Last Breath

24

Adam stopped fighting her when the phone rang. C.J. felt him stiffen, listening. For a moment the chloroform-soaked rag was taken away from her face, and she could breathe again without inhaling the soporific fumes.

On the fourth ring, her answering machine in the living room picked up. She heard her voice come over the speaker, saying, “Hi, this is C.J. I’m either out somewhere or soaking in the tub. Leave a message and make my day.”

The cheery voice seemed unreal to her, like the voice of a ghost-her own ghost.

Or am I the ghost? she wondered blearily.

A beep, followed by Rick Tanner’s baritone, urgent and breathless. “C.J.? If you’re there, pick up. This is important. You may be in danger. No joke. I talked to a detective-”

“Shit,” Adam hissed, springing to his feet and pulling C.J. upright. “Come on.”

Her ankles were taped together. She couldn’t walk, couldn’t see. But now she knew she hadn’t been blinded, only blindfolded with more of that damn duct tape. A strip of the stuff had been plastered across her eyes, the adhesive snagging her eyebrows and eyelashes. To blink was painful; she felt her lashes being plucked by the tape each time they pulled free.

Adam hauled her forward, while with one hand he fumbled at the clasp securing the mouth throttle. He pulled the gag away, and she could talk again.

“What the hell…?” she gasped. Her mind was still blurry and slow. “Adam, what the hell…?” It was all she could think of to say.

“You have to talk to him, tell him everything’s okay.” On the answering machine Tanner’s voice continued, saying something about the e-mail message she’d received. “He’s a cop, isn’t he?”

She didn’t respond, not out of stubbornness but simply because she couldn’t get her brain to work.

Adam shook her. “ Isn’t he?”

“Yes,” she managed to say.

“Damn it. I don’t want him coming over. Not this soon. You tell him you’re all right. Whatever he’s worried about, it’s a false alarm.”

Tanner’s voice was close now. Adam must have hustled her to the end table beside her sofa, where the phone and the answering machine rested. He knew where the phone was, of course. This had been his house too.

“You try anything clever,” Adam said, “and I’ll kill you right now, C.J., I fucking swear I will.”

Her head cleared a little. “What are you gonna do, chloroform me to death?”

A press of cold metal against her chin. “This is what I’ll do.”

It was the muzzle of a gun.

For a moment she was back in Ramon Sanchez’s converted garage, facing his ancient revolver. But this gun wasn’t ancient. She knew it wasn’t, though she couldn’t see it. Adam would never buy anything cheap and old. He liked shiny new things. He paid top dollar. And he kept his toys in good working order-she smelled lubricant on the gun barrel and knew it had been recently oiled.

“Now I’m going to pick up the phone,” Adam said, “and you’ll talk to this asshole. I’ll hear every word the two of you say. Got it?”

“Got it,” she whispered.

Tanner was saying that he and his partner would be right over, and then his voice was cut off as Adam lifted the telephone handset from its cradle. An instant later C.J. felt it at the side of her face, the handset tilted so Adam could listen in.

“C.J.?” Tanner was saying. “Did you pick up? Are you there?”

“I’m here. Rick.” She was surprised at how normal she sounded. “I’m, uh, I’m glad you called.”

“Did you hear any of what I just said?”

“Not really. I was in the, um, the other room. Sorry.”

“It’s about that e-mail message-”

“E-mail?”

“The message you got. The Four-H Club.”

“Oh. Right. The e-mail.”

“Are you okay?”

“Fine. I’m fine. Look, I feel kind of, you know, silly about that whole thing. I mean, I don’t know why some stupid message would, um, would get me all worked up-”

“I don’t know why it would get Detective Hyannis worked up either, but it did.” Tanner’s voice crackled over the receiver, taut with tension. “He turned a lighter shade of pale when I told him about it. Insisted I call you ASAP. Then I’m supposed to call a Detective Walsh, who works Robbery-Homicide in Metro. Name mean anything to you?”

“Uh, not really. I mean, well, he’s a D-three. Handles all the hottest cases.” C.J. felt the handgun’s muzzle press harder against her skin. She forced a laugh and hoped it didn’t sound hysterical. “Sounds like Detective Hyannis picked up on my paranoia. Maybe it’s contagious.”

“I don’t think so. Hyannis isn’t the type to overreact. If he says there’s a problem, I’m inclined to believe him. You planning on going out tonight?”

Adam whispered in her ear, “Say yes.”

“Well, yes, actually, I am.”

“Might be better if you stayed put. My partner and I will come over.”

“I’m way out of your jurisdiction.”

“Don’t worry about it. Just give me your address.”

Adam’s voice again, so low and close it might have come from inside her own head: “Tell him you have to go to the junior high.”

She had forgotten all about that. “You know, I really can’t hang around. I’ve got this, you know, community-service program to go to. I help run it every Wednesday night. I need to be there.” She was babbling.

“This is more important,” Tanner said impatiently.

“What is? An e-mail message? You haven’t told me anything.”

“That’s because I don’t know anything. But Hyannis gave off some bad vibes. I think you’d better stay in your home and arm yourself.”

“No,” Adam breathed.

“Sorry, Rick. I can’t do it. Those kids are counting on me. Look, I’ll be fine, okay?”

“We’re coming over. We’ll be there in ten minutes-”

“I’ll be gone by then.”

“Damn it, C.J., this isn’t some game. You could be in real trouble.”

Tell me about it, she thought. “I’ll be fine. Rick. Don’t worry about me. Go out, fight crime. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“C.J.-”

“Tomorrow. Sorry. Gotta run.”

She heard Adam hang up the phone.

“You did good, C.J.,” he said. “You’re a pro.”

“He may come anyway.”

“Yeah, I know. He sounds like a stubborn bastard.”

“He’s worried about me. I guess he’s right to be.” She remembered Tanner’s mention of Morris Walsh, no lightweight in the department. “Why would Detective Walsh be involved in this?”

“How should I know?”

“He’s a big wheel at Metro. Doesn’t get mixed up in anything less serious than…”

“Than what?” Adam’s voice was subtly mocking.

“Multiple homicide,” she whispered.

“Well, what do you know?”

“What exactly are you going to do with me?”

“Get you out of here, for starters. And then-well, let’s just say I’ve got quite an evening planned.”

“Adam, this doesn’t make sense…”

“It makes perfect sense.”

“Not to me.”

“You never did understand me, C.J. If you had, you wouldn’t have messed up my fucking life the way you did. You would have known you couldn’t get away with it.”

She wanted to reply in astonished indignation, I messed up your life?

He was the one who’d been unfaithful. He was the one who’d ruined their marriage. And she would have told him so, except the chloroformed rag was in her face again, another dose to put her under once more.

She struggled to break away. Adam held her.

“Can’t hold your breath forever, C.J.”

He was right. She felt her lungs crying out for oxygen, and finally she yielded, inhaling the dizzying fumes, and then it all fell away-her body and Adam’s hands and the fear and everything-all gone, and she was gone too.