Dominance and Deception (25 page)

His lips were almost white, his nostrils flared with rage, his breathing heavy, and I felt numb with terror. I'd never seen anyone this mad before, let alone had that directed at me.

"He sacrificed my friend, my
brother
, to save his own skin. And I swore right then I'd see his family dead, just like mine was. His precious sister—I swore I'd kill her as soon as we reached shore."

I gasped, a miasma of dread enfolding me. “Did you...?"

Aldridge snorted dismissively. “No. As luck would have it, she died in a car crash a week later. I figured it was karmic payback. And I watched as he came rushing out of the CO's tent, crying and screaming, and ran straight out into no-man's-land. He went down just like James did. Shame it didn't kill the bastard."

The satisfaction on his face curdled my stomach, and I swallowed hard, repressing the urge to throw up.

"Then why are you taking this out on me?"

Aldridge reached down into the toolbox beside him and took out a claw hammer, toying idly with it. I couldn't take my eyes off it, my mind filled with images of those claws buried in my skull, tearing flesh, fracturing bone.

"I've been checking back on Pierce every few years, just to make sure he's still feeling his loss the same way I am. And he always has been, without fail. Until now."

I blinked, uncomprehending, and Aldridge elaborated. “I saw him with you, and I could tell he was putting his guilt behind him, moving on with his life. And I won't allow that to happen."

Pierce

"Tech's here, boss."

I glanced up from staring at the handwriting below the Polaroid of Faye, taking a welcome break from trying to link it to either of my suspects. The original photograph was down in the lab, but a digital image was up on the computer screen, and analysing it had so far done nothing but intensify my headache.

Santoro nodded curtly when he knew he'd got my attention, then turned and headed back towards the rear elevator. I followed, leaving Layton and Beaumont to continue their investigation into my two suspects. An elevator confrontation was clearly on the cards, and I preferred to get it out of the way as soon as possible.

Once we were sealed inside, Santoro broke the silence.

"Shoulda come to us, Pierce."

I was just about at breaking point, and I balled my hands into fists to resist the urge to slug him in the face.

"Yeah, Santoro? And then have this on our hands a month sooner, with around fifteen extra suspects?"

My ex play partner didn't back down—he and Faye still had a strong bond, and he was livid.

"We coulda protected her."

"Did you even
see
the photos?” I demanded of him, my mind once again calling up the image of Faye surrounded by my entire team, still in the sniper's rifle sight. “He would have taken her out as soon as he got a clear shot."

"We could have kept her in the interrogation room,” he shot back, getting in my personal space just as I was getting in his. “Under guard at all times. She woulda been safe!"

I had thought the same thing, initially. It had seemed like the only viable option until one important detail had occurred to me.

"And if the culprit was a precinct employee, Santoro? Would you really wanna take that chance?"

With a defeated scowl, my second-in-command stepped back as the doors opened, backing off to return to the squad room, and I stalked out into the too-quiet lab. Whenever Faye was working, she always had music playing, or at the least radio talk shows.

"Detective Pierce.” A female voice pulled my attention over to the mass spectrometer, where a petite blonde woman barely in her mid-twenties was powering up the machine. “I'm so sorry this is happening..."

I nodded acknowledgement, biting down on my impatience at the useless platitude.

"Hannah. Got anything for me yet?"

I could tell I intimidated her a little, but she hid it well, only the tension in her shoulders betraying her. Faye had been the same all those years ago, and I felt a momentary urge to massage the forensic temp's shoulders before reminding myself that she wasn't Faye, no matter how much I might have wanted her to be.

Her brow furrowed in concentration, Hannah brought up a familiar search window—AFIS, the Automated Fingerprint Identification System.

"I've just started the trace evidence running through the machines, and I'm moving on to prints now. I lifted a great one from the Polaroid—excellent ridge detail, lots for AFIS to work with. I just gotta start it running..."

Watching her work through the system, I asked, “Were Faye's prints on the Polaroid?"

Hannah hesitated before nodding. “Yeah. They were,” she said, and I gritted my teeth. Faye had comprehended just how much danger she was in moments before she'd been taken—for some illogical reason that made everything worse.

"Done,” Hannah announced as a series of fingerprint images began to flicker lightning-fast across one side of the screen, each one contemplated and discarded by the system.

I nodded, telling her, “New search. Run the print you found against two names in particular."

As Hannah complied, I supplied her with first Danforth's, then Aldridge's details. Danforth came up with nothing, and I waited while she reset and resubmitted the query, my entire body tight with tension. If Aldridge wasn't the culprit, the search for Faye would be set back hours, maybe days. I wasn't prepared to give the sick bastard a second more with Faye than I absolutely had to.

The computer blinked up with a result almost instantly, flashing green, and I expelled a relieved breath.

"Good job,” I told Hannah, meeting her eyes without caring that she could see the emotion in them. All that mattered was finding Faye.

Heading for the door, I called upstairs—it was faster than going up there.

"Layton. Danforth's in the clear. Concentrate all your efforts on tracking down Aldridge—I wanna know if he's so much as moved in the past month."

"On it, boss,” Layton said, and I could hear the clicking of his keyboard as he typed. “Where are you?"

"Still in the building,” I said, pushing the button for the elevator. “Just need to stop by the profilers’ office."

Before Layton could respond, I ended the call.

Faye

Aldridge was looking through his toolbox in earnest now, and I held my breath against the urge to hyperventilate. The more scared I acted, the more satisfaction he'd get from this.

But I was terrified, so victimised by the power of my own imagination I felt almost lightheaded. I didn't know yet if Aldridge planned to kill me or just leave me horribly mutilated, and I was trying not to think about it.

Images kept tumbling into my brain, though. My hands, so steady around the scientific chemicals I used every day, could be pierced by the claw of the hammer, the bones and cartilage of my joints smashed by a heavy mallet-blow. My eyes, a clear, sharp green I'd always kinda loved, could be destroyed, the soft jelly pierced by a well-placed jab from a screwdriver. My eardrums could be perforated just as easily with the same tool, and I'd be plunged into silence forever. No more music. That was something I feared more than anything.

"Please..."

The word tore from my throat—ragged, grating, desperate. I hadn't meant for it to escape, but now I couldn't take it back.

Aldridge glanced over at me, setting aside a plastic container full of nails and picking up a pair of pliers. My heart seized for a second as I clamped my mouth shut, trying not to imagine what the everyday instrument could do to my teeth, my fingernails...

His attention slid back to the toolbox, and I breathed a momentary sigh of relief as he put down the pliers.

When he picked up the thin, deadly utility knife with its scalpel-sharp blade, however, my mind screamed out in alarm. And when he rose from his crouch and turned towards me, fresh adrenaline surged through my trembling limbs. I struggled frantically against the secure bonds, gasping out a whispered plea that I could hardly hear over the ringing in my ears.

Pain sliced into my flesh, sharp and immediate, and I clamped my jaw shut to suppress my whimper. I was no stranger to discomfort, but this went beyond that. The pain I felt at Pierce's hands—though sometimes almost too much—was safe, controlled, something to be experienced, analysed and cherished.

The searing agony I was feeling then, as the utility knife split the skin of my upper arm, was a sensation no safe word could stop. No matter how many times I pleaded, no matter how much of my blood trickled down my arm and soaked into the rope restraining my wrists, Aldridge would not have mercy.

Silent tears streamed down my face, but I didn't give him the satisfaction of begging.

I won't.

It was strange how calm I felt. Sure, I was terrified, but my thoughts were slow, clear and utterly detached from the situation. The first thing I thought was that he was only cutting shallowly, because deep cuts didn't hurt this much. Bill had told me that once.

Something about nerve endings, or... I can't remember. But, hey—at least the damage is superficial for now...

My second thought seemed a little ridiculous under the circumstances, but it grew and burnt in my mind until it was driving me crazy. Had the utility knife—the
box-cutter
—that was slicing my arm been sterilised? Would my wounds get infected?

It was the stupidest thing to worry about—I knew the answer, I was losing blood, and an armed man obviously meant to inflict the maximum possible amount of suffering on me before he allowed me to die—but I had to focus on something.

Aldridge finished with my left arm and moved around to the other side. I craned my neck to try to look at the damage he'd wrought, but the tears obscured my vision, and all I could see was a blurred series of crimson streaks. Between my own ragged breaths and the calm inhalations of my captor, I heard a slow
tap, tap, tap
, almost inaudible.

No, not tap. Drip.
Drip, drip, drip.
How much blood in the human body, Bill?

My ears began to ring again as my upper right arm flared with pain. Slightly less than the first arm. Maybe because the endorphins were dulling it, or maybe because he was cutting deeper.

Zach...

I didn't realise I'd spoken aloud until Aldridge laughed softly, making another incision into my abused flesh and twisting the blade, forcing a cry from my throat.

"I'll tell him you were asking for him,” he said, his voice sounding faint and far away, and my vision spotted, then tunnelled.

Then there was nothing.

Pierce

"Jo."

The profiler looked up from her desk and gave me a sympathetic smile. “Detective Pierce. I heard about Faye. Any luck yet?"

With a slight shake of my head, I grabbed a chair from a nearby vacant desk and sat down. “Need a psychological profile. As fast and accurate as you can make it."

"You have a suspect?"

"Tyler Aldridge."

Jo opened her notepad and scribbled down the name in an incomprehensible scrawl. “And my source material?"

"In my head."

Nodding, Jo settled back in her chair. “Fire away."

Once I'd finished with Jo, I returned to the forensics lab, for lack of anything better to do. As ridiculous as I found it, I felt closer to Faye when in the lab, where she'd spent so much time over the years. Hannah turned to watch me approach, seeming nervous. “Is there any news?"

"No,” I said, aware that I sounded irritated, but unable to stop myself. “We have no idea where Aldridge might have taken her."

Biting her lip, Hannah scowled at the piece of equipment in front of her. “I'm waiting for this result. Not much else has come from what you've given me, forensically speaking, but you collected a dirt sample from the floor that could be something. The mass spectrometer is...unhappy, though."

Before I could answer, she headed over to the computers and pulled up a series of results.

"Most of the trace evidence matches you or Faye, and the rest could be fibres from clothes either of you have worn recently, or they might have come from the suspect...impossible to say without something to compare them to. I've started the blood sample you took from between the floorboards running, just in case, but in all likelihood it's Faye's, and it'll be at least twelve hours before I can confirm."

She looked back apologetically at me. “I'm sorry. I know this isn't helping at all. I'm working as fast as I can—"

A beeping noise interrupted her, and she turned to her machine, looking hopeful. “This might be something."

I waited, curbing the urge to demand that she give me answers, as she studied the readout for a moment that seemed interminable. Finally, she said, “It's soil, which is pretty much a given...a higher silica content than I'd expect to see around here, which either means he's been elsewhere in the country recently, or..."

"Or what?"

Thrown off by my abrupt tone, Hannah floundered for a second. “Umm, he could have been around somewhere that uses sand for industrial purposes. Construction sites, paint manufacturers, glass manufacturers—"

"Glass?” I interrupted sharply.

"Yeah. Sand is a major component in the glassmaking process."

A puzzle piece slotted into place—one I hoped like hell was meant to be there, not one I'd forced to fit. If I was right, then this nightmare was nearly over.

"Good job."

Before Hannah could reply, I turned and strode toward the stairwell, leaving her to her work. I took the stairs two at a time up to the squad room, and didn't bother with pleasantries when I got there.

"Get the car."

My entire team rose to their feet at my command, and Beaumont had the common sense to actually obey me while Santoro and Layton demanded answers.

"Boss...you know where she is?"

Grabbing my badge and weapon from my desk, I headed for the elevator.

"Building that used to be a bar, not far from the marina I worked at before I shipped out to Kuwait in the nineties."

Crowding into the elevator behind me, the other two exchanged puzzled glances.