Now You See It (25 page)

She tried logic. “Did I ever give you reason, in all these years, to believe I felt any differently? Would ever feel any differently? You’re an attractive man, Doug, intelligent, handsome, sophisticated. But that’s not what I want. What I need. I never led you on. I never thought of you that way.”

She might as well not even have spoken. “I’m so disappointed in you,” he said. “You were a shining star. My shining star. I would have loved you, cherished you. Given you the setting you deserve. I thought you were everything. But in the end, you turned out to be no better than the women Ned bought as playthings. Tell me, Gemma, what does it take to reach you? Attract you? What would I have to be?”

“Brady.”

He backhanded her without warning, and returned his hand to its casual driving position as her head slammed against the passenger side window.

She felt unreal. Weak. Floaty. When she looked over at him, he seemed a complete stranger. The smooth socialite was gone. His mouth turned down in rage and his nostrils flared—a different man altogether. Colder. Angrier. Much more dangerous. A lot scarier. She cautiously moved her right hand toward the door latch.

He didn’t look at her. “I have a gun, Gemma, and nothing to lose. Shooting you won’t cause any more trouble than your diving out of my car in the middle of traffic, so you may as well sit back and stop wasting your strength.”

* * *

Brady jogged up the four flights of stairs to Ned’s apartment, too impatient to wait for the elevator. He hated to be late. He especially hated to be late to meet Gemma, because it was just that much more time they couldn’t spend together. He wasn’t particularly looking forward to going through Ned’s place, except she’d be there, and they’d have time to talk. There were things he needed to tell her, about himself, about the past. A lot he couldn’t tell her, but he could manage enough, maybe, to help her understand some of the undercurrents.

He knocked on the door, but there was no answer. He rang the bell, knocked again. Still nothing. He looked at his watch. It was only a couple of minutes after twelve, no big deal.

On the other hand, he didn’t want to wait around in the hall until she got there with the keys. He tried the door a last time, and when there was still no answer, he shielded it with his body and popped the lock. He grinned as he let himself inside.

He turned to shut the door behind him and his smile faded quickly as he
felt
Gemma there, her shock, her terror. He raced into the living room, saw the papers spilled on the floor, and stopped cold when he recognized the green folder with its lurid borders and “Eyes Only” stamp. “Oh, shit!’

His cell chirped. He didn’t have time for this. He quickly retrieved and scanned the text message from Mary Kate: “Mike-911.”

* * *

Gemma recognized the area they were driving into. Decaying warehouses and huge orange cargo cranes formed their own kind of urban blight between the elevated Alaskan Way Viaduct and the South Seattle waterfront. Doug pulled into one of the more solid-looking buildings and stopped the car.

Gemma folded her arms across her chest and refused to budge.

He pulled a gun from the door well.

She faced him dead on, and hoped her voice wasn’t shaking too much as she said, “You’ll have to kill me right here, because I’m not going in there.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said in that patronizing tone she hated.

She opened her mouth to protest, but he hit her lightly with the pistol, just hard enough to make her head reel and open a cut along her cheekbone. He came around to her side of the car and dragged her out by one arm. “Walk.”

She wasn’t quite unconscious. She felt the blood begin to trickle down her cheek and wiped it away with the back of her hand.

“And don’t think you can leave a trail of blood smears,” Doug said nastily. “If I catch you trying, I’ll have to make you very sorry.”

His voice was so cold, she believed it. She remembered the boneless way Cinda had dropped to the floor. But he had given her an idea.

As he pushed and chivvied her ahead of him through the maze of cartons, she pretended to be dizzier and more disoriented than she really was, and took care to stumble against as many crates as she could manage to touch.

At some time in the building’s history, walls had been thrown up to create an office in the center of the vast floor. It was an unusual arrangement, made more complicated by the inclusion of the pipes, valves and gauges that should have gone into a machine room. Large cartons were stacked on the room’s perimeter, around and on top of a rickety-looking pressed woodwork table. Doug prodded Gemma inside. “Go ahead and scream,” he said. “No one can hear you.”

He took a roll of duct tape off the table and bound her hands behind her around a standpipe sunk into the concrete floor. It disappeared through the upper-story floor above her.

“It’s solid,” he said, as he watched her. He cut a piece of tape and held her hair aside so it didn’t get caught as he pressed the tape over her mouth. “Just in case,” he said, and smiled at her tenderly.

He played with her hair for a second or two and she cringed. She had a flash of fear he was going to rape her, standpipe or not. She knew rape was probably a given. But his insane shifts from tenderness to menace to utter disengagement had her confused. He switched moods too fast for her to keep up.

He ran the muzzle of the automatic over her breast, up to her throat, under her eye, to the side of her mouth. “It’s too bad you figured it out, Gemma. It’s probably just as well, though. It would never work out between us now. I don’t think I could ever forgive you for choosing him over me. Too late. Too bad.”

* * *

Brady hit the Reply button on his phone and waited impatiently for Mary Kate to answer as he twisted through pre-rush-hour traffic. Nothing. She must be in the ICU “No Cell Phone” area. Damn!

He hit redial and almost wept with relief when Mary Kate answered. “M-K, what’s happening? Gemma’s in trouble—”

“I know. Mike’s got information he says you need. You have to come here, because they won’t let him make a phone call.”

“I’ll be right there. I’m five minutes out.”

He made it in four, honking and swearing at the cars and pedestrians in his way, and hoping he didn’t get pulled over for reckless driving and general bad behavior. He took the hospital stairs at a run, and burst out onto the fifth floor into a scramble of personnel, lights and buzzers.

“Jesus! What’s going on?”

“Who are you?” a harried man in blue scrubs asked him.

“Mike Cavanagh?” Brady asked.

The man nodded toward the center of the chaos. Just then, Brady saw Mary Kate bustling toward him.

“M-K, what happened?”

“About twenty minutes ago, his pulse and blood pressure spiked and went through the roof. He’s been shouting for you, refusing medication until he sees you. It’s about Gemma, isn’t it?”

“I was on my way here when you called. I have to see Mike.” Brady looked grim, and began to push his way forward. The uniformed policeman on the door recognized Brady and his total focus, and let him through.

“Hey, Brady,” Mike said, sounding a bit bleary. “Thank God. You’ve got to get her, bro. Bastard’s gonna fuckin’ kill her.”

The accelerated staccato of his heart-rate monitor immediately began to slow. “We need to talk,” Brady said to the nurse who was bending over the bed. “See how good I am for him?”

She primmed her lips and left.

“You gotta find her!”

“Mike,” Brady said in an undertone. “She found that fucking phony file and ran. I figured you’d know she was upset, and maybe you’d be able to tell me where she might run to.”

Mike pulled himself together with an effort. “It’s worse than that,” he said. “She’s in real trouble. She’s hurt, and scared out of her mind, tied up. I can tell how scared she is because the flashes are so clear. Wherever she is, there are stacks of big cartons, pipes. Cement floor.”

“Who’s got her?”

Mike shook his head very slightly. “Creosote. Diesel. Sorry. This stuff’s not exact you know.”

“Yeah,” Brady said ruefully, “I do know.”

“Ned and Doug have some warehouses down near the South Seattle docks. Oh, damn. Those bassards slipped me something. Oh, shit. I’m getting woozy. Name is something like ‘Hammer,’ Steinhammer, Schmidthammer, Hammerhammer—something. Hey, these drugs are pretty good.
Damn!
Boxes. Lots of crates. Big ones. Big pipes. Wow, really big pipes. Train.
‘Train whistle blowin
,’” he began to sing.

An RN sailed in like a Mother Superior. She looked over Mike’s monitors and patted his arm. “He’ll sleep, now. You’ll have to leave.”

As Brady rushed out, Mike was still singing, but the words were slurring badly.

“Did you get what you needed?” Mary Kate asked. “Are you getting some backup?”

Brady looked at her, made a “telephone” sign with one hand and said, “Hello? Yes, my girlfriend is missing and her brother has these psychic impressions she’s being held someplace where there are boxes—”

“I get it.” She nodded as he turned away. “I wish I didn’t,” she whispered toward his retreating back.

Chapter Twenty

Brady did a quick, irritable check of his dashboard gauges. All he needed was to run out of gas right now, but everything appeared to be within operating parameters. The warehouse district was ten minutes away, maybe twenty, in this traffic. He cut down an alley without signaling and shot across the next major street in front of a bus, with a coat of paint to spare.

He should have followed his instincts on Wheeler. He could allow the asshole was a psychopath. And without a conscience, the guy would have no guilty vibes to read. But the bitter truth was Brady had known from the beginning he was reacting out of jealousy, as much as anything else. And he’d bent over backward to give Doug the benefit of the doubt, even when every sense, every instinct was telling him the guy was wrong. He had let pride in his own sense of fair play get in the way of his charge to protect Gemma. There were no excuses.

As he drove, he pulled out his cell phone. “Call Gemma’s Cell,” he directed, and was rewarded by a woman’s voice instructing him to enjoy the music while the connection was being made.

A man’s voice answered. “Hello, McGrath. You really should have taken the money. Then in her heartbreak, Gemma would have turned to me.”

Brady laughed into the phone. It took everything he could summon to keep the fury out of his voice, to keep his tone light and taunting as he said, “In your dreams, you sick fuck.”

“Well, she’s here now, with me. And this is no dream. Too bad she doesn’t have a camera phone, so you can see how happy we are here, together. Well, someone will find her eventually. It won’t be you, though, because I’m going to find you, first.” The call ended.

Brady swallowed and pressed the accelerator, although the angle of his foot made his ankle holster rub painfully against the half-healed burn. If he could keep Doug focused on him, and not on Gemma, there was a chance she would still be alive when he got there.

* * *

Doug looked over at Gemma and sneered. “You really do a terrible job of choosing mates, Gemma.”

Ned
, he thought with disgust. Now there was a truly stupid man. Weak. Stupid. Rich kid thought he could do no wrong, never have to face consequences.

When Ned came to him with Vinh Li’s proposal, it seemed like they couldn’t lose. Just set up a shell company to buy or lease warehouses, semi-derelict buildings on the waterfront. Right near the International District, where a few Asian women more or less, coming and going, wouldn’t arouse any attention. The money was immense, and all they had to do was sit back and let it all roll in. Renew the leases and licenses once a year, make sure the taxes were paid. But trust Ned, that stupid, self-absorbed prick, to fuck up a beautiful deal. Couldn’t keep his hands off the merchandise. Had to brag, had to share the wealth. He’d never run up against anyone his handsome face and facile charm—or enough money—couldn’t make go away.

Doug let his rage take over. Damn it all, he’d been winning, before SEAL Boy came along. He and Gemma could have been happy, by now, together. Not married...it was much too soon for that. He’d have had to put in the full year of mourning. Voters tended to have such rigid sexual codes.

No, not married, but certainly committed. Devoted. Anger flared, again, hot and lurid, as he thought about what might have been.

She seemed not even to have noticed. Stupid woman. He’d made a fool of himself, ruined everything, for someone too foolish, too
stupid
to be worthy of him. Maybe Ned had been right about her, all along.

He shuddered as he thought of the crime scene photos from Mendelson’s cabin. Hell of a way to learn a lesson. And he was no nearer the solution to his own problem than he had been days ago. Even when Gemma was dead, now there was her brother. Had she told him everything? Almost certainly. And McGrath. There were no guarantees he hadn’t passed on the 0information to his own accomplices, but SEAL Boy wouldn’t be a threat much longer. Doug smiled. He’d made enough copies of McGrath’s personnel file to be sure the right people knew the truth.

Once McGrath was disposed of, Doug decided he would have to disappear himself. A little plastic surgery, maybe a slight accent. He’d never be attorney general, though. Enraged at the thought, he aimed a vicious kick at a small box and sent it flying across the room. Gemma ducked out of its path. So, she wasn’t insensible, after all. Maybe he would rape her, if there was time. And McGrath could watch. The idea made him laugh out loud.

* * *

Brady pulled up outside the derelict freight building. He’d seen it the year before during a short job he’d done for the Task Force. The name had stuck, because it was so unusual. The sign was eroded. God alone knew how long ago some hopeful painter had lettered “Hammerschmidt and Mornington” above the main doors. Mornington. Morning-Town. Mike’s lullaby.

The area looked deserted. It had been just the same last time he was here. The area was due to be demolished to make way for light rail. Someone was going to make a lot of money on it, if the project ever got off the ground. Meantime, it was a perfect place for warehousing illegals until their new masters could take possession.

He parked behind an empty brick building on the next lot over. As he was getting out of the car, his ankle holster rubbed again. The pain had turned sharp—it was probably a blister, by now. He bent to take it off, but a sudden chill made him rethink that idea.
Oh, man
, he thought.
This is going to be bad
. In spite of the urgency driving him forward, he took the time to call Tran for backup, after all. They’d never make it in time, but maybe they’d catch Wheeler.

Doug’s car was parked just inside the entrance. Brady
touched
it, and felt Gemma’s presence. Trying to keep his mind clear, he started through the maze inside,
touching
to find traces of her. He could feel her sorrow that she’d never be able to tell him she loved him, or apologize for doubting him, for being such a fool.

And he felt the flip side too. He could sense she trusted him to find her, but her fear blended with his own conviction he wouldn’t be in time. The thought of her in danger and despair made him ache to get his hands on Wheeler’s throat, and threatened to cloud his
touch
completely. Ruthlessly, he forced his fears into one corner of his mind, and set the rest to working on nice, slow ways to kill Doug if she’d had a single hair bent.

He worked his way through the maze to the office wall, and paused to subdue the nagging certainty he was heading into real trouble. He couldn’t shake it entirely, but he only needed to keep it out of the way. A slight noise made him look up as a pile of boxes came cascading down onto him, knocking him into darkness.

* * *

As Brady came to, his first reaction was to try to test the bonds that held him, but he had no success. He had to admire Doug’s ingenuity. He’d stripped Brady and tied him facing—embracing, more like—a large steam pipe. Duct tape wrapped just above his elbows and across his thighs and calves held him so the pipe’s metal surface pressed against his face and chest and genitals and the sensitive inner surfaces of his arms and legs. He wanted to tell himself the pipe was inactive, but he couldn’t believe it. If that were true, why do something so bizarre?

“Nice of you to join us, McGrath,” Wheeler said. “It was quite a little thrill for Gemma to watch me take off your clothes. I emphasize ‘little.’ And I imagine one she’s enjoyed before, although not quite in this context.”

He pointed over to a drafting table where he had laid out all the weapons he’d taken from Brady’s inert body as he’d stripped him. “I’m flattered you consider me such a formidable enemy. SEAL Boy and his deadly toys,” he said with a sneer. “They won’t do you much good the way things are. Look at all this stuff you had, and I still beat you.”

He picked the weapons up one at a time and put them back again, fingering the assortment of knives, the lock picks. He hefted the Glock and pointed it at Gemma, pretended to change his mind, and set it down. “Maybe I should shoot her with your gun. Of course, that would leave an ugly explanation of how you came to be in the situation you’re in. Not that you’ll care. The boiler still works in this place, and it’s supposed to cool off tonight. Fog, and all. You know, if I did use your gun on her, with your record, the police would buy it without a blink. It’s a thought.”

Brady caught Gemma’s eyes and shook his head slightly. She looked back at him with such love and compassion it almost undid him.

“Now one item really doesn’t belong here.” Doug took the ring box out of his pocket. “What a touching gesture, McGrath.” He opened the box and sneered. “Makes me wonder who you stole it from. Did you have to fuck some woman for it, or did you just lift it out of her jewelry box?”

Brady saw Gemma’s face soften and her eyes fill. As Doug looked over at her, she closed her eyes and turned her face away. She seemed to wilt. Two large tears slid down toward her chin, making her the picture of despair. He was going to tear Wheeler apart piece by piece—as soon as he could figure out how to get out of this fucking duct tape. His holdout .38 was lying on the floor just out of Doug’s range of vision. It must have fallen out when Doug dragged him back to do his little side show. It might as well have been in Tacoma, for all the chance he had of ever getting to it.

Gemma had watched the revolver fall out of Brady’s ankle holster, and was praying Doug hadn’t seen it. He was paying so much notice to the Glock and the throwing knives the weight of his attention was holding them too tightly for her to do anything. The .38 on the other hand...
No! Brady, dammit! Look away!
She felt his gaze land on the small, snub-nosed pistol like a steel anchor. Her heart lurched into her throat. She was closer to the office walls than the two men, and she’d heard faint sounds of movement outside. If Doug heard them, he’d kill them both. She had to be ready. Slowly she remembered what Brady had told her, and drew all her fear and love into her deepest self as she reached out with intent.

Doug smiled nastily and ripped the tape off Brady’s mouth. “Anything you want to say, McGrath? Last words? Something touching for our Gemma?”

Brady glared at him.

Neither man noticed when the .38 blinked off the floor.

Doug stopped smiling when it suddenly materialized in Brady’s bound hands. Without hesitation Brady fired three times into Doug’s chest, knocking him back against the drafting table. He landed face up, eyes open, looking astonished and slightly aggrieved.

Brady smiled through his torn lips and said, “Think you can get us out of this before the troops arrive?”

“Too late,” said a deep voice from the door. “And don’t you look cute, there, Zips?”