Fit to Be Tied Page 18

  “Where?”

  “Rib cage?”

  I couldn’t tell. “Something’s in my arm,” I managed to get out even though my tongue felt like it was swollen too big for my mouth.

  “Yeah, you’ve got antibiotics in one arm and glucose in the other. He really doesn’t want you to die.”

  “Until he’s done,” I concluded.

  “Yeah… until then.”

  “Did he cut my back?”

  “He cut into your back.”

  “For what?”

  “I don’t—he made sure you stopped bleeding. He used that surgical glue.”

  It was hard to think. “He’s… biting me.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he have me beaten?”

  “Yes.”

  “I bet I look like tenderized meat.”

  “You peed blood earlier.”

  “Well, you take enough kidney punches and that’ll happen.”

  “Yes,” he agreed sadly. “God, I hope the bites don’t scar.”

  I chuckled. “They won’t have time. I’ll be dead before they do.”

  He sounded like he was about to cry. “I don’t—things could—”

  “Just don’t let me be dead and missing, all right? Don’t do that to Ian.”

  His breath caught. “You’re in love with him.”

  “No,” I lied. Because we were not friends and I would not have him tell Hartley, who would go after Ian as well. “But he’s my partner. Hartley’s got it wrong. We’re not together.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Please, whatever happens, make sure you find me and tell him or make sure he finds me. I don’t wanna be missing.”

  “Okay,” he whispered.

  I rested for a few minutes. Just that much talking and I was ready to pass out.

  “You didn’t ask me why.”

  I knew why. He was being blackmailed.

  “I’m the one who told Hartley’s friend when he was coming to the hospital. I’m the one who got her killed by getting him out.”

  Of course he had. He was the leak.

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t you want to know why?”

  He needed to confess.

  “Yeah, tell me.”

  “I covered up a case when I was a cop in Chicago.”

  “Go on,” I got out, wanting to stay awake, afraid to fall asleep and him not be there to talk to when I woke up again. It was terrifying to imagine being there alone.

  “There was a rent boy that used to work for Rego James, you remember him? James?”

  “I remember James—he died in witness protection.” Some guy had realized who he was, just some random guy from his past who passed him on the street, and followed him home, broke in, and ended up stabbing James to death with a knife from his kitchen. We could account for our own witnesses in WITSEC, but we didn’t run every name in an entire town when we placed someone. It simply wasn’t possible.

  “I didn’t know that part. I used to go to James’s club downtown when I was an off-duty patrolman, and one night I went to see this kid I liked, Billy Donovan, and halfway through the trick, Rego comes busting in with this other kid I’d seen around.”

  He took a deep breath, like maybe he was having trouble telling the next part, and began carding his fingers through my hair over and over.

  “So he throws the kid I don’t know down beside Billy on the bed and shoots them one after another.”

  I could imagine Wojno there, frozen, terrified, with blood splatter all over him.

  “And then it hits me that James isn’t alone, and that’s when I first met Hartley.”

  The story came together.

  “And right before James is about to put one in me, Hartley stops him and tells him I’m a cop. Apparently the first one James killed, the kid who I kept seeing around, was undercover with vice.”

  “And what did you do?”

  “I moved both bodies, made it look like Adams—that was the cop—and Billy were a thing and Adams shot Billy and then himself.”

  “But?”

  “But there were cameras in every room of James’s place, and I guess he gave the tape to Hartley for safekeeping.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “I dunno. Maybe James had something on him as well.”

  Perhaps he did.

  “If it ever came out, I’d be finished in the FBI.”

  “You’d go to prison,” I told him. “You know that. You were an accessory.”

  “Yeah.”

  I knew why he’d told me. I was a dead man. There was nothing to fear.

  “Why did you bail on me after just the couple of times?” Wojno asked.

  Now there was a time to talk about closure—when the person you wanted it with was cuffed naked to a cot. “No,” I answered.

  “No, what?” he asked, leaning over me, his lips close to my ear.

  “No, we’re not having a talk. Fuck you.”

  “I—”

  “For the record,” I said, my voice bottoming out, tears welling up in my eyes. “I would get you out of here. I wouldn’t leave you to die here.”

  He stood up fast. “There’s nothing I can do. He’d kill me if I tried to set you free.”

  “Okay,” I replied, swallowing my tears. “We know where we both stand, then.”

  “You’re an idiot. I could give you some comfort.”

  “I don’t need any,” I snarled as I heard a door open.

  “What’s going on?” Hartley said accusingly, his dress shoes clipping across the cement floor, the leather bottoms rubbing over the grit so it made a loud scratching sound when he stopped beside the cot. “Why are you in here?”

  “I wanted to explain things to Miro.”

  “He doesn’t need anything from you,” Hartley assured him, “and I need to see him.”

  Wojno left quickly. Hartley squatted down beside the cot and tipped his head sideways so we were sort of eye to eye.

  “They broke your nose when they beat you, but I reset it, so you shouldn’t have any trouble breathing.”

  “Okay.”

  “I splinted your ring finger and pinky of your left hand because one of the men broke two of them before I realized what was happening.”

  “Thanks,” I said, trying desperately to remain calm. I was close to having a panic attack—I remembered what they were like because I had quite a few when I was younger. It had been years, but the signs were there: the nausea, my racing heart, feeling overheated and freezing at the same time, and the spots in front of my eyes. If I couldn’t catch my breath, I was in real trouble.

  “I drank some of your blood yesterday and ate a piece of flesh from your shoulder the night before. I apologize about the divot.”

  Jesus. “It happens,” I replied, swallowing down the revulsion and fear.

  “Originally my plan was to pull off all your flesh, but it’s much harder than skinning other things and would take far too long.”

  My stomach rolled ominously.

  “I of course have pentobarbital and thiopental on hand and would have put you into a coma before I did any of that.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “You know, I think the lorazepam I’m giving you—”

  “What else is that called?”

  “Ativan or Orfidal.”

  “Ativan,” I repeated, “that’s the word I know.”

  “Yes, well, I think I might be giving you too much. You’re a bit too calm. You’re not scared at all, are you?”

  “I’m resigned,” I mumbled, even though I wasn’t. If I saw any glimmer of a chance to get out, I would take it in a heartbeat. The problem was, between the beatings and the sedation, I couldn’t really feel my body and wasn’t altogether sure what was working.

  “Well, that’s no good. I want to hear some begging.”

  “I’ll beg now,” I told him as he straightened his head and curled over me. I felt his lips between my shoulder blades. “Please don’t get rid
of my body when you’re done. Leave something for someone to find.”

  “Of course,” he assured me as he slipped his hands around my neck and squeezed.

  I held on to consciousness as long as I could.

  IT WAS one of those things. After the guys beat me so hard that my entire body throbbed and I could only see out of one eye, I was left hanging there, feeling like a side of meat, and that’s when I noticed the door.

  It was open.

  Not hanging ajar, not enough so you’d notice—enough like someone had meant to close it behind them but had not hung around long enough to hear the click. And no click meant it was not locked.

  I had to gauge my motion, because after nothing but glucose and saline for I wasn’t sure how many days, my body was not mine anymore. It was ravaged. He had me full of drugs, I’d been beaten, bitten, strangled… tortured… the baseball bat to the ribs had gone on for what seemed like days on end, and now… now I needed to move.

  I needed to lift the chain that bound both wrists to the hook above me up over the end, drop down, and run. When I’d first gotten there, I would have been able to do it easily. It was a dead lift up, and I could have managed that, but now, I wasn’t sure. And if I did it and that was all I had, then what? Once I was out of the room, where did I go? There were so many variables and I had so very little energy.

  It was so much to imagine and—

  Ian.

  It was everything, a whole universe of sound and images and smells and all of it assaulting me and pummeling my brain and then—quiet.

  Ian.

  There was only his face and the curt nod I used to get that I knew now was special and arrogant and the way he was with only me.

  He’d worked so hard to keep himself away, and then when he simply couldn’t, when I’d broken through and held him, kissed him, loved him… all that puffed-up macho pride became clear as what it was—his desire. Ian wanted me, and I was the first person he’d let down that wall for. I would not be responsible for him locking himself away again. Even if I died, he’d know I’d been trying to get to him, and that would tell him he was worthy of love and so he would someday love again. It was my hope, anyway.

  I had to try. There was no way out of that.

  Every muscle in my body screamed that it could not do what I wanted. My heart pounded, I shook like a leaf in the wind, and sweat poured off me. I lost the grip on the hook three times—gripping, pulling, and then falling back down. But on the fifth try, on the one I was going to quit after, I heaved my body up, pushed through a pressure in the back of my head that felt like someone was driving a spike through it, and fell hard to the concrete floor.

  I heard my left ankle snap, and the pain was instantaneous. If I’d had my regular strength, I could have compensated for my descent. But as weak as I was, I slipped, and it was over. I crawled to the doorway because I wasn’t ready to put any weight on it.

  Hearing voices, I rolled sideways and waited.

  “You get the water. I’ll go call the doc and tell him that he’s ready for him.”

  “Good.”

  Only one man reached the door and noticed it was open. He pushed it open and leaned in. “Dr. Hartley, are you already in—”

  He went down hard when I grabbed his left ankle and tripped him face forward. But even with how hard he hit, he still had his gun out when he rolled over. I took that easily; I was trained for the contingency, but in so doing, I missed the spear-point knife. It was only five inches long, but when it was buried in my right shoulder, it hurt like hell. When he shoved on it, making the cut longer, I threw an elbow to his face, and that time he hit the ground with enough force to knock him out. I sat there for a long moment before I searched his pockets and came up with my salvation. Not an Uzi or more mags for his Beretta 92FS, but instead, his iPhone.

  I couldn’t get Ian because the phone was password-protected, but as I struggled to my feet, checked the clearance on the gun and the mag, and leaned against the wall, the call to 911 went straight through.

  Quickly, efficiently, I rattled off my badge number, explained I was a marshal, and went on to say that I was critically wounded and needed help at my location.

  “Stay on the phone with me, marshal,” the operator ordered.

  “I can leave the phone on, but I have to put it under my arm so I can have both hands on the gun.”

  “Okay.”

  “Normally I can shoot with one hand,” I told her.

  “Of course.”

  “But I’m shakin’ kinda hard right now.”

  “Yes, I would suspect so,” she said, taking a breath.

  “So you might hear armpit noises.”

  “That’s quite all right.”

  “Are you sure?” I teased and realized I was bordering on unhinged.

  “Yes, marshal,” she answered, her voice soothing. “I wish you could put me on speaker.”

  “So do I.”

  As if on cue, two guys came hauling ass around the corner, and I dropped them both with shots to the legs and shoulders. I had them throw aside their guns and their phones, and after slowly moving over to them, dragging my fractured ankle behind me, I put the muzzle of my stolen Beretta to the forehead of the closest guy and asked him which way was out.

  I was worried I was in some underground bunker or an enormous abandoned warehouse or God knew what, but it so happened that I was being held in a trailer like they had on a construction site, just much bigger, with the bars built into the top of one room. Apparently sheet metal and pipes and other things were usually stacked in them, straight down and then pulled up through the roof for use. What I had thought was a torture chamber was merely functional.

  All of that I found out once I was outside in the dirt. I had to thank God it was Arizona. If I was home in Chicago, I would have gotten hypothermia. As it was, at eighty degrees or so at night, I didn’t freeze my balls off, even naked as I was, waiting for the cavalry that the lovely Gloria—the 911 operator—told me was coming.

  When I saw lights in the distance, because I heard no sirens I moved faster, hobbling, and after Gloria confirmed that her guys were still ten minutes out—I was up in the foothills somewhere—I got down on my hands and knees and crawled as fast as I could. I didn’t care how much it hurt with the rocks cutting into my skin because nothing was as bad as putting any weight on my ankle. I got torn up scrambling over rocks and between bushes and through thorns and branches, and it was dark out there in the desert. I would have used the flashlight app on the phone, because who didn’t have that, but I was still on the emergency call, so it was me feeling around blindly and soon bleeding. Again. More.

  I fell down a short ravine and decided to wait there. My adrenaline was shot, my muscles were done, and I could barely get any air moving in my lungs. At least I still had the gun, so whatever got near me I could kill, even a rattlesnake or wild boar or whatever other kind of animal was out here waiting to prey on me, and that included the kind that walked on two legs. I really hadn’t meant to pass out.

  AFTER ALL the trouble I went to to get out of the trailer, I was horrified when I woke up with lights in my eyes and Hartley greeting me.

  I jolted hard, struggled against the hands helping him hold me down, and shouted at him to let me go.

  “I’m not him, marshal! Please,” the voice gasped, and it hit me that maybe we’d been going over this more than this one time I was aware of. “You have to believe me! Open your eyes! Please! Open them!”

  If I could just get up….

  “Marshal Jones!”

  My name… not the fake one, the real one.

  “Open your eyes!”

  But what if I was dreaming?

  Someone brushed my side and the pain was excruciating. I couldn’t hold in the scream.

  “Let me in!”

  I instantly stilled because I thought I heard—

  “Move!”

  I was straining to hear, trying to smell him if I could, anything to not open my
eyes.

  “I swear to—fuckin’ move!”

  “Ian!” I shrieked.

  After his frustrated roar, I was released. Everyone let go at once, and I would have fallen off the cot or whatever I was on if Ian hadn’t been there to take my face in his hands and kiss me.

  I had no idea that one simple kiss could warm my entire body so thoroughly and fast.

  His lips pressed to mine before moving to my cheeks, nose, eyes, forehead, and then made the quick trip back. I wanted to put my tongue in his mouth; I wanted to taste him and remember everything that had been taken away in the past few days.

  “I’m so glad he didn’t hurt you or—”

  “Quiet now,” he ordered.

  “Ian,” I whined, my hands on his wrists, holding on for dear life as his breath mixed with mine.

  I opened my eyes a slit. I had to see him.

  He was tired, I could tell. There were dark circles under the red-rimmed blue eyes I loved; the normal stubble would be better described as a beard given a couple more days, and his hair was a riot. It was clear Ian Doyle had missed me terribly. It was all over him.

  “I need you to stay still so they can check you out and run a tox screen and see what the fuck is under this bandage on your side.”

  “He bit me.”

  Ian cleared his throat. “I can see that.”

  “And he choked me.”

  “I know.”

  “And he operated on me, too, I think.”

  Ian bent close to me. “M—”

  “It was Wojno, he was the leak!”

  “Yeah, the Feds figured that out already.”

  “They did? How did—”

  “Could you please stop talking and let these nice people do their jobs.”

  “Yeah, but you won’t—”

  “I won’t what? Go?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No.”

  “But what if you get a call?”

  “Deployment call, you mean,” he said solemnly, leaning in close to me, nuzzling my cheek, my ear, and kissing along my jaw.

  “Yeah.”

  “I will not move from your side.”

  “Promise.”

  “Oh yes. Not on your life.”

  “Okay.”

  “Good.”

  I had to ask, as much as I didn’t want to. “Did they catch him?”