Violets & Violence (22 page)

“And the other two million,” he said with the same ignorance as when he had asked about Lindsey.

The dead silence between us stretched into an eternity. I searched the street blindly before remembering that I needed a taxi. I found one at the corner of Warwick and St. Mary’s, jogged over. Noticing my approach, the driver waved me into the back.

“Heathrow,” I told him, not realizing or caring that I had left my notes and computer bag somewhere between here and the courtyard. Then, to the phone, “Where’s Violet?”

I heard scuffling and then frantic breathing before the words spilled out of her mouth like the tears out of her eyes. “What’s he talking about, Luke, let’s just pay him, let’s just get him out of our lives once and for all before someone really gets hurt, Luke, please, please, please, Luke, please—”

A
smack
and then more silence.

Breathing. Rinker’s breathing.

“Lindsey and the other two million. Or you won’t see her alive ever again.”

Before I could spit out a response, the line went dead and the world around me seemed to implode into itself, leaving grim colors and a silence that rang in my ears like an alarm.

For lunch that Thursday, the day after Violet ran out of my apartment and left her confession behind, I grabbed a sandwich from downstairs and started toward the Riverwalk
t
rail. To get to the Riverwalk, I needed to pass the Joe Louis monument. I wondered what the famous boxer would think of this great town now.

A few blocks in the other direction, this trendy redevelopment ended, and it did so rather abruptly. It was like the city planners walked a few blocks and saw that few newer homes had gone up, replacing the kind of abandonment seen only in zombie or post-apocalypse television shows and video games, and then turned back and ignored the fact that far more work was needed. My parents’ old neighborhood caught a whiff of this kind of change, but the redevelopment still didn’t reach quite as far as the old neighborhood.

So I stayed close to the Detroit River.

On a sunny day like today, the water seemed aglow in an aquamarine hue. It calmed me to the point where the devastation and stress of the office, and the rest of this town, no longer existed. It was a hopeless peace, and it belonged exclusively to me.

As I passed the RenCen, I felt an urgent vibration on my hip. The phone. A text.

I stopped, held my breath and said a quick prayer.

Please belong to Violet
.

Reaching into my pocket, I grabbed the phone and read the screen. The number meant nothing to me.

We need to talk. Life and death. Violet’s.

My hands began to quake as I hashed out a quick response

Call now
.

And he did. The heartbeat after I pressed
send
, the phone chirped once and vibrated several times over. I raised the phone to my ear and listened to what would turn this day into the worst of my life. The kind that outlasts the worst heartbreak.

“It’s Luke,” he said. “Violet’s in trouble and I need your help.”

I parked the Toyota at the far end of Lynden Park Court and jogged the remaining distance to the house. According to Luke, Violet had been taken hostage in her own home by the man that Luke and Violet had stolen and taken the two hundred thousand dollars from. The man who owned time, it seemed, as Violet had called it.

Despite my unanswered questions –
who and where is this sister Violet mentioned, how did the code buy time exactly, why had this man come to Detroit after all this time, what was his relationship with the woman I loved, and how did he get my number
– I had promised to keep an eye on the house until he arrived. Tomorrow.

Three twenty-two on a Thursday afternoon, and here I stood outside the luxurious home where the town’s hottest magician and next big public figure, like Joe Louis, lived. It seemed calm enough – the big gate closed for business, but the walkway always providing access to the big front door.

As I crept past the property without looking too obvious, I glared out the corners of my eyes and checked the windows, but saw no activity inside. At the other end of the property, I reached into my pocket and tapped out a quick message to Luke, which had to be edited three times on account of the misspelled words that I blamed on my shaking fingers.

House is quiet. Don’t think they’re here.

But when I pocketed the phone and started to turn around, my world flashed white before I felt the impact of a balled fist connecting with my face.

The perfume reached me before the daylight had a chance at tickling my eyelids. When I opened my eyes, I saw her. For that flash of an instant, Violet was everything in my world, and it frightened me how easily that happened. Nobody, not even my ex-wife, the woman who had ruined me, had meant everything…yet this woman who was still something of a stranger had found a way to wedge her way into that role without much work at all.

But Violet…seeing her hovering above me before she moved back and settled onto the lawn at my side, that sort of thing made me believe in things like magic. Even in her tight pants, mascara-smeared eyes from tears, and short, wig-less hair, Violet had a magical quality.

“What’re you doing here?” she asked, her voice quiet with a touch of terror in it.

When I opened my mouth to speak, a sharp pain thundered through my jaw and stretched into my head. I tried again. “Luke,” I told her. “He called me. He thought you…someone had you.” I shook my head. “What’s going on, Violet?”

Her nostrils flared as she considered what she was about to tell me. Whatever it was, I could see it wouldn’t be easy.

I placed a hand on her wrist. “It’s your sister, isn’t it? She’s in that house with the guy you stole from.”

She nodded, raising her eyes to mine. “I’m sorry you’ve been dragged into this, Carter. And that I told you.”

“Told me that you have a sister?”

She nodded. “It’s not just part of the act, it
is
the act.” She hadn’t wanted to tell me. Shaking her head, she made a correction. “It
was
the act. Because once we get Violet out of there, I think it’s time that we all explore more traditional career options.”

I couldn’t help but imitate her tired smirk. She wanted out, she was done with the drama. I didn’t know what else to say, so I asked, “So you’re not Violet?”

“According to my birth certificate, I’m Edie Barlow,” she said, nodding sideways at the house as she rose to her feet. “Violet Barlow is the one that is in serious trouble inside that house if we don’t get to her soon.”

I followed her through the gate, crouching low as we stepped around to the back deck. “I like your real name,” I whispered. “Edie’s a pretty name.”

“
Shhh
,” she scolded.

I watched her peek through the kitchen window and then reach up to the rain gutter. She pulled herself up, seemingly without much effort at all. On the first floor roof, she nodded at me like she expected me to do the same thing, also without much effort. But being heavier and less physically inclined than Vio-Edie, it took a lot more effort. In fact, it required a bit of assistance from her as well, was probably about as humiliating as walking into a client meeting with your fly open.

I rolled onto the singled roof, wondering if Violet’s captor had heard us. We sat there for a minute and all I could hear was my heart pounding in my ears while we waited for consequences; but it seemed the kidnapper hadn’t detected our approach. Finally, Edie broke the silence.

“Catch your breath yet?” she asked with a light tone, but her hard, severe eyes indicated that she wasn’t kidding around. This was serious business, something on par with breaking into a bank vault and safety deposit box.

I nodded.

“Okay, we’re climbing in through this bedroom window,” she instructed, indicating the window closest to her. “There’s a table underneath, so just be careful you don’t trip or fall.”

“Where are they?” I asked in a near-whisper.

“When I left to come get you, they were downstairs in Luke and Violet’s bedroom. The master bedroom.”

“That’s not
your
bedroom?” I asked.

She shot me a tired scowl as she stepped halfway into the house. “Already told you, Carter. It’s Luke’s show. I’m just the pretty mouthpiece, me and my sister. So let’s just get through this.”

Downstairs, I followed Edie through a hallway, past the office where Luke worked, the main floor bathroom, all the way to the closed door at the end. That door led to the master bedroom where, she believed Violet, her sister, was being held captive by an ex-banker that hated Luke.

“I need you to distract him,” she whispered, her voice so quiet that I barely made out the words. “Once he releases her, I’ll appear.” At that, she reached up and removed her wig.

Nodding, I stepped up to the door. I raised my fist to knock, but heard Edie shoot me a
psst
before signaling to just walk in.

So, reaching down, I opened the door and faced a darkness so intense it felt like mud. I couldn’t see them, I couldn’t see my own hands if I held them up in front of my eyes.

But I
heard
them.

And smelled the fear, the contagious kind that raised the hair on my neck, arms, and head. Lifting my hands, I opened my mouth to speak, then cleared my throat and tried again.

“Violet, sweetie? I know you’re in here.” I stepped forward, carefully. I knew from my previous visit that the bed was closer to the far walls, allowing the moonlight to touch it from each of those windows with the automatic blinds.

I heard a light scuffling, a muffled yelp as I stepped on some article of clothing. I figured I still had a few blind feet between me and the bed.

And then what? What happens once I reach the bed?

“Violet? Where are you?”

I took one more step forward, but that was when I felt the cold metal on my neck.

“Don’t move,” the malicious voice said.

Standing still, I raised my hands a little higher. “Who is this? Is this Luke? Where’s Violet? She loves me. She told—”

“Shut up,” the voice barked and the cold blade –
actually, too thick to be a blade, so what is it, then?
– pressed deeper into my neck.
It’s too narrow to be a handgun, so what is it?

I was afraid to swallow, afraid this thick knife or narrow gun, or whatever it was, might cut into an important vein if I so much as breathed incorrectly. For the first time in my life, I wished I had more street experience; it felt like such a shame having none with the big bad city of Detroit always at my heels.

The man holding the metal thing shoved me forward and I bounced onto the mattress. I flailed my arms out to the side, hoping to reach Violet, to feel her and know she was safe. But if she was nearby, she certainly had not taken a position on the bed.

Damn, now what?

“Who are you?” the voice behind me growled.

I started to roll over, turn around so I could catch a glimpse of his face because his voice sure as hell didn’t sound familiar, but I felt his hands on my ankles, and then the stickiness of tape or some kind of adhesive.

“I’m Carter Borden,” I snapped. “Who the hell are you and where’s my girlfriend?”

I tried to kick him away, but this man was strong. He caught my kick and squeezed my calve muscles firmly enough that I got the message, and an immediate muscle cramp – he wasn’t screwing around.

At last, I felt someone else’s hand slide into mine. It calmed me, felt so familiar that I knew Edie was there with me. Right there in the room, undetected, clearly invisible because this ex-banker had seen me but not her.

“What’re you doing here, hmm?” the man asked once my legs were secured. I felt his hand crawling up my leg, torso, and stop at my arm. He squeezed again, violently, and flung me over, onto my stomach.

“Where’s Violet?” I demanded.

He slapped my face—nothing too crazy, just enough to leave a sting. “Give me your other hand.”

As I brought my other hand toward him, I shifted my weight and tried to take a swing at him, but he was quick and caught the fist flying at him while simultaneously hitting me again in the face, this time with a closed fist and an effort that left more than a sting.

I tasted blood.

“That was a gun, Carter. Don’t be making another stupid mistake like that.” He wrapped the tape around my wrists. “Or your girlfriend is dead.”

Before I could even appreciate the gravity of his threat, the automatic blinds on the windows rolled open. All of them at once, exposing me and the man in front of me—he looked to be older than Bill Thomason, but skinnier, with more wrinkles and a harder life despite the softness of his hands—as well as the real game-changer: Edie.

The man who had taped my ankles and wrists noticed her first. She stood closer to the windows facing the driveway, almost silhouetted against the mild light.