Fastball (29 page)

Stop it, Maddie.

She took several deep breaths, desperately
trying to calm down. Clearly, she’d been watching too many cop
shows. Really, there was no evidence to suggest Nazarian was
anything other than what this room indicated—a moderately
successful bookie. Sure, maybe he had mob connections, but that
didn’t necessarily mean a lot. Since killing her would attract too
much unwelcome attention, that didn’t make any sense. No, she
started to think that Nazarian’s aim was likely to scare the shit
out of her, and on that score he was succeeding admirably.

Funny how a kidnapping could do that.

The big guy gestured toward one of the hard
metal chairs scattered around the room. “Take a seat.”

As Maddie lowered herself into the chair, he
pulled a couple of oversized plastic ties out of his pocket—the
kind cops often use instead of handcuffs. He wrapped the ties
around both her wrists and her ankles, fastening her to the chair.
Though she could barely move her hands at all, she was grateful he
didn’t tighten them so hard that they cut into her skin. Very
professional. It would appear Mr. Goon took pride in his work.

He bent down to look her forehead. “The
bleeding’s nearly stopped.” He moved away and she heard a desk
drawer slide open. Next thing she knew the big man had moved in
behind her and she heard the sound of tape ripping.

“Sorry about this,” he said as he reached
around and slapped a strip of duct tape over her mouth, pressing it
down hard into her cheeks. Maddie instinctively tried to stand up,
but only succeeded in jerking the chair up a few inches before the
weight of it pulled her back down, nearly tipping her in the
process.

Her captor grimaced, actually looking
sympathetic. “I know the tape sucks, but I gotta go now and I can’t
leave you here screaming your head off, can I?” He backed toward
the door, switched off the light, and locked the deadbolt as he
left.

Plunged into darkness again, Maddie whimpered
behind the tape, her chest squeezing with a frightening surge of
panic. A horrifying thought sped through her head. What if Nazarian
decided to leave her there for God only knew how long? Maybe that
was how he intended to scare the hell out of her, breaking her down
psychologically until she agreed to do whatever he demanded.

She struggled against the ties on her wrists,
feeling like she was suffocating. But the plastic only squeezed
into her flesh, feeding her growing panic. A claustrophobia she
didn’t even know she had went screaming through her brain and body,
and she instinctively tried to suck in air through the sticky tape.
All that accomplished was make her woozy and sick to her stomach.
That terrified her even more, thinking that if she vomited with her
mouth taped shut, she might choke on her own puke. A horrible,
humiliating death, alone in a dark room.

With every shred of willpower at her command,
Maddie forced herself to stop struggling. As calmly as she could,
she began drawing in slow, even breaths through her nostrils. After
a few minutes, her stomach began to settle and her heartbeat slowed
to something approaching normal. With that, sanity began to return,
and her thoughts coalesced around something approaching
coherence.

Jake.
Simply thinking his name gave
her a surge of hope. Jake would call the police when she didn’t
show up after a couple of hours, though she knew the police
probably wouldn’t do anything until she’d been missing a day or
more. Or, maybe he’d track down Robbie to find out what had
happened to her. Robbie would know where this place was, wouldn’t
he?

Maybe, but how long will that all take? And
maybe Robbie won’t even know. God, what then?

With those negative thoughts, hysteria
started building once more. The smothering darkness heightened all
her sensations, and for a horrifying moment she was convinced she
couldn’t breathe.

Calm down. Calm down
. She repeated the
two words dozens of times, like a mantra. She didn’t think Nazarian
would leave her here past early morning, and most likely he’d show
up sooner than that. But what would happen when he did? How far was
he prepared to go to shut her down?

Apparently, pretty damn far.

She now knew she had little hope of getting
out of this mess on her own. Even if she promised Nazarian on a
stack of Bibles that she’d leave him alone, he probably wouldn’t
believe her. And even if he
did
, what would such a promise
end up doing to her life? How could she go on as a reporter if she
folded in the face of intimidation? She didn’t think she could live
with herself. So what the hell was the option then? Getting beaten,
or maybe even killed?

Her one thread of hope, thin and fraying, was
that Jake would somehow find her.

Maddie desperately locked his image in her
mind, hoping it could ward off thoughts of all the things Nazarian
and his man might end up doing to her. It was a beacon in the
darkness, a hope that she might actually live through this
nightmare. She started to pray.

As Jake sat on a bar stool in his cheerfully
noisy local pub, it didn’t take long for him to realize that
nothing would ease his growing anxiety except seeing Maddie again.
Distractions weren’t working, since all he could think about was
his girl and Robbie going at it in the stadium parking lot. Maybe
it would be better to head over to her apartment rather than
waiting around at his place for her to show up. That way, even if
they had another fight, she probably wouldn’t storm out. He was
determined to work this through with her, no matter what it took.
At this point, she’d have to call the police and have him carted
off if she wanted to get rid of him.

He drained his beer, threw a ten down on the
bar and headed back to his SUV. As he walked, he pulled out his
cell and called her. Getting no answer, he left a short voicemail
with the change in plans.

Maddie’s building was pretty much dead quiet
when he arrived. It housed mostly an older, well-off crowd, so he
wasn’t surprised to find the garage and her floor completely silent
at this time of night. He let himself in and went straight to her
fridge, poured himself a glass of San Pellegrino and settled in on
the sofa to wait. Grabbing the remote, he flipped the channel to
the west coast ball game, hoping it would distract him. He didn’t
think Maddie could be much longer. There was no way Robbie was
going to stand around talking to her all night.

He glanced at his watch and frowned. It
didn’t make sense that she wasn’t already here by now. It was going
on an hour since he’d left the stadium. He tried to zero in on the
game, but he barely knew which teams were playing.

After fifteen more minutes, Jake’s gut was
shrieking at him. But he tried to tamp down his anxiety, thinking
maybe she had missed his voicemail and gone to his place.

He speed-dialed her cell phone again, but it
rang until her voice mail kicked in. That sent his worry rocketing
up. Why the hell wasn’t she picking up? She would know it was him
from call display. He paced the floor of her tiny living room,
waited two minutes and tried again. Voice mail.

Maddie was in trouble. He knew it as surely
as he knew his own name.

Jake grabbed his jacket and headed for the
door as he called Robbie’s cell. Voice mail there, too. He left a
terse, cold message demanding a call back, then bolted from
Maddie’s apartment and down to the garage.

* * *

If Jake had needed any confirmation that
Maddie was in trouble, he’d gotten it in her garage. Her car, with
the window down, keys still in it, and her bag on the floor, was
parked in front of the garage door, leaving barely enough room for
a car to get around it. He’d frozen when he saw it, and it had
taken him a few seconds to get his pounding heart under control.
Logically, he should have probably called the police, but he knew
that would only delay things. The fastest way to find Maddie was
through Robbie, and the cops definitely would not approve of Jake’s
methods of extracting information from the little prick.

Robbie’s place was only about a mile or so
from Maddie’s. With little traffic on the roads and some luck
hitting green lights, Jake made it in four minutes from the time he
threw himself into the Tahoe and maneuvered around Maddie’s car.
Screeching to a stop in front of the high rise apartment building,
he parked illegally and barged through the front door. His heart
still thudding, he punched Robbie’s number into the intercom.

Robbie’s surly voice responded on the
crackling intercom. “Yeah?”

“It’s Jake. Let me in. Right fucking now,
Robbie.”

Several long seconds passed as Jake shifted
from foot to foot. Finally, the door buzzed and he was through and
into the elevator in a heartbeat. Getting off at the fourteenth
floor, he jogged down the hall and hammered his fist twice on
Robbie’s door. Robbie opened it just a crack, keeping the chain
latched.

“Open the fuck up, Rob.”

“Jesus, it’s midnight, man. And I’m
beat.”

Jake gave him a lethal stare. “Don’t make me
ask you again, or this door’s coming off its hinges.”

With a dramatic sigh, Robbie unlatched the
chain. Jake pushed the door open as Robbie backed away. “Where’s
Maddie?” he growled, fisting his hand into the front of Robbie’s
tee shirt. “I swear to God, if you’ve done something to her—”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Robbie
yelped, trying to twist out of Jake’s iron grip. “I don’t know
where she is. I left her a long time ago at the park. That’s all I
know.”

Fuck that bullshit
. Jake gave Robbie a
hard shove, and the little man fell backwards onto the carpet in
the narrow hallway. Jake dropped along with him and jammed a
forearm across Robbie’s shoulders, pinning him down. As Robbie
struggled wildly to dislodge him, flailing his legs and rolling his
hips, Jake straddled his body and easily clamped him down.

“Tell me what’s happened to her,” Jake
snarled. “You’ve got ten seconds, and then I’m going to start
beating the crap out of you.”

Robbie’s eyes flicked side-to-side in terror.
Jake meant every word he said, and Robbie knew it. “Jesus, I don’t
know! Let up, will ya? You’re gonna break my goddamn collarbone!”
Robbie’s eyes filled with pain, but Jake felt no sympathy for the
man he’d once called friend.

“You think this hurts? I’ll break every bone
in your pathetic body if I have to. Maddie’s been kidnapped from
her building, so you’re going to tell me what you know and damn
quick.”

Robbie stopped struggling, shock written
large on his features. Jake slightly eased his grip.

“Oh, Jesus, man. All I know is Nazarian said
he’d take care of it. He didn’t give me any details.” Robbie’s
voice cracked. “Jake, I don’t want her to get hurt, but she was
going to take me down!” His bloodshot eyes filled with a coward’s
tears.

Jake had always believed he could never kill
a man, but right now he had to resist the primal impulse to
throttle Robbie until his eyes rolled back in his head. But he
clamped down hard on his murderous rage, because he had to stay in
control or he’d never get to Maddie in time.

“What’s Nazarian going to do to her?” he
asked through clenched teeth, tightening his grip again.

“I don’t know! Maybe he’ll try to sweat her a
bit,” Robbie whimpered. “You know, to get her to back off.”

“Where would he take her?”

When Robbie hesitated, Jake dug his knee into
the bastard’s bony hip.

Robbie let out a choked cry. “Who the hell
knows?”

Jake increased the pressure on his
collarbone. “Don’t make me ask you again, Rob.”

“Christ! Okay, okay, he hangs out most of the
time at a club he owns called Fannie’s, down on 12
^th
Street. And he has a place in the Italian Market he uses as an
office.”

Nazarian wouldn’t likely take her anywhere
near his club, Jake thought. Too public, especially at this time of
night. “Where’s the place in the Market?”

“In back of a meat store on the east side of
9
^th
, south of Christian. The place has a green metal
awning out front. I met him there once, and he told me to use the
back alley to get to the office. There’s a meat market sign on the
back of the store.” Tears were streaming down his face. “Honest to
God, Jake, that’s all I know.”

Jake suspected he was telling the truth this
time. Robbie reeked of fear, probably thinking Jake might well kill
him in his rage. He wasn’t far wrong.

“You’d better start praying that nothing bad
has happened to her,” Jake said. He pushed to his feet and stared
down at the pathetic excuse for a man huddled on the floor. “This
isn’t over, Rob. And if Maddie’s been hurt, I guarantee that you’ll
never be able to run far enough that I won’t find you.”

Jake left him in a shaking, crumpled heap as
he raced out to catch the elevator. Every muscle and every nerve
screamed to find Maddie, and the thirty second wait until the doors
finally opened practically killed him. As soon as he got down to
the lobby, he punched in Nate’s cell number and his friend answered
on the first ring.

“Maddie’s in trouble, man. Where are you
right now?”

“Having a beer at Antonini’s. What kind of
trouble? What’s going on?”

“No time to explain. Can I swing by there and
pick you up in about three minutes?”

“Sure. I’ll head out front right now and wait
for you.”

“Thanks, buddy.” Jake hung up and threw
himself into the front seat of the Tahoe.

As he’d promised, Nate was standing in front
of Antonini’s as Jake barreled along South Street and jerked to a
stop in the middle of the street. Nate clambered into the passenger
seat and strapped himself in.