Middle Of Nowhere

   "Bingo!" said the driver, as he pushed the car past ninety on a two-lane road swollen with rainwater.

C H A P T E R

60

Daphne awakened to Bryce Abbott Flek pouring lukewarm beer down her face. It spilled down her chest and into her blouse, and she pushed him away as she came to. The first thing she did was look down at her foot because it felt different. He had removed her boot and sock and used the bootlaces to tie two cotton ends of the Tampax she carried as plugs on the entrance and exit wounds. One of the shoelaces was tied tightly around her left ankle, reducing blood flow. It hurt, but surprisingly held short of screaming pain.

   "Key to the cuffs," he said, sipping from the beer he'd just used to shower her awake.

   "Zippered pocket of my purse." He went after them. "How long was I out?"

"Five minutes. Maybe less."

   It had felt like hours to her. But she doubted she had hours now, and that thought electrified her. If Flek had his way, this was meant to be the last night of her life, she realized. She would bleed out if she didn't receive medical attention. Regrets and fear piled up inside her, and she struggled to be rid of them. Eventually, they won out. She said, "What you wouldn't let me tell you—we only want you as a witness. We have nothing but circumstantial evidence against you. But there was an assault that we don't think you're good for, and we wanted you in to clear that up."

   "Sure you did," he said. "Here's how it's going to be." He glanced outside nervously. The sidewalks were empty due to the hour and the rain. "I'm going to take those off," he said, meaning the cuffs, "and help you over to the pay phone. And we're going to call your friend and you're going to say hello. And if anyone sees us, you're going to hold onto me tight like you've been loving me a hundred years. And if you don't, the next shot goes through the other foot, and then up the legs, and so on. Clear?"

   "I got it."

   "Fast and easy," he said. Then he added, "You got any change in here?" and dug deeper into her purse.

C H A P T E R

61

"Hang on!" Boldt hollered into his cellular. "Let me write this down. I'm not thinking too clearly right now." It was no exaggeration. When his phone had rung he had not expected Flek, believing the man's cellular phone was jammed. He scribbled into his notebook. "Miller Bay North . . . directly across from Quail. The street's name is Sid Price?"

   LaMoia, overhearing his lieutenant, said, "Sounds like a game-show host."

   "Okay. . . . Okay. . . ." Boldt said into the phone.

   LaMoia tapped his watch frantically.

   Boldt acknowledged the signal with a nod and spoke into his phone. LaMoia wanted time. Boldt had to remember that Flek considered him still on the mainland, not a few precious miles away.

   "I can catch the nine-fifty ferry if I hurry," he said into the phone. "No . . . we don't have a helicopter. . . . No, we don't! And that means an hour or so at the earliest. I understand that, but there's nothing I can do. . . . It's the best I can do. . . . Exactly. . . . Yes, alone. But I want to talk to her. If I don't hear her voice, the meet's off." He waited. "Okay."

   Boldt felt his heart pounding in his chest.

   "Lieutenant?" her weakened voice inquired. She avoided use of his first name; she didn't want to give Flek any hint of their friendship, not so much as an ounce of added leverage. "I'm wounded—" Boldt heard a struggle as the phone was ripped from Daphne's hand—he could visualize this as clearly as if he were standing by whatever pay phone they occupied. Wounded! His stomach knotted.

   "One hour," the man said. The line went dead.

   "She's wounded," Boldt reported in a whisper.

   "Wounded, how?"

   "He hung up."

   LaMoia one-handed the wheel. "Yeah? Well, the only reason he wants a meeting is to take you out." With the call to Bobbie Gaynes pressed to his ear, LaMoia warned his passenger, "My batteries are going to go, Sarge." Boldt's had already failed, though a cigarette lighter cable now powered his phone. They'd be down to that one phone in a matter of minutes. "Get back to Dispatch," LaMoia instructed his lieutenant, slamming on the brakes and skidding the car thirty yards to within a few feet of a stop sign and a T intersection that offered either a right turn to the south, or a left to the north. The quick braking pasted Boldt to the dash. Concentrating on the phone, LaMoia reported, "They're rolling again—east, northeast. South end of Suquamish." He pointed out the windshield to the right. "A mile or two that way." Osbourne's tower-tracking technology was working.

   Boldt called Dispatch and reported the proposed location for the meet. The car idled smoothly at the intersection. Both men held tightly to their phones, their faces screwed down in impatience. LaMoia said something about them being "men of the millennium."