The Unlucky (28 page)

The man at the door brought his gun to bear on Sarah and stepped closer.

“Enough of your meddling,” he said.

A canister spewing some kind of gas rolled in between the man’s legs. Then pockets of blood opened up in his vest. He blinked and looked down. Blood pulsed out of the new holes in his chest.

“Hey,” he said. “What the—”

He fell beside her as Sarah began to cough, her eyes welling up from the effects of the gas. Another man fell, blood coming from a neck wound.

The large door to the panic room was closing. How many people had made it in there while she got the saw wrapped around her ankle and fought with Turner? Twenty, thirty?

In a last ditch effort, Sarah swung her foot—the saw’s cord still attached to it—around hard. The saw followed and came to rest beside the opening to the panic room. Just as the door was about to drop firmly closed, she nudged the thick saw in place and the door stopped, the engine controlling its movement grinding gears. It ground for another few seconds, then quieted.

With her hands still behind her back, Sarah couldn’t wipe her eyes, but whatever the gas was it made her sneeze and cough again.

“Clear,” someone yelled, their voice muffled from a mask.

Men wearing helmets, goggles, breathing apparatus, and Kevlar jackets with ‘Police’ stenciled on their backs entered Medical Room number two.

“Two down,” one of them yelled. “Need medics in here now. Got a bleeder, too.”

Then five of them forced the panic room door open and charged down the stairs.

Sarah could barely see through the tears clogging her eyes, but she knew it was over. The girls could go home now.

Sarah curled up by the cupboards to hide her face from the gas still coming out of the canister.

This time Vivian was right. It was better she didn’t have the whole picture until now. She would’ve died coming in here with a machine gun, blasting away at men like Turner.

This was the only way. It had to be handled like this.

But it’s not over, Sarah.

She was reminded of the black book and the man Marshall Machiavelli answered to. She knew that this man was on the run. He was heading to one of his other torture clubs in Amsterdam to lock it down and wait out the heat.

Vivian said she’d tell her what she needed to know soon.

But first, get to the Toronto airport by morning and buy a ticket for Amsterdam on a KLM flight leaving at noon.

Diner dropped beside her, interrupting her thoughts. Sarah looked up through tears as Diner set a mask over her nose.

“You okay?” Diner asked.

Sarah nodded. “It’s just so sad. I’ve seen a lot in my life, but this is …”

Diner shook her head. “I know.”

Together they watched as girl after girl was brought up from the panic room. Even as the paramedics arrived to deal with their wounds, Sarah and the detective waited until all the women walked out of the basement before leaving Medical Room number two.

It was to honor them, to stand for them. To show the women someone still cared.

“It’s over,” Diner said.

“I’m afraid not,” Sarah mumbled from behind her mask. “This is just the beginning.”

Chapter 32

An hour later, outside in the parking lot where the air was clean and the tear gas symptoms had faded, Aaron came over and hugged her gently. When he pulled back, his nose was twitching.

“Don’t ask,” she said.

“Interesting.” Aaron stepped back, eyebrows raised.

“That’s all you’re allowed to say on the subject of odors.” She raised a finger. He nodded. “Now, how did you manage to pull this off?”

“Just as you directed in the note. Once Detective Diner left the apartment, Parkman called in a couple of favors. When we had the ear of a few high-ranking officials, the ones Vivian made you write down as safe and not in league with this place,” he motioned at the warehouse, “the ETF were called in and here we are.”

“But they have sentries posted up and down the street.”

“ETF took them out one by one, but as instructed, they waited until Detective Diner’s car with you two in it, entered the premises.”

Diner was shaking her head. “I would’ve never believed it.”

“Believed what?” Sarah asked.

“Even the pants.” Diner looked away.

In the note, Sarah had asked Aaron to bring a change of pants. She had gladly discarded her blood and urine soaked pants in the warehouse’s restroom and now wore dry jeans, her Passport in the back pocket.

Medical personal and police officers meandered throughout the parking lot dealing with the wounded. So far they had rounded up twenty-five women. Eighteen of them needed hospital care, nine of them were maimed for life and four girls would never walk again. Two girls had gone blind and one woman found in a dark part of the warehouse had been subjected to acid over time, her skin burned and mottled beyond recognition. Seven women, too ill to run, had been murdered during the raid by guards as they fled the ETF’s assault.

Diner gazed at Sarah. “This. My brother. All of it.”

“Brother?” Aaron asked.

“Another story,” Sarah said without looking away from Diner. “Now what?” she asked.

Sarah’s cuffs had been removed and paramedics had tended to her back wound. The shoulder blade had been nicked by the saw’s teeth, the skin broken. They wanted to take her to get stitches but she refused until the warehouse had been emptied of women, so they bandaged and dressed the wound the best they could.

Diner’s hand had been tended to, but she was supposed to head to the hospital to have an X-ray, which she also refused for the time being.

“I was a full-fledged atheist before this. You aren’t omnipresent. So how could you know what you knew without help?”

“It’s one thing to hear about Vivian, it’s another to see what she can do through me.”

Diner nodded and looked down at her wounded hand. They stood side by side in silence, watching the authorities do their jobs. Diner was going to get the credit for the bust. A forensics team was at the funeral home taking pictures, logging the evidence. The paperwork would take weeks, but what Sarah needed to know was where Diner stood with everything Sarah had done.

“Can you see why I did what I did?” Sarah asked.

Diner nodded without hesitation.

“You watched the video on the CN Tower. Vanessa was about to fall. There was no way back. A suicide would’ve ended this. No one would investigate. Her father, who fed this place with girls, wouldn’t have been incensed. It was the only way.”

“I know that now.”

“Joel and Belinda had to die. The system wouldn’t—”

“I was there,” Diner cut in. “I saw the bodies. I would’ve had a hard time not killing them myself.”

Sarah studied the detective’s face. This could go either way. There was no more running. Either they would arrest her and she’d be stuck in the system for years, or she would be on that plane tomorrow headed to Amsterdam.

“Do you remember me asking about Hitler and would you have killed him or not?”

“I remember.”

“That’s Fletcher’s father in this picture. He sired Fletcher and Joel. He beat his wife until she died. He hated women. Then he joined the Torture Garden, the legal one that still operates all over the world today, and decided to create this place. The old man was dying in the hospital anyway, but being given a one-way ticket out of here—by a woman, no less—was pure hell for him.” She had worked herself up, rousting new pain from her wound. Even her cheek where the baseball bat had jabbed her started hurting again.

“Look Sarah, I have a lot of reports to write.” Diner pushed off the cruiser she was leaning against. She stepped away, then stopped and turned back. “You’re free to go.”

“Go? How’s that? I’m the most wanted woman in Toronto. And what about my statement? Aren’t you going to need one?”

“Leave. Get to the airport. Do your thing. Don’t worry about paperwork. That’s my job. I’ll write it up without you here. The gun misfired on the CN Tower. It was an accident. Joel and Belinda were self-defense. Fletcher’s dad asked for water and toilet paper to wipe his nose. How the hell could you have known he’d eat it. Niles Mason shot Timothy Simmons and tried to frame you. Then he shot two Toronto councilmen and committed suicide. If anything, you’re the victim here. You were the unlucky one in all of this.” She stepped back in front of Sarah. “After what I witnessed you do here, all these girls saved, at the expense of possibly losing your own life, there is no way I could repay you.” Sarah’s eyes watered at the mention of the damaged women. “Go get that bastard. Go get that black book. But I have one condition. Once you get that book, I get it. I want every single person who’s involved with this warehouse to pay for what they have done. I won’t rest until that day comes. Do we have a deal?”

“We do. But I need something from you.”

Diner leaned back. “What I just said isn’t enough?”

“It’s not enough.”

Aaron shrugged. Parkman was making his way over. Sarah waited for him to join them.

“What is it, Sarah?” Diner asked. “What do you want?”

“For your APBs or BOLOs to be updated before I leave here.” She smiled showing teeth. “If we leave and I get to the airport where I’m stopped and detained, it wouldn’t be good.”

“I’ve already sent out the word that we got you and half an hour ago I relayed the message to my superiors that you were innocent of everything and leaving Canada. No one will detain you.”

“Great. Then that’s it then.”

“No, there’s one more thing.” Diner grabbed Sarah’s arm with her good hand, nudged her closer, and hugged her, mindful of her back wound. “Thank you for reintroducing me to my brother,” she whispered in Sarah’s ear. “You have done more good than you will ever know.” Diner was crying. Her body hitched with the tears slightly. “I will always remember you.” She pulled back. “Sarah, woman to woman, I love you for what you have done here. Come back anytime. Stay with me. I’ll make dinner. I owe you. Just leave your guns at home.” She hiccuped a laugh through her tears.

Sarah wiped at her face. “I’ll take you up on that.”

They hugged again.

When Diner let go, she turned around and headed for the open door of an ambulance. The doors closed, the ambulance pulled away, and Detective Marina Diner was gone.

“Parkman, Aaron, take me to the airport. Then we need a hotel and I need a stiff drink.” They started walking. “I need a bottle of whiskey. I don’t want to feel anything for the next twelve hours.”

“I know just the place,” Parkman said.

In the car, heading toward the airport, Vivian whispered a daunting message to Sarah. Tomorrow’s plane will take off on time. It will have the man she’s hunting. It will be headed to Amsterdam as planned.

But there will be an incident that leads it to crash and there’s nothing she can do about it. There will be survivors, but innocents might be killed, too.

Will my target be on the plane?
Sarah asked for clarity.

Yes …

Sarah stared at the passing high rise buildings of Toronto as Parkman drove to the airport. Aaron sat beside her, his hand in hers. They would talk tonight. They would mend fences. They would make shelves.

And tomorrow she would get on that plane whether it went down or not because that was who she was. No one understood her like Vivian. Not even Aaron.

That was why she wouldn’t tell him that the plane was going to crash.

Her target was getting on that plane. Because of that, there was nothing that would stop her from boarding it, too.

Nothing.

Because sometimes there were more important things in life than worrying about death. Sometimes there were things that were greater than us. And even in the face of
death
, how could she
live
with herself if she didn’t go after her target?

Locating the black book would reveal the names of the criminals as well as the victims. Finding her target and stopping him from masterminding more torture clubs would free the tortured of the future.

Those girls who walked out of Medical Room number two had been abandoned, lost. But now they were free.

She would get on that plane for The Abandoned ones around the world.

Fear was an illusion. It was one she couldn’t afford.

The price of fear was too high.

Too damn high.

Afterword

Dear Reader,

*Spoiler Alert!

I’ve always wanted to explore that question of what I would do when Hitler was named Time’s Man of the Year in 1938 if I knew what I know now. As a writer, I get that opportunity.