My Everything (11 page)

“Where is he? Where the fuck is he?”

Grace struggled for breath, unable to utter a sound. He slammed her head back against the door again.

“Where is he?” He shouted now, his face purple with rage. “Who the hell are you, his whore…? McCall’s whore? Are you the reason she’s dead?”

The pressure on Grace’s windpipe increased and she knew he’d never let her go. She stared into green eyes filled with hate. She felt his breath hot on her mouth. The man was going to strangle the life out of her and there was nothing she could do to stop him.

Out of the blue Grace remembered the car key. She still gripped it tightly between her two fingers. Without hesitation, she raked it up across his left cheek and over his eye.

He shrieked, and his hand fell away from her neck as he grabbed for his face. Grace managed to land on her feet and she leapt past him, reaching the door in two strides. She threw it open and sprinted toward the nearest staircase. She wanted to scream but she still couldn’t make a sound. She did the only thing she could think of. She pulled the fire alarm as she ran by the small red box.

Grace flew down the stairs, skidding along the rough edges and nearly tumbling head over heels several times before she burst through the first floor door that opened directly into the lobby. Grace fell onto scraped knees in front of the desk, clutching her throat, as blood from a slice on her forearm dripped red on the white marble floor.

“Help me,” she managed to say. “Please help me.”

As Ben approached
the hotel, he saw flashing lights. They were hard to miss. Two police cruisers blocked the winding drive leading to the front of the building and the parking lot. Near the front entry were two fire trucks, two ambulances and several more police cars. A crowd of people stood outside the lobby, milling about in a semi-organized mass.

Ben drove past the commotion until he reached a quiet side street. He rang Tom and asked for clearance to get to the hotel, now. Tom said he’d have it in five minutes. He called Ben back in four. Ben made a quick U-turn and swung back to the entrance. He pulled up to one of the police cruisers and handed him his Homeland Security ID. It was genuine and it read Benjamin McCall.

“I’m a guest here,” Ben said to the two officers. “I noticed something going on and called to get clearance from the local office of Homeland Security. Feel free to give them a call. What happened, a bomb threat?”

The officer studied his ID and apparently decided Ben was legit. “Not a bomb,” he replied. “A guest was attacked in her room. She managed to get away from her attacker and pull the fire alarm. The paramedics are treating her now. We’ve emptied the hotel. We’re checking room by room, questioning all the guests.”

Ben felt a prickle of alarm run down his spine. “How long did it take the first responders to get here?”

“Five, maybe six minutes,” the officer replied.

“That’s a lot of time,” Ben said. “Whoever attacked her is probably long gone by now.”

“If he is, he’s bleeding. She thinks she got him pretty good in the face with her car key. She got him in the head too. She hit him with a spike heel.”

Ben felt the corner of his mouth twitch. He always liked to hear something like that. It was a better outcome than the alternative. “Have you checked the local ERs?”

“Yes,” he replied, “Nothing so far. We have a description but we don’t know if he’s on foot or in a vehicle. We’re not sure how he got into her room.”

“How’s the victim?” asked Ben.

“You can see for yourself if you like. She’s pretty banged up but she’ll live. Smart girl. Athletic, too. I think she’s a nurse.”

Suddenly the twinge of alarm Ben felt turned to flat-out panic. “What room did this happen in?”

“Uh, I don’t know. Gary,” he called to his partner, “What room was she in?”

“321.”

“You heard that, right?”

Ben nodded. He felt sick. Whenever he stayed here, he or Tom used the computer to block room 321 so it couldn’t be occupied. Nobody was supposed to be in that room. It was a decoy. How the hell did Grace get assigned that room? This was bad. “I’d like to drive up, if you don’t mind.”

“Yeah, sure, give me a minute to let them know you’re coming and move my car.”

The officer called up to hotel lobby, then he backed his cruiser out of the way and Ben drove past, eyes and ears alert. He parked off to the side, close to the emergency vehicles.

Through his open window, he spied Grace sitting on a gurney in the back of an ambulance. Her face was pale, but she was awake and alert. Her dress was hiked up to mid-thigh. One EMT held a pressure dressing to her left arm. The other appeared to be cleaning blood from her knees. A police officer waited at the door of the ambulance.

When Ben climbed out of his car, Grace deliberately caught his eyes. She shook her head almost imperceptibly before turning her attention to one of the paramedics. Ben realized she didn’t want anyone to know they were connected. He strode toward the sergeant in charge and showed him his ID.

“Why is Homeland Security involved in a routine assault?” asked the sergeant.

Ben cleared his throat. “We think there may be a connection between this assault and the recent shooting of two Aris security agents.”

The sergeant looked doubtful.

“If you don’t believe me you’re welcome to call the local office.”

The sergeant took him up on his offer. He phoned into his supervisor, explained the situation and asked him to contact the local office of Homeland Security. His supervisor wasted no time in getting back to him. The police sergeant turned to Ben. “I’ve been instructed to give you access to whatever you want.”

“Thanks,” said Ben. “Let’s start with what you know so far.”

The man took a breath and looked at his notes. “The victim is a twenty-eight-year-old nurse from Elkhorn, Nebraska. Name’s Grace Adams. She’s here for some kind of medical conference that’s meeting over at Cal Tech. She’s one of the faculty members. I guess the dinner ran late and she didn’t get back here until around eleven-thirty. She said the hotel lot was full so she had to park in that separate area behind the fence and walk around to an entrance. She took the stairs to the third floor.”

Ben interrupted. “Did someone follow her from the parking lot?”

“No,” said the officer. “He was already in her room. She said when she got to the top of the stairs she took off her high heels. She was carrying them in her hands. She opened the door to her room and went inside. That’s when she saw her clothes scattered all over the room. Her computer was smashed. She knew she needed to get the hell out of there. She saw her attacker reflected in the mirror. You know those mirrors all these hotels have in the entryway? He was hiding against the wall by the bed. Before she could reach the door, he jumped her. She managed to hit him on the side of the head with the heel of one of the shoes. That gave her a second, but before she could get far he grabbed her and slammed her against the door between the two rooms. He put his hands around her throat, and if the bruises are any indication, this guy meant business.”

Ben felt his stomach churn as he listened. This was the man they were looking for. He was certain of it, just like he was certain the man would have killed Grace. His fists clenched and unclenched. This maniac had Angel.

“How did she get away?” It took every ounce of self-control Ben possessed to keep his voice even.

“She’s one smart cookie,” replied the sergeant. “She got him in the eye with her car key. He dropped her and she bolted. Hit the fire alarm as she ran past it. She got torn up on the stairs, and her neck is pretty sore, but otherwise she’s okay.”

“What about the man? Did she get a good look at him? Did he say anything to her? Did she mention an accent?”

“Yeah, she got a look at him all right. Up close and personal. She gave us a good description. He seems pretty average from the sounds of it. He’s white, late-twenties, early-thirties. Maybe six feet tall, one hundred eighty-five pounds, short brown hair, green eyes. She noticed a few freckles on the bridge of his nose. No accent. He was wearing a black long-sleeve shirt and black pants. No gloves. I’ve got men dusting for prints now. And we have blood samples, his. He went over the balcony and left bloody prints on the rail. She didn’t bleed until she fell on the stairs. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was personal, but she claims she’s never seen the guy before in her life.”

“Did he say anything to her?” Ben needed to know.

“Where is he?” answered the sergeant. “That’s all he said. Where is he? She has no idea who he was talking about.”

Ben knew exactly who Grace’s attacker was talking about.

“Sergeant, would you mind asking her if she’d be willing to answer a few questions for me? I imagine there’s an office inside where I could speak with her alone. You are welcome to stand right outside the door if she’d feel more comfortable, but I need to ask her some questions that are related to my other case, and I’d like to keep this as quiet as possible.”

The officer looked Ben up and down. Ben knew he wanted to ask what the hell was going on, but he said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you.” Ben surveyed the guests milling about in front of the hotel. Most people were in their nightclothes. Many looked frightened, some annoyed. Most appeared curious. Everyone stayed in the light. Although a few men might have fit the description, none was injured or bleeding. Ben didn’t expect Grace’s attacker to stick around. He figured he’d taken off the minute Grace pulled the fire alarm.

The sergeant was right. Grace was one smart cookie.

Ben glanced over at the ambulance where the sergeant was speaking with Grace. He saw her nod in agreement, and then he heard the EMT remind her she’d need stitches to close the cut on her arm. She instructed him to wrap it and said she’d get it taken care of later. Ben could hear the rasp in her voice from where he stood.

Damn that son of a bitch. He would get him if it was the last thing he did.

The police officer helped Grace climb out of the back of the ambulance and escorted her into the lobby. Ben followed a minute later. As he entered the hotel, he spotted the sergeant by the manager’s office. He stood in the doorway. Ben could just see Grace’s head beyond the officer’s folded arms. Ben approached.

“She says she’ll talk to you,” he said. “I’m waiting right here.”

“Thank you,” said Ben. He entered the office and shut the door behind him. They were alone.

Grace pushed herself up from the chair and fell into his arms. Her entire body shook, but she remained utterly silent. Ben couldn’t tell if she was crying or terrified or both. He held her close, stroking her hair gently, doing his best to comfort her. Finally he lifted her head. He wanted to look at her, to see what damage that animal had inflicted.

Ben was surprised to find her eyes dry and determined, although her face appeared stark and pale. Strong fingers had been around her slender neck. The marks were already beginning to turn purple. Ben bent over and kissed her bruised flesh, enraged that someone had done this. Someone had done this to Grace.

“I’m here,” he whispered. “I won’t let him come near you again.”

Grace leaned in close and put her mouth against his ear, pitching her voice for him alone. “He’s not after me, Ben. He’s after you.”

Ben lowered Grace into her chair. He slid over another chair for himself and sat directly in front of her, his thighs pressed against hers, her hands wrapped in his, needing the contact. He assessed her injuries. They were minor and mostly caused by her flight down the stairs. Both knees were skinned and her right forearm had been sliced on the edge of a step during one of her falls. The marks on her neck bothered him the most. He could see the print of a thumb on one side of her windpipe and four fingers on the other. The man had big hands. Ben swallowed hard and cleared his throat.

“Tell me exactly what happened, everything. Even if you think it’s stupid or meaningless. Tell me every single thing that happened from the time you left the college.”

Grace stared solemnly into his eyes. She too swallowed hard and then began to speak softly, her voice very hoarse.

“I drove directly here from the college. As far as I can remember, nobody followed me. I pulled into the lot, and just like last night, it was full. This time I couldn’t find a place to park. I looked everywhere. There was nothing.”

“Did you see anyone in the parking lot?” asked Ben.

“No,” she replied.

“Did you do anything at all besides drive through the lot? Make a phone call? Get a phone call? Drop your purse?”

Grace didn’t hesitate. “I stopped once to write down a license plate number.”

Ben looked a little puzzled. “You wrote down a license plate number?”

“Yeah,” said Grace, “I did. I know it sounds kind of stupid but this really annoying person parked his van across two spaces. He did it last night, too, but last night I managed to squeeze my compact car in beside him. Tonight he deliberately took up two spots at the same end of the row and there was no way to park.” Grace shrugged. “I was pissed so I stopped to write down the license number, and I planned to complain to the front desk. If he’s a guest here, I figured they could talk to him. If he’s not, well, they could kick him out of the lot.”