Faceless (32 page)

Marty must have noticed a spot where he would be able to see inside without taking a chance of alerting the woman to our presence.

He put a finger to his lips and circled around the building, his movements as careful as a cat hunting prey. He stopped and positioned himself up against the wall of the building, just below one of the windows. He peeked through the window, whose sides were adorned with a delicate taupe lace curtain, pulled back with a narrow braided rope.

Suddenly I could see the tension leave his body, like air escaping from a balloon. He nodded, and I let my own anxiety dissipate as I became convinced that Katie was still alive and, I hoped, unharmed.

But I didn’t know how much longer that would be the case.

I was now the closest one to the front door. Convinced that we were running out of time, I pulled out my Glock and motioned for Marty to cover me. I was going to try and open the door. I waited for Mrs. Bennett to start ranting again, hoping her own voice would cover my attempt to enter. I watched Marty with my peripheral vision as I made my way to the entrance. I watched for any sign from Marty that Mrs. Bennett had become aware of us.

I put my hand on the brass handle and turned it slowly. I could see Marty out of the corner of my eye, nodding, letting me know it was still safe to proceed. I drew a deep breath as the knob turned easily. As soon as I felt the latch become undone, I thrust open the door and screamed “Stop!” as I saw the madwoman dousing the frightened girl with fluid from a small gas can.

In her other hand was a box of matches.

“Drop it!” I shouted at her, aiming my weapon on the target I was trained to hit, the spot right between her eyes.

I glanced over at Katie, she was sweating profusely and her olive complexion had turned sheet white. Her mouth was covered with a strip of gray duct tape. The girl’s arms and legs were tightly bound to the wooden chair she was seated in.

It still wasn’t over for her. I could still see the desperation and fear in her eyes as the liquid made its way down her face. She shook her head to avoid getting the flammable substance in her eyes.

My sudden appearance startled Bennett, who jerked her head in my direction. I saw the movement of her eyes when she realized I wasn’t alone.

“You understand, don’t you? You have a daughter?” she asked. Her eyes, haunted and vacant, targeted mine. “She put up a brave front, but she wasn’t brave. What would you do if your daughter came home crying every day, pleading with you, begging you to just let her die?” The hand that held the matches shook uncontrollably as she waved it in an exaggerated motion.

She continued to plead her case.

“Those girls thought they were so pretty.” She spat on the ground. “They weren’t pretty, they were horrid, wretched creatures. I just made them look on the outside like what they were really were on the inside.”

I nodded my head in agreement, trying to contain her attention solely on me. My own eyes were starting to burn. The caustic fumes of the flammable liquid that I recognized as gasoline became overpowering in the confines of the small room.

“She was supposed to be her friend.” She briefly turned her attention back to Katie, whose eyes pleaded with me for help.

Gail
Bennett
’s hand suddenly became steady as she struck the match against the box. The smell of sulfur dominated all the other odors and I knew immediately we no longer had time. My hand gripped my firearm, my finger, now trembling, began to bend against the trigger.

I yelled one more time for her to stop, hoping she wouldn’t drop the match. I glanced down at the floor, looking for puddles of the liquid. I tried to calculate how I was going to reach Katie and get her away, just in case it ignited.

She must have become aware of my scream at the same time she realized Marty had made a move to grab her arm. Startled, she dropped the lighted match.

Time stopped for all of us. It was like watching a film clip in slow motion. The match hit the floor and a puff of smoke and a soft “psst” sound occurred simultaneously. The gasoline ignited and a ball of flames shot up. Gail Bennett watched, as if hypnotized.

Marty grabbed hold of her arm and was able to overcome and restrain her. He immediately pulled her away from the flames as I ran to Katie. I knew I would never be able to loosen her binding, so I didn’t even attempt it.

Instead, I grabbed hold of the back of the chair she was tied to and pulled it backwards. The chair crashed to the floor as it fell, causing Katie’s head to smack against the floor. I grabbed hold of one of the wooden strips on the back of the chair, lifted it a few inches, and dragged it as far from the fire as I could.

Suddenly the chair and Katie became weightless as Marty appeared beside me. His hands found a place next to mine as we pulled Katie out of the house to safety.

***

Backup had arrived and the scene became a series of isolated moments. Men and women in different uniforms had converged on the grounds. Someone pulled me away from the smoke and began to ask me questions. It took me a few moments to clear my mind and shake the fog that seemed to envelop my thoughts.

The sound of burning lumber splintering and falling to the ground reached my ears as if I was under water.

“Are you okay, detective?” a female paramedic asked me as she shined a small flashlight in my eyes.

The smoke had reached my throat and caused it to burn as I swallowed, but I nodded my head in response to her question.

“Yes, yes, I’m fine,” I told her, finally finding my voice.

I looked around for Marty, who was also being attended by a paramedic. They were cutting away one of his sleeves and examining his arm. We made eye contact and he smiled, exposing that one dimple.

Somebody threw a jacket over my shoulder, probably because I had begun to shiver.

I looked around to see if I could see Katie, and make sure she was all right. She was on a stretcher, being loaded into the emergency vehicle.

“I think she’ll be okay,” The soft-spoken medic with the flashlight informed me. “She may have a little smoke inhalation and a bump on her head, but she should be okay. We need you to get checked out though, to make sure your lungs aren’t damaged.”

I wasn’t going to argue, I was just glad that this whole ordeal was over and another family wouldn’t have to suffer the same fate as Jamie Camp and Kimberly Weston.

I turned and made my way toward the ambulance. I saw Mr. Bennett standing in the distance, his arm wrapped around his daughter. They just stood there, watching, as his wife—the mother of his children—was taken away in handcuffs. I wondered to myself if they would ever be okay again.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Marty suffered second-degree burns on his forearm. He was treated at the hospital and was released three hours later, with instructions on how to care for the injury at home.

Justin
had picked up Marty’s car and had driven it to the hospital. He was waiting in the lobby to bring him home.

Once they were in the car, Justin asked him, “Where to?”

“My house,” he answered curtly.

“Hope working?” Justin asked. It was his way of making an indirect attempt at asking why she wasn’t there.

Marty shrugged his shoulders, causing the pain of the burn to intensify. With one hand, he managed to open a small vial that contained four prescription painkillers, which the hospital pharmacy had dispensed to him. He built up a mouthful of spit, then popped one into his mouth and swallowed.

The silence that followed was too much for his redheaded friend.

“What’s going on with you two? I thought we were going to start looking for tuxedos, and now I’m getting vibes that you’re ready to scan the Match.com ads.”

Marty remained silent, but Justin wasn’t the type of friend to let it slide.

“What the hell is going on, Marty? Two weeks ago, you were going to ask the woman to marry you. Now you act like she was just another roll in the hay.”

Marty eyes focused on the road before him. He let a moment pass before he replied.

“Can you just drop it, Justin?”

Feeling sorry for his friend, he decided to let it go. Justin knew that Marty would eventually bring him up to speed. Pushing the issue would slow up the process.

“Fine,” Justin replied, with a touch of hurt in his voice. Not a word more was said until they reached Marty’s house.

“Just take the car home with you, I’ll arrange to pick it up tomorrow,” Marty said as he maneuvered his way out of the passenger seat, taking care not to make any sudden moves.

Still feeling the sting of Marty’s mood, Justin nodded.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. Just get some sleep and take care of that arm.” He managed a weak smile.

“Sleep yeah. Justin… thanks,” Marty told him as he shut the car door and walked slowly toward his house.

The door opened just as Marty was inserting the key in the lock. He was taken aback when he found Hope facing him instead of the Captain.

He immediately thought his father was in trouble. He started to panic.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, stretching his neck and looking past her, trying to catch sight of his father.

She gently took his hand, examining the gauze bandage that took up most of his forearm.

“Justin called. I was going to go to the hospital, but he said he would bring you home. It looks like it hurts,” she told him sympathetically.

“You have no idea,” he replied sharply, not holding back the attitude. He dropped her hand as he walked farther into the house.

“Where’s my dad?” he asked, still avoiding any eye contact.

“He went to the store to pick up some chicken stock. He decided that you were going to need some of his homemade soup.” She followed closely behind him.

“Can I get you something? Why don’t you sit down and I’ll get you a glass of wine?”

“No, I just took a painkiller. Look, I really appreciate it, but I’ll be okay, you can leave.”

He was having a harder and harder time avoiding her eyes. Her voice was tugging at his heart like a magnet. He missed being with her, but he would be damned if he’d let her know it.

He moved one of the pillows on the sofa and carefully sat down, trying to keep his arm from making a sudden movement.

“Marty, please, just listen to me.” She sat down next to him.

Marty turned and looked at her. The painkillers must have affected his vision, because her eyes appeared greener as they reflected the lamplight in the room.

“What?” he asked impatiently. He just wanted her to say what she had to say and leave. He wasn’t in the mood for her usual excuses of blaming her mother or her ex-husband Richard for her emotional shortcomings.

“We never finished our conversation the other night. You never…”

“Look, Hope,” he shifted his body so he was facing her. He took a deep breath and made the conscious decision to stop acting like a child and accept the inevitable. He was going to let her off the hook.

“Let’s just forget it. I’ll return the ring, no harm done. You don’t want to get married? Fine.”

As the words were coming out of his mouth, he was praying that his body language wasn’t betraying what he was feeling.

“For heaven’s sake, Marty, will you stop making assumptions on what I want and how I feel? How can someone who is so loved and respected be so damn insecure? You know what your problem is? You are spoiled rotten! You have gotten everything you ever wanted, and the minute you have the slightest inkling that something isn’t going the way you want it, you run. Marty Keal, you are a chicken. You are too damn scared to sit here and hear me out!”

He sat there, dumbfounded. The last thing he had expected was a tongue lashing.

She caught her breath after the rant and her expression dared him to talk. He remained silent.

“Yes,” she said softly.

He looked at her confused.

She repeated it.

“Yes.” She put her hand over the hand of his injured arm, wrapping her fingers around his thumb.

“‘Yes?’ I don’t understand what you’re saying.” He scratched his forehead with his good hand.

“Looks like I am going to have to spell it out. Yes, I’ll marry you.” She squinted, and the skin on the top of her nose wrinkled. “Am I speaking a foreign language?” she asked him, breaking into a broad smile.

Suddenly they realized they weren’t alone. The Captain’s voice filled the room.

“Are you deaf, boy? The girl just told you she’s accepting your proposal,” his father said, and headed into the kitchen with his groceries.

He glanced up at his father and then to back to Hope. “Yes? Are you sure?”

She nodded her head.

He looked back in the direction his father walked. Suddenly he had another concern.

“Maybe this isn’t a good time, Hope. I can’t leave him now. We don’t know what the doctor is going to say.”

Now he wondered whether it just wasn’t something that was supposed to happen. Maybe he was better off when she hadn’t answered him.

She stood up.

“Marty, who said anything about leaving him?” She looked around the room.

“I think this house can accommodate one extra person. I don’t take up that much room, and we already know that it’s a great place to raise a brood of children.”

“You would do that? You would give up your home? You would move in here with us?” He ran his hand through his hair with a look of disbelief.

Hope
gently bit down on her bottom lip as she once again nodded a yes.

“Yes?” he asked her again, not quite believing what was happening.

This time when she repeated the “yes,” he lifted her off her feet with his good arm and she wrapped her legs around his hips.

“Yes!” she said once more, as their lips met.

They were so lost in the moment, they didn’t hear the Captain yell out.

“Does this mean we get to have that sixty-inch flat-screen television?”

***

When Marty and I walked into our squad room, I immediately noticed almost everyone was milling around in front of the chief’s office.

Kathy
jumped out of her seat and walked over to me.

“Joe’s here, he’s in with the chief.”

I looked at her, expecting her to elaborate, but she just shrugged her shoulders, as if she had no clue what was going on.

A good twenty minutes later, while I was trying hard to concentrate on some paperwork, but failing miserably, the door to the chief’s office opened. Joe and the boss walked out.

I was shocked. He looked like a man does after a long, hot shower. The two weeks he had spent in Florida had given his pale Irish complexion a rich color. His skin was sunburned in a few spots, but his face had turned a healthy-looking bronze and he was clean-shaven.

These last few months since Connie died and Annie had gotten hurt, his hygiene had taken a dive, but now he looked well groomed and neat. It looked as if he had even had his hair cut and styled, something that used to be a regular ritual for him, but had gone by the wayside in his grief.

I was still furious with him, and I was going to let him know it. I had rehearsed a million and one verbal lashings to give him, but the minute he walked over to me, I felt a lump the size of an apple suddenly appear in the back of my throat.

I expected the smell of Jack Daniels to seep into my nasal passages, something that had been becoming more and more obvious and frequent these past few months. Instead, I smelled the familiar aroma of Old Spice, the cologne my daughter insisted on buying him every Christmas since she was old enough to dictate her preference in gifts.

“Hey, Jeannie!” He planted his butt on my desk, just as he had done a zillion times before. “I hear congratulations are in order. You put a lid on the Faceless case. Nice work.”

I nodded, accepting his compliment.

“What’s going on, Joe? How’s Annie?” I tried to keep my anger out of my voice, but I was having trouble with that.

“She’s better, she’s… well, she’s doing better. Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you and just took off, but things just got out of hand for me. Okay?”

I turned to look away so I wouldn’t burst out in tears. I knew that he would make an issue of it and tell everyone that I was crying, and I just wasn’t in the mood to be embarrassed.

“So?” I asked him “When are you coming back to work?” I was moving papers around for no apparent reason and he knew it. He grabbed my hand to stop me.

“I’m not, Jean, I just came from Human Resources. I put in for my retirement.”