Out Of The Smoke Read online

  Liz was scared. She was permanently on the run from a man who’d abused her. How much she’d even gotten over that abuse wasn’t clear. She met a man, fell for him, panicked, and took off in the early hours of the morning. Maybe took a taxi across town, ransacked her own apartment, took very little with her, and left town before he could even track her down. Not to mention the pain she must be in and the antibiotics he had in his pocket.

  Alan wasn’t buying it. He had to be missing something.

  “Well, I know she didn’t skip town.” Dory’s voice startled Alan as he sat and stared at the tabletop, looking for invisible answers. He’d practically forgotten she was there.

  “How do you know that?” Any information she could add couldn’t hurt.

  “I just found a wad of money under her mattress. I always did think that girl was stashing money. So quiet. She works day and night and never buys herself nothin’. Not even so much as fast food. I like her, really I do. But, I’ve always thought she was hiding something. So smart. Do you know how smart she is?” Dory gazed at him, the rhetorical question hung in the air.

  “How much?” He hadn’t listened closely to her rambling, but he was sure curious about the money.

  “Don’t know.” Dory walked forward and plopped it on the table. She walked away. “Wonder if there’s more.” Cabinets opened and closed behind him. Furniture scraped the floor.

  There was over a thousand dollars in that tiny stash alone. Why?

  Shit.

  Suspicion got the better of Alan. This just didn’t smell right. Not one bit. He reached for his cell phone and dialed nine-one-one while he began rustling through the debris in front of him, looking for anything that might be a clue.

  “Nine-one-one emergency. Fire. Police. Or ambulance.” A tight clear succinct voice pierced his ear.

  Alan picked up an address book and flipped it open. “Police.”

  “What’s your emergency?” the voice began while the clicking noise of her typing filled the background.

  Alan thumbed to the entry for himself in her little book. The page was missing. He quickly thumbed through the other pages. Fuck! “My girlfriend’s been abducted. Please hurry.”

  “What address are you at, sir?”

  Alan started running for his car. “I’m at her apartment, but this isn’t where she was taken from. Meet me at my house.” He sprinted for his car and prayed he wasn’t too late. Fuck.

  “Alan?” Dory yelled at him from the doorway. “Where’re ya goin’?”

  He ignored her as he raced across the parking lot.

  How could he be so stupid? Why had he doubted her? More than an hour had gone by while he’d dicked around thinking the worst of her. Actually believed she would leave him, just like that.

  “Sir? What’s that address?”

  Chapter Ten

  They were moving again. Liz had no idea how long she’d been in the trunk. All she could think about since being shaken awake by the engine revving up was how dry her mouth was and how wet her jeans were. At some point in her restless sleep she’d given up holding her bladder and simultaneously grown incredibly thirsty. She knew she was losing it. She could no longer easily focus and sometimes even remember why she was where she was.

  Each minute was another mile Matthew took her farther and farther away from the first man who actually loved her. She mourned that love like an acute permanent loss.

  It didn’t matter that their relationship had happened so fast. It was nevertheless true and real. She knew it with all her heart.

  Her only regret was feeling that Alan would forever believe she’d left him voluntarily. Just walked out.

  Hours ticked by. It got hotter and stuffier in the trunk, an area she now began to think of as her coffin. Perspiration beaded on her forehead and across her chest. Sobbing behind the duct tape had made her nose run and it was difficult to breathe now. Her throat hurt from attempting to scream, though very little sound actually reached her ears.

  If she concentrated really hard on any one part of her body she could identify each ailment. A dull ache had replaced the searing pain in her cheeks where the tape seemed to have actually eaten the first few layers of skin, leaving her face inflamed like a sunburn. Her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth like a suction cup. Her tears had long since dried up, leaving a tight layer of salt around her eyes.

  The thick wetness on her hands would be the blood oozing slowly from where the rope had rubbed her wrists completely raw. Even though she hadn’t really struggled much against the bindings—she knew Matthew’s ability to tie a knot firsthand—the tight pressure alone, combined with the position she was lying in, had created a slow abrasion.

  She had to stop this madness of identifying each ache and pain before she drove herself crazy. There wasn’t anything to do as the steady hours passed but think. None of the thoughts her mind conjured up were ever good ones.

  Tears would no longer fall. They were all dried up. Liz knew this couldn’t be a good sign. She was losing consciousness from dehydration. The heat in the trunk alone would have sweated out whatever fluids her body might have had left.

  Finally, the car jolted to another stop. A door opened and slammed shut. Another door.

  Please, God. Give me a chance here.

  Nothing. Did he plan to just leave her in there until she rotted? The new idea caused a fresh wave of panic in her already distressed state. Would he do that? The resounding answer that screamed in her head was unfortunately “yes”.

  The bastard. Awareness dawned. The worst thing he could possibly do to her was leave her to die alone and scared in the trunk. A slow agonizing death that Matthew knew would fuck with her mind until her last breath. Screwing with Liz’s mind was what he did best.

  After waiting several minutes in silence, Liz struggled. She tried to scream, but nothing came out. She kicked at the lid of the trunk, praying someone would hear something. Were there even people nearby?

  She wiggled around the other direction and slammed her heals into the back of the seats. No luck. They wouldn’t budge or else she was just too weak to make a difference. The futile attempts wore her out and left her in a worse state than she’d been in before, as if that were possible. Her heals ached from the abrasion of the carpeted seatbacks on her bare feet.

  Liz gasped for oxygen through her nose, dried mucus now practically blocking her ability to breathe. Exhausted, she stopped struggling. Where were they? There wasn’t a single noise coming from outside. No traffic, no honking horns, nothing. No one could hear her struggles.

  *

  Matthew calmly walked into the front door of the tiny motel on the outskirts of nowhere. The place would be less than desirable, but he needed sleep and time to think. He needed a plan. It had been days since he’d last lain down on a mattress, and even longer since he’d had a shower.

  Adrenaline had held his eyes open so far, but he was out of steam. He could hardly hold on to the overnight bag strapped over his shoulder. It seemed to weigh more than it should.

  Chimes rang out and echoed in the empty room when he walked into the front office. There didn’t appear to be anyone else staying at the motel, judging by the lack of cars in the parking lot. He hoped they were at least open for business. The dingy little office area was sparse. No place to sit, no plants. Nothing but a worn Formica counter that had seen better days and maybe been white at one point.

  Matthew cleared his throat and angled his head to look around. A door suddenly opened behind the counter, the only entrance to the room other than the one he’d entered from the outside. It squeaked on its unkempt hinges and an older man emerged, his gray hair in a tuft on one side of his head from sleeping.

  Matthew glanced at his watch, a gold Rolex that he’d also purchased after Beth’s death, her first death. It was after midnight.

  “Can I help you?” A gnarled hand reached out to push the mouse pad of his ancient Apple computer and bring it to life.

  “I need a room.”
Of course.

  “Well, I have plenty of those,” he mumbled, not raising his head from the screen. “Been a slow week around here.”

  “I’ll just be here one night. How much do I owe you?” He wanted to pay in cash and up front. No one could trace him and he could leave as soon as he was rested.

  “Thirty-six dollars. Tax included.”

  Cheap, but then the accommodations probably fit the price.

  Matthew produced the cash from his wallet and reached for the key to room six when the zombie-like creature held it out. Matthew wasn’t at all sure the man was even awake and not just sleep walking. He mumbled something incoherent as Matthew walked back outside, a slight jolt ambling through his skin when the damn bell over the door chimed again.

  Room number six was in the front. Matthew had put his rental in the back. Fine. No one would ever know he’d been here anyway and he didn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention to himself.

  After a quick shower under the marginally warm sprinkling of water that he managed to duck under from a showerhead that was too low for most humans, he collapsed onto the squeaky mattress. It dipped so low in the middle it seemed to swallow him whole.

  He stared up at the water-stained ceiling, tried to remember the last time he’d been this comfortable. Several days ago? A week? Sometime before the wild goose chase that bitch had caused.

  Now what? He thought through the day’s events.

  Once he’d stuffed her into the trunk, he’d had the good sense to go back in and grab her clothes and leave a note. I’m brilliant. No evidence he’d ever been there at all. Alan would have been so confused after his run.

  In the early morning hours, he’d swiped the plates off a truck behind a used car dealership. No one would be looking for a generic black four-door with California plates. He’d driven back to the hotel where he was staying and checked out. The place had been too crowded and busy at that hour of the morning for anyone to realize how he’d arrived or left.

  Next he’d called the morgue to arrange shipment of his “wife” on a flight for tomorrow to New York. He couldn’t very well leave that Jane Doe behind as though he didn’t know her. The thought brought a sour note to his good mood. It was the worst part of the deal, but couldn’t be avoided.

  He’d then driven in a circle around highways 494 and 694, as though in a holding pattern, for several hours. His goal was twofold, plan his next course of action and make Beth think they’d driven hundreds of miles away from Minneapolis, this last part just to scare the hell out of her. He personally needed to be on that flight tomorrow afternoon from Minneapolis back to New York.

  Eventually he’d taken a turn and headed out highway twelve to find a cheap out-of-the way motel. That hadn’t been difficult.

  As soon as he got some sleep, he’d find a secluded place to torture that bitch in the trunk. He’d leave her dead body in such bad shape no one would even be able to recognize her.

  In hours, he’d be on his way back to New York, his twice dead “wife” in the luggage compartment.

  Wouldn’t his comrades be surprised and saddened for his double loss? It was a pity, really. His only regret was having to fake mourn again. Would he have to stage another wake? Lord, he hated the idea. Surely folks would understand if he didn’t do it. After all, it wasn’t as though he hadn’t already “grieved” her loss years ago. What difference did it make at this point? Dead was dead.

  Did I cover everything? Matthew tapped his chin with one finger almost absentmindedly. He smiled. It was foolproof. No matter when someone found Beth’s body, they wouldn’t know who it was. After all, Beth Martin would be buried in New York, for the second time. No one was looking for her.

  It wouldn’t even matter if McCarthy somehow identified the body. It meant nothing. There was no record of a Liz Parker anywhere. Since Matthew had reported the rental stolen during the night last night, clearly whoever stole the car took the woman Alan knew as Liz.

  “Ingenious,” he mumbled aloud. His eyes were so heavy now. If he could just sleep a while, then he’d be able to think straight.

  Chapter Eleven

  As night fell, Alan’s pacing began to wear a hole in his living room rug. Jake and Meredith had arrived almost immediately after the police. Renae close on their heels.

  The responding officer, Brown, was the same one who’d just questioned Alan yesterday in response to the possible abuse. It would have been almost comical if the situation hadn’t been so serious. It helped that Detective Brown was at least marginally familiar with Liz’s history with her husband.

  And so the questioning began.

  “How do you know she was kidnapped and didn’t just run off?” The detective had started out quite leery.

  “Her handwriting. Look.” Alan dashed into his office, motioning for Brown to follow. He grabbed several papers off his desk. “This is the note Liz supposedly left me this morning.” He held out the scrap of paper and cringed at the thought her ex had put into the ploy. The bastard had actually rummaged around Alan’s house to find a pen and paper. “And this is the page I ripped from her address book this morning at her place.” The second page demonstrated a distinctly different penmanship, her rounded letters like those she’d left on the sticky notes on his desk. “I have other samples if you need them.”

  “Naw, this is pretty clear to me.”

  The good news was a neighbor had seen a suspicious vehicle in the driveway that morning when she went out to get the paper. She gave the police a description of the car. Black sedan. Avis rental. Newer model. She’d assumed Alan had out-of-town guests and didn’t readily question its existence. That was most helpful because within hours and multiple phone calls, it was confirmed that Matthew Martin had indeed come to town one week ago when the police informed him his wife had died. He’d willfully identified a Jane Doe in the morgue as his once-again dead wife and left the police station.

  The pieces fell into place throughout the day as questions were asked of everyone even remotely connected to the crime. Low and behold, Mr. Martin had apparently gone around town asking people if they’d seen his poor amnesia-suffering wife, ending his search with one Dorenda Ikeman who’d unknowingly set the latest crime into motion by confirming Liz’s whereabouts. When the police returned to Liz’s apartment, Dory had positively identified Matthew from a picture they showed her of the man who’d questioned her on Monday.

  Interestingly, he’d rented a car from Avis last week, but had reported it stolen this morning. Why?

  The bad news was no one had any idea where Matthew had gone after abducting his estranged wife from Alan’s house, nor where he was currently located.

  The clock was ticking. Matthew had arranged to transport the Jane Doe from the morgue on a flight back to New York tomorrow, a flight he too intended to be on. That meant whatever Matthew planned for Liz, it would happen before he got on that flight tomorrow afternoon.

  “You need to lie down, Alan. Or at least sit down for a while. Eat something.” Renae’s soothing voice was barely a blip on his radar. He ignored her for the umpteenth time.

  He could kick himself for his part in all this. He shouldn’t have left her alone in the house. Especially when she was feeling so poorly. He paced the floor what-iffing himself to death.

  By midnight, the police still had nothing. An alert had been put out across the entire area about the abduction. Every police department in the Minneapolis area was on the lookout. The cops were very apologetic, but there was “nothing more they could do at this time”. When they left, the silence was deafening. Renae refused to go home. Meredith and Jake went back to their own place to wait.

  Alan reluctantly slumped onto the couch, laid his forehead in his hands, and cried for the first time in more years than he could remember. Renae said nothing. Instead, she sat next to him, rubbing his back and consoling him.

  After a bit, she said, “You really love her, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” he mumbled, inhaling deeply.
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  “They’ll find her. Let’s not lose hope.”

  However, eight hours later, hope waned. Alan racked his brain torturing himself with the statistical odds of finding Liz alive. All he knew for certain was that those odds went down with every hour that passed.

  He’d slept on the couch only sparingly off and on throughout the night and early morning hours. A sharp trill began to poke into his consciousness. Was it real or part of his dream? Alan bolted upright and stared into the space of his living room, so he almost didn’t react when more ringing filled the silence. His brain was slow to acknowledge the sound of the phone, but then adrenaline kicked in and he grabbed for the receiver beside him.

  “Yes?” He only had one question. Would only accept one answer.

  “We have a lead on a car,” Brown’s voice replied. “Don’t get too excited just yet. It doesn’t mean anything. It could simply be that he traded it in at that location. The plates don’t match. But the make and model is the one he rented.”

  “How? Where?”

  “About a half hour west on Highway Twelve. A woman called it in because it seemed suspicious. It’s presumably parked behind her motel. She said they get that sometimes, abandoned vehicles behind the building. The area is kind of off the beaten path. A great place to dump a car.”

  “Wait—what do you mean presumably? Have you seen it or not?” Confusion clouded his brain.

  “I’m on my way there now. I don’t know what kind of evidence might have been left behind yet. Naturally, we’ll begin combing the area when we arrive and match the VIN number with the rented vehicle.”

  Alan grabbed his keys and his cell and ran for the door.

  “Where are you going?” rang out behind him. He’d all but forgotten about Renae.

  “They think they found the car,” he yelled over his shoulder.

  “I’ll drive.” She sped right by him, tearing his keys from his grip.

  “Sir,” he returned to the phone in his hand, “what’s the address?”

  “Why don’t you wait…what we find…scene before…drive…” Brown’s voice cut out as Renae sped away from the house. Alan pulled the receiver from his ear and stared at it when the line went dead. Damnation.