Chapter 36 - Paisley
My wrist burned and my fingers were rapidly going numb as the handcuff bit into my flesh.
With the folding chair tucked under my arm, I tiptoed to the door, pressing my ear against the grimy wood.
There wasn’t a sound, and I slowly opened it.
I was already going against Pierce’s orders, having stepped out of his lines drawn into the dust on the floor.
If I didn’t go ahead with this plan, he’d know instantly that I hadn’t sat and complied and he’d make me pay.
At that point I knew I was going to die like the others on the list, so attempting an escape was the only shot I had at survival.
I didn’t want to end up as a missing person, my body hidden for weeks or maybe longer before some unlucky jogger or hiker came across it, decayed and picked at by scavengers.
Outside of the room, the vast, mostly empty warehouse loomed ahead of me. It couldn’t have been more than fifty yards to the front door, but it looked like the expanse of a huge desert. Getting to the door could be my salvation, or I could find a guard waiting to bash me over the head.
Fear made me want to get back in the room and lean up against the door as if I could keep Agent Pierce out when he wanted to return to interrogate me more.
It made me believe that the moment I took another step, alarms would sound, armed men would come running from the shadows, and all would be lost.
It had to be all those fantastical bedtime stories I’d been reading to the Fokin children that made my imagination kick into overdrive.
If there were armed men in hiding, they would have tackled me by now.
I closed my eyes briefly, wishing I was in the cozy confines of the library at the lodge, with the fire crackling, stockings hanging from the mantel, and those sweet little faces turned up to me with rapt attention as I read their favorite stories to them.
It was time to move. I had been dawdling fearfully for at least ten minutes, plenty of time for Pierce to leave the warehouse compound, and coming up on being too long. If he was just running out for coffee and giving me time to think, like he said, he could be on his way back by now.
What the hell was I supposed to think about?
It still infuriated me that he kept accusing me of lying.
It was probably that anger that got me to forge ahead toward the front door.
I kept my eyes peeled on the dim outline as I rearranged the chair I was cuffed to, wondering if I could swing it as a weapon if necessary.
I had plenty of thoughts, but they weren’t the kind Agent Pierce wanted me to have.
He wasn’t getting another word out of me because there was nothing else to tell.
Instead, I was awash with regret. So much regret, going all the way back to before I got hired at Axon.
The kicker was there wasn’t anything I could have done differently.
How could I know that Pierce was on the payroll of my corrupt former employer?
Even now there was no amount of money in the world that could get me to go to the police.
If Axon could buy off the FBI, they could certainly be in bed with the LAPD.
Strangely enough, my biggest regret was not being nicer to Dan.
He truly was nothing like the sexist losers who belittled me at work.
He was just a rowdy guy who liked to have fun.
I had grown to enjoy his teasing once I realized he wasn’t singling me out.
He joked around with everyone, always just on the edge of being slightly inappropriate.
I had lost my sense of humor after having to be so guarded all the time, but he had brought it back to me, little by little.
My cozy memory of being with the kids changed to a wistful imagining of being cuddled up near the fireplace with Dan.
His arm around me, my head resting against his shoulder, music in the background as we both turned the pages of our own books.
He’d turn to kiss my forehead. I’d look up with a smile. Then our lips would touch.
What the hell? I was losing it. There wasn’t going to be anything like that if I didn’t keep heading toward the door.
It might never happen for any number of reasons, most of all the fact I suddenly recalled Pierce had insinuated that Dan’s family was in danger.
Not just insinuated but outright told me they wouldn’t be around much longer.
That kind and loving family was being targeted all because I saw a little scrap of paper I wasn’t supposed to,
I moved faster, reaching for the door handle at last. There had been no tripwires, no alarms. This was nothing more than an abandoned warehouse used for convenience, not the lair of some criminal mastermind.
Remembering that the door creaked, I pulled it open slowly, inch by inch.
Pale moonlight illuminated the concrete floor and as soon as the door was open enough to fit me and the chair through, I slipped out.
The air was much warmer outside and a soft breeze ruffled my hair.
The area in front of the warehouse was completely empty, and I looked around, trying to remember which direction we drove in.
I was surrounded by other buildings, each one about as derelict as the one I just escaped.
But maybe one of them was still in use and had a phone.
I hurried down the stairs and hunkered down against the wall, cursing myself for not paying attention and being hopelessly lost. I had been trying not to be sick, and nausea welled up again as hopelessness flooded in.
If I took the wrong direction, I could end up further from the road or worse, end up circling back.
To hell with it. I couldn’t remain huddled against the wall for much longer. I had to get as far away as possible, simple enough. Still crouched down and with the chair awkwardly banging against my knees, I scrambled away from the wall and headed down a side alley between the neighboring building.
Headlights blinded me, stopping me in my tracks.
The slow crunch of gravel under tires had me whipping around and running full out, my feet skidding in the loose stones.
So it looked like Agent Pierce had taken his coffee break in his car, parked on the side of the warehouse.
Desperation gave me incredible speed, or at least it felt like it until I was thrown through the air after a hard jolt to my backside.
My hands scraped across the ground and the chair banged against my shoulder, painfully twisting my wrist.
He actually hit me with his car. I shook off my shock and tried to rise up enough to slam the chair into him, but he planted his foot in the middle of my back.
“There better not be a dent in my car,” he snarled, hauling me up by the back of my shirt.
The chair nearly tripped him but he kicked it away, finally swearing ruthlessly as he leaned over and uncuffed me from it. Leaving it in the gravel, he dragged me back toward the warehouse.
At the steps, I had recovered enough from hitting the dirt to kick at him, landing a good one in his thigh.
He grunted, reaching down to smack me across the face.
I got an even better kick to his crotch, and he roared with pain as he stumbled backwards.
It wasn’t enough time to get back on my feet.
I was half risen when he slammed his fist into the side of my head, sending me down again in a heap.
His foot rose and I saw a terrifying grimace on his face high above me in the moonlight. Despite being dazed from the latest hit, I rolled to the side and curled into a ball.
“I’m sorry,” I said through my hands.
“Not enough.” Grabbing the back of my shirt again, he yanked me up enough to haul me up the steps and into the warehouse.
The door slammed with a screech of rusty hinges and a bang that echoed around the empty space. He dropped me onto the floor, my shoulder slamming painfully against the concrete. It hardly registered since everything hurt at that point.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated, holding up my hands. “I won’t fight anymore.”
“Damn right you won’t. That was stupid.”
I nodded meekly, all while picturing getting his gun from him and ramming it down his throat before pulling the trigger.
The vivid imagery made me shudder. There was never a time in my life I wished for someone to truly be harmed.
I didn’t even find silly videos of people falling off ladders very amusing.
But Agent Pierce pushed me over a line I feared I’d never be able to get back onto the right side of.
I wanted him dead, now, and as painfully as possible.
He smiled viciously, leaning down to pull me over to the wall, propping me against it like a doll. “Are you ready to smarten up and talk?”
“Do you want me to lie?” I asked, wincing in anticipation of a blow.
None came as he shook his head slowly. “I want you to stop lying and tell me what you know about the Fokin organization.”
“Organization?” I asked incredulously. “I’m a temporary babysitter. I don’t know anything except what their kids like to eat for breakfast.”
His soulless eyes bored into mine but I refused to look away or blink. My fear was quickly turning to anger. He saw it and didn’t like it. Good. I wasn’t too happy with him, either.
“Okay,” he said in a pleasant tone but with a smile that was more like a wolf baring its teeth. “Let’s talk about the kids.”
The fear came rushing back and he saw that too. Now his smile was more sincere. The monster was happy about something I wasn’t going to like at all.
“Don’t,” I whispered.
He leaned back on his heels, holding up his hands. “Oh, I don’t want to. I don’t like hurting children.”
“So then don’t,” I pleaded.
“That’s up to you,” he told me. “Your bosses might as well be dead already, but if you tell me something I find useful, maybe we can spare the kids.”
He hadn’t been honest about anything, not about who he was or where his loyalties lay, so was he telling the truth now about the Fokins?
Was Katie, who had been so welcoming to me, about to be tortured and killed?
Brooke, Daria, Mila, along with the other moms?
What about Dan? Oh God. Grotesque images of handsome, hearty Dan lying in a pool of his own blood, his vivid green eyes slowly fading into death, assaulted my mind. Because of me.
No. Not because of me. Because of this corrupt FBI asshole who was grinning at me like he just won the lottery.
With a scream, I launched myself at him, digging into his face with my fingernails, trying to crush his eyes with my thumbs. All the air gusted out of me as he slammed me onto my back with a shout of his own, his hands tightening around my throat.