Jack Stone - Deadly Revenge (13 page)

Twenty-Six.

For the first hour Celia struggled against the knots that held her wrists tied to the headboard.

For the second hour, she lay perfectly still. She was exhausted from trying to wrench her arms free, and she was also becoming worried. Stone had been gone a long time. What had happened to him? Had he confronted the Dom? Had he somehow found some vital clue, or forced a confessio
n? Were police cars encircling The Cage as she lay there – maybe an exchange of gunfire as the Dom barricaded himself in the building and fought it out against the police?

Or had Stone been hurt – or killed even? Had he walked into a trap? Had the Dom’s men overpowered him?

Her mind went round in ever tightening circles, spiraling down into a quagmire of fear and then panic. Of anger and then alarm.

She began to cry out for help.

For several minutes nothing happened. The hotel stayed silent. And then finally she heard a loud thump through the wall of the adjacent room. Celia heard a middle-aged man’s voice, muffled and uncertain, from room sixteen.

“Hello? Are you okay in there?”

The guy was a travelling salesman for a greeting card wholesaler, working his regular route up and down the west coast. Once a month he called into Heston’s Cove for an overnight stay on his way north. He had arrived to the hotel late, eaten alone in his room and was planning on a solid night’s sleep..

Until he heard the
screams for help.

“No. I’m not okay!” Celia shouted back. “I… I need help.”

There was a brief silence, and then the voice came back through the wall, this time a little louder and clearer, like the guy had his face against the wall as he spoke.

“Are you injured?”

Celia considered her situation. She was naked, tied to the headboard, lingerie and clothing strewn across the room and over the bed around her.

“Not…. not exactly,” she said.

This time the delay was longer. So long that Celia wondered if the man had gone. “I’m kind of trapped.”

She heard faint sounds of movement. Then the guy called out again. “Do you want me to get someone from the hotel?”

“Yes!” Celia cried out. “And please hurry!”

For long impatient minutes Celia lay on the bed and waited. She thought about what might happen next. She played each scene out in her
imagination, and every time she did she reached the point where a stranger came through the door and saw her tied naked to the bed – and her mind just shut down, refusing to dwell on what might happen next.

How would she explain herself?

What would the night attendant think?

Was it something that they might laugh about?

Celia doubted it.

She was furious with Stone, and she was about to be humiliated and embarrassed beyond a level she could imagine.

Finally she heard the sounds of shuffling feet outside the room door, and her mind snapped back to the moment. She could hear the rattle of keys, and then a polite knock.

“Hello? Mr. Stone?” It was a man’s voice, but kind of young.
Maybe a guy in his twenties. Maybe he was pulling the late shift behind the reception desk as a part time job while he worked his way through college. He sounded uncertain.

“Mr. Stone is not here!” Celia called back. “Please help me. I am trapped.”

“Are you alone?”

“Of course I’m alone!” Celia snapped. Otherwise I wouldn’t be trapped!”

“Um… okay, ma’am. I’ll go back to the reception counter and call the paramedics and the fire brigade.”

“No!” Celia shouted, her voice wild with sudden alarm. “I’m not trapped like that.”

There was a confused silence. Celia could feel herself becoming anxious. “Just open the damned door and help me!”

Another brief pause.
Then she heard keys in the lock. Heard the door open on its hinges. Heard the ambient sounds of the night come through the doorway, and then the sounds of shuffling nervous feet. Opened her eyes and saw a young guy standing in the middle of the room, with another older man in a rumpled suit close behind him, peering at Celia with a dazed, shocked expression on his face. The two men gaped at her.

Celia lifted her legs, rolled her hips and did the best she could to protect her modesty. But it wasn’t a lot. She stared back at the men, feeling her face flush bright red with embarrassment, and a simmering, burning hatred for Jack Stone.

“Stop ogling me!” Celia snapped angrily, “And cut me free.”

The young guy with the bunch of keys in his hand didn’t move. It was like he was glued to the floor. Behind him, the older guy was leaning closer, his eyes wide, like he was trying to burn everything into his memory.

Finally Celia kicked and thrashed her legs. “Cut me free!” she screamed.

The young guy suddenly m
oved, like he had been woken from a deep trance. He came to the side of the bed and leaned over Celia to pick at the knots. They were tight, and he used the point of a key to unravel the rope around her wrist.

Celia
sighed, the exquisite pain of blood racing back into to her fingertips was like a thousand tiny stabs. She threw her hand across her breasts to cover herself, and then realized she was naked below the waist as well. One hand wasn’t going to cover everything.

“Hurry!” Celia barked at the young attendant.
She was seething with humiliation. The guy was staring down at her again, his eyes wide as saucers. Finally the second knot was loose enough for her to slip her hand free. She grabbed a fist full of bed sheet and threw it over herself until just her face showed.

“Thank you,” she said. “Now please leave.”

The young guy nodded jerkily. Said nothing. The old guy from room sixteen stood for a moment longer, just shaking his head in wonder, like no one was ever going to believe him when he told this story to his buddies. Then the two men were gone, the door pulled quietly shut behind them.

Celia ripped the sheet from the bed and wrapped herself tightly. She pressed her ear against the door and heard nothing. She went to the wall that adjoined room sixteen and waited until she heard the sound of shuffling feet, and then the murmur of a television. Only then did she slip out of Stone’s room and scurry back to room eighteen.

She slammed the door shut, locked it, and then slipped the security chain in place. Went to the nearest suitcase and pulled on jeans and a green top. Thrust her feet into shoes and then dug back into the bottom of the suitcase until she felt the cold steel of a gun. Pulled the pistol out and then felt around again until her fingers locked around a clip of ammunition.

Celia stuffed the weapon down inside the waistband of her jeans and then snatched her cell phone from her handbag.

She punched in numbers with short angry stabs. Stood breathing hard, trembling and shaking with humiliation and anger and frustration and temper.

The phone rang.

Finally she heard the click of the call being picked up.

“Stone?”

“Yes,” Stone answered from the sheriff’s house.

“You’re a bastard. You’re
a low down rotten evil bastard,” the voice in his ear sounded distorted and far away.

“Celia
? How did you get free?” Stone kept his questions hushed.

“Ne
ver mind. I’ll tell you later,” she snapped abruptly. “Where are you?”

Stone hesitated. “Out of town,” he said vaguely.

Celia’s expression turned darker. “I thought you were going to The Cage.”

“I did,” Stone said, and then his voice became urgent. “Celia, there’s something you need to know.”

Celia cut him off. “No!” she shouted, and finally her rage flared. “I’m going to The Cage, Stone. I’m going now. I’ve got a gun and I’m going to confront the Dom.”

She hung up. Snapped the cell phone shut and threw it against the wall. Walked out of room eighteen taking determined angry strides, with only two things in her mind.

She was going to confront the Dom and get answers about Katrina.

Then she was going to find Jack Stone and turn him into a
permanent soprano.

Twenty-Seven.

Stone
stuffed the phone back into his pocket. Stared at the sheriff.

“We’ve got a problem.”

Stone explained Celia’s call quickly. Then he was running through the house, down the porch steps and sprinting for the Lexus. He threw himself into the driver’s seat and crunched the selector into gear. Stamped on the pedal.

The sheriff followed him as far as the front door. Stone heard him barking orders to the two officers standing by the trunk of the Crown Vic. They dived into the
ir patrol car and the engine roared. Tore away back down the rutted dirt track following the dusty cloud of debris thrown up by Stone in the Lexus.

Stone flick
ed the headlights onto bright and drove with the reckless urgency of a desperate man. Blind curves flashed up before him from out of the dark night and he wrenched the big car one way and then another as the tires slammed into pot holes and skidded on loose gravel.

He saw
flashing lights behind him, blinking and then disappearing again as the trail back to the main road rounded, kinked and then straightened again.

Stone kept his foot down hard on the gas pedal. The Lexus went sideways around a bend as the car lost traction, then bit into the hard edge of the trail again at the last possible moment. He
saw the hulking dark shape of a tree flash past the windshield. Felt branches gouge themselves across the paint work. Then he was free, and up ahead through the windshield was a patch of starry night sky.

He drove on. Didn’t slow
again until the road back into to Heston’s Cove suddenly leaped out across his field of vision. He glanced right. Saw headlights that were high and widely spaced, dipping and wallowing over humps in the blacktop. A truck, rumbling down the road on its way towards town. Stone slammed on the brakes, flung the wheel hard and bumped up onto the blacktop on the wrong side of the road. He heard the loud blare of the truck’s horn. Heard the hiss of air brakes compressing. Ignored it all and drove alongside the truck for almost a mile until he had built up speed again and was able to overtake.

He wrenched the wheel over, then corrected quickly as the car fishtailed in front of the truck then raced ahead.

The road back into town was dark and deserted. Stone pushed down on the pedal, crushing it against the floor. The Lexus seemed to hunch for an instant as though it was winding itself up – and then it raced into the night, and Stone’s eyes were wide and alert as he put the car into each twisting bend, using up every inch of the asphalt to maintain speed and momentum.

Stone fumbled the phone from his pocket. Tried to
beep through the menus and numbers on the screen while steering the car at high speed one-handed. Finally he found Celia’s number and stamped his thumb down on the button.

The phone rang.

And rang. Then finally went to message bank. Stone clicked off and redialed.

No answer. Stone tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and his face was grim, his mouth drawn into a thin tight line, as he pushed the car to its limits.

He glanced in his rearview mirror. He could see the cop car’s flashing lights well behind him. Saw the red flare of them bouncing off trees and lighting up the night. The truck had been left well behind.

He drove on.

The big billboard flashed past the side window, and a few minutes later he was turning hard once more, then blowing past the intersection where the Mexican restaurant sat dark and deserted in the night. Up ahead Stone saw the rise of the bridge into Heston’s Cove. He eased his foot off the pedal just enough to straighten the car and went over the bridge with a feeling like he was airborne. The car’s big engine whined, tires bit down in a cloud of blue smoke. Then he was past the waterfront complex and coming off the gas as the intersection to the police station went by in a blur.

At the last possible moment, Stone wrenched the car into the corner, feeling the momentum push the Lexus sideways.
He clamped the wheel tight. Jammed his foot down hard on the brakes. The front end of the car lurched. The tires bit and juddered, but couldn’t hold the car on the road. The Lexus went crashing up over the curb, churning grass and gravel, then bounced back level with a jolt.

Another sharp turn, this one hurling the car in the opposite direction, and finally Stone was on the side street that ran parallel to The Cage. The street was quiet. There was an old crew cab parked up on the opposite side of the road, its winds
hield misted with salt spray off the ocean. It looked old and abandoned. Stone skidded the Lexus to a halt and killed the engine.

The sudden silence was crushing. Stone got out of the car. He ran back to the front of the building and stared along the main street. He could see the sign for The Cage hanging out over the sidewalk. He could see a couple of cars parked further up the rise. He couldn’t see Celia.

He ran back past the Lexus and into the dark narrow alley. It was filled with crates and black plastic trash bags overflowing from big commercial bins. The air was thick with the stench of rotting food and stale alcohol. There was broken glass and debris strewn across the pavement. Stone’s senses were instantly heightened. Every sound, every smell seemed amplified. He felt himself tensing as his training and instincts came back to him like long-forgotten memories. His mind was screaming for him to take caution – to be clinical and methodical. But his concern for Celia was like an over-ride switch as he ran headlong into the alleyway.

And then
stopped dead.