His eyes wide, his entire body frozen in disbelief, Steve stared at his unmoving partner, unable to comprehend the reality that he had just watched Nicole shoot his best friend at point blank range. For a brief moment he hoped that she had fired into the floor instead, just to scare him. But even from his slightly elevated position, he could see the slowly expanding circle of red staining the light blue wool on the left side of Mike's sweater vest.
He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to stop the tightening in his throat, knowing he had to keep himself together if he had any chance of getting all three of them out of this living nightmare.
He heard the latch turn in the door and reluctantly opened his eyes. A smiling Nicole stepped into the office, snapping on the overhead fluorescents and taking a swaggering step towards him, his gun still in her hand. She snorted, tilting her head and staring at him with amused contempt. "Oh for god's sake, relax. He's not dead. If I wanted to kill him, I would've dropped the block-and-tackle from the ceiling. It would've hit him a lot harder." She chuckled dryly. "Still, it was hard enough to take him off his feet. I really wasn't expecting that." She almost giggled then shrugged. "He might have broken something… I have no idea." She began to step around the chair then paused. "Oh, ah, the bullet's not near anything vital. He'll survive… if you do everything I tell you to do for the next couple of hours." She leaned close to his face and smiled benignly, raising three fingers in a Girl Scout salute. "Scout's honor!"
She started to move behind him again, then paused, reached over, grabbed the tape covering his mouth and ripped it off. It took more of the soft skin at the corners of his mouth with it again and he winced in pain. With an eye roll and annoyed sigh, she grabbed the hanky and pulled it out of his mouth. He dropped his head and started to cough, trying desperately to produce enough saliva so he could speak again.
Not bothering to wait to hear what he had to say, she started to undo the ropes tying him to the chair. Sputtering, he finally managed to get out, "You didn't need to shoot him!"
She chuckled again. "Oh yes, I did," she said lightly. "You still don't seem to be aware of the big picture right now, Steve. You see, I've been working on this little… scheme, I guess you could call it, for almost a year now, and what I just did, well, that's a very, very important part of it." She stopped undoing the ropes. "And you know, I'm actually pleasantly surprised that all of this is coming together so smoothly." Her attention returned to the ropes.
Done, she took a couple of steps back and pointed the gun at him. "You know the routine; get up," she ordered sharply, the light tone suddenly gone.
Breathing heavily through his nose, trying not to do anything to set her off, he got shakily to his feet. When she untied his legs, she gestured towards the door with the gun. "Where are we going?" he demanded.
"You're going out to the car again."
"What for?"
"You'll find out when you get there. And I don't think I have to tell you again, do I? You try anything, and I mean anything, and I'll come right back in here and put a bullet in each of them." She nodded towards Mike and Linda.
Steve's eyes flicked in their direction; neither had moved, though it seemed the bloody circle on Mike's vest had grown larger.
"And then I'll put one in you." She dug the barrel of the .38 into his ribs and he winced.
The journey to the front door was easier with the second overhead lamp on and they were both mildly surprised to see Mike's car parked directly behind the LTD when they stepped out into the cold and damp night. Steve closed his eyes in despair; Mike had believed him, believed what he had said in the phone call that had lured the older man into this horrific ordeal.
The gun against his ribs, his forearms still tied painfully behind his back to the point where he could barely feel them anymore, she propelled him towards the back door of the LTD again and opened it, gesturing at him with her head. When he had thrown himself into the back seat again, his head against the far door and facing the front, she leaned in the open door. "I'm gonna be busy for awhile; I have a lot of things to do before we leave," she said cryptically, the lightness back in her tone again. "I'm going to lock the doors. When I come back, and if you're not here exactly where I've left you, I'll just go back in there and, well, you know…. I don't think I have to keep telling you over and over again, do I?"
His features obscured by the shadows in the back of the car, he didn't say anything. He felt her kick his feet. "Do I?" she growled angrily.
"No," he said flatly.
"Good." He could hear the smile in her voice. The lock mechanism snapped loudly before she slammed the door. She circled the car, checking all the doors, before she disappeared; he could hear the squeak of the glass door as it opened and closed.
It was very quiet in the car, and cold. He tried to find a comfortable position but soon realized that no matter how he tried, his bound forearms were not going allow him any respite from the now constant pain that seemed to have seeped into every bone and muscle in his body.
But that was nothing compared to the ache in his soul. He had just watched Nicole use his own gun to shoot his partner, and the image kept playing over and over in his distraught mind. He bit his bottom lip so hard he tasted blood as he laid his head on the seat of the LTD, his chest heaving with silent sobs. Two people he loved were on the verge of death; he was responsible, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
# # # # #
He was numb, in body and spirit; his heartache was as much physical as it was emotional. And he had no idea how much time had passed before he heard the key unlock the driver's door and it opened. Nicole slipped in behind the wheel. "I'm back," she called out in a merry singsong as she closed the door and put the key in the ignition. She looked into the rearview mirror, still positioned so she could see him in the back seat. "Now that didn't take too long, did it?"
She turned the engine on with a big smile. He stared back, not sure how much she could see and hoping she wouldn't notice his red-rimmed eyes. The smell of burning wood was wafting from her and he wondered what she had been up to in the garage.
She shifted into Drive and maneuvered the car out from between Mike's sedan and Linda's compact. As she pulled the LTD onto Spear, he asked, "Are they still alive?"
He saw her glance at him in the mirror; he stared back. "Well, if you're asking if I finished them off when I went back in, then no, you're wrong about that. I didn't even go near them. I had other things to do."
"Are they still alive?" he asked again, more forcefully this time.
Her eyes met his for a long second in the mirror then she looked away. "As far as I know…"
The car slowed to a stop and he frowned. "I have a phone call to make," she stated matter-of-factly as she opened the door and got out. She left the door ajar then opened the back door. He lifted his chin to look out; he could see the phone booth about twenty feet away. As she moved closer to the booth, she waved the .38 at him again, a gesture he was reluctantly getting used to. "You know the routine… you make one sound, one peep, and I'll put a bullet in your head then I'll drive back to the garage and kill your girlfriend and your partner. Capisce?"
Her use of the pseudo-American Italian slang threw him momentarily, and he realized she was becoming more and more relaxed, chillingly pleased that all her hard work of the past year was paying off. If revenge was a dish best served cold, her revenge was downright frozen.
He let his head drop back onto the seat; he was in no position to even think about fighting back and the lives of the two people who meant the most to him were hanging in the balance.
He heard the coin sliding into the slot and tumble down through the box before she dialled and waited for the line to connect. When she started to speak her voice sounded frantic. "Hello?… Yes, yes… um, I was jogging through Hunter's Point and it's usually deserted, you know, and I saw two cars in front of one of the abandoned buildings…. Yes, on Spear… Anyway, as I was jogging past I thought I heard a woman screaming and then I heard a loud bang like a gunshot…. Yeah… Yeah, on Spear… Yes, it just happened… I'm in a phone booth just down the street… Okay… okay, good…" She hung up and, grinning, returned to the car.
She was chuckling as she slammed the back door and slid behind the wheel again. "They bought it, hook, line and sinker." She glanced into the rearview mirror as she shifted into Drive. "So we better get outa here, don't you think?"
Laughing, she stepped on the gas and the car shot forward; he was rocked back against the seat, the pain in his shoulders and forearms excruciating. She drove in silence for quite awhile; he could tell from the progress there was little traffic. He had lost all track of time but figured it was very early in the morning, four, maybe five a.m. All he could see was the occasional streetlamp going by; he had no idea which way they were heading.
At one point he could hear sirens, but he had no idea if they were on their way to the garage. He hoped so; it would be the only way Mike and Linda would have any chance of surviving. He closed his eyes again, trying with all his might not to give in to the fear and despair, to not give her the satisfaction of seeing him suffer.
He was staring up through the side window when he heard the sound from the tires change pitch; he recognized the new intonation. It was a sound he was very familiar with; they were on the approach to the Golden Gate Bridge. And, sure enough, the rust-orange spires of the span started to appear in the window. They were going north.
Safely across the bridge, she seemed to relax and the car slowed slightly. She looked in the rearview mirror again and her eyes seemed oddly sympathetic.
"Why are you doing this?" he asked finally, trying to keep his tone non-confrontational.
She stared at him for a long beat before looking back at the highway. "Well, I think you know that already… but I will tell you a few things you don't know… yet…"
"What things?"
"Well, aren't you curious about that, ah, that 'accident' you were in in Chinatown?" She paused, waiting for him to respond.
After a beat, he asked, "Are you saying you set it up?"
She snorted derisively. "Not just set it up, but put it all in motion. I did such a good job your partner thought Linda was part of a conspiracy. He hired a private investigator to look into her, to find out if she was part of a plan to take you guys out. He went behind your back… and he lied to you."
