Drop Dead Perfect (An Ellen Harper Psycho-Thriller) (8 page)

CHAPTER-12

Her body jerked as consciousness returned. She waited another minute for the rest of the fog to clear, then Joannie Carmen raised her head and began to open her eyes. Except she couldn’t.

What the hell?

She tried again, then again. She gave each attempt the same determined effort she’d carried throughout her life, yet it did absolutely no good. She simply couldn’t open her eyes. Her frustration began to build, but her eyes remained sealed shut. And that wasn’t all.

She couldn’t move.

She attempted to scream for help. After two tries, more stark realization kissed her on the forehead. Her mouth was taped shut. It appeared that was also the reason she couldn’t open her eyes. Although, oddly enough, she really didn’t feel the tape sticking across her eyes. A blindfold?

The first pained fragments of panic and uncertainty entered her mind. She fought it. Her training as an ER nurse reminded her that panic accomplished nothing and only made things worse.

Maybe she was entrenched in one of those dreams where she couldn’t move her body or even open her eyes. Maybe it wasn’t really tape on her mouth or a blindfold over her eyes. She remembered those striking dreams she’d experienced as a child. They’d scared the hell out of her. Slowing her breathing, she concentrated on the things around her.

She sensed she was sitting in a fairly padded chair
—actually bound to it, her lower arms, her shins, her midsection. Again, at least that’s how it seemed.

The temperature in the room was comfortable, although the odor of her environment was somewhat musty. Just like the chilling cellar at her grandmother’s ancient Victorian home back in Michigan. This had to be a dream.

After going through a few of those paralyzing dreams, she’d discovered a way to awaken from them. She hated doing what came next, but it had worked as a kid.

Curling her lip under her upper teeth, she bit hard. The pain was intense, and she felt the copper taste of blood almost immediately. Mission accomplished. Yet, she was still unable to move, and her senses hadn’t been renewed like when she awoke from those dreams.

Her heart dropped.

That should have done it. She should have sat up in bed, clutching her bleeding lip. The nightmare should have been over. Except it wasn’t one of those hellish nightmares at all.

Joannie was a prisoner. Captured.

The connotation was unfathomable. She was unable to do what she’d been able to do her entire life−come and go as she pleased. How could this be happening? One minute she’d been having coffee, then heading to dinner with the hottest man in Chicago, only to awaken blind, bound, and despite all of her effort . . . afraid. Very much afraid.

And where was Kyle? She’d felt safe with him. Was this some kind of sick joke? Only she knew it wasn’t. They had been kidnapped.

Kidnapped.

The word stuck in her head and refused to relent. Anxiety wrapped its arms around her and whispered that she was right.

Why? She had no enemies, no axes to grind with anyone. Who would do this? It didn’t
add up.

Her thoughts switched inexplicably to a news story she’d seen about a young woman who had been missing for two days after last being seen at a coffee shop off Michigan Avenue.

The sudden feeling of dread threatened to overwhelm her. It didn’t take a genius to put things together. Joannie Carmen was missing.

Somehow, that thought brought her fully alert. She felt the rope
’s texture against various parts of her skin and felt panic take over.

In a fit of pure alarm and terror, she violently worked against
her binds, trying to rock the chair in the same motion. She had to get loose before the horrible claustrophobic perception drove her insane. More than that, she feared the reasons she’d been tied to a chair like this. She’d read more than a few books and watched many a true-crime show. This never ended well.

That thought renewed her determination, but she might as well have been trying to dead lift an elephant. Three minutes later, she stopped struggling, almost exhausted, and felt perspiration trickle down both sides of her face.

Whoever had done this knew exactly how to do it right, including somehow securing the chair to the floor. It hadn’t wiggled during her onslaught.

Doing her best to calm down again, she decided to concentrate on what she could hear. She listened, but could only hear her heartbeat running crazy in her head. It was so hard to focus on anything else, but she had to know if there was someone nearby. She was praying not to be
alone
. The word itself brought on another wave of alarm.

Don’t go there, Joannie. Don’t go there.

It took ten more minutes, and her best effort, to focus away from the terrible, but she did. Maybe she wasn’t alone. Maybe Kyle was sitting right beside her. She had to find out.

Slowly, the beat of her heart pounding in her ears diminished, allowing her to actually hear.

At first, there was nothing. Only her breathing. No ambient sounds like traffic on a busy Chicago street or the muffled echoes of people talking.

Then she heard it. Music. Faint, soft, soothing, and she recognized it immediately. It was the theme from
Somewhere in Time
by Rachmaninoff. She’d first heard it watching the movie as a teenager and had been mesmerized to the point she’d harassed her dad into letting her take piano lessons just so she could learn to play it. And she had.

Hearing it here, when she was like this, brought her back to a state of confusion. How could anything so beautiful
be a part of such an awful situation?

For a moment, she didn’t care. She simply lost herself in the music. Like a thousand times before. Comfort was just that, under any circumstance. This music helped her.

After a minute, the song began again . . . and she remembered everything. The effect of the music seemed to be mind-clearing. Kyle wouldn’t be sitting beside her. She knew that now. Her world had gone dark after he’d handed her a bottle of water on the way to the restaurant. He was the reason she was here.

Joannie would have indulged in another round of self-abhorrence at being so trusting and gullible, but another sound, less subtle but still subdued, brought her to full attention.

Someone, a woman, was sobbing. Not in the same room as her, she suspected, but very close. Her heart soared with the thought that she wasn’t alone. Deep down, she’d begun to wonder if she’d ever hear another human voice again. But her elation departed as soon as it had appeared. The woman was in totally misery. Perhaps close to hysteria. She understood, at least on some level, what the woman was feeling. It was impossible not to go there. Was that to be her destiny?

The music, and the sobbing, abruptly stopped. She heard a man’s voice, then more silence.

Her pulse rate rose quickly.

She wondered again if she was next and what “next” might entail. Joannie didn’t have to wait long for the answer. A door opened to her right. The panic that she’d managed to hold at bay coursed over her without resistance. She renewed her effort to escape the chair, releasing all reason. She had to get out, to get away. Now.

Strong hands gripped her bare shoulders and forced her to stop her struggle. Odd. She hadn’t realized that her shoulders were uncovered. She did a quick inventory and realized that she was only partially clothed. More anxiety.

Trying again, she made an effort to move against the bindings and the powerful hands holding her tightly. It was useless.

“Joannie. My dear Joannie. Don’t struggle so. I’ll take care of you as I promised.”

The soft, reassuring voice spoke next to her ear. She stopped.

Kyle?

“You’ll only be like this for a time. Just until you calm down. Then we’ll talk. You’re so beautiful, and I want to spend my life with you. I’d never hurt you. But I have to make sure you’re ready.”

The needle entering her arm made her jump, and she tried to cry out. The gentle kiss on her forehead made her jump more. But that wasn’t all.

Just before the darkness enveloped her, she thought about the smooth, comforting voice that sounded like Kyle Black’s. At first.

But it wasn’t her perfect man.

It belonged to another.

CHAPTER-13

“Come on
, Brice; kick this thing in the ass.”

She didn’t try to mask the anxiety in her voice. The unknown involving Oscar was driving her crazy.

Keeping his eyes on the road, he nodded, then stomped the accelerator.

Ellen felt the cruiser surge forward as he flipped on the siren and lights. She wrung her hands.

Could there be a worse feeling in the entire world than to think someone you care for may be in danger, or worse?

When her stress level rose like this, anger wasn’t part of the program. Angst ruled the nest. Anytime she was remotely close to a situation that mirrored her mother’s death, her heart rose to her throat and a sense of dread threatened to steal her remaining sanity. It had been five years, but no one forgets
the news that your mother was dead, and how it happened. Ever.

Brice whipped around one car
, honked at an old pickup, and then pressed the accelerator even harder. He was doing his best to get them there; she had to do her best to keep it together. Gritting her teeth, Ellen pushed away any thoughts of Oscar being hurt, or worse, and concentrated on what to do when they got there.

“We have no idea what ‘shots fired’
really means, right? I mean, it could be anything, right?” she asked, searching for some logic that would ground her.

“Not always. On this end of town at this time of night, it could be a drunk, a gang hassle, or something else. Who knows? In this business, I keep seeing the unexpected just after I think
I’ve seen it all,” said Brice.

She glanced at him. Despite the situation, it was difficult not to notice the change in his demeanor. His voice had been mostly friendly earlier in the day and for most of the evening. She’d say, at least a moment or two, more than friendly. But now his tone had
devolved, and he was all business, cold even. She now understood why he’d gotten a reputation of no-nonsense from his peers. Or at least a glimpse of why. It seemed that Detective Brice Rogers, Superman, had a side that was not as pleasant to be near. But then again, who didn’t?

As if he felt her gaze, he looked at her then averted his eyes back to the street.

“What’s on your mind, FT Harper?”

She cocked her head. There it was again, that Arctic voice.
She’d gone from Ellie to FT Harper in the time it had taken to receive the call. His face was expressionless, almost devoid of emotion entirely. Cops had their coping mechanisms, their “thing,” and she wondered if this cold, efficient cop mode was Brice’s way of dealing with the hell this job sometimes brought. She understood about doing what it took to make it through the day, and God knew, the night. She got that. Maybe Miss Rage wouldn’t pop up so often if she would spend a little more time practicing some coping mechanisms of her own, keeping her emotions a little tighter to the vest.

Still, she wondered about what haunted Superman. What chased him to the icy persona he was
so famous for? What gave him nightmares that made sleeping a distant desire?

“Oscar’s on my mind,” said Ellen, shifting in her seat. “And I’m wondering what to do when we get there. It’s been a while since I’ve been a part of one of these mad dashes to a live crime scene. And never one involving my partner.”

“It depends on the situation. Follow my lead. And, unless I miss my guess, you’ll not have a problem figuring it out. You don’t seem like the−”

Brice stopped speaking as they made the curve past East 57
and slowed. It only took a glance to see why. Her heart dropped to her stomach. The SUV sat under the amber light. Then it turned green. Yet the SUV held its position. It reminded her of an abandoned ship, listless, unmoving in a calm sea. It was unreal. On top of that, they were on the vehicle’s right, and the driver’s window was angled away from them so she couldn’t see the driver’s side or Oscar. Odd. Why wasn’t the SUV pointed straight through the intersection? Lord in Heaven, she hated how this felt.

Brice hit the brake, stopping completely about seventy-five feet from the vehicle. The cruiser had barely stopped rolling before she was out of the car.

“Ellie! Wait, you don’t know—”

“And I don’t care. He needs us,” she yelled back as she sprinted toward the vehicle, drawing her Berretta. She noticed three gawkers on the curb and one standing on the opposite side of Lake Shore. She ignored them. If they’d been a threat, she would have been shot at, or worse, already. A moment later, Brice pulled up beside her, grabbed her arm, and nearly lifted her off the ground, stopping her in her tracks, some twenty feet from the vehicle.
Fast
and
strong
only began to cover the detective’s actions.
Surprise
barely covered hers.

He pulled her close to his face. He wasn’t smiling.