Damaged (32 page)

Friday, May 18, 7:27 p.m.

T
he pain was duller when she awoke. But in some ways she felt worse. Her body was sluggish. Her limbs felt as if weights sat on them. She was also freezing. Cold metal ran under the length of her body.

She shivered. Her breasts jiggled.

She was naked.

She forced her eyelids open. A light glared directly into her eyeballs, drilling shards of white-hot pain into her nerves. She squeezed her eyes shut.

An obnoxious smell flooded her nose.

It was a smell of death and decay.

She knew where she was.

She was in Anna Keane’s little shop of horrors. She was lying on a gurney. She flexed her hands. Tubing secured her wrists together. She tried to move her legs. They were bound as well. Panic welled in her.

“Craig?” a woman asked. It was Anna Keane.

Kate’s pulse began to throb through her veins.
Craig
. It could only be Craig Peters. President of BioMediSol, Inc.
The man who signed the disarticulation record of Vangie Wright/Mary Littler.

There was a mumble. Then Anna Keane said, “Why don’t you come back in half an hour.”

Silence.

Someone stumbled. A body thudded. There was a muffled grunt. She needed to see what was happening. She turned her head away from the light and forced her eyes open again.

Two blurry figures moved jerkily into her line of vision.

She squinted. A man staggered, pinning Anna Keane against one of the freezers.

“Jesus Christ! Get the hell off me!” Anna Keane pushed the man away from her. He fell backward against the gurney that Kate lay trussed on. She flinched.

It was then that she saw his face.

It was the blond man.

The man from Lisa MacAdam’s funeral.

The man from Dr. Gill’s lab.

His face contorted.

This was Craig Peters.

“Craig, your girl is right there. Behind you,” Anna Keane said. Her voice was low, but fear caused it to tremble. “Look, she’s ready for you.”

Craig Peters started mumbling again. He still hadn’t moved away from the gurney. The weight of his body pressed against Kate’s legs. She lay perfectly still. But her flesh rose at his words. “I need you…”

Anna Keane backed away, stumbling into a meat freezer. Craig Peters pitched toward her. There was a loud crash as his arm caught the tray of instruments laid out by the gurney. The instruments that were meant to end her life and plunge her body, piece by piece, into the cold depths of BioMediSol’s freezers.

The instruments went flying. She jerked as a hot needle of pain dug deep into her thigh. Something had stabbed her. She peered through slit eyes down her prone body. The handle of a scalpel was visible. The blade had embedded itself in her leg. The other instruments had clattered to the floor around her.

“Craig, you don’t need me. You’ve got her. She’s waiting for you,” Anna cried. Then she added, “She wants you to!” The fear was unmistakable now. Kate could smell it in the close air of the room.

“Doesn’t hurt,” Craig Peters panted. “Promise.” He sounded like an animal. A robot. His body was stiff, rigid, as if he was doing a grim impersonation of Frankenstein. It would have been laughable except for one thing: the look in his eyes. Anna Keane was dead meat.

The funeral director turned and ran out of the tiny embalming room. Craig Peters catapulted himself after her. Kate looked frantically around.

She was alone…for as long as it took Anna Keane and Craig Peters to have their battle to the death. Whoever survived would make her their next victim.

Boxes crashed to the floor outside the embalming room. She tried to block the sounds of Craig Peters’ attack, of Anna Keane’s desperate cries. The scalpel blade in her leg burned flame into her muscle.

You must get out of here. Focus.

She bent her knees. Pain shot through her quadriceps. Her hands strained toward the scalpel.

She couldn’t reach it.

She pulled her knees toward her stomach. Thank God for all her running. Even though her right quad trembled violently, she was strong enough to hold her legs in position while her hands fumbled along her thigh.

Blood warmed her fingertips. She was getting close.

A muffled scream broke through her concentration. It was a desperate, angry cry. Her fingers began to shake. Anna Keane was losing. Panic clenched Kate’s stomach. She desperately needed to pee.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

She repeated it in her head.

Anna Keane began to beg. “No. Please, Craig. No.”

Kate squeezed her eyes shut and repeated her mantra, trying to block out Anna’s pleas. Her fingers scrabbled for the scalpel’s handle. She grabbed it. And pulled hard. It resisted, then slid out with a weird sucking sensation, as if her flesh didn’t want to let go of the source of its misery.

Blood gushed over her hand. Warm, spurting. She ignored the weakness seeping into her quadriceps and turned onto her side. Her head buzzed.

Focus. Look at the spot on the floor.

It took her a second to realize it was her blood she was looking at.

She bent her elbows and brought her bound wrists up to eye level. She carefully put the handle of the scalpel into her mouth and clamped her teeth above the blade. Then she aimed the point of the scalpel into the knot of tubing binding her wrists together.

The knot swam in and out of focus. Sweat ran into her eyes.

Fuck it.

She rammed the point of the scalpel into the knot. It nicked the rubber.

Yes.

She moved her head back and forth. Vertigo dogged every move as she sliced through the knot. Sweat slid down her chilled cheeks.

Boxes crashed in the next room. Anna Keane was putting up an almighty fight. But she couldn’t last forever.

The tubing snapped. Kate braced her hands on the gurney and pushed herself to an upright position.

Spots filled her vision. She felt herself tipping.

Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.

The spots began to recede. She reached down carefully to her ankles. It took only a few seconds to slice through the tubing. In those few seconds, everything fell silent. No boxes crashed. No bodies thudded.

The silence pounded at her nerves.

What was going on in the other room?

Then she heard it. Breathing, harsh and ragged, on the other side of the wall. The victor.

Craig Peters would be searching for her now.

Friday, May 18, 7:38 p.m.

R
andall squeezed his eyes shut. Think. Where would she be?

She could be anywhere.

He grabbed the phone on her desk and dialed security. “Put me through to the police station.”

As soon as the police switchboard answered, he said, “I need to speak to Detective Drake. It’s urgent.”

He stood behind her desk, waiting for Ethan Drake to come on the line. He never thought he’d be in this position. That he’d have to ask Ethan Drake for help. The man who’d put his oldest friend behind bars.

He wondered what had driven Kate and this guy apart. Whatever it was, he hoped it wouldn’t cloud the detective’s judgment.

“Detective Drake.”

“It’s Randall Barrett.” He fought to keep his voice calm.

“Yeah?” The detective’s voice was unsurprisingly hostile.

“Kate has disappeared.”

His words had the effect he wanted. The hostility was gone, replaced by wariness. “What?”

“I believe she’s been kidnapped.”

“When?” Drake was now all business, although Randall thought he detected a hint of fear in his voice.

He glanced at Kate’s clock. It was small, battered. Looked as if it had a few tales to tell. Right now it was urging him to hurry. “Approximately an hour ago.”

“By whom?”

“John Lyons.”

“The motherfucker.” Drake’s voice was hard, angry. “Would he hurt her?”

Randall pictured John’s silver hair and suave countenance. The desperation in his eyes he’d tried to hide. “He’s got nothing to lose,” Randall said softly.

“Why would he kidnap Kate?”

“He’s been defrauding our firm to finance a company that supplies body parts to one of our clients.” He’d found that out after his phone call from CreditAngels. “Kate had worked with that client. I think he wants to prevent her from revealing what she knows.”

“What’s the name of the body parts company?”

“BioMediSol.”

“Who else is involved?”

“A man named Craig Peters and a woman named Anna Keane.” She’d been the co-signee of the loan although her name hadn’t appeared in the Registry of Joint Stock Companies search. Impatience pounded through Randall’s veins. Drake didn’t realize how off balance John had been. They needed to hurry.

“Of Keane’s Funeral Home?” Drake asked sharply.

“Yes.”

“Holy shit.”

From his stunned reaction, Ethan Drake had made a connection that Randall had missed. “Why—”

“The embalming fluid’s from Keane’s Funeral Home,” Drake called hoarsely. “Get the fuck over there!”

The phone went dead.

A cold sweat ran down Randall’s back. He bolted out of Kate’s office to his car.

Friday, May 18, 7:38 p.m.

S
he bit the scalpel sideways between her teeth, keeping her hands free, and lowered her feet to the floor. It was icy. But where her blood spattered, the tiling was warm and slick. Vertigo tilted the room. She put a hand out, her palm meeting the reassuring solidity of the meat freezer.

Move. Move. You have no fucking time. Get to the elevator. Now!

A low moan broke through the pounding in her ears.

She scrambled toward the elevator. It was six feet away. Her hands pulled her along the sides of the freezer.

You can do it.

That wasn’t her voice urging her forward.

It was Imogen’s.

A small warmth spread from inside her chest. It flowed down her arms, her legs. She pushed off from the freezer and threw herself against the elevator button. Her legs gave out. She slid down the wall. But her fingers gripped the door frame, ready to propel her inside when the elevator came.

The gears whirred. Slowly. Each second was a year of
her life. She saw it with frightening clarity. The lost years after Imogen’s death. The desperate years of trying to regain her early promise. And maybe find joy, or at least peace, once again.

Instead, this.

The gears clanked.

Hurry. Hurry. Please hurry.

Blood dripped down her leg.

Craig Peters staggered into the room.

He lurched toward her.

She gripped the scalpel with one hand and pressed the elevator button frantically with the other.

Where the fuck was the elevator? She didn’t want to die waiting for an elevator.

He grabbed her by the throat.

He lifted her off her feet, slamming her back against the wall. The elevator button pressed into her spine. The door slid open.

“It won’t hur…” he mumbled. His eyes stared into hers. Kate wasn’t sure if he really saw her. His face twisted. Saliva dribbled down the corner of his mouth.

His hand spasmed, tight against her throat. Spots exploded in her vision.

Her spine ground tight against the elevator button, metal on bone. The elevator door buzzed in alarm.

Dark spots spun and cartwheeled, outlined in electric pink and yellow.

He was killing her. She was going to end up just like Vangie Wright.

Craig Peters panted. His whole body was rigid, so tense she thought he might snap against her, smash his body into hers and crush her into the wall.

The spots had exploded into neon. The pressure was
building. Blood and tissue pushed against the wall of her skull.

Stop him. Stop him taking one more victim, Katie.

I can’t. He’s killing m—

Protect the victims.
The voice was urgent.
Like you used to look after me.

But I didn’t!

You did, Katie. You did.
The voice became sad.
I just wouldn’t let you anymore.

The voice faded into spinning dots. Black melded with white. The hand around her throat remained rigid. Unbending. Unyielding.

The scalpel. She couldn’t feel its cool metal between her fingers anymore. Her arm was numb.

Do it. He’s winning!

She lifted her arm. She forced her arm to tense. Then she plunged the scalpel into Craig Peters’ chest. He stared at her. He still didn’t seem to be seeing her. She pulled her arm back. The scalpel popped out with a sudden, sucking give of his tissue.

The choke hold around her neck remained rigid. Her brain was about to explode her skull. It could not possibly stay in her head with all this pressure.

She plunged the scalpel again, deeper. Harder.

Craig Peters’ mouth opened. A gurgling noise came out. She wrapped her fingers around the handle of the scalpel for one final attempt. But she was too weak. She couldn’t get it out.

She waited, staring into Craig Peters’ unseeing eyes.

She had no breath left. It was gone. Gone.

So was her sister. She tried to hear Imogen’s voice one final time. But she was mute.

She had a sudden image of being underwater. In the
pool. She and Imogen were holding their breath. Who could hold it the longest? She’d always been good at that game. One. Two. Three. Four—

Craig Peters’ hands spasmed. The fingers loosened around her neck. She jerked free of his grip, ducking under his arm and rolling onto the floor.

Run. Run. Run, goddamn it!

But she couldn’t. Her lungs screamed for air. Everything else was numb. She lay on the floor, gasping, sucking in the air.

Waiting for his fingers to finish the job they had started.

But he tilted forward, smacking his head against the wall. The scalpel jammed deeper into his chest.

His eyes were open.

Wide open. Unseeing?

She stared at him, unable to move. Gulping in the air. Fresh. Sweet. It rushed into her lungs. They burned, the oxygen fanning the sputtering flame of her life. As her head stopped buzzing, she realized that the buzzing of the elevator had been silenced without her spine to press the button.

The elevator door slid closed.

No! Push the button…

Craig Peters fell sideways to the floor. Blood ran down his chest, spreading in a slow pool.

She rolled to her hands and knees. Forced her body upright. Slammed her palm against the elevator button.

The door opened. She dove into the elevator and reached upward, through the dark, dizzying pain that crowded her head. Her fingers fumbled for the lone button on the panel. Punched it. Her hand dropped. Her eyes closed.

Stay awake. You can’t give up now. John Lyons could be downstairs, waiting for you.

She forced her eyes open.

She had to get out of here.

The elevator landed with a gentle bump on the main floor. The door opened. She peered into the main embalming room. No sign of anyone.

Relief weakened her legs. She stumbled toward the door. A set of shelves built next to the wall caught her eye. Scrub gowns were stacked neatly on one of them. She grabbed one, clumsily thrusting her arms in the sleeves. The back gaped open, threatening to fall off her shoulders. She snatched another gown and put it on back to front. Being clothed gave her strength. Like she was one step closer to the living.

She staggered through the door into the hall. The building was silent. What time was it? She had no idea how long she’d been unconscious. She stumbled down the hallway, her hand holding the wall for support, her right leg becoming heavier as if it was filled with water.

Go faster.

John Lyons was somewhere in here.

She forced her feet to move one after another. The dots had receded to the edge of her vision, leaching color from the walls. Everything had a shadow.

Her heart raced, urging her forward, yet begging for reprieve. She eyed the final corner. Was John waiting around the curve with his tire iron raised?

She inched forward, her leg now dragging.

Get ready to run.

She tried to psych herself. She couldn’t run. Her leg could barely move. Fear put her heart into overdrive.

She reached the corner. Pressed her back against the wall. Listened.

Was that John’s ragged breathing on the other side?

Or hers?

A minute passed.

Then another.

Her leg was numbing. If she didn’t move soon, she wouldn’t be able to.

On the count of three.

One.

Two.

Three
—