Reprisal (3 page)

Les was right though, I am chicken shit. My tormented past prohibits me from making casual conversation with men, especially gorgeous men. I know I’ve probably missed out on a whole lot of fun in my younger days, but I stayed away from anything that could remotely be trouble. I’ve had enough of that in my life and now I focus on helping others get out of trouble. Maybe it’s the wrong way to be, but it’s me and I have to accept that.

Gabe

“Man, did you see that woman and her friend that just left?” I ask Mark, the manager here.

“Nah man, women come and go through here like tornados, I hardly notice anymore. Why, what was so different about her?”

“Her eyes, dark and mysterious. You had to have seen her, cause she was stunning. I watched her for a bit from the back bar and just her mannerisms were hypnotic. Long dark straight hair and those dark eyes, like she holds many a secret.” I tell him as I stare towards the table where she sat with her friend. “After I broke up the fight, I planned to go to her table, but she and her friend disappeared out of the blue, almost like she was never here at all.”

“Gabe, man. Snap out of it dude. You look like you’ve just lost your puppy. It’s a bar, the women are a dime a dozen. Give it a few, another
hottie will walk in shortly and you’ll forget all about her.” Mark says as he slaps me on the shoulder and heads back towards the bar, though I seriously doubt I’ll be able to get her out of my mind anytime soon. My cock jumped at just the thought of having her underneath me.

Before I get too deep in to my daydream a woman squeals from the back of the bar. My eyes focus on the darkened room and I head back to where I heard the scream. As I enter the back billiard room, I see two men sandwiching a young woman, pressing her against the pool table. I watch for a second,
cause you never know when what you are looking at is consensual and you don’t want to jump in too quickly. As one of the men turn, I see the fear in the woman’s eyes and I know she’s not asking for this. Being a cop by day and a bouncer by night, I have to make sure that what I think is happening is what is actually happening. New York has such a variety of people here that you never know when someone is actually acting out a scene.

Her eyes are wide and her skin is pale, so I know she is truly frightened and not acting. I step back a little to get some distance and grab my radio, letting Mark know I need NYPD back in the billiard room. Since I’m off duty, I can only do so much. I step back in to the room and clear my throat, making my presence known. “Back off man, this pretty little thing is ours tonight. Go find your own.” The one guy says to me,
but I hear the woman suck in a breath. Her eyes are now glazed over with moisture and I know she’s about to cry. I step forward and grab the guy by the back of the collar and yank him backwards. He’s a skinny guy without an inch of meat on his bones, so I know I can take him. I shove him back towards the wall and step towards the other dude, who’s a bit bigger and might present me with a challenge. And, I love a challenge. “Bring it on, man.”

The bigger dude lets the girl go and steps back, assessing the situation. His eyes meet his friends and his expression changes from a rapist glare to a murderer. “Dude, you’re infringing on our territory here. I suggest you back off before I knock your head off.” He says right in my face, the smell of beer and cigarettes flow from his mouth. I know he’s drunk and one punch to the jaw and he’d go down like a dead fly. Yeah, I calculated this one down to two hits, me hitting him and him hitting the floor.

But the demon in his eyes has me taken aback just a little, and I witness his hand moving towards his pocket. I know then he has a weapon, but what is it? A knife? A gun? I decide that I have no time to try and figure that out, so I haul back and my fist connects with his face, crimson spewing all over the green felt of the pool table. The dude’s body thunking on the floor. Yep, out like a light. I turn to his friend at the back wall behind me, but he’s gone like the wind. I turn to the woman and confirm that she is in fact, okay.

“Thank you.” She tells me as I pull her to a standing position, my eyes scanning her body for any injury. She’s a tiny thing and would have never been able to defend herself against this man that now lies on the floor, blood seeping from his lip. His head is up and his eyes are open now and he’s glaring up at me like he’s thinking about taking me on, but as I step over his body he closes his eyes, an admission of defeat.

Two cops then come in, tugging the skinny guy behind them. “This the other one, Gabe?”

I look back and scan the scrawny man, “Yeah that’s him. The other is lying here on the floor in a pool of his own blood.” I say as I look back at the man at my feet. “Get up asshole, NYPD has some fancy
jewelry for you.” And I step back to allow the defeated man to get to his feet.

“I didn’t do anything criminal.......” He says and I cut him off, patting him down and locate the switchblade in his pocket.

“But you did attempt an assault on an officer of the law. That my friend, is a major crime. One that can have you sitting in a jail cell for a long time.”

“You’re a cop?” He asks like he is truly surprised.

I point to my badge attached on my belt and smile. “Next time, you need to pay more attention to your surroundings. Did you really think the law wouldn’t be in here on a night like tonight? Plus, you were assaulting this young woman here, so you’d better be glad I stopped you when you did, cause attempted rape is a lot lesser offense than rape. Haul him off, Gibbs.” I say as I shove the guy towards Officer Gibbs, who waits patiently with his cuffs in his hand, ready to slap them on his wrists.

Gibbs drags the skinny dude out and Detective Scruggs drags the bigger guy out to their cruisers parked on the street. “Do you have someone that can come get you, Miss......
”

“Jan. Yeah, my friends are in the bar. I’ll just go find them.” She says as she turns on her heel.

“Wait, you have friends here and they had no idea what was going on back here?” I ask, concern now lacing my voice.

“They’re watching the game. I came back here to use the restroom and......”

“There you are Jan! Geez, what took you so long?” A young blonde asks from the entrance to the billiard room.

“Oh, NOW you come looking for me? Wow, thanks for nothing Stacey, nice to know my ‘friends’ are looking out for me.” She says as she stomps her way out of the billiard room. Her friend stands at the door dazed and confused.

“What the hell happened?” She asks me.

“Well, apparently two men tried to attack your friend there.” I say as I lift my chin towards where her friend just headed. “Maybe next time you visit the restroom in pairs. Safety in numbers girl.” And I make my way out of the room, back to the bar.

Mark announces ‘last call’ and a mad rush for the bar begins. The bartender’s frantically work to get their final drinks out so they can clean up and shut it down for the night. Night life sings in the city, but this bar closes at midnight so people drink up and then head to the next place. My night ends when the last person leaves and then I get about four hours sleep before I’m back at the precinct.

“Gabe!” I turn as I hear my name called from the door to the bar. Agent Jason Morrison, or Mo as we call him, is holding on to the door motioning me towards him. Seeing the FBI agent makes my stomach sink, because if he’s here, then there’s bad news somewhere in the city. I know then that sleep will have to wait.

“What’s up man?” I ask, as he opens the door. I step out onto the still busy New York street scanning the area.

“We just got an alert for a missing young woman, age twenty. She was last
seen getting in to a cab on Fifth Ave.”

“Fifth Ave? Sure she wasn’t ju
st having a romp with one of the Wall Street’s finest?”

“Maybe, but that was three days ago. Her dad is some hotshot bank executive and the authorities are wondering if this is random or not. A rope and chloroform cotton balls were found at the entrance to the Crown Heights station in Brooklyn. Trail cuts off there. Cab driver states he picked up a white man and a white woman, and dropped them off at Penn Station. She didn’t appear scared, like she knew the guy but you
never know what he had on her. He said her eyes were glassy, like maybe she’d been drugged.”

“Shit. What took them so long to report her missing?” I ask Mo.

“Her parents said she was going to visit a friend on Long Island and didn’t know until her roommate called them today to let them know she never came home. When her friend was contacted, she said the girl called her and cancelled, so she had no idea either.”

“Damn, three days is a long time. Any word on a cell trace?”

“Yeah, located her phone on the bank of the Hudson, near Battery Park.”

“Jesus, this guy’s had her all over the place. Fifth Ave, Penn Station, Brooklyn and Battery Park. How long did this guy have her before they disappeared?”

“Don’t know, seems as if the girl knows him.”

“What’s her name?”

“Sophia Fishman, daughter of Alex Fishman, CFO of NYB&T.”

“Fuck, has to be about money. But why no ransom call?”

“No clue yet, but the Brooklyn looks like war zone. Cops are everywhere, road blocks are set up on all bridges and throughout the streets. So far, nothing has been deemed suspicious.”

Mo’s phone buzzes and he presses the phone to his ear. “Mo here.” I listen to his lack of words and watch his face as it turns ashen. He disconnects his phone without saying a word to whoever called him. He turns to me with a glum look in his eyes, “Her body just washed up on the shore of the Hudson, about seventeen yards from her phone.”

My mind travels back to last month when a girl vanished without a trace. Her body was found a week later, beaten and bruised. Multiple sexual assaults and.... I shiver at the thought of it. That girl vanished in the same manor, but no one ever reported her missing. She was a runaway out of Newark with no parents or family to speak of. Fled from a halfway house and wasn’t found until her body washed up in the East River. I wonder silently if this is the same monster, coming out of the woodwork after a......wait, exactly one month. “Hold on a second. Do you remember the Samantha Brockwood case?” I asked Mo.

“Samantha
Brockwood, the runaway that washed up on the riverbank of the East River?

Yeah, why?”

“Check the dates, if I’m not mistaken it’s been exactly one month since she appeared in the water. Could we have a serial rapist/murderer on the loose? I’ll call Matthews and have him pull that folder, and let him know I’m coming in.”

Twenty minutes later I bust through the doors to HQ,
centered in Manhattan. Olivia is seated behind the check in table eyeing me suspiciously. “Detective Torres, what are you doing here so late in the evening?” She whispers, almost seductively. She’s a pretty little thing with a hot little body to go with it, and she’s expressed an ‘interest’ in me, but I refuse to mix business and pleasure.

“Is Matthews in?” I ask, without acknowledging her smirk.

“Yeah, he’s in his office.” She replies while smiling at me like she wants to eat me. And, as frustrated as I am with the fact that I am at NYPD HQ at twelve thirty on a Friday night, her smirk is not helping. I had hoped to be naked and sweaty with a beautiful woman underneath me.

But, duty calls and here I am. I know I could have her at any time, but again - there is that business and pleasure combination.

I knock on the Chief’s door and stand back, half expecting him to fling the door open. “It’s open.” He calls from the other side of the closed door. I walk in and close the door behind me, only to see he has his nose deep in to a folder. “You come looking for this?” He asks as he waves the folder at me.

“If that’s the Samantha
Brockwood file, then yes. You see anything interesting in it?”

He motions for me to sit in the chair opposite him, but I’m too fired up to sit. I continue to stand at his desk, glaring at the folder that I so want my hands on. “Sit, Torres.” He says as he hands me the folder.

“Good call on this one, Gabe. Appears we may have a huge problem. Exactly one month ago today is when Miss Brockwood washed up on the shores of the East River. I’ve called in the investigators and profilers that worked this case and they should be here in the morning.”

“Profilers?”

“Yeah, I’ve called in the FBI on this one.” I nod cause I figure that’s why Mo grabbed me at Blazer’s. “Based on the similarities in the crime, we may need their help. All of NYPD’s forensic team is wrapped up in the Angelo/Meeney drug war. They’ve got their own issues and one of the FBI’s profilers is.......well, very knowledgeable. We had an abuse case a couple of years ago, a young girl kidnapped and raped. She helped bring the guy down and then counseled the young girl, who actually survived. His other victims didn’t.”

“You think it’s the same guy?”

“No, that guy was gunned down by NYPD when he fired at the SWAT team. After the gas was tossed into the warehouse he was held up in, he came out swinging. Got off one shot before Preston took him out.”

Preston is one of NYPD’s sharpshooters, and he’s damn good. Spent eight years as a SEAL and now proudly serves as NYPD’s best. He can put a bullet in your head from six miles away.

“What’s happening now though? Any leads on why this girl was taken?”

“Read the file, Gabe. Your intuition is always good. Scan it and tell me what you find. If you pick it up too, then we move forward.”

As I scan the file, combing over notes on the Brockwood case and immediately notice both similarities and differences between this case and the Fishman case. Samantha was young and a runaway, with no family to speak of. Sophia is also young, but comes from a wealthy family.