The Victim (15 page)

Sarah went on to tell him a little about herself and how she only really trusted Parkman over the years, who, by the way, she still had to get a hold of.

Aaron got them both a coffee as they talked. He explained what happened to his sister a year ago and how the police didn’t seem to take it seriously. Once he started his own investigation, he got pulled into the Specter’s sights.

“Who’s the Specter?” Sarah asked.

“That was the name the media gave Clive Baron, the man my friends and I ended up killing.”

It was Sarah’s turn to raise her eyebrows in surprise. She sat back in her chair and sipped her coffee with renewed admiration for Aaron. “Is that related to the charges you were brought up on?”

“No, that’s something entirely different.”

“Really?” she said as she set the coffee cup on his desk. “Do tell.”

“It was a student of mine. He’d been learning martial arts to hurt people. He beat his wife and daughter, hospitalizing them. His daughter came to see me. Broke my heart. When John showed up for his next class, I ended up making an example of him. I went too far. He was in a coma for bit and then when he woke, he refused to press charges against me. Everything went away.”

“Wow, we really are alike.”

“What else can you tell me about these guys? How do they kill so easily?”

“Needles.”

“Needles?”

Sarah nodded. “They carry syringes with something in them that kills in seconds. That’s why I’m here. I need to learn to be fast and keep their hands off me.”

“Too bad I’m not a pharmacist. I could just offer you an antidote.”

“Not sure if that would work here.”

“How can I help, exactly?” Aaron asked.

“Show me a couple of moves that’ll keep their filthy hands off me.”

Aaron grimaced. “It’s not that easy.”

“Why?” Sarah leaned forward and grabbed her coffee. It warmed her, calmed her, but woke her up at the same time.

“The kinds of moves you’re looking for takes years to learn. It involves discipline, practice, speed. I just don’t know if …”

“I’ve got all that but one. I’m fast. I’m disciplined. I’ll practice on my own. The only thing I don’t have are years.”

Silence fell between them like a dark cloak.

Aaron broke the silence. “Fine. I’ll teach you what I can in the time we have. I’ll focus on street techniques, keeping it simple. When you leave, you leave.”

“Deal,” Sarah said and stood up.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“It’s late. I’m sure you need to head home. I don’t want to keep you.”

“No, we start tonight. Now.”

“Really?”

“Yes. We work until you’re tired. In the back there’s a cot and a little fridge. Unless you have somewhere else to go, stay here. We’re closed tomorrow. We can work all day.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “What’s in it for you?”

“What do you mean?” he asked as he stood too.

“Nobody works for free. Where’s your upside?”

“Keeping you alive.”

“What?”

“I can’t have you come in here looking for help and then end up dying on me. That’s bad for business.”

“No jokes. Be serious.”

“I am, Sarah. You’re too important. When you walked through that door,” he pointed to the front of the gym, “I almost clapped. We read about your accomplishments, then your funeral. To see that you’re alive, we can’t have you die twice in one week. That would suck.”

“Okay, but I won’t sleep with you.”

“Who said anything about sex?”

“You did.”

“No, I didn’t,” he said as he stepped around his desk and looked down his nose at her. “Don’t put words in my mouth.”

“You said the Rapture sounded sexual—”

He cut her words off by putting his hand over her mouth. To ward off the attack, she leaned back over the desk so she could raise her knee. It hit him in the solar plexus. Air shot out of his mouth as she rolled away from his flailing hand. She hit the floor on all fours and without looking to see what he was doing, pushed up and body checked him into the wall.

Somehow, Aaron managed to wrap an arm around her shoulder. He lodged his other arm behind her head, forcing it downward. Then, before she could move away or attack again, she was bent over in a half-nelson. She leaned into it to twist out on her knees, but her feet got knocked out from under her. In seconds, she was paralyzed on her side, her legs locked in his, her neck craned to its limit and her arms jammed upward.

“Shit,” she mumbled.

He released her in one fluid motion and stood up. She turned her neck back and forth to open circulation again, and then looked up at him.

Like a gentleman, he gestured with his hand to help her to her feet. She accepted and got vertical again.

“What was that for?” she asked.

“To see your level of play.”

“Level of play? What the fuck is that?”

“I wanted to see if you can think on your feet.”

“I guess I don’t. You pinned me in seconds.”

“No, you did real good.”

“Huh?”

“Most people are pinned right away. You leaned away, got a knee in my gut, dropped to all fours and tried to slam into me. Most fighters would have been injured enough to keep fighting, but not win with someone like you. The only advantage I have is years of practice.”

“Sucks to be you.”

“Where did you learn to fight like that? It took more than instinct.”

“I have a friend who taught me.”

“Can I meet this friend?”

“You don’t want to meet him.”

“Sounds mysterious.”

“I don’t even want to meet him,” Sarah said.

“You’re confusing me.”

“When this friend comes close to me, I can fight like crazy. Nothing can stop me, not even pain. I block it and deal with what I need to do.”

“Ah, I think I know who your friend is.”

Sarah nodded. “Death.”

“Right. In a life and death situation, you pull out all the stops. Since this has happened to you a few times, you’ve developed a certain set of skills.”

“Bingo. In the end, I’ve learned to just keep moving, watch for holes in my opponent’s defense and attack continuously until I repel them. If I don’t, I die. Since I’m still alive, what I’ve done has worked.”

She bounced on her feet for a second and smiled like a teenager in high school. They looked at each and smiled. Sarah giggled before she could stop it.

“Damn, I haven’t giggled like a little girl in a long time.”

“That’s a good thing, right?”

Sarah stepped out of his office and into the main part of the gym. “I guess so, but I’m not here to be a little girl. I want to fight. You up to it?”

“Yeah,” Aaron said and followed her out of his office.

Over the next few hours he taught her three ways to get out of a bear hug, two ways to get out of a headlock and how to snap a person’s wrist with a simple Bic pen. To show her the wide range of Shotokan techniques, he performed two different ways to take someone’s eyes out. One was a side blow with the middle finger knuckle to the temple and the other was with both the forefinger and middle finger jabbing in above the eyeball, gouging deep, closing the fingers and snapping out.

By three in the morning, despite wanting more, she was exhausted. She retired to the back, lay out on the cot and was asleep before Aaron locked up and left.

Her last thought was a quiet wish that Aaron wouldn’t leave.

Chapter 19

Detective Waller got cleaned up by medics at the crash site. He had done his best to cordon off the area and catch the two men in overcoats, but had been unsuccessful so far. The sun was rising and he was no further ahead in finding the white-powdered men or Sarah.

Everyone had fared well in the car accident half a block up from his own. The cab driver and the pickup driver were uninjured. The couple in the backseat of the cab left a statement with uniforms on duty and walked to the Xerox Tower, where they were headed when the accident happened.

From witness accounts, it looked like Sarah was being chased by four men in overcoats. They had advanced from the four corners of the intersection, giving Sarah no escape. All she could do was wait for the cars to hit her or let the white-faced men grab her.

As luck would have it, two of the aggressors were dead and Sarah was on the run. She too had escaped his lockdown.

Waller contacted HQ and ordered a car brought to him at the Courtyard by Marriott. It would be there in thirty minutes. That was all he needed.

He trotted down Yonge Street, up the steps and into the hotel where Sarah had been staying. At the counter, he pulled out his badge.

“What room is Sarah Roberts staying in?”

The clerk looked like a younger version of Peewee Herman. His hair was slicked off to the side and filled with so much gel it shined. Waller could almost smell the goo.

“I can’t give out information on the guests of this hotel—”

“Oh yes, you can,” Waller cut in. “Sarah was almost killed tonight. I’m trying to save her life and unless you give me her room number and a key she will probably die. If she does, I’ll arrest you as an accessory.”

“Umm …” the clerk stammered.

“I also want to know what credit card she used for the room.”

The clerk tried to be tough, but his face twitched and turned a shade of red. “Sir, we have a strict policy about the privacy of our guests. Without a …” he cleared his throat as he involuntarily swallowed. “…warrant, I can’t give you this kind of information.”

“The hell you can’t,” Waller said as he pulled out his spare sidearm from an ankle holster and aimed it at the clerk’s face. “I’ve been working for eighteen hours straight and I’m fucking tired. I saw good cops get killed this morning. Sarah’s connected. I need to find her and I don’t have the time to get a warrant. Cough it up, room number, a key and how she paid for the room. Do it now before my weapon accidentally discharges.”

The clerk shook in his little red jacket, his eyes wide. Waller wondered if the clerk had a hard-on for Sarah.

Is he trying to protect her?

“A man named Dolan Ryan booked the room for her, sir. I have his information right here.”

The elevator opened and a man stepped out. As he walked by, Waller kept his weapon in place, but used one hand to pull out his badge.

“Keep walking,” he said to the guest. “Police business.”

The man raised both hands and half ran, half jogged out of the lobby.

The clerk set a piece of paper on the counter. “It’s all here. That’s the man who paid for the room and his home address. Sarah claimed to be his daughter, but I recognized her from the news.”

Waller lowered his weapon.

“When she signed for her dinner,” the clerk continued in a shaky voice, “she signed it, Sarah Roberts. But I already knew who she was.”

Waller grabbed the paper and the keycard and ran for the elevators. He pushed the button and called HQ on his cell. Once he got through, he gave them Dolan’s home address and asked for a cruiser to be sent to Mr. Ryan’s house to pick him up. Waller needed to talk to him.

He had to learn everything about Sarah and the people that supported her if he was ever going to figure out who the white-faced men were.

Once in Sarah’s hotel room, he discovered nothing out of the ordinary. In her bathroom, he saw a small spot of what looked like vomit on the side of the toilet.

“So you’re human after all, eh, Sarah?”

Back in the main room, he kicked the garbage can over in frustration. There really wasn’t any chance that Sarah would leave behind a clue of where she was or even a note, but he had to try.

He took the elevator back to the lobby. His cruiser sat out front, idling. He thanked the driver who got in another car and left.

Once behind the wheel, his cell phone rang.

“Yeah?”

“Waller, it’s Vince.”

“What ya got?”

“We had a cruiser drive by Dolan Ryan’s house.”

“Good. Was he home?”

“Yeah, but … he was dead.”

“Dead?” Waller almost shouted. “What the fuck? How did he die?”

“No idea. The coroner’s on site. No signs of forced entry and no trauma on Ryan’s body. Also, no defensive wounds. The cop knocked and the door opened by the force of his knock. He saw the body in the front foyer.”

“I bet when the ME gets done with his autopsy, he’ll find where the needle was jabbed in.”