House of Steel (20 page)

A low, painful groan came from the bed
behind her. She turned around to see his eyes moving beneath his
shut lids. Her eyes traveled down to his arms and legs in the
restraints. She hadn’t wanted to use them, but she had to. The
tranquilizer would be wearing off sooner than she had expected. She
pumped more morphine through the drip as she watched the monitor,
reading his vitals. He was safe here. For now. She needed to get
him to the hospital soon. It would be close.

She hadn’t meant for it to happen like this.
Theron was innocent, but after Gunnar had sliced through Theron,
she knew she had a shot at taking down both Gunnar and Holston.
Gunnar wouldn’t be able to face Holston without finding Theron
first, and Gunnar would never find him - or her - here. She would
get to Gunnar first. Then Holston. Besides, killing Holston Parker
would give her no satisfaction without making him squirm first. He
was getting everything he deserved. She needed to save the women he
was trafficking and end the bloodshed.

V slipped her feet into the black boots,
lacing them up to her knees, and moved the note closer to the edge
of the table. Theron would see it, but would he heed the message?
Stay calm. I’ll be back with help
. He hadn’t known who he
was dealing with. He could never know.

She took one last look at herself in the
mirror next to the sink and toilet that were floating in the wide
open space, waiting to be framed in. Blue eyes stared back at her.
“A pixie,” Holston had called her when she had walked into the
office after cutting it short. She slid the chamber of her .9
millimeter open, double checking the load, and clicked it shut
before slipping it into the holster tucked inside her jacket.
Always pack light. She gave her leg one final pat, feeling the hard
metal graze against her skin on the inside of her boot. She was
ready.

“A pixie,” she scoffed as she slid open the
metal door and slipped out, locking the door behind her.

25

DAY 4: Sunday, December 21 – 3:45 p.m.

“A round of Miller bottles here.” Mark
pointed down at James and Delaney already seated on the stools.
Mark sat down next to his sister, leaning his back against the
wooden slats of the stool. The smell of stale beer and fried cheese
filled the air.

“A Sunday afternoon round of beers without a
Packer game,” Delaney said as she looked around the almost barren
bar, an unusual occasion for Atlas Pub. The bar, a staple for the
career crowd after work, turned into a low-key lounge for
twenty-something’s at night. The old pub was one of the first
buildings downtown, near the river, making the atmosphere usually
nostalgic and cozy. Although those weren’t the words to describe
the bar to Delaney. Not now.
Where this all started.
It was
after 3:30. Theron had little over an hour.
What am I doing
here?

“Looks like everyone stayed home, like they
were told, with the potential killer on the loose. Except for us,
that is.” James nodded at his company, hesitant to smile.

“Like I said on the way over, it seems like
they’ve got it covered and are doing what they can to find him,”
Delaney forced the words out of her mouth as the bartender came
closer to slide the bottles across the bar. His muscles bulged from
his fitted shirt, just like they had the night Delaney had flashed
her chest at him.

“Glad to see that you got home okay the
other night.” He winked at her, placing the Miller in front of her.
She inhaled, restraining herself from grabbing the collar of his
shirt and wrapping her fingers around his neck. His neck, too large
for Delaney’s thin fingers anyway, protruded from his shirt, his
veins popping from his skin like thick snakes.
Just like
Gunnar’s scar.
Mark raised his eyebrows at his sister, waiting
for a response.

“Yeah, I got home just fine. I was here with
some co-workers Thursday night for drinks after Mark left,” she
added, turning to Mark before narrowing her eyes at the bartender.
He winked again and headed down the stretch behind the bar.

“All-night drinking benders, pink
high-heeled pumps. Who is this Delaney Jones? I’ve got a lot to
catch up on,” James teased, spinning Delaney in her chair as she
looked him over.

“Wipe that grin off your face, Anderson,”
she warned.

“And we’re back.” James raised his bottle in
the air in front of her face. Mark reached over, clinking his
bottle with James as they both laughed. Sweat poured down Delaney’s
back. She was sure she would be vomiting in a toilet at this point
had there been anything left in her stomach.

“I’m glad I could humor you both,” she
replied as she peeled the corner of the Miller label off the
bottle. As her fingernail caught the edge of label on the chilled
bottle, her mind shot to the last vision of her parents; Michael
Jones cradling her mother like a child, on the way to the last
ditch effort to save her life. Both of their lives, balancing on a
teeter totter, waiting to be pushed over. A pang filled her stomach
as she felt the ring on her chest. “Do you ever wonder while
drinking a Miller if Dad brewed this exact bottle?” she asked.

“Every time,” Mark replied spinning the
bottle in his hands.

“He’s still brewing?” James asked, leaning
into the bar.

“Still going strong after twenty-two years.”
Mark looked up at the flat screen in front of them that had been
interrupted by breaking news. A ticker on the bottom of the screen
flashed “Student Search Party Begins” while the screen shot to a
reporter inside the command center at the Union, now relatively
empty of the students. The reporter, the same woman doused with
cheap red lipstick on the stairs of the Union, looked into the
camera, relating the “heroic” efforts of the students. The same
woman that had told her that her day couldn’t be that bad. Delaney
hadn’t been sliced like Theron, but she sat here, like a sitting
duck, waiting for instructions from a mysterious killer.

“Poor son of a bitch,” Mark muttered under
his breath.

“Jesus, Mark,” Delaney shot back, her heel
tapping relentlessly on the stool.

“Sorry, Delaney, that one slipped, but could
you imagine getting sliced open? That’s got to be incredibly
painful,” he added, slowing on his last words when he realized they
weren’t getting any better by the look on his sister’s face.

“I’ve got to hit the bathroom. Why don’t you
grab some menus?” she said as she stopped tapping her pink pumps on
the metal of the stool, pushing her body up and sliding passed
James.

Her leg rubbed against his as he placed his
hand on her hip, gently pushing her out. She used to long for that
touch from James, but now, it felt dirty – wrong. The heels of her
pumps echoed against the walls of the empty space, clicking against
the tile as she walked to the back of the bar. Her eyes caught the
bartender’s head moving with her, staring at her breasts as she
made her way passed him. She flashed her middle finger in front of
her chest before finding the bathroom.

The door swung shut behind her as she placed
her hands on the counter, hanging her head between her arms.
Where the hell is he? And what am I doing here drinking
beers?
She slipped her phone out of her pocket. No calls. No
messages.
Could he even be alive anymore? How long can you
survive without medical attention? How bad was the cut?
Her
head swirled as she envisioned Theron, lying motionless in a pool
of red.

“What do you want?” she whispered at the
reflection in the spanning mirror.

Her eyes drew back to the bathroom stalls
behind her, unmoving while half-hidden. She checked the lower
halves looking for legs before kicking each of the doors open as a
precaution. No one in the bathroom. She turned her attention back
to the empty face in the mirror, drained and panicked. Her breasts,
now swelling over the corseted top, heaved up and down with each
fast breath. She wrapped the blazer tight around her chest,
covering what she could. Her mother’s ring shone in the light,
sparkling back at her as if it were calling her to do
something.

Do I tell Mark? James? Someone needs to
know. What am I supposed to do?
Police Chief Sanchez.
She watched as the woman in the reflection began to laugh at the
thought of being calm and patient. The voice unfamiliar and so
unlike her own.
Only a deranged psychotic killer could be calm
in this situation.
She took a deep breath, letting her throat
absorb the laughter.
I have to do this.

Delaney pulled the bathroom door open to
find a petite woman, dressed in all black, waiting to go in. Clear,
blue, emotionless eyes were set in a small, striking face topped
with a brown, pixie-like cut.
Cute. Lethal.

“Excuse me,” Delaney said as she moved to
the side to let her in. The black leather jacket slid past her, the
cropped hair only coming up to Delaney’s chest. She looked down,
glancing at the black army boots laced to her knees.
This little
sprite is ready to kick some ass.

As she exited, she noticed canvassed
landscapes of new buildings and old structures lining downtown
Appleton filled the walls on either side. She hadn’t noticed them
the first time around – too much anxiety to reach the bathroom. She
paused, looking at the black and white large prints, when her eyes
caught a photo of the construction site for Parker Tower on campus.
Several men in suits stood next to each other, smiling at the
camera, President Givens among them
.
Her eyes scanned to the
middle where a man with a shovel in his hand had begun to dig for
the groundbreaking. She moved closer to the canvas when his steely
eyes penetrated hers.
Fedora.

“Delaney?” She jumped at the sound of
James’s voice behind her.

“Jesus, James. I didn’t even hear you come
up.” She turned, his face appearing only a foot away from hers.

“Just coming to check on you.”

“I’m good. Let’s check out those menus,” she
replied then looked back at the canvas one more time, skimming the
photos for more clues until she relented, following James back to
the bar. Delaney gave Mark a quick glance before sliding back onto
her bar stool.
Does Mark know him?

“Did you order already?” she asked as she
grabbed the menu from the bar and began to flip through it, despite
the fact that she had no intentions of ordering food. She couldn’t.
Tick tick tick. Theron, Ben, Mark…

“Yep, Gorilla will take your order when
you’re ready.” Mark nodded toward the bartender at the other end,
out of earshot.

“Gorilla?” she asked, looking down to see
the bartender walking toward them. The sound of James’s laughing
cued Delaney as she forced a small laugh from her mouth as she
continued to flip idly through the pages. The words blurred on the
page.
Keep it together
.

“Hey, Evie. I didn’t even see you walk in.”
Mark turned to the small woman from the bathroom standing on his
right. She leaned casually against the bar as if she had been there
all along, but no one had heard her approach. No one had seen
her.

“Mark, funny to see you here. I didn’t peg
you as the Sunday afternoon bar type,” she said as her lips turned
into a smile. Her clear blue eyes danced, looking at Mark. She had
turned from kick-ass bitch who doesn’t take shit from anyone to
kick-ass bitch with sex appeal. Mark cleared his throat,
readjusting himself in his stool.
What the hell?

“Yeah. All the time. Usually by myself,” he
joked, lifting up his bottle of beer to his lips. Delaney studied
his face, watching as his cheeks flushed a pink when he looked at
the woman. Embarrassment was unusual for Mark.
Unless.

“Pretty quiet in here. That whole missing
student thing probably has something to do with that,” she said,
turning her eyes to Delaney, accusingly. The room stifled with
silence.

“Evie, this is my sister, Delaney, and her
friend, James. I work with Evie at Parker Enterprises. She’s in
charge of security for the company and, from what I can tell, a
serious security ninja,” Mark said, breaking the silence between
them.

“Nice to meet you both.” She slipped her
small, cold hand into Delaney’s, squeezing her fingers until
Delaney winced with pain. Evie lingered, holding her hand until
Delaney pulled hard, trying to escape her grip. She turned to
James, giving him a quick shake.

“You look like you are ready to kick some
major ass in that gear.” James nodded toward Evie’s boots.

“She always looks like that. I told you,
she’s a ninja,” Mark added, giving Evie a playful smirk.

“They should outsource you to find this
asshole that’s roaming around out here,” James said, pointing to
the screen in front of them that was panning the landscape of
campus. The sun, now beginning to make a clear descent, cast a low
haze among the buildings. It would be black within the hour.
Chances of finding Theron are dwindling.

“If they’d give me a shot, I’d take him
down,” she replied, her eyes watching the screen with serious
intent.

“I’m just glad you’re on our side at Parker
Enterprises,” Mark replied, looking at the profile of Evie.
“Speaking of which, I assume Holston’s been down to campus to
smooth over any issues? Considering the scene was essentially at
Parker Tower.”

“Absolutely. You know the last thing he
wants - or needs - is his name splashed across that screen. Or what
we need, for that matter,” she added, looking back at Mark.

“I’d like to keep my job,” Mark added.

“Keep drinking and you will. You know this
is his bar, right?” Evie leaned her back on the bar again, waiting
for Mark to respond.

“I didn’t but good to know I’m supporting my
own job.” He raised his bottle and took a gulp of beer.