Body Of Truth (29 page)

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Authors: Deirdre Savoy

BOOK: Body Of Truth
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He turned right at the first block of empty houses. They were complete save for doors and windows, looking like twin rows of startled, open-mouthed faces in the paleness of the moonlight. He cut the engine and listened for a moment. Any sound coming from these cavernous buildings might be amplified enough for him to hear.
At first, the only noise he heard came from the cars zipping past on the highway. Then another sound made his blood run cold—the report of a single shot being fired, coming from the direction of the buildings to his right.
Kids.
Moretti gritted his teeth. He'd seen a shape in the dark and fired, expecting his bullet to find Dana Molloy and put an end to this shit already. Not only had he missed, but once he turned the corner of the house, he knew he'd made a mistake. Four kids, all in various stages of drunken stupor and undress were gathered around a couple of candles. All four of them looked up at him with startled glassy eyes.
The one closest to him, presumably the one he'd missed, said, “I was just taking a leak, man. That's not against the law.”
The four of them found this hilarious, until he trained his gun on the noisemaker. “Get out, all of you.”
Grousing about police brutality, the four of them took their things and cleared out. Moretti smiled to himself, the last thing he'd needed was some liquored up teenagers who might want to play the hero once he found her. And he would find her. He'd seen her come in here and he knew her type. She'd hole herself up in some closet somewhere and think she was safe from him. But he had to move quickly. He'd heard the police sirens in the distance. It wouldn't be long before they headed down this way looking for him. He edged around another corner into a large open room, searching for her in the reflected lights of a car passing on the highway. Nothing.
Damn it to hell. All she needed to do was remember. That's what Mouse feared. That's what started this whole mess to begin with. The fear that one day she'd put two and two together and realize what she'd seen. None of them could afford to take that chance, not anymore.
He was looking forward to silencing those memories, much more than he thought he would. Now all he had to do was find her.
 
 
Dana edged along the wall of what would one day be the second floor master bedroom of the house. She knew she had to get out of there. The moment she heard the shot, she knew Moretti was close by. He must have seen her go into the house on the corner, but not her escape through the downstairs window into the house next door. She'd lost one of her sneakers in the process. She'd left it where it lay and removed the other one as soon as she made it inside the house. Barefoot she made less noise. Sooner or later, he'd figure out she wasn't where he thought she should be and go looking somewhere else.
She made it to her goal, the front window, where she could look down on the street. The light from a car passing on the highway blinded her momentarily. Her eyes had already adjusted to the darkness inside the house. She blinked and refocused her gaze on the street. No sign of Moretti, nothing had changed, except that there was a car parked at the opposite end of the street that hadn't been there before. It was too far away to make out anything except that it was dark in color. She couldn't imagine who would be parked here in this deserted block, but the lights were off and the driver was nowhere to be seen, and therefore of no help to her.
She backed away from the window, intending to make her way as silently as she could to the first floor and back in the direction of the motel. She'd heard sirens before. In the still of the building it had seemed like hours ago, but in reality it must have been only minutes.
She started to turn when something passed before her face to tighten around her neck. Her hands went to her throat, clawing at the binding, at the hands that held it in place. No one had to tell her who held it. Moretti had found her and he intended to kill her the same way he'd killed Amanda Pierce. She gulped in air, surprised to find it still possible, though difficult. That didn't make sense; unless he didn't want to kill her just yet, only immobilize her.
Moretti leaned in closer, his hot breath fanning her cheek as he whispered. “Did you see the car?”
Her semi-oxygen deprived mind couldn't wrap itself around that question. “What car?” she croaked out.
The band around her neck tightened painfully. “The car Pierce got into. What do you remember?”
“Nothing.” Nothing more than she'd already said.
“Too bad,” Moretti said. She would have sworn she heard regret in his voice, but the band around her neck tightened, shutting off any attempt at breathing. She clawed at his hands, at the same time trying to kick back at him, but without her shoes, she had no effect on him. She got hold of a lock of his hair and pulled, tearing it out at the roots. She fumbled, trying to find his eyes, his nose, something with her fingers, some way to hurt him so he'd let her go. But all the while, the pressure in her lungs built. She felt herself growing weaker, succumbing to the lack of oxygen. He was killing her and she had no way of stopping him.
“Don't fight it. It will go a lot easier if you don't.”
She had no fight left in her. Her arms slumped to her sides. If it weren't for the hold Moretti had on her she would have fallen. By degrees, the world around her went blacker and blacker until there was nothing. As she succumbed to the void, the last things she thought she heard were the howl of sirens in the distance and the sound of Jonathan's voice.
 
 
“You heard me, Moretti. Let her go.” Jonathan stood almost directly behind Moretti, his gun trained on the other man's head. The beam of his flashlight caught the side of both Moretti's face and Dana's. He didn't know if Dana were dead or alive now, which was the only thing that kept him from firing. He couldn't risk hitting her instead. “Let her go,” he said one last time. “Or I will shoot you where you stand.”
Moretti lifted his hands and Dana slumped to the floor, landing on all fours. He heard the rasp of her gasping in air. He needed to get to her to make sure she was all right, but not yet. Not until he was sure that Moretti couldn't do either of them any more harm. For a moment, the temptation to simply shoot the man assailed him. He could always say that Moretti forced him to fire. Who would be there to dispute his version of what happened? Dana was too preoccupied with simply breathing to know what was going on behind her. Who would blame him for taking down a dirty cop? A murderer, maybe two times over?
Jonathan inhaled, willing those feelings to subside. “Put your hands on your head,” Jonathan said, intending to take Moretti's gun away from him when he was in a more vulnerable position.
But Moretti had other ideas. Moretti went for his gun, but before he could fully spin around, Jonathan squeezed off two rounds, both of them hitting Moretti in the shoulder. He'd been aiming lower, but that would do. Moretti's gun clattered to the floor and a second later, Jonathan was on him. Moretti didn't struggle much as Jonathan cuffed his hands behind his back.
Jonathan picked up Moretti's gun and tucked it in the back of his waistband then went to Dana. He sat on the floor, pulled her onto his lap and held her, waiting for her breathing to normalize and for cavalry to arrive. He heard the sounds of them coming. The footsteps on the stairs, the sirens outside. Moretti, a few feet from them moaned, whether it was from his wounds or his impending fate, Jonathan neither knew nor cared. Finally, it was over. Now he could focus on his own fate and the life he wanted to make with the woman in his arms.
 
 
Dana shut her eyes to the flashing of the lights atop the row of police cars parked on the street as he carried her out of the building. She certainly wasn't going to object to his he-man routine since she doubted she'd be able to stand on her own. She felt light-headed and her throat burned inside and out from both the lack of oxygen and the pressure of being strangled. She thanked God that Jonathan had found her when he did. She'd been on the verge of passing out. She wouldn't have lasted much longer.
Once officers had arrived to take possession of Moretti, he'd brought her out of the building. She had no idea where he was taking her. She didn't balk until she realized his destination—one of the ambulances stationed at the curb. She shook her head. No hospital. Not again. She was fine, or she would be after a good night's rest. More than anything, exhaustion pulled at her. All she needed was some sleep.
“Don't argue with me, Dana,” Jonathan said. “You need to be checked out.”
“So—” She winced, realizing how difficult it was to speak. Her voice was little more than a hoarse rasp. “So some doctor can tell me I have a sore throat?”
“Yes, if that's what he's going to say.”
She would have ground her teeth, except it hurt too much to move her mouth in any way. Besides that, she supposed she understood how he felt. He must have gotten quite a scare finding her the way he did. If nothing else, she knew he cared about her, wanted to protect her. It must have occurred to him, too, that he'd almost been too late.
She huffed out a raspy breath, her way of letting him know she'd acquiesce without having to talk.
Once they reached the ambulance he paused and kissed her forehead. “I have some things to take care of here. A policewoman will ride with you to the hospital. I'll get there as soon as I can.”
She nodded. She didn't want him to leave her, but she knew he had his job to consider. But there was one question plaguing her that she asked as best as she could. “I thought you were dead.”
He shook his head. “What made you think that?” She shook her head. It would hurt too much to answer.
She let Jonathan help her into the ambulance where an attendant waited. Despite her claims of being fine, the attendant managed to get her to lie down with no coercion. Dana watched as Jonathan got out and a policewoman got in. She closed her eyes and for some unknown reason, dreamed of a fish with a broken tail swimming in a black sea.
 
 
After the ambulance drove off, Jonathan walked back to where Shea and some of the other brass were waiting for him, by one of the many squad cars still lined up outside the building. He knew what tonight's escapade would mean for him. He'd have to turn over his gun until the powers that be deemed him fit to return to regular duty, which would include the obligatory trek out to the department's shrink to make sure his head was still screwed on as tightly as it ought to be. He doubted there would be much question that his shooting of Moretti was justified. As far as his mental state went, they would have to see.
He'd never been so scared in his life, as when he'd walked into that room to find Moretti's hands holding that scarf around Dana's throat. He knew Moretti was strong enough to have snapped her neck in a second if he'd wanted to, and Jonathan couldn't have done a damn thing about it. He'd have made sure Moretti was dead a second later, but that wouldn't have helped Dana any. He supposed he should be grateful Moretti hadn't and leave it at that.
Jonathan handed Shea both his own weapon, the one he'd taken off Moretti, and the key Moretti's girlfriend had given him without being asked.
Shea eyed him suspiciously, though what exactly Shea suspected Jonathan had no idea. “How is she?” he asked.
“The EMTs say she'll be fine.”
“How about you?”
“I'll be fine as soon as that son of a bitch is behind bars.”
Shea grinned. “Thanks to you, he gets a trip to the hospital first.”
“Poor thing,” Jonathan would have said, but the sound of a single gunshot coming from the building silenced him.
And then he was running, like several of the other cops hauling ass toward the building. “Holy shit,” he hard someone say, but no one was moving.
He pushed his way through the crowd to the base of the stairs. Moretti was sprawled halfway down, face down and bleeding. Fragments of the top of his head dripped down from the ceiling above. “What the hell happened here?”

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