Chapter 6 - Where Is He?
Hearing that Ray might be in trouble, Meg immediately shifted into professional mode. "You'd better notify Welsh of what you know so far, and we'll get dressed."
Ben felt intense gratitude. She didn't even question as to whether they'd take action. She knew he was going to help Ray, and she assumed she was going to help too.
The first thing he did was call the station.
"Lieutenant Welsh, this is Benton Fraser. I just received a telephone call from Detective Vecchio, and I believe he may be in danger."
Welsh demanded information, and Fraser explained that he knew that Ray had been asking questions at nail salons on the South Side, then about the call in which nothing had been said.
"Could be nothing, could be bad." Welsh said. "We'll get on it. But you just stay out of it, Constable, I don't need someone else ending up in the middle of it."
"With all due respect, sir," the deadly words that meant he was going to say something Welsh really wouldn't like, "I'm on sabbatical. You can't tell me what to do."
On this defiant note that surprised even Fraser, he hung up. It wasn't that he didn't trust Welsh and the 27th. It was just that he trusted his own ability to track Ray far more. And he owed it to Ray. He should have been with him in the hunt for Loman all along. Then this wouldn't have happened. Whatever had happened. Not knowing was the worst thing. Fear for Ray gripped his stomach. Loman had already shown himself to be quite ruthless enough to dispose of anyone who might get in his way.
Meg had already dressed quickly in sensible black pants, flat shoes, and a dark sweater. Fraser noticed incidentally that it wasn't one of the ones from the oven. Apparently she had quite a lot of clothes. He changed into the clean jeans and shirt he'd brought over in his overnight bag. Twisting to pull the shirt on still caused his ribs to tug uncomfortably, but one couldn't live in sweats forever.
Diefenbaker sat alert by the front door. He had the gist of what was happening. Pack-mate Ray was in trouble somewhere, alpha pack-mate was going after him, and nice smelling new pack-mate who thought she was alpha was coming with. Watching those two jostle for control was going to provide the wolf with months of amusement.
Thatcher drove down to the South side. She had a distinct recollection that Fraser's city driving was not to be trusted. The thought of his mulish adherence to traffic laws combined with a desperate urgency to find Ray suggested inevitable disaster. Her driving was slick and assured, and for once Fraser did not make a single comment about running red lights or making illegal turns. She slowed down once they got to the neighborhood where Ray was supposed to have been, and they looked for his distinctive green Buick.
"There!" Fraser said, and Meg pulled over to let him and Diefenbaker out while she parked. He walked around the Riviera. To the rear, in the gutter behind the car, there was a mucky residue, and he crouched down to examine the heel print of a shoe. It was undoubtedly the print from one of Ray's expensive loafers. Ray must have been in a hurry or he'd have stepped over the mud. Fraser sighed and rubbed his eyebrow. In a hurry on a case that he should have been working, too. In a hurry to arrest a man who'd tried to have Fraser and Thatcher killed.
Meg joined him, having parked the car, as he walked slowly in the direction the footprint pointed, eyes to the ground. Diefenbaker stopped in front of a small object on the pavement. Fraser bent down suddenly, and Meg saw him pick the object up. He appeared to be sniffing it, and then, to her surprise, he held it up to his mouth and licked it.
"Well, that was undeniably disgusting," Meg thought. He seemed completely unconcerned that he had just stuck something that had been lying in the gutter into his mouth. Meg wrinkled her nose and thought, "One, I don't ever want to see you do that again. Two, please, please, please just promise me that you will never kiss me after you lick something that's been lying on the ground, until you have brushed your teeth." But this wasn't the time to air that concern. There would be time later if Vecchio was- when Vecchio was safe- to discuss licking foreign objects prior to kissing.
"What did you find?" she asked.
"It's a business card for a nail salon. Ray said that he had an address for the mother of the woman he was looking for. I wasn't sure if this was the card, but I thought I detected the faint citrus scent of the polish Ray uses on his steering wheel, and when I tasted it, it was definitely carrying a residue from his hands."
Meg nodded. "All right, let's go."
They walked the short distance to the address on the card. As they approached, they saw a woman coming out the door. She looked a lot like the photo of Camilla Dawson that Fraser had seen, bleach blonde, overly made up, full acrylic nails in a gaudy spectacle of airbrushing that went beyond taste, but carrying about fifty pounds more weight than her daughter.
As the woman saw them, she started to go back into the building she lived in. But Fraser moved fast, slamming his sneaker-clad foot in the door so that she couldn't close it. He shouldered the door open, and grabbed her by the wrist. Diefenbaker sat behind him blocking the door in case the woman got any ideas of escape.
Meg was astonished by this sudden burst of aggression. He wasn't holding the woman in a way that hurt her, but he still seemed to be channelling his fiery-tempered partner.
"Where is he? Where did you send him?" Fraser demanded, not bothering to specify who.
"Leave me alone." the woman whimpered. "I got enough troubles without you coming around. Just leave me alone."
"Tell me where he is." Fraser said. "Where did you tell Detective Vecchio to look for your daughter? Is Loman with her? Where did you send him?"
The blonde woman quivered, quailing away from Fraser's intensity.
"It's not her fault. You can't stick it on her. I told her to take the money and get out months ago." she said. Her voice was a frantic babble. "He kept her in style, but I made her stash all that money he was trying to hide in her name. I made sure he couldn't get it. I'm not stupid. I got her those special bank accounts. He was so angry he couldn't just get his money and leave her, but I'm not stupid."
Ordinarily, this information would have been of interest, and Thatcher was filing it away mentally, aware that Fraser was not taking it in at all. It made sense that Loman had not left the area if he'd been socking money away with his bimbo girlfriend only to find out her shrewd mother had made sure he couldn't touch it.
"I don't give a damn about the money." Fraser's voice was harsh, the mild expletive startling bursting from his lips. "Where are they?" Fraser reiterated. He had not let go of the grip on her arm.
The woman was still babbling, terrified. "So he comes over all fired up and tells her to get the money, they're going, but I say he can't and he hit me, jesus christ."
Meg noticed the faded bruise on her cheek bone for the first time.
"So he makes her go to the bank, get the ball rolling to get the money out of the accounts I made her put it in, but they had to wait, they to hide."
Fraser spoke slowly, quietly, and with an unmistakable menace that sent chills up and down Meg's spine. His fingers tightened on the woman's arm.
"Where are they hiding? Where did you send Ray?"
"It's not her fault, you can't take her money away. He gave it to her. I thought when the cop came looking, they're going to take the money away. So I told him to go to the Y, I called her up, said the cops are coming, you have to take care of it, she calls me back she says he killed him, oh, my god, he killed a cop, but it's not her fault, you can't stick it on her. You can't take her money."
Meg detached Fraser's hand from the woman's arm with some force. He was staring blankly ahead, his face drained of color. He didn't seem to register that the woman had still been raving about the money. All he'd heard was "Oh, my god, he killed a cop."
"The Y." Thatcher said. "The YMCA? Where?"
The woman looked like she was about to turn and run, but under Thatcher's fierce gaze she finally said, "The old Y, it's just an empty building now, down on Halsted."
"Come on." Thatcher said. "Let's go." She took Fraser by the hand. He was still blinking and stunned looking. His limbs felt leaden, and time didn't seem to be moving at all, he was frozen. Ray? Ray Vecchio? Dead? No...
"I refuse to believe he's dead. Come on! Quickly." Thatcher said.
Diefenbaker barked and jumped up, snapping lightly at the legs of Fraser's jeans. Fraser looked puzzled as he looked down at the wolf.
"He wants you to get a move on. We are not giving up on Vecchio." Thatcher said.
Fraser opened his mouth but couldn't get any words out. It was hard to believe he was getting air in. How could he still be standing here, alive and well, while Ray Vecchio - no, it couldn't be true, it couldn't. Meg was right. He had to hope, had to believe Ray was still alive. In which case, there was no time to waste. Worse than the thought of Ray lying dead was Ray dying somewhere, bleeding on some floor, and not reaching him in time. That could not happen. He followed Thatcher, her hand still locked in his.
They ran down the street until they reached the intersection with Halsted, then over less than a block to the old brick building with YMCA painted in faded letters on the side. Thatcher found a side door, but it was locked. She stood back and swung her leg to kick the door in. Fraser shook his head, snapping out of his state of shock, and joined in. They had the door down in seconds.
It was dim inside, the windows on the building covered in the grime of years. It was perfect for an ambush - whatever had happened to Ray, and, Thatcher worried, whatever could happen to them if they weren't careful. Fraser still wasn't himself. She could tell that he wasn't totally present, his mind clouded by the panicky fear that Ray was already dead, it was already too late.
The door from the outside led into a series of offices with a long corridor down one side. Thatcher, Diefenbaker and Fraser followed the corridor to another door that stood ajar at the end of it. Fraser pushed this door open silently with his foot. Behind it there were stairs leading down into a pitch black area. He heard a very faint moan.
"Meg." he said, his voice quivering with a certain desperate hope. "Do you hear that?"
"Mmhmm." she said quietly. "But be careful."
At the top of the stairs were some light switches, but flipping them had no effect. Either the power was out to that part of the building, or there were no bulbs in the fixtures. The door let in only a small quantity of grey light from the corridor outside. They descended the small flight of stairs slowly and cautiously. It could still be an ambush. On the second stair from the bottom, Fraser's foot touched something. He leaned down and picked up a shattered piece of Ray's phone. His heart beat wildly. Was Ray down here, still alive? Was Loman down here in the dark, too? Waiting? And he'd brought Meg in here? He put a hand back to where she was behind him, indicating that she should stay back. She stifled a sigh. She knew why. But letting him walk down there alone was no better. They should have waited for Welsh and backup, but there hadn't been time.
Fraser kept walking down, quietly. Diefenbaker was right at his heel, grimly alert. At the bottom of the stairs, Fraser came upon a soft obstacle. Kneeling down, he felt around gently. It was a person, a living, breathing person, with a pulse, although not as far as he could tell, conscious. His eyes were beginning to adapt to the dark, but even without the dimmest vision, he could tell by touch and of course, scent, that particular choice of cologne, the slight, barely noticeable odor of the silk in his tie. It was Ray, alive, breathing, unconscious. Fraser exhaled the breath that he'd been holding since his foot bumped against Ray. That still didn't answer the question as to whether Loman was lurking in the darkness of the large basement they were in.
The door at the top of the stairs slamming closed gave him a clue as to the answer to that question.
Author's Note: Wow, actual plot. You could knock me down with a feather! Hope you enjoy it. More thrilling suspense to come in the next chapter. Thank you as always for reading and reviewing. My readers are the best!