Her Dangerous Promise - Part 1: (Romantic Suspense Serial) (2 page)

Chapter Three

“She’s in shock.” The voice came from far away.

Mary realized the bustling activity focused around her but she hovered distant from it. Her eyes fixed on the door across from the foot of her bed which for her appeared to be down a long tunnel. People in blue scrubs rushed in and out. Their voices mumbled incomprehensibly. Sometimes they would come to her and do something but she didn’t know what. Vaguely, she was aware of pressure around her arm. Something cold pressed to her chest. A stethoscope? They were doing things to her, these people. Flicking a bright light in her eyes, pricking in her arm. She waved them off ineffectually. Why were they troubling her? She was so tired. Why wouldn’t they leave her to sink into the peaceful darkness encroaching around her?

The door at the end of the tunnel opened again and this time a man in suit pants and white shirt appeared. His sleeves were rolled to the elbow. Ready to get down to business, Mary thought with befuddled amusement. On his belt he carried a holstered pistol and a badge that gleamed in the too bright light. He observed the scene with a cursory glance and then fixed his eyes on Mary. Crossing to her in long strides, he called to her, “Mary Seeton?”

She felt him clutch her hand, enclosing it in his warm, dry grasp, driving away the numbness that pillowed the rest of her body. Mary tried to speak but her throat ached and she managed only a rasping gasp.

“Can she have some water?” the man asked. Presently, he supported a paper cup in Mary’s own hand and guided it to her lips. Which was a good thing because she would have spilled it if left to fend for herself.

Mary sipped the cool water at first, letting her tongue and lips absorb the moisture. Her body, in its need took over and she gulped down the rest quickly. The dark tunnel diffused. The room came into hazy focus, although all the colors were oddly muted almost like a black-and-white movie.

“She’s dehydrated,” the man proclaimed, taking the cup and filling it again from the pitcher beside the bed.

“Slowly with that. We don’t want to make her sick,” a nurse admonished him. “We’ve started an IV.”

He returned the cup to Mary and she drank only half the contents this time. Her thoughts were coming together now, sorting themselves out in her head as if she just woke up and was slow in coming out of the fugue of sleep. She wasn’t sure if it was the refreshment of the water, or the closeness of the intense and handsome man beside her. “I want to go home.”

“Mary?” the man asked. He still cradled her hand in one of his own. He stroked back her hair from her face. His thumb swept a lingering caress across her forehead as if checking for a fever. His eyes, abnormally clear green, searched hers and she was lost in them momentarily. The scent of him, warmly masculine and a hinting linger of a minty cologne, entranced her into a sense of calm security. His heavy eyebrows, as deeply dark as his hair, drew together in concern. “Mary, can you tell me what happened?”

She looked around her, piecing together the clues in order to guess at the answer. “I’m… in the hospital?”

“Yes. Can you tell me what happened before?”

Oh God, he asked hard questions. Mary closed her eyes and thought back, recalling the sights and sounds that had swept around her. “I was… in an ambulance.”

“Yes, I know that.” His thick whisper reassured her softly. His voice was like his eyes had been; a deep ocean where Mary could stretch out and float away. A place where she could sleep in tranquility. More than anything she craved that peace but she couldn’t remember exactly why. Mary relaxed, surrendering to oblivion.

“Stay with me, Mary.”

Stay with him. What a lovely idea, she thought. He embodied warm comfort and a sense of security that she’d lacked. “Okay,” she said, curling onto her side toward him and drawing his hand under her chin like a child might a security blanket. With a sigh, she closed her eyes.

“Was she drugged?” he demanded.

“We’ve given her a sedative.”

“The kidnapper might have given her something as well. You’d better do a drug screen.”

A light slap on the cheek startled Mary and she forced her eyelids open but they wouldn’t stay that way long. The ground was dropping away beneath her quickly. She caught one more glimpse of the cinematically handsome face and mythically green eyes and slipped away into the blackness with a smile on her lips.

Chapter Four

Thom cupped Mary’s dirt-smudged cheek. Even in her disheveled state, Mary Seeton’s beauty shone with wholesome innocence. Without thinking about it, he stroked her cheek. Discovering an amazing softness in her delicately rounded features and lingering in his reluctance to break contact, Thom traced the line of her jaw. When she’d spoken, her voice struck a melodious tone that Thom found strangely stirring. He longed to hear her voice again and not just to collect the answers to his questions. He leaned close and murmured, “Talk to me.”

At the sound of Brad faking a cough, Thom drew back from Mary. The amused tilt of his eyebrows questioned the professional nature of Thom’s behavior. Frowning at his obvious enjoyment of his discomfort, Thom shoved his hands into his pants pockets. A nurse had followed the officer into the private hospital room. Thom retreated to the foot of the bed to allow a nurse to slip past him. To Brad he said, “They’ve sedated her. We won’t be able to get anything from her until the morning.”

“I took statements from the EMTs. They didn’t see anyone in the area. Are you ready to check out the location where they found her? It’s dark out now but the forensic team brought out lights to search by.”

Thom scanned the room with his cop’s eyes. A 24- hour guard would be placed on her door. The windows were large enough for someone to climb through but on the third floor it wasn’t likely to happen. To the nurse who was drawing a blood sample, he inquired, “Is she stable?”

“Yes. She’ll be fine. ECG is good. No broken bones or internal bleeding. The doctor is keeping her overnight for observation but barring any unforeseen complications she’ll be released in the morning.”

“Good.” Thom glanced down at Mary and the magnetic draw to her side prickled like static on his skin. Purposefully, he stepped back as a physical gesture to force himself to back off emotionally. The captain regularly griped that Thom let himself get too wrapped up in his cases. As devoted to justice as he was, this time was worse. He folded his arms across his chest and tried not to entertain ideas about what he’d like to do to the slime ball who had hurt this woman. Stupid mistakes would give the judicial system an excuse to let this animal walk and that was unacceptable. “Brad, get the forensic technician in here and let’s get started.”

Sergeant Elaine Smythe entered the private recovery room loaded down with two large tool kits she lugged around by the sturdy plastic handles. A woman technician would necessarily have to do the examination and the middle-aged sergeant knew her job all too well.

Thom trusted Sergeant Smythe but he lingered in case the preliminary examinations, especially of Mary’s clothes or marks of violence might provide him with substantial insights into her assailant’s identity. The answers Mary couldn’t supply for herself, the evidence of her ordeal still clinging to her might provide. If those scraps spoke clearly enough, they might be able to bring Mary closure and justice before the doctors even released her from the hospital. Thom wanted to give her that gift.

Mary Seeton still wore the long button-up autumn dress she’d been found in. The simple, ankle-length outfit had a pink floral design over a teal background. The fabric carried quite a bit of dirt and broken blades of dried grass—all potentially important in tracing her recent whereabouts. The sheet the ambulance crew had Mary wrapped up in would have to be taken as well, in case of transferred evidence.

Sergeant Smythe began her investigation at the foot of the bed. She carefully rolled back the sheet and photographed Mary Seeton’s footwear. Her shoes were sensible, formerly white canvas and perfect for chasing a herd of third graders. The sergeant carefully slipped the shoes off without untying them, sealed them into evidence bags and handed them to Thom to consider more closely.

They were size seven narrow and new, judging by the unmarred printing on the inside and the lack of scuff marks on the treads. The zigzag tread pattern would show up well on dusty or muddy terrain. He might get lucky and be able to follow her trail right back to the kidnapper.

Thom examined the bagged socks the sergeant handed him. Grass seeds and brambles had snagged on the cuffs.

Sergeant Smythe photographed Mary’s bare feet and calves. She’d accumulated a small collection of superficial scratches probably at the same time she’d gotten the brambles, walking through high grass or a wooded area.

The sergeant rolled the sheet back down and then moved onto Mary’s hands. She gathered scrapings from underneath each fingernail, in case Mary had managed to scratch her assailant.

“Thom, come look at this.”

Thom joined the sergeant beside the sleeping woman. She pointed to fresh bruises just beginning to darken on Mary’s wrists. “Ligature marks? Not hands holding her down, I don’t think. More likely bound with something.”

How had he missed that when he’d held her hand earlier? He knew the answer to that, aggravating though it was. He’d been too transfixed with her beauty and his reaction to it. He’d let himself forget she was a victim in desperate need of his help. Gently, Thom scooped up Mary’s hand. The hum he felt from the physical contact jolted him like a dive into a frozen lake. This wasn’t going to be the typical case for him. Swallowing down his response to her, Thom stroked her fingers straight. No breaks or snags marred the perfect oval shape of her fingernails. The smooth skin of the palm bore no defensive wounds. “She didn’t put up a fight.”

“She might not have had much of a chance. Did you see that bump on her head?”

Thom nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Hot fury erupted through his body. Stepping back he allowed the sergeant to take photographs of the marks.

Sergeant Smythe combed Mary’s loose rivulets of honey-colored hair, to capture any fibers or hairs left by the kidnapper. With the hair now spilling across the pillow, Thom caught his first glimpse of the delicate flesh of Mary’s throat.

With a growl, Thom rushed to Mary and brushed back the stray strands from her bruised throat. Tenderly he probed the marks, feeling for sub-dermal damage. The tissue was swollen. She was lucky the force hadn’t crushed her windpipe. Wishing he could soothe away the hurt, Thom gave her skin one last caress before withdrawing from her.

The sergeant leaned over Mary and indicated the striping pattern of the marks. “He must have choked her with his bare hands. He grabbed her from behind. These are finger marks on the front.”

Thom stared at the marks, wanting nothing more than to break each finger those marks represented and snap it in half. No. There was something he wanted more. He wanted to restore Mary to the image he’d seen in the school yearbook, the image of her he carried in his mind, happy and whole. If the damage done to her psyche was as brutal as the wounds to her body suggested… He squeezed his eyes shut, unwilling to finish that thought. “I swear I’m going to catch this guy and make him pay.”

Sergeant Smythe laid a motherly hand on Thom’s forearm. “I’ll call your cell phone when I have news. I’ll take it from here.”

Thom stormed out of the recovery room with Brad jogging to catch up. The sergeant had every right to dismiss him. His outbursts distracted her from her work. Knowing this didn’t cool his emotions one bit.

The medics he brushed past wisely made way for him. He barely noticed them. He only saw hands wrapped around Mary’s neck and knowing he hadn’t been there to stop it. Nothing he could do would ever take the memory of it away from her.

Thom punched out, putting his fist through the drywall. His supervisor would bitch him out when the bill arrived for the damage, but he didn’t care. Moreover, that hole was nothing compared to what he’d do to that guy when he got a hold of him. He didn’t care if his supervisor didn’t like that either.

Chapter Five

Thom rode shotgun in Brad’s squad car, his city map spread across his lap. The deepening darkness of night grew worse as they drove out of the suburbs and into the more rural outskirts. Using his mini flashlight, he illuminated the southeast corner of the map.

The radio blurted occasionally and Thom only half listened. “Now, tell me what we know so far. You said they picked her up outside the old service station on Whisper Wood Lane?”

“That’s right.” Brad glanced quickly at the map and pointed. “The station is nearly a mile south of Granger Avenue. That is the closest cross street.”

“Pretty isolated. Did someone spot her and call it in?”

“She called 9-1-1 from the payphone. The station is closed but the payphone still worked. That was a lucky break for her.”

“No witnesses at all?”

“None have come forward.”

Thom grunted. He respected Brad as an officer and wouldn’t want anyone else to back him up when the fat hit the fire but his cold analysis of the situation irked him. On the job, he was a total professional. No excessive empathizing with the victim to cloud his judgment. No righteous indignation when faced with heinous criminal malice. He busted heads with the best of them on the job but he possessed the ability to leave the problems of work at work.

Thom could never switch it on and off like that. Even his cold cases simmered on the backburner of his mind. People depended on him, so how could he relax knowing that? He’d been too willing to let his own life distract him from the pain of others before and Tammy Jo paid the price for it. He wouldn’t allow that to happen to Mary.

Thom smoothed out the creases of the map and tried to focus on it, rather than the vision before his eyes of a beaten up Mary in her hospital bed, looking so like Tammy Jo had years before.

Maybe he was just letting this victim get under his skin. The sooner he caught the perpetrator and closed this case, the sooner he could distance himself from the disturbing emotions percolating in his gut. “From the grass and brambles on her footwear, I’m guessing she walked at least some distance. So, did he dump her out in the boonies to buy some getaway time, or did she escape?”

“Too bad they sedated her at the hospital. You could have asked.”

Thom ignored the remark and concentrated on the map. He snagged a pen hooked to the clipboard on the dashboard and circled the school.

“Hey, don’t mess up my map.”

“Requisition another one.” Thom circled Mary’s home. Both locations he’d marked were in the middle and eastern portion of the map. “The location where she was found is not too extraordinarily far from Mary’s home and work. If he purposely left her out there, he might have consciously tried to distance her from him. Most kidnappings are not random, so she likely either knows him or he’s been somehow stalking her without her knowledge. In which case, he might actually live or work in the same neighborhoods as Mary.”

“You mean ‘the victim’ don’t you? Or Miss Seeton? Since when are you on a first name basis?”

“Stow the sarcasm.”

Brad resettled in the driver’s seat. His Irish eyes flashed with amusement as he said, “I’m not being sarcastic, Inspector, just professional.”

“Remind me to tell you later where you can shove your professionalism.”

He chuckled. “I’ll make a note.”

“On the other hand,” Thom returned to his line of reasoning, “if she escaped, the kidnapper may have taken her to the woods intentionally, possibly to murder her. He turns his back, goes off to get something from his car, or whatever, and she bolts. He might even still be in the area.”

“Being a tad optimistic, Thom?”

“Maybe she escaped from his vehicle.”

“She would have had more wounds if she leapt from a moving vehicle.”

The patrol car coasted to a halt onto the gravel parking lot in front of the old Metro gas station. Ignoring the annoyed protests from Brad, Thom haphazardly folded the map and shoved it back into the glove box. He unconsciously touched his sidearm and his badge, his personal talisman against the evils of the world, making sure both were positioned properly before stepping out of the vehicle.

The search team had set up a large mobile light system to illuminate the entire area. The payphone squatted on a post in the southern corner of the lot, which was completely void of cover. When Mary made her call for help, she would have been in full view, lending credence to the “dumped” theory. If she’d escaped, her pursuer couldn’t have missed her standing out in the open.

“He let her go,” Thom murmured to himself. “This guy snatches her, nearly kills her and then let her walk. What are you involved in Mary? What kind of trouble are you in?”

The station itself was just a twenty by ten foot shack with plywood boarding up the windows and door. The state removed the pumps years earlier, leaving the rusted awning to cover a bare patch of gravel.

Allen Wiseman, the nightshift forensic supervisor, directed the patrolmen who poked around the gravel and the grassy ditches on either side of the road and were collecting bits of trash on the off chance the perpetrator dropped them. The side door of the van, filled with equipment that Allen drove to every crime scene, stood open. He sorted the evidence bags into storage boxes and marked them on his log.

“Allen, tell me something good,” Thom crouched next to the boxes of collected flotsam so far mined from the area and flipped through them.

“Nothing spectacular so far. Do you have an idea of what you might be looking for?” Allen removed his reading glasses. With his trim white beard and post-middle age spread, the forensic scientist resembled Santa Claus and the glasses only added to the effect.

“Did you take fingerprints from the building?”

“The phone too.”

“Any footprints?”

“Not on this gravel or the paved street. Tire marks wouldn’t show up either.”

“Look for anything that might have been used for restraints. Rope or cable, that sort of thing.”

Allen consulted his list, “Nothing like that so far.”

Thom tossed the evidence bags back into the box. None of the bits of trash would point him in the direction of the kidnapper. He stood and scanned the area again, willing some shred of evidence to leap out at him.

“Did you check the grass for disturbance patterns before letting these guys trample the area? Mary…the victim has scratches on her legs and grass and brambles on her socks and shoes.”

Allen jammed his glasses back on his nose before returning to his paperwork. “I do know my job.”

“Sorry.” Thom made a slow circle. No other buildings were visible, just fields of wild grass growing yellow in the autumn chill and the occasional clump of trees. “So, no signs?”

“Not in the immediate area.”

“Rats. This grass grows all up and down this stretch of road and goes who knows how far back into the woods. She could have come from anywhere.”

“Well, there is grass and then there is grass.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I get back to the lab I’ll be able to determine what species of plants she brushed up against. It might narrow down the scope some.” Allen glanced up at Thom, scrutinizing him like a fingerprint. “You’re letting the job get to you again, Thom. Keep this up and you’ll need blood pressure medicine. Have you given anymore thought to taking a vacation? You know if you don’t take it by the end of the year you’ll lose it.”

“I know.” Thom spiked his fingers through his hair, annoyed with himself and the situation. They had nothing to go on, unless Allen produced some feat of forensic magic. Nothing to catch this guy except what Mary Seeton could tell him. His hopes of a quick capture dried up. As tough as it would be on her, he had to get the information he needed from Mary. So much for sparing her that pain.

“Listen Thom, go home and get some rest. It’s past midnight already and I know you were on the job at six this morning. I’ll work through the night and have a report for you tomorrow. Deal?”

“Thanks, Allen. Work a miracle, okay?”

“That’s what I’m known for.”