I would never get used to putting people in danger. Not Gina, not the young people from the community center. No matter how many times it happened, it would always shake me. The feeling of being a walking danger clung to me even the next day. Rain pounded my office window, and the radiators groaned in frustration as they tried to heat the old building. The whole structure of the building seemed to be complaining about the weather, and the case.
And my phone would not stop ringing. The same number had been calling all day, over and over again, just to hang up. When it rang again, I answered it fast. “This is Maura.”
“Maura.” The voice was a little high pitched, but definitely male. He drew out my name like nails down a chalkboard.
“May I ask who’s calling?” I gave the creepster the benefit of my most detective-like voice, low and mysterious.
“It’s your friend, and I am such a good friend.”
I had few friends lately, but I was positive that this guy was not one of them. “What do you need?” I kept my tones dramatic, though an unwelcome shiver traced my spine.
“I think I made you happy.”
“Tell me more.” I added a slightly seductive tone, but I was on the edge of my seat, ready to bolt. For all I knew, this guy was on the other side of my office door.
“We’re so close, and you can watch, if you want.” Now he was breathing heavy. Disgusting.
“Where are you?”
“In your basement.”
I leapt to my feet. That was too close, I didn’t have time to get the police here.
“Come down and see us, please.”
“Of course. Who is with you?”
“It’s a surprise.”
“You’re in my office basement?”
“Please come.” He hung up.
I felt dirty, but I had to get down there. Who knew who this guy had with him, and why he thought it would make me happy.
I grabbed my gun and called the police. I briefly described the situation, said I thought someone might be in danger, and asked for back up. Then, I went downstairs.
Ethan, the handsome, cheerful super was in the reception area, doing something on the front desk computer. “Ethan…” I whispered.
“What’s up?” His cheerful grin met me.
I shook my head and put my finger to my lips. “How long have you been at the desk?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
“Who came in during that time?”
“An older couple. They took the elevator.”
“How much older?”
“What’s going on?” Ethan came around the desk. “You look intense. Did something happen?”
I was stalling for the police, and I knew it, but I didn’t have forever. For all I knew creepy caller was planning to kill someone.
“I don’t know exactly, but I need to know everyone you have seen come through.”
“Just the one couple. They were in their eighties, I’d say.”
I wracked my brain but couldn’t remember an elderly man who would kill for me.
“When was the last time you were in the basement?”
“This morning, around eight. Seriously Maura, what’s going on?” His grin was gone, and he looked concerned. And manly.
I had never thought of him as manly before. I considered bringing him downstairs with me. “I got a call that has me on edge. The police should be here any minute. Direct them to the basement for me.” I ignored the idea of bringing him with me. No need to drag a nice guy like him into my danger. I took the long hall to the basement door slowly, each step a hope the cops were right behind me.
The basement was a labyrinth of old duct work, old furnaces, old furniture, and anything the owner had wanted to abandon through the years.
I didn’t flick on the light switch but picked my way down the cellar stairs in the dark, listening for signs of a struggle. The window wells let in a grim, gray kind of light that was barely better than the shadows. I stopped at the bottom of the stairs to give my eyes a chance to adjust.
Between the mechanical noises and the groaning of the ancient plumbing, the basement was a noisy place. My hand was on the butt of my baby, gripping it, ready to defend whoever was in danger. I stepped into the center of the room, near a decommissioned boiler and scanned the place for my creep. My heart was racing. I had to slow myself down to maintain my focus. Panic and a gun were a bad combination.
“Hello?” Whispers carry well, so I went with that. No need to make the creepy caller jumpy.
“Maura?” His voice came back in a whisper, too.
“Where are you?”
He giggled. “You didn’t forget.”
“Of course not, where are you?”
“Come around here and see who I have for you! You are going to be so happy. Come behind the stairs.”
I shivered. He had been right beneath me.
I considered each step as an individual move in a rescue operation. And worked my way around a row of wooden cabinets.
Three office chairs were stacked on an old metal desk in front of the hollow space under the stairs. I peered through the legs of the chairs, not sure how to get back there. “I can’t see anything, what’s going on?”
A thin light flashed on, illuminating red hair, then moving slowly over a pale, freckled face with several strips of duct tape making a mummy of her mouth. The light shook, but I saw a huge red bruise on her forehead. And then the light turned on the one holding it.
Ansel, from the homeless shelter.
“I didn’t want to call you too early.” He passed the light up and down Izzy’s body, showing me how he had her on his lap, one arm squeezing her like a seatbelt. He turned the light to my face. “You are so busy, and so good, and you are my friend.” He snarled when he spoke. He wasn’t simple, by any means, but he definitely wasn’t well.
My hand was frozen. I couldn’t shoot with the light in my eyes. I couldn’t threaten to shoot him with her on his lap like that.
A sense of my own power filled me—I could shoot him and hit them both. An evil, repulsive desire to wipe them both off the earth rolled over me in a wave of nausea.
I held my gun by my hip, begging myself to keep it down.
He turned the flashlight back to Izzy’s face, and probably saved her life. “I’ll do anything you want. I have a knife. Do you want me to cut her? I’ll cut her. Do you want me to stab her? Or I could strangle her. He moved his arm from around her waist, so he could press a hand on her neck.
Her eyes flew open, and she nodded, so slightly.
“Yes, strangle her.” The words were disgusting to say, but she nodded again, so I knew I had said the right thing.
I was transfixed by the awkward scene, the way he pressed one hand around her neck, but kept the flashlight on her face. She slithered on his lap, jerking backwards with her head. A cracking noise meant she had whacked his skull with hers. And then she was up, free from his arm.
She bolted, her head hitting a step with a thud. She wavered, and he grabbed at her, but she dodged forward, sliding between the desk and the wall.
Ansel scrambled after her, seeming to lose his footing. I pulled the gun. “Hold it!”
Izzy made it to my side and leaned against me.
“Maura, where’d she go?” He flashed the light around. “I made it so nice for you. I didn’t mean to let her go. You gotta help me find her.”
She ducked behind me, and leaned on my back, using me as support and a shield.
I jerked away from her touch, then braced myself, not knowing if I’d have to shoot, or fend off an attack. I stood with feet apart, turned at the hip, one in front of the other, shoulders squared, gun supported by two hands. “Why did you do this for me? She’s just a girl.”
“I heard her, I heard the horrible things she said to you. You couldn’t see me in the library, but I saw you both and I knew I had to do it for you. You wanted to kill her, I could see it in your eyes. You’re a killer, like me, but you couldn’t do it at the library, so I had to.” He tried to push his way between the desk and the wall, but fell, like a clown. I could hear him scrambling back to his feet, but his light was going wild. “I will strangle her for you, and you can watch. We just have to find her.” His flashlight illuminated the basement steps, shining through the planks that had no risers. He lit up the black booted feet of the police as they made their way down. “Maura Garrison? Is everything all right?”
Izzy rushed from me and threw herself into the arms of an officer.
“I have a gun.” I said. “I’m covering the man who kidnapped this lady. I’m going to put it down now.”
Someone turned on the lights, splashing the basement with flickering fluorescence.
I set the gun on the floor, by my feet and held my hands up. “He’s back there.”
“Maura! What is happening? Help me Maura! I was going to strangle her, like you asked me to.” He whimpered, a disgusting noise.
“Step aside, Ma’am.”
One officer moved past me, another one picked up my gun. He led me to Izzy where we stood side by side. She was beaten, badly. Her arms bruised like her head. A third officer untied her hands. “I’m going to peel the tape off now, do you think you can handle it?” His voice was gentle.
Izzy nodded.
“Brace yourself.” He ripped layer after layer of tape from Izzy’s mouth.
Tears washed down her cheeks, but she stood firm.
Behind me, the desk was moved aside with a loud scraping noise.
“I did it all for my friend.” Ansel’s thin, whiny voice filled my ears.
I turned. They had him in cuffs and were leading him from behind the desk.
“Maura, can you find a quiet place where we can ask you some questions?”
“Of course.”
The officer put my gun in a bag. My pretty little gun. I squeezed my empty hand into a fist. I could live without it. It wasn’t like it was the only one.
Two officers took Ansel away in a police car. An ambulance arrived for Izzy.
Izzy and I stared at each other as they helped her lie down on the cot. Her big, blue eyes confused. Her face a mess of tears and bruises. I had no words for her, and she had none for me. But I knew as I stared at her, that I didn’t hate her.
More police officers had arrived, and one of them took me to Ethan’s office to talk. The questions seemed simple: Who was I? When did I start getting calls? How did I know to call the cops? How did I know Ansel? How did I know Izzy? Why did I tell Ansel to strangle her? Why did I have a gun?
I showed them my private investigator’s license. I showed them my conceal-carry permit. I told them about Ansel following me, and my fight with Izzy.
I must have answered correctly, because, though they told me not to leave the city, they didn’t arrest me for anything.
I went up to my office like a zombie, my head foggy, confused. I had never been so disconnected from a crime scene. I felt like I was floating above us all, not watching, not listening. Words going in and coming out automatically. My senses had been completely overwhelmed by that sickening, paralyzing desire to pull out my gun and shoot Izzy, and yet knowing that I didn’t hate her. Didn’t want her dead. Didn’t blame her for this mess.
I had wanted her dead, but when faced with it I had…forgiven her?
I leaned forward, my face on my hands and tried to pull myself together.
I hadn’t killed her.
I had asked him to strangle her.
But she had wanted me to say it.
But part of me had wanted him to do it.
I slid to the floor on my knees and pressed my head to the carpet in the child’s pose from yoga.
My door opened with a swish. “Maura, are you okay?” Ethan’s voice was tender and concerned.
I pulled myself up and tried to smile, but it didn’t work. “I don’t think I am.”
He crouched in front of me, knee-to-knee. “It’s going to be okay.” His voice was low and soft.
I wiped my eyes with my sleeve. I hadn’t even noticed the tears before. I focused on his eyes, big, brown, warm, inviting. I rocked forward and let him envelope me in his strong arms.
“It’s all okay now.” He held me close. He smelled like a fall day. “Shh.” He whispered careful nothings, just sounds of comfort.
I tilted my head to his, and met his full, warm mouth with mine.
His arms slipped away. “No, I can’t. Oh, Maura, I’m sorry.” He tipped my chin up with his thumb, shaking his head. “You didn’t mean that.”
I backed away, my face hot with shame.
He wiped my cheek with his hand. “You don’t want another woman’s husband. Not you. You’re just in shock.” He stood up and walked to the love seat.
“You’re married?” I sat with a thump. “Oh, God. I didn’t know. Just, shoot me now, okay?”
“I wouldn’t shoot you for that.” He laughed quietly. “But my friend, you are a hot mess. You can’t stay here by yourself—and not just tonight, every night. You need a home. Go set up a nice apartment somewhere with a kitchen and a dining room and a place to watch TV.”
I dragged my hand through my hair. “And a shower?”
“Probably wouldn’t hurt.”
“I don’t think I can ever look at you again, you know that, right?”
“Nah, but I won’t say it would be different if neither of us were married. That kind of talk isn’t healthy for anyone. It isn’t different so no point thinking about if it was.”
“I could have killed Izzy today.”
“Not you.”
“It felt like I could have. There she was, with no one to protect her, and I could have…it was up to me if she lived or died. I really think I could have.”
“Impossible.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because you could have, but you didn’t.”
I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes. “I’ve got to get out of this office.”
“Yeah. You know this place has toxic mold, right? I don’t know if I had a chance to tell you that. The tests were positive.”
“Lovely.” The absurdity of the situation was overwhelming. There was nothing for it but to just buck up. I sat cross-legged and stretched my back. I hadn’t killed her, and I didn’t need to kill myself sleeping in a den of toxic mold.
“Whatever happened to that friend you were staying with?”
“Her husband put his foot down. Said I had a perfectly good house to sleep in.” I shrugged. “He’s allergic to cats. And he’s always liked Rick better than me.”
“Then he’s an idiot.”
“Everyone always likes him better. He’s a schmoozer. A people pleaser.”
“Being liked isn’t everything.”
“True.”
“Pack your bag. Go get a hotel room. A nice one please, and then get an apartment.” He stood and picked up Rhoda. “I’ll walk you to your car.”
“Hotels don’t take cats.” I slipped on my rain coat. “I guess it’s time to go home.”
He raised one eyebrow. “If that’s what you want, I support it. Home, right now, may not be comfortable, but it’s safe and all your stuff is there.”
“Very good point.”