Chapter Forty-Seven
Ted moved slowly through the hallways, stopping to lean against the wall every few steps. He had to get to Mimi, or maybe he had to get help first. He was unsure of the right thing to do. He knew the direction to escape was behind him. If he could get to his car, he could get help.
Thunder boomed. An ominous echo moved through the plant.
Ted’s heart leaped. His breathing was too fast. He needed to gain control.
Weak or not, he needed to find Mimi. He leaned back, suppressing the desire to cry out in pain.
He took a few deep breaths, letting the air out of his lungs slowly.
What the hell had Kara—or Mimi—done to that guy?
He pushed himself forward, staggering to the left, then keeling to the right.
Finally, he centered his weight and found his balance.
Ted listened for the man’s steps, some indication of which direction he’d gone.
But all he could hear was the hum of the generator and the faint sound of trickling water.
He reached the end of the hall, afraid to peer beyond.
Doing so could be the death of him. He could not withstand another run-in.
He breathed through his nose, wishing he had taken some sort of self-defense class, taken part in sports, done anything to prepare himself for a physical confrontation.
What did it matter? He hadn’t. He was a washed up, middle-aged accountant.
He’d always be just Ted, nothing special, not a man who turned a lot of heads.
If he admitted to himself what he’d been fighting for the past several years, it would be that he wasn’t Detective Grant—his wife’s schoolgirl crush that he was worried had never gone away.
He saw it in her eyes when they ran into him on the street, and felt her bristle when he mentioned his name.
Yet she’d never been anything but loving toward Ted.
Maybe it was his own insecurity that was the elephant in the room.
He needed to be a man. He needed to save her.
And he had to do it before Grant did, childish as that seemed even to him.
He wrapped his arms around his body to lessen the chill that chased the pain up his spine.
The generator-driven light flickered, then faded. Ted stopped, his heart in his throat. He stared into the pitch-black hall. The wound on his side squeezed to the point of pain. Droplets of blood seeped onto his jeans. Ted reached his hands out in front of him, and made his way into the darkness.
The deeper into the plant Ted traveled, the less he could hear the generator, or the storm.
He had to be heading the wrong way. The smell of wet coal became stronger as he progressed down the hall, or perhaps his sense of smell was simply keener in the darkness.
His fingers reached the end of a wall. Ted stood stock still, trying to hear past the pounding of his heart.
Water trickled. He wondered where there could possibly be trickling water.
“Help!” a male voice rang out.
Ted stumbled backwards. It was a trick. He was sure of it. He’d seen too many movies where people walked right into traps. Things never ended well for the unsuspecting victim. He stared with wide eyes in the direction of the shout, his nerves afire, his side pulsating with pain.
“Help! Someone help!”
Jackson?
Ted sucked in a breath. Shit. Even if it was a trap, how did you turn your back on a friend?
He turned around, thinking about the light at the end of the dark passageway.
A glimmer of hope. Why did light make him feel safe?
He’d seen the size of his attacker, and he knew if he ran into him again he was a dead man.
“Help!” Jackson screamed.
“Goddamn it,” Ted mumbled, and begrudgingly inched forward.
He opened his mouth to call out to Jackson, then stopped himself.
Shit. His hands fisted by his sides. The hall ended, intersecting another hallway.
To his right it was pitch-black; to his left, a bulb illuminated the far end of the hallway and the entrance to a room that was barely visible.
Ted felt as if he were wading through smoke.
The air was thick with the stench of wet coal.
Silence.
Ted stopped. Listened. He couldn’t stifle a cough, sending renewed agony through his side and back.
“Help! Please help me!” Jackson’s voice shook.
Ted, still hanging onto the wall, cringing from the cough, righted himself and called out, “Jackson?” He doubled over. His stomach muscles tensed when he spoke, causing more pain. He groaned.
“Ted! Ted, help me, please!”
Ted pulled himself toward the light, wanting to yell to Jackson and ask about Mimi, but he couldn’t.
Pains shot down his legs and spread through his chest like fingers pulling on the roots of his nerves.
The light was just ahead. He hung onto the concrete as if he were part of it, pulling himself forward, urging himself to keep moving.
When he neared the illuminated entrance to the room, he stooped, peering in from the darkened hall. Coal dust flitted through the light. Ted tried to focus, his eyes wide, his ears alert. The sound of water trickling filled the space between him and the room.
Grant moved quickly through the labyrinth of the plant, Mark in tow.
“Where to?” Mark asked.
Grant cursed himself for not bringing the blueprints. He ran through the means of egress in his mind. The rear of the building, the Bilco doors, the stairs—with the doors locked. Damn locks.
“We know they’re downstairs. We have to get there,” Grant answered.
Mark gave him a look that said, No shit.
Grant swallowed his pride. “Yeah, okay already, you were right, I was wrong. Move on.” Grant looked for another access point. “I saw two ways to gain access from outside, but would assume those doors are also locked.”
Mark held up his gun and wiggled it.
“No,” Grant said. “We do that and they’re as good as dead.” He mumbled something under his breath. “Use your head. You’re not a rookie.”
“Look, we either shoot the door open, or we hit the outside entrance.” He crossed his arms. “You’re the boss, it’s your call.”
The storm had eased. Rain fell from the sky in soft sprinkles. Grant exited the main entrance to the building, passed through the turnstile, and ran toward the coal yard. He’d seen a door leading to the yard on the plans, and wanted to check it out.
When the path changed from gravel to grass, the earth beneath them drank in their shoes.
“Shit,” Mark said.
Grant walked determinedly through the yard, looking for the door in the side of the building.
“There it is.” Mark pointed to the rear-most point of the wall. He jogged over and reached for the doorknob.
“Wait!” Grant yelled. He positioned himself to the left of Mark, his gun aiming at the door. He nodded.
Mark turned the knob. It didn’t budge. It was locked. “Damn it.”
“Come on.” Grant ran toward the back of the building. “There’s another entrance this way.”
Roland’s world was crumbling around him.
The bitch had taken off, the weasel was tied up, and now he’d killed another man.
That wasn’t even close to his plan. He wasn’t a murderer.
He just wanted to be with Marissa. Why was this happening?
His plan was so well thought out—he’d grab Marissa, she’d be thrilled to see him, and they’d celebrate, talk about the years they’d missed, have some cake, then drink themselves into their next life, where they’d remain together forever, uninterrupted by nosey cops and social workers.
Roland stopped at the elevator and leaned over, his head bowed.
He had to catch his breath. He had to figure out where Mimi had taken Marissa.
He eyed the bottles of antifreeze. He could end it all now, drink the whole bottle and be done with this awful, crazy world.
God only knew when the police would be there.
The burning sensation in his hands had yet to dissipate. They were on fire.
He kicked the antifreeze across the floor.
The gun he’d taken remained tucked into his pocket.
Roland didn’t like guns. They were cheap, and mean—a coward’s way out.
Men protected their own with their hands.
He thought about the man who lay on the floor, blood pouring from his gut.
He hadn’t been the one who’d pulled the trigger.
He would have just as soon tied the guy up to get him out of his way, but the guy…
he made him do it. Roland hadn’t had a choice.
He knew Mimi and Marissa had little time left, and he needed to be with Marissa when she died, otherwise it was all for naught.
He stopped in front of the room where he’d left the dead guy days earlier.
The stench emanated from beneath the door.
Roland didn’t feel remorse. The guy had deserved it.
He had discovered Roland last week, during one of Roland’s planning missions.
Roland had had no choice. He’d tried to explain, say he was a maintenance guy, but the bastard would have none of it, aggressive punk that he was.
He’d pushed and pushed, and finally he’d reached for the phone to call the police.
Roland had tried restraining him, but he’d grabbed that goddamn piece of steel and tried to hit Roland with it.
Stupid motherfucker. Within seconds Roland had removed him from the equation with that very slab of steel.
Roland’s face contorted in pain. “Marissa!” he yelled. He stomped across the floor and snagged the fullest jug of antifreeze. “I’ll find you!”