Whisper In The Dark (The McKinnon Legends-- The American Men Book One) (36 page)

She pulled, jerking on the chains in frustration. “Damn it! I cannot catch a freaking break here.” And pushing her shoulder hard into the plywood, it too, held fast.

Not wasting any more time, she looked around for anything to break those chains or for another way out, knowing she had precious little time. Razor was coming and there was no keeping that quiet. He was as furious as a raging bull cursing and spouting all the ways she was going to die.

“Not today, asshole!” she shouted back.

Head-butting him broke open her stitches. Feeling the blood running freely down her back and shoulders, she was faint and nauseous. Leaning up against the wall for a moment, she was waiting for her world to steady. Opening her eyes and looking across the hallway, she saw the stairwell. Seeing it as a gift from the heavens and a means of escape, she prayed for another miracle.

“Please be unlocked,” she asked pushing the doors. They opened. “Yes!” she said triumphantly. Sneaking into the stairwell and quietly closing the door behind her, she was very careful not to let the latch click to give away her position. Making her way up to the third floor, she doubled back to the opposite end of the hallway hoping he would not follow. But could she be so lucky?

This had to be a part of the original warehouse office complex. There were file cabinets, old desks, and chairs scattered here and there. Opening drawers one after another, she found nothing to use as a weapon. Then she found the janitorial closet.

“Come on, there has to be something in here I can use,” her voice sounded loud in the eerie silence.

Frantically searching for anything to spray in his face, she discarded a number of items tossing them to the floor before settling on an almost full can of bug spray. Testing the spray, she found it worked and was thankful for the second miracle. After thirty-five years it could just as easily gone the other direction. So armed with a wooden handle minus the rag mop head, a light bulb she unscrewed from the socket, and the can of bug spray, she ventured out again.

Willing her breathing to steady, she hugged the walls and made her profile as small as possible. Inching her way along the corridor, she stayed ever alert to any indication Razor was still after her. She took the light bulb into her shirttail and broke it scattering the small pieces behind her. If he walked through it, she would have some warning he was coming. It was very quiet, too quiet in fact. Strange, she would not have thought he would abandon this chase so easily. Yet, she would never be so naive as to think he was not lying in wait either. He was still there. She could smell him.

“Oh Katheeerrrine….Come out, come out, whereever you are! You can run but you cannot hide,” he taunted as he systematically made his way through the abandoned offices.

She sucked in her breath, letting it out slowly. At least she knew where he was now. He was at the other end of the hall.

Increasing her pace, she no longer peeked into the open rooms to see if there were evident means of any easy escape. There was no more time. As she came to the end of the corridor, there was a wooden door with the sign above it directing employees to the warehouse.

She peeked through the grimy glass window to see exactly where she was. It was dark in the warehouse, but she saw streams of light peaking in around the worn gaskets of the dock doors, shining like bright beacons guiding her to freedom.

It was worth a shot. If she could get to the loading docks, perhaps she could escape out one of those dock doorways.

She opened what she now knew was her only means of escape and prayed it did not creek. Crawling through and gently closing the door behind her, she jammed the mop handle under the doorknob, breathing a short sigh of relief. It would take brute force to move it, not that Razor was in short supply of that commodity. It would just buy her a little time.

This landing led to a mezzanine thirty feet above a yawning warehouse floor, and the metal scaffolding spanning the cavernous room was like a suspension bridge used to oversee what was going on below in the once prosperous business.

Running in a squatting position across the platform, she made herself as small as possible, never looking down, and praying the old neglected catwalk held. Breathing a sigh of relief, she made it to the other side encountering a twin door just like the one she had crawled through on the opposite end. Easing this one open, she heard voices as she crawled onto a matching mezzanine spanning an even larger space.

From here she could hear and see it all. The single hanging light illuminated all she needed to see.

“Tony, you double-crossing bastard,” Kate muttered under her breath as she saw him there with Candi.

Rosa would be heartbroken, she thought, once she discovered her only grandson had resorted to murder and kidnapping. It was making sense to her now. Tony was behind this. He had to be. He knew of the legend. He was Kyle’s friend, so Doctor Death really had not purposefully killed him. Not that it mattered. Kyle was dead either way, so forgiveness was not going to be coming anytime soon.

Then the woman whose voice she heard came into view as she continued to creep across the metal catwalk. She saw Candice lounging comfortably and with too much familiarity on the old sofa. This was not a first meeting, and Candi was not in duress. She was obviously not a captive, lending credence to her theory that she was playing Robert for a fool.

“Bitch! Oh, you are so busted,” she muttered, angry because this woman who had so much in life could not be satisfied with what she had. She had to have it all no matter the cost. Well, Robert would toss her right out on her deceitful ass once he found out she was consorting with the enemy. Life just got better in her opinion.

Creeping ever closer, Kate needed to hear what they were saying. Listening, Tony talked about how he was going to get around the issue of the treasure not being worth much after all.

It was no skin off Candice’s nose, and she told him not to worry. She had enough to get him through.

Candice was saying that she was worried about Robert. She needed to get around him because she felt Robert did not believe her story about the baby.

“You worry too much. The man is a gullible fool. Just keep talking about how wonderful his kid will be, and he won’t notice for weeks that you are still a size 6.”

“I’m a size 4 and he has good reason to be suspicious, Tony. According to the development of the kid in the sonogram you gave me, I should be dreadfully fat by now. Fortunately, he is still not on to me. I think I can get him to marry me before he is the wiser, and then I can conveniently have an
accident
which will result in the loss of the brat. I will be devastated, of course.”

“Oh, of course,” he chimed in.

“He will believe me. He always does. However, Kate is smart.”

“And you think Robert isn’t? You stupid bitch,” Kate muttered.

“I strongly suspect she knows I’m not pregnant. She still has his ear, regardless of the fact I have crawled into his bed on several occasions.”

“I told you to wear padding,” Tony commented.

“Then I could not have seduced him. Hindsight being what it is I should have done just that. He has refused me at every turn,” she huffed, leaning back hard on the sofa.

Kate almost expected her to throw a temper tantrum. However, it more than pleased her to hear Robert had been telling her the truth. He had not touched Candi since marrying her, and Candi was not having his baby.

Again, life just got a little better. Once she got out of here, there would be no Candice and no baby, and Robert had been faithful. Maybe they did stand a chance after all.

Tony really did not care anymore if Robert believed Candice or not. It served the purpose of dividing him and his lovely wife. Tony knew she was leaving. According to Candice, there was a one-way ticket to New York still waiting on Kate's dresser.

Candi’s purpose was just about worthless. All he needed to do was get his hands on a couple million dollars of her money and he would wash his hands of them all. He might see if she were interested in a quick roll in the sack, but if not, well, her kind were a dime a dozen.

“Where is Razor?” he wondered finally missing him. “I told him to bring Kate to me.” He looked around expecting to see them.

“Make sure he kills her,” Candice said nonchalantly looking at her nails. “I do not want to have to wait for a divorce.”

Kate drilled holes into her. So she wanted her out of the way did she? “Not if I can help it, bitch. You have met your match,” Kate whispered.

Tony laughed at Candi’s command to kill Kate to secure an easier path to Robert. “Well, I hope you are willing to wait ten to twenty years because Robert is taking the fall for Brice’s death. Sheriff Maxwell has already arrested him by now.”

Candice could not believe Tony would double-cross her. No body double-crossed her or failed to give her what she wanted.

“No! That it is not what I planned,” she said quickly reevaluating her relationship with this thug.

“Oh yes, my pretty heiress. As we speak he is probably being cuffed, stuffed, and becoming someone’s bitch in county lockup. However, for a price I could be persuaded to let Razor take the fall if you will give me some incentive. After all, he was the one to put two bullets in the back of sonny boy’s brain yesterday. Robert was nowhere around, but will have a hard time with an alibi given he was out on the ranch with Kate digging holes.”

“How much, you slimy bastard?” Candice was smiling.

It was not often she met someone more devious than she. It was worth a couple of million just to say she had a worthy opponent.

“Bail me out of debt with Big Johnny, and give me enough to live comfortably on for the rest of my life, and I’ll arrange to have your little Miss Kate eliminated from the picture and leave you free to pursue Robert. Deal?”

“Will five million be enough?” she questioned digging for her cell phone to call her banker. Asking him to transfer the funds, Tony was almost sorry he had not held out for more. However, he was not going to get greedy at this point.

“Done,” she said closing the phone.

Candice pulled her checkbook out of her purse and laid it on the desktop. Pulling out her Mont Blanc pen, she began to write. With flare she ripped the check off the pad holding it out to him as if she wrote five-million-dollar checks on a daily basis. Tony figured she probably did.

He had never seen so many zeros. Reaching across the desk, he took one side before she let the other go. The check, suspended between them, supplied the perfect place for a drop of blood from Kate's head wound to land square in the middle.

Kate could not have agreed more with the sign. It was blood money.

Tony looked up into the darkness of the catwalk drawing his gun just as the explosive charge was detonated on one of the loading dock doors.

Robert and the deputy sheriff burst onto the warehouse first leading the group streaming in two by two.

“Drop it and freeze!” the deputy yelled.

Tony grabbed Candice putting her between him and Robert and fired three shots in rapid secession straight up before Robert could stop him. Candice was screaming as Tony dragged her fleeing off into the darkness of the warehouse using her has a human shield.

Chase, Sundown, and the deputy gave pursuit as Kate watched from the mezzanine. Kate was still in shock from being shot, blood streaming from between her fingers as she held her wounded leg.

“Robert! Up here. I’m hit!” she yelled down. Crawling on her belly, she made slow progress across the metal catwalk to the other side, clawing the grate with her fingers using her left foot to propel her along. She noticed the main electrical box just inside the door, and pulling herself up with great effort, shaky fingers tripped as many switches as she could. The lights began to come up one by one in rapid secession like falling dominos flooding the warehouse with light.

Robert could see her, but could not get to her as he watched in dismay.

“Behind you!” she yelled just before Razor slashed out at him with a deadly blade. Her warning saved his life.

Robert and his foe were locked in a deadly game of life and death. Then Robert felt Razor go limp falling to the floor. Standing behind them was a strange looking little man armed with a syringe.

“Quickly, before the effects ware off,” the little old man ordered. Robert obeyed.

The second deputy accompanied him.

Robert watched as the little man began to question Razor but not before asking if the deputy was able to take confessions.

“Read him his rights, quickly,” the doctor ordered. “I do not want him to walk away from his crimes.”

That done, he began to ask him questions.

“You are Lawrence Rosario?” the little man asked.

“Yes,” came the slurred response from the man stretched out on the floor.

“Do you understand this man here is a policeman and he has offered for you to keep our mouth shut?”

“Yes. I’m good. The woman locked up in my room will put me away for life. I’m screwed.” Razor almost smiled.

“Is your birthday April 7, 2002?”

“No. I’m a Capricorn,” Razor answered frowning wondering why everyone did not know that answer.

“Is your mother alive?” The doctor asked just to prove he was telling the truth.

“Yes. And she is a nag. She buried my father in the basement and claimed he left. Everyone believed her. Did I say she was a nag?”

“Did Robert kill Brice Langston?”

“No. He was out on the ranch with Kate. I’d like to cut her. She tastes good. Like candy.”

That confession just about sent Robert over the edge. The deputy placed the palm of his hand square into Robert’s chest stiff-arming him to stop him.

“Who did kill Brice, Lawrence? Do you know?”

“Of course I know. I did, I shot him twice in the back of the head,” he slurred confessing all. “Some of my more stunning work, too.”

That was information no one except the killer and a few law enforcement personnel could have known. The information had not been released. Even Robert was unaware of all the details. The deputy was radioing into Sheriff Maxwell asking for at least two ambulances.