Deadly News: A Thriller (10 page)

Fe didn’t move.

“Ecks is going to be killed in nine minutes. It will be your fault.”

Fe’s eyes focused on Abby. “No.”

“Then get the cuffs!”

She finally listened. After getting them, she cuffed Abby’s hands in front of her.

Abby walked to the door. “Watch me through the window. Do exactly as he said.”

“I have to call this—”

Abby interrupted: “There’s always more than one way. Remember earlier, when I had to wait to go to the bathroom? Just do exactly as he said.”

“The— Oh,” Fe said, looking at where Abby’s phone lay. She nodded.

Abby fumbled with the door, but got it open. She was then in the hall. Her pulse, which had been slowing, instantly sped up again, and she felt a surge of adrenaline run through her at being in a common area dressed like she wasn’t. She repositioned her arms, bending them in and forming a V, the handcuffs eliminating any other coverage option.

Just like a swimsuit, she told herself.

She wanted to take the stairs, but didn’t want to waste the time, so instead she went to the elevator. There were mirrors here, and she stared at herself.
I look good
, she thought.
I look great.
She closed her eyes until she heard the elevator doors open, then entered after glancing up to make sure it was empty.

She was cold. It hadn’t seemed that cold before. The elevator stopped and she swayed, her butt bumping into the rail, which was even colder against bare skin. She took a deep breath as the doors opened.

The lobby was not as busy as it could be, but it wasn’t empty. She couldn’t think now, she just had to do.

She quickly exited the elevator. She barley heard the gasps and cheers, barely noticed people taking out cellphones or stopping dead in their tracks to stare.

She focused on the exit doors, and everything else went black.

Presently, as if no time had passed, she was at one of them, and she pushed the heavy glass thing open.

The air that blasted her stopped her breath. The muscles in her thighs were trembling.

She looked left, across the street. There, that was the bench. She stopped at the edge of the sidewalk, a crosswalk off to one side with a batch of people beginning to cross.

She ignored everyone, and just focused on the bench. It had worked for the doors.

When she felt eyes on her, and noticed disruptions in the normal crossing pattern, and heard people talking in that way crowds do when something unexpected happens, she told herself they were just wondering why she wasn’t crossing with them.

Traffic started moving again, and Abby darted out into it. She expected horns, shouting, but she didn’t hear any. Strange, she was already at the other side. That seemed fast.

Something tapped her hip, and she fell over. She pushed herself up, and almost fell again when she put weight on her right side. She ignored this, located the bench, and headed toward it.

Once there, she sat, then was lying next to it. She looked up to where she thought their hotel room was. She put her arms above her head.

She was sweating, and freezing, when she saw Fe come out of the hotel doors, some amount of time later. That had to have been longer than nine minutes. What had she been doing? That bitch, she killed Ecks.

Abby looked at the bench she was next to, it was empty. Ecks was still alive then. One way or another, he’d be here. Since he wasn’t, then he was alive still, and Fe just needed to move her fat ass over here.

Abby looked back toward the hotel, but her view was blocked by a crowd of people who were gathered around her. What were they doing? When did they get there?

A women was kneeling next to her, trying to pull Abby’s left leg against the right.

Abby shook her head. They had to be apart, as far apart as possible, the muscles fully stretched. Didn’t the women realize this? Didn’t she realize everything had to be exactly the same?

Abby opened her mouth, but only a choked off sound came out. She tried again: “They have to be away,” she began, but whatever else she said or was going to was lost as the ground shook and the hotel she had been in moments ago exploded out into the chilly midday air and a blast wave came crashing in and knocked over everyone around her, and then there was only ringing and red. And then black.

Sirens.

That’s what they were, Abby thought groggily. She wasn’t even fully awake yet, and she could already tell she had a headache. The memory of a dream about being naked in a crowd was fading from her mind, and she wondered who she’d revealed too much information to, to cause such a dream. Maybe Ecks, she thought.

She tried to sweep her hand across the bed next to her, to see if Ecks was still there, but the arm didn’t move. Numb; must be asleep.

She moved her left arm across her body to feel her right. She could feel it, from both ways, feel it with her left, and with her right feel the touch. No, not numb then. Something was preventing her right arm from moving, something at her wrist.

God, that siren sounded like it was right outside.

Outside
, Abby thought, and the word brought with it memory.
I’m outside
. She opened her eyes. They filled with ash and smoke and she rolled over, and under the bench.

Then she screamed at the pain this caused in her hip. It was like she had just rolled through shards of broken glass.

From the safety of the bench cover, she wiped her eyes with her left hand while leaning on her right elbow, then looked around.

A women was lying not far away. Abby stared, not able to determine what it was that seemed odd.

Then she looked away as nausea filled her.

Fe; she needed to get to Fe. Ecks, she remembered. She looked up through the slats of the bench, but Ecks wasn’t there.

She tried to remember how she had gotten stuck to the bench. She looked at her bound right hand. She felt confusion. Hadn’t her hands been together? But now, the right was cuffed to the bench, and the left free.

Maybe she could lift the bench to free herself. A bench Ecks wasn’t on.

Had it been a trick? They tried to kill her, of course it was a trick. She was an idiot for going along with it. She should have listened to Fe, waited for the police. The cops had been listening in, so it wouldn’t have taken long for them to get there.

But, Ecks, maybe they would have killed him if she hadn’t listened. If she had waited for the police. Maybe he was dead anyway. Had she made it down here in time?

The sirens stopped. Through a haze that Abby wasn’t sure was external, she saw the flashing lights of fire engines, men pulling hose from it. This made her wonder how long she had been asleep.

It was hard to see how much damage the hotel had sustained, but at least it was still standing, that much she could see.

She got on her hands and knees, arched her back and pushed up against the bench. It didn’t move. She let out a scream of frustration. She tried again, but a shooting pain in her hip stopped her. She collapsed onto her left side, heaving, despite having barely exerted herself.

The ringing in her ears was subsiding, and she heard voices. It was too cacophonous to make anything out. She looked at the ground in front of her for anything on fire or dangerous looking, got on hands and knees, then carefully picked her way through the debris. Once free, she stood as much as her restraint would allow. The cuff slid up enough on the leg that she was nearly standing fully. She was careful not to put weight on her right side, and she didn’t dare look. She had to avoid going into shock, that’s what she had to do. “Fe!” she screamed. Then again.

Some of the voices stopped, then “Abby! Where are you?”

Oh that beautiful woman, Abby thought, that wonderful person. “The bench! I’m— I’m stuck.”

Abby’s vision was blurry, and so she wasn’t sure if one of the two figures approaching her was Fe until she heard her call out again. “Are you hurt?”

“No. I’m fine. Just stuck.”

They reached her, but the firefighter halted. “What—” he began. Then he shook his head. “Come on, we need to get you out of here.”

“I’m stuck.”

“What do you mean?” Fe asked

“I’m cuffed to the bench.”

“What?” She looked at Abby’s shackled wrist. “How? Were they here?” She shook her head. “Never mind. Later. Shit, do I have my keys?” She dug through one pocket, then the other, pulled out a key ring. “Yes.”

She took Abby’s wrist, then unlocked the cuff.

As Abby stood, she looked at the cuffs, still locked to the bench. “You going to leave them here? Shouldn’t you take them?”

“She’s in shock,” the firefighter said, then wrapped one arm around Abby, and with a sweeping motion, lifted her into both.

Soon she was at an ambulance, where a female medic helped her into the back of it, then looked her over for injury. “Do you have pain anywhere?”

“My hip. No, other side.”

“Laceration, auxiliary abrasions, minor contusions.” She looked at Abby’s face, smiled. “Don’t worry, it’s not bad. Let’s just get it cleaned up a bit.” She covered Abby with a blanket, careful not to cover her hip, then began cleaning the wound, at which point Abby screamed.

Biting her lip, whole body tense, she said, “Morphine would be nice.”

“I’m almost done,” the medic said soothingly.

Suddenly Fe was beside her. “Is she okay?”

The medic replied without stopping. “I can’t see anything life threatening, but she should go to the hospital.”

“Damn right she will, no matter what she wants.”

“What happened?” Abby asked. “Ecks…”

Fe moved the hair away from Abby’s face. “I intend to find out, I just wanted to check on you. I’m going to have an officer stay with you on the way to the hospital, and once you get there. I’ll get there as soon as I can.” She brushed at Abby’s face again. “Don’t do that to me. I thought, when I saw everyone go down, the fire, all I could think was, I’d lost another.”

“I’m fine,” Abby said. “Now go catch some bad guys.”

Abby arrived at the hospital about a half-hour later, due to their initial slow pace to get out of the blast zone.

She was given a gown, then, after an ER surgeon checked her out, was x-rayed with a machine wheeled into the room.

Now, a doctor was leaning in close to the light board, examining the x-ray. “Well, I don’t see any damage. You were hit here.” He pointed. “That might be a hairline fracture, but the femur is tough, so it should be fine. If it starts really hurting, you should come in. You said it hurt to walk on?”

Abby nodded, even though the doctor wasn’t looking at her. She’d been given morphine, or something like it, because she felt great. It was incredibly hard to stay conscious, though.

The doctor turned away from the board, and after seeing Abby, head lulling, said, “I’ll let you get some sleep.”

He left the room, and pulled the curtain shut once outside.

Despite three of the room’s four walls being made of cloth, despite the sounds of emergencies all around her, this trigger was all Abby needed, and she closed her eyes, and was asleep.

“Wow,” the thirteen-year-old says, “that’s really crazy. That fire though,” she frowned. “Wasn’t that, like, I don’t know.”

You don’t remember hearing anything about a building blowing up on the news. You stare at Abby, wondering if she’s making this up. But no, that seems unlikely. Everything else fits, so you probably just haven’t heard about this.

“You know,” the champagne girl says, “I remember seeing a video of you, I think. I mean, it was someone about your build, naked, walking through a hotel lobby.” She’s frowning, as if concentrating hard. “It disappeared fast, and I thought it was just because there was a naked person. But now, I wonder.”

Abby nods her head, laughs, then shakes it. “Yeah. That was, that was something. It’s not easy to get something off the internet. Probably still copies of it out there somewhere.”

The scruffy man scratches his scruff. “I don’t get it. They removed the video because it was embarrassing?”

“No—I mean, it was, yeah—but they removed it because it was evidence in an ongoing investigation.”

“That seems thin,” the man with the suit jacket says. “Hard to get a warrant on just that.”

Abby shrugs.

“So, you’re in the hospital. Any hot doctors? Ooh, that firefighter, the one who carried you naked—God that’s hot—how sexy was he?”

“Very,” Abby deadpans.

This shuts the girl up. She looks dumbfounded. “Oh,” she says lightly.

“I’m kind of lost to how this relates to us,” the long-haired man says. He puts up his hands. “Not like I have anywhere to be, and it’s a great story, but you said it was related, right?”

“Yeah, I’m getting to that. I think you all should know everything though, and I want to see if any of you see the connection on your own. Plus, if I just point it out, you’d probably lose interest and stop paying attention.”

“Well get on with it,” the doctor’s wife says, a slight slur detectable in the edges of her voice.

“Okay,” Abby says, and continues.

When Abby awoke, it was to the gentle prodding of Fe, who had a cup of ice water. Abby unglued her eyes with some help from her fingers, then said, “Hi.”

“Hey. Here.” She moved the water closer.

Abby took it, took a sip, then handed it back.

“That’s all?”

“Not that thirsty.” Abby scooted herself up in the bed, looking around the room. “Ow,” she said as she felt something pull in her right hip.

“Careful, your hip was lacerated to the bone. You’re lucky it wasn’t worse.” She laughed. “Oh my God, when I saw you get hit by that car, and then get up again and keep going…” she trailed off, shaking her head.

“What are you talking about?” Abby asked, now as upright as she dared get. As she fully awoke, her mind began moving fast enough to both listen to Fe and remind Abby of all that had happened.

Fe stared dubiously at her. “They said you didn’t have a concussion.”

“I don’t. I mean, I didn’t hit my head.” She looked down and to the left. “I don’t think.”

“You don’t remember getting hit by that car? The guy was yelling at you, shaking his fist—at least once you got up and walked away. He stood there yelling at you the whole time. He was still there, yelling and pumping his first when I walked out of the hotel—until the blast knocked him over.”