The Drowning Man (25 page)

“Lora, you can’t do this.”

“I'm going to stop him, Trent.”

The conviction in her voice sparked something in the back of his mind. Simon was capable of anything. He'd set a fire to taunt Trent. Had probably killed Lora's grandfather. Now he'd kidnapped Trent's niece.
The Trans.
Something about the fire that killed them had been off. What if Simon had murdered them to get at Trent?

Lora studied his face. “What is it?”

His dark gaze met hers. “Amy and Peter Tran. I think Simon might have killed them.”

She didn't answer.

“You knew,” he said bitterly.

“I suspected.”

He shook his head. “And you didn't say a damned word to me.”

“We'll talk about this later. I have to go.”

He put his hands on his hips and leaned towards her. “Where?”

“You know I can’t tell you that.”

“Simon. You know where he is.”

Her silence gave him the answer he was looking for.

“Detective Woods know what you're doing?”

She shook her head.

“Goddammit, Lora,” he said.

She stood. “I have to go.”

He grabbed her arm.

She looked down at his fingers, then up at his face. Her face was calm, but the warning in her eyes was clear.

He released his grip and she spun around, shoulders set, as she stalked away from him.

Trent heard the front door slam shut, heard a car start seconds later. He ran a hand through his hair, put his hands on his hips, and swore. He fought down the urge to pick up one of the chairs and smash it against the deck railing. What the hell was he supposed to do now? He couldn’t physically keep her from doing whatever the hell it was she was determined to do, but there had to be a way to protect her and get Nic back.

He needed to talk to Woods.

Trent steered down I-35 with one hand, his other hand gripping the cell phone, waiting for Woods to say something.

“Well, where the fuck did she go?” Woods asked.

“I don’t know,”

“Oh, that’s just great. You just let her go.”

“What the hell was I supposed to do? Tie her down? She’d made up her mind. You know how she is. Tell me where you are, I’ll come to you.”

“No. You go home.”

“Don't you shut me out of this. Woods-”

“Home, Trent. I’ll be at your place in time for the call. I’ll let you know if I find something before then.”

No point in arguing. Detective Justice Woods was every bit as stubborn as his partner. Trent hung up and took the next exit, reluctantly heading back towards his apartment. He'd listen for now. But if Woods didn't come up with anything soon … Trent didn't even want to think about what he was capable of doing if something happened to Nicole or Lora.

Lora waited in the shadows between the ancient towering buildings. She believed Simon, and hopefully Nicole, were in the apartment building across the street. She shuddered at the unwelcome sight of the neighborhood around her. The closest streetlight was dark, the glass lying shattered on the ground below. Most of the windows of the buildings surrounding her were either barred or boarded up, and trash littered the cracked sidewalk. The few people she saw didn't make eye contact. Not a place for a child. But a good place for someone like Simon to lay low.

She could wait for Simon or Caroline to emerge from the building or she could risk going in. The one thing she couldn't risk was wasting much more time. Not with the number of hours Nicole had already been missing. She also couldn't risk calling in backup on a case she wasn't supposed to be working. Not without proof. Nor could she risk Woods’ life on a possible location based on information that hadn't exactly come from the most reliable source. He had a family. She didn't. That was the bottom line. That and making sure Trent's family stayed intact.

Through the dim late afternoon light, she saw a large, muscular man exit the building.. She took a deep breath as she watched him move down the steps. A lone car drove by, its headlights briefly illuminating that side of the street. Simon. It was the first time she'd seen him in the flesh since the day she'd shot him. His clothes were dirty, his face menacing. His eyes darted around, assessing his surroundings without turning his head, then he crossed the street.

Should she follow him or go in for Nicole? The cop in her wanted to go after Simon. After all these months of searching, he was
right there
. But making sure Nicole was safe and getting her back to her family was her first priority.

The instant Simon's back was to her, she ran for the building's entrance, cell phone in one hand. She pulled the old warped door open and ran for the stairway. Her finger found the number for Woods’ speed dial as she pushed open the stairwell door and turned the corner towards the steps.

And then went sailing through the air as she tripped over the legs of a man sprawled inside the doorway. Her phone clattered across the floor as she put both hands down to break her fall.

The man moaned and she tried not to gag as she smelled the stench of his body odor mixed with large quantities of alcohol. She regained her feet and her phone and had ran up half a flight of stairs with the phone pressed against her ear when she realized it wasn't working. She stopped and looked at the cracked screen, punched the on button. Nothing.

“Worthless piece of shit,” she muttered as she continued up to the third floor. Now she really was on her own.

So be it.

Simon stood across the street, staring at his apartment building. He didn’t know why he'd turned around as he crossed the street, but when he did, he'd seen a woman emerge from the shadows, hurrying towards the front door. He only caught a glimpse of her back and a long ponytail, but it was enough to set off all kinds of alarm bells in his head. He smiled and retraced his steps. What an unexpected opportunity this could turn out to be. He opened his cell phone and smiled again. Right on time. Once again, everything had fallen into place exactly as it was meant to be.

Trent was walking across the parking lot to his front door when his phone rang.

He grabbed the phone, answering before the first ring ended. “Lora?”

Deep laughter. “Not quite,” Simon said.

“Where are you?” Trent asked, unlocking the door to his apartment.

“People watching.”

“What?”

“I tried to warn you. All you had to do was stay away from the bitch cop and you and your family would have been left out of it.”

“What about Lora?”

“She was always going to die.”

Trent's mind raced. Did Simon and Caroline have Lora too? “Don't do this.”

“I have to. She has to pay for what she's done.”

“She was doing her
job
.”

He heard the sound of a heavy door open and close before Simon spoke again. “She destroyed my life, my last chance at happiness. She needs to pay. Those are the rules I live by. It's the only way the world makes sense,” Simon said, his voice calm and controlled.

“Simon! What are you going to do?”

“Goodbye, Trent. I'll be in touch.”

Trent put a hand on the back of his couch to keep himself upright. No. He couldn't lose Lora too.

He grabbed his keys and the phone then slammed the front door shut behind him. He didn't know where he was going, just that he couldn’t stay where he was. He could see if Woods was still at the station. Or he could go to Lora's place, see if there was anything there that would help him find Simon. Lora's place was closer. He'd go there first.

“Trent!”

He turned his head to find Detective Woods limping across the parking lot towards him. No time to deal with him now. He didn't stop and was opening the door to his truck before Woods caught up to him.

“Where the hell do you think you're going?” Woods said, slightly out of breath.

“To find Simon.”

Woods spread his arms. “You want to be a bit more specific?”

Trent ran a hand through his hair, tried to fight down the panic clawing at his gut. “He called me. He's going to kill Lora.”

He climbed inside his truck but Woods reached a hand out and stopped the door from closing. “Calm down, Trent.”

“Stay out of my way, Justice.”

“Get out of the truck and get your ass inside your apartment right now.”

“Yeah? How do you plan on keeping me here?”

“Fine. Go. Go ahead and leave, but I'll have an APB out on your truck so fast you won't even make it to the end of your street.”

“He's going to
kill
her, Justice.”

“Then calm the fuck down and let's go inside and talk this through. You going off on your own like this is not going to do Lora or Nicole a damn bit of good.”

Lora pushed through the stairwell door, saw no one in the hallway, and found the door she was looking for. Apartment 28. With Simon out of the picture, she had no doubts about her ability to take down Caroline and get Nicole out of there.

Hearing no sounds from inside the apartment, she kept her gun in her right hand while she picked the lock with her left. She slowly pushed the door open, went in low, and seeing no one in the living room, eased the door shut behind her.

There were no lights on in the apartment, making it nearly pitch black in the late winter afternoon. Lora used the darkness to move silently down the hall. She heard no sound behind her, but a subtle change in the air had her raising her gun and turning around. But it was too late and the big man moved too fast.
How could a man that size move so silent and fast?
An instant later, pain exploded in her head and her vision went dark.

Trent's hands shook as he tried to fit the key in the lock of his front door. He closed his eyes, forced air into his lungs, let it out, and tried again. Finally, the lock clicked and turned.

He jerked his front door open. Woods pushed his way past him and inside. He spun around and faced Trent. “Tell me about the phone call.”

“It’s about damned time you got here, by the way,” Trent said, slamming the door shut behind them. “Tell me you found something.”

Woods shook his head. “I can’t raise her. Tried her home, cell, pager. Nothing. Wherever she is, she doesn’t want to be found.”

Trent half-fell, half-sat on the couch. “Or Simon found her first,” he whispered.

“Not possible,” Woods said.

“He said she had to die.”

“When? When did he call?”

Trent rubbed his forehead. “Couple minutes before you showed up.”

“Tell me what he said. Word for word.”

After Trent relayed the conversation, Woods shook his head. “No. It doesn't make sense. If he killed Lora, why does he still have Nicole? He didn't even mention your niece. He's just trying to rattle you. We don't know that he has her. Lora will get in touch with us when she's ready.”

“And?” Trent asked.

“And we wait,” Woods said, looking none too happy with that option.

Trent stood, paced in front of the couch. “Isn’t there some way to trace her car or something?”

“Only the patrol cars have the tracker, not the detective cars.”

“Well that’s just fucking brilliant.”

Woods gave him a look that was probably the same one he gave his kids when they were out of line.

“Sorry,” Trent conceded, lowering his gaze.

“Lora’s a good cop. She knows what she’s doing,” Woods said.

Trent looked up at the ceiling, hands on his hips. “I know that. But if anything happens to her …” his voice trailed off. He couldn’t finish the thought.

“Then we will spend the rest of our lives hunting the bastard down.”

For a long moment no one spoke. They stood, staring each other down in the middle of Trent's living room.

Woods’ pager vibrated. He looked down and cursed. He took out his cell and dialed the station while keeping one eye on Trent. He listened, cursed some more, then punched off. “I have to go.”

“Is it about Lora? Or Nicole?”

“Trent, you know better than to ask me that.”

Trent's hands fisted at his sides.

Woods sighed and he took a step forward, put a hand on Trent's shoulder. “We may have caught a break. You need to stay put. I'll call you when I know anything.”

Trent relaxed his hands.

Woods narrowed his eyes. “Trent?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Do I need to get a unit to sit outside your front door?”

Trent looked him in the eye. “You can trust me.”

Lora opened her eyes to an unfamiliar room. She jerked herself upright and groaned as her head throbbed sickeningly. She collapsed back down onto her back and swallowed hard.

“Lora.”

The shaky voice was so soft Lora thought at first she’d imagined it. She opened her eyes again and sat up, slowly this time. The room was dark and drab. She was lying on an old Army cot, the only furniture in the room. A small blond girl sitting cross-legged on the floor next to the bed was looking up at her, eyes huge with concern.

Nicole Barlow.

“Hi sweetie,” Lora said. “You okay?”

Nicole nodded, her dirty long hair falling into her face.

“Good.”

“The bad man got you too,” Nicole said.

“Yeah, he got me too.” The motherfucker.

“Did he hurt you?” Tears threatened to spill from the big blue eyes.

Lora swung her legs over the side of the bed. “I’m fine.” She said the words even though they both knew it was a big fat lie. “Just give me a minute to figure out how we’re going to get out of here.” She dropped her head into her hands, fighting a wave of dizziness and pain. And nausea.

“Okay,” Nicole said in a shaky voice. She scooted closer and sat at Lora’s feet, a small hand wrapped around her calf.

Lora took a few deep breaths. Damn, something in the apartment stank. She could hear faint scratching noises coming from inside the walls. Rats. She concentrated hard, forced herself to suppress a shudder, to focus her thoughts.

How in the hell had she managed to get herself abducted by the same people she’d rescued Trent from? She reached for her phone and her gun. Both were gone. Fucking perfect. Trent would be looking for her as well as Nicole by now, she was certain of that. So would Woods. But she was not about to sit idly by and wait. Not an option. Not for her.