The Late Show

27

Ballard tasted blood. She opened her eyes but was disoriented. Then it all came back. The upside-down house. The chair. The bindings. Trent. The gag had torn both corners of her mouth when he had pulled it back into place. Her neck felt stiff and hard to move. Once again, her vision wobbled as she brought her chin up.

The room was dark. Trent had turned the light off when he left. She could see only the dim outline of light around the curtains across the room. She had no idea how long she had been unconscious or how long it would be before Trent came back.

She looked around and saw a dark image of herself in the mirror, still bound. She tensed her body and found the bindings as strong and unyielding as before. She tried to calm her thinking and lower the sense of panic she felt.

She started with Beatrice. Trent had gone to get her. She knew where the upside-down house was and where Beatrice lived and worked. It was a minimum twenty-five-minute drive each way in routine traffic. If it was the middle of the night, he would be much faster. If it was the middle of the day, much longer. Trent would also have to find a way to abduct and control Beatrice. If she was alone at the warehouse, that would be one thing. If she was in the midst of video production, there would be people around, and that would complicate matters considerably and cost Trent time.

There were too many variables and none mattered, because Ballard did not have the starting point of knowing how long she had been unconscious. The one thing she did know gave her an adrenaline shot of hope. She was now alone and Trent had made a mistake. Earlier, when she had looked at herself in the mirror, she had seen that her wrists and ankles were bound to the chair posts with black plastic zip ties. They looked like the kind bought at a hardware store. Thin and designed to bundle cables or for other industrial and household needs, not the kind carried by police and used for binding human beings.

Regardless of their purpose or strength, Ballard knew that all zip ties had one thing in common; they were totally susceptible to the laws of physics.

In law enforcement, zip ties, or flex cuffs, were officially considered temporary restraining devices. They were not in the same league as handcuffs for the simple reason that one was made of plastic and the other was made of steel. There were plenty of stories and warnings passed in official memoranda, roll-call rooms, and the back hallway chatter of station houses. The message was simple: always keep your eye on an arrestee in flex cuffs. It didn’t matter how strong they were. Plastic is subject to the laws of physics. Friction creates heat. Heat expands plastic.

Ballard tried to move her wrists, this time not pushing against the restraints but rather moving her hands up and down along the vertical chair posts. The bindings were so tight that she could not move them more than a half inch either way. But one half inch up and one half inch down was enough. She started moving her arms like pistons, up and down, up and down, as quickly as she could, creating friction between the plastic and the wood. The hard plastic straps almost immediately started cutting painfully into her skin. But soon she could also feel the heat she was creating, and that pressed her to move her arms faster and harder.

The pain grew almost intolerable and soon she could feel blood starting to drip from her wrists down across her hands. But Ballard didn’t stop. And soon the half inch of movement became an inch and then two inches as she felt the plastic start to loosen.

She bit down on the gag and tears streamed down her face, but she kept going, stopping every two minutes by her count to quickly check the circumference of the binding. She was giving the same effort on both sides but soon it became clear that the binding on her left wrist was reacting to the friction and heat more quickly. She stopped the effort on the right side and doubled down on the left, sending all her strength into the piston action of her arm.

Her arm ached all the way up to her shoulder and neck but she pressed on. Soon blood and sweat on her wrist and hand made them slick, and suddenly, on an upward pull, her hand came all the way through the binding, its edge scraping skin off the side of her palm.

She had one hand free and she screamed into the gag, a primordial cry of release. She brought her bloody hand up, her fingers still numb, and managed to pull the gag down over her chin.

“Motherfucker!” she yelled to the room.

She moved quickly after that. Trent had left the key on the table. Ballard could see it glinting in the light from the sliding door. She reached for the table but was a foot short. Using her free arm as a pendulum, she rocked the chair forward until it tipped. As it toppled, she made a grab for the key, but she missed and fell face forward in the chair.

But now on the floor she could easily reach the leg of the table. She pulled it over and tipped it forward. The key slid onto the floor within reach. She grabbed it but her thumb and finger were too numb to get a secure grip.

She tried to shake life back into her left hand while she went to work with her right, once again moving her arm up and down the chair post. Soon she had enough feeling in her left hand to grip the key, and she used its teeth like a saw on the softening plastic binding her right. In moments the second binding snapped and both of her hands were free.

Still lying sideways on the floor, she unbuckled the belt that was around her torso. Her ankles were still bound to the chair. She turned onto her left side and, bending sideways, was able to grab one of the cross struts between the front and back legs of the chair. She tried to jerk it loose from the legs but it was solidly in place. Using the heel of her already bleeding hand, she swung a blow down on the strut and again it was unmoved. She hit again and then again with similar result.

She put everything into the next swing and wasn’t sure if the crack she heard was the strut or a bone in her hand.

“Goddammit!”

She paused a moment, until the pain eased some, then grabbed the strut and pulled. The wood had split and by pulling it in the middle, she broke it loose. She then slid her plastic binding down along the leg and free of the chair.

With all but one limb free, Ballard was able to manipulate the chair and brace it against the room’s wall. She then kicked through the remaining strut with the heel of her free foot, not feeling much pain from the impact because her foot was completely numb.

Finally free, Ballard sat on the floor and tried to rub feeling back into her ankles and feet. As sensation returned, they began to pulse with a stabbing, burning pain. She tried to stand and walk but was unsteady and she pitched forward onto the floor. She crawled the rest of the way across the room to the pile of her clothes.

Her clothes had been cut in so many places, they were completely unusable. Her hope that her cell phone would be in the pile was dashed as she remembered leaving it charging in her bedroom when she had gone out to the garage.

She knew she would need to look elsewhere in the house for a phone and for clothes. She tried to get up again, putting her hand out and using the mirrored wall for support. She left a bloody handprint.

With her other hand she yanked back the curtain and saw that the light that leaked around the edges came from an overhead porch light. It was dark outside. It looked like the middle of the night.

Just as she realized this meant Trent’s travel time across the empty streets of the Valley would be considerably less than she’d hoped, the house seemed to shake with a loud vibration from above.

The garage door was opening.

Adrenaline flooded Ballard’s body. She moved across the floor, still unsteady on her feet. She opened the door to the room and stepped into a small hallway. She saw stairs going up and a trapdoor opening on the floor. She hesitated, then stepped back into the room with the mirror and closed the door. She knew where she was in the house but didn’t know the layout beyond the room she was in. She knew she could go through the sliding door and up the exterior stairs. That would put her naked and free on the street. She could knock on doors until she got to a phone and a 911 call.

But what about Beatrice? It was Ballard’s duty to protect and serve. If Trent had abducted his ex-wife, could Ballard get help to the house in time to save her?

She heard a door closing sharply up above. Trent was now inside.

Ballard looked around, and her eyes fell on one of the broken cross supports from the legs of the chair. It had splintered lengthwise to a sharp point. She quickly reached down and grabbed it, then tested the point against her thumb. It was sharp and it could break skin. It would be a matter of grip and thrust.

She moved behind the room’s door with her newfound weapon. And almost immediately she knew it was a bad plan. Her hands and feet were still partially numb and painful. The weapon she held required a close-in assault, and Trent was far bigger and far more powerful. She had the element of surprise but even if she moved in and stabbed Trent in the back, she would be unlikely to bring him down, and then she would be engaged in hand-to-hand combat with a much stronger foe.

She heard heavy footsteps coming downstairs. She guessed that there were two flights of stairs from the garage to the bottom level.

Ballard pulled herself back against the wall and got ready to follow the only course of action she had. But then she remembered something and lurched across the room toward the curtains. She slapped them aside and grabbed the wooden broomstick out of the sliding-door channel. She then turned back toward the door and grabbed what was left of her bra out of the pile of destroyed clothes as she went.

She leaned the broomstick against the wall next to the door’s hinges and quickly went to work. Trent’s steps on the stairs had stopped and she heard him moving on the floor directly above her. His steps were labored and she guessed he was carrying Beatrice.

The bra had been cut between the silk cups and shoulder straps and then apparently yanked off Ballard’s body. The back clasp was still linked. Ballard quickly tied the garment tightly around her right thigh and slid the makeshift wooden dagger from the chair in against her skin.

She now heard Trent’s steps on the stairway leading down to the bottom level. He would soon be entering the room. She grabbed the broomstick and stepped away from the wall, taking a position on the blind side of the door that still gave her space to swing.

The door opened. The first thing Ballard saw was a pair of bare feet as Trent carried an unconscious Beatrice in.

“Honey, I’m—”

Trent stopped when he saw the bloody handprint on the mirrored wall. He then started to scan the room and came to the empty chair and table overturned on the floor. Without so much as a thought for Beatrice, he dropped her like dead-weight to the floor and made a move to turn back to the door.

Ballard took him by surprise, as he didn’t think to check his blind side. He seemed to think she had already fled. As he turned, her first swing with the broomstick caught him flush across the right side of his face. It made a snapping sound and she thought it was the sound of his cheekbone breaking.

She didn’t wait to see what the impact of the blow was. She pulled the broomstick back and went lower with the second swing, striking Trent across the torso, connecting with his ribs. This time the sound was heavier, like the sound of a punching bag. Trent made a painful noise and doubled over. Ballard then swung again, putting all her strength into a shot across the crown of his head.

The broomstick snapped in half on impact, the free end flying across the room and hitting the mirror. But somehow Trent stayed up. He brought both hands to his head and stutter-stepped backward unsteadily. He was like a dazed fighter about to go down, but then he rallied and started to straighten up.

“You fucking bitch!” he yelled.

Ballard dropped the broken broomstick and threw her body into Trent’s, knocking him back against the wall. She drove her shoulder into him, pinning him. He closed his arms around her as she reached down and yanked the dagger from the improvised holster.

She gripped it tightly and drove the point into Trent’s gut. She then pulled back and followed it with three quick stabs across his gut like a prison shanking. Trent yelled in pain and let go of her. Ballard stepped back, her arm up and ready to go at him with the dagger again.

Trent stared at her, his mouth open in a look of surprise. He then slid down the wall into a sitting position, trying to hold his gut together. Blood was flowing out between his fingers.

“Help me,” he whispered.

“Help you?” Ballard said. “Fuck you.”

Moving sideways so she could keep Trent in sight, Ballard went to Beatrice and squatted down. She reached to her neck to check for a pulse. Beatrice was alive but not conscious, most likely drugged with ketamine too, she thought. Ballard stole a glance down and saw that her face was swelling on the right side and that she had a split lip. She had not gone easily with Trent.

Trent was now listing to his left side. He’d lost strength in his hands and had dropped them to his lap. Blood now flowed unstopped from every puncture. His eyes were fixed and he was bleeding out. Still holding the improvised dagger ready, Ballard moved in and patted the blood-soaked pockets of his pants, looking for a phone. There was none.

She pushed Trent all the way over and turned him facedown. He made a gasping noise but no other sound. She untied the bra from around her thigh and then used it to tie Trent’s hands behind his back. She assumed he was dead or close to it, but she wasn’t going to take any chances.

Ballard left the room and went up the stairs to search for a phone and clothes she could put on. Getting help for Beatrice was the priority. She went all the way to the top floor in hopes of finding a phone in the kitchen.

There was a wall-mounted landline. Ballard dialed 911.

“This is Detective Ballard, Hollywood Division. Officer needs help. One-thousand-two Wrightwood Drive. Repeat, officer needs help. I’ve got one suspect down, one victim down, and one officer injured.”

Ballard kept the line open and dropped the phone to the floor. She looked down at her naked body. Her arms, legs, and left hip were heavily splattered with blood. Most of it was her own, but some had come from Trent. She moved out of the kitchen and was going to go down to the next level, where there would be clothing in Trent’s bedroom. But as she moved through the hallway, she saw an open door to the garage. Her van was parked in the bay.

She realized that Trent had taken her from Ventura in her own van. It had been part of his plan to take her body somewhere to be hidden and then dump the van far up the coast. She assumed that his own car was somewhere in the vicinity of her grandmother’s house and that he had planned to pick it up before his return to Los Angeles.

Ballard entered the garage and found the van unlocked. She opened the side door and reached in for the beach clothes she left on hooks next to the spare tire. She pulled on sweatpants and a black tank. Over that she wore a nylon jacket with the Slick Sled logo on it. Next she opened the lockbox and grabbed her gun and badge. She was putting them into the pockets of the jacket when she heard the first siren approaching.

Then she heard Beatrice scream from the room below.

Ballard moved quickly down the stairs.

“Beatrice!” she called. “It’s okay! It’s okay!”

She got to the room. Beatrice was still on the floor, sitting up. She held her hands to her mouth and stared wide-eyed across the room at her ex-husband’s body. Ballard held her hands up in a calming motion.

“You’re all right, Beatrice. You’re safe now. You’re safe.”

Ballard moved to Trent and reached down to his neck to check for a pulse. Behind her, Beatrice spoke hysterically.

“Oh my god, oh my god, this isn’t happening.”

There was no pulse. Ballard turned back to Beatrice and knelt down.

“He’s dead,” she said. “He’s never going to hurt you or anybody else again.”

Beatrice grabbed her tightly.

“He was going to kill me,” she said. “He told me.”

Ballard hugged her back.

“Not anymore,” she said.