Chapter 14

Gabe led the group of heavily armed and protected men and women as they converged upon the alley. Kaylee's tracer unit pinpointed her exact location as being here but Gabe had his doubts. Why would they be in an alley, there was no reason for it?

They swarmed all over the car, shouts of "Clear!" sounding in the late night air. Gabe kicked the tire, swearing a blue streak. It was another dead end in a long line of dead ends.

"This is the car," another detective called, pulling Kaylee's bag out of the front seat.

"Yeah, Dean's blood is on the front grill and on the windshield, but we got blood inside too."

"Get a crime scene unit down here, now! And everyone back away from the car. I don't want any evidence fouled because of one of us." He paced back and forth in the mouth of the alley. "Damn, where is she?"

"Prick!" she said, climbing out of the trunk of the car slowly, keeping the gun trained upon the man's chest. "You broke my nose."

"Who are you?" David asked her, watching as she pulled off the long, dark wig that he'd thought was Kaylee's hair as he'd sat down the street from the restaurant. He'd taken big chances tonight, but when they'd been presented, he couldn't help but take them. It had seemed fate when Gabe had left her side, leaving her standing in the pool of light from the streetlight, almost as if waiting for him to come and grab her. Then, those people coming out of the restaurant, crowding around her, pushing her towards the street, how could he pass up such a chance when it had presented itself?

"Detective Sheri Brigman, prick, and you are under arrest. Turn around and face the garage door." Sheri waited until he did before quickly scanning the dark interior of the garage, searching for something to use to restrain him. If only she'd managed to keep hold of Kaylee's purse. Her identification and, more importantly, her handcuffs were in that bag.

A small bag of long, plastic zip ties caught her eye. They weren't as long as the ones they used on the force to subdue suspects, but they might work. She backed towards them, keeping him in the unwavering sights of the gun. She would have to drop it when she went to put him in the ties, but standing here with him loose while she waited for back up made her even more nervous. She grabbed three of the long ties, devising a system that would be far more humane than the one he used on his victims.

"What is your name?" she asked him, slowly coming closer to him.

He turned his head, squinting at her with those eerie eyes. "What color is your hair?" he asked. He couldn't tell, she had it up under a thick hairnet designed to keep it confined under the wig she'd worn.

"None of your fucking business, pervert. Now, let's try this again. What's your name?" She stood behind him, pressing the barrel of the gun against his back and urging him forward until he was pressed against the thin metal door.

"David."

"David ... what?"

"What color is your hair?" he asked her again, cocking his head slowly to the side as he looked at her.

Sheri almost shivered before she stopped herself. He was creepy in the extreme. "Okay, David. If you don't want to tell me anymore, we'll get the rest out of you at the station. I can't believe someone like you won't be in the system, maybe as a juvenile offender? Now, we are going to do something here and you are going to cooperate or I'm going to put a bullet in you, got me?"

He didn't answer, just stared at her impassively.

She sighed. "I'm going to give you these zip ties and you are going to fasten one around each wrist and then put the third inside one of the other two than put your hands behind your back while I finish the job. If you try anything," she warned him, "anything at all, I will shoot you."

She waited, watching him.

He nodded, his eyes blank and staring at her.

She handed him the first zip tie, watching as he pulled it tight around his wrist. The second zip tie went on the same way. Then she handed him the third. He slipped it under one of the others before turning his back and holding his hands behind him.

Sheri tried to fasten it while holding the gun to him but he'd put the other zip tie on too tight and she couldn't get the tie under it. With a hiss of frustration, she took one look at the back of his head, shoved the gun in the front of the jeans she wore and grabbed the tie with her other hand.

It was ripped from between her fingers, his body twisting so fast she barely had time to blink before seeing the rage in his eyes. His fist smashed into her face even as she fumbled to get to her gun and she fell backwards, hitting the cold cement hard. It knocked the wind from her, sent her skidding back along the hard cement until her back hit the rear end of the car.

Then he was standing over her, his hands yanking at the hairnet she wore, pulling it free and then pulling her up, the zip tie in his hands. Before she could fight him, he had her wrists expertly tied, the plastic digging in painfully to the soft flesh. He bent, grunting as he hefted her slim body over his shoulder and headed for the house.

Kaylee stood as if guard over the battered body of her new friend. Dean had gone down hard, breaking two ribs, his leg, and giving himself a skull fracture to boot. They'd had to reinflate his lung after it had been punctured by one of the jagged edges of rib bone. He was on a machine now to regulate his breathing, tubes feeding him medicine, wires connected to his chest and his finger and another tube coming from under the sheet that covered him and leading to a small bag at the end of his bed.

His ribs were bandaged, his head swathed like a mummy, a slight pink cast to part of the white. His face was a mass of scratches and his legs were covered in road rash.

"Buddy," she said quietly. "You look like shit. You've got to wake up; the press wants to make you a hero for getting run down by a car. You can't let all those women out there see you like this. It's bad for the image, Dean." A sob shook her shoulders and she sank down on the small chair next to the bed, her hand lying on his limp one.

It had been her idea to come to the hospital and stay with Dean while Gabe followed the tracker unit Sheri had in the purse. They'd switched places in the restaurant bathroom, their plan had been to leave Sheri alone out in front of the restaurant to see if their killer would take the bait. He had, but he wasn't supposed to have gotten Sheri in the deal.

When they'd hustled her out of the bathroom, she'd seen Gabe, his dark hair mussed from dragging his hand through it in frustration, his eyes worried. He'd walked over to her, touching her cheek for a brief instant of intimacy before telling her what had happened. Then he'd had her brought here. A guard stood outside of the room, protecting both her and Dean.

But he knew nothing of what was going on, giving her a bored look as he stood watching the nurses as they went about their duties.

She wiped the tears from her eyes, tears of exhaustion and frustrations that just seemed to keep welling. She felt one slide down her cheek, saw it drop onto Dean's hand. With a small sniff, she wiped it away, laying her head along the edge of his bed and staring up into his battered face.

"Please don't die, Dean. I don't think I could handle it if you do."

Sheri struggled and fought, kicking her feet and bashing her head against David's back. It was as if she didn't exist, except for the hold he kept around her legs, holding her to his shoulder. He ignored her movements completely, even when she knew she must have done something to him that hurt.

She caught glimpses of the house as they moved through it, a normal, nice home with normal furnishings, a television set, a rocker/recliner set in front of it. There was even a nice, normal cat sitting upon the table, washing his paws. The cat looked at her for a moment, then went back to its bath as if its owner dragged bloody women into his house on a daily basis.

He kept walking, through a kitchen that had plain white linoleum, dull cabinets and a cookie jar of a cat on the counter. He paused an she heard the sound of a lock turn and then a light clicked on and suddenly he was going through a door and down a flight of stairs.

He dumped her unceremoniously into a hard wooden chair with a high back, pushing her easily back down when she tried to jump up. His hands went to her hair, yanking out the pins so that her long, bright red tresses shone in the bright light of the room, falling around her shoulders and into her face.

"Red," he said, disgust evident in his tone. "They couldn't even give me a decent decoy."

Sheri shook her head, trying to get the hair out of her eyes. With her hands bound behind her, it was almost an impossible task. "Sorry to disappoint you," she hissed, her voice hoarse with pain and fear, though she put up a brave front.

"Shut up," he said quietly, staring at her.

Her eyes narrowed and she wanted to scream at him but she kept quiet, squirming under the intensity of his stare.

"You're pretty I suppose. Tina might like you." He reached behind him and onto a shelf. Before she knew what he was about, he had her pinned to the chair, a pair of scissors snipping in front of her face. "Unless you want me to use these to snip you open and see what color your insides are, you might want to hold still."

The scissors were huge and silver, dressmaker shears, she thought, knowing that they could, indeed, cut her open. She nodded her head, seeing him staring at her with those odd blue eyes.

They were cold against her skin as he snipped through her clothing, starting at her pants. He used the shears to start the cuts, yanking at the fabric with his incredibly strong hands. When he was finished, she sat before him in nothing but a red silk bra and matching panties.