Slay it with Flowers (35 page)

Just when my life began to flash before my eyes, the silk loosened and I could breathe again. My knees buckled and I sank to the gravel, gasping and coughing. Before I could recover my wits, I was yanked to my feet and shoved forward. I stumbled through a rear doorway and into a dimly lit hall that smelled of new lumber.

Ahead of me I could make out the oval face and black dress of the woman I guessed to be Passion Flower. My eyes were watering so much I had to blink to clear away the blur of tears. Even so, she didn’t look as young as I’d imagined her to be. She also didn’t appear as frightened as she’d seemed only moments ago. In fact, she looked rather smug.

My stomach dropped. It
was
a trap.

A voice behind me barked something in Chinese. I swung around to see an old man in a black kimono, loose trousers, and thong-style sandals. He was small in stature, maybe two inches taller than I was, with the round, wizened face of a capuchin monkey. It was the same face that had glared at me from the spa’s window and had watched me from inside the hood of a sweatshirt. I would have guessed him to be over seventy years old, yet he had the strength of a much younger man. He stood with arms akimbo, blocking the exit. He snapped at me again, pointing toward a doorway near where I stood.

“He want you prease to go in room,” the woman translated.

Polite request or not, I wasn’t in favor of that plan. I tamped down the fear that was turning my muscles to mush and gave the old man my fiercest glare, putting my hands on my hips to mimic his posture, pretending it were no big deal to be pushed around by a little monkey-man. “Tell him I’m not going anywhere but out the back door,” I whispered hoarsely.

As the woman translated, I started to move past him, but before I could blink, I was sitting on my rear on the floor. How had that happened? I started to scramble up but he shoved me down again, pointed to the doorway behind me, and barked another order.

“I know, I know,” I said, when the woman started to translate, “he wants me to go into the room.” I rose and dusted myself off, trying to think of a way to get past him, half expecting to be tossed again. But this time he waited to see what I’d do. I turned so I could keep one eye on him and still see the woman and said quietly, “Did you call me? Are you Passion Flower?”

Before she could answer, the old man pushed me through the doorway, where I found myself in a windowless room paneled in light wood, with a pale blue ceramic-tiled floor. On one paneled wall, white terry-cloth robes hung from a row of white ceramic hooks. Against another wall, beneath a big white clock, was a wicker table that held thick, navy towels. Long redwood benches lined up along a third wall, and in the far corner was a glass-enclosed shower.

The main attraction, though, was a small, sunken pool in the middle of the room, no doubt the custom-designed hot tub the girls next door had mentioned. The pool was made of white ceramic tile onto which had been painted figures of naked women. There were four steps leading into the pool and tiled benches around the sides. It had not yet been filled with water.

The old man snapped something again, and I swung to face him. In his hands was a long black sash, pulled taut. The smooth garotte.

My heart raced. I took a step back. “Don’t even think about it!” I yelled, pretending to be angry instead of scared witless. “You have no idea the trouble you’ll be in. I told a dozen people where I was going tonight, not to mention that they’ll see my car in the parking lot. Keep in mind that the police will be here any minute, too, because I called them five minutes ago.”

I wasn’t sure if the old man understood, but I knew the woman did. She looked up at the clock and said something to the old man, and I could tell they were both doing some quick calculations. It certainly didn’t take a mental giant to figure out that if I’d called the police they would have arrived by now. So where were they? I knew Marco had called them. Where was Marco, for that matter?

“Car has been moved,” the woman said.

I swallowed hard. If my Vette was gone, Marco would think I was, too. In desperation I tried appealing to the woman’s conscience. “You called me to come help you, and I did. At least you could return the favor by getting me out of here.”

“You came to help Passion Flower,” she corrected.

“Aren’t you her?”

The woman muttered to someone standing outside the door, and suddenly an even younger woman stepped into the room, bringing the scent of jasmine with her. Where had I smelled that recently? Of course. At the murder scene. Jasmine didn’t grow at the dunes. That should have tipped me off that a woman had been there.

“
Here
is your Passion Flower,” the other woman said spitefully.

The girl was small and graceful, and wore a tight, red silk dress. Her head was bowed, her long black hair falling like a satin curtain over her face, her hands folded together at her waist. She raised her head, revealing a young, frightened face. She couldn’t have been over seventeen years old.

She smoothed one side of her hair back, exposing her ear. From her right lobe dangled a gold earring in the shape of a punching bag. I stared at the earring, causing the girl to finger it nervously. Had Punch given it to her? Was she trying to signal something to me? Or had she killed him and removed it as some kind of macabre souvenir?

The old man snapped the sash between his hands and commanded me to do something which the woman translated as, “Hold out wrists, prease.”

My stomach plummeted so fast and hard I thought I was going to be sick all over his thongs, which actually might have improved my chances of getting out. I took another step backward, my mind racing for a way to stall until help arrived. My only option was to distract them. “Why are you doing this? Why did you bring me here?”

“You try take Passion Flower,” the woman said curtly. “Chou have to stop you. You very dangerous.”

Chou being the old man, no doubt. And Chou apparently was prepared to kill me for being dangerous. I pointed to my yellow T-shirt with the Bloomers logo on it. “Look! I run a flower shop. I’m not a danger, except to myself sometimes. You keep Passion Flower and I’ll walk out of here and not say a word about this to anyone. Tell him that. Tell your boss.” I nodded toward the old man.

“Chou not boss. Kuon-Liu boss. Passion Flower belong to him. No one take her from Kuon-Liu.”

Marco’s words echoed in my mind:
“The dead man was a federal agent investigating a Chinese sex slave ring operating from the spa.”

I glanced at Passion Flower, who was watching me with terrified eyes. She was merely an asset to Kuon-Liu, an investment to be guarded by the old man to the point where he’d kill anyone who threatened to take her away. Poor, lust-driven Punch. The old man must have thought he wanted to help her escape.

“You met Punch at the dunes last Wednesday night, didn’t you?” I asked Passion Flower, keeping a nervous eye on the other two. “And Chou followed you.”

At her quick nod, I gestured toward the old man. “Did Chou kill Punch?”

She gave another brief nod, and in halting English said, “Chou follow me to lake. He find out Punch ask me to marry him. Punch want to elope that night.” She started crying softly.

I stared at her, stunned. They were going to
elope
? No wonder Chou had gone after her. He didn’t dare lose Kuon-Liu’s merchandise. At least now I understood why Punch had asked the clerk to wish him luck. He couldn’t have had a clue what kind of hornet’s nest he was stirring up.

I saw Chou start toward me and I swung to face him, edging back even farther. “Keep away from me. You won’t get away with another murder.”

“You not murdered,” the woman behind him replied. She pointed to the empty pool. “You drown. All an accident.”

T
here was a blur of motion and suddenly Chou had the sash wrapped around my mouth and knotted behind my head. He was ready to bind my wrists with yet another sash when Passion Flower threw herself at his feet, crying and chattering away in Chinese. He tried to push her away, but she hung on for all she was worth. I hoped she was pleading for my life. Chou snapped something at the older woman. Instantly, she took the sash and came toward me.

I yanked the gag out of my mouth and held out my hands like I actually knew some karate moves. “Don’t mess with me!”

I immediately found myself lying on the hard tiles with a bump rising rapidly on the back of my head and the wind knocked out of me. As the room swam in dizzy circles, she straddled my waist, pulled my hands together, looped the sash around them and was about to tie it when Passion Flower let out an ear-shattering scream.

The woman looked around in alarm, and the momentary distraction allowed me to press my wrists as hard as I could against the material so I’d have some wiggle room. Chou hissed something, then the girl went silent, whether from his words or a well-placed karate chop I didn’t know.

As the woman knotted the sash I heard what sounded like a body being dragged from the room. She stood and pulled a thin, nasty-looking knife from a sheath strapped to her leg. “Get in tub, prease,” she said, gesturing with the weapon.

What was the point of her politeness when she was about to kill me? I muttered something of that nature through my gag as I struggled to my feet and walked down the tiled steps into the empty tub. My gaze darted about the room as I searched for a way to escape.

She gestured with the knife. “Sit, prease.”

Shooting her glares, I sat on a bench. She grabbed the ends of the sash and pulled them through a ring at the bottom of the tub, bringing my wrists down to my ankles and my face to my knees. From that vantage point I saw several more rings around the perimeter, probably used for some kind of bondage games.

Her feet climbed the stairs—that was all I could see—then I heard the sound of beeps, as if she were programming a microwave. I tried to raise my head to see what she was doing, but the sash wouldn’t give an inch. Suddenly, warm water began to rush into the tub from three different inlets and swirl around my feet in a frothy foam.

“Good-bye now,” I heard her say, and then the door closed.

In a panic, I yanked repeatedly on the knot at the bottom, pulling as hard as I could, until I thought I’d snap my wrists. It held firm. My stomach roiled in terror. The rushing water now covered my hands. When my knees were submerged, my face would be, too. At that thought I started to hyperventilate.

Precious minutes flew by as I worked my hands against each other to weaken the soggy material, but the bubbling water, now halfway up my arms, made it impossible to see what I was doing. I pushed and pulled and twisted, again and again, as the water crept higher. I had to keep reminding myself not to panic, but as the level neared my knees my prospects for getting out alive were looking grim.

Within minutes my chin was submerged. I lifted my head as high as it would go and pressed my lips together, concentrating on the binding around my wrists. My neck ached from the awkward position and my back wasn’t feeling so hot either. When the material began to roll I nearly cried. With a little more effort I would be able to slip it down over the widest part of my hand.

The water bubbled under my nose. I strained my neck up as far as I could, but moments later even that didn’t work. I separated my knees, took a deep breath, and plunged my head underwater so I could see what I was doing. Blinking to see through the froth, I folded my right thumb in close to my palm and pulled down. My lungs burned, and I knew I had seconds left. Just when I thought I couldn’t make it, the material rolled the rest of the way down my hand. I was free.

Quickly, I raised one side of my body high enough to gulp air. And then I plunged under again, pushing the material down until my other hand was free. I sat up, yanked off the gag, and filled my lungs with precious air, then scrambled out of the pool, grabbed a towel, and ran for the door.

It was locked.

I stood there with the towel wrapped around me, water dripping from the ends of my hair, wondering how I was going to get out. I had no tools to use—no purse, no phone, no keys. I’d left it all in the car. And I didn’t dare bang my fist against the door. If the police weren’t there, Chou would only return and finish me off.

I looked around the room for a weapon, but there were only towels and benches and a wall clock. I could barricade the door by dragging the benches in front of it and wedging them there until the police arrived. But what if the police never arrived? With my car out of the picture, I couldn’t count on their help. The clock wouldn’t be much of a weapon either. That left only the shower stall.

I ran toward it, slipping and sliding on my waterlogged sandals. The showerhead was chrome and looked heavy enough to use as a weapon, but it was way above my head. How was I going to detach it?