Last Breath

33

Couldn’t see. Couldn’t move. Could hardly even breathe with the damn rubber ball wedged in her mouth.

C.J. had one advantage. Adam had left her alone-and while alone, she could try to find a way to free her hands. If she could loosen the duct tape around her wrists or cut it somehow…

Then she could remove the gag, the blindfold, the tape on her ankles, even the cord that lashed her to the pillar.

With her hands free, she could do anything.

There had to be some way to get the tape off. She fingered the post behind her. The surface was concrete-most likely covering a substructure of steel. Were there cracks in the surface, rough spots where she could abrade the tape?

No such luck. The concrete was as smooth as if it had been freshly poured.

What she needed was a tool. Some sort of debris-a shard of glass, a sharp piece of metal.

Wherever she was, the place had a concrete floor and concrete posts. It might be a work space of some kind, a place where she just might find a discarded screw or a rusty nail lying around.

She extended her legs and reached out, feeling the concrete floor with the tips of her sneakers.

She wished he hadn’t blindfolded her. Wished she could see what she was doing.

Damn Adam anyway. Damn him to hell.

He’d said that if she knew the how of it, the why would explain itself. But the question why? still rang unanswered in her mind.

There seemed to be nothing directly in front of her. The floor felt smooth and clean.

She extended her legs to her left, exploring the floor on that side of her body.

Still nothing.

She turned in the opposite direction and again made a sweep of the area near her.

This time her sneakers snagged a large object, flat on the side facing her.

She tapped it with her feet and heard a hollow thump. She kicked it, felt it shiver.

A box? A crate?

She kicked it again and heard a glassy rattle.

Were there tools in the box? Or on top of it?

Goddamn it, if only she could see.

Frustration made her reckless. She launched another kick at the box, slamming the soles of both sneakers into its flat face, and she heard the box creak and tip over with a thud.

Then there was the tinkle of small objects, either glass or metal, hitting the floor. One of them shattered. Another rolled toward her. She heard it turning over and over on the smooth concrete like a pencil on a tabletop.

Twisting at the hips, she lowered her body nearly to the floor and groped with her bound hands, praying she could intercept the thing, whatever the hell it was.

It stopped rolling.

Still out of reach. But close. She was sure of that.

She bent her legs at the knees. Her sneakers made contact with the thing. It was small and lightweight and felt fragile. She eased it toward her, tucking her legs under her lap.

Finally her hands closed over their prize.

She wasn’t certain what she held. Lightly she ran her fingers over the thing. It was a few inches long, with rounded sides, and it tapered to a narrow tip…

A sharp tip.

Needle sharp.

That was what she had. A needle of some kind.

Not a hypodermic needle-she detected no plunger at the other end-but some needle-tipped tool anyway. What it was used for, why it was here-she had no idea, and she didn’t care.

It was sharp. It was the tool that could set her free.

Now came the tricky part. She had to point the needle upward and press the tip against the tape binding her wrists.

She gripped the needle in both hands, aiming the sharp point upward, trying to maneuver it so she could spear the coil of tape around her wrists. The job was hard. Her wrists weren’t made to work that way.

A wash of perspiration spread over her face. Her breathing came fast and shallow through her nostrils; her mouth was blocked by the gag.

Finally she maneuvered the needle into position. She felt the needle dimpling the tape. She pushed upward, and the needle punched through.

A minuscule hole. Hardly enough to matter. But if she could punch another hole and another and another, eventually the tape would give way. It wasn’t going to be easy, and it wasn’t going to be fast.

She worked the needle up and down, shoulders and arms trembling with strain. Her thoughts returned to Adam.

What was his motive? Simple anger? Was that all? Was it enough?

Maybe it was. Just look at the people she arrested every day-gangbangers, drunken brawlers, angry husbands like Ramon Sanchez.

Angry husbands…

How much did Adam hate her? How deeply had the divorce wounded his masculine pride, his sense of self?

Yes, he had precipitated the divorce by cheating on her. But he had never intended to get caught. Even after she had filed the papers, he’d done his best to talk her out of it.

She remembered their last argument, in the apartment he’d rented in Venice after moving out of the bungalow. It was a sad little studio apartment with thin walls and noisy neighbors and cheap, rented furniture. She knew he hated the place and hated what had happened to his life.

“I don’t want to lose you,” he kept saying in a desperate, pleading voice she didn’t want to hear.

“You already did,” she replied, fighting off any surrender to sympathy.

“C.J.”-his arms outstretched, hands open-“you don’t understand. I need you. I’ll fall apart without you.”

He looked so wan and forlorn in the dim lamplight. She turned away, refusing to meet his gaze.

“You won’t fall apart, Adam. You always manage to keep it together so you can look after your number one priority-yourself.”

“That’s not fair.”

She looked at him then, and whatever was in her eyes made him shrink from her. “Now I’m the one not being fair? Funny, I thought that would be you. Was it fair to take Ashley to bed behind my back?”

“It only happened once.”

He said it with complete sincerity, but she knew it was untrue. She had already tracked down Ashley on the UCLA campus and asked her how long the affair had lasted. The girl had been too startled and intimidated to lie. “Four months,” she had blurted.

“Only once,” she echoed, watching Adam’s face for any trace of shame. She saw nothing but guileless candor, and the thought flashed in her mind that her husband-soon to be ex-husband-was an awfully skilled liar, better than she’d ever known.

She didn’t speak again, merely turned away from him in disgust and walked out the door. His plaintive voice pursued her down the hallway of the apartment building, then down the graffiti-scarred stairwell to the lobby.

“Don’t do this, C.J. Please, you can’t do this to me.”

She noticed the irony of his utter self-absorption. He thought she had wronged him.

And of course he still thought so. She had walked out of his life. She had reduced him to the humiliating posture of a beggar-and worse, she had not even listened to his pleas. She was the villain. She had taken his manhood, his dignity.

So now he intended to get even-by taking her life.

She had succeeded in puncturing the tape three or four more times. But when she tested it, it felt as strong as ever. How much time had passed? A half hour already? Adam might be talking with a detective even now. If he wasn’t a suspect, the interview would be brief. Then he would be back for that last dance.

Not gonna happen, she promised herself. You’ll get out of this, Killer.

Bet your life you will.