Drop Dead Perfect (An Ellen Harper Psycho-Thriller) (23 page)

Brice’s mind cleared more and he stayed after his captor. Maybe he would make a mistake and try to talk him to death. That gave help a chance to show up. He hoped.

“Talk is cheap, you warped son of a bitch. You’re just another piece of shit that needs to be flushed. And it’ll happen. It always does to guys like you.”

The man jerked Brice from the floor. More pain coursed through his shoulder, and the
colors racing in front of his eyes told him he was going to pass out again. He closed his eyes tight and fought it. There was something inside of him that told him if he went out now he’d never see the light of day again.

The next moment felt like an eternity. He couldn’t remember how many times he’d used that term, or even thought the phrase, but this time it was a living truth. Second by second, he teetered on the edge of blackness. Each time his sheer will brought him back. Finally, he saw more light than dark, and he opened his eyes, only to find himself staring directly into the eyes of his host.

“Glad you came around, detective. I so wanted to show you something, to drive my point home.”

Without another word, he gripped Brice’s chin, holding it firm, and stepped out of his line of vision.
It took a second for his eyes to focus. He wished they hadn’t. What he saw turned his stomach to stone.

On the wall, to his left, hanging from a hook in a row of hooks, was a man dressed in a suit, his face terribly disfigured, the top of his head missing. Obviously shot. Above him was a simple sign that said. “RIP, BROTHER.”

To his right, hanging a few hooks over, was the young woman, Joannie Carmen. Her eyes open, but not seeing, her head resting in an awkward angle, her broken neck unable to support it.

Before he could think another thought, his head was jerked to his right where he saw a young woman, still alive, sitting in an old chair, bound and gagged with duct tape.

“This is your lucky day, Detective Rogers. You’ll be a witness to something special, just before you join her in her final destination.”

CHAPTER-41

“What the hell do you mean he’s not there? He called in a 9-1-1 emergency, and four minutes later, he’s gone?”

Big Harv’s face was getting redder by the second. He knew he needed to keep it together, in light of his little episode earlier, except it just wasn’t that easy. He guessed Ellie came by it naturally.

“I don’t care. Find him. Call the FT lab and see if they can get a GPS fix on his phone.”

“Sir, we have his phone. It was lying on the ground near the front of one of the warehouses. And that’s not all. His coat is a few feet away and . . .”

“Spit it out, Lieutenant.”

“Well, there’s blood on it and in several different areas.”

“Shit,” he whispered.

Big Harv liked Brice. The man was a little cold for his taste, but he was a good cop.

“Do what I said, Lieutenant. Find him. I’m sending more people out, including the FBI’s two teams.”

“Yes sir. We’ll do our best.”

“You’d better do better than that, son. Find him, and I mean now.”

Harv slammed the handset back on the cradle of the new phone and felt it shatter. He barely noticed.

What the hell was going on? Brice calls in that he’s found Joannie Carmen alive and to hurry with help. A few minutes later they weren’t where they should have been, Brice’s phone on the ground, blood on his jacket, and nothing else to go by.

Those circumstances could only mean one thing.

This was getting worse by the second, and he hated how that felt.

As he took the cell from his desk, it rang.

“Dad?”

He still loved to hear Ellie call him that.

“Yes. I was just going to call you.”

“About what?”

“You first.”

“Well, I just wanted you to know we’ve got some good leads from the evidence and video, and we’re following up on them as we speak. I’ll give you the details at the meeting.”

“Great news.”

“Ahh . . . listen. I’m fine, but one of my techs,
Steve Jansen, seemed to be involved. It looks like he killed Oscar to cover up his involvement. Ahh, then he tried to kill me too. Guns were fired, but like I said, I’m fine.”

Big Harv felt his chest dance and then go back to normal.

“What? He was involved? How? And he shot at you . . . in the lab?”

“Yes. He was also messing with evidence. I don’t know everything yet, but I will . . . and Dad, again, I’m fine, but I sort of had to put a couple bullets in him. He’s not dead. I’ll give you more details when we meet. Just know that between
Jansen’s sloppy effort, some of the pictures on the first victim’s phone, and Bella’s analysis of the street video, we’re getting close.”

He found himself stuck on the idea of his baby girl being shot at, but she was right; she could take care of herself, probably better than he could. She was still his daughter and learning
that she had just been used for target practice wasn’t exactly settling.

After exhaling, Big Harv felt his heart flutter again. He set his jaw.

Not now. Just not now.

The troubled ticker seemed to listen. And settled down.

“Dad?”

“Just mulling this over.”

“Really, I’m all right.”

“Okay, Ellie. If you say so.”

“I do. Hey, have you heard from Brice? Because he hasn’t called yet, but I figured maybe he might have contacted you by now.” Her tone surprised him. Not Detective Rogers? Instead it was Brice? He couldn’t recall her calling a detective by his or her first name. There was more. He’d been around people a long time, and he knew concern when he heard it. His daughter, in the very least, was showing some of that concern. Maybe it was because they were all CPD, but he didn’t think so. This might be a little tougher than he’d originally thought.

Exhaling, he steadied himself. “That’s why I was calling.”

“What does that mean?” asked Ellen.

He relayed the story to her.

Silence.

“Ellie?”

“I’m going down there. They’ll need my help.”

“I need you at this meeting in a few minutes.”

“It’ll have to wait. You know where I’ll be.”

The phone went dead. He stared at it and then slowly nodded. Ellie was right. Meetings
could wait. They needed to be at the scene, all of them.

Big Harv made two more calls, took his jacket from the coat rack, and then moved through his office door, heading toward his car, praying they’d find Brice . . . alive.

CHAPTER-42

The door jingle sounded as the twenty-something woman left the store. She’d decided being stalked wasn’t her idea of a good time and thought some personal protection was in order. Kate had just sold her a lightweight Ruger LCP .380.

Once again, Kate felt she’d done her part to protect the people on this planet from evil. And make no mistake, evil was winning the battle, and she didn’t need God’s word to tell her that. You’d have to be a damn fool to not see what was happening to this world, in her estimation. Crooked politicians, crooked doctors, warped preachers, and the biggest sign of it all was the Internet. Purely Satanic. It had to be. Just look what was out there. And folks had no business talking to other people without at least picking up the phone. You call that communication? Email? Whatever. The art of building personal relationships had set sail for a distant shore, for the most part. She sighed. She guessed one middle-aged woman wasn’t going to change the minds of the young people today.

“Maybe they could at least learn to read and write properly,” she said out loud.

“What darling?” asked George as he glanced up from the newspaper.

“Oh, nothin’. Just bemoaning the shape this world is in.”

“Won’t help a bit, ya know.”

“You’re right, but we gotta keep trying. By the way, did Ellie call on the office phone?”

“Nope. Check that cell phone of yours.”

Kate reached into her shirt pocket and stared at the screen. No missed calls and, thank God, no text messages. She hated them, yet a little voice inside her wished there had been one. It
always made her
nervous when she didn’t hear from Ellie. Her friend worked way too many hours. But that wasn’t all. She’d noticed the little bounce in Ellie’s step when that good-looking detective had stopped by to pick her up at her apartment. Nothing like a little girl talk to see where that bobber was floating.

Good God, she wanted that woman to be happy. Ellie deserved it. Good folks like Ellie had something better coming than what she’d endured in her life.

After dialing Ellie’s number, she waited then got a voice message. She quickly dialed the office number and got another voicemail response.

“Okay. That’s enough. I don’t know what in tarnation is going on, but I feel something in these old bones, and I don’t care for it one bit. I’m going down to Ellie’s office and make sure she’s kosher.”

George looked over the top edge of his paper. “Sounds like a good idea. Your hunches are pretty good, mostly. You taking the ladies?”

Working herself around the cash register, Kate kissed George on the lips, patted the holsters under her flannel shirt, and then turned for the door.

“Now, you know I’d never leave Pearl and Mable home. They’re ridin’ shotgun,” she called over her shoulder.

Exiting the store, Kate stopped and lifted her nose to the early afternoon air. It was filled with the scent of lilacs—her favorite. It made her smile, but the smile vanished as she thought about Ellie.

She didn’t know why exactly—why thinking of her good friend would cause her such nervousness. Was Ellie in trouble or was she just being goofy, like George said she could be from time to time?

Kate hurried to her truck just the same. She jumped in, started the engine, let it roar twice, slammed it into gear, and headed for the ME’s office.

Kate hoped she was wrong . . . yet knew she wasn’t.

CHAPTER-43

After banging the top drawer of her desk, Ellen jerked the drawer open near her left knee and found what she was looking for. She grabbed two clips for her Beretta and stuffed one in the back of her jeans, the other in the side pocket of her blue crime-scene jacket.

Her mind was racing.

The fact that Brice was missing hadn’t computed when Big Harv relayed the message, and it didn’t seem any more real now that it had sunk in a bit more. One moment Brice had the girl, the next they both had vanished into thin air. No calls, no texts, not even a damned flare gun for crying out loud. Simply nothing.

Reaching for her crime-scene bag, she stood up and experienced the déjà vu of his lips on her skin, the smell of his aftershave, and wondered what the hell had happened to her in just thirty-six hours. She was doing her job, like always, but it seemed that every moment she wasn’t thinking about the evidence or
Steve or Oscar, there was Brice. His face, his hands, his voice, all bouncing around in her brain like they owned it. She hadn’t felt like this since college when she’d first met Joel.

She shook her head. It was like winning the lottery and then losing the ticket. She wanted the opportunity to see if they would take another step, to see if there could be a “them.” But fate wasn’t helping. Now Brice was missing, maybe even dead.

Dead. The idea was surreal.

“Don’t you do that, Ellen Molly Harper,” she whispered.

The mixture of dread, fear, joy, and excitement invaded her reason. If she would let them, those emotions might drive her crazy or render her absolutely catatonic. Except Ellen wasn’t going to allow it. She exhaled, shifted into the famous investigator gear that all cops possessed to some degree and rushed toward the door, meeting Bella as she turned down the hall.

“Where in hell are you going, Gringa? We got some talking to do.”

“You’ll have to do it on the run. I’ve got to go.”

“Go where?”

Ellen never broke stride. “Don’t you know?”

“Know what?”

“Where’s your cell? There’s an alert message sent by HQ.”

“It’s in the car, the battery went dead. What are you talkin’ about, Harper?”

Stopping, Ellen grabbed Bella’s arm.

“Your partner is missing and you don’t know? Damn, Sanchez. That’s why you keep your phone on you at all times.”

“Wh-what? No one told me. What happened?”

“I don’t have time to explain. Just ride with me to Bridgeport and I’ll tell you. Okay?”

For one of the few times since Ellen had known Detective Sanchez, she did what she was told without commentary.

Ellen rammed through the front door, Bella at her heels, and made a beeline for the portable lab that resembled an emergency response ambulance. It was a little slower than the SUVs, but Ellen thought they might need the extra equipment. Then again, if it had an accelerator, it would have a floorboard. She’d run her foot through it if it got them to where Brice was last seen a second quicker.