Broken Road (41 page)

She let go of the curtain and smiled. Her first smile in God knows how long. Her first smile since she’d said good-bye to Jarrod. The smile quickly faded as she accepted the reality of where she was and the situation she was in. She was done and took some toilet paper to wipe herself with. She pulled up her pants and turned to flush the toilet. She was washing her hands when she sensed he was near. She turned and found him standing in the doorway, his glasses on his head holding back his greasy, disheveled hair.

“I’m coming,” she said.

“I hope you like b-bologna and cheese.”

She nodded, although she absolutely detested bologna. At this point she realized that beggars can’t be choosers and she was hungry enough to eat a dead man’s toenails.

He placed the sandwich and drink on the small table. He pulled the chair out for her, and she looked at him hesitantly before sitting down. Angel tentatively picked up her sandwich and nervously took her first bite. After another bite, hunger took over, brandishing her trepidation aside like a hammer-wielding Thor. Eating as quickly as she could, practically shoving the sandwich down her throat, she swallowed and followed it with a long sip of the warm soda. Bologna had never tasted so good.

He wasn’t eating. He just watched her while she ate. Neither one of them spoke. When she was done, she asked if she could stand up and walk around the room a bit. Her body ached and she needed the movement. He agreed as long as she kept her distance from the front door. He watched her assiduously as she roamed the room, keeping his hand firmly on the gun, which he had made a show of placing on the table. Finally she broke the silence.

“Why?” she asked.

“Why what?”

“Why did you kidnap me?”

“I guess you h-haven’t looked in the mirror lately. You’re beautiful,” he said, smiling.

She blushed and said, “Normally I would thank a person for a compliment such as that. But I don’t like you very much at this moment, so I don’t feel the need to be polite.”

“Feisty. I strongly suggest that you try very hard to r-rein that facet of your personality in a bit.” He got his point across.

She sat down on the edge of the sofa and softly said, “I’m sorry.”

“Good girl. I forgive you. You should go to sleep now. You’ve had a l-long day.”

“I have more questions. Why aren’t you stuttering as much as you did that day in the park? How do you even know me? Do you have a partner?”

He looked at her and said with authoritativeness, “No more questions.”

“But—” she continued.

“
I said no more questions!
” he screamed. She recoiled and instinctively covered her face, which she could feel was now swollen in the cheek area from his last fit of temper.

“I’m sorry…I’m sorry,” she said, keeping her face covered.

“Get in the bedroom!” he hollered. “N-now!”

No. No, please don’t let him hurt me
, she thought. She looked up pleadingly into his eyes, her own brimming with tears. “Please don’t hurt me. I promise not to ask any more questions. Please, just please, don’t hurt me.”

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, annoyed with her weak and constant apologies. “Just go to s-sleep.”

“Where?” she asked, still shaking from his outburst.

“In the bedroom. Where else?” He noted her surprise and sudden eagerness to leave. He grinned at her and she wondered why. “I know what you’re thinking, but you can f-forget it. The windows have been boarded up inside and out. You have no way to escape. Sleep t-tight.”

She walked into the bedroom and closed the door, expecting him to yell at her for doing so, but he didn’t. She pressed her ear to the door and heard clearly when he locked it from the outside. She turned on the lamp and quickly went to the windows to verify if what he had claimed was true. Well, he may be a kidnapper, but he certainly was no liar. They were double boarded and nailed solid into the frame. She tried pulling on them, but they wouldn’t budge. She quickly looked around the room and checked the drawers of the dresser and night tables to see if she could find something—anything—she could use to pull the boards out. But there was nothing. She checked the closet, but again found nothing she could use.

On the bed laid clean clothes, undergarments, and toiletries. This crazy man thought of everything. But he might have missed something. There was no such thing as the perfect crime. Everyone slips up. She’d seen enough
CSI
shows to know that. She tried looking around again; this time she bent down to look under the bed and behind the dresser, but still came up with nothing.

Frustrated and frightened, Angel lay down on the bed, not even bothering to get under the covers. She had no idea what time it was. Whether it was day or night, she had no way of knowing. There was no clock in the bedroom, and she hadn’t bothered to put on her watch after her shower last night. Or was it two days ago? Who knew? The only things she was certain of were that she never felt so alone in her life and that she desperately wanted and needed Jarrod.

Jarrod. The thought of never seeing him, hearing his voice, or feeling his soft touch again sent glacial shivers down her spine. She closed her eyes and felt the warm tears saturate the pillow under her head. She felt herself slipping away and welcomed the safety, warmth, and refuge she found there.

Chapter Forty

 J
arrod had left the detective’s office in search of the men’s room. As he passed one of the desks where a plainclothed officer talked on the phone, he couldn’t help but overhear a portion of the conversation. When the officer mentioned Angel’s name, Jarrod froze. He noted he was writing what appeared to be an address, phone number, and some information on a piece of paper and carelessly and unintentionally left it where Jarrod could see it. Jarrod quickly scanned the information and then walked over to the watercooler, taking a cup, filling it, and then slowly drinking the cool water, all the while nonchalantly listening to the one-sided conversation.

He continued to listen as he looked around and noticed that Mr. Skyler was still in Detective Lieutenant Robert’s office, pacing and talking on his cell phone. He seemed upset and was beginning to raise his voice to whomever he was speaking to. Jarrod couldn’t clearly make out was being said, due to the fact that he was also trying to focus on the conversation that the officer was having regarding Angel; nonetheless, he sensed something was wrong. He saw Mr. Skyler hang up the phone and sit down angrily in one of the chairs.

Jarrod oscillated between staying where he was or returning to the detective’s office, but the decision was made for him when the officer hung up the phone. Before entering, he knocked on the open door. Willie looked up and saw it was Jarrod and motioned for him to come in.

“Everything alright, sir?” Jarrod asked.

Willie gave Jarrod a worn-out, tentative smile and said, “I think with all we’re going through, you can go ahead and call me Willie.”

Jarrod simply nodded. He stood in the doorway, not wanting to intrude on his privacy. Sensing Willie felt the need to speak or vent, he waited for him to initiate the conversation. After a long pause, Willie took a deep breath and said, “I just got off the phone with Helen. Morgan’s mother.”

“That must have been hard.”

“It was…it is…” He took another deep breath. “I feel torn. I know she had nothing to do with any of this, but I almost feel as if she did. If she hadn’t spoiled Morgan the way she did—if she had only disciplined her once in awhile, just said no every now and then—maybe Morgan wouldn’t have turned out the way she did.”

He hesitated before going on while Jarrod took a quick glance behind him at the officer who had taken the call concerning Angel. The officer was on another call, and although Jarrod was anxious to speak with him about what he had overheard, Willie began to speak again, forcing him to abruptly turn away from looking at the officer and to face Willie.

“Helen is my wife’s younger sister. They’ve always been close. She’s a good woman that was burned big-time by her ass of a husband. She tried hard to be a good mother, maybe too hard. She gave up a lot so she could offer her daughter the best, a fact Morgan never appreciated. My niece always wanted more; no matter how much Helen gave her, it was just never enough. At one point Helen took on three jobs to support herself and Morgan, but my niece never gave a rat’s ass. We tried to help out every now and then, but there was only so much we could do. We’re not exactly rolling in the dough either, and with two kids, a mortgage, car payments…”

“You don’t have to explain, sir. Both my parents work, and still they struggle to make ends meet. Um, did Mrs. Billings know what Morgan did? I mean, did she know about Morgan’s involvement in Angel’s disappearance?”

“Yes and no. She wasn’t aware of what Morgan had been planning. If she had, I know she would have forewarned us. She loves her daughter, but she would never have allowed for Angel to be in any sort of danger. She loves Angel as if she had given birth to her herself.” He looked out the window again and said, “If there was any way at all of preventing this, she wouldn’t have hesitated to do so. Helen found out when Morgan called her and told her of her involvement right before turning herself in. Helen didn’t even know she had done that. I told her.”

“How is she?”

“Upset, to say the least. She’s crying hysterically.”

“Is she flying out to be with Morgan?”

“Next flight out.”

Jarrod took a deep breath and glanced behind him again. The officer was no longer at his desk. A uniformed officer was standing beside it, sifting through the messages.

Jarrod frowned and said, “Excuse me a moment,” as he walked out of the office and went straight to the desk. “Excuse me, Officer?” The officer’s name tag indicated his name was Sergeant Powers. “Sergeant Powers?”

“Yes. Can I help you?”

“I was wondering if you could tell me where I can find the officer who was sitting here just a few moments ago.”

“Detective Bradley?”

Jarrod simply shrugged and said, “I didn’t catch his name. He was sitting here on the phone before.”

“If he was sitting at this desk, it would be Detective Bradley. His shift is over. He’s gone home. Is there anything I can do for you?”

Jarrod was disappointed to hear the detective had left. He looked down at his watch and noticed the time. God, it felt as though it had been forever since he’d last held Angel, kissed her, told her that he loved her. How did all of this come to be? She was supposed to be in Bradenton, happily spending the weekend with her family, and he was supposed to be sitting in his dorm room drowning in his sorrows because he missed her so much. He was definitely not supposed to be sitting helplessly in a police precinct waiting for news on her safety. He lowered his head in anguish and began to rub his face again.

Sgt. Powers cleared his throat and repeated, “Is there anything I can help you with?”

“Sorry. Ummm…when Detective Bradley was here, I heard him speak on the phone to someone, and I saw him write down some information. I—”

“What is your name?” the sergeant said as he continued shuffling through the stack of papers.

“Jarrod Wentworth. My girlfriend is Angelise Skyler.”

“The missing girl?” he asked flatly as he looked up.

“Yes.”

Now giving his undivided attention to Jarrod, he said, “I’m sorry about the situation. But I can’t pass any information on to you without speaking to Detective Lieutenant Roberts first. Detective Bradley would have told you the same thing. The only thing I can tell you is that we’ve been receiving a lot of calls with information and are checking out each and every one of them. Every call is being taken seriously.”

“Any leads yet?”

“Not yet. Sorry. We’ve checked out a few, but unfortunately they’ve all turned out to be bogus calls. As you can see…” He pointed to a stack of loose sheets of paper with writing on each, “We’ve gotten a lot of calls regarding her case.”

Jarrod nodded and saw that the sheet with the information Detective Bradley had written down was on top of all the others. Something about that call made Jarrod uneasy—sort of a gut feeling he had that that particular call wasn’t bogus. He had heard the detective ask the person on the line, “You say you work with Langdon?” Jarrod needed to find out where Benjamin Langdon worked. He thanked Sergeant Powers and started heading back toward Detective Lieutenant Roberts’s office when he noticed three police officers escorting a handcuffed Morgan toward the holding cell.

Jarrod quickly walked toward them and said to the officer in the lead, “Officer, my name is Jarrod Wentworth. I need to ask her something important.”

“I’m sorry, but Ms. Billings is being taken to the holding cell in the back. She’s being processed, and no one can speak to her now until Detective Lieutenant Roberts is done with her.”

“What is it, Jarrod?” she asked.

The officer said, “No questions” as he started moving forward with her and the other officers in tow.

“Please wait. This is important,” said Jarrod to the officer. “I just need to know where Benjamin Langdon works.”