. “We love each other, Mags. And you will never be with any man but me.”

Maggie heard a ringing in her head. It sounded like her phone, only there was no phone to answer.
Think, Maggie.
But the ache in her head was throbbing so badly that she could barely stand, much less keep a coherent thought in her brain.

When the doors opened, the instinct to run tried to clear her foggy senses, but her feet were like lead. Danny’s arm anchored at her waist was the only thing that moved her forward, and when he stopped abruptly, she would have pitched to the concrete floor if he hadn’t pinned her to him.

“Boyle, what the hell are you doing here?” Danny’s seething anger prompted Maggie to lift her bound wrists to try to wipe her vision clear.

She blinked Lawrence Boyle’s bleached-blond hair into focus. “You said you were going to hide out at the shop,” Lawrence explained calmly. “But you left. I knew you were coming to see Maggie.”

Danny waved the gun at his friend. “Are you trying to get me arrested? Get that thing out of here.” He pulled Maggie forward as he pointed to the extermination company’s white van. “That thing’s like a beacon for everyone in KCPD who’s looking for me. What the hell were you thinking?”

Instead of replying to that, Boyle planted himself in their path, forcing Danny to stop. The bruises might not show up for a few hours yet, but there was no mistaking the blood on Maggie’s face. “Did you hurt her?”

Maggie held out her hands, beseeching her only ally. “Help me. Please.”

The dark bug eyes darted over to her. Boyle didn’t look away until Danny spoke again.

“She’s my wife. How I straighten her out is my business.” Danny pointed the gun toward the van. “Now if you really want to help an old friend, you’ll drive that thing away from here and take the heat off me.”

“I’ll help. Come with me.”

As her deflated hope struggled to think of a way to outsmart two abductors instead of one, Danny dragged her to the back of the open van with Boyle. The burning stench of open chemical containers stung her sinuses and cleared her head like a whiff of smelling salts.

“What are you doin’ with all this stuff, man?” Danny was as dumbfounded by the mess as she.

But Danny was only confused. She was instantly on alert.

The containers were empty.

“Oh, my God.” She exhaled her fear on a soft breath, then ducked as Lawrence Boyle grabbed a wrench from the back of his van and swung it at Danny’s head. The blow knocked him to the ground. Maggie staggered after the gun that slid beneath the van’s rear tire, but Boyle beat her to it.

Before she could utter a warning, he pointed the gun at Danny’s head and fired.

Maggie jumped at the sharp report that echoed throughout the garage. She tore her shocked gaze away from the pool of blood forming beneath Danny’s head and looked up into the cool, emotionless expression on Lawrence Boyle’s round face.

“Give me my gun, Lawrence,” Maggie ordered, knowing her world had just taken a wild turn into Crazy Land. The relief she might have felt at Danny finally being purged from her life never came. This was something new to fear, something far less predictable than a violent ex. “Give me my gun.”

Boyle looked at the handcuffs on her outstretched wrists, but made no comment or move to free her. He looked up into her eyes and smiled. “I took care of the problem for you, Maggie. Danny will never hurt you again.”

“Thank you, Lawrence.” Did she move in closer to try to reach the gun? Or should she retreat? Maybe it was enough just to keep him talking. “When the police come, I’ll explain what happened. It was clearly self-defense. You were assisting an officer.”

“I did that for you, Maggie. Danny was a bad man. I came to save you.”

Maggie nodded. She tried to keep her focus on Boyle while scanning the garage for any sign of movement or sound. Two gunshots had been fired in the past ten minutes. The elevator had stopped and reversed course. A man was dead on the garage floor and no one was responding?

Her phone rang from inside the elevator again. John!

Please let one person notice that things were not right in her world.

Frustration screamed inside Maggie’s head but she kept her voice calm. “Do you have a phone, Lawrence? We need to find my phone and call 9-1-1.” She needed to get him to talk, like when she interviewed a victim or witness. It might mean the difference between living and dying today. “I’m worried about the chemicals you may have spilled.” She glanced into the back of his van. “Where are all the poisons you killed the ants with?”

“You need to come with me.” Maggie wondered if she was the one who was mad when he closed his beefy paw around one of her bound hands and led her toward the door to the storage lockers. “I wasn’t sure how I was going to make this happen until Danny tried to take you away from me today. When he left the shop with his tools, I knew he was going to hurt you. I had to be here to stop him. He can’t take you from me.”

“Lawrence, no.”
Please, no.

He opened the door and led her inside. Once she crossed the threshold, the stink of chemicals—formaldehyde, permethrin, who knew what else?—was so heavy in the air that her eyes watered and she felt woozy again.

The door closed behind her, trapping her in the close space with only a sealed window at the end of the walkway. “What are you doing, Lawrence? How are you helping me?”