His Frozen Heart (34 page)

“
Are you okay?”

“
I saw. . . a rat, I
think.”

“
A rat?” Her voice hitched
up two full octaves as she bounded back into the hallway holding
the door open, “Oh my God, where?”

“
I’m not sure. Something
moved behind the door and scared me.” Kelly leaned back in and
moved the door slightly to get a better look behind the door when I
reached out and held it in place. “It’s fine. I’m sure I imagined
it. Here.” I tossed the package of napkins to her. “I’ll be right
out. I just need to calm down a little.”

“
You look a little pale. Do
you want to take your break? I can cover for you.”

Glancing back toward the killer behind
the storage room door, he mouthed the word, “Yes.”

“
Uh, thanks. Yeah. I’m
going to go get some air.”

“
Okay. I’ll tell Cookie.
She’s going to freak when she hears there’s a rat in the store
room.”

Kelly left the door cracked when she
walked back toward the front. Grey’s voice was sinister and made my
skin crawl. “Nice. At least you’re smarter than you look. Let’s
go.”

He grabbed hold of my shoulder, hard.
He was leaving a bruise, but I was too scared to ask him to loosen
his grip. As we walked out of the storage room, we had to go past
the entrance to the vacant bar. I peeked inside and saw Cookie
tallying up lunch receipts. I tried to catch her eye, but she was
consumed with the slips of paper in front of her. Just before we
reached the back door, there was an opening into the kitchen where
the dishwasher worked.

The dishwashers were on a constant
rotation. None of them stayed on the job longer than a couple of
months. Working for minimum wage in a steamy room whose temperature
routinely topped 100 degrees did little to inspire long term
employment. The dishwasher today looked Asian, and was wearing
headphones, so calling out for his help would have been wasted
breath. He didn’t even notice Grey and me walk past the area where
he worked.

Grey shoved me through the back door
as the blast of cold air assaulted me. Our uniform was a thin short
sleeved t-shirt and black trousers. Within seconds I was shivering.
Grey wore a thick leather jacket and seemed to enjoy the goose
bumps holding the hairs on my arms at attention. “Oh, so sorry,
it’s a little chilly out today, isn’t it?”

He zipped up his coat while the smug
expression on his face grew. I told him, “My coat is just inside on
the hook. Let me reach in and grab it.”

He shook his head as a smile grew in
front of me, “I don’t think so. You’re as slick as a greased pig.
Avoiding me the way you have has been quite an accomplishment. You
must be very proud of yourself.”

“
You tried to kill
me!”

“
Tried
being the operative word. You’ve proven yourself a worthy
opponent.”

“
Opponent? I don’t even
know you! You attacked my roommate – she’s still in the hospital.
You scared the crap out of the old lady across the street. What is
your problem?”

“
My problem is you are
still breathing. Teddy didn’t appreciate the scam you played on him
and Tony.”

My face was numb and my arms freezing.
The high today was supposed to be five degrees. Shivers rocked me
as I stuttered from the cold, “There wa-wa-wa-was no
sc-sc-scam.”

“
No sc-sc-scam,” he mocked.
“No one plays Teddy and gets away with it, no one. Your roommate is
lucky she’s still alive.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out
the photo of my two sisters and me which he had stolen from my
bedroom. “Give me a reason to hunt these two down, too.”

Pure fear rocked me. I had to stop
this guy. Two men were walking toward us in the alley, neither
paying much attention to us, so I screamed to catch their
attention, “H-H-Help me!”

A fist crashed hard into my jaw as my
body landed face-first in the snow. The snow was even more cold
against my uninsulated skin than the subzero temperature of the
air. I lay there a second as the pain registered from my jaw. I had
never been punched before – ever. The sharp throbbing brought tears
to my eyes. I heard Grey warn the two men, “Keep walking. Nothing
to see here. Just teaching my girl some manners.”

Their footsteps crunched faster in the
snow as they ignored him and drew closer. Grey reached down and
pulled me up from the ground by my hair, holding my body in between
him and the approaching men. His voice was raw, “I said back off.
It’ll be worse for her if either of you take another
step.”

I saw one pull out a cell phone, then
Grey punched me hard in the kidney from behind as I went to my
knees. I prayed the guy had called the police. I lost focus of the
two men through the searing pain, but heard one of the voices
shout, “Easy man. Take it easy. Just let her go.”

Grey dragged me by my hair and shoved
me toward an awaiting car. It wasn’t his Nova. It was blue with
four doors. He pushed me through the driver’s side door while he
held a fistful of my hair in his hand. My jaw ached, but the
throbbing in my back from his punch was indescribable. My neck was
wrenched at an odd angle from him using my hair as a
handle.

Grey let go of my hair long enough to
turn the key in the ignition. Away from his grasp, I fumbled for
the door handle in the few seconds I wasn’t under his control and
was rewarded with a punch to the throat. I saw spots and couldn’t
make a sound if I had wanted to. I gasped for air.

The car fishtailed out of the alley as
he sped down the narrow road. Welcomed heat blasted on me from the
dashboard. I was too frightened to move, even to flinch. I tried to
watch where he was going but had difficulty paying attention to my
surroundings. A jacket lay bundled on the floorboard. If he stopped
at a red light, I would grab it and run. Grey’s brutality in the
last few minutes told me I wasn’t going to be breathing if I didn’t
escape.

He slowed as I recognized the entrance
to Pioneers’ Park. I ran the trails here during the summer months
and was familiar with this place. This park offered the advantage
of me knowing my surroundings, but the distinct disadvantage that
it was a nature preserve, so hardly anyone came here during the
winter months.

A few lonely tire tracks stretched out
in the snow in front of us. The car wasn’t built for off-roading,
so he would need to keep it on the pavement if he hoped to get back
out. The sky was overcast: it was still light out, but the day’s
sunshine was completely blocked by the blanket of winter clouds. A
heavy hit against my temple landed so hard my teeth clanged
together, then everything went black.

Chapter 25

I came to in a small wooden structure,
possibly a toolshed or an equipment shelter. There was enough light
to make out shapes, but not bright enough to make me wince as my
faculties slowly returned. I was covered by a jacket. It smelled of
cheap cologne and sweat. The stench made me want to gag, but I
breathed through my mouth to keep from alerting Grey that I was no
longer unconscious.

I wiggled my toes: they were numb, but
functioning. My fingers were the same. I was suspended a few feet
off the ground, lying on what appeared to be an old Army cot. The
canvas was stretched tight on metal poles. Knowing my slightest
movement would make the canvas complain, I held very still. From
what I could tell, I wasn’t tied up or bound, just dumped on the
canvas. My temple throbbed, my neck ached, and I could feel the
tightness of a fresh bruise that had formed on my back.

It was cool in the structure, but not
cold. Something was giving off heat, but the throbbing in my head
and my desire to stay motionless persuaded me not to turn to see
what that source might be. The scent of kerosene was heavy in the
air as I overheard Grey’s angry voice, “I’m freezing. You want in
on this, you’ve got thirty minutes.” He paused briefly, then
answered, “She’s still out.” Another short pause, “I don’t give a
shit what’s on television. You want a piece, you got thirty
minutes, then I’m gutting her.”

My body reacted to his words: the fine
hairs on my arms stood at attention, every muscle in my body tensed
while I sucked in a silent breath. I tried not to let my body
betray me by outwardly reacting to his words, preferring instead to
stay stiff as a board so as to remain silent. If he believed I was
still unconscious, that was preferable to being gutted. Without
moving a muscle, I scanned as much of the structure as my eyes
could take in without giving away my current state.

A door stood along the same wall where
my cot lay. The building had a cement floor. Light shown from the
other side of the room as the cot I was lying on cast a shadow
against the wall. Grey was pacing the floor on my right – his
footsteps echoing a sinister march in the little shack. I believed
the heat source behind me was a fire because the shadow from my cot
danced along the wall. If he had built a fire, there was a good
chance his back was to me. People normally faced a fire when they
were cold. With his back turned, I’d have a two second advantage if
I could make it through the door, maybe more.

I discreetly made a fist with my right
hand, then my left, proving to myself that my hands worked and
neither were bound. Both fists relaxed again in the position I had
awoken to. I wiggled my toes in both of my shoes a second time to
be sure. My head throbbed, but my vision wasn’t blurry and I didn’t
see double, so I didn’t think he had given me a concussion. I
slowly filled my lungs with as much air as they could hold, then
released it just as slowly.

His pacing continued as if he were a
caged animal. I didn’t know where we were – I hoped we were still
in the park he had pulled into before knocking me senseless. The
park was on more than 500 wooded acres. Once I got outside I’d have
to look for landmarks to tell me where we were. If I were lucky,
I’d be able to find one of the trails that I routinely ran after
work in the summertime. Many of the trails in the park overlapped,
and I knew nearly every route back to Cookie’s.

I took my third lungful of air, then
instead of releasing it slowly, I jumped off the cot, grabbed the
jacket that had been draped over me, and bolted to the door. It
wasn’t locked, and it flew open easily under my grip. My legs took
enormous strides: I was running for my life – my body knew
it.

I had been running full speed for at
least thirty seconds before I saw a landmark I recognized – a large
oak tree with trail signs tacked on it. Choosing a trail I was
familiar with, I continued to run full speed, peeking over my
shoulder every few strides to see if I was being pursued. I
couldn’t hide my tracks in the snow, but it had been an overcast
day today and the clouds hadn’t lifted. The moon’s illumination was
poor from the clouds, and if Grey were trying to run as fast as I
was, he would have a tough time seeing my tracks.

After a full ten minutes at a dead
sprint, I could hardly breathe. Each breath I took felt like knives
piercing my lungs, so I slowed my pace and tried to push through
the ache. I couldn’t feel my fingers, and my toes were growing more
numb with each stride. The park was empty. I hadn’t passed a single
person my whole trek through. The paths were hardly visible this
time of year on the clearest of days, so trying to stay on the
snow-covered path proved daunting in the dark. Every few strides my
feet would land on a patch of ice, threatening to send me sailing
into the air if I continued running.

Just to the right of my path I spied a
thick grove of evergreens. Jogging the last few feet to them, I
crouched down in the shadow of the largest evergreen bush to try to
catch my breath. The sounds of traffic in the distance were all I
could hear over my own labored breathing. I don’t know how long I
stayed cowering next to the bush, but it was long enough that the
breaths I took were no longer burning my lungs.

I had escaped. Grey hadn’t caught me.
I tried to get my bearings, looking for another landmark I
recognized in the deserted park. I had veered off the trail I
started on; this was an area I wasn’t familiar with, too far out
from the trails I frequented in the summer months. Gauging the tree
line off to my left, if I could find a path that breached it, I
should end up on Windom Street. From there it was less than a mile
back to where my car was parked near the restaurant. As I stood up,
I heard heavy boots running on the frozen snow in the direction
where I had come from.

I quickly crouched back down, hoping
he hadn’t seen me, when his voice echoed around the deserted area.
“It’s my lucky day. I thought I’d lost you. Nice of you to wait for
me to catch up.”

Terror gripped me, as the fine hairs
at the nape of my neck shouted for me to run. I didn’t think, I
just reacted. I spun around and sprinted away from the voice. There
was no path in front of me, but I didn’t let that dissuade me. My
feet high-stepped through the thick crunchy snow. I had outrun him
once: I could do it again. The ground was sloping down, adding to
the momentum of my pace. I allowed the pull from the slope to let
me nearly fly over the ground, dodging whatever vegetation peeked
out from the frozen ground beneath my feet.

A snow covered obstacle, possibly a
trash can on its side, lay directly in front of me. I leaped over
the obstacle more gracefully than an all-state hurdler. His heavy
steps crunched in the snow behind me, but I was gaining ground as
his footsteps seemed to be further and further away. I chanced a
glance over my shoulder to see if I could see him. I couldn’t. In
the silence of the night, I could hear he was still pursuing, but
he was further behind me with every step I took.