Change the Locks
Chapter Twenty-One
The clock read 2:00am as Abby regained her consciousness, plucking the tranquiliser dart from her calf. Her hands were bloody, the room was dark and light snowflakes fluttered onto a pale blanket of snow outside. She got to her feet, shuffling amongst broken glass and empty cartridges as she stepped slowly through the remains of what had been a perfect Christmas day – well, almost perfect. Abby shook, unable to comprehend what had happened, as she moved to the light switch and carefully pulled the tiny lever. The lights then flickered into life, illuminating the room which held the wreckage of the evening before. She couldn't help but gasp at the state of the room, the furniture ridden with bullet holes, the windows smashed and the lifeless bodies of gunmen strewn across the floor.
She cut the lights.
The smell of copper and iron – ultimately blood – became poignant as Abby made her way through the hallway and to the kitchen, minding the bodies of gunmen as she moved.
The door of the fridge lay on the floor, shot off of its hinges, similar to the light bulb in the top compartment, which had been burst with bullets. The only contents of the fridge were empty cartridges. Abby sighed before turning to see the rest of the kitchen, and Perty's partially-conscious body, which lay across the floor, riddled with darts.
"Holy God." Abby gasped under her breath, rushing to the cupboard to retrieve a glass that hadn't been cracked by shells, before filling it with water and feeding it to Perty, who was beginning to regain his consciousness quickly.
"Thank you, child." He stuttered, sitting up against the wall.
"He's gone, isn't he?" Abby asked, plucking the darts out of Perty's legs, watching him wince each time. He sighed, holding his cup firmly, looking Abby in the eye. Perty nodded. She breathed deeply, flicking the last dart out of Perty's thigh, before bringing her hands to her face and shutting off her vision. She knew Owen had gone. They'd taken him – dead or alive, she didn't know. But she knew they'd taken him. And, dead or alive, she was going to find him.
The girl with the pale face stood from her crouching position next to the butler, and made her way towards the first body; she had counted four dead. He wore a black bulletproof vest (pity it hadn't worked), a black shirt and trousers, complete with leather army boots and a balaclava. Attached to the vest were numerous pockets, so Abby decided to start with these. Her findings proved rather mysterious: a note scribbled with a series of numbers. She deserted the first body and moved to the second, sat up against the wall in the hallway. Nothing useful, nothing interesting; just a faded ID card. The third proved somewhat helpful, offering her several bags of what seemed to be cocaine – drug dealers, perhaps? The fourth, however, held the most precious of cargo. Abby unzipped the inner pocket of the bulletproof vest, and pulled out a small slip of paper. She carefully unfolded it, revealing a long series of lines and dots; very familiar. Morse code.
"Goddamnit." She whispered, sitting at the dinner table, staring at the slip of paper. If only she hadn't left the sheet which translated Morse code taped to the inside of the suitcase, which was probably buried under piles of snow in the middle of Colorado by now. Perty stumbled into the seat next to Abby, gripping the bags of cocaine.
"Now, what would a drug dealer want with you..?" He asked. Abby stopped pinching the bridge of her nose and looked to Perty.
"Who knows? We have virtually no connections to any drug dealers." She responded. Suddenly, it hit them – both of them – and Abby and Perty let their eyes meet.
"But Jasper does." They chorused. Abby almost fell of her chair as she rushed to the second body and searched to the pockets until she found the business card. She flipped it over, reading the biro ink on the back of the card:
Dealer ID #371F
A drug dealer. Perfect.
Abby brought the card to the table and placed it down with the other pieces of information. The cocaine, the numbers, the ID card and the Morse code. Abby and Perty stared at the pile of things.
"So, all of this points to the fact that these people who have been stalking us are drug dealers. And who do we know that was once a drug lord?" Abby asked, running through the situation.
"Jasper." Perty confirmed.
"Right. So, perhaps, this has something to do with him." She continued.
"But we don't know who these people are! They're drug dealers, yes, but who are they? They may have little or even no connections to Jasper whatsoever, so what proof do we have that these drug dealers hold something against him, and that they rampaged through this place because of him?" Perty reasoned, bringing a sense of true reality to the situation. Abby pursed her lips, unsure of how to respond. She caught the Morse code in the corner of her eye and quickly snapped it between her fingers, holding it up to Perty.
"Maybe this will help?" She smirked, waiting for Perty to smile in response. Instead, he retrieved a slip of paper from his pocket, holding Jasper's cell phone number.
"And perhaps this will too."
The sunrise shed through a small skylight above the cell that held Owen captive, deep in the industrial warehouses of New York City. His consciousness had just floated back into him, and he had only just noticed that he was cut and bruised; strapped tightly to a chair. He struggled, the rope chaffing and burning his forearms.
"Help!" He coughed, his throat dry. His voice echoed around the cell, followed by the snap of the door and the entrance of a dealer in a dark suit.
"Shut up, kid." He snapped, sending a quick and worryingly casual smack across Owen's face. The dealer deemed this as acceptable, but Owen happened to explode in a stream of blasphemy.
"You fuck!" He screamed, struggling in his chair.
"That's nice." The dealer commented, picking a piece of food out of his teeth with a toothpick. Suddenly he leaned in, "let me explain." Owen lifted his head, willing to listen. The dealer grinned.
"What do you want from me?" Owen asked, blood smeared across his cheek.
"You have a friend, the Henri-Clement bastard, am I correct? You see, it's him. His shitty little family almost forced our dealership into bankruptcy, diminishing our status and robbing our COE of the title of 'drug lord'. He stole everything from us. Well, my manager. He didn't personally take anything from me. Anyway, this is exactly why we've ransacked his house, kidnapped you and destroyed everything he loves! It's a matter of, how shall I say, revenge." The dealer explained. Owen's eyes widened.
"What have you done to Abby?!" He growled, determined to ensure her safety. The dealer raised his eyebrow comically.
"Who? Oh, your little girlfriend. She's fine… or at least she was the last time I saw her!" The dealer explained, bursting into a fit of laughter. Owen let his shoulders sag, reflecting his depression within.
"Why now?" He asked, breaking the silence, "why not fifty years ago?" The dealer looked at his prisoner the wittiness falling in him – he seemed to be no longer in the mood for it. He stood and leaned into Owen, his glare terrorizing.
"We needed to wait until he had something he truly loved; i.e. you and the girl. Because it's when you love something so deeply that it makes you completely and utterly vulnerable to attack." The final sentence flickered off of the dealer's snake-like tongue in a sinister manner, causing Owen to flinch. He knew that his captor was on edge, ready to cause excruciating pain to whatever was around him. He was truly an unsavoury character, strong and unbeatable. The dealer paced around the room.
"You seem strong. Maybe that's because you've never loved someone deeply enough to get hurt." Owen whispered, slightly able to relate. The dealer stopped pacing, and quivered. Anger rose up in him as he cracked his knuckles and placed his thumb and forefinger to his lips to whistle, signalling the door to swing open. Two men in similar suits filed in, one holding a bat and the other sporting a pair of knuckledusters.
"Hurt him." The dealer ordered, his eyes following the thugs' brutal movements, which were accompanied perfectly by Owen's painful screams.
Abby sat in the New York Public Library, flipping through a book which studied the Morse code, writing down the alphabet and translating the slip of paper into a notepad. She finished the final letter and read the full message in her head:
Nueva Vida, Inc. Warehouse Complex
2000 P Street Northwest
New York City, Queens 10001
(718) 908-4457
"Gotcha." She whispered. She quickly slipped the notepad into her pocket and found the aisle from which she borrowed the book, before sliding it back into place. Abby settled herself in the Bentley and passed Perty the address.
"Let's check it out."
Twenty-five minutes passed before the Bentley rolled into the industrial section of Queens, close to the warehouse complex. A strong sense of familiarity and déjà vu nipped at Abby's mind, irritating her as she couldn't quite remember when she'd been to this place before. Finally, the Bentley turned into the complex and the memory sizzled Abby's brain and suddenly the image of a man being thrown out of a building and shooting a police officer fit the scene. The scene played perfectly as the girl with the pale face realised that this was the very place she had first met Sebastian Henri-Clement. She grinned before removing the polaroid from her bag to take a photo.
Snap.
"Is this the place?" Perty asked. Abby beamed.
"Sure is. And you know what? It's time to give Jasper a call."