Chapter 30
My first time in an alley. The circumstances could be better, but it’s actually not so bad. Not evil, or even smelly. Just quiet, like an abandoned path that’s poorly lit. The late-afternoon sun is falling fast, the alleyway blanketed in cool shadow. It would almost be peaceful if my nerves weren’t exploding. I glue my shaking fingers to my phone in a death grip as I pull it from my pocket. You will not drop the phone like last time. I pause. Bovano or 9-1-1?
The 9-1-1 people will believe me. They will have to come.
“Eddie,” a voice says softly behind me and I jump out of my skin. A gentle voice. A feminine voice.
“Alisha!” I say in the brightest, most non-freaked-out tone I can muster. “Wow! What a strange coincidence seeing you in an alley! My grandma lives in this building and she lost her cat and I was just calling to tell her that I can’t find Sparkles anywhere!” I motion to the corridor with my open cell phone. “Oh, and have you seen a black and white cat with a striped tail? No? Hmm. Well, I’ll have to put up posters.”
My brain has officially disconnected from my mouth, but I think she’s buying it. I am famous in my family for having the worst poker face in the world; just last month my grandmother took me to the cleaners in a game that cost me ten bucks. Nice little old lady, my foot. I’m hoping Alisha doesn’t play cards.
She hasn’t said a word. I feel the urgent need to infect the silence with more inane chatter:
“All right, well, I guess I’ll be seeing you down at the station. I mean, I guess not, ’cause I got fired and I don’t work there anymore and I have nothing to do with police business. But maybe I’ll see you at another art show.” A strange, nervous twitter escapes my mouth. Time to go, Edmund.
Alisha blinks those big green eyes at me, like she’s not computing what’s going on here. I seize the opportunity. “I’ve got to get back to my grandma’s. Great to see you, Alisha.” I turn to go. Ten paces to daylight and safety. I’m almost there.
The sound of a gun clicks and I freeze mid step.
“Eddie,” she says in a quiet voice. “I don’t believe you.”
I hate poker. And chess, too, come to think of it.
She whips me around to face her nice, shiny gun. “I’ll take that,” she says, ripping the phone from my hands. I let her have it without a struggle, cringing away from the weapon.
She lowers the pistol slightly, eyes flitting around the cramped space as if Bovano’s going to jump out from the shadows any second now.
Nope, it’s just me.
Her shoulders relax, along with her pistol-packing arm. “Don’t worry, Ed. I like you. But you will seriously ruin my day if you interfere. So I’m going to tie you up. Now be a good boy and come here. Don’t test me, Eddie. I will hurt you if I have to.”
A moment of brilliance enters my mind before terror snuffs out any other coherent thoughts. Turn on your IPODICU, Edmund. I manage to flip it on inside my pocket before she drags me away. She’s freakishly strong, but I don’t put up a fight. She does have a gun, after all.
Pulling me back even farther into the alley, she calmly pulls out a roll of duct tape. Of course. Probably number two in the bad-guy survival kit. The first on the list would be a gun. Maybe a ski mask for number three. I wonder if this was what Jonah had in mind when he brought duct tape on our recon missions.
“Give me your arms,” she demands. I hold my hands out in front of me and she winds the tape around and around my wrists, then anchors me to a section of drainpipe. I’m glad I have on a long-sleeved shirt, because this tape would take off several layers of skin otherwise.
The metal supports on the pipe are nailed into the brick wall, making it impossible for me to slide my arms down and off the end of the pipe. I’m stuck in a standing position, my wrists and the drainpipe connected in a tangle of gray sticky bonds.
She likes you . . . She said she likes you. She won’t hurt you.
I watch her while she’s laboring away, really stare at her to try to see what’s going on in her mind. Does she have it in her to kill me? She’s sweating, her forehead creased in determination to glue me to the pipe. A strand of brown hair falls into her eyes; she flicks it away impatiently. If it weren’t for those green eyes, she’d be a bit on the mousy side. Vanilla. Librarian. But the librarians always get you in the end, don’t they . . .
She stops taping me and steps back, surveying her handiwork. I’m not going anywhere. She ponders me for a moment. “How’d you figure it out?” she asks.
“Chess moves,” I reply, trying not to let my voice shake.
“Hm . . . clever boy. And does Bovano know about our little chess game?”
I hesitate, which is not good because that just makes it look like I’m lying. I go for broke:
“Yes, but he doesn’t believe me. And I won’t tell anyone anything, Alisha. Please, if you just let me go . . .” Dread seizes me. Alone and left for dead in an alley? All sorts of horrible images flash though my mind: drug dealers, gang members, rats gnawing at my eyeballs, cats . . . Oh, no, cats! Angry alley cats bent on revenge after the Taser incident!
Her gaze rakes over me, the emerald in her eyes a cold laser beam. Then she leans in. I flinch. She rips off one more piece from the roll and tapes my mouth. I hyperventilate, tugging at my wrist bonds while gasping through my nose. I’m glad I don’t have Jonah’s sinus infection, because I’d either be covered in snot or plain dead from not being able to breathe.
I can feel tears building. Alisha pats my face and makes shooshing noises like I’m a toddler. She’s just making it worse. I try to pull away but she traps my face between her hands and plucks off my glasses. “There,” she says, placing them on the ground out of my reach. “Now you can’t be a material witness.”
I blink and squint, but the alley is a blur of black and brown. I’m blind as a bat, completely helpless.
“I suppose you want to know why I did it,” she whispers.
I shake my head hard. I want no part of her alleyway confession. No information whatsoever. People with information Die.
She ignores my flailing. “I was always a good cop, always saying no while others said yes to the bribes. I looked the other way while everyone got richer around me. Except for your Bovano, of course. He’d never take a bribe. Not Frank Angelic Bovano.” She says his name scornfully. It seems I’m not the only one on the outs with the detective.
I am trying to block my ears by squinching my eyes closed. Obviously, not working.
She drones on, amusing herself with her little speech about how she fell in love with Lars and the world of art and all the money she can make off this deal. It’s like I’m in a cheesy police movie. Except this movie might jump off the screen and shoot me.
“It was Lars’s idea for the chess moves,” she says, tapping a finger to her chin. “He’s so obsessed with playing games. You have no idea what it’s like to be around someone so focused, so fixated on one particular thing.”
I think of Jonah and his military obsession. Lady, you have no idea.
She sighs. “So you see, Eddie, it was all for love.” She leans in closer, setting off a rash of goose bumps on my neck. “Love of money, that is.” She chuckles. I fail to see the humor.
“I have business to attend to,” she announces as if we’re at a board meeting or out to coffee. “I’ll be back to check on you. And if you’re good, maybe I’ll let you live.” She tugs on my bonds to see if they’ll hold, and leaves.
Massive panic attack.
I spaz out and yank on the duct tape, back and forth, back and forth, trying to rip the drainpipe away from the wall. After several pathetic attempts, I stop. The only thing I’m accomplishing is giving myself sore arms and a headache. I calm my breathing, assessing the situation:
I am taped to a drainpipe in an alley by a cop-turned-criminal. I can’t see farther than my hand in front of me. Yep, that’s about all I can handle assessment-wise right now. The other stuff is entirely too scary to even contemplate.
Jonah would be disappointed. He’d expect me to come up with some kind of brilliant Houdini maneuver, like cutting my bonds with a paper clip or enticing an alley rat with some spare peanut butter to chew through the tape.
Did Bovano get my phone call? Did he have his IPODICU receiver turned on? Does it even work if he’s not close by? Probably not. You know things are bad when you pray that Detective Bovano will come rescue you, knowing full well that he will strangle you afterward for breaking every Bovano Rule in the book.
The logical side of my brain kicks in. You’re in a nice neighborhood, Edmund. No one’s going to hurt you. There are no rats, no drug dealers. Just sweet little old ladies who have a lot of money, lethal purses, and expensive Picassos. Someone will find you on their way out to do errands. Or Alisha will make good on her promise and come check on you. She’ll see that you’re cooperating and will decide to let you go. Now settle down, think, and live through the next hour.
I calm down. Time passes slowly. My arms fall asleep and my legs are twitching from standing in the same spot. I actually start to get a little bored.
Bang!
A clattering noise sends my heart rate through the roof. I twist my head from side to side but all I see are dark, blurry shadows.
Clank, bang!
Squinting my useless eyes, I am desperate to find the source of the sound. The noise comes closer with a soft shuffle. It’s definitely human footsteps. I pray it’s not Lars. I don’t think he’s a very stable individual.
The person is right next to me.
Close enough for even me to see.
I blink. There, with an unusually concerned expression on his face, stands Detective Frank Bovano.