Rise of the Fallen (24 page)

Steve looked at the doctor like he was yanking his chain.
"Did she put you up to this?" He laughed unbelievingly. "Did she
tell you that if I showed up to pretend you didn't know her?"

"I'm sorry?"

The smile faded from Steve's face and he stared at Dr. Rose
for several seconds, looking for any sign that the guy was kidding. "Oh,
come on! You can't be serious. You can't just forget a patient."

"I wish I were kidding, Dr. Garrett. None of us know
what to make of it. She was here, but we don't remember her."

Deflating, Steve sank back in his chair. How did someone
just disappear from the memories of so many people? Had he inadvertently
entered an alternate dimension? Was someone going to hop out from behind the
desk with a camera and shout
You're on Candid Camera?
He looked around
the office as if Sam would suddenly materialize then glanced back at the
doctor.

"Well, thank you for your time. I'll just…" What?
What would he do? Go to the next address on his list, that's what. "Thank
you, Dr. Rose. I've taken enough of your time."
More like you've wasted
enough of mine.
He stood and shook Dr. Rose's hand and went to the door.

"I'm so sorry about this, Dr. Garrett. We've never had
anything like this happen before. I wish I knew how to explain it."

"Don't worry about it. I'm sure it'll come back to you
in time." Steve still wasn't sure he believed the doctor's story, but what
choice did he have? He was wasting time here and had other places to search for
her.

"I hope you find her," Dr. Rose said as they
reached the double doors to the waiting room.

"Oh, I think I know where to look," Steve said. He
had a couple places, actually. Sam would turn up. One way or another, he would
get her back.

Sam collected her things from The Black Garter and packed
the masks and costumes that belonged to her in a box while Micah stood guard at
the door. The manager had been beside himself when she gave her notice, begging
her not to quit.
The club needs Scarlet,
he had said, grabbing her wrist
as he pleaded with her. Micah hadn't liked that and now her
manager—ex-manager—nursed a busted lip in his office.

"I like this one," Micah said, picking a club-owned
mask off the wall. It was red with slanted eyeholes that made the mask look
angry or sinister. Black streaks that looked like claw marks ran up both cheeks
and down the forehead.

"That one's not mine," she said.
"Sorry."

He sidled up beside her. "I saw you dance once wearing
this mask."

Something in the tone of his voice drew her gaze to his and
her pulse quickened. "Oh?"

"Mm-hm. I tried to buy a private performance that
night, but you were booked up."

"Really? I'm sorry." She turned toward him.
"Were you hurt?"

He nodded. "Excruciatingly so."

"But you somehow managed to survive."

He growled and inhaled deeply then leaned down and brushed
his lips over her ear as he whispered, "Just barely. Do you want to know
what I did when I got home that night?"

Sliding her hands up his chest, she closed her eyes and
swayed dreamily toward him. "Yes."

"Take this mask and I'll show you later then." He
licked the curve of her ear and she felt the leather mask push gently against
her hand.

"That's stealing," she said, taking it.

His hand slid around to the small of her back and his lips
worked a spell on her skin until she thought she would explode. "Just take
it," he said, pulling away. His gaze burned hers as he backed toward the
door.

Suddenly breathless, she looked down at the mask, then back
up at Micah, who had turned around and stood sentry once more, his gaze
sweeping up and down the hall. With a grin, she tossed the mask in the box with
hers. The club wouldn't miss this one mask. They had no one to wear it anymore,
anyway. As a matter of fact…Sam snagged a couple more of her favorites from
those the club owned and threw them into her box, too.

* * *

Steve couldn't ignore his need for food any longer and ran
through a McDonald's drive-thru on his way to the second address on his list.
By the time he reached the luxury apartment building with a marble placard that
read
The Sentinel,
the sun was setting. So, okay, maybe it wasn't her
pimp that had attacked her, but a John she was likely whoring herself to
for
her pimp. She certainly had the look of a high-priced call girl who could get
clients who could afford to live in a place like this. And how else would she
have been able to live off-the-grid for so long doing legitimate work. It only
made sense Sam had taken to selling herself to survive.

Unfortunately, the tight-assed security guard wouldn't let
him up the elevator. Fuck! He would have to contact David and have him pull
some strings with the local police department. That would take more time, but
if that's what it took, then he had no choice. Meanwhile, he could check the
address labeled
home.
He probably should have gone there before checking
the address for The Sentinel, but he wasn't thinking straight at the moment.
Lack of food will do that to a person.

Dialing David as he drove to Sam's home address, he waited
for the detective to pick up.

"Yeah, you got her, yet?" David said when he
answered.

Steve shook his head. "Not yet, but soon."

"She wasn't at the hospital?"

Steve didn't want to get into that debacle. "No."

"Wow, they sure got her out of there fast."

If he only knew. "Yeah, I know. Hey, I need a
favor."

"Anything. You're paying the bills."

"I need you to contact the local police and see if you
can pull some strings. That address where she was attacked? Well, it's a luxury
high rise and security won't let me up. I'm on my way to her house, but I don't
want to wait to see if she's there or not. I don't have a lot of time and if
she's not at her home, whoever lives in that apartment might know where I can
find her." He was on the last flight out, only a couple hours from now.
The sun had already set and he was running out of time. His patience was
wearing thin. If he didn't get Sam in the next 30 minutes, he would have to
change his flight and bunk down in Chicago for a night. Fuck, he might as well
make plans to fly out tomorrow at this rate.

"Okay, I'll get on it."

He hung up and followed the GPS directions into a part of
town that made Steve uncomfortable. Abandoned townhomes and row houses with
boarded up windows lined the streets. Groups of black people and hoodlums
congregated on stoops and stared at his car like it didn't belong, which, of
course, it didn't. Steve was better than these lowlifes.

He drove past a block of run-down businesses. One of the
buildings had a bright yellow sign with three X's on it and the words
Naked
Girls
blinking in pink neon. Sam lived in this dump of urban shit?

A few more blocks and his GPS indicated that he was there.
He shut off the engine and sat back, checking the address on his list. Yep,
this was it. God, how low had Sam fallen?

He got out and stepped around a large, pebbled pothole then
crossed the street to her building and yanked the weathered, paint-chipped door
open and hurried inside. The sooner he got her and left this hellhole, the
better. He pounded on her door, double-checking the address again when no one
answered. Again, he pounded.

"Hey!" someone shouted from upstairs. "Shut
up down there, goddamn it. I'm watching Dog the Bounty Hunter."

Of course you are.
"Sorry," he forced
himself to say. "Maybe you can help me." He looked up the staircase
and saw an obese woman wearing a stained sweatshirt that didn't look like it
had been washed in this decade. She had a cigarette hanging from her lips. "Uh,
hello, um, does Sam Garrett live here?" He gestured toward her door.

"I think that's her name. Why? You her next customer or
her dealer?"

"She does drugs?" That surprised Steve. Sam didn't
seem the type.

"Hell if I know, but no one lookin' like you comes
'round places like this unless they pushin', buyin', or lookin' for a ho. I
figure she gots to be one of the above."

"No, I'm her husband." Steve tapped his fingers
impatiently. "Have you seen her?"

The lady looked like she was excited to have the chance to
gossip. She probably lived off Jerry Springer and Maury.

"I ain't seen her today, but she usually sleeps during
the day. She works nights." She grinned wryly and Steve saw she was
missing three teeth.

"What do you mean?"

"What you think girls 'round here do when they work
nights, Mister? Just wait 'round for a half-hour or so. You're
wife,
"
she chuckled like she didn't believe him for a second that he was actually
Sam's husband, "will be up soon. And she don't show up, you can always
come up and I'll give you what you want. I'll do you real good. Only cost you
twenty bucks." She cackled and blew smoke out her nose and turned around
and closed her apartment door.

Nice neighbors.

Sam apparently wasn't home or awake, so all he could do was
what the woman had suggested. Wait. But the fat lady's words didn't make him
feel any better. If anything, it confirmed his suspicions. He'd have to make
Sam got tested before he stuck his dick in her again. He didn't want to get
AIDS or any other variety of sexually transmitted disease just from fucking his
own wife.

Half-expecting to find his rental car stolen or stripped by
thieves, he went back outside and found to his surprise his car still intact.

Shit, he needed to piss like an elephant. He hadn't stopped
all day and the coffee and large Coke from McDonald's were talking back.
Getting behind the wheel of his rental, he rolled down the window and tossed
the rest of his Coke out then unzipped his pants and whipped out his dick. He
sighed as he pissed in the empty cup then shook out the last drop and opened
his door to set the cup on the curb. People in this neighborhood were probably
used to finding piss, shit, and vomit littering their sidewalks, anyway. So who
cared.

He shut the door and settled into his seat, starting the
engine and turning on the heater. It was fucking cold and a couple of houses
had cheap, tacky Christmas lights still in their windows. Didn't they realize
Christmas had been three weeks ago? Closer to a month, really. These people
were probably the types who were too lazy to take down their Christmas lights,
leaving them up all year and only turning them on during the holidays.

His dick still hung from his pants and he closed his eyes,
thinking about Sam fucking other men. At first he didn't like it then he
realized it turned him on. Maybe he could turn her into his own sex slave and
command her to fuck his friends while he watched. If she liked sex so much, he
could accommodate that. His hand found his hardening cock, stroking it as he
imagined Sam bound and gagged, legs splayed wide while his friend from the gym
fucked her. Opening his eyes, he looked down at himself, stroking harder. Soon
he would have her back, and soon thereafter he would make her his slave. Soon,
yes, oh yes.

His toes curled and he quickly grabbed his McDonald's bag,
positioning it just in the nick of time in front of his dick. His cum spewed
into it as he shuddered. Steve used the leftover McDonald's napkins to wipe
himself off, tossed everything in the bag, including his sandwich wrapper and
fry box, then crumpled it up and tossed it out the window to join his
piss-filled cup. What was a little semen to these people? He was sure that was
something else the residents here were used to finding on their sidewalks or
even their front porches.

Headlights turned down the street and Steve hunched down as
a black Suburban pulled up in front of Sam's building. He peeked over the
dashboard just as Sam hopped out of the passenger side. Ah, the harlot returns.

She'd cut her hair. Otherwise, she looked the same. Tall,
lean, small tits.

Steve watched her walk around to the driver's side and
frowned as a tall, dark-haired man got out and joined her. They exchanged a
quick word, she went inside, and he went to the back of the Suburban and pulled
out a stack of broken down boxes and a roll of bubble wrap before following
her.

* * *

"I don't have much I need," Sam told Micah,
opening her closet. "My clothes, my books." She grabbed several
shirts and pushed them together, then lifted them as one from the bar and set
them on the bed.

"How about anything in the kitchen?"

She turned as he started opening up the cabinets.
"Maybe that bamboo bowl. And there's a set of China plates my mom gave me
on the top shelf in the last cabinet."

Clothes, books, what else? Well, her computer, of course,
and the few CDs she owned. And the stacks of money she had saved under the
mattress. Other than that, she didn't need the furniture.

Sam was pulling another bundle of clothes from the closet
when someone knocked on her door.

"I bet that's the landlord," she said.

"Probably wants your keys."

"Well, he'll just have to wait until I'm done packing
and moved out, won't he?" She smiled innocently at him as she went to the
door.

But when she opened it, the person on the other side wasn't
her landlord.

"Steve." Her throat constricted around his name,
and she was sure her face had turned stark white. How had he found her?

"Hello, Samantha."

* * *

Sam's fear jolted Micah as if it was his own, and in an
instant he was by her side, pulling her back. "Who the fuck are you?"

"I'm Sam's husband. Who are you?"

Micah looked at Sam whose fearful gaze turned back to him.
"I told you about him. This is Steve."

Ah yes. Steve. The man who enjoyed beating women.