Chapter 33
When I woke again, we were parked behind my building and it was dark outside. My hands, feet and mouth were bound with silver duct tape, making escape nearly impossible.
“Awake again finally? You must have been more tired than I thought. You need to do something about your schedule.” Lidia tsked.
She got out of the car and I tried to open the door, but she’d locked it remotely before she got out, and in the dark I couldn’t find and push the button to unlock it before she stood on the other side. “You’re going to worry yourself to death if you aren’t careful.” She tsked again.
“Come on.” She pulled out a knife I hadn’t seen before and sliced the tape on my ankles, then pulled it off before grabbing me under the armpit and heaving me to my feet. The woman was stronger than she looked.
“I know if I let you talk you’d probably say you wouldn’t tell the police it was me, that you want Dahlia to have a secure future, but you’d be lying. It’s funny how police find pesky details like forensic evidence once they know what they’re looking for. So before you can speak to anyone else, let’s take care of this.” She reached into my pocket and pulled out my keys, then stood me against the wall of the courtyard at the back door to the shop, her gun trained on me as she flipped through for the right key.
I kept my eyes moving, looking at her, around the area, back at her, then around again, desperately hoping for a weapon I could snatch up—even while my hands were taped together. What was I thinking when I went to her apartment? Did I think the police couldn’t catch her without my help? Stupid.
After a couple of tries, she found the key and got the door open. She pushed me into the building. We crossed to the front and she pulled down the sunshades before flipping on the light in the kitchen area.
She pushed me into the chair and began to talk while she moved around, opening drawers and cupboards. “You never had to make a decision about keeping or giving away a child, did you? Even if I had no better choice, you blame me for cheating on my husband, for giving up my child, then for killing Valerie when she refused to be reasonable. She wanted everything I had and was sucking the life out of me. It was only a matter of time before my husband noticed the money disappearing from our account. It couldn’t go on this way.”
I looked behind me and saw her kneeling at the wall where the oven would go, messing with something. I had a very bad feeling when I thought of that exposed natural gas line.
She stood. “So I’m solving my problem, and I’m taking Dahlia home where she belongs. I’m sorry you’re not going to be here to run this business—I think you could have made a go of it.” She looked around. “I love what you’ve done with the paint.”
I growled low in my throat.
She looked at the tape over my mouth and smirked. “Sorry, I can’t risk removing that. The fire should burn it off though, and the explosion will destroy any evidence.” She pursed her lips and frowned. “Too bad about the fabric store next door, but sacrifices must be made.” She touched her fingertip to her chin. “I hope they have good insurance.”
She sniffed. “Do you smell that? That’s natural gas, from the line hanging out of the wall. I noticed it when I was in here before. Don’t worry—it might kill you before the fire hits, but if not, the explosion will be instantaneous. You won’t feel a thing.” She ran her fingers over the edge of my counter.
I wished I believed her, but it was hard to accept her words when I could already imagine the flash of heat as it scorched, the pounding of equipment as it hit me, as I hit the wall. Terror rose inside me like nothing I’d ever felt before.
She pulled out a lighter, selected one of the emergency candles that were still stacked on the counter, and lit the wick. She set it on a shelf near the window, as far from the natural gas as possible, and higher than my head. I might really die from the gas before the world went white after all. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.
I watched her every move, desperate, knowing I couldn’t allow this to happen and that I needed to take a chance. I looked everywhere for anything that would help me pull off the tape, and my eyes caught on the razor blade still sticking out of the cabinet. I’d completely forgotten about it in the stress caused by Detective Tingey’s request for fingerprints. I glanced at Lidia again, saw her back was turned and rubbed the tape along the blade, wincing as it cut my skin as well.
“I really did love that cake. It was fabulous. I wish I could get the recipe, but I suppose it’s a secret, written down only in this building, where it’ll be destroyed. Pity.”
I felt the tape rip and rejoiced inside while I watched her. I carefully separated my wrists, waiting for a moment to take her down. A glance said the cut wasn’t bad, thank goodness, and though it was bleeding, it wasn’t much.
The smell of gas grew stronger and my stomach turned. I felt the sweat begin to trickle down my temple. Stress always makes me sweat. It was so irritating.
Lidia looked around with satisfaction, her hands on her hips, her dark hair flowing down her back in a long, shiny braid. “I guess I ought to go before it gets any later. I want to be long gone before the fire trucks arrive, alas, too late to save you. It wouldn’t be right for my car to be seen anywhere around here.” She twirled my keys on her finger. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure your car ends up in your parking lot. I need to get my beauty sleep—I have a funeral tomorrow.”
I saw a shadow against the window, and then there was a knock on the glass of the front door. She whirled toward it. I took the opportunity of distraction to knock her down. The gun went off as our bodies collided with the ground and I felt a tearing sensation in my shoulder.
I sucked in air through my nose and tried to focus through the pain. I had to get out of here alive.
“Get off me,” Lidia screamed as she twisted and tried to flip us over so I’d be on bottom.
I saw her hand coming down toward my good shoulder, aiming for the pressure point again, but I wasn’t going to let her do it. Before she could get a grip, I grabbed her wrist and dug my fingers into the pressure points on her hand that I’d learned in my self-defense classes. Her fingers opened reflexively and I had to turn my head as her other wrist broke from my grasp and she aimed at my temples. I caught the blow behind my ear instead and winced. Words I didn’t normally utter ran through my mind and would have poured out of my mouth, if I didn’t still have duct tape on it.
I saw her gun a couple feet out of reach, and not sure if it held more shots or not, I rolled us away so she couldn’t grab it—which put her on top, but gave me better leverage. I thrust a knee in her groin—not as effective as it would be on a guy, but women aren’t exactly immune to pain in that region, either.
She groaned and weakened for a moment, and I took advantage of the break. The pain in my shoulder screamed, but I did my best to ignore it. The natural gas smell grew stronger in the air around us and I longed for fresh air as I struggled to breathe enough through my nose. Lying on the floor right now was not the best choice, all things considered. I twisted toward the cupboard, knocking Lidia’s head against the side. She grunted and came back swearing.
I saw her glance toward the gun and lunge that direction. I followed with a punch to the side of her head that had me wondering if I had broken my hand—hadn’t I learned anything from hitting Bronson? Still, she screamed and began yelling more invectives at me.
It occurred to me to wonder who had knocked at the door and where they had gone, but the thought was fleeting as I threw myself on top of Lidia again, grabbing her arm, trying to keep her away from the gun.
“Police, open up!” a voice called from the other side of the glass.
I yanked off the tape from my mouth and wanted to cry as it ripped all of the hair off of my face. I ached all over, and this didn’t help. “Help! She’s got a gun! Come around back!” I yelled before Lidia started to rise onto her knees. I guess letting her get on her stomach was a bad move on my part.
“Shut up!” she yelled and grabbed my hair.
Blood dripped from my wound onto her shoulder, and between the smell of that and the gas filling the room, my stomach roiled. I was starting to feel light-headed and was afraid I might hurl, but the hair pulling helped focus my attention again. I rose up enough to bring my elbow down on the back of her skull as hard as I could, which forced her forehead to hit the ceramic tile floor. Pain radiated up my arm, followed by the tingling that meant I’d hit my funny bone nerve. It made the gunshot wound on my shoulder burn even worse, but she collapsed beneath me.
The police burst through the back door into the kitchen, guns outstretched. “Hands in the air!”
I rolled off Lidia and pushed myself up so I leaned against the cupboard. I lifted a throbbing arm and pointed to the natural gas valve. “Could someone turn that off before we blow everything sky-high?”
The first officer was already taking care of Lidia, who groaned and started moving around again. He pulled out handcuffs and slapped them on her.
A second officer flipped the valve and came over to me. “You’re bleeding all over.” He grabbed a nearby rag and pressed it to my shoulder. “Is your back or neck hurt?” When I shook my head, he helped me stand. “Let’s go outside where we can breathe and you can tell me what happened.”
As I looked up and met his gaze, I recognized the man who had responded when my tires were slashed, Officer Lambert. “She killed Valerie. She’s behind everything.”
“Okay, Come on, let’s go out.” He wrapped my good arm around his shoulder and helped me through the door.
Detective Tingey was getting out of his squad car when we exited the building. “Can’t stay out of trouble, can you?” he asked.
“Apparently not.” I was grateful when the officer sat me in the chair on the back patio. The other officer took Lidia straight to a squad car and put her in the back seat, then climbed in the front and pulled out his notebook.
Detective Tingey turned my attention back toward him. “Anyone else in there?”
“No, it was just her and me, duking it out.” I ached all over and desperately wanted something for the pain in my bleeding shoulder. “There’s a candle burning inside.”
The detective turned to the road officer. “Tell the paramedics they can come over.” He turned back to me. “What about a candle?”
“There’s a candle burning inside a room filled with natural gas. Someone needs to blow it out.” I winced when gesturing with my hand caused pain to shoot through my elbow. And my shoulder throbbed.
He turned and asked someone to take care of it, then looked at me more closely. “Looks like you got in the way of her gun.”
“I’m fine,” I said, but even I didn’t believe it, and the detective’s snort was more than enough proof that he didn’t either. Still, I tried to make light of the pain. “It grazed me. I’ll live.”
He looked at it again and gave me a withering look. “It didn’t graze you—it went all the way through. You’re lucky it didn’t hit a major vein or something. You’re bleeding everywhere.”
Surprised, and more than a little dazed, I looked at it more closely and realized he was right. From the amount of blood I was losing, I thought maybe it had hit a vein. I hadn’t realized the back of my shirt was shiny red.
The ambulance pulled up and Jack and his partner popped out. Again? Really? Did the man never take a night off? Jack came to me while his partner went to check on Lidia.
“It’s a flesh wound,” I said with a half-smile. “Just going into shock. Nothing serious.”
“Right,” he said in a smooth voice. “Because shock’s not serious at all.”
People were shocked on a regular basis, weren’t they? I wasn’t sure how he managed to sound sarcastic and soothing at the same time. Perhaps I was going light-headed, and seeing his face calmed me.
He turned to one of the other officers and asked him to get an oxygen tank from the rig and to grab a handful of four-by-fours—that had me wondering how he intended to use blocks of wood to help me. Or did he mean a truck with four-wheel drive? My head swam. He started asking me where I hurt.
Someone came back with some packages of gauze. I glanced at one as Jack ripped several open and noticed it said “4x4” on it. Oh, okay. His partner put on the blood pressure cuff and started pumping it up. Officer Lambert brought over the gurney.
“I don’t need an ambulance,” I said. I knew if they got me in there, he was going to try to stick a needle in me. I hate needles.
Jack scowled at me. “You are so stubborn. You’re going to pass out from blood loss if we don’t get you to the hospital soon.”
“I can drive myself.” Except my Outlander was still in Valerie’s apartment parking lot.
“Forget it.” He put a hand under my good shoulder and helped me stand, then turned me to sit on the gurney. I shot him a dirty look, but was too tired and achy to argue. Dang it, he was right.
“Hold this,” he said as he put the gauze on the front of my bleeding shoulder and set my hand on it. “Apply plenty of pressure if you can.”
I felt light-headed and trembly, but did the best I could.
He opened some more packages and threw them on the exit wound in back. “You’re lucky it’s not worse.” Someone kept a hand under my shoulder, holding pressure on that wound while we moved to the ambulance. Once inside, a couple of other EMTs I’d never seen before hopped in with him, and one held pressure on my wounds, while another cut my shirt from the sleeve to the neck, then wrapped a roll of gauze around my shoulder, under the arm pit, to hold everything in place.
The one holding pressure started asking me all the same questions Jack had asked me on the day I was attacked.
After answering a few I turned to Jack. “Do you ever go home?” I watched him opening packages of tubing. The man had been everywhere this week. I thought he could use a cheesecake.
He smiled. “Not nearly enough. I’ve been pulling extra shifts because someone’s out sick.”
Oh, that explained it.
“What happened?” he asked.
“She was trying to kill me. She shot me; I managed to get away.” I squeezed my eyes against the white-hot agony in my shoulder. “Can you give me something to numb the pain?”
“Sure. Just a minute.” I looked up when I heard a tearing sound and saw him adding the tubing onto a bag of the clear liquid they hook to IVs.
“Oh, no. No needles.” The ambulance careened around a corner and bumped through a pothole or something. I groaned as the pain spiked.
“If you want pain meds to get to you fast, this is the best way,” he said as he wrapped a rubber strip around my upper arm. “Besides, you need more fluid. You’ve bled quite a bit and your blood pressure has looked better.” He tore open a small package and pulled out a red-brown square.
I looked away, even more sure I was going to puke. “I might need something to vomit in,” I warned them. One of the other EMTs handed me a barf bag faster than you could say “ralph.” “I hate needles. I don’t want an IV.” The words came out more as a whine than a refusal.
“Fine I’ll wait until you pass out and do it anyway. It should take all of two minutes.”
I scowled.
As the IV needle went into my skin a minute later despite my half-hearted arguments, I decided Jack didn’t deserve the cheesecake after all.