Like Jazz (26 page)

“Especially when we add a couple more of these into the mix.” He grabbed two more plastic zip ties from his pack and bound my ankles to the kitchen stool. My knees were splayed and I was completely defenseless as he moved to stand between my legs.

He dug into my thighs with his latex-covered fingers and pressed his crotch into mine. I turned my face away so he couldn’t see the fear in my eyes. Then my head suddenly snapped back as he grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled down hard, forcing me to look up at him. I stared at him, trying to douse the fear with as much fury as I could muster in an attempt to lessen his satisfaction. He unleashed an eerie grin and loosened his grip on my hair. He made a show of smelling me, inhaling deeply as he trailed his nose over my face. “Like I said. Endless.” He patted my cheek and grabbed his gun. Then he leaned against the counter and propped a foot on the lowest rung of my stool. He watched the door while I tried and failed to keep the tears from spilling down my cheeks. 

A few minutes later, the buzzer sounded. The gunman jumped up and over to the intercom and pressed the button without saying anything.

“Cazz, it’s me.” Sarah’s voice came over the speaker. I tried to scream, but it came out as a weak muffled sound she had no chance of hearing. The man apparently read the brief directions posted below the intercom because he hit the pound sign to buzz Sarah up before returning to my side.

I was desperate with fear. I was bound and gagged, my temple and shoulder were throbbing, and the woman I loved was coming to help me finish an investigation I never should have taken on as soon as I knew she was involved. Every movement I made to try to get out of the makeshift cuffs dug them further into my wrists; they must have cut into me when I’d struck the floor. I was nearly gagging on the rag he’d shoved into my mouth, as it tickled the back of my throat and I couldn’t move it with my tongue. A trickle of something, probably blood, trailed down my face from where he’d smacked me at the temple or from when I’d landed on the floor; I wasn’t sure. I was full of snot from silently crying and wet with drool from the rag, both of which made breathing extremely difficult.

This was it. There was no backup plan. Sarah was out of time. We were both out of time. I was a civilian in a police officer’s world. I wasn’t trained for any type of physical confrontation or violence. This kind of thing simply didn’t happen, wasn’t supposed to happen.

Time moved in slow motion, leaving me wretchedly anxious and despairing, further exacerbated when I heard a knock on my apartment door. The gunman whispered in my ear, “Not a sound, Cassidy. Not one sound.” He then quietly walked to the door and stood behind it so Sarah wouldn’t immediately detect a problem until she was inside. His gun in one hand, he turned the knob with the other. He aimed the gun at chest level, ready to pounce on Sarah as she came through the door. More tears escaped, making it difficult to clearly view what was happening.

As the knob twisted, a thunderous cracking sound erupted as the door crashed inward in shards. Sections of wood flew everywhere. Following the imploding door was a massive human body in the unmistakable form of Commander Ashby. Behind him was another cop. Both had guns drawn. The sheer force of the door launched my captor onto his back and he fired aimlessly as he fell. Ashby fired a half-second later and the man stopped moving.

With his eyes and gun trained on the man, Ashby spoke to me while his partner surveyed the apartment. “Just him?”

I nodded, tears of pain and relief springing from my eyes. Realizing the officers were focused elsewhere, I tried to make an affirmative “Mm-hmm” sound in answer. Their stances perceptibly relaxed upon hearing my reply and glancing over for confirmation. As the other cop knelt next to the man to check for a pulse, Ashby holstered his weapon and spoke to me.

“Yeah. My team only saw this one. I’ve got guys there and there.” He gestured with his chin to the two buildings across the street. “But they didn’t have a clear shot, so…” The cop turned to Ashby and shook his head. The commander told him to call it in.

Ashby crossed to me in a few muscular strides and removed the gag and the second rag from my mouth. He pulled a Leatherman tool from his pocket and cut the plastic cuffs from my wrists and ankles as his cell phone rang.

“Ashby,” he barked. “Yeah, send her up,” he said into the phone while he fished something out of his jacket pocket with his other hand. I surveyed my bleeding wrists and rubbed around the cuts to get some blood flowing into my hands. “Here.” He shoved a folded handkerchief into my hands to let me clean the blood, sweat, drool, and snot from my face. “You okay?” Though still a growl, at least it was a softer one. I nodded. “Need an ambulance?” I shook my head, which made the throbbing worse. My wrists hurt, but they would heal. Ashby looked at the side of my head. “He hit you?” I nodded again. “You’re going to the ER.”

“I’ll be okay,” I said faintly, coughing at the first use of my voice after the rags were gone.

Ashby strode to my freezer and grabbed a package of corn. “I’m sure that’s true, but we’re not taking any chances. Here.” With far more gentleness than I could imagine coming from him, he placed the frozen corn in my hand and lifted, resting it lightly against my wound. “Hold that there.” By this time, multiple uniforms were already swimming through my apartment taking videos and measurements, while I sat stunned.

“Commander,” I said, finally finding my voice. “How did you…” I still couldn’t comprehend what had just transpired.

“Don’t look at me,” Ashby said gruffly. “It was her idea.” He tilted his head toward the doorway.

Sarah stood there, staring at me. I didn’t bother to wipe my fresh tears away as she crossed the room in seconds and engulfed me in her arms.

Relief, gratitude, love all washed over me as I found solace in Sarah’s embrace.

“It’s okay, Cazz. It’s all okay now,” she said, rocking me gently.

An officer-involved shooting (OIS) required a lot of interviews and paperwork. Although Ashby told me I didn’t have to go to the station immediately following my stop at the ER, I wanted to be done with it. I also wanted Morrison behind bars as soon as possible. Because OIS protocol required that Ashby, the other officer involved, and I be separated in order to be interviewed, I would need to wait until I was released from questioning to tell Ashby what I had on Morrison.

Sarah insisted that I not stay at home tonight, not after what I’d been through. Ashby concurred, saying the OIS investigation team needed at least a day—probably more—to clear the scene. Sarah offered to let me stay at her place, but I was feeling pretty raw and didn’t think I could handle any additional emotional tangles with her tonight. Instead, I agreed to let her book me a room, given her familiarity with the local hotels. We weren’t allowed to touch anything in my living room or kitchen, but thankfully the area cordoned off didn’t extend to my bedroom or bathroom. We separated, each under strict supervision, Sarah having offered to grab some of my clothes and personal effects, while I was escorted to the hospital.

Being accompanied by an LAPD officer had its perks, as one of the ER doctors saw me immediately. I answered some basic questions to rule out a concussion and received a bandage on the cut near my eyebrow that had required only three stitches. A nurse applied some ointment to the cuts on my wrists and wrapped them with gauze secured by tape. I received an ice pack, ibuprofen, antibacterial ointment, and in half an hour was transported by my police escort to meet with the OIS investigation team.

After our interviews, I debriefed Ashby on my investigation. It was easy enough to have Morrison taken into custody. I was willing to stay as long and do whatever was necessary to make that happen quickly, but Ashby sent me on my way. With evidence they’d gathered from the gunman’s phone, home, and bank accounts connecting him to Morrison on the Perkins murder, Morrison’s arrest was imminent. Once convicted, he would be put away for a long time. With him behind bars, I wouldn’t need to worry about anything happening to Sarah.

Once Sarah assembled what she thought I needed from my apartment, she waited for me at the station for hours and finally drove me to the hotel after the OIS investigators released me. During the drive over, she said she’d called Ashby right after I left her house and told him I was in danger. Sarah had immediately hatched a plan to try to save me. She wanted to make herself a target by pretending she knew something she didn’t. Based on my attempt to get a photograph of Morrison and her overhearing my conversation with the realtor asking her to identify someone, she put two and two together and assumed Morrison was up to no good.

She’d been tipped off by a comment her father had made to Morrison shortly before his death: that Luke (via the Foundation) would be taking on Ashby’s niece as a favor to his old friend—an odd statement since Sarah knew Ashby didn’t have any nieces. So Sarah had insisted that I, the “niece,” be hired just as her father had wished before he died. Though she’d considered asking, she knew Ashby well enough not to press him for information since he wouldn’t have acknowledged the existence of an active investigation. And I hadn’t divulged any information either. Not until today had she known why her father brought me on board, but she trusted him implicitly. She pieced together what she thought I must have been assigned to do.

She hadn’t said it, but her comment about unconditionally trusting her father underscored that she couldn’t say the same for me. Soon enough I’d revisit and obsess over it, but at the moment, I was grateful she’d fought her doubts and distrust of me, instead following her father’s lead and believing I hadn’t come to the Foundation to do it harm.

Because Ashby had been instrumental in getting me installed at the Foundation, they were able to save time when Sarah called him, since he knew exactly who I was and why I was involved. His invocation of Section ninety-two had already alerted him to the possibility of something going amiss. He didn’t want to rely on a civilian for any police work, but acquiesced when Sarah suggested she go to my apartment so she could be the voice at the other end of the intercom. They both knew the plan had a chance to succeed only if the man believed Sarah had arrived.

Their plan was risky, since the man could have shot me as soon as he pulled into the parking lot or right after I let him into my apartment. But they believed the man wanted me to return to my apartment for a specific reason, and they planned accordingly. They didn’t have time to come up with an alternative, so Ashby moved swiftly. In under fifteen minutes from Sarah’s frantic call, nearby units had been positioned in the parking lot and in the buildings facing mine to ensure any other perpetrators were accounted for. My chances of survival would have decreased precipitously if the man hadn’t been working alone.

Sarah checked me in at the front desk and rolled along the overnight bag she must have found in my closet. She was extremely considerate of my weary state. I was emotionally and physically drained, and my head and shoulder were still killing me even though the ibuprofen had dialed back the intensity of the pain. But as soon as we reached the suite, instead of collapsing into bed, I pushed the door closed and rested against it, watching Sarah. I’d heard the story during the car ride of how she wasted no time to contact Ashby after I’d left her house, and I was not a little thankful for her keen intellect, having been so quickly able to not only ascertain that I was in trouble but also figure out a way to help me.

Yet something didn’t add up. It didn’t make any sense that she could have realized so immediately that something was wrong. I needed to know what I should have done differently. She put herself in potential danger to try to save me, and while I was beyond grateful at how things turned out, on some level it bothered me she needed to take any risk at all. I should have been able to say something to keep her at her house.

To complicate matters, now that we were alone and safe, I felt ironically vulnerable. I’d said a lot of deeply personal things to Sarah and hadn’t received any clarity from her about where she stood—where we stood. I tried to gather my thoughts as she rolled my suitcase into the bedroom. A few moments later, she emerged with a plastic bag full of toiletries from my apartment. She placed them on the bathroom counter and walked a few feet in my direction before stopping and assessing me with her hands on her hips.

“Sarah—”

“Cazz, you need to rest.”

“Sarah, please. I need to know…” I shook my head, unsure how to put into words exactly what I was asking. “I need to know how you knew I needed help.”

She paused for a moment, her gaze thoughtful. “You might not be forthcoming with information, which can be irritating, but you don’t lie,” she said. “Or, at least, you suck at it,” she said in a teasing manner.

I thought about my job. I’d certainly said my fair share of half-truths during my many LAPD investigations. I’d gone to work for various businesses under false pretenses. I’d woven many tall tales trying to extract information from people. In fact, I did lie. Frequently. I needed to set the record straight.

“But, Sarah, I—”

“To me.” She stepped in front of me and brushed aside the hair from my forehead before moving her hand across my cheek in a soft caress. “You never lie to me. I don’t need to know the rest.”

I tilted my head, giving her a dubious look. If she was telling me I didn’t lie, or that she could tell when I did, then she was also saying she believed me when I’d told her how I felt about her. A sick feeling suffused me as I realized the implications of what I’d said at her house.

Yet she hadn’t run away. She was here with me. More than that, she was taking care of me. What did that mean? But I was so tired, my head was pounding, and I wasn’t sure I could stand on my feet much longer, let alone stomach a heart-to-heart during which we’d probably rehash things already said. I was glad to have the door to lean on. My eyes felt as heavy as my heart.

“Cazz,” Sarah said, looking at me tenderly. “Come here.” She pulled me to the couch and pushed me gently down to sit. Squatting, she lifted one of my legs and extended it to rest on the coffee table. She followed suit with the other. Then she lifted my right foot and tugged the sandal off, starting at the heel. After doing the same with the other, she set my sandals under the coffee table. Scouting around briefly, she grabbed a small pillow from one end of the couch and laid it behind my head before softly brushing my cheek with the back of her hand. “Stay.”