The Peyton Brooks' Mysteries Box Set, page 177
Going into the bathroom, she smoothed her hair, washed her face, and brushed her teeth, then she sat on the edge of the bed and tugged on her shoes.
Pickles crawled over to her, placing his head on her thigh. She paused and scratched his ears. “I’m sorry, buddy, I don’t mean to scare you. Maybe if I go for a run, I’ll feel better.”
With a final pat, she grabbed her cell phone and pulled open her bedroom door, walking into the living room.
“Hey, roomie, you finally decided to get up?” said Jake from the couch. He was holding a bag of potato chips and watching yet another freakin’ Giants’ game.
“I’m going for a run.”
“What?” He dropped his legs to the floor and settled the bag on the coffee table. “Marco went to the Raiders’ game.”
“So? The last time I looked at my license, it said I was thirty, well beyond the age when I need a chaperone.”
He gave her a bewildered look.
She shoved the phone into her jacket pocket and went to the door. “Do I have to take my keys or will you be here?”
He shifted on the sofa, placing his arm on the back. “I’ll go with you.”
She frowned at him. “You don’t run.”
“I can start.”
“I can go for a run by myself, Jake. I don’t need a man to protect me.”
“Peyton.” He rose to his feet.
“Leave it alone, Jake!” she snapped. “I want to be by myself.”
Without another word, she pulled open the outer door and stepped out, slamming it behind her again. She hurried down the stairs before he’d be able to follow her and turned up her usual path toward the park.
Immediately she regretted getting angry at him. It was wrong and she knew she’d have to apologize to him when she got back. Maybe she could take him to dinner to make it up. She knew he was trying to protect her. Marco was probably going to give her hell when he came home.
Her thoughts returned to the jury and their acquittal. How the hell could that have happened? How do you hear a man admit he’d disposed of a murder weapon, then acquit him of doing the very thing he admitted to doing?
Oh, Jedediah O’Shannahan was a slick mother. His wife was rotting in prison because he’d had an affair. She would never have a chance to raise a family, have children, enjoy all the things most women did, because she’d had the misfortune to marry such a man.
Why the hell did she think she herself needed a man? They only caused trouble. Here she was pining for something that couldn’t be, wasting energy on it when she should be thinking about advancing her own career, improving her own life.
Except whenever she went down that train of thought, she came full circle. The joy in her life was Marco.
Even this. Even running was better with him.
She came to Lincoln Way and crossed the street, deciding she’d jog up to the running path that bordered MLK Blvd. She had no problem making it into the park now, ever since she’d started running with Marco. The late afternoon sun was bottled behind the clouds, but people still meandered through the park, watching kids on bicycles, walking their dogs, or like her, jogging. A cool breeze blew into her face, a faint sprinkle of mist gathering in her ponytail.
Everywhere she looked there were families, laughing and enjoying each other, having a picnic or simply reveling the beauty of nature around them. Elementary school aged kids kicked a soccer ball to her left, parents sitting on the benches watching. She longed for this, she wanted this. She wanted to have something good and pure to come home to after the day was over, some reminder of why she dedicated her life to being a police officer.
A cry of alarm sounded in front of her and she slowed, glancing up. An older model white cargo van was coming up MLK, driving too quickly. It had almost clipped a couple and their dog as they crossed the street.
She shook her head and started running again. Idiot drivers. The cargo van came toward her, then unexpectedly swerved up on to the sidewalk, blocking the walkway. She stumbled to a halt, alarm rising inside of her as the driver’s side door open and a man in a black ski mask stepped out. He held something in his hand, but Peyton didn’t wait to see what it was.
She turned and started to run in the opposite direction, but she was so close to the van when he jumped the curb that she didn’t make it two steps before something slammed into her right side. A jolt of electricity speared through her, making her heart leap, then her legs went liquid and she felt herself falling.
He caught her around the waist before she landed, hoisting her up against him. She tried to gain control of her arms to fight him, but nothing seemed to be working correctly and she couldn’t catch her breath. Pain radiated along every nerve ending and her muscles felt like jelly.
“Hey!” said a man from across the street. “Let her go!”
“Ah, chivalry,” came a voice in her ear and she saw the muzzle of a gun lift next to her shoulder, pointed at the man.
The man stumbled to a stop and held out his hands, his eyes wide with terror.
Peyton wanted to call out to him, but she was finding it difficult to breathe.
Her attacker turned and dragged her back to the van. She willed her muscles to struggle, but she still didn’t have control over them. He opened the back door, then threw her against the fender. A little feeling was beginning to radiate into her limbs, but he suddenly heaved her upward, striking her head on the opposite door. Then he tore the probes out of her side. An involuntary scream escaped her.
A moment later, the doors slammed and darkness descended.
* * *
Pickles crept out of Peyton’s room, his tail between his legs, his ears back. He walked over to Jake and sat down in front of him. Jake bent down and picked the little dog up, scratching his ears, then settling him on the couch beside him.
“She yell at you too, buddy?” he said, soothing him.
Pickles let out a sigh and placed his head on his front paws. Jake studied him, finding his behavior strange, but the announcers on the game were suddenly exclaiming in excitement. He glanced up at the television and watched the replay of the Giants’ homerun over the right field fence, landing in the bay.
Leaning back on the couch, he concentrated on the game. Peyton was out running, Marco was at the Coliseum, and Maria and Cho had gone to catch the Sunday concert in the park like he and Zoë used to do. He had the house to himself. It didn’t happen often, but boy, it was nice sometimes.
A siren suddenly went by, rushing down 19th Avenue. Pickles let out a little howl as it passed the house. Jake glanced over his shoulder at the window, then dismissed it, turning back to the game.
The television cameras were panning the fans at the Giant’s ballpark – a sea of orange and black. He should think about getting tickets for one of these games. Marco complained he didn’t care for baseball much, but he still watched the games with him. He’d probably want to go.
Another siren rose over the sound of cheering at the game. Jake reached for the remote and muted the sound. He wasn’t like Peyton. He couldn’t tell the difference between an ambulance and a police car. It sped past the house like the previous one had done.
Hm, they were headed toward the park.
He looked down at Pickles again, reaching out to scratch his ears. The little dog was listening as if he expected to hear something more. Or as if he already did. Jake could now make out the distant sound of another siren coming this way.
He jumped to his feet and hurried to the window, pulling back the curtains. The siren grew louder and then a black and white police car sped past the house, definitely heading toward the park.
Fear snaked up Jake’s spine and he ran for the door, grabbing his sneakers and throwing them on his feet. He gathered his cell phone and car keys from the bowl on the sofa table, and yanked open the door, struggling to close it and fix the heel of his shoe at the same time. Then he ran down the stairs and out to the street where the Daisy was parked.
As he fumbled to open it, another police car sped past him, sirens ablaze. He yanked the door open and dropped into the driver’s seat, shoving the key into the ignition. The Daisy sputtered, but didn’t start.
He slammed the heel of his hand against the steering wheel and the ignition caught. He turned the wheel hard and punched the gas, racing down 19th toward the park. He told himself that he’d likely see Peyton jogging back or he’d find all of the cop cars surrounding another house a few blocks away. Peyton would probably scold him for being paranoid, but he could live with that as long as she was all right.
Before he made it to Lincoln, he could see people running toward the park. A cop had the intersection of 19th and Lincoln blocked off with his patrol car. Jake yanked the Daisy hard and double parked near the curb, then he jumped out and ran to the officer.
“Hold up there, buddy!” the cop said, extending a hand, his other on his billy club.
Jake stumbled to a halt and scrambled for his wallet, pulling out his precinct ID card and shoving it at the officer.
The officer took a look at it, then nodded. “Straight up MLK. Just at Mother’s Meadow. You know? The field?”
Jake wasn’t sure what that meant, but when the cop motioned him to pull around the patrol car, he ran back to the Daisy and followed his directions. He had no trouble getting up MLK and found the field almost immediately. Pulling over to the side, he saw a number of cops wandering the area, canvasing it.
A uniform came over to him and Jake showed him his ID.
“They call you?” said the uniform.
Jake glanced at the cop’s name tag. Hodges. “No, my housemate’s Inspector Peyton Brooks and she went for a jog in this direction. She hasn’t come back.”
The cop’s expression shifted and he reached out, grabbing Jake’s shoulder and dragging him across the street. Officer Hodges led him to a plain-clothes officer who was questioning a man in running shorts.
The man was sitting on the sidewalk, looking shaken. Black skid marks started in the street and went up and over the sidewalk.
Officer Hodges touched the plain-clothes officer’s shoulder. “Tell him what you told me,” he said to Jake.
The plain-clothes officer stood and held out his hand. “I’m Sergeant Logan.”
“Jake Ryder. Look, my housemate is Inspector Peyton Brooks. She went for a jog a while ago and she hasn’t returned.”
Sergeant Logan’s attention focused on him. “What does she look like? The name’s familiar.”
“Short, maybe 5’4” if that, African American, her hair was in a ponytail…” Before he could finish, the man sitting on the sidewalk nodded his head.
Sergeant Logan immediately turned away, speaking into the radio on his shoulder. Jake felt his knees go weak and he almost collapsed. Oh, God! What the hell happened? He searched around the area for a body, for some sign of her, but there was only the tire tracks.
His hands shaking, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, thumbing it on. Then he pressed Marco’s number and put the phone to his ear.
A moment later, the phone stopped ringing, going to Marco’s voice mail.
“D’Angelo, this is Jake. I need you to call me as soon as you get this message. It’s important.”
* * *
Peyton realized she could move her hand. She lifted it to her head and pressed it against her temple where she had struck the closed door of the van. Her fingers came away damp.
The van leaped over a rut in the road and landed hard, throwing her to her back. She moaned and lowered her hands to her side, pressing against the ache from where the probes had been torn from her flesh. More dampness covered the tips of her fingers.
She carefully pulled her shirt up, trying to inspect the damage, but it was too dark to see anything. Still the wounds didn’t seem to be actively bleeding. She touched her temple again, grimacing at the ache all along the back of her skull, but that didn’t seem to be bleeding badly either. Another flesh wound.
Carefully rolling to her side, she got her knees under her. Her limbs still felt wobbly and the bouncing of the van wasn’t helping. It was so dark in back, she couldn’t see anything, but she had the sense that they were traveling at a pretty good clip.
Sliding to the back doors, she ran her hands along them, searching for handles, but nothing met her probe. In fact, she found two round metal discs where she figured the handles should have been. Pressing her shoulder to the doors, she pushed, hoping at the very least to break the seal and get some light into the cargo area, so she could assess the situation.
They didn’t even budge. Then again, she couldn’t get any traction on the smooth surface of the cargo van floor. Another bounce of the suspension and she was thrown to her back. She closed her eyes and grappled with the pain, then rolled over again.
Searching methodically on her hands and knees, she felt for anything she could use as a weapon. Tire iron, tools, anything that might give her an advantage when the crazy bastard inevitably brought this thing to a stop.
She cursed herself as she went, furious that she’d gone running by herself without her gun.
Suddenly she remembered her cell phone and she scrambled for her pocket to pull it out. Collapsing against the side of the cargo van, she let out a sob of frustration. Her cell phone must have fallen out of her pocket when he grabbed her.
Feeling around until she located the doors again, she put her feet against them, then kicked as hard as she could. No use pretending like she was going to go easy, she decided.
* * *
Jake glanced at Sergeant Logan from the corner of his eyes. He couldn’t just stand around doing nothing. Peyton needed their help, but they were more concerned about keeping the public away from the crime scene. More cops had converged at this location and Logan was barking orders. Unable to help himself, Jake approached the man on the sidewalk, taking a seat beside him.
“Hey, I’m Jake,” he said, holding out his hand.
The man shook it. “I’m Jim.”
“Hey, Jim, I guess you saw what happened?”
“Yeah, he took that woman. Was she a cop?”
“Yeah. Did you get a look at her attacker?”
“He had a black ski mask covering his face.”
“What exactly did you see?”
“He shot her with a taser, then grabbed her. I yelled at him to stop, but he pointed a gun at me.”
“What kind of gun?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know guns.”
Jake nodded, trying hard to still the panic in him. “He put her in a car?”
“Cargo van.”
“Did you get a license plate number?”
“It was a commercial plate. That’s all I remember.”
“What about the color?”
“White.”
“Any idea the year?”
“Old. I don’t know.”
“Could you estimate how tall the guy was?”
“Bigger than her.”
“Right, but as tall as you?”
Jim hung his head. “I don’t know. It all happened so fast. I thought he was going to shoot me.”
Jake forced himself to take a calming breath.
Sergeant Logan approached him. “Do you know if Inspector Brooks had her cell phone on her?”
Jake’s heart leaped and he jumped to his feet, digging his own cell phone out of his pocket. “She did.” He started to call, then stopped himself. “Are you sure I should call it? What if it makes him mad and he hurts her?”
Sergeant Logan’s expression grew grim. “I think that’s the least of our worries right now.”
Jake’s fingers tightened reflexively on the phone and he went still. His brain wouldn’t work for a moment.
“Ryder, make the call!” urged the sergeant.
Jake eased his grip on the device and pressed the icon for Peyton’s phone. He didn’t bother to put it to his ear, just pressed the button for the speaker. The haunting play of music echoed somewhere behind them.
Jake turned, staring into the undergrowth beneath the trees. Sergeant Logan walked over to the spot and bent, lifting Peyton’s phone out of the dirt. He carried it back to Jake and Jake disconnected the call, feeling his stomach clench.
Pressing the button on the bottom of the display, Sergeant Logan stared at the screen. The phone didn’t go back to the home window. Instead it went to the contact’s list -- one contact in particular.
Turning the phone so Jake could see, Logan gave him a searching look. “Who is Marco?” he said.
* * *
Marco couldn’t get the Mustang anywhere near Peyton’s house. Cops and news vans had 19th blocked off. He yanked the car over to the curb, shut off the ignition, and jumped out. Reaching back in, he hooked his cell phone and dug his badge out of his pocket, then he started running.
He’d been calling Jake for a good half-hour now, frantically trying to get any information he could. Jake knew less than nothing, nothing more than he had when he’d first called Marco. The police radio wasn’t any better.
They were searching the City for a white cargo van, early model, commercial license plate number, no marking on the sides, driven by a nondescript man who might or might not be wearing a ski mask. Marco still couldn’t believe this was happening. He kept thinking it was some joke, some cruel prank to make him finally confess his feelings for Peyton.
Yet he knew it wasn’t.
A cop tried to stop him, but he shoved his badge in his face and kept running. If they wanted to stop him, they were going to have to put a bullet in his back. Nothing was keeping him from her house.
He made it to the walkway and dashed up the stairs.
The interior crawled with cops. Defino, Cho and Simons, Stan with his computer set up in her window. Abe paced the kitchen.
His gaze zeroed in on Ryder and he crossed the room in two strides, grabbing him by the throat of his sweatshirt and hauling him up. “What the hell happened?”
