Conflicting Interests (28 page)

Every last one of the men sucked in a breath of air.

“What is it?” Dillon held his breath as Seth listed off the
number and then repeated it for them. Terrell was writing down the number and
the moment Seth was finished speaking he darted away from the desk to his own, snatching
up his phone quickly.

“Seth, the house you’re at is Imogen Graham’s house. She’s
the drama teacher at your school. Is the door still open?”

“Yes.”

“I want you to go inside, close and lock the door. You don’t
open the door for anyone but the officer who comes to get you. I’ll call you
back with his badge number and you make him tell you his badge number before
you open the door. Got it?”

“Yeah, Dad. Are you going to find Ms. Page?”

Dillon was suddenly silent. What if he couldn’t find her?
What if she was already dead? What if it was just plain too late?

Stephens leaned over the desk, talking into Dillon’s phone
as Dillon struggled to breathe. “Seth, I don’t want you to worry. We’re going
to find her.”

“Okay, bye. I’m fine. I don’t want you to worry about me.
Just find her.” He hung up which was likely a good thing because at that
moment, Dillon couldn’t seem to figure out how to swallow.

He couldn’t lose her. He’d destroyed their relationship in
his fury. He’d broken her heart in a way that might just be irreparable but
there was no way he could lose the chance to fix it.

The dull buzzing sound seemed to be coming from every last
cell in her body but it was bringing her back from unconsciousness again. She’d
woken in the dark, being bounced and tossed around in what she quickly figured
out was the trunk of a car. She kicked and screamed but she had something over
her mouth and her wrists were restrained behind her back. It felt tight and
sticky to her skin, just as her mouth felt and she was guessing it was duct
tape. It didn’t stop her from trying to kick her way out of the car.

The trunk smelled of exhaust and oil. It smelled like an old
car, like an old gas station. She spent an unknown amount of time kicking,
panicking and praying until the car finally stopped and she heard steps moving
around to the trunk.

If she’d thought she was panicking in the trunk, she had no
idea what panic could even feel like until she listened to the key slowly
unlock the trunk. She was suddenly horrified of what lay beyond her dark cocoon
and if she could have barricaded herself inside, she would have done so
willingly.

When the trunk was opened, she could see the sun was still
shining and it was an odd omen of just how not okay her situation was. The
bright spring day was everything life was supposed to be, but her life was on
the brink of ending and the beautiful warm day was a painful taunt.

He yanked her body from the trunk and directly into a
cluttered and garbage-filled garage that the car had been backed up to. Katrina
watched in dread when the sun disappeared slowly as the door of the garage was
lowered and when the last of the real world was gone, she glanced to him.

He looked oddly normal in a boring sort of way. He was trim,
dressed just like any other person in the world and it was hard to imagine this
man wanted to kill her. But he did. There was no doubt in her mind and he was
absolutely going to succeed if she didn’t do something to stop it.

She watched again as he cocked his hand back and his fist
once more came flying to her head. And then there was more darkness.

But now she was rousing again just to find herself still
bound, still with her mouth taped shut and still horrified this was how she was
going to meet her end.

She wasn’t ready and as tears pricked her eyes, she fought
the overwhelming urge to break down and give up. She was afraid to fight. She
was afraid to stand up for herself but she stomped her foot on the concrete
ground she was sitting on and she kept on stomping until her foot hurt and her
brain woke up.

She looked around. She was alone. The room was sparse and
almost empty. The uneven concrete floor looked old and it had the musty mildew
smell of an old basement but there were walls.

Dirty old unpainted drywall enclosed the small room and a
single lightbulb hung from the ceiling. There was a folding chair sitting along
the opposite wall and a bucket sitting on the floor nearby. A small table sat
next to the folding chair and a roll of duct tape sat on top along with a box
of garbage bags and a wound-up length of rope. The sight of those items alone
had the fear pricking her brain.

She tried to focus on what she’d learned in self-defense class
but it was hard as hell. Every sound she heard convinced her the man was coming
to kill her and concentrating on what she needed to concentrate on was harder
than it had ever been in her entire life. She closed her eyes, replaying the
class in her mind, pushing the fear aside as much as possible.

She was fucked if she couldn’t get her hands free so she
started working on the tape. She had nails and she whittled at the sticky
strong surface with the nails of her thumbs and middle fingers. She gouged at
the tape, one layer at a time. She’d stick her nail through, piercing one layer
and pulling to tear through it. It was a slow, incessant process and as her
fingers worked through the layers, her hands started to cramp. She forced her
brain to go back to the training.

The eyes, go for the eyes. It doesn’t take much to throw
a person off their game when it comes to the eyes. Just the slightest
irritation could cause him to lose his defenses
. The nose. The nose was
also sensitive. The groin.

The hardest of all would be focusing if he choked her. It
was horrifying being unable to breathe but she had to concentrate. If he used
two hands, it meant she had two hands free to defend herself and he couldn’t
defend himself with his fingers wrapped around her neck.

She swallowed hard at nothing more than the thought alone.
Could she do this? Could she fight and live? Did she have a choice? Fuck no,
she didn’t, and she wasn’t ready to be done with this life. Concentrate. She
just had to concentrate.

When the sound of a nearby door being opened startled her
out of her subconscious training session, she yelped and jumped and the panic
started setting in again. Her fingers were still working. She’d punctured
through a large section of tape but she’d been unable to tear through the
thickness and had to backtrack to tackle a smaller section.

She was trying to visualize what her hands were doing behind
her back, letting her mind see her progress. She had no idea if she was
actually making as much progress as she hoped she was but she wasn’t willing to
consider that she couldn’t free herself. She had to free her hands. She had to
have her hands.

Eventually there was a loosening around her wrists. She
could feel movement that hadn’t been there before. It was subtle at first but
the more punctures she made in the layers, the more movement she thought she
could feel until finally she was certain it wasn’t just her imagination. She
could do this. She
had
to do this.

When she heard feet moving toward her, her fingers instantly
stilled and her heart instantly pounded. She fought the panic but in the end
panic won over and as she listened to the feet moving closer and closer, her
eyes filled with tears and terror squeezed her chest like a vise grip. The doorknob
turned and she watched the glint of the metal as it was wrenched slowly. She
started fighting the restraint of the tape but while her wrists were looser,
she simply couldn’t break free.

The door was pushed open and the panic she felt before
ratcheted up to a level she didn’t know even existed. Then she glanced up,
freezing in place and holding her breath. The face looking back at her made her
gasp in shock.

“What are you doing here?”

* * * * *

“Hey, we just got the plates back.” Terrell was walking back
toward them where Dillon was pacing, Stephens was talking on the phone to the
patrol officer who was on his way to Seth and Smith was staring at the desktop.
Dillon couldn’t seem to stop pacing and even as Terrell approached, he kept
walking back and forth. That was until Terrell spoke again. “The plates are
registered to Josh Grant.”

“
What
?” Dillon wasn’t the only one who said the word
or who had shock plastered across their face. “Wait. You ruled this one out,
didn’t you?”

Smith and Terrell both nodded and they looked as confused as
Dillon felt. Stephens hung up quickly, handing a slip of paper to Dillon, who grabbed
his cell phone and stepped away to call Seth.

Seth still sounded rattled when Dillon spoke to him but he
wouldn’t even hear of Dillon staying on the phone with him when Katrina was
missing. Dillon gave him the officer’s badge number that Stephens had written
down and then Seth practically hung up on him when Dillon offered again to stay
on the line.

He returned to the group of men. Greenwood had joined them
and it was the tensest group of men he’d ever seen. He was likely the tensest
of all and he stood by shifting from one foot to the other as they discussed
calling in SWAT. Smith ran to grab the file with Grant’s address in it. It was
mere minutes before Greenwood had given the okay to contact the Incident
Commander and request SWAT presence and as jackets were grabbed and guns were
checked and holstered, Greenwood grabbed Dillon’s elbow.

“You’re not going in that house. Do you understand?”

“I’m not staying here.” Dillon’s jaw was tight and clenched
as he spoke and he was struggling to keep his composure.

“You’re not going in that house!” And then turning to
Stephens who barely looked like he was breathing, Greenwood barked, “You keep
him in line or it’s both of your asses!” Greenwood stormed off in a rage but
Dillon was blind to it and more than that, he just didn’t give a shit about it.

They watched Smith and Terrell leave after Smith hung up
with the SWAT Sergeant and Dillon was back to pacing. He couldn’t seem to stop
pacing and as Stephens watched him, he swore under his breath, grabbed his
jacket and snatching Dillon’s up off his chair tossed it to him. “You’re going
to drive me nuts if I don’t get you out of here. Come on. I’ll cuff you to the
fucking car door if I have to but we can at least be there.”

Dillon breathed a heavy sigh and followed Stephens from the
building. Seth called as they walked to Stephens’ car. The patrol officer was
driving him back to Molly’s house and they were only a block away. The officer
was to stay with them until he heard otherwise and when Seth commented that he
could see Molly standing in the driveway waiting for him, he was finally able
to let go of one source of panic and focus fully on the other.

“Dad, please get Ms. Page back. She has to be okay.” Seth’s
voice was barely a whisper and he could tell he was choked up. It broke his
heart to hear his son so emotional. Seth was the cool cat—he didn’t get
emotional.

“We’re doing everything we can, bud. I promise. I’ll talk to
you soon.” He listened as Molly met him hopping out the car and then he was
gone. Seth was right—she had to be okay. He understood the desperation in
Seth’s voice. It was the same desperation he felt. She had to be okay.

* * * * *

Josh was eying her as he sat on the chair. He held a handgun
in his lap and he kept staring at it as though he was confused by it. He’d not
left the room in the fifteen or so minutes since he’d shocked the hell out of
her when he entered. She’d not expected to see his face.

He just watched her. He was as odd in this setting as he
always had been in her classroom. She tried to engage him in conversation but
he refused to answer her. He just stared. She kept working on the tape, timing
her questions to Josh when she was poised to puncture a fingernail through a
section of tape. Not that he would respond but she hoped her incessant
questions would be a good cover for what her hands were doing.

“Josh, you don’t have to do this. You didn’t kidnap me,
you’re not in any trouble yet.” That statement left a large section of duct
tape torn completely through and she wriggled against the wall as though she
was uncomfortable to hide the movements she needed to make. “Please, Josh.
You’re a good man.”

The fuck he was. He was a lunatic and she wanted to beat the
shit out of his creepy-ass self.

Then she heard it. More footsteps. It hadn’t escaped her
attention they couldn’t possibly be alone. The man who’d taken her from
Imogen’s was the man she recognized from the contracting company that had done
work on her bathroom, not Josh. How they knew each other was outside her scope
of reasoning and it seemed an unlikely partnership to be certain but it wasn’t
her concern at the moment.

Josh seemed as weak and vulnerable even here as he always
was and it wasn’t he who concerned her most. It was the occasional footsteps
above her that did. They were the other man, Clinton Lathrop. He scared her—not
that Josh didn’t but it was a different type of fear.

The footsteps she heard suddenly started moving around more
and when a door opened and the sound changed to footsteps coming down stairs,
her fear spiked and she started twisting against the restraints again and
digging her fingernails through layers of tape, picking and yanking at the
fibers. If she pulled with the grain of the fibers there was little resistance and
if she kept the sections narrow enough she could yank and tear through the thin
sections that went against the grain. But it was a damn slow process and she
was struggling in her panic to hide her desperate movements.

She whimpered when Clinton suddenly opened the door and Josh
stood, looking at him nervously. “We ready to have some fun, kids?” His voice
was sickeningly jovial and she shuddered at just what that might mean to a
fucking wackjob as himself. The erection that strained the front of his pants
almost made her gag but it was made all the worse when she noticed a similar
arousal in Josh who still looked nervously back and forth from Katrina to
Clinton.

“You’ve met my dear friend Josh, I see. A pleasant reunion
for you two? He’s sorry he had to drop out of your class but he was attracting
a bit too much attention for my liking.”

And then sauntering toward her, he spoke conversationally.
“We met a while back. He wasn’t difficult to find. Already a student in one of
your classes and he’d obviously taken a liking to you. Caught him jacking off
in his car to a picture of you and it was just instant friendship.” He smiled
brightly, as only a lunatic could in such a situation and Josh sheepishly
looked away.

“Doesn’t say much but he’s proved helpful and I promised him
a big payoff. I mean, those photo creations alone were pure genius. I couldn’t
have done that. I clean pipes for a living, for fuck’s sake.”

And then walking to Josh, he placed his hand affectionately
on the top of his head and continued in a whimsical voice. “Cleaned his pipes a
time or two, haven’t we?” When Josh started trembling and failed to answer,
Clinton’s fingers curled and tangled in Josh’s hair before he yanked his head
back to look up at Clinton. “I said, haven’t we?” Clinton’s face was lascivious
and his smile was pure lunacy.

“Yes…yes, Clint.”