Rapid Fire (22 page)

She was
in terrible danger.

ONE
MINUTE, MAYA WAS BEING dragged along the polished marble as she fought her
bonds, and the next thing she knew, the floor disappeared out from beneath her.
She fell and rolled down a flight of stairs, feeling their hard, cruel edges
dig into her flesh with bruising force. She cried out in pain, the sound
muffled by tape and fear.

Then her
fall ended and she felt a flat, cold floor beneath her. She curled into a ball
and whimpered with the pain, with the shock and helplessness.

“Shut up.
We’re almost there.” He didn’t whisper now, and his voice wasn’t hidden behind
the mechanical changer, bringing new terror.

He didn’t
care if she heard his voice.

He was
going to kill her.

“Stay
here.” He lifted her by her bonds, carried her a few feet further and dumped
her on the floor without warning. Her head smacked onto the unyielding floor,
startling a muffled cry out of her. She grayed out for a moment, partway losing
consciousness in a swirl of dots and colors behind her taped-shut lids.

When she
came to, she heard him moving off to her left.

Whatever
he was doing, it couldn’t be good.

A jolt of
adrenaline gave her new strength and she twisted against her restraints,
struggling and kicking. Her sundress was scant protection from the cold, damp
chill of the floor. Her right leg moved only a short distance before being
brought up short with a burning yank. The bastard had tied her to something.

She
scissored her leg back, trying to figure out what she was tied to, where she’d
been dumped. All the while, she strained to hear something, anything that would
tell her where he’d brought her. What he was doing.

He’d
dragged her down a flight of stairs. So they were still in the skating rink,
down one level. But where?

And would
anyone find her in time?

She held
Thorne’s image in her mind, the way he’d looked that afternoon, dappled in sun
and shade, backlit with a pollen halo, as though he was more angel than devil,
though she knew he was parts of both. Thinking of the wicked sparkle in his
eyes, she strained harder and finally touched something with her outstretched
foot. She squirmed in that direction, worming closer to what turned out to be a
wall and a series of pipes.

Which
meant she was where? In a maintenance area? She sniffed, but didn’t smell soot
or smoke. So she was somewhere away from the earlier blast. But where? Why?

It
chilled her to think that she was being held for a reason. Her captor could
have knocked her out—hell, he could have killed her, if that was the plan. But
he hadn’t. He’d subdued her and secreted her away from the main knot of
investigators.

Knowing
that the Mastermind didn’t do—or order done—anything without a reason, Maya
pulled against her bonds. She twisted her hands, but the tape didn’t give. She
rubbed her face against the floor, trying to work the adhesive loose from her
eyes or mouth.

A corner
near her chin gave a little, pulling at her skin as it tore away.

Success!
Maya craned her neck and pried at the corner using her shoulder, which was bare
and cold beneath the dress. The tape stuck to the skin of her arm and pulled
free, halfway across her mouth and then all the way, letting in a blessed gulp
of air.

She
followed the deep breath with a loud scream. “Help! Help me, I’m down here!
Thorne! Chief! Anyone, I’m down here!”

“Don’t
bother. They won’t hear.”

Maya
froze at the sound of his voice, but forced her fears at bay. She was a
professional. She could handle this. If he was talking to her, there was hope.

Or so she
told herself.

“Tell me
what you want,” she said evenly. “I can help you. I can—”

“I’ve
already got everything I need.” She felt him move nearer, though he remained
several steps away when he said, “Henkes sends his regards.” The name was a
splash of cold against the colder floor, the final confirmation of what she’d
suspected, what nobody else had believed. But then the voice continued, “Too
bad you won’t get a chance to share that tidbit with any of your cop friends.”

The words
were followed by a splash of liquid. The sharp smell of gasoline.

And the
hiss of a match being struck.

Chapter
Twelve

Thorne
tried the front of the building first, on the off chance that Maya had stepped
outside to avoid a run-in with Ilona Henkes. When there was no sign of her near
the rescue vehicles, and the cops outside swore they hadn’t seen her, he ducked
back into the rink with urgency humming in his veins.

Where the
hell was she?

He
muttered, “Damn fool woman,” in an effort to convince himself that she’d
wandered off on the heels of a thought. But deep down inside, he knew it was
more than that.

She was
in danger.

He strode
down to the rink area, where the melting ice was studded with pieces of the
demolished cement wall and red slicks of frozen blood.

Thorne
gestured Tucker McDermott aside.

“What’s
wrong?” the detective asked quickly.

“I can’t
find Maya.” The four simple words poured ice through Thorne’s veins, along with
the certainty that this wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen. Wasn’t the
way it was supposed to end. “I told her to wait for me in the lobby, and now
she’s gone.”

He’d
promised to look out for her, even before they’d become lovers. Then, it had
been a responsibility, a chore handed him by the chief. Now, it was a
necessity.

If
anything had happened to her…

“I’ll get
Cassie and Alissa and meet you in the lobby,” McDermott said quickly.

Too jumpy
to wait for the others, Thorne turned for the door and nearly slammed into
Chief Parry. He stumbled back. “Sorry, Chief. I was—” He gestured vaguely.

“Thinking.”
The chief nodded. “That’s why I brought you onto this case, Coleridge. I need
your impressions, your opinions.” He gestured toward the blood-spattered ice.
“What do you think—”

“I can’t
talk right now, Chief,” Thorne interrupted. “Maya’s gone missing and I need all
hands on deck to find her.”

He turned
and strode off, not waiting for the chief’s okay in his haste to find Maya, to
make sure she was okay. Because if she was, he was going to kill her himself
for leaving the lobby.

Grinding
his teeth, Thorne strode down a darkened hallway. He stuck his head into the
skate shop and saw nothing out of place beyond the signs of a hasty evacuation
in the wake of the explosion. The building remained secure, and would stay
closed until the Forensics Department and Sawyer’s bomb squad had lifted all
the evidence they could find.

Anxiety
thrumming in his veins, he called Maya’s name, and heard it echo back
unanswered.

Maya…Maya…Maya…

He
returned to the hallway in time to meet the chief, McDermott and a dozen other
cops approaching with grim, determined expressions on their faces.

“We’ll
spread out.” Parry gestured half of his people in either direction, toward the
hallways that encircled the main rink. “Work in pairs, two per level, one set
in each direction.” He glanced at Thorne. “Coleridge, you’re with me. Where are
we going?”

Thorne
was aware of the other officers pausing a moment to listen, aware that the
chief expected something he couldn’t give.

Or could
he?

For the
first time in years, maybe ever, he consciously sought the injured part of his
brain, the place Mason Falk’s drugs had burned into something more than it
should have been, something less. He drove his thoughts into the part of his
brain he’d avoided for so long, filling it and stretching it, asking for
answers.

All he
got was a hollow echo of death. Of danger.

He had
nothing. No flash. No instinct. Nothing except the fear that beat in his heart,
the premonition that he would be too late to save her.

Too late
to save himself.

“We’ll go
up,” he said, making a decision born of pure guesswork.

The chief
nodded. “Up it is.” He waved the others off. “Keep in contact via radio. I’ve
got vehicles fanning out from here in case she’s left the building, but until
we know what we’re looking for…” He trailed off, but the inference was clear.

Without
more information, there was little hope that they could find Maya if she was
stashed in a car trunk, headed for God only knew where.

The image
was terrifying, but it refused to fully form in Thorne’s brain. It didn’t seem
right. Didn’t jibe with the flashes he’d been fighting for too long now, ever
since he’d pushed his sunglasses low and gotten his first good look into her
eyes.

Cursing,
he strode to the far door and pushed through into the utilitarian stairwell,
which was done in gray concrete and heavy metal railings.

“Did you
hear that?” the chief said suddenly. He leaned over the railing and peered
down. “I thought I heard—”

He broke
off just as Thorne heard it, too.

A woman’s
voice calling for help.

Nearly
drowned out by the crackle of flames.

THE HEAT
WAS ALMOST MORE terrifying for the darkness. Maya’s mind and body told her she
should be seeing the flames, should be watching them march toward her in those
last few final moments. But she couldn’t see a damn thing because her eyes were
taped shut.

She could
only listen to the crackle and hiss of the fire, feel the searing heat on her
skin and smell the gasoline her captor had poured on her clothes.

She
wasn’t on fire yet, but cold, deadly logic told her it was only a matter of
time. He must have lit a pool of accelerant some distance away from the splash
line around her body. Maybe he’d wanted her scared before she died, or maybe he
hadn’t wanted to watch the actual immolation.

He’d left
her alone to wait.

And
scream.

She tried
it again, though her throat already ached from dozens of unanswered cries.
“Help me! Help! I’m down here!” Her voice broke on the last two words, cracked
on sobs that felt dry because her tears were trapped beneath a wide swath of
sticky tape. She was dizzy, disoriented, desperate.

“Damn it,
somebody help me!” She yanked at her tied ankle and felt the rope cut deeper
into her flesh. She twisted at the tape on her wrists, but it didn’t yield,
didn’t give.

She heard
a sputter and crackle. The sound of flames moving nearer. Any moment now, they
would jump from one pool of gasoline to the next and she would become a human
torch.

Burned
alive. Burned to death.

Panic
rose, final and absolute, swamping her, suffocating her. In the final moments
of her life, as the heat singed her skin and the flames roared higher, closer,
she wished she’d done things differently, wished she’d been more open with her
feelings and her history, been more demanding when it came to the things she
wanted. The things she needed.