“On it.”
She hung up, called her doorman, hit the accelerator, though she felt as if she were rushing to nowhere. Panic was beginning to creep in and take hold. The more she learned, the more helpless she felt. Professionally and personally.
When the phone sounded again, the caller ID read BLOCKED.
Kat picked it up. “Hello?”
“This is Leslie.”
Cozone’s thin man. Even his phone voice had a creepy smile. “What is it?” she asked.
“I found Sugar.”
Chapter 38
Juicehead was getting closer.
From her spot behind the boulder, Dana Phelps searched for some kind of weapon. A rock maybe. A fallen branch. Something. She started digging her hands around the dirt near her, finding nothing more lethal than pebbles, and twigs too flimsy for a bird’s nest.
“Dana?”
The timbre of his shout told her that he was closing the gap in a hurry. Weapon, weapon. Still nothing. She wondered about the pebbles. Maybe she could mix them with the dirt and then fling it in his face, hitting his eyes, blinding him for a second or two and then . . .
Then what?
The whole plan was moronic. Dana may have been able to temporarily escape using the element of surprise. She may have been able to put some distance between them because of some fortuitous blend of lifelong training and adrenaline. But when she stopped and looked at it now, he had a gun and size and strength. He was well fed and healthy while she had been locked underground for she had no idea how long.
She had no chance.
What did Dana have on her side in this David and Goliath battle? Not even a slingshot. The only thing she maybe had was, again, the element of surprise. She was ducking behind this boulder. He would be passing by it any minute now. She could leap out, catching him off guard. She would go for the eyes and the balls and attack with the ferocity only someone fighting for her life could muster.
But did that even sound feasible anymore?
No, not really.
She could hear that he had slowed his pace. His steps were more deliberate now. Terrific. Even the element of surprise was gone.
So what did she have left?
Nothing.
Exhaustion emanated from every part of her body. Part of her wanted to just stay here, on the ground, and get it over with. Let him do what he wanted. He could kill her right away. Probably would. Or he could bring her back to that barn and do whatever monstrous thing he had been planning in hopes of extracting information relating to that police detective Titus had asked about.
Dana hadn’t been lying. She had no idea who Kat Donovan was, but that didn’t really seem to matter to Titus and Juicehead. Pathos never entered the equation with these two. She was less than an animal (witness Juicehead’s dog) to them. She was something inanimate, something lifeless, like this boulder, an object to be removed or bulldozed or broken into bits, depending on their want or convenience. It would be one thing if they were simply cruel or sadistic. What they were, though, was something worse.
They were completely pragmatic.
Juicehead’s steps closed in on her. Dana tried to adjust her body, tried to find a way to pounce when he passed, but her muscles wouldn’t obey. She tried to find hope in the fact that this Kat woman had spooked Titus.
Titus was worried about her.
Dana could hear it in his voice, in his questions, in his leaving her in the hands of Juicehead. Dana remembered seeing him rush out the door and drive away.
How worried was he?
Was Detective Kat Donavan, with the sweet, open face Dana had seen on that computer screen, onto him? Was she right now on her way to rescue Dana?
Juicehead was fewer than ten steps away.
Didn’t matter. Dana had nothing left. Her foot ached. Her head thrummed. She had no weapon, no strength, no experience.
Five steps away.
It was now or never.
Mere seconds until he reached her . . .
Dana closed her eyes and chose . . . never.
She ducked low and covered her head and said a silent prayer. Juicehead stopped at the boulder. Dana’s head was down, her face almost buried in the dirt. She braced for the blow.
But it never came.
Juicehead started up again, pushing his way through the branches. He hadn’t seen her. Dana didn’t move. She lay still as that boulder. She couldn’t say how long. Five minutes. Maybe ten. When she risked a look, Juicehead was nowhere in sight.
Change of plans.
Dana started heading back toward the farmhouse.
• • •
Cozone’s man Leslie had given Kat the address of a town house on the corner of Lorimer and Noble streets in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, near the Union Baptist Church. The neighborhood was redbrick and concrete stoops. She drove past a broken-down building with a temporary sign reading HAWAIIAN TANNING SALON and couldn’t imagine any odder juxtaposition than a Hawaiian tan and Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
There were no free parking spaces, so she stuck the fly-yellow Ferrari in front of a fire hydrant. She climbed the stoop. A plastic name tape reading A. PARKER was peeling off by the second-floor buzzer. Kat pushed it, heard the sound, and waited.
A black man with a shaved head trudged down the stairs and opened the door. He wore work gloves and blue coveralls with a cable company logo. A yellow hard hat was tucked under his left arm. He stood in the doorway and said, “Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Sugar,” she said.
The man’s eyes narrowed. “And you are?”
“My name is Kat Donovan.”
The man stood there and studied her.
“What do you want with Sugar?” he asked.
“It’s about my father.”
“What about him?”
“Sugar used to know him. I just need to ask her a few questions.”
He looked over her head and then down the block. He spotted the yellow Ferrari. She wondered whether he too would make a comment. He didn’t. He looked the other way.
“Pardon me, Mister . . . ?”
“Parker,” the man said. “Anthony Parker.”
He glanced to his left again, but didn’t really seem to be checking the street so much as buying time. He seemed uncertain what to do.
“I’m here alone,” Kat said, trying to reassure him.
“I can see that.”
“And I don’t want to cause any trouble. I just need to ask Sugar some questions.”
His eyes rested on hers. He managed a smile. “Come on inside.”
Parker opened the door all the way and held it for her. She stepped into the front foyer and pointed up the stairs.
“Second floor?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Is Sugar up there?”
“She will be.”
“When?”
“Right behind you,” Anthony Parker said. “I’m Sugar.”
• • •
Dana had to move slowly.
Two other men had joined the search. One had a rifle. One had a handgun. They were communicating with Reynaldo via some kind of hands-free mobile phone or walkie-talkie. They swept back and forth, preventing her from making a straight line back to the farmhouse. Often, she had to stay perfectly still for minutes at a time.
In a very odd way, it was almost as though being buried underground had helped train her for this. Every part of her body ached, but she ignored it. She was too tired to cry. She thought about hiding out here, finding a covered spot and just staying put in the hopes that someone would come and rescue her.
But that wouldn’t work.
For one thing, she needed sustenance. She had been dehydrated before all this started. Now it was getting worse. For another, the three men after her kept crisscrossing the woods, keeping her on the move. One of the men had been so close to her at one point that she could overhear Juicehead say, “If she’s out that far, she’ll die before she ever gets back.”
It was a clue. Don’t keep running in that direction away from the farm. There was nothing for her out that way. So what to do?