The rain fell.
Connor sat in his car outside Miles' apartment, the headlights doused and dampened by the rain. Peering up at the one flat where a light still gleamed, solitary and defiant against the storm. Trying to stop his mind from working, from conjuring an ever worsening image of what had happened to Miles.
"He's okay." Connor spoke softly, his words drowned beneath the rain and the scrape of the wipers against the glass. "He just didn't hear the phone or he's out or..." He fell silent, staring up at the opened curtains at the light he could clearly see. He shook his head, banishing the day dream before it could take route. There was no way Miles would just leave the light on. Not Miles, of all people.
A flash of lightning lit the sky. Thunder rumbled appreciatively in the distance.
Connor shook his head again. And there was no way that Miles would miss a storm like this.
He pushed open the car door and ran through the rain, feeling it soak through his clothes, splashing through the puddles.
The apartment complex was quiet, closed off, shut away from the storm. He started to climb the exposed steps towards Miles' apartment, wet and slippy from the anger of the storm, the wind blowing strongly now, shaking the steps, knocking more water onto him.
He ignored it. Something was wrong.
Miles' door was closed. Normal. Connor almost laughed when he saw it, hesitating in front of it, his hand raised to knock.
The door swung open as soon as his hand touched it, swinging crazily on the hinges, not quite hiding the sound of agonized raspy breathing.
"Miles!"
Miles lay in the center of the room, his face and body bruised and battered, his left hand held across his chest, tightly balled. Holding onto something like he was frightened to let it go.
"Miles!" Connor ran to him, kneeling next to him, practiced fingers probing the younger man's body.
"Dr...Connor..." Miles gasped for breath to talk, every word ripped from his body, edged in pain, dripping with blood. "They..."
"Easy, Miles, Easy. I'm just going to call for an ambulance." He fished in his pocket for his phone. "Miles, son, who did this?"
"Eva." The word so soft it was almost just a breath.
"What?"
"They...have...Eva." With an effort Miles forced his hand up, uncurling his fingers.
A watch lay in the palm of his hand, the links stained with blood.
xxxXXXxxx
He didn't like it.
He was used to working by the job, get in, get out. Not this 24/7 alert thing. But the money was good and it was constant, not just a big payoff here and there as his services were demanded. And Ginelle... well, her habit was getting more expensive. She was getting to be more and more of a liability. In his line of work... well, liabilities didn't last long.
He hoped he could dispose of her without hurting her. It depended on how stoned she was when he finally made the decision to do the deed. But a junkie's mouth was a dangerous thing. Too loose. Like they said in the Navy way back when, 'loose lips sink ships'.
All Ginelle had to do was to get too high, get out of the hotel room and start blabbing to the wrong person and attention would be brought around to him. And his business you didn't live long if the wrong kind of attention came your way.
He liked Ginelle. Liked the way she responded to him in bed, on the floor, on the couch, wherever he wanted. Liked that she was willing to do most anything when she was high, which was most of the time. But she was expendable, just like the gun holstered close to his chest or the knife slotted into the side of his boot. Pretty, supple, willing... and disposable.
Maybe she'd last a little longer. He hoped so but he wasn't going to take any chances. The minute she became a risk...
Worry about that later, he told himself as he walked through the pouring rain and stopped at the rusty mailbox in front of the dilapidated house he was using for this current drop. He never used the same drop place. That would be stupid and he wasn't stupid, far from it. The envelope was there, just like he'd known it would be. This guy was good. He gave no indication of who he was, not so much as a fingerprint on the envelope–he'd checked after the first job–and he paid what he promised, on time, no excuses.
Jack liked working for this guy, but it made him nervous too. He didn't like leaving witnesses.
If he was going to beat a man to death, it should be just that–to death.
This idea of roughing up the kid–a doctor no less, what were they doing, giving MD licenses to 12 year olds?–leaving the calling card and then letting him lie there in his own blood, still breathing... well, he didn't like that at all. It wasn't that young Dr. Miles McCabe could recognize him. The ski mask was a cliche but it did the job and there would be no line ups for McCabe, but still he was a witness and that was bad. Things went wrong when people were left alive. They noticed things. Or heard things.
Jack didn't like it. But it was working out so far.
He had the money in his hands though and he was on his way back to Ginelle. She was still good for a while, he decided. He didn't like breaking in new women.
xxxXXXxxx
"Come on Eva, answer your damn phone!"
Connor paced across the apartment, listening to the constant, incessant ringing, barely audible over the thunder outside the door he'd forgotten to shut. Dimly he could hear the paramedics, working on Miles, and he turned to watch them, leaning against the thin living room wall.
"We're sorry, the number you have dialed is not currently in service. Please replace the handset and try again. If you need..."
"Damnit!" Connor snapped the phone closed, shoving it back into his pocket. Why Miles? Why Eva? What the hell was going on?
"You ready? On my count. One...two...three."
Quickly, carefully, the paramedics lifted Miles onto the guerney. He collapsed onto it, groaning.
Connor walked forward, already pulling his coat closed. The rain was still beating against the window. "Where are you taking him to?"
"Lincoln Memorial. Do you want to ride with us, Dr. Connor?"
He almost nodded, then stopped himself. "No, I'll catch up with you there. I'll lock up here."
"Okay, Dr. Connor." The paramedics wheeled Miles away with smooth even movements.
Stephen crouched down and lifted a plain white envelope from beneath an overturned chair. He turned it over, carefully.
"DR NATALIE DURANT" was typed on it, obviously from on old, poorly maintained manual typewriter.
Still crouching, he pulled out his phone and dialed quickly.
xxxXXXxxx
This is ridiculous.
It was the third time in twenty minutes that Natalie Durant had thought the same, exact thing at herself. It didn't make it any less ridiculous to repeat it, she found. She was 38 years old, she was a professional, mature woman (getting more mature every day, she sighed inwardly).
It wasn't like this was her first date.
Her first date, though, with Larry Rigney, Attorney at Law, Princeton graduate, MENSA member, hunk extraordinaire. And her first date in about six months. Good grief, she thought, had it really been that long? Yep. She'd been squirreled away in a laboratory somewhere for so long that she had probably developed an allergy to the sunlight.
Cutting a glance at the bay window in her bedroom, she didn't guess sunlight would be a problem tonight. The skies had literally split open and were dumping two months of stored up rain on the city tonight and the forecast didn't look good for the next two days either. City officials were already setting things in motion to handle the copious amounts of rain expected.
She took one final look in the mirror and was surprisingly pleased with what she saw.
"You clean up real nicely, Nat," she said out loud then laughed just as the phone rang. "Oh, Larry, don't you dare cancel," she muttered as she slipped the receiver out of the cradle.
xxxXXXxxx
"Come on, Nessa, Daddy's going to read 'Wind in the Willows'," Tesha Powell urged her 14 year old sister as she settled onto the bed with her father seated on the edge beside her.
"That's for babies."
"Vanessa," Frank Powell cautioned.
"Well, Daddy, I'm on my way out to cheerleading practice," the girl objected, "I don't have time for baby stuff."
Raising one eyebrow, Frank asked, "Did your mother say your could go out in this weather?"
"It's just rain, Dad," Vanessa insisted, hands fisted on her hips, that worried look on her face that said she knew good and well she was about to be told she was staying home and she wasn't happy about it.
The incipient argument was stopped when Kim appeared at the bedroom door and her expression was one that even Vanessa didn't challenge.
"What is it, hon," Frank asked.
"Phone call, Frank. Connor." Her face was white.
xxxXXXxxx
She tried to figure out where they were taking her, tried to remember what turns the driver had made. It was hard to concentrate, to think, in the inky darkness of the trunk, the panels closer and closer around her.
It was getting harder and harder to breathe.
"Stop it, Eva. If he wanted you dead, he would have killed you already. He wants something from you."Her words, softly spoken, just to remind her that she was alive, echoed around the trunk, echoed and magnified, mocking her intent. "dead dead dead…..killled killed….wants wants…"
What could he want from her?
She remembered the way he had held her hand as they ran through the rain, the way he had held her in the storm, the way she had trembled in his embrace. She shivered again, freezing in her damp clothes, in the tight, enclosed, dark trunk. She knew what he could want from her.
It occurred to her, suddenly, that the car had stopped.
"Stupid, stupid. You got to pay attention, you got to…"
The trunk was opened and she turned her head away, staring up into the sudden welcoming fresh air. Lightning streaked overhead, thunder rumbling soon after, and despite herself, she flinched at the violence.
Hands reached in and dragged her out of the trunk, digging into her skin. She stumbled as she tried to stand, her legs weak and uncooperative. Hands reached out to steady her, and she jerked away from them, out of their reach, trying to get away, trying to run. She had to find a phone, had to call…
A hand flashed through the night, colliding with the side of her face.
Fingers wrapped in her dark hair, then pull hard, jerking her head up. She had to blink away tears of pain to focus on the face above her. HIS face.
"I don't want to hurt you, Eva. But I will, if you don't co-operate. You are going to
co-operate aren't you?" He ran his other hand down her cheek, feeling her tremble beneath his touch. "It would be a shame to hurt such a beautiful thing."
She nodded. She didn't want him to hurt her.
"Good." He released her hair and stood up. "Put her in the closet."
The closet? Oh please, God, no, not…
Thunder rumbled overhead, mocking her fears with its laughter