Chapter 51
The Queen of Wands is powerful, confident, and courageous.
CAL
“Detective Chan, we meet again.” Juliet sneers. “Under slightly different circumstances, though.” She waves her gun. “I was hoping you’d give up and leave but you are such a persistent pain in the ass.”
She motions him to the wooden rocking chair she had been sitting in. “Callie,” her voice dripping with venom, “be a doll and zip tie the good detective’s hands and feet.” Juliet pulls a packet of plastic zip ties from her hoodie pocket and tosses them to me. “Make sure they are tight. No tricks or games.”
I tie Danny’s hands to the arms of the rocker. My hands are trembling and I realize I’ve zipped his hands too tight. The ties are cutting into his wrist. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“His feet, too.” I kneel and do as I am told. I look at his face and realize it is this face I want to spend the rest of my life with. Danny winks at me.
He’s dissociating.
I try to reason with Juliet. “Listen, this is between you and me. Don’t involve him in this. Let him go and I’ll take your pills. You don’t want to kill a police officer.”
Once I say it, I realize how ridiculous it is. Of course, she has to kill Danny, too. He is a witness to her confession.
“Oh, but I do want to kill Detective Chan. Because he has greatly annoyed me this week. I just wish his little bitch partner was with him. No matter, I’ll get her, too.”
She moves toward Danny and raises his pant leg. She removes his back up gun.
Dammit, that was the only chance I had to get us out of this alive.
Juliet pockets her own gun and twirls Danny’s Beretta around her finger. “This is getting better and better! Let’s see, the headlines will read, ‘Police Detective, that’s you,” pointing at Danny, “killed with his own gun by a suspect.” She swings the gun around, “That’s you.”
She gives me a shove that sends me sprawling on the floor.
“Juliet,” says Danny, “don’t…”
“SHUT UP! My name is Mandy!” She throws a roll of duct tape at me. “Put some tape over that idiot’s mouth before I blow his head off.”
I catch the duct tape and motion to my desk. “Can I just get some scissors to cut the tape?”
“NO!” roared Juliet. “Do you think I’m stupid?” She smacks me so hard on the side of the head with Danny’s gun that two small cuts open on my temple and cheek. I feel a trickle of warm blood and am faint from the blow.
“That gun is loaded, you idiot!” Danny shouts. Juliet racks the gun and places it under Danny’s chin. “Not another word,” she says between clenched teeth.
Juliet yanks open the drawer of my desk and retrieves a pair of scissors. “Cut a piece of tape and put the scissors back on the table. If you try anything, I’ll kill you first and then him.”
I place a four-inch piece of tape over Danny’s mouth. I try again to reason with her.
“Mandy, I can see you are in a great deal of pain. I want to help you. I am so sorry for hurting Abigail six years ago.” I adopt a soothing tone of voice and assume a non-threatening posture.
“Pain?” shouts Juliet. “You don’t know the pain we’ve felt, you privileged little snot. Abigail found the love of her life and you ruined it. She was going to marry him until you interfered and then he met that Russian trollop and she sunk her claws into him.”
She picked up the scissors and stabbed the coffee table each word. “Little” (stab) “Russian” (stab) “Whore” (stab).
I wince with each scissor strike. Spittle pools on the table.
“I am sorry,” I said softly. Juliet turns to me with the scissors gripped tightly in one hand and Danny’s Beretta in the other hand. “You’re going to be a whole lot sorrier very soon.”
“Killing me or Detective Chan won’t solve anything. Let’s stop this before anyone gets hurt.”
“You don’t get it, do you? Are you really this dense?” Juliet broke into peals of laughter. “You stupid fool. Juliet said you told her, ‘There is transformational power in loss’ and ‘Pain is the portal to self-awareness.’”
She holds the point of the scissors to my neck. I feel the sharp tip pierce my skin and another warm trickle of blood.
“You were wrong. You know what our ‘portal to self-awareness’ was? Our moment of transformation? When we stabbed that cheating lying SOB in the eye with YOUR high-heeled shoe.”
The timer on Juliet’s watch chimes. “So, I am creating my own reality. And yours. I want you to watch the detective die. It’s very transformational. We watched Paul die and you’re right—we felt very powerful as he lay there twitching like a marionette. After the detective dies, you’ll swallow some pills and then I’m going to cut out your tongue because you are full of nothing but lies.”
Dazed and bleeding, I bend over and vomit on the floor. Juliet aims Danny’s gun at his forehead. I sit on the floor and wipe my mouth. I look at Danny’s face for the last time.
I hear the shot. “NO!” Blood splatter and brain matter rained down on me. I close my eyes, knowing my own death is moments away.
“Cal, Cal!” I hear a familiar voice behind me and heavy steps on the stairway to the loft. “Are you OK? Dr. Cassidy?”
Disoriented, I open my eyes. Juliet is crumpled on the floor with a large pool of blood discoloring the brick around what is left of her head. Danny is sitting upright in the rocking chair. Unharmed.
Danny cocks his head and winks at me. What the….?
I hear the voice again, faintly, and the squawk of a walkie talkie, “Get an EMT in here stat. Dr. Cassidy is in shock and losing consciousness.”
I see Biz (Biz? Where did she come from?) rush past me toward Danny.
She releases Danny’s hands and feet from the zips and pulls the tape from his mouth.
“You good, partner?” Danny uses his tee shirt to wipe the blood and brains from his face. “Never better, Biz. You get all that on tape?”
“Audio and video. Doc’s in the clear.” She nods her head in my direction.
Danny stands up, stumbling slightly from his legs being tied so tightly to the rocking chair. “Let’s get her to the sofa.”
Biz takes one side and Danny takes the other. I groan and stir as they lay me on the sofa. I wake with my head cradled in Danny’s lap. He is gently wiping my face with a cloth. There are bandages on my temple, cheek, and neck. There is a blood pressure cuff around my arm and an EMT at my side. “Blood pressure is stabilizing. She’ll be ok but we are transporting her to Grady. She needs a couple stitches in that neck wound.”
“Did I see Biz? Is Biz here?”
“Right here, Doc.” Detective Bizzell kneels on the floor beside the sofa.
“You were in my house? How did you get in here?
“Climbed through the upstairs window.” Biz is solemn. “We had to get a confession from Juliet or you were headed for Life Without Parole.”
The EMTs came in with a stretcher. “CIS is on its way. Captain Kim and Chief Williams are outside.”
The light is beginning to dawn. “Wait a minute.” The EMT shakes her head, but I say firmly, “No, give me a minute, please.”
I look at Danny and Biz. Despite two hits to my head, one stab wound dangerously close to my carotid artery, and brains and blood in my hair and all over my face, I am beginning to put two and two together.
“YOU USED ME AS BAIT TO CATCH A PSYCHOPATHIC KILLER. THAT WAS YOUR FREAKING PLAN? What kind of people are you?”
Biz has the nerve to laugh.
I’m not finished. “How dare you? You tortured me for months trying to pin Paul’s murder on me. Then you pretend to make all nice just to set me up as bait to catch the real killer. She could have killed me! She stuck a pair of scissors in my carotid artery!”
Biz gently touches the bandage on my neck. “As a doctor, you should know this is about a quarter inch from where your carotid is located.”
She’s right but I’m angry with her anyway. “At least your aim is good.”
“I could’ve gotten her a few minutes sooner if your damn head had not been in the way. And you’re welcome.”
A blue and red glow lit up the yard. “CIS is waiting,” says Biz. “Get her to Grady, you go with her. I’ll handle things here.”