LIES OF THE PHOENIX (A Lieutenant Cassidy Mystery Book 1) (14 page)

Her heart was in her throat. There was someone on the other side of the door. She was afraid to look through the peephole for fear the person on the other side would know she was there. In the dark she searched for the phone she remembered seeing on the end table. Her hands found it just as she heard a commotion in the hallway.

“Joe, stop! Down here! You’ve got the wrong door. Man, you need a guide dog when you’ve been drinking. Get over here!”

Sarah could hear several male voices laughing loudly. She looked through the peephole and saw a male figure back away from her door and stagger down the hallway a short distance to where two other men were standing. They all disappeared into an apartment close to the elevator.

Sarah backed away from the door and plopped onto the couch. A sense of relief flooded over her. She sat there for a couple of minutes and then made her way back to bed. She crawled under the covers and snuggled into her pillow.
I guess now I can tell Ben I’ve met some of the neighbors,
she thought.

Morning came all too soon. She got up, brushed her teeth and showered. As she started to dress she remembered she promised to call Ben. She found her phone and made the call. He answered on the first ring.

“I’m up and just getting dressed. Everything is fine.” she said.

He sounded relieved. “O.K., I’ll be there in a little bit.” Then the phone clicked off.

Sarah was surprised at the abrupt end to their call. She went back to the bedroom to finish dressing. Just as she started to run a brush through her hair there was a knock at the door. She walked to the door and looked through the peephole. It was Ben. He must have been waiting downstairs for her call. She opened the door and the smell of fresh coffee and bakery wafted through the air.

“Hi, I’ve come bearing gifts.” He held up a bag and walked in.

“How long have you been waiting downstairs?” She said with a scowl.

“Long enough to hear most of Stan’s life history and hash over all the local sports news. We were venturing dangerously close to politics. You saved me from that,” he said.

He carried the bag containing coffee and sweet rolls to the kitchen and set it on the small table. He then rummaged through the cupboards and drawers looking for plates and utensils.

“Here, I’ll take care of that.” She pushed him toward a seat at the small table and then quickly assembled napkins, plates, and silverware. She then slid into a chair across from him.

“So let’s see what kind of goodies you brought.” She opened the bag and peeked in. “You brought enough to feed an army,” she said in surprise.

“Yes, well—everything looked so good, I couldn’t decide. I just bought two of everything.”

There were at least a dozen sweet rolls and doughnuts in the bag. She carefully set them on a large plate and then they each selected a favorite from the pyramid of pastries.

“I thought I would take you to work and then go to my apartment to make sure that the furniture delivery goes smoothly. Then I’ll pick you up from work. We can go to dinner, and you can come over to see my new castle.”

“Sounds like you have my whole day planned for me,” she said as she licked chocolate icing from her fingers.

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean it like that. I guess I am out of practice with this,” he said awkwardly. “Let me try this again. Would you like to go to dinner with me tonight? I’d like to show you my new apartment afterwards. That is, if you’re up for it.”

“And what about the,
I’m going to take you and pick you up from work,
thing?” she countered.

“Oh, that’s a given. You don’t get a choice about that,” he said as he took a big bite of a sugar doughnut.

“Really? Who says so?”

“I have orders from Ruth. If you have any complaints, you’ll have to take it up with her.”

Sarah gave up. She knew she would be on the losing side if Ruth was behind it. They finished their coffee and Sarah collected her purse and a sweater before they left for her work. The air conditioning in her office was often frigid and she wanted to be prepared.

The weather was sunny and the walk to her office from the apartment took only a few minutes. Ben entered the building with her making the excuse that he wanted to see where she worked so he could find it at the end of the day. They went up the elevator to the eleventh floor where her office was located.

The elevator opened and she stepped out. She turned to Ben and said, “I’ll see you after work. I should be done around 5 p.m.”

“Not so fast. I’m not leaving until I’m sure you’re behind a closed door.” He hopped out of the elevator and followed her down the hall to a large glass door with a sign arching across the top proclaiming the name
Marston & Clark Advertising Agency
.

Inside the door was a reception desk occupied by a young woman. “Good morning, Mrs. Lawrence,” she said with a cordial smile.

“Good morning, Annie. This is Ben Taggert. He’ll be returning at the end of the day. If he annoys you, you have my permission to make him wait outside in the hallway.”

“Oh, now that’s not fair,” Ben countered in defense. “I am the consummate gentleman, Annie. You have nothing to worry about.”

Annie seemed flustered by the good natured banter between the two and just continued to smile blankly. The phone on her desk rang and she grabbed it on the first ring, glad to escape into the comfort of a familiar task, “Good morning, Marston & Clark.”

Sarah said goodbye to Ben and he promised to be back by five o’clock. She went to her office and began sorting through the pile of work that had accumulated on her desk. She returned calls to clients, reviewed proposed advertising campaigns and put together several quotes for some radio and TV spot.

After several hours she looked up at the clock and was surprised to see it was after noon. She felt hungry and decided it was time to get something to eat. She also was ready to get away from her desk for a little while. She neatened up the piles of papers she had been working on and walked out to the front desk.

“Annie, I’m going out to grab a sandwich. I won’t be gone long. If anyone calls, just put them into my voicemail.”

“O.K., Mrs. Lawrence.” Annie watched through the glass door as Sarah left the office and walked toward the bank of elevators.

A minute later Ben walked through the office door and was standing in front of the reception desk. “Hi, Annie. Could you call for Sarah? I thought I would surprise her and take her to lunch,” he said with a smile.

“Oh, I’m really sorry, Mr. Taggert. She just left a minute ago to get something to eat. I’m surprised you didn’t run in to her at the elevators.”

“She left? Did she say where she was going?”

“No. She said she wouldn’t be gone long, though.”

Ben raced back towards the elevators. He punched the elevator button and the doors miraculously opened. He was hoping to catch her before she went out on the street by herself. The elevator coursed to the ground floor without stopping and he jumped out of the car as soon as the doors opened. Sarah was nowhere to be seen. He ran out onto the sidewalk and looked up and down the street, but she wasn’t there.

* * * * *

Sarah’s plan was to run to the deli, pick up a coffee and a sandwich, and then return to the office to work on the mountain of papers still cluttering her desk. She pushed the elevator button and waited. The doors opened almost immediately and she walked into the vacant elevator car. She watched as the doors slowly started to close. Her mind started to drift into that vegetative state that people enter into when they ride elevators. Suddenly a hand reached in between the doors and the doors sprung open again. It startled her. She hadn’t seen anyone in the hallway when she entered the elevator. A large brutish man in a dark coat and a hat pulled low over his eyes pushed his way in and stood off to the side as the door closed again.

Sarah and the new passenger stared vacantly at the front of the elevator as it started to descend again. His presence made her uncomfortable and she hoped someone else would get on the elevator. She didn’t look at him and just wished the elevator would speed to the first floor. Suddenly the stranger’s arm shot forward and hit the emergency stop button. He whirled toward her, grabbed her around the neck, and forced her face first into the wall of the elevator. Her face hit the hard surface with such force that blood began streaming from her nose. The next thing she knew there was a knife pressing against her throat and she was pinned against the wall by an arm the size of a tree trunk. She could not see her attacker’s face. All she could see was the back of her assailant’s right hand that was holding the knife pressed against her throat. An ugly scar snaked across the back of his hand. In the corner of her field of vision she could see the knife hilt. It looked to be made of ivory or bone with some type of etching on it.

“Don’t scream, don’t move, don’t do anything, Sarah,” the stranger growled. “Tell me where your husband is. Tell me now or the rest of your day is going to get very unpleasant.”

She was terrified, but tried to compose herself and think.

“I don’t know where he is. I wish I did!” She could barely get the words out. “He walked out on me without a word.”

The pressure on her back eased some, but the knife remained at her throat. She could feel a trickle of blood running down her neck from where the blade bit into her skin. Droplets of blood dripped from her nose onto her blouse.

“He has something that doesn’t belong to him. I’m here to get it. Then he’s a dead man.”

She could feel the vapor of his hot breath on the side of her face.

“He’ll contact his pretty little wife. I know he will. And when he does, you find out where it is. Tell him I will kill you if he doesn’t produce it.” He leaned close to her ear and hissed, “And Sarah, that is a promise I will keep.”

“He never told me anything. I don’t know what you are talking about.” Her voice quivered and she was shaking as she said it. She was hoping that her attacker would believe that she knew nothing of Jordan’s involvement.

He pressed the knife into her neck and she could feel another wet trickle of blood run down her skin.

“It’s information, Sarah. Financial account information he stole in L.A. Something very small, a computer flash drive. And you’ll have to convince him to give it up, or find it yourself.”

He shoved her face against the wall again with a crushing force and blood smeared across her cheeks. “If you know what’s good for you, you will ride this car down to the ground floor. I’ll be in touch.” He released the emergency stop button and exited the elevator at the next floor. She never saw his face.

The elevator raced to ground floor without a stop and Sarah stumbled out. Blood covered her face and blouse. She had put her hands to her nose to stem the bleeding and the blood now covered her hands. People in the lobby looked at her in horror. A security guard rushed over and helped her to a bench. Someone thankfully gave her a handkerchief that she was now pressing to her nose.

Just then Ben came back into the building from the sidewalk where he had been looking for her. He saw the commotion in the lobby and went to see what was going on. He pushed his way through a throng of people blocking his path and then he saw her. Within a second he was at her side.

“Sarah, are you alright.” She didn’t answer, she just sat there shaking. He put his hands on either side of her face and looked for any wounds. He saw the blood still oozing from her nose, a small cut on her neck and one over her right brow, and then some bruising just starting to develop, but no other major injuries. He was relieved. There was a lot of blood, but it seemed to have come mostly from her nose bleed. He took out his phone and called 911 and then sat down beside her. She buried her face in his chest and started to cry.

“Sarah, tell me what happened.” He didn’t know what had occurred and Sarah didn’t seem to be able to answer. He looked around the lobby, “Did anyone see what happened to her?”

A woman stepped forward and said, “She just got off the elevator looking like that.”

“Did anyone else get off that elevator with her?” Ben asked.

“No, just her,” the woman said.

Ben reached down and put his hand under her chin and lifted her face from his chest, “Sarah, look at me. I know you’re upset. We’ll get you out of here as soon as possible, but you have to try to tell me what happened. ”

Sarah looked at him with her eyes brimming with tears. She whispered, “A man attacked me in the elevator. He had a knife. He wanted to know where Jordan is. He’s going to kill Jordan and me if he doesn’t get what he wants. It’s information on the financial accounts Jordan worked on in L.A. It’s on a flash drive.”

Ben could feel her whole body shaking. He could feel the rage rising in his own. Against his better judgment he left her on her alone last night and let her go to work today. How could he have been so stupid! It wasn’t going to happen again.

An EMS unit pulled up to the front of the building and two medical technicians came running in. Ben jumped to his feet and pulled one of them aside explaining that she was a victim of an armed assault and recommended they take her to the hospital to be checked out. After a quick assessment, they agreed. Ben then pulled out his cell phone and made a call to Lieutenant Cassidy as he road to the hospital with Sarah.