18. Wesley
CHAPTER 18
WESLEY
F or Wesley, finding the apartment building in question was as easy as plugging the address into his maps app and letting it tell him where to go. The problem was going to be in getting inside before anyone knew they were coming. He thought about using the fire escape, but when they circled the building, that seemed to be out of commission. So he parked and racked his brain.
The building looked so unimportant, considering what had likely been going on inside it for the last several weeks, at least, and considering what was likely going on inside it now. It was so quiet, so unassuming. It wasn’t even trashy looking. The place looked like one of those fancy apartment buildings that made Wesley immediately uncomfortable when he entered them. It looked, in other words, like Lauren’s apartment building.
“We need to get to the fifth floor,” Wesley said, glancing down at the address his friend had given him.
“How do you plan to get past the concierge?” Lauren asked. “This building is like mine. They’ll likely have locked elevators and staircases.”
Wesley knit his brow. “We’ll need to get past whoever’s got the keys. I could try to use my identification, but who am I protecting and why? I don’t have any connections to anyone here. Being insistent might work, but if it doesn’t we will have blown our only chance.”
He watched as Lauren drifted off into deep contemplation, her gaze shifting from him to the building. “We just have to not give them any time to think. Make it so urgent that they just act.” She paused again and bit her lower lip, considering. Then she nodded decisively. “Okay, here’s the plan. I’m the girlfriend of whoever owns that van. I’ve been out jogging and sprained my ankle. It might even be broken.” She grinned. “You’re a good Samaritan, who saved me and carried me back here so I could get off my feet and my boyfriend could take care of me.”
Wesley considered what she was suggesting. “That’s not a bad plan,” he concluded, “if we leave the acting up to you, that is.” He smiled briefly at her. Regardless of whether this went well, anything he could do to get her to focus on a task would help. While he knew he could never distract her from the current crisis with her mother, giving her something to do would be a boon to her now. He knew as much from his own crises, especially those he went through in the military. There was strength in feeling useful. Whenever he was afraid, he knew that pouring himself into some task, especially one he knew he could do well, would keep him from going completely crazy.
“What’s my boyfriend’s name?” Lauren asked, breaking Wesley out of his thoughts.
“Oh. It’s Greg. The van is registered to a Greg Landry .”
Lauren nodded. “Okay.” She closed her eyes, and began what looked to be some kind of breathing exercise. Then Wesley watched in awe as she transformed herself. Her face got red. Her eyes teared up. She began to shake when she stepped out of the car. Wesley jumped out after her and ran around to help her. Her performance was so good that he wondered if she had somehow, coincidentally, actually injured herself right when she was only meant to pretend. She fell into his arms, and he immediately scooped her up, more as a reflex than anything.
Soon she was crying loudly and looking every bit like someone who had just injured themselves in an extremely painful way. Wesley carried her into the building, which was the exact kind of building that usually put him on edge. But Lauren’s fake wailing wouldn’t let him feel the stress of being so out of place like he usually did in such environments. In truth, he was struggling not to laugh, not because her acting was bad — on the contrary, it was stellar — but because he’d never been in on something like this, and the idea that he was going to fool anyone was laughable to him. Wesley was not an actor, but Lauren was going to make up for all his lack of skill and enthusiasm and then some.
She cried out to her pretend boyfriend as they drew closer to the desk. “Greg! Where’s Greg? Please!”
Wesley took over the explanation, allowing Lauren to handle the emotional pressure. “She sprained her ankle, I think. She needs to stay off her feet. She says her boyfriend lives here.”
“Who’s her boyfriend?” the concierge asked.
“Greg Landry,” Wesley answered and felt the need to add, “or so she told me.”
Lauren suddenly wailed louder, clearly communicating that Wesley should stop talking and let her do what she was best at. “Please, sir,” she said, tears still streaming down her face. “Please, I just want to sit down and ice it.”
She broke out into a fresh wail, which seemed to make the concierge deeply uncomfortable. Wesley was impressed. Clearly, all the concierge wanted to do was quiet this woman, whose crying was making him squirm. He barely hesitated before he rounded the desk and gave them access to the elevator.
“Feel better,” the concierge said. “Go to a hospital if you need to.”
“Thank you.” Lauren sniffed and rubbed her eyes dry. “I’ll do that.”
As soon as the elevator doors closed behind them, Lauren dropped her act and laughed out loud. “It worked,” she said triumphantly. “I can’t believe it actually worked.”
“I can,” Wesley said. “I told you, you’re too good to fail. Now, let’s go get your mother.”
The elevator doors opened, and Wesley stepped out into a hall that was opulent, to say the least. He realized, too late, that he had been carrying Lauren longer than he needed to. He let her slide from his arms, resisting the feeling of regret that followed. He wanted to protect her forever, but today, he realized, she needed to stand on her own two feet. She needed to save her mother, and the best thing he could do was support her in that.
They walked down the hallway, silent as cats stalking their prey. The lushness of the carpet helped quite a bit. The halls were quiet, the sound deliberately dampened to make things more comfortable for those high-value residents who would always demand the best. In this case, the dampening would be their downfall.
Wesley walked to the door of the apartment belonging to the suspected kidnapper. He leaned back against the wall beside the door, and gestured for Lauren to do the same. This way they could listen without being seen. So, they stood like sentinels on either side of the door and listened, Wesley pressing a finger to his lips as a message to be silent. If no one was there, they could break in and search. But if one or more people were in the apartment, they’d be wise to wait it out until those people left. Wesley was already concocting a plan for where they could wait that would enable them to keep an eye on the apartment without standing right out in front of it or lingering too long in the hall. He had noticed that the stairwell was nearby and planned to camp out there with the door cracked to watch the apartment.
Though the apartment door was thick, he could hear the occasional voice coming from inside. They were male, and there was at least two of them. One of the more invaluable lessons Wesley had taken away from his time in the military was how to be patient. He wasn’t going to make a move until he knew roughly how many people were in the apartment, how many foes he was going to have to take on. He readied his weapon while he waited. If anything, he was going to need it to make demands. Hopefully, he wouldn’t have to use it for real.
But the sound of one specific voice ruined every one of his plans. It was a woman, and all she said was, “Please.” It was Anne Bartlett. Wesley would not have recognized her voice, but he was currently working with someone who did.
Before he could communicate a plan to her, Lauren had gone stiff. She didn’t wait for him. She turned to the door and knocked on it. Then she screamed. “Help! Please, help me! He’s going to kill me, please! Oh, my God!”
It was probably the best horror movie scream Wesley had ever heard from an actress, though he didn’t know why that surprised him. This was Lauren, after all. She was so good the kidnappers actually unlocked the door and cracked it open to see what was going on. Everything after that happened in a matter of seconds. Wesley didn’t even have time to think. He drew his weapon and kicked the door all the way open with all of his strength. The man standing on the other side went flying to the ground.
“Freeze, all of you!” Wesley shouted as he forced his way into the apartment.
There were three men, and a woman. Aside from the man who had opened the door, two more were at a dining table with papers and fast food. The woman was sitting on the couch beside the senator, whose wrists and ankles were taped together with duct tape. Anne’s face was red where they had clearly taped her mouth and recently removed it, probably to let her eat. In a surreal twist, there was an old cartoon playing on a large flat screen affixed to the wall. Antics involving TNT, a futile chase in bright colors, and loud sound effects dominated the room and might have been distracting had Wesley not been zeroed in on the senator.
One of the men cursed, shot to his feet, and ran out the door. Wesley didn’t fire at him. A hostage was in the room, and the last thing he wanted to do was endanger her. This wasn’t about his reputation or even justice. This was about getting Lauren’s mother out safely. That was all that mattered in the end.
Wesley aimed his weapon at the unknown woman on the couch. “Get the tape off her,” he demanded. He held his gun steady while the woman started struggling with the tape on Anne’s wrists. Now he could take a moment to examine the senator’s face. It was glistening with tears she had not been able to dry. Aside from the red marks made by the tape they’d likely used to silence her, she was sickly pale. The poor woman was clearly scared for her life.
Once Anne’s wrists were free, the other woman knelt to start on her ankles.
“Are you okay?” Wesley asked Anne.
She just nodded.
“Good. We’re getting you out of here.”
Anne nodded again, and Wesley noted that such a talkative woman seemed unable to say a single word. She must have been in shock. He hoped she wasn’t traumatized, but he knew that was likely to be a long shot.
As soon as Anne was free, Wesley nodded back to Lauren. “Get her out of here. Straight down to the lobby. Tell the concierge to call the police. I’m going to hold them here. Just get your mother somewhere safe.”
Lauren wrinkled her brow, her face still flushed from the adrenaline of what they’d just accomplished. “You should come with us,” she said. “You can’t just stay here.”
However much Wesley wanted to comfort or reason with her, there just wasn’t the time. And he wanted Lauren and Anne out of the picture as soon as possible. He felt the only safe option was to adopt a commanding air. “This is my job, Lauren,” he said, a harshness slipping into his voice, so they would know he meant it. “Get your mother downstairs. Now. Call the police. Don’t argue. Let me handle this. Lauren,” he said when he felt her hesitate behind him. “Now.”
He heard Lauren leave with her mother, and his shoulders instantly relaxed. The one man who ran would have immediately gotten as far from the building as possible. So, the Bartletts were safe and hopefully would be calling the police soon. Wesley immediately pulled out his phone, his gun still shifting between the other kidnappers, each in turn. He called his boss, so he wouldn’t have to look down while texting. There was no chance he was going to mess this one up. He told Eva where she could find him, where the senator would be, and that he had all but one of the kidnappers held at gunpoint.
“The police will be on their way, too,” he concluded.
Eva didn’t bother asking further questions. Wesley had given her all the information she needed in order to assign her people to the job. The call disconnected, and Wesley was left alone with the kidnappers. While he waited, he decided to mess with them.
“I’ve decided I only need one of you to stay,” he said. “Choose who that will be, and the other two can go.”
Watching the kidnappers argue among themselves gave Wesley some measure of satisfaction. The men both argued that the woman would get less time if she were caught and that she should therefore take the fall for them. The woman argued that this was their idea and she was just going along, so punishing her was unfair. There was talk of guilt, justice, ideals, and at least one mention of the patriarchy. Wesley couldn’t help laughing a bit.
The kidnappers argued with each other for so long that they were all three still at each other’s throats when the police arrived on the scene — not that Wesley had any real intention of letting a single one of them leave. It was just amusing to watch them descend into bickering and backstabbing.
After the scene was secured, Wesley was allowed to leave to get some air with the promise that he would be available for questioning later. His hands finally started shaking after he stepped outside, the adrenaline hitting him hard the second he no longer needed it. He realized it had been years since he was in a situation that tense, and he hadn’t even been given a moment to prepare for it. But he had to admit, Lauren’s impulsivity was part of what had caused their success. The element of surprise.
He laughed to himself when he considered it. How could he have ever thought he stood a chance at resisting Lauren Bartlett? She always had the element of surprise. She’d first surprised him the day she met him, and she hadn’t stopped since. Wesley couldn’t predict her, but that was one of the things he loved best about her.
He leaned back against the apartment building and counted his breaths to slow his heartbeat. And he smiled to himself, knowing he was going to know Lauren for a long time — the rest of his life if she’d allow it. And as long as he stayed beside her, he would never be bored again.