Turn Up the Heat (23 page)

I felt around on the floor of the truck in search of my purse, which held my cell phone. Dammit! I’d left my purse in Josh’s office! I continued exploring the floor. Somewhere in this truck there had to be something I could use in my own defense. My hands encountered what I easily identified as four tubs of ice and seafood: clams and fish. Ice and seafood were the last things I needed; even without the ice, the refrigerated truck would’ve been freezing cold, and the air reeked of fish. The metal dolly was heavy. It had already bruised me. I also found a long piece of metal, a rod of some sort with a curve at the end. I knew what it was! A long hook that Owen used to reach into the truck, hook the sides of the tubs, and pull them close to the edge of the back opening. The hook meant that Owen didn’t have to climb into the truck and push all the tubs around; he could hook and drag them instead. This seafood hook helped Owen. Maybe it could help me.

Shit, it smelled in here. I did my best to breathe through my mouth. On top of being abducted, I didn’t need to be sickened by the stench of pounds and pounds of fish. How long could I tolerate the foul air without doubling over? How long had we been on the highway? Five minutes? Ten? At least I had a weapon now. Two weapons: the hook and the dolly. Being armed gave me the beginnings of a sense of confidence. Kevin, I realized, had acted impulsively when he’d tossed me into the truck; he couldn’t have planned ahead, and whatever plan he had now wasn’t one he’d thought out. Someone was bound to look for me. And for Kevin, too. We’d abruptly vanished. We were going to be missed, right? And if Adrianna ever quit screaming at Owen, he was going to see that his truck had been stolen.

I was moving on from straight fear to fury. How dare Kevin do this to me! What was he, after all? A vain, aging bartender with weird facial hair and an embarrassing anatomical oddity, that’s what he was. I felt ashamed of my doubts about Owen’s character. I should never have suspected him of any romantic, not to mention murderous, involvement with Leandra. The dangerous one was Kevin. But my rage made me even more dangerous than he was, I told myself. I was not going to let Kevin hurt me!

Kevin would have to stop this truck sometime. When he did, I would act. I searched for the heavy metal dolly, found the handle, and rolled the dolly so that it faced the door. When Kevin opened the back, I was going slam this metal hunk on wheels into him and knock him to the ground, bash him over the head with the metal rod, and run like crazy. I sat with my hands on the dolly and waited.

The truck began to slow down. It took a curve. We must be exiting the Mass Pike. After only a few minutes of slow driving and turning, the truck came to a halt. When I heard the driver’s door slam, I readied myself to smash Kevin onto the ground. The fear that had transformed itself into fury had now become an ardent desire for revenge:
Come on, you bastard! Come on! Open the door!
Enraged, I was more than ready to kick some serious ass, but I forced myself to keep focused. With luck, Kevin envisioned me cowering in terror in a corner of the icy, stinky truck.

Minute after minute ticked by, and the door didn’t open. Eventually, I loosened my grip on the dolly. Kevin, I realized, had left me here. Damn! What an anticlimax! How long was he going to be gone? And where had he gone? What if he had gone to get a gun? If so, I wouldn’t stand much chance of overpowering him with the dolly and the metal hook. Listening hard, I waited a few more minutes but heard nothing. Once I felt sure that Kevin had left the area, wherever the area was, I started kicking the door and yelling again. To maximize the noise, I banged the door with the metal hook. I screamed until my throat hurt. No one came to my rescue.

Slowly, my adrenaline rush decreased as I accepted that I was alone. Except for the dead fish, of course. At least I wouldn’t die of starvation; I could always eat some raw haddock or smash open clam shells with the metal rod. And I could suck on fishy ice cubes to prevent dehydration, if I didn’t freeze to death first. A slight, almost imperceptible, gap along the edge of the sliding door was letting in air; I wouldn’t suffocate. Starvation, dehydration, suffocation: three ways in which I
wasn’t
going to die. I was not reassured.

Kevin must have returned to Simmer with some excuse for his absence. He would have to come back for me. But why hadn’t he tied me up before leaving? Or killed me? More importantly, why had he kidnapped
me
at all? Why me? What did I know that could implicate him in Leandra’s murder? I reviewed the knowledge I had about Kevin. His only alibi for the night of Leandra’s death was based on Wade’s word that the two had been together and had closed up the restaurant. According to Josh, however, Wade was untrustworthy. So there went that alibi. I knew that Kevin had Simmer’s keys and alarm code. I’d made the disillusioning discovery that everyone at Simmer was stealing. Therefore, Kevin was stealing. But my theory that Leandra had been on the verge of ratting someone out for stealing didn’t hold. If everyone was light-fingered, then Leandra was, too. Besides, Josh had said that stealing was par for the course. Josh had also insisted that restaurant people just didn’t report their coworkers for thievery. And Josh knew everything about restaurants.

I pulled my legs in close to me to fight the cold, but the shivering didn’t stop. The refrigeration unit ran only when the truck was turned on, but it was still very cold in here.
Think! Think! Why would Kevin kill Leandra?
I knew so little about Kevin! What else did I know? He had slept with a friend of Blythe’s. He was infatuated with Penelope. Then there was the unsolicited information that Blythe had passed along about his unusual body feature. Yes! What if Leandra had known about that, too? She liked digging at people and hurting their feelings. Look at how she’d treated Blythe and Isabelle! She’d ridiculed Blythe about being flat-chested. Had she teased Kevin? Or threatened to tell Penelope? Something must have happened between Kevin and Leandra last Tuesday night. But what did that unknown something have to do with my present predicament? Why had Kevin suddenly decided to abduct me? Why today?

Shortly before he’d lured me to the alley, he’d seen Blythe and me talking in the kitchen. We’d been giggling. The expressions on our faces had probably made him guess what Blythe was telling me. He had also seen me with Naomi, Eliot, and Penelope. He’d even seen Naomi hug me. Penelope had been at the same table. He could easily have assumed that I was friendly with her, too. One conversation with Penelope, and I might blow any chance he had with her. If that was the case, Blythe was in terrible danger, too.

I yanked on the door, but the lock held. The narrow gaps on either side of the door were too small for the metal hook; I couldn’t even try to use the rod as a lever. I grabbed the dolly again, mainly to remind myself that I had a weapon and a plan. Yes, I was increasingly chilled, in fact, shaking, but I was not actually going to freeze to death. Was I? I could be here for hours, I realized. I absolutely could not panic! I just had to wait to put my plan into action.

I tried to distract myself with thoughts unrelated to fish, dead people, or funny-shaped body parts. I thought about my DSM test and ran through symptoms in my head. How stupid I had been to stick Owen with a demeaning and wildly incorrect diagnosis! I made lists of baby names for Ade and Owen, thought about Josh’s new menu, and reminded myself to tell him to add another cold summer soup. I made mental notes on ways to eradicate sexism in the culinary industry and then quizzed myself on
24
trivia.
What was the name of Jack’s covert operation in Belgrade? Operation Nightfall!
I couldn’t honestly give myself credit for my answers, since I was the one formulating the questions. I ran through song lyrics until I had Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al” stuck in my head. That wouldn’t do! It was no kind of attack song. So, to boost my fighting spirit, I made myself hum the theme for
The Sopranos
. Not that I expected music to blare when the time came to defend myself against Kevin—and I wasn’t going to burst into song—but better to think about waking up and getting myself a gun than to ponder the possibility of ending up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard.

I did such a fine job of distracting myself that I was violently startled when the truck door suddenly began to rise. Fortunately, I managed to maintain my grip on the dolly. Rising to my feet, I kept my knees bent and stayed low. Filtered sunlight burst into the back of the truck and temporarily blinded me. I blinked my eyes rapidly and waited until the door was two-thirds of the way up. When I could see Kevin’s waist and torso, I lunged forward and smashed the dolly straight into my kidnapper. Kevin stumbled back but quickly regained his footing and then, to my horror, grabbed the dolly with one hand. Terror-stricken, I yanked back. I wasn’t strong enough to shake his hand off the dolly, but his continued grip worked to my advantage: to maintain his hold on the dolly, Kevin had to bend at the waist and lean forward. I put all my strength into one mighty thrust and slammed the heavy dolly right into his head.

“You bitch!” He fell to the ground and moaned.

Bitch.
For once, I loved the sound of the word. But I had no time to savor it. In using one weapon, the dolly, I had lost track of the other. After fumbling around, I found Owen’s metal hook and then leapt out of the back of the truck. For no good reason, I had assumed that the truck was outdoors. In fact, I found myself inside a small garage. Light filtered through its dirty windows. Kevin lay on his back on the oily cement floor. I raised the metal rod. My plan was to hit him where I’d do the most damage. As it turned out, however, I just didn’t have it in me to play it safe by delivering a blow to his head. In spite of everything, I did not want to risk killing him. But I did need to hurt him. I absolutely had to disable him. I smashed the rod down onto his legs. I did it three times.

Pain made Kevin roll onto his side and curl up. When he did, I spotted his cell phone, which was sticking out of his pocket. He lay between the truck’s back tires and the garage door. With no room to maneuver, I was reluctant to get close to him, but I wanted that phone so desperately that I forced myself to reach down to grab it with my left hand. As I did, Kevin snatched my wrist. He had left me no choice. The metal hook was still in my right hand. I drove the curved end of the rod hard into his gut.

With Kevin immobilized, I made my escape through a side door of the garage. With the phone in my left hand, the heavy metal hook in my right, I started running and didn’t stop. To my surprise, I was in a residential neighborhood. Once again, my assumption had been wrong; I’d senselessly imagined a rural spot. The truck hadn’t covered enough miles to reach one; there were no rural areas within easy driving distance of Newbury Street. In any case, the neighborhood was one I didn’t recognize. Somewhere in Brighton, maybe? Not in my own area. Possibly near Oak Square?

I flipped open Kevin’s cell phone, paused to dial 911, and picked up speed again. As I jogged down a steep hill lined with almost identical three-decker houses, I sobbed information to the 911 operator. I stayed on the phone and read off street signs as I passed them. I kept looking behind me to see whether Kevin was in pursuit, but the streets were empty. Out of breath, I slowed my pace to a fast walk and kept moving until a siren sounded, lights flashed, and a police cruiser pulled up beside me. I climbed into the car. I was safe.

After I’d assured the officer that I was uninjured, he wanted me to show him where I’d left Kevin. Somehow, I was able to help him retrace the path I’d taken. “There! That’s the door I came out of!” The officer radioed in the address. Within what felt like seconds, three more police cars appeared and screeched to a halt in front of the garage.

“Wait here!” My savior jumped out of the vehicle and joined his fellow officers while I waited to see Kevin appear in handcuffs.

An ambulance arrived. The officer who had picked me up returned to the cruiser. I rolled down the window. “He’s not there? He got away?” I cried in frustration.

The officer smiled. “No. He’s there. But he can’t walk. You got him pretty good. We had to call an ambulance for him.”

The police eventually drove me to Simmer. All I wanted was to be with Josh, the only person who could make me feel truly safe. On the way, I detailed what Kevin had done to me and explained that he was the person who had murdered Leandra. Explaining his motive was awkward, of course. I used the phrase
disfigured manhood
.

Two cruisers were outside Simmer, and Josh stood out front with a policewoman. He had both hands on his head and was talking quickly. When he saw me step out of the car, he dropped his hands, rushed to me, and engulfed me a tight, protective hug. “Oh, baby! Thank God you’re okay! That bastard!”

I sobbed in Josh’s arms and looked up only when I began to stop shaking. “I’m fine, Josh. I’m going to be fine.”

NINETEEN

BY
Friday afternoon I had not only survived Kevin’s abduction but had made it through finals. After misdiagnosing Owen, I mistrusted my judgment while I was taking the DSM exam. I think I did well, but I probably didn’t ace it. Josh had stayed over every night and was feeding me constantly. I’d probably gained five pounds a day.

I was seated with Adrianna and Owen inside Simmer. The weather was cool this afternoon, so we’d forgone the patio in favor of a table in the dining room. Officially, the restaurant was between lunch and dinner service, but Josh had filled our table with plates of food. His latest creation was running as a special: a phenomenal spaghetti and lobster with a fantastic green and red tomato sauce, flavored with saffron, ginger, and fennel, and then topped with fresh basil. Nothing made for more perfect comfort food than a steaming bowl of pasta, and this one was outstanding. I breathed in the aroma and sighed before twirling my fork in the spaghetti and scooping up a generous bite of lobster meat.

“Let me see your ring again,” I said to Adrianna. She proudly held out her hand to show a beautifully simple silver ring with a pale olive stone.