Deadly Abandon (11 page)

****

Sully didn’t return to the stands when the teams hit the ice for the third period. Breeana guessed he was still angry and decided to guard her from a distance. That was fine by her. How dare he criticize her marriage, something he knew nothing about?

He was a machine without feelings, hollow inside, the perfect alpha male to take on criminals and protect the innocent. He just didn’t give a damn about those he protected. She was a job to him, nothing more. Except, he wanted to sleep with her, that much she could see. But sex for the sake of pleasure versus commitment to a loving relationship was a bridge she couldn’t easily cross.

Glancing in her son’s direction, she was dumbfounded. Sully stood behind the WARRIORS’ bench, watching her. She read his lips when he told her to stay put. By this time, her father and Laura had joined the crowd, no doubt breaking speed limits from Mallard Bay to make the last period of play. It was her dad who added some clarity to the situation, explaining Sully had played hockey during his days at the university.

“He and I talked a little about the military college and its hockey program the night of the fire, after you were in bed. He called me to make sure everything was okay at the clinic. Anyhow, I was wired, couldn’t sleep a wink, and somehow we got to talking hockey. He asked me not to say anything. I guess he didn’t want it to appear he was bragging, especially to Cody.”

Breeana’s heart did a happy dance inside her chest. Maybe she didn’t really understand the kind of man Sully was. He might disguise it well, but he obviously had some feelings. He hadn’t wanted to usurp her husband’s place as the hero in her son’s eyes.

That says a lot, doesn’t it?

The score was still 2-2 with only a minute left in the final period when Sully called time-out.

“What’s he doing, Dad?”

“He’s shortening the bench,” her father replied. “He’s going for the win. In tournaments like this, it’s important to get as many points as possible. A win is worth more points than a tie.”

“I don’t understand.”

Her father whispered in her ear. “With one minute left, Sully’s using the best players to get the winning goal.”

The whistle blew. Cody won the face-off and broke for the net, streaking down the ice without his wingers. He wound up to take the shot, drawing his stick back. An opposing player hooked him from behind. Cody slid sideways, plowing head first into the net. The goal posts jumped their moorings and slammed into the boards. Cody sprawled on his stomach and didn’t move. Breeana leapt from her seat, intent on reaching her son. Her father grabbed her jacket and held her, pulling her back down beside him.

“Sully’s with him, Bree. Let’s wait and see if he calls you down. You don’t want to embarrass your son in front of his teammates.”

“Dad…” Even knowing he was right, Breeana clenched and unclenched her hands, fidgeted in her seat until Sully got Cody up on his feet and skating toward the bench. The crowd went wild as the referee called a penalty shot on the play.

Breeana released the breath she held.
Thank God, Cody is okay.

Sully reined Cody in and they talked for a minute before her son nodded. Then tapping his helmet, Sully sent him back out to center ice.

Her father nudged her shoulder. “See? What did I tell you? Cody’s fine. He’s taking the penalty shot himself.”

Breeana sat frozen in the stands, wishing the game would just end. Her son must have one heck of a headache after sliding into the net. She wouldn’t breathe easy until she checked him herself and made sure he was all right.

The whistle blew. Rounding center ice, Cody picked up the puck on the second pass and skated for the net. The goalie came to the top of the crease, cutting down the angle, meeting him head-on. Deking left instead of right, Cody backhanded the puck. The goalie went down and missed with his glove as Cody buried it, top corner.

“Yes, he’s got it!” Laura leapt from her seat ringing a cowbell. The fans cheered. There was a lot of back slapping on the ice as the WARRIORS celebrated their victory. After shaking hands with the other team, the boys headed to the locker room.

Breeana got caught up in the crowd and streamed into the lobby with the others. Standing shoulder to shoulder with Laura, she stood on her tiptoes and scanned heads, looking for her father with their coffee orders. A man approached through the throng calling her name. He wore the yellow jacket of a tournament official.

“I’m Breeana McGill. Is something the matter?”

“Your son got back to the locker room and started vomiting, ma’am. His coach says there’s no cause for alarm but the kid seems to be disoriented. We’ve called an ambulance. It’ll be here in fifteen minutes.”

Fifteen minutes?

“What’s the locker room number?” Breeana demanded. “I need to see my son.”

He angled his chin at the stairs behind her. “They’re in number ten.”

“Listen, I’m going there now. Have someone watch for the ambulance and escort the EMTs the second they arrive.”

“I’ll do it myself, ma’am. I’ll go outside and wait.”

“Thank you.”

She tugged on Laura’s arm as the tournament official pushed his way back through the crowd. “Tell Dad what’s happened. I need to check on Cody.”

Without waiting for an answer, Breeana shot down the nearest stairs, taking them two at a time. The downstairs hallway was dank, cold and dark. She guessed it must circle the perimeter of the ice surface, but it didn’t give any view of the arena itself. She must have missed the signs pointing to the locker rooms.

She ran full out, anxious to reach Cody and help with his injuries until the EMTs arrived. Offshoots of the tunnel spread out around her like spokes in a wheel. She wasted precious time searching each of them to find the right locker room.

Bare bulbs shone sporadically along each darkened corridor. Many of them broken or burned out beneath rusted grills, casting the tunnels in an eerie glow. Muffled voices ricocheted off cinderblock walls, but she couldn’t get a fix on where the voices originated.

Where is everyone? Shouldn’t there be people milling in the corridors?

She continued through the maze of tunnels until she found locker room number ten in the last corridor she searched. She was breathless by the time she reached it, her chest heaving, a growing uneasiness penetrating her spine.

Why is the team’s locker room so far away from the stairwell? And why isn’t someone waiting in the corridor for the EMTs to arrive?

She burst through the door and got her answer. The room was empty. The steel door slammed shut at her back with a decisive clunk. A key turned in the lock. She was alone. She was a prisoner.
This can’t be happening!
That murdering-psycho-madman was down here somewhere. It was the only thing that made any sense. She had raced into his trap like a steer to the slaughterhouse. She sucked in a deep breath and processed her last calming thought.

Cody wasn’t injured. It was all a sham, a clever trap based on her love for her child.

She would die because she had fallen for the oldest trick in the book.

****

Where the hell did she go?

Sully leapt the stairs three at a time and made for the lobby. Damn it, he’d told her to stay put. One minute she was there and the next she was gone, swallowed up by the throng heading for the door. He battled through the crowd as fans poured back down the stairs to grab seats for the next game. Laura and Jack rushed him when he reached the lobby.

Why isn’t Breeana with them?

“Where’s my daughter?” Jack snapped. “And how’s Cody doing?”

“I haven’t seen Bree. I thought she was with you. Cody’s fine. What in blazes are you talking about, Jack?”

Sully’s gut tightened as Laura and Jack filled him in on the ruse that sent Breeana into the maze of tunnels, the tunnels on the
far
side of the arena which were rarely used since the new wing was added a few years ago. He knew this because he played hockey here from time to time for charity events.

“When Laura showed me the staircase Breeana went down, I got concerned,” Jack said. “I know the old building from coming to other games, and I figured she had gone the wrong way.”

“Shit!” Sully reached for his weapon where he’d tucked it into the waistband at his back beneath his jacket. His blood iced with a deadly calm as he wrapped a hand around the familiar grip. “Find Cody and stay with him until I get back. Call 9-1-1. I need back up. Now.”

“Wait! Where are you going?” Jack shouted.

“To get Breeana back.”

Sully sprinted through the double doors back down to the rink. With no time to waste, he took the shortest route to the old locker rooms by cutting across the ice. Slipping and sliding his way between players doing warm-up drills before the next game, he took a puck to the ankle.

Hobbling and cursing, he kept on running toward the steel doors on the far side of the ice. Seeing the Glock in his hand, arena security chased after him. He waved them off with his badge and barked out an order to lock down the arena.

Frantic to reach Breeana, he plunged through the old entrance to the locker rooms, his pistol sweeping in a firing stance. She was down here somewhere with a killer. He couldn’t afford to make any mistakes. He kicked himself for leaving her alone upstairs. He might as well have hung a sign around her neck, saying “Take her, she’s yours.”

Chapter Seven

The sounds of scampering and squeaking reached Breeana along with their stench before she saw them pour out of the shower area. Sewer rats, too many to count. She guessed they hadn’t eaten in a while.

Will they attack?
One made a mad dash in her direction.

Yes, they would.

Breeana had never been afraid of rats, at least not the laboratory variety. But these rats were a new and terrifying species to her. Their oversized teeth seemed anxious to sink into fresh meat…a fresh kill…to sink into her. They caught her scent and the frenzied race to reach her was on.

Was this how it would end for her? Death at the hands of a madman, to be torn apart by rodents? No, not if she had anything to say about it. She vaulted onto the nearest bench and hauled herself up the cinderblock wall to the clothes hooks screwed near the ceiling. Clinging to those hooks with shaking hands, and ankles, she screamed at the top of her lungs.

Then she saw it, a pink, beaded rosary hanging by its silver chain from the hook nearest her head. The psycho had left her another calling card.

The rats below her were frenzied, whiskers twitching, beady eyes brightening with the knowledge dinner was only a hairsbreadth away. They stampeded over each other, leaping through the air and sliding back down the wall mere inches below her spine.

Soon they clambered up a pipe on the opposite wall and scurried along the overhead conduits slanted in her direction.

“Oh, dear God! Help me! Help me!” She screamed, imagining those gnashing teeth ripping at her flesh and dropping her to the ground.

****

Sully threw his weight against the door, again and again, listening to her agonizing screams and imagining the worst hell had to offer. The door wouldn’t budge and shooting the old locking mechanism didn’t release it. There had to be another way in. Then he remembered.

The bathrooms connected these old style locker rooms. He should know. He’d had enough fights with the opposing teams in them as a teen. He raced to the next locker room and,
thank you Jesus!
The door was unlocked.

His mind registered the cages stacked in the shower stalls as he charged through the shower area and into the next room. It took him about a nanosecond to size up the situation. His stomach heaved. Rats, lots of them.
Fuck!

“Get ready to jump!” His shots rang out and the rats started to fall. Breeana seemed paralyzed as the surviving rats fell upon the others, tearing flesh away from the bones of their fallen comrades that lay twitching on the floor.

He reached her in two strides, wrenched her into his arms, and raced for the door. He slammed it behind them with mere seconds to spare. The rats hurled themselves against the other side of the door.

“Holy hell, that was way too close.” Sully pulled her against him and held her tight. He doubted he had the strength to move anytime soon. He buried his face in her hair and inhaled the flowery scent while running his hands over her body. He did not want to think about what could have happened. “Do you need a doctor? Did they hurt you?”

“No, no. They didn’t bite me, but they almost scared me to death.” Her eyes were dark pools of terror when she turned them toward him. “How did he do it? How did he know the room would be filled with rats?”

Sully wrapped an arm around her shoulders and started the long trek out of the tunnels. He tried his cell phone, but there was no signal. They were in a dead zone. “He planned this, Bree. He trapped the rats and brought them with him. I saw the crates he used in the shower stalls. These old tunnels and locker rooms are hardly used anymore. He must have found a way in from the outside. It had to take him a few days to bring in so many of them.”

“He did it after he missed killing me at the clinic.” Breeana grabbed hold of his hand as she shuddered. “There’s a rosary hanging on one of the hooks in there. You’ll need to get it. And someone should talk to the tournament official, the one who said Cody was hurt and in that locker room.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll take care of it. But, Animal Control has to gas the rats before I’d risk letting anyone back in the room. Once that’s done, the forensic team will go in to gather evidence. I’ll get Millette out here to detain the jerk who lied to you, as soon as I raise him on my cell phone.”

“Thank you for saving my life,” she said, so trusting, it tore him apart inside. The look on her face finished him off.

“I’m nobody’s hero, cookie. Don’t thank me when I almost got you killed.”

“You’re selling yourself short, Sully.” She got in front of him and stood on her tiptoes, wrapped her arms around his neck. “You shot the rats and carried me out of the room.”

He let out a groan and pulled her closer, capturing her face in his hands. He slanted his mouth over hers and, taking his time, tasted what he had almost lost tonight. The cold reality shot through him. She was more than just a woman under his protection. She was the woman cracking the defenses around his obstinate heart.