A Touch Of Heat (H.E.A.T. Book 2) Read online

  “No.” She was adamant. “Just you. I trust only you.”

  I hardly knew this woman. She’d been nothing more to me than a thorn in my side every time Damon was called away to rescue her. She didn’t really know me and I didn’t really know her, but her trust seemed monumental. Seemed important in a way it shouldn’t have been.

  This was Damon’s sister. She trusted me.

  “OK,” I said. “Just me. Where am I coming to?”

  “113, apartment 28, Greys Ave,” she whispered and my head swung in the direction of the address. It was just one street over. I could walk there, if I wasn’t in high heeled shoes and a fucking ball gown.

  And who knew what state Carole Michaels was in. But Greys Ave? One block away, bordering Pitt Street, and where her brother worked. Is that why Falkner chose it? So when it came out, and it would have, eventually, Damon would know he’d been that close to his missing sister all along.

  Son of a bitch.

  “OK, Carole, I’m just going to find a car and come get you. I’m not far away.”

  “Come quickly!” she said urgently. “He only went out to buy some milk.”

  You have got to be fucking kidding me. Milk? Psycho kidnapping arsonists need milk?

  “OK, OK, hon, stay on the line, I’m coming.”

  “I think he’s back.”

  I stopped in my tracks, halfway between where I’d been crouching and the door back into Central Police. It would take at least ten minutes to be assigned a new sedan.

  “Oh, dear God,” she cried. “Someone’s at the door.”

  I was running, kicking off my heels and praying I didn’t stand on a rusted nail or a heap of dog shit. I couldn’t hang up the phone, she was getting near hysterical on the other end of the line. I couldn’t waste a second longer tracking down a uniform, that, all of a fucking sudden, were in severe shortage on the street. This was fucking central Auckland, the busiest metropolitan police station in New Zealand, and not a single blue and white to be seen.

  I bounded down Mayoral Drive, knowing I would be coming into Greys Ave at its bottom. 113 could be near the top, up the steep slope that led to Pitt Street.

  “Carole, you still with me?” I panted into the phone.

  Dodging pedestrians, skipping out of the way of a taxi as it turned into an underground carpark right in front of me. My free hand came down hard on the hood of his car. He shouted out obscenities in Hindi and received a kick to his fender for his efforts.

  I refused to limp when I picked up speed again.

  “It wasn’t him,” Carole whimpered down the line.

  My heartbeat made it difficult to hear properly. “What?” I said, rounding the corner onto Greys Ave and frantically searching numbers to get my bearings.

  “It must have been the neighbours,” she said, almost as breathless as me. “But he’s been gone ten minutes. He could be back any time,” she pressed. I understood her fear. I just wished she’d stop scaring me.

  This was Damon’s sister. I had to get to her before Falkner did.

  “How mobile are you?” I asked, spotting a 48 embedded in a wall on my left. Halfway up, at a guess. I dug deep.

  “I can walk,” she admitted.

  “Can you run?”

  “He doesn’t feed me much,” she said in a hollow sounding voice.

  I pressed on, both psychically and verbally.

  “What locks are on the door?”

  “Big ones. I don’t have a key.”

  “A deadbolt?”

  “Yes, I think that’s what you call it. Where are you?”

  “On Greys Ave. Not long now, Carole. Hang in there.”

  “Please hurry. Oh, God, please hurry.”

  “I am,” I said, almost drowning the words out with my desperate gasps for air. “Where are you in the apartment?” I asked.

  “In the dining room.”

  “Which is where in relation to the front door?” I huffed, spotting her building. A set of refurbished council flats. I’d been in them before; a drug bust. Not long after they’d been sold and done up for urban yuppies.

  “I can see the door, but I’m several feet away.”

  “Open plan living?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many rooms?”

  “Just the main one, where I am, and the bedroom and bathroom.”

  “And you’re alone?” I asked, pressing several buttons on the intercoms at once.

  Some careless individual unlocked the main door, while voices rang out over the speaker demanding who I was.

  I swung the door open and paused to catch my breath. It wasn’t going to happen any time soon, so I sucked it up, shouldered my handbag, and pulled my gun out, while I checked the state of the elevator - broken - and headed for the stairs. So much for the yuppie refurbishment.

  “I’m almost there,” I whispered into the cellphone, my voice echoing up the stairwell, but no other sounds indicating someone was ahead of me.

  “Hurry,” she said, then she just kept repeating it. “Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry.”

  It just about did me in. My throat was already parched from all the exertion and heavy breathing, now it closed over with emotion as well. She was terrified, and the closer I got, the worse it seemed to get. So scared of being caught trying to escape. So scared of this bastard who had taken her.

  I bounded up the two flights of stairs, thankfully quietly as I was in bare feet, a fact I would pay for dearly later, once the adrenaline wore off. I pushed the door open onto Carole’s landing and crouched as I came through, gun raised, cellphone still to my ear, Carole still repeating her mantra. It was bare, but I could hear life existing behind the closed doors; TV’s blaring, people arguing, someone clearly playing a high octane video game. Sunday apartment living in the big city. And not one of them knew their neighbour was a criminal.

  That there was a woman trapped across the floor.

  “Carole,” I whispered. She kept repeating, “Hurry.” I could picture her rocking on a chair. “Carole, I need you to stand clear of the door.”

  “Hurry.”

  “I’m going to make a loud noise.”

  “Hurry!” More desperate, more high pitched, more full of fear.

  “Carole!’ I hissed. “I’m using my gun.”

  That shut her up.

  “I need you to stand clear of the door.”

  “OK.”

  I came abreast of apartment 28 and stared at the handle. It seemed so normal. Was it coated in his fingerprints? Had he worn gloves when he came and went? I looked left and right, checked to make sure the coast was clear - it wouldn’t be for much longer - and then reached out and tested the door knob. Any chance not to use your service weapon, you grasp it. Paperwork’s a bitch, Carl advised in my head as the handle stuck fast.

  I sucked in a deep breath of air and said, “Cover your ears, Carole.” Counting to ten, I fired.

  Two shots, directly above the door handle, aimed toward the floor, through the deadbolt.

  The door creaked when I pushed against it. Another squeaked down the hallway as I guy peered out and shouted, “I’m calling the Police!”

  “Tell them a detective is in attendance, requesting immediate assistance at a 12:10,” I shouted back and slipped my still functioning cellphone into my handbag. “Carole,” I called out. “This is Detective Keen, I’m coming in.”

  More doors opened down the hallway, but no one was brave enough to confront the armed, and clearly willing to use it, detective.

  I crossed the threshold, my gun pointed towards the floor, safety still off. And checked right, into a lounge that appeared empty, and then left, into a dining room that led to an open plan kitchen. Carole Michaels sat at the dining table, tears and snot running down her face, a cellphone, screen facing skyward, lit up to display an open call, on the table’s surface.

  Her hands and legs were locked securely to the table by a long length of chain.

  Motherfucker!

  �
��Are you hurt?” I said, she just blinked at me and sniffed. “Did you get caught by any shrapnel?” I tried, she blubbered out a sobbed breath. “Hang tight,” I instructed, lifting my gun and moving toward the back of the apartment, and the as yet unseen bedroom and bathroom.

  It took thirty seconds to clear them, the apartment wasn’t big. I came out into the main room, reluctantly flicking the safety on and placing the weapon in my handbag, then crossed the short distance to Carole at the table.

  I crouched down and assessed her visually. She was pale, when like her brother, she should have had a natural year round tan. Her wrists were bony, her elbows stuck out. But no worse than she’d looked when I’d last seen her, recovering from a thousand dollar a day drug habit. Her dark, curly hair hung in ringlets down over her hunched shoulders. Mucus and saliva had dribbled onto her t-shirt, which looked otherwise clean. She was wearing boy-short underwear, it left little to the imagination, but there was no blood and there were no obvious bruises that I could see.

  She looked trapped, skeletal, but unharmed.

  “This could be a problem,” I said under my breath as I turned my attention to the chain that secured her to actual holes bored into the table’s thick wooden surface. The table was bolted to the floor. Even if it had been small enough to drag through the doorway after us, it was stuck fast. “I don’t suppose he kept the key within sight?” I asked.

  She shook her head, staring at me strangely. Almost like she hadn’t ever met me before.

  “You know who I am, right?” I asked. “Damon’s girlfriend.”

  She smiled; relief shot through me. Trauma could make things go south pretty fucking fast if she couldn’t place me.

  “OK,” I said, standing up and admitting defeat on the chain. “I’m calling in some help.”

  She started crying, hitched breaths, full on tear streaking mess.

  “Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry,” she murmured, rocking back and forth on the chair. It was wooden, I noticed absently. No cushion. Her butt must have ached sitting there.

  I pulled my cellphone from my handbag and cut the now redundant call to Carole’s phone.

  “How did you have access to a phone?” I asked, as mine dinged with about half a dozen voice messages and double that in texts.

  I hadn’t expected her to answer, what with the near catatonic repetitive motion and words, but she whispered, “I get rewards.”

  Strange reward for a kidnapper to give their abductee.

  I couldn’t listen to all the messages, but something made me press the button for the first text.

  Nick Anscombe. Second strange thing to have happened in less than a minute.

  The message read, Identified another hooded figure. Michaels knows him as Andrew Falkner. Radar has him as Rhys Weston. Linked to Declan King and others. Hands in many pies. PS. Answer your fucking phone.

  I smiled, which probably wasn’t entirely appropriate considering Carole was looking up at me right then, and swiped the phone for Ryan Pierce. I put it to my ear and waited for the dial tone. Sometimes there can be a delay, if the network’s busy. So I didn’t immediately worry when it took several seconds to make a sound.

  But then the fire alarm in the building sounded out, screams and shouts abounded down the hall, and Carole started laughing.

  I pulled my phone away from my ear when it made a disconnect tone. With dawning understanding, I stared down at the screen and noticed it had no service bars. I looked at Carole, her laughter was unhinged and slightly panicked. Not quite genuine amusement, more like the kind of laughter that comes out when you’re severely stressed and laughing is your go-to when the shit hits the big fucking proverbial fan.

  “He’s coming,” she managed to get out between hiccoughing bouts of quasi-mirth.

  I dropped my phone, it was useless. And pulled my gun. Swinging ‘round to face the still open door. The hallway was silent of stampeding feet, no more shouts or screams could be heard above the persistent blare of the fire alarm. A fire engine at Pitt Street, no more than thirty seconds away, started up.

  I was out of time.

  My eyes flicked down to Carole sitting tied securely to the table, then back up to the front door, my heart in my throat, my stomach bottomed out and on the floor.

  Oh, fuck.

  “It’s gonna be all right,” I said, both hands steady on my service weapon. I would shoot him if he stood in that door.

  This had been a trap. I knew that now. I couldn’t leave, not with Carole still sitting chained up here. I couldn’t call for help, something was suddenly jamming the signal on my phone. I flicked my eyes around the open plan room, trying to find inspiration for a better strategy of defence.

  And landed on a dome covered camera mounted on the ceiling in the corner.

  “He’s been watching, hasn’t he?” I asked.

  Carole laughed. Snorted back some snot and said, “He’s coming.”

  And then a canister rolled into the room and a burst of gas and light and smoke filled the air.

  I didn’t even have time to pull the trigger. I wouldn’t have been shooting at anything anyway. The canister had been the advance guard. As my body doubled over, and my eyes welled shut with bitter stinging tears, and my throat clogged up with gunk, and my chest burst apart with the need to breathe fresh air, I knew the rear guard was still coming.

  “He’s coming,” Carole whimpered through her own toxic hell on earth.

  And then I blacked out.

  Chapter 34

  “When it looks like the end and you know you’re on your own. Don’t fucking think for a second you can’t still win.”

  I woke up in small increments. The sound of a low, rhythmic humming fluctuated in my ears. And then the smell of burned candle wax tickled my nose. Followed, an indeterminate amount of time later, by the stretch of my neck as my head lolled back and forth.

  My eyes felt like dead weights; I struggled to lift my lids. My arms ached. My chest hurt. Breathing was difficult. I was sure I couldn’t feel my hands. When I tried to shift my legs something rattled.

  Oh, God. This was not good.

  I forced my eyes open, but saw only black. It took too long to realise I was blindfolded. Panic set in big time after that.

  My breaths sawed in and out of my mouth. My chest constricted with anxiety and whatever the fuck had been in that gas canister back in Greys Ave. I was sure I wasn’t there anymore. The fire engines would have arrived and even if Falkner had closed and locked the apartment door, ignoring the fire alarm, the neighbours who had seen me enter would have told the Police by now.

  Something echoed in the room. Feet? Steps? Whatever it was, it sounded far away and nearby at the same time. I knew where I was long before I accepted it. My brain trying futilely to think of another conclusion, anything than ending up here.

  Awareness returned in jarring and colourful clarity, despite the black cloth that covered my eyes. I was in the Irreverent Inferno. And I was tied to a fucking cross.

  Another sound; a thump, followed by a swish. My mind raced trying to put an image to the indistinct noises. My imagination fuelled by too many dark years as a police detective and honed to perfection by a warped and twisted world.

  I almost whimpered. The pathetic sound so close to spewing out of my lips. I bit down hard on my tongue and tasted blood. Then lifted my head and spat the tainted saliva out. I heard it splat as it hit the tiled floor.

  “Do I need to gag you as well, Lamb?” a voice said with a very recognisable accent.

  “Grand Master,” I replied, for all intents and purposes sounding quite normal.

  Nathaniel Marcroft laughed. It was predictably chilling.

  “Where’s Kyan, Mr Marcroft?” I asked.

  “He’ll arrive with the others. Are you prepared to behave, Lamb?”

  “You know my name,” I insisted. “Why not use it?”

  “Here you have no name. No identity. Just the chance to transcend Hell.”

  “I don’t w
ant your Paradise,” I said, twisting my head when his voice moved in front of me. I tried to picture the cavern at the Irreverent Inferno. I tried to imagine the cross I was chained to where the altar would have been. That meant the majority of the vaulted space was before me, providing a vast area for my captor to roam.

  And then come at me from.

  “We all want Paradise, Lamb,” Nathaniel said. “Even when we think we don’t deserve it. Do you deserve it?”

  I ignored the question. Answering would not serve a purpose here. Nathaniel Marcroft was batshit crazy. Any conversation with the man would only end up going around in circles. Probably nine fucking times, at a guess.

  “Why am I tied to a cross?” I asked instead.

  “It has to be a cross,” he mumbled, as though talking to himself. “Pay for our sins.”

  “Have you paid for yours?”

  “Little lamb,” he said right beside my ear, making me jump. The chains rattled, my wrists twisted, sending shooting stabs of pain down each arm. I couldn’t feel my fingers, but the coldness where they should have been told me I’d been hanging here a while. “We shall pay together, no?”

  The blindfold came off in a sudden rush of brightness. Even though I knew the cavern was being lit by naked flames, I squeezed my eyes closed, feeling tears streak down my cheeks from the sting the light had caused. I sucked in a deep breath and blinked them open, aware Marcroft had just given me an advantage I couldn’t waste.

  It took too long to focus. My vision was blurred beyond what normal light deprivation should have allowed. I didn’t feel drugged, but whatever had been in that cannister had a lasting effect. By the time I could see more than a few feet in front of me, I’d already heard her snivels.

  “Carole,” I said, straining against the chains on my wrists and ankles. “It’s going to be OK,” I promised, in a blatant attempt to calm her with absolutely no regard to the facts.

  I was chained to a cross in a madman’s chamber. And so was she.

  Both crosses faced each other across the grand space of the Irreverent Inferno cavern, in a macabre display that made me think of a tragic Shakespearean play. Our feet were mere inches off the floor, making our bodies suspended low enough to be reached by any man of reasonable height. Nathaniel Marcroft was over six feet tall. He could reach our necks easily.