Cavanaugh Justice: Alone In The Dark Part 17

The laugh was dry, mocking. Cold. "If he were, I wouldn't be taking you to him."

Her mind began to scramble, searching for a way out. "Where are we going?"

When he looked at her again, his face had softened once more. It was as if two separate individuals took turns channeling through him. And she was afraid of both of them.

"Where I can talk some sense into you and make you see that we belong together."

She tried to focus on what he was like whenever he came by the clinic. Patience put her hand on his arm, making a connection, mutely supplicating. "Josh, you need help."

"No." He yanked his arm away. "I don't. I finally know what to do and how to get you to stop throwing yourself away on Coltrane. He's a murderer, you know." He let the words sink in, taking their effect. "He killed his old man."

If he expected her to be repelled, he was going to be disappointed, she thought. The threat Josh posed far outweighed anything he had to tell her about Brady. "That was an accident."

"Yeah, right." Josh laughed coldly. "That was what Coltrane wanted you to believe. It was a small hick town and the only witnesses to the murder were his mother and sister. What did you expect them to say?" They drove down a street that was unfamiliar to her. Where was he taking her? "That he did it? He was the only male member of the family left and they needed him to take care of them, of course they were going to say it was an accident."

Josh shrugged and continued, "Doesn't matter. From what I heard, the old man deserved killing. But that doesn't change what Coltrane is." He went through a red light. To her right, a car came to a screeching halt, fishtailing in a wild effort to keep from hitting them. "He's no good for you, Patience."

She summoned her most authoritative voice. She had to get him to listen to her. "Take me home, Josh."

He didn't bother taking his eyes off the road. "I am."

And then it hit her. He was taking her to his house. To keep her a prisoner. She struggled against panic taking hold. "My home."

"It is," he informed her, his voice matter-of-fact. "From now on."

They drove far above the speed limit, but she felt she had only one chance to escape. Bracing herself, Patience released her seat belt, one hand on the lever of the pa.s.senger door. She heard the unmistakable click of a hammer being c.o.c.ked.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," he told her evenly. "You'd be dead before you hit the ground."

s.h.i.+fting her eyes slowly, she saw the gun that he had on his lap. The gun that was now pointed at her stomach. She galvanized herself against the fear that spread through her like a forest fire.

"You won't shoot me."

"Don't go betting the farm on that. Or better yet, your life." Sarcasm dripped from every syllable. "I never was a generous man, Patience. If I can't have you, neither can Coltrane. Or anybody else." His eyes bore into her for a split second, making her blood run cold. She knew he wasn't bluffing. "Now get your d.a.m.n hand off the d.a.m.n door."

She did as he told her.

"I said I need his address, Woodrow. Now," Brady barked at the dispatcher on the other end of the two-way radio. He heard nothing for a second, then the woman rattled off Josh's address. The patrolman lived in a second-floor walk-up on the other side of town.

"What's this all about, Officer Coltrane?" the dispatcher asked.

He prayed he was jumping to conclusions. "I'll fill you in when I figure it all out."

Switching on his siren, Brady tore across the city streets. Weaving in and out of the moderate midday traffic, he got there in record time. His vehicle had barely stopped moving as he jumped out. Taking the stairs two at a time, he got to the door in less than half a minute. It was a cool morning. Brady was perspiring so badly, his s.h.i.+rt stuck to his back beneath his jacket.

He hadn't been able to get hold of Josh, not through the dispatcher, and Josh wasn't answering his cell. Neither had Patience when he'd tried her number. He'd let it ring for the full count, then listened as the singsong voice told him that she was either out of range or not answering her phone.

A sense of urgency tightened around his chest like an iron band. Brady didn't like thinking what he was thinking.

The door to Josh's apartment was locked, but locks had never posed an obstacle to him. He was inside in less than thirty seconds. Though it was hardly past one o'clock and sunny outside, the apartment was shrouded in darkness. The rooms were positioned so that neither the morning nor afternoon sun reached it. A gloom pervaded the area.

Unholstering his service revolver, Brady entered the small, one-bedroom apartment. There was a dankness in the air, as if windows were never opened. As if nothing from the outside world was allowed to enter here.

He moved cautiously, calling out Graham's name. There was no response. Everything inside him urged him on quickly.

It took less than five minutes to secure the apartment. Neither Josh nor Patience was here.

The Spartan bedroom had little in the way of furniture. A bed, a nightstand and a battered bureau. When he turned around to leave, the very air in his lungs froze. The wall opposite the bed was entirely devoted to Patience. There were more than a hundred different photographs of her, all candid, all taken at either the clinic or inside her house.

She didn't appear to be aware of the camera in any of the shots.

Which meant that there had to be hidden cameras, hidden eyes watching her. Cameras in her clinic. In her home. Recording the most personal of details, the most intimate of moments. There was a twenty-seven-inch television set on one side of the bed with a VCR hooked. Pressing the eject b.u.t.ton, Brady saw a tape emerge out of the machine. He pushed it back, turned on the set and played the tape.

On the screen, he saw Patience getting ready for bed.

Brady felt sick to his stomach. Josh was her stalker.

Hurrying out of the bedroom, his mind in a hundred different places, Brady b.u.mped into the coffee table, smas.h.i.+ng his s.h.i.+n and sending a pristine white photo alb.u.m cras.h.i.+ng facedown on the floor. The two sides spread out like a penitent sinner in front of an altar.

Brady stared at it. He didn't dare breathe as he stooped to pick it up.

Flipping the book over, he found himself looking down at an array of photographs. Page after page of photographs of Patience with Josh.

He didn't understand. Had they had a relations.h.i.+p? Were they involved?

No, something didn't feel right. Patience would have said something to him; he knew she would have. And Josh ... Josh would have warned him off, saying something about poaching on another man's property, if there'd been a relations.h.i.+p. It was the kind of possessive comment Josh was p.r.o.ne to.

Slowly, Brady turned one page after another. Josh and Patience were on every page. Together. Exotic locales were in the background, like pictures taken of people on a vacation.

Or on a honeymoon. What the h.e.l.l was going on here?

Toward the end of the alb.u.m, he found several photographs of Patience and Josh taken with two children. A boy and a girl who looked like younger versions of them. That was when he realized what he was looking at. Josh's fantasy book.

One of the patrolmen at the precinct was a computer enthusiast. Peter Gillespie was always showing them photographs he'd created on his computer, putting himself into shots with famous celebrities. He did it as a joke.

Brady remembered hearing Gillespie say that he could utilize the software that the department used for updating the appearance of lost children on their database and actually create what a couple's children would look like by merging their features. To prove his point, he'd merged his own features with that of a current hot movie star.

That was what Josh was doing, except that the fict.i.tious children were supposed to represent his offspring. His and Patience's.

Brady took the alb.u.m as evidence, purposely leaving behind the tape. He didn't want to use that unless it was absolutely necessary.

d.a.m.n, how could he have not seen it? Josh was the one who was obsessed with Patience, not the skinny guy with the c.o.c.katiel. The patrolman had been watching her all this time. Which meant that Josh knew that he'd spent the night with her.

And that had pushed him to act.

But where had he taken her?

Brady racked his brain, trying to think. A fragment of a sentence echoed in the recesses of his head. Something about Josh complaining that his apartment was so small, it could easily fit into a corner of his parents' house. Josh was always running his mouth off about something, never satisfied with anything in his life. Didn't Josh's parents have a house somewhere in the city? He tried to think. Josh had complained bitterly that they wouldn't let him have the place even though they spent most of their time in another house in Florida.

Leaving the apartment, Brady hurried down the stairs and out to his car. He needed to call dispatch. Someone had to know where Josh's parents lived.

The feeling that he was running out of time hovered over him.

Patience stared out of the car at the old Victorian-style house. It sat primly on a large piece of land, like a dried up woman from another era, long since past her prime, waiting for a gentleman caller. "What is this place?"

She heard a note of pride in his voice as he stopped his car at the curb. Josh sounded like a kid, showing off. "It's my parents' house. I grew up here. Like it?"

She looked at it silhouetted against the sun, its paint peeling, the roof sagging like a head that had been bowed too long. "It's very nice."

Getting out, he quickly rounded the hood and was at her door before she had a chance to get out. Her legs felt like lead.

"It's old-fas.h.i.+oned, and could use some work, but I figure you could do a lot with it." Opening the door on her side, he took hold of her arm and tugged her to her feet. "You could make it into a real home for us."

She tried to resist. His grasp tightened and he pulled her along with him. "Josh, I already have a home."

His face was an impa.s.sive mask. "That was part of your old life. This is your new life." Unlocking the front door, he forced her across the threshold. "As my wife."

The words crossed her tongue like sharp razors. "Your wife?"

He closed the door firmly behind them. Releasing her, he blocked her path out. "You don't think I'm going to treat you the way Coltrane does, do you? Just shack up with you and then go off whenever I want to?" His expression softened as he stroked her hair. She struggled to keep the revulsion from her face. "No, I'm going to do everything the right way. We'll get married and make it all legal. You don't want the kids to be ashamed of us, do you?"

"Kids?" He had everything arranged in the fantasy within his head, she thought, fighting panic. How long had this been going on? How had she remained blind to it all?

His face brightened. "Yes, our kids." Taking her hand, he brought it to his lips. "I've got pictures of them. I mean, they're not really pictures of our kids, not yet-but what they're going to look like when we finally have them. I want two kids. A boy and a girl. How many do you want?"

"I haven't thought about kids."

"I think about them all the time. Our kids. Yours and mine." He turned suddenly, catching her off guard. She stumbled and took a step backward. He bracketed either side of her with his arms, pinning her to the wall. "I'll make you happy, Patience, I swear I will."

She tried to push him off, but his weight was too much for her. There was no s.p.a.ce to even raise her knee against him.

"Josh, if you want to make me happy, please let me go. I have patients to see."

"I keep telling you, that was your old life, you're going to have to let it go. You want to tend to anyone, you tend to me. Understand?" As he lowered his head to kiss her, she turned hers away. Instead of her lips, Josh got a mouthful of hair. "d.a.m.n it, you're willing enough to let that lowlife kiss you, why not me?"

She raised her head, anger blazing in her eyes. She clung to her anger like a life preserver. "Because Brady doesn't threaten to make me a prisoner, that's why."

She watched in horror as frustration and rage pa.s.sed over Josh's face, turning his complexion crimson. "You're not a prisoner, d.a.m.n it. Can't you get it through your head? This is your home."

"If it's my home, I can leave if I want to," she shouted back, hoping that the show of strength would intimidate him.

"No!" he shouted into her face. "You can't!" His grip tightened around her wrists. He was hurting her. "Why are you being like this? Why can't you just be happy? Why can't you love me like I love you?"

She did her best not to wince as pain shot up and down her arms. "Josh, you're hurting me. You said you'd never hurt me."

Josh's face contorted with barely suppressed rage. The look in his eyes frightened her. At any moment he might go off, might decide to kill her.

"And I said you were supposed to love me! Well, if you can't love me, Patience, I'm not going to let you love anyone else. Do you hear me?" he screamed. "Me or n.o.body."

Just then, there was a cras.h.i.+ng noise. A shower of gla.s.s rained into the entrance through the window on the other side of the front door.

Brady, his body huddled to form a ball, came flying through the s.p.a.ce. Hitting the floor, he rolled, his gun already drawn and extended. The next second, he leaped to his feet, the barrel of his revolver pointed at Josh.

Surprise gave way to fury. Josh swung around, shoving Patience in front of him, using her as his s.h.i.+eld. One arm around her chest, securing her against him, the other hand holding a gun to her temple. "You shoot, you kill her. Or I do. Either way, she's dead."

Patience saw wild fury in Brady's eyes. "Let her go, Josh," he ordered.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you? So you could have her all to yourself. Well, it's not going to work that way. This b.i.t.c.h is mine, not yours." Still holding the gun to her temple, he pressed a kiss to her ear, then laughed as she s.h.i.+vered in pure loathing. "I know how to appreciate her."

Brady kept his gun trained on Josh. "How? By putting a bullet into her?"

"If I have to," he said mildly. "She'll be mine forever then." His voice changed. The rage was back. Cold and hard this time. "Put your gun down, Coltrane, or she gets one right here, right now."

Brady's heart had stopped beating. It had the moment he'd jumped to his feet and a.s.sessed the situation. There was no doubt in his mind that Josh was insane. He knew as sure as he stood there that if he put his gun down, Graham would shoot him. But more important than that, there was no guarantee that he still wouldn't kill Patience. To make her his for all eternity.

Graham was too deranged to bargain with.

He knew what he had to do. But he had never had so much on the line before and it made him afraid. Very afraid.

His eyes never left Graham. He couldn't look at Patience, couldn't allow himself to be distracted. "If I put my gun on the floor, you'll let her go?"

"Only one way to find out. Now do it!" Josh shrieked at him. "Time's running out."

Yes, Brady thought, looking at Patience's eyes, it is.

"Don't do it, Brady, he'll kill you," Patience cried.

Brady didn't answer. He knew he had only one chance to save her.

Chapter 15.

His service revolver trained on Graham, Brady s.h.i.+fted his eyes for less than half a second to Patience. He prayed she could pick up on his signal. He needed something to cut down on the odds.

Brady met her eyes, then looked down at the floor.