Chapter Seventeen
Conrad hadn’t been kidding when he told Elle about the need for patience. He’d reconnoitered the chosen meeting location yesterday, before he’d returned home. It was a bar called the White Swan, a peeling painted sign informed him—well, the “Wh te wan” if you were being entirely accurate.
It had clearly been closed for some time and had become a home for squatters. Over the years, both the illegal tenants and the elements had deteriorated the building so much that only a few still used it, and then only to sleep.
When Conrad arrived there just after nine o’clock, the building seemed empty. He was careful, though, and checked every room, wary of a trap having been laid for him. But the building was empty.
All the windows and doors had been boarded up except for the door that had been forced open at the rear of the building. Conrad found that from the second floor, he could see out into the yard at the rear, which might once have been a pretty beer garden, but now was little more than a haven for thorny weeds. The planks were sloppily placed over the windows, and from the inch-wide gaps, he could see almost the entire area.
Going back downstairs, he found a pipe that had one end hammered flat, probably to pry the door open, and he left it outside, near the rear door. Next he closed the door and put a little super glue along one edge where it met the frame. It should be enough to make the door sticky, but the bar should pry it open again with a few tries, giving him just enough time to get downstairs and wait behind the door for them.
Making his way back upstairs, being careful of the few loose steps, he waited by the window, watching the rear yard for the next three hours.
He stretched a few times and checked his watch occasionally, but he never left his position.
He staved off the boredom with thoughts of his security consultancy, making mental notes of the steps he would have to take to begin.
Just after twelve thirty, movement caught his eye as two people climbed through a hole in the fence. Conrad recognized the addict he’d made a deal with yesterday, who would only give him the nickname of Ducks, and Gary Marshall, the skinny handbag thief who could probably have a decent career in sprinting if he gave up the drugs.
The glass in the window had disappeared long ago, so Conrad could hear them perfectly.
“Are you sure this is on the up-and-up, man?” Gary asked as they approached.
“He’s got two grand!” Ducks answered, his tone implying that his friend was a fool.
“But what if he’s a cop?”
“He wasn’t no cop! Seriously, one hit to the head, and we’re two grand richer!”
A double cross. He couldn’t say he was completely surprised.
“Door’s stuck,” he heard Gary say.
He missed a little of their conversation, but as he took his position behind the door, he could hear them through the aging wood.
“You sure about this?” Gary asked again.
“We haven’t been here in months, the door probably just expanded in the rain or something.” Ducks was pulling on the door handle, making the door rattle in the frame.
“What if they took it back and kicked everyone out?”
“They’d have better locks and, like, warning signs and shit. Besides, we would have heard,” Ducks assured his friend. “Let’s try this.”
Conrad heard the metallic scrape of the pipe as someone picked it up. Seconds later, it was jammed into the gap between door and frame and one of them, probably Ducks, grunted as he tried to lever the door open.
Ducks was the reckless one, and Gary was the cautious one, which means Gary would come in last and had to be the one he took down first. The grunting let him know that Ducks was physically quite weak, but there was a chance he could be a runner like Gary. It was good there was only one exit. Conrad intended to fill it.
Three more tugs and the door gave way. True to his instincts, Ducks came in first. The thought that Conrad might have gotten there even earlier had never occurred to him, and he just walked straight in, looking around the debris-littered floor, probably searching for something to use as a weapon.
Gary entered a moment later, slowly, cautiously, on edge, and alert for every little sound.
As soon as he passed the edge of the door, Conrad slammed it closed and wrestled Gary into a headlock as he maneuvered himself in front of the door.
The hold cut off the blood supply to Gary’s head so Conrad had to be careful not to let go too quickly or Gary could regain consciousness almost immediately if he did. He didn’t want to cause actual brain damage, though, so he counted to fifteen then released him, gently laying him on the floor so he didn’t suffer any injuries.
Ducks was panicking, looking around for anything that might be used against Conrad, but when their gazes met, Ducks offered him a huge grin.
“See man, told you I’d deliver!”
Conrad raised a cynical eyebrow and opened the door.
“This is a one-time-only offer,” he told the terrified Ducks.
“W-what about my money?” he asked, trying to casually place his hands in his pockets.
“After you tried to double-cross me?”
“Nah, man, I didn’t. That’s just what I had to tell ’im to get I’m ’ere.”
“And I saw a flying pig earlier.”
Ducks looked confused.
“Fine, I’ll give you five hundred. Then you need to take off because the police are on their way.”
“What? Fuck, man!” he darted for the door before Conrad could get any money out. Clearly, he was already a wanted man.
Gary was still out, so Conrad bound his hands behind his back and used two cable ties to bind his feet.
He took out his phone to call the detectives handling Elle’s case, then he called Elle.
“You’re early,” she said as she answered on the second ring. “Why are you early? Is everything okay? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” he assured her. “The guys arrived early, that’s all.”
“And you have Marcus’s accomplice?”
Conrad looked down to him as he groaned. “Yep, and not a mark on him.”
“Oh, thank God.” He practically felt her relax with relief. “The detective called me just after you left this morning to say Marcus was being released from the hospital and they were going to arrest him immediately.”
“Well, now they should be able to charge him.” He knew that Marcus being released was her biggest fear. If luck was with them, Marcus would be remanded in custody until the case came to court, or he’d plead guilty and save them all a costly and time-consuming trial. Somehow, he didn’t think that Marcus would ever do that; Elle’s stalker felt his deception skills were good enough to fool anyone.
The man was a legend in his own mind.
“Thank you for doing this,” she told him, and he could hear that she was getting choked up with relief. “I love you.”
They both froze for a second.
“I mean, not in a, you know, in a. . . I mean, we just met, and . . .” She sighed in defeat. “Who am I kidding? I totally love you.”
Conrad couldn’t help the smile that was growing on his lips.
“Good,” he replied. “Me too.” He would have liked to say the words but not in front of this idiot.
He heard sirens in the distance.
“I think I hear the police coming so I’d better go. I’ll call you if I have any updates.”
“Thank you. And thank you again!”
“My pleasure.” He hung up and slipped his phone into his coat pocket.
As soon as her third interview of the day was finished, Elle insisted on going to the police station so she could see for herself that Conrad was unscathed.
She was taken to the floor where Conrad was giving his statement to an officer named Quinlan, and only fully relaxed once she could see for herself that he was unharmed.
“What happens now?” she asked Quinlan.
“The accomplice has already rolled on Mr. Blake, so the detectives in charge are interviewing him now. They’re hoping to get a confession.”
Elle looked down the corridor and saw the younger and older detective who had taken her statement yesterday. They were leaving an interview room with a third man.
“That’s Mr. Blake’s solicitor,” Quinlan said with a note of disgust.
The detectives spotted her and approached, but their news was not good. Marcus had stopped trying to pin the blame on others, and instead, he was refusing to say anything. They were taking a break but would continue questioning him in fifteen minutes.
David and Conrad asked them a few questions, but Elle kept looking to the interview room door.
“Excuse me, I’m going to find the ladies’ room,” she said as she slipped away.
She glanced around as she approached the door, but no one was looking her way, so she tried the handle and was surprised to realize she could walk right into the interview room.
Marcus was sitting behind a black Formica table, his head in his hands. He was giving off the air of a defeated man.
He didn’t look up for a moment . . . not until he realized she wasn’t sitting down.
His eyes widened in shock when he saw her.
“What do you want?” he barked.
“I just have to know one thing,” she said, her voice cracking as she stepped closer. “Why?”
“It wasn’t me! I was injured too!” he yelled indignantly.
“No, you either did it yourself, or you had Gary do it to you, all so you could play on my guilt and manipulate me!”
Marcus opened his mouth to reply.
“Don’t. Don’t insult me and deny it! The guy you hired has been arrested. He told them how you met him at your uncle’s farm because he allows troubled teens from the neighboring halfway house to work there. The farm is probably where you got the gun from, and the bull semen you sprayed over my bed. I know exactly how you did this. I just don’t know why!”
Marcus actually had tears in his eyes by the time she was finished, but for his own suffering, of course. He wasn’t upset about the pain he’d caused her.
“Because I love you!”
“No.” Elle shook her head. “You don’t try to hurt people you love. In fact, you’d suffer their pain yourself if you could.”
“I only ever wanted what was best for you!” he insisted.
“And that’s you?”
“Of course it’s me! No one will ever love you like I do!” His tears really began to fall now. “I love you. I do. I really do.”
“You don’t love me, Marcus. You don’t even know me! You pictured your perfect woman and she just happened to have my face. Then you tried to turn me into her.”
“I didn’t. No, that’s not what happened. I wouldn’t hurt you. I was just trying to get you to see the truth and do what was best for you!”
A look of recognition spread across her face. When talking about stalking stories, she’d often joked to her friends that she didn’t understand why people stalked their exes. “Do they expect these women to say. ‘Oh yes, now that you’ve threatened me, I totally see I was wrong to leave you, and I want you back.’”
Only in this case, that was exactly what he thought.
“You started sending those letters in the hope you could be the one to comfort me. Then, when that wasn’t enough, they got worse. Then they started coming in my email, and when that still didn’t work, you had someone attack me, hoping I’d fall into your arms and beg to come and stay with you so you could protect me.”
The rather sick look on his face confirmed her suspicions.
“Oh God, that first night at the studio. You told me to go on without you because you’d left your phone, but you hadn’t, had you? You wanted me to go out there alone, like a lamb to the slaughter.”
Elle began crying now.
“I trusted you. I believed that you wanted what was best for me, that you had my best interests at heart, but you never did. Was my image even created by a specialist, or did you just dress me up like the woman of your dreams?”
Marcus didn’t deny it.
“Oh my God!” Elle whispered.
“Elle, I would never hurt you, not really. I swear.”
“You don’t think having me punched in the face, knocked me down, and kicked in the stomach hurt me? You don’t think terrifying me hurt me? You don’t think killing Conrad would have hurt me?” she asked in disgust as she took a step back. “You’re despicable.”
She turned toward the door and felt rather than saw Marcus lunge at her. Before she could turn back, he had grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her off balance. His grip on her hair prevented her head from impacting the floor but a moment later, he slammed her head onto the floor. She tried to reach for his hands to ease the pressure on her hair, but he was too strong, and she was dazed.
Clearly, he subscribed to the If-I-can’t-have-her-nobody-can school of romance.
Pulling her head up, he punched her in the face and used the additional momentum to increase the second impact of her head on the floor. She saw stars, and just as he raised her head again, he was suddenly pulled off her. He held her hair for a moment longer until he realized he was about to pass out, then he let her go as he tried to break Conrad’s choke hold.
She scrambled backward, out of Marcus’s reach, and watched as Conrad deftly put Marcus on the floor and knelt on his back to restrain him while Marcus struggled to get free.
“You don’t love me,” Elle screamed as she shakily climbed to her feet, trying to get her breathing under control.
Marcus’s struggling ceased as he turned to face her.
“What you think is love is just a desire to own me. You’re pitiful.”
The small room was suddenly swarmed with police who took over for Conrad, and Elle slipped out into the corridor when the crowd thinned enough to allow her to exit. Conrad joined her seconds later.
Once outside in the corridor, she let her guard down and began to shake so hard that she was almost vibrating. Conrad wrapped her up in a tight hug.
“I’m sorry.” She sobbed and her tears flowed openly. “I shouldn’t have done that, I just . . .”
When Conrad had looked up and realized she was missing, he could have kicked himself. He retraced their steps, hoping to spot her, but as he got close to the elevators, he’d heard her cry out.
His blood ran cold as he opened the door and saw Marcus attacking her. Once he had the bastard in a headlock, for just a second, he considered holding on until Marcus’s brain was oxygen deprived.
But then Elle struggled to her feet, as unsteady as a newborn doe, and she became his top priority as his thoughts of revenge fled.
He understood why she did it, and right now wasn’t the time to chastise her. Heaven help her if she ever put herself in that sort of danger again, though!
“You were hoping he could give you a logical reason.” He explained her actions to her as he tightened his hold on her. “You wanted to make sense of this.”
“Yeah,” she said, surprised by his insight. “But the only reason it happened is because he’s a narcissist who can’t conceive of giving a damn about anyone else. All he cares about is what he wants. He doesn’t care who he steps on to get it.”
“The good news is they have Marcus bang to rights,” he told her. “Even without Gary Marshall, they were able to retrieve the serial number on the shotgun. It’s registered to Marcus’s uncle for use on his farm. They’ve sent a team to search the farm, thinking he might have left the laptop he used to contact you there.”
“So what does that mean?” she asked.
“Because it’s a gun crime, he’ll get five years on top of any other sentence, and the chances of him being released on bail are exceptionally low. It’s over.”
“Over,” she repeated, as if unfamiliar with the word. Her head felt light. Slowly a smile formed on her lips. She winced as it grew wider. She realized her lip was starting to swell where he’d struck her. Luckily, he didn’t seem to have broken the skin.
“Come on,” Conrad said as he released her. “Let’s get you checked out. Then we can go home and start putting this behind us.”
Elle nestled into his side and slipped an arm around his waist.
“That’s the best idea I’ve heard in ages.”