Chapter 9
Gabrielle groaned and rolled over. Her hips ached and groggily she wondered why. She ran a hand down her thigh, feeling the rough fabric of her jeans and was jolted into wakefulness. Sitting straight up in bed, she remembered—the letter. Tossing the blanket aside she leapt to her feet, staggering a little with the force of immediate fear that gripped her. She scrabbled through the bedding in search of her phone. She knew she’d had it in her hand last night. There! She flipped it on and looked at the time.
It was ten in the morning! Frantically she raced for her bedroom door and flung it against the wall in her haste to find her sister. But the bed had been returned to its other life as a sofa and the cushions were arranged prettily.
“Annette!” Gabrielle bounded into the kitchen, skidding against the table in her headlong rush. Damn! Her sister was gone already. Off to Andrew’s shop where they’d both be under constant surveillance and subject to danger. She felt as though there were eyes everywhere. Just because they hadn’t noticed that man yesterday, didn’t mean he wasn’t near. He could be lurking in the shadows, prowling behind buildings, or hunkered low in a vehicle, waiting to pounce.
Tapping her phone to life once again she rang her sister’s number, falling into a chair at the sound of Annette’s cheery voice.
“‘Allo, bonjour.”
“Annette! Are you alright? Is Andrew there? Did anyone follow you this morning?”
There was a puzzled silence on the other end and then Annette’s voice, low with concern, spoke. “He’s here, of course. Andrew came to get me about half an hour ago. But you were still asleep, so I didn’t wake you.” She drew a breath. “Are you alright? You sound terrified.”
“I—I…don’t ask. Look don’t leave the shop alright. Stay there with Andrew and tell him to watch for that man. He’ll know what I’m talking about.”
“Gabby, you’re scaring me,” Annette’s voice rose with agitation. “Are you okay? I want to come to you.”
“No!” Gabrielle tried vainly to calm herself, to take a breath and speak normally. “I’m fine. Just stay with Andrew and tell him what I said. Do I have your word?”
“Oui,” came the quavering reply. “I will tell him.”
“I love you.” Gabrielle ended the call and stood to pace once more. She would contact Commissaire Chevalier. He was the detective that led the investigation before, and she trusted him. The police needed to know she had received a threat, and that there was still a piece of missing art, supposedly with her. She rummaged in her purse for the number she’d written on a crumpled bit of paper in case she’d ever needed him again. Smoothing it on the table, she leaned forward, holding her head in her hands. This was too much.
With shaking fingers, she ran a hand through her tousled hair and took a moment to breathe before making the call. She didn’t want to sound like a babbling lunatic. She needed to be taken seriously.
Picking up her phone, Gabrielle closed her eyes and checked the paper before entering the first three numbers with trembling fingers. But before she could enter more, there was a knock. Gripping her phone in one hand, she crept silently to the door and squinted through the tiny hole at the top.
Her landlady? That was strange, but not unwarranted. Madame Moreau stood outside, shuffling a number of papers in her hand. Reaching out, she knocked again. True, the woman looked agitated, but then again, she often did. With an apartment building nearly full of students, she always said she was, ‘s”enfuir’ or run off her feet.
With trepidation, Gabrielle slid the top bolt across and lifted the latch. Finally, she snapped the main dead bolt and reached for the tiny lock on the handle, but there was no need. With a crashing sound of splintering wood, the door flew back, knocking her back and slamming against the wall. The landlady came flying through the opening to land heavily on the tiled floor.
Tears streamed down her withered cheeks, the woman raised herself on shaking arms, sobbing an apology as a man burst through the door behind her and slammed it back in place, wedging it with one of Gabrielle’s boots to keep it shut.
“Quit yer whinin’ hag,” the man growled in a thick British accent. He took a kick at the woman’s extended legs. Poor Madame Moreau curled away from him, edging herself into a corner, great wracking sobs breaking from her body.
The intruder was big and burly with black hair and a goatee. Gabrielle had known it would be him. The only distinguishing characteristic Andrew had failed to see from a distance was a livid red scar that ran from the corner of his eye to halfway down his cheek. It looked recent too. Menacingly, he stepped into the room, towering over her, but Gabrielle stood her ground. Now that her fears had finally come to confront her, she faced them without flinching.
He leered at Gabrielle from her toes up to her face. “So many times, I asked him what ‘e wanted yeh fer,” he sneered. “S’ppose I can see what ‘e wanted,” the man laughed nastily. Taking several steps, he stopped right in front of her, reaching out to roughly seize one of her breasts. She recoiled. His hot, reeking breath assailed her like a cess pool, and he grabbed her roughly by the shoulders, lifted her, and shook her like a doll. Her cell phone clattered to the floor. Malcom lifted a huge boot and smashed it into little pieces.
“I want that paintin’ see. Where is it? I know ye have it. Lyam said it was ‘ere and I told ye to bring it to me, but instead you went gallivantin’ off with your friends.”
“I’m not saying a word until you let me go.” Gabrielle managed to stay calm, her brain feeling as though it had been rattled loose.
He dropped her to the floor. Cursing, he lifted a huge, meaty hand and smacked her across the face, causing her to spin helplessly across the entry and smash her head into the kitchen table. Madame screamed.
“Where is it?” he thundered, striding across the room to pick her up and shake her again. Gabrielle couldn’t think. A blazing pain had erupted over her left eye and when she tried to push her hair away, to see what this giant of a man was going to do next, a warm sticky mess met her fingertips. Her eye was rapidly swelling shut. Groggily she pulled her hand away and squinted at it. Blood.
“I don’t know,” she slurred. With another shake, he tossed her away again. This time she slammed into a wall and crumpled.
“He was yer boyfriend, wasn’t ‘e?” the man bawled. “If ‘e says it’s ‘ere, then it’s ‘ere.”
He began a systematic search, ripping out drawers, ransacking cupboards, and flinging the contents across the room. Gabrielle heard the sound of her dishes breaking, her precious trinkets, and pictures from family trips smashing on the floor. She mourned the loss. Hot tears escaped her eyes regardless of the swelling and mingled with the blood that trickled down her face.
Dimly, with her one good eye, she watched her landlady try to crawl for the door, but the madman screamed an oath. In two strides he was on her, grabbed her by the back of her dress and dragged the woman back before hurling her through the air to land in a crumpled heap beside Gabrielle. One leg was bent at an unnatural angle.
Swearing again, the man snatched up the toaster and with one deft move he ripped the cord from it. Then it was the kettle’s turn. Marching to where they lay, he rolled Madame Moreau onto her face with the toe of his boot and then wrenched her arms back to wind the plastic cord tightly around her wrists. He dropped her to the floor where she landed with a painful yelp, hitting her head on the sturdy leg of Gabrielle’s free-standing cupboard. The landlady didn’t move.
It was Gabrielle’s turn next. She felt his hand flip her over and then her arms were nearly yanked from their sockets as he snapped them behind her and bound them tight.
He moved from the kitchen into the salon. Furniture scraped across the floor and personal objects tipped over, slamming against the floor. She heard the rending of wallpaper and plaster and knew the paintings that were hers had been torn from the wall as he searched for the one he wanted. More cursing ensued.
The sounds grew further away. Either he was in her bedroom, or she was close to passing out. Her head was a throbbing, hazy cloud of pain and she felt herself slipping in and out of consciousness. Her arm ached and every time she tried to ease it into a better position, a stabbing shock went through her shoulder. What could she do to fight back? Nothing. All she prayed now was that he would find what he wanted and leave.
The muffled sounds of banging continued as he dismantled her bedroom. Growls of fury interspaced with bouts of livid swearing. She wondered what the painting was and why Lyam hadn’t just told him where to find it?
Summoning all her energy, she tried to turn her head to see if Madame Moreau was alive. But even her good eye was blurry now. She couldn’t tell. The pool of blood continued to grow as it dripped rhythmically from her head onto the floor.
There was a huge crash followed closely by a shout of exultation. The only thing that would have made that much noise was her armoire. She wasn’t sure where the painting could possibly have been, but he must have found it. His heavy tread echoed through the tiny apartment. He kicked her belongings aside with a sickening crunch as, triumphantly, he charged back into the kitchen.
He stopped short. All that Gabrielle could see were his enormous boots a breath away from her face.
“Yer old man’s a doctor ain’t ‘e?” he yelled, nudging her side with the toe of his boot. She didn’t respond. Partly because she couldn’t, and partly because she wanted him to think she was unconscious.
“Ye don’t ‘ave to tell me. I knows ‘bout all yer family and all yer friends. No one’s safe from Malcom.” He chuckled proudly. “I’m thinkin’ this lousy paintin’s not the only way to make a little coin in this town.” Crouching down on his haunches, he continued speaking to himself. “I’ll bet ‘e’d pay handsomely to get ‘is pretty wee daughter back.”
Appearing to come to a decision, Malcom slid beefy arms beneath Gabrielle’s knees and back, and lifted. She flopped unresistingly against his protruding stomach, her head lolling. Her mind told her to resist, and she fought feebly against the man. But he only laughed at her weak attempts.
“There ain’t nothin’ you can do to escape me,” he boasted. He tucked the painting between her body and his own. Making his way to the door, he kicked it open and marched through, slamming Gabrielle’s feet painfully against the frame. She was past caring. The overwhelming agony of her head had consumed her.
Getting downstairs was a little tricky. Malcom stopped and shifted Gabrielle, like a sack of flour, to flop over his shoulder. In this ghastly way, they descended the stairs. She hadn’t thought the pain could get worse. However, when all the blood rushed to her head, and she was slammed up and down with every heavy clump of Malcom’s boots, she knew it was not only possible, but a sure thing.
The time it took to navigate the steps felt interminable. Finally, they reached the bottom and groggily she wondered how the man proposed to carry her, bleeding and battered, onto a main street and stuff her into a car. He had to have some sort of vehicle waiting outside. He couldn’t possibly stroll through the streets of Paris with an injured woman slung over his back with her hands secured by a length of electric cord, could he? She opened her good eye a crack.
But he didn’t pass through the heavy double doors. He didn’t go outside at all. Instead, Malcom ducked beneath the low-hanging staircase and strode down a short flight of stairs to where the corridor narrowed. They came to a door Gabrielle had never noticed before. He kicked it open with a bang. It appeared to be some sort of tiny storage room that smelled damp and musty. The room was bare apart from a tall stack of dusty crates in one corner and some discarded appliances in another. He locked up from the inside and moved toward the boxes.
There was only one, dirty window built below street level. A small measure of light managed to filter through the grime. Malcom crossed the room in three strides and threw her down on some filthy rags in a corner. Her head snapped back and hit the wall. She stifled a gasp and knew only darkness.
* * *
Somehow Gabrielle woke.Her head was one big blazing, throbbing mass of pain and her body felt as though she’d been thrown down a flight of stairs. That assessment wasn’t wrong. She thought of Madame Moreau. Had the woman been killed by that monstrous man? She prayed not. Groaning on the inside, too afraid to make a sound lest it garnered the attention of Malcom, she shifted positions slightly and tried to ease the pain in her shoulder.
She lay in darkness apart from a flashlight that wobbled to and fro as Malcom studied the painting, his breath raspy. How long had she been unconscious? Hours? Days? No, the monster across the room wouldn’t have sat here for days. His efforts were bent on escape and greed.
For a moment, she lay perfectly still, then, little by little she rolled, the long electric cord trailing across her. The gash above her eye was still oozing blood, but most of it had dried over her swollen eye, down her cheek, and matted in her hair. She didn’t think anything was broken, although she wasn’t positive about her shoulder. Her body must be a mass of bruises. She considered whether she could get up and make a run for it.
No.
Like an enormous cat, Malcom was on his feet and at her side in seconds, beaming the flashlight into her face.
“So, ye’ve opened yer eyes. Well…” he laughed cruelly and then said, “one of ‘em anyhow.” Roughly, he grasped her arm and yanked upward. “Let’s see if ye can stand. We need to git movin’.”
He stuffed the light into a back pocket and pulled her to her feet. She teetered, dangerously close to falling over. The man steadied her, the stench of sweat as he lifted his arms acted very much like smelling salts. She reared back then winced, closing her eyes, and willing herself not to be sick. The pain was agonizing.
“Aww come on, it ain’t bleedin’ much now. Move it.” He pushed her forward. Gabrielle stumbled, feeling as though she was going to fall. Instinctively, she tried to lift her bound arms to catch herself, but the electric cord wound around her feet and threw off what little balance she had. She toppled forward.
Malcom caught hold of her bad arm again and dragged her to the door. She tripped, faltering, and falling on her knees that scraped painfully on the uneven cement. He held her arms with both hands in a vise-like grip and leaned down, getting close to her face, so flecks of spittle pelted her as he hissed instructions.
“I’m not tyin’ up yer legs, but ye ain’t gonna run cause I’m right here behind ye. Now that I ‘ave da paintin’, don’t need ye anymore. So, I could just as soon kill ye as look at ye.” With jerky movements, Malcom showed her another length of cord, coiled and then stuck it in another pants’ pocket. “If I don’t get no reward for yer safe return—I don’t care if yer dead or alive.” He leaned back, a satisfied smirk on his face. “Now, there’s a car outside, see, and we’s gonna get into it without a struggle or ye might find yerself with a broken neck to match that eye a yers. Ye got it?”
She nodded. She didn’t think she could speak anyway. Her throat felt dry as dust. From around his neck, he pulled a vile smelling bandana and forced it into her mouth before fastening it securely behind her head.
The taste caused her to gag. Sweat, dirt, and some nameless cheap cologne spread throughout her mouth, and she choked, coughing and spluttering.
His hand closed around her throat. “Shuddup!” he snarled.
He yanked open the door and craned his neck around it, listening for any signs of life. He then moved away from her, no doubt checking to see if anyone was lurking along the corkscrew staircase that led six flights above.
Gabrielle wondered where Annette was. What would she have thought when she got back to find the apartment torn apart and Madame Moreau badly injured or dead on the floor? Her sister would have called the police. Maybe Andrew was with her? She hoped so. Annette shouldn’t be alone. All of that must have taken place while she was passed out in a musty corner. And now the building was silent.
Oh, how she wished she had Andrew at her side. The morning’s events would have gone much differently if Superman had been with her.
She wondered if she could muster up the courage to break away and run for the outside door. Only she knew her injuries wouldn’t allow her to dodge past the big man and she didn’t have enough time to escape while the safety mechanism that released the door whirred to life. She sagged against the wall, her head pounding. All she could do was maintain—to survive.
The monster loomed out of the darkness before her and although she knew he was there, the sight of him frightened her badly. She tried to swallow the lump in her throat, but the dirty rag sucked up every bit of saliva she had.
Malcom pushed her out the door and grasped her arms in his vice-like grip, the painting tucked under one beefy arm. He manoeuvred her around the staircase and up to the big double doors where he flattened her between his huge body and the oak door while he stretched his arm out to punch the release button.
The door clicked open, and Malcom pulled it carefully toward himself. He paused, still inside the building. His head cocked to one side, listening, waiting, and watching before he ventured into the open.
Gabrielle’s knees buckled. She would have fallen if he hadn’t thrown an arm around her waist to hold her up. He shook her angrily, as if threats of bodily harm would serve to strengthen her failing legs. But she was too weak. Half dragging her, Malcom eased his bulk out of the door. He stopped again, lifting his face like a bloodhound to test the air.
Looking satisfied, he shuffled forward, hitching her onto his hip to take most of her weight himself. They were on the sidewalk now and Malcom took several strides toward a line of parked vehicles. Something jangled and a set of keys glinted in his hand. He aimed them toward the cars. She heard an answering beep as one unlocked.
If he got her in a car and took her away from this place she feared she’d never live to see it again. Lifting one leg, with every ounce of strength she could muster, she raised her foot and thrust downward, stomping on his toes as hard as she could.
“Yow!” he bellowed in rage, momentarily slackening his grip. Gabrielle slid toward the ground, but caught herself. She took a couple of faltering steps before her feet tangled and she fell.
It was then that something erupted from the shadows across the street. Pounding footsteps caused Malcom to startle violently before he reached down to grab his quarry. She pushed herself just out of reach. But before he could follow her, he was hit from behind and knocked to the pavement. He expelled a loud, “Oof” as he went down.
Gabrielle came up on her good arm, pushing herself into a seated position as she watched this mysterious figure attack her assailant.
Hauling Malcom up by the collar of his jacket, the other man drew back a fist and hit him hard. Malcom staggered backward, but the man was built like a solid wall. He caught his balance almost immediately, ducking to evade the advance of his attacker and throwing his own volley of punches. Back and forth they went, each one grunting, straining, panting, and landing punch after punch. Striking the face, the stomach, and the back, each one sounding painful and life-altering.
Suddenly, the shadow man slipped on something that crunched under his feet. The painting, Gabrielle thought hazily. Losing his stride, he stumbled back, and Malcom was on him like mud on a stick, taking the advantage, pounding him over and over until the man tumbled to the pavement.
Wheeling around, Malcom picked up the painting and lunged for her. She rolled, trying to scramble away, but it was futile. She was no match for the powerful man. He snagged the electric cord that trailed along the pavement behind her as she tried to crawl out of reach and yanked, ripping her toward him. A muffled groan of misery escaped her lips.
Dragging her by her bound wrists, he marched for the car. Gabrielle scraped over the rough sidewalk behind him, the sensitive skin on her stomach and chest feeling as though it were ripping away. Malcom halted beside a small car and began reeling her in like he was landing a marlin. He flung wide the door, picked her up, and shoved her inside, uncaring that again he had slammed her head, this time against the roof of the vehicle.
Gabrielle rolled weakly on the seat, struggling to keep her one eye open. Her heart filled with paralyzing fear as she watched Malcom round the front of the vehicle. And then, in the spotlight of lights that were flicking on in homes all along the street, she saw the shadow man rise. He raised an arm over his head, twirling his clenched fist in the air. She heard the whine of something fly through the air and could just make out a blur of movement. It was some sinuous, snakelike creature, unleashed by the tall stranger who stood, arm outstretched at the other end.
Whatever it was, it dropped over the head of her abductor. Like a coiled python it snared the massive man, pinning his arms to his sides just below the shoulders. He hollered, cursing as he wheeled in search of the source before turning back on his heels to charge at the one who dared to oppose him. But the man at the other end was already on the move.
Both his hands grasped the rope and jerked it back in a sharp, powerful move. Using his body, the man flung himself against the cord, tightening its command over Gabrielle’s persecutor. The big man screamed with rage.
Then the shadowy figure ran at Malcom, bringing the rope with him. Yanking it again he brought the big man stumbling to the sidewalk where he toppled to his stomach like a felled tree. The shadow man dropped a knee onto Malcom’s beefy posterior and reached for his hands, yanking them behind him as he writhed, yelled, and fought.
But it made no difference.
Knotting the rope through, around, and back, the shadowy man secured the bull of a man’s hands before turning to grasp one of Malcom’s legs. Fast as greased lightning, he bent it toward the man’s head. Shrieks of profanity erupted from the goateed giant along with cries of pain. Undeterred, the shadow man’s hands worked quickly to wind the rope around Malcom’s ankle, pulling everything together in one big knot before he threw his hands in the air.
It was a strange thing to do, Gabrielle thought. Almost as though he was participating in a timed event.
Gabrielle saw it all happen with blurred disbelief, wondering if her eyes were playing tricks. But now the shadowy man was walking over to her, opening the door, and looking in.
Andrew.
He reached out a gentle hand and eased the filthy kerchief from her mouth, cupping her throbbing head in his large hands.
“Oh, my poor…sweetheart,” he said, his voice breaking with concern. Carefully, he untied her hands and tossed the cord away, then slid gentle hands beneath her and lifted. He took infinite care to remove her from the vehicle without further harm. Straightening, he cradled her in his arms, pulling her close. “I thought we’d lost you.”