Drained (24 page)

I pointed toward the area.

Andrews nodded.

My head swiveled left and right. The house was silent—I heard nothing and saw no movement from anywhere. We went farther in, weapons drawn and ready. I took quick, crouched steps to the kitchen, cleared it, and went back through to Andrews covering me in the living room. We moved from the living room to search the rooms coming off of the hall.

The hallway contained five doors, all open. I quickly cleared the first two, a bathroom and a home office. The following two rooms on the left and right were also empty—both spare bedrooms, one of which looked to be themed for a young boy. We continued to the final door and entered. A large master-bedroom suite spread out to our left and right. The windows on the left of the room faced the driveway, and to our right was a patio area with walk-out doors. We walked through and checked the large closet and master bath—both empty.

“That flight of stairs in the garage probably led down to the basement,” Andrews said.

We worked our way back through the house, still seeing no one.

“One of these doors has to lead down,” I said.

The second door we tried near the kitchen led down a flight of stairs. The lights were on below. Andrews and I took the stairs down, quietly. We rounded the corner to the right—a large game room took up the area, with a pair of pool tables in the center and dartboards against the wall. A bar was to my right and a theater area next to it. The room was empty. We continued through, to a door at the back. Andrews reached for the knob and pushed the door open. We entered a short hallway. To our right was a home gym loaded with fitness equipment but empty of people. A cedar door to our left led to a sauna. We continued to the door at the end of the hall. Andrews opened it to a large dark room. He reached inside along the wall for a light switch. As soon as the lights came on, my eyes immediately shot to the left. In the wide-open storage area, a woman lay in her undergarments upon a silver table near a washbasin—Beth. The cement wall behind her was covered with pieces of paper. Andrews stepped into the room and swung his weapon left and right. The room was empty aside from miscellaneous items in totes, a washer and dryer, and Beth. I holstered my weapon. Andrews and I ran to her.

“Shit,” I said.

Her body looked pale. I noticed bruising around her neck and swelling on the right side of her face. Beth lay with tubes coming from her neck, legs, and arms. Blood was flowing freely from her, through the tubes, to a drain in the floor. I jammed two fingers next to a tube on the right side of her throat. Her skin was cold and clammy. Through my fingertips, I felt a weak pulse.

“She’s still alive. Get paramedics here, now,” I said. “I’m getting these tubes out of her.”

Andrews pulled his phone from his pocket.

I grabbed the two needles and tubes attached at her legs and slid them out, then I went to her arms and then to the tubes along the sides of her neck. The gauge of the needles was large. Blood continued to pour from the entry points of the needles after they were removed.

“I’m not getting any signal,” Andrews said. “I need to get outside and call.”

“Go.”

Andrews jogged to the door on our right. He opened it, walked through, and disappeared. It must have been the one that led up into the garage.

I stuck my fingers over the holes in the sides of her neck, trying to limit the blood loss. My eyes went to the right, where blood was pooling near her legs.

“Shit,” I said. “Hang on, Beth.” I took a hand from the side of her neck and tried shaking her head by the chin. She didn’t respond, and as soon as my hand left the side of her neck, the blood began to flow again. I needed to get something on the wounds. My eyes darted back and forth around the room, and I caught a clear view of the papers and photographs covering the wall. A few of the girls’ faces in the photos looked familiar. My eyes left the wall and continued searching. I spotted a roll of tape on a shelf, and I went to it and tried to peel off a strip. With my bloody hands, I couldn’t get the tape to come free of the roll. I frantically wiped the blood from my hands on my suit and scratched my fingernail against the edge of the tape roll until a piece came up. I ripped it off with my teeth and tried sticking it to her neck—it wouldn’t stay.

“Shit,” I said again. I needed to get the wounds covered or find something to tie around the wounds to limit the blood flow. I set the roll of tape on Beth’s midsection and loosened my tie. I ripped it from my shirt collar and tied it around one of Beth’s legs—something I had done before. “Andrews!” I called.

No response.

I needed another tie—or anything. I looked around, trying to find Beth’s clothes or something to use. I spotted nothing other than the tubes I’d just removed from her.

“Tubes,” I said.

I scooped them up from the ground and began tying them around her other leg and arms. Blood sprayed from the tubes’ ends as I tightened them down. All I needed was something for her neck—fast.

I grabbed the left sleeve of my suit jacket with my right hand. With four hard yanks, it ripped free. I lifted Beth’s head and slipped the sleeve under and around her neck. I circled her neck with the tape roll five or six times until the fabric was tight but not choking her.

“Andrews!” I called again. “What’s up with those paramedics?”

I again received no response.

I took Beth in my arms and carried her from the house the way Andrews had just left. I walked her up the flight of stairs into the garage and carried her around the front of the Jeep, where I stopped dead in my tracks. Andrews lay just outside the garage door on the ground. Blood covered the back of his head and colored the white collar of his shirt red.

I immediately knelt and lay Beth on the ground. Then I pulled my service weapon, stayed crouched, and went to Andrews. I looked around but spotted no one. As soon as my fingers touched his throat to check for a pulse, he came to. He immediately tried to break free from me and patted his hands over his body.

“It’s Rawlings,” I said. “What happened? Where is he?”

“I don’t know. I came out of the garage and got hit with something.” He touched the top back area of his head and then looked at the blood on his hand.

“Stay put. Watch Beth. Did you get off the call to paramedics?”

“No. I don’t know where my phone is.” He searched left to right.

“Do you have your gun?” I asked.

Andrews patted his holster and then looked around. “Under the Jeep,” he said. “It must have flown from my hand.”

I pulled out my cell phone, dialed 9-1-1, and handed the phone to Andrews. “Get them here,” I said.

I stood and looked down the driveway. Both of Bailor’s vehicles were still there. The driveway gate was closed, and our car blocked the outside of the gates. Through the trees, I saw a car coming up the street and figured that to be some of our backup arriving—either local PD or more agents.

“People are coming. I’m going after Bailor,” I said. “You didn’t see which way he went?”

“No,” he said.

I looked around. My options were any direction other than through the front. I jogged to the side of the garage to look toward the back of the house. The grass that wrapped the home turned into woods just fifty feet from the home’s edges. I spotted a trail leading back into the woods. I followed the trail with my eyesight, and something caught my eyes through the tops of the trees and down the hill a bit—a clearing and what looked like an aluminum roof. I ran to the trail, which immediately turned left as soon as it entered the woods. Straight ahead, down the hill, I had a clear visual on the building—a red pole shed with multiple garage doors facing the trail, which was grass and mud under my feet but turned into a gravel service road of some sort at the front of the building and continued on in the other direction. One of the garage doors on the front of the outbuilding lifted before my eyes. I picked up a full run—the building stood just a hundred yards away. My feet thumped the muddy ground, sliding a bit with each footstep.

“FBI! Brett Bailor! Come out with your hands in the air!”

The man looked out from the open garage door—it was definitely Bailor. A gun came up. I dove to the tree line and tried to get low. Bailor fired six shots in succession, all entering the woods around me. Branches snapped, and bark and leaves fell on my shoulders. I jammed a knee down into the mud and brought myself up to a firing position. Bailor spun back into the garage, gone from my gun’s sights. I stood, hugged the tree line along the left side of the trail, and continued advancing, the garage door just thirty yards away. I could see inside the building at an angle. The lights were off, but several vehicles appeared to be stored under covers within.

I heard the sound of an engine firing up, followed by a screech of tires. A black sedan shot from the front of the pole shed, and the rear end of the car slid to the right, throwing gravel into the air. I brought my weapon up and emptied the magazine through the car’s passenger side and back glass. The nose of the car dove to the left and found a three-foot-wide oak tree, dead center. The car’s rear tires rose from the ground upon collision. I heard an explosion from the airbags as the vehicle made impact. I dropped the magazine from my weapon, inserted another, and chambered a round as I ran over. I heard a single gunshot and saw what looked like a muzzle flash from inside the car. Pink colored the white smoke that hung inside the vehicle.

“Shit!” Approaching low and from the side of the car, I could see the man inside.

“Bailor! Out of the car! Hands where I can see them!” I figured it to be a useless command but said it regardless.

I stood outside the passenger door, my gun pointed in. Bailor lay hunched over, against the driver’s door. The car’s airbag, wet with blood, lay half over his face. His eyes were open staring down, unblinking. Blood covered the vehicle’s headliner. I kept my gun pointed in and opened the passenger door. Still, he didn’t move.

“Bailor!” I shouted.

Nothing.

I could see his right hand but not his left. He wasn’t holding a weapon with his right though I saw a gun in the passenger-side footwell. I removed the weapon from the car and took a few steps back. Keeping aim on him as I walked around the front of the car and the tree, which was lodged into it, I stopped upon reaching the driver’s side of the vehicle and holstered my weapon. I could clearly see an exit wound on the top left of Bailor’s head. A sound caught my ear as I stared at Bailor. Local PD were jogging down the trail toward me, weapons drawn.

“I’m Agent Rawlings, FBI,” I said. I held up empty hands toward them.

“You need paramedics down here?” one of the officers shouted.

“No,” I said. “We need them up top for the female agent.”

I walked toward the trio of officers standing on the passenger side of the car.

“They’re with her now,” one of the officers said.

I left the black sedan, Bailor’s body, and the local PD at the pole shed and made my way back up to the house. An ambulance had backed up just outside the garage, its rear doors open, and two patrol cars had pulled into the driveway. I glanced down toward the street. The front gates were open, the car Andrews and I had driven, had been pulled to the far side of the road. I looked into the garage. The Paramedics had Beth on a gurney inside. Two men stood at her sides. I also spotted Andrews leaning against the hood of the Jeep, holding a bloody rag against the top of his head.

I walked inside. “Is she going to be okay?”

The man on the right turned back toward me, and as he moved, I saw Beth staring at me.

“I’ll be fine,” she said.

“You’re awake? And talking?” I asked.

“Looks like it.”

“We need to get fluids in her to replenish the blood loss,” one of the EMTs said. “I take it the sleeve over the wounds on her neck came from you?”

I looked down at my one-sleeved, suit jacket and nodded.

“It helped, without a doubt,” he said.

“Yeah, another few minutes, and we would have been dealing with something else here entirely,” the other EMT said. “If those were what were in her.” He nodded at the tubes I’d used to tie off her arms and legs, lying on the floor of the garage.

I stood at her side. Beth lifted her head a bit, to get a better look at me. “Is that all my blood?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Sorry.”

“I’ll let it slide this time. Next time, you’re getting me a new suit.”

She smirked. “My eye hurts worse than anything, my throat being second.”

“Do you remember what happened?” I asked.

“Yeah. When he came to the car, I just let my phone run, hoping you would be listening in on the conversation.”

“Yeah, Andrews and I heard it the entire time.”

“Well, I was trying to stall him but just kept saying the worst things. I told you I’m not a good talker under pressure, especially since I knew it was him the second I got into the house. When I walked out to the living room, I saw a wine glass and spilled wine on the carpet. I mention it, and he doesn’t respond. Well, as I’m reaching into my blazer pocket for a piece of gum, I hear footsteps pounding behind me. I drop everything, turn toward him, and go for my weapon. He put a fist in my face, sending me over the coffee table before I could get it out. I went for my gun again, but he got to me first and got an arm around my neck. I got my weapon out, but it was too late. He had me in a choke hold. I screamed it was him, hoping you were still listening on the other end of the phone. I woke up on this gurney.”

“Okay,” I said. “You don’t remember being in his basement?”

“No.”

A few feet away, Andrews cleared his throat. “Good. Don’t.”

“I heard one of the officer’s radio say he was dead,” Beth said.

I nodded and gave her the short version. “I had him down in the pole shed. He took off in a car. I fired on it. He crashed and then shot himself.” I put my hand, fashioned like a gun, under my chin and brought my thumb down.

She nodded.

I looked at the EMT. “When are you heading out with her?”

“Now.”