Rusty Nail

CHAPTER 40

“HEY, LADY, YOU okay?”

I’d been having a disturbing dream, where I was tied to a chair at a dinner table and everyone around me was a rotting corpse. When I tried to pull off my ropes, I realized I was dead too, and my blackening flesh began to slide off my bones like BBQ ribs.

Opening my eyes, I stared up at a cop with a funny hat. I read his badge. Park District Ranger.

I startled, wondering how he got into my bedroom. Then I realized my bedroom didn’t have trees in it, and my bed wasn’t made of grass. I sat up. The action made me dizzy, and provoked an unhappy reaction in my stomach.

The ranger grinned at me. “Celebrating a little too much, huh?”

“Where am I?” My voice sounded strange, far away.

“Busse Woods. I’m going to check your friend.”

I watched him walk over to a woman lying on the ground a few yards away. Holly.

I touched my temple, which had begun to throb, and looked around. Spotted a cooler on a picnic table, a bottle of champagne next to it, a carton of OJ, two packages of bologna…

The wedding.

A nice surge of adrenaline helped cut through the fog, and I remembered toasting to Harry and Holly, and then realizing we’d all been drugged.

I craned my head around, searching for Harry and Phin.

They weren’t there.

I saw Harry’s car in the lot, along with mine. My watch told me it was a little after six o’clock. I’d been out for over five hours.

The ranger was having some difficulty rousing Holly.

“Is she alive?”

“Pulse is strong, but she won’t wake up.”

I felt like curling up and going back to sleep myself. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation; more like a fever dream that accompanies the flu.

I managed to get to my feet and began to walk to my car, a little unsteady, but better with every step.

My cell phone was plugged into the cigarette lighter. I needed to call Harry, to find out where he was.

The message light blinked at me. I dialed my voice mail.

“Jack, it’s Captain Bains. Lorna Hunt Ellison escaped from custody this morning, and then grabbed Bud Kork at Mercy Hospital. Six cops, two Feds dead. A few miles away the Indiana Highway Patrol found an abandoned FBI vehicle. No sign of either perp. It might be a long shot, but there’s a chance they could be headed your way. Stay on your toes.”

Yeah. Some long shot.

I wondered how they found me. Tailed me from my apartment? Possible. I was so high from Latham’s call, I could have had a dozen Abrams tanks following me and wouldn’t have noticed.

But if Lorna and Bud were after me, why’d they let me go?

Another adrenaline spike, which made my hands shake.

They took Phin and Harry.

I tried to reason it out. Lorna escaped, went to get Bud, and then came to Chicago. They followed me here from my apartment, and probably watched the ceremony from the forest. Then one of them snuck into Harry’s car and doctored the orange juice we used for the mimosas. The drug was probably Rohypnol, or GHB, or some other easily obtainable tranq currently popular on the nightclub date-rape scene. Odorless, colorless, and a tiny amount could take effect within ten minutes and knock out a bull.

Bud must have assumed Holly was a cop, my partner. They might have also assumed Phin was my boyfriend.

They wanted to hurt us by hurting our men.

But how did they find my apartment? And how did they find tranquilizers so quickly after escaping?

And how did Lorna, who had the IQ of a tennis ball, escape from prison and rescue Bud?

Apparently I’d misjudged her.

“What’s going on?” The ranger had awoken Holly, who appeared to be panicked. “Where’s Harry?”

“Take it easy, miss.”

“Jack? What happened, Jack?”

I gave my head a brisk shake, but the fuzzies clung to me. I managed to get over to Holly without falling on my face.

“We were drugged, Holly. Bud Kork escaped, with his girlfriend. I think they’ve got Phin and Harry.”

Holly stared at me, her mouth hanging open.

“My husband…” she whispered.

I reached down and squeezed her shoulder.

“We’ll find them, Holly. I promise.”

“But will they still be alive when we do?”