Authors: Marie Ferrarella
He hadn't been able to get hold of Josh, not through the dispatcher, and Josh wasn't
answering his cell. Neither had Patience when he'd tried her number. He'd let it ring for
the full count, then listened as the singsong voice told him that she was either out of
range or not answering her phone.
A sense of urgency tightened around his chest like an iron band. Brady didn't like thinking
what he was thinking.
The door to Josh's apartment was locked, but locks had never posed an obstacle to him.
He was inside in less than thirty seconds. Though it was hardly pastone o'clockand sunny
outside, the apartment was shrouded in darkness. The rooms were positioned so that
neither the morning nor afternoon sun reached it. A gloom pervaded the area.
Unholstering his service revolver, Brady entered the small, one-bedroom apartment.
There was a dankness in the air, as if windows were never opened. As if nothing from the
outside world was allowed to enter here.
He moved cautiously, calling out Graham's name. There was no response. Everything inside
him urged him on quickly.
It took less than five minutes to secure the apartment. Neither Josh nor Patience was
here.
The Spartan bedroom had little in the way of furniture. A bed, a nightstand and a
battered bureau. When he turned around to leave, the very air in his lungs froze. The wall
opposite the bed was entirely devoted to Patience. There were more than a hundred
different photographs of her, all candid, all taken at either the clinic or inside her house.
She didn't appear to be aware of the camera in any of the shots.
Which meant that there had to be hidden cameras, hidden eyes watching her. Cameras in
her clinic. In her home. Recording the most personal of details, the most intimate of
moments. There was a twenty-seven-inch television set on one side of the bed with a VCR
hooked. Pressing the eject button, Brady saw a tape emerge out of the machine. He pushed
it back, turned on the set and played the tape.
On the screen, he saw Patience getting ready for bed.
Brady felt sick to his stomach. Josh was her stalker.
Hurrying out of the bedroom, his mind in a hundred different places, Brady bumped into
the coffee table, smashing his shin and sending a pristine white photo album crashing
facedown on the floor. The two sides spread out like a penitent sinner in front of an altar.
Brady stared at it. He didn't dare breathe as he stooped to pick it up.
Flipping the book over, he found himself looking down at an array of photographs. Page
after page of photographs of Patience with Josh.
He didn't understand. Had they had a relationship? Were they involved?
No, something didn't feel right. Patience would have said something to him; he knew she
would have. And Josh … Josh would have warned him off, saying something about poaching
on another man's property, if there'd been a relationship. It was the kind of possessive
comment Josh was prone to.
Slowly, Brady turned one page after another. Josh and Patience were on every page.
Together. Exotic locales were in the background, like pictures taken of people on a
vacation.
Or on a honeymoon. What the hell was going on here?
Toward the end of the album, he found several photographs of Patience and Josh taken
with two children. A boy and a girl who looked like younger versions of them. That was
when he realized what he was looking at. Josh's fantasy book.
One of the patrolmen at the precinct was a computer enthusiast. Peter Gillespie was
always showing them photographs he'd created on his computer, putting himself into shots
with famous celebrities. He did it as a joke.
Brady remembered hearing Gillespie say that he could utilize the software that the
department used for updating the appearance of lost children on their database and
actually create what a couple's children would look like by merging their features. To prove
his point, he'd merged his own features with that of a current hot movie star.
That was what Josh was doing, except that the fictitious children were supposed to
represent his offspring. His and Patience's.
Brady took the album as evidence, purposely leaving behind the tape. He didn't want to
use that unless it was absolutely necessary.
Damn, how could he have not seen it? Josh was the one who was obsessed with Patience,
not the skinny guy with the cockatiel. The patrolman had been watching her all this time.
Which meant that Josh knew that he'd spent the night with her.
And that had pushed him to act.
But where had he taken her?
Brady racked his brain, trying to think. A fragment of a sentence echoed in the recesses
of his head. Something about Josh complaining that his apartment was so small, it could
easily fit into a corner of his parents' house. Josh was always running his mouth off about
something, never satisfied with anything in his life. Didn't Josh's parents have a house
somewhere in the city? He tried to think. Josh had complained bitterly that they wouldn't
let him have the place even though they spent most of their time in another house
inFlorida.
Leaving the apartment, Brady hurried down the stairs and out to his car. He needed to call
dispatch. Someone had to know where Josh's parents lived.
The feeling that he was running out of time hovered over him.
Patience stared out of the car at the old Victorian-style house. It sat primly on a large
piece of land, like a dried up woman from another era, long since past her prime, waiting
for a gentleman caller. "What is this place?"
She heard a note of pride in his voice as he stopped his car at the curb. Josh sounded like
a kid, showing off. "It's my parents' house. I grew up here. Like it?"
She looked at it silhouetted against the sun, its paint peeling, the roof sagging like a head
that had been bowed too long. "It's very nice."
Getting out, he quickly rounded the hood and was at her door before she had a chance to
get out. Her legs felt like lead.
"It's old-fashioned, and could use some work, but I figure you could do a lot with it."
Opening the door on her side, he took hold of her arm and tugged her to her feet. "You
could make it into a real home for us."
She tried to resist. His grasp tightened and he pulled her along with him. "Josh, I already
have a home."
His face was an impassive mask. "That was part of your old life. This is your new life."
Unlocking the front door, he forced her across the threshold. "As my wife."
The words crossed her tongue like sharp razors. "Your wife?"
He closed the door firmly behind them. Releasing her, he blocked her path out. "You don't
think I'm going to treat you the way Coltrane does, do you? Just shack up with you and
then go off whenever I want to?" His expression softened as he stroked her hair. She
struggled to keep the revulsion from her face. "No, I'm going to do everything the right
way. We'll get married and make it all legal. You don't want the kids to be ashamed of us,
do you?"
"Kids?" He had everything arranged in the fantasy within his head, she thought, fighting panic. How long had this been going on? How had she remained blind to it all?
His face brightened. "Yes, our kids." Taking her hand, he brought it to his lips. "I've got pictures of them. I mean, they're not really pictures of our kids, not yet—but what
they're going to look like when we finally have them. I want two kids. A boy and a girl. How
many do you want?"
"I haven't thought about kids."
"I think about them all the time. Our kids. Yours and mine." He turned suddenly, catching her off guard. She stumbled and took a step backward. He bracketed either side of her
with his arms, pinning her to the wall. "I'll make you happy, Patience, I swear I will."
She tried to push him off, but his weight was too much for her. There was no space to
even raise her knee against him.
"Josh, if you want to make me happy, please let me go. I have patients to see."
"I keep telling you, that was your old life, you're going to have to let it go. You want to
tend to anyone, you tend to me. Understand?" As he lowered his head to kiss her, she
turned hers away. Instead of her lips, Josh got a mouthful of hair. "Damn it, you're willing
enough to let that lowlife kiss you, why not me?"
She raised her head, anger blazing in her eyes. She clung to her anger like a life
preserver. "Because Brady doesn't threaten to make me a prisoner, that's why."
She watched in horror as frustration and rage passed over Josh's face, turning his
complexion crimson. "You're not a prisoner, damn it. Can't you get it through your head?
This is your home."
"If it's my home, I can leave if I want to," she shouted back, hoping that the show of
strength would intimidate him.
"No!" he shouted into her face. "You can't!" His grip tightened around her wrists. He was hurting her. "Why are you being like this? Why can't you just be happy? Why can't you
love me like I love you?"
She did her best not to wince as pain shot up and down her arms. "Josh, you're hurting
me. You said you'd never hurt me."
Josh's face contorted with barely suppressed rage. The look in his eyes frightened her.
At any moment he might go off, might decide to kill her.
"And I said you were supposed to love me! Well, if you can't love me, Patience, I'm not
going to let you love anyone else. Do you hear me?" he screamed. "Me or nobody."
Just then, there was a crashing noise. A shower of glass rained into the entrance through
the window on the other side of the front door.
Brady, his body huddled to form a ball, came flying through the space. Hitting the floor,
he rolled, his gun already drawn and extended. The next second, he leaped to his feet, the
barrel of his revolver pointed at Josh.
Surprise gave way to fury. Josh swung around, shoving Patience in front of him, using her
as his shield. One arm around her chest, securing her against him, the other hand holding a
gun to her temple. "You shoot, you kill her. Or I do. Either way, she's dead."
Patience saw wild fury in Brady's eyes. "Let her go, Josh," he ordered.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you? So you could have her all to yourself. Well, it's not going to work that way. This bitch is mine, not yours." Still holding the gun to her temple, he
pressed a kiss to her ear, then laughed as she shivered in pure loathing. "I know how to
appreciate her."
Brady kept his gun trained on Josh. "How? By putting a bullet into her?"
"If I have to," he said mildly. "She'll be mine forever then." His voice changed. The rage was back. Cold and hard this time. "Put your gun down, Coltrane, or she gets one right here,
right now."
Brady's heart had stopped beating. It had the moment he'd jumped to his feet and
assessed the situation. There was no doubt in his mind that Josh was insane. He knew as
sure as he stood there that if he put his gun down, Graham would shoot him. But more
important than that, there was no guarantee that he still wouldn't kill Patience. To make
her his for all eternity.
Graham was too deranged to bargain with.
He knew what he had to do. But he had never had so much on the line before and it made
him afraid. Very afraid.
His eyes never left Graham. He couldn't look at Patience, couldn't allow himself to be
distracted. "If I put my gun on the floor, you'll let her go?"
"Only one way to find out. Now do it!" Josh shrieked at him. "Time's running out."
Yes, Brady thought, looking at Patience's eyes, it is.
"Don't do it, Brady, he'll kill you," Patience cried.
Brady didn't answer. He knew he had only one chance to save her.
«^
His service revolver trained on Graham, Brady shifted his eyes for less than half a second
to Patience. He prayed she could pick up on his signal. He needed something to cut down on
the odds.
Brady met her eyes, then looked down at the floor.
"Now!"
The single word rang out with the force of cannon fire. Patience ducked her head down,
away from Josh. At the same time, Brady took dead aim and fired.
A look of sheer surprise was imprinted on Josh's face for all eternity. Along with the
bullet hole that was dead center in his forehead.
The patrolman slid lifelessly down to the floor, one arm still secured around Patience. The
grip on her arm loosened as he hit the rug. Her heart pounding madly, she scrambled away
from the body and threw herself into Brady's arms.
In the background the sounds of sirens pierced the air, coming closer.
His gun was back in its holster. There was no more need for it. The man on the ground was
no longer a threat to anyone. Brady took hold of Patience's shoulders, moving her away
from him. He needed to assure himself that she was in one piece, that she wasn't harmed.
"Are you all right?" he demanded, his voice cracking like a brittle twig beneath the weight of a heavy boot. His eyes scanned her from head to toe several times. She looked shaken,
but in one piece. Her clothes weren't torn and there were no bruises evident. But still he
asked, "Graham didn't do anything to you?"
Nothing but terrify her. Not because she was afraid of him, but because he'd made her
believe that Brady had been shot. In that small space of time, she'd lived through what