Chapter 11

They'd only been talking for about 10 minutes when Mark Conrad noticed something alarming. Russ's eyes seemed to blank out...and he became almost a different person. Not angry this time, but very confused.

''What the...how did I get here?'' Russ stammered. His foot throbbed badly...and he had no idea why. ''What the hell happened to my foot?'' he puzzled.

''You don't remember coming here?'' Mark asked gently. Russ shook his head, his eyes wildly confused as he took it all in. ''You...uh...shot yourself in the foot. Don't try to walk on it; it's pretty nasty. Russ...what's the last thing you do remember?''

''I...um...I think I was in a motel - and you and Steve brought me breakfast.''

''That's right.'' Conrad noted to himself that the violence Russ had exhibited seemed to be a blank spot in his memory. This could be good...or very bad. ''We knocked you out and brought you here...but when we sprayed the knockout gas, you fired your weapon - it had actually been aimed at us - and you shot yourself in the foot.''

''I...had a gun on you? My God...what's happening to me?''

''That's what we're going to figure out,'' Mark promised.


Jaime lay helpless, chained to the dental chair, and focused on the unwanted and abandoned toys on the wall, to try and remove herself from what was really happening to her. Nemesis continued to torture her with the knife, poking just hard enough for her to definitely feel it (and for it to hurt)...but not hard enough to draw blood. Every time he saw her close her eyes, he poked the sharp tip into the soft flesh of her throat, threatening her, until she opened her eyes and looked at him again. He sneered in her face and keep tormenting her, enjoying her terror as only one who is truly psychotic could do.

''What's it gonna feel like, when I press a little harder?'' he said with an evil laugh. ''Can't you just imagine it? But that can wait until your lover gets here. I want him to hear you scream out in pain. But for now, just picture how it'll feel...'' He held the knife directly in front of Jaime's face, where the blade shined it's promise of pain and death right where she could see it...and Nemesis laughed as she tried to cower away from it. He was getting to her...and nothing could make him happier.


Steve's car phone rang...and he picked up immediately. ''Yes, I'm here,'' he said. ''Almost to San Diego.''

''Good. Now, are you familiar with the old FunWorld theme park, just outside Octotillo?'' Nemesis demanded.

''It's been closed for years, ever since Hurricane Kathleen,'' Steve responded. (Surely he wouldn't be holed up there, in that desolate, awful place.)

''That's the one. Once you get here, go through the main entrance - and you'll find us by hearing her screams and cries for help.''

''Look...don't hurt her anymore...please -''

Nemesis laughed maniacally. ''It's too late for that. And you'd better hurry; there's not much left of her...''


Mark Conrad surreptitiously pressed the call light; Michael should know about this (even though he was now convinced more than ever that PTSD was the cause of Russ's problems). Soon, Michael stood in the doorway, listening quietly.

''I...I'm so sorry,'' Russ stammered. ''I never meant -''

''We know. Violence isn't in you,'' Mark said quietly. ''That's why you're here.''

''And...these?'' Russ asked, pulling lightly on the restraints.

''You fought to try and get out of here. They had no other choice.''

''Help me...please?'' Russ requested...finally.


Steve pulled his car into the empty lot, overgrown with weeds and underbrush that poked insistently through the cracks in the pavement. Nature had destroyed the once busy, popular park...and nature was now reclaiming it. Barbed wire surrounded the entrance but Steve found an opening that appeared man-made, where (he assumed) Kingsley or his cohorts had entered...with Jaime.

The place was filled with an eerie silence...and Steve broke it. ''I'm here, Kingsley!'' he called. ''You got what you wanted! Now let her go; even trade!''

The midway and the rides had been damaged beyond repair by at least four feet of sludge water, several years earlier...and the park had been deemed too expensive to repair or even to tear down. So there it remained, a target now for vandals, the occasional sightseer...and lunatics like Grant Kingsley. Really, it was the perfect setting for what he had in mind, with what used to be an invitation to fun and laughter crumbling and decaying like a broken, discarded toy. Steve couldn't stand thinking of Jaime, helpless somewhere in this awful place.

''C'mon, Kingsley! Here I am! My life for hers; take it or leave it! You can have my damned power pack; just let Jaime go!''

Steve didn't possess Jaime's exceptional hearing, so he never heard the two men who snuck up behind him...until one of them zapped his fractured left arm with the full power of a taser. Shocked and in agony, Steve sank to the ground...and was easily overcome by the two men, who dragged him toward a graffiti-covered, crumbling kiosk. The prayer that Jaime had been clinging to - that Oscar would keep Steve from coming, that somehow he'd be spared the horrors being inflicted upon her - had been denied.