Tag: Garret and Calico

Heart in your throat.

This had to work.

If it didn’t then Calico honestly wasn’t sure how much longer she’d last here. Dr. Daniels was devolving a little more each day. While he didn’t seem remorseful for killing his own son it was clear the act had affected him mentally.

He was falling apart.

Right before her eyes.

While he was feeing her, or dressing her, he would go on these huge long rants about nothing in particular. Jumping from idea to idea with no clear path between them.

She’d taken to faking sleep whenever he was around and he seemed to buy it because he’d skipped the last two doses of the sedatives.

Without as much of the drug in her system she felt more alert, stronger, and more in control than she had in days. Since he could start drugging her again any time she had to move now. If Garret was going to magically find her and rescue her he would have come for her already.

For now she was on her own.

Creeping across the bedroom, Calico carefully eased up the window. She was on the second floor, it would be a nasty drop if she slipped. Possibly survivable, but not without injury.

Only she didn’t plan on going down, she planned on going up.

She was betting on the fact that when he came in and discovered her gone, and the window open, Dr Daniels would assume she’d gone down to try to escape and would take off after her. Only he wouldn’t find her because she’d be hiding on the roof. Once she was sure he was gone she could climb down and go to a neighbour for help.

Her body was still weak, and as she swung her legs out the window she prayed she had enough strength to make this work.

Standing on the windowsill, when she reached up she could just reach the gutter. Gripping it as hard as she could she swung her legs from side to side trying to get up enough momentum that she could hook one on the gutter and pull herself up, because there was no way she could use just her hands to get her entire body weight up there.

By some miracle her plan worked, and she was just scrambling up onto the tiles when she heard the bedroom door open.

If this didn’t work she was as good as dead.

Coroner finds foreign DNA on body.

“You were right.”

Garret looked up as Tony came into his hospital room. It had been three days since he’d been found after the accident. Another almost twenty-four hours he’d wandered lost and concussed in the forest.

Four days that Calico had been in the hands of a madman.

“About what?”

“DNA found on the last victim was a match to a close relative of Derek Daniels,” Tony informed him.

“His father.”

“Yep. You were right the old guy is involved. I don’t know whether it was both of them at first, or if it was Derek, or Dr. Daniels, but regardless he was the one who caused the crash.”

“And the one who took Calico.” He might not have known her long, but the ache in his chest told the story of how deep he’d fallen for her.

It sucked being stuck here instead of out looking for Calico, and he was forever grateful that Tony was keeping him in the loop.

When his partner’s phone rang, he felt a sinking feeling in his gut.

Bad news.

“Hello?” Tony said into the phone.

For the next sixty seconds or so Garret was forced to sit there and wait for news, unable to make a guess at who was on the other end of the line or what they were saying.

“What is it?” he demanded the second Tony disconnected the call.

“They found a body.”

The bottom dropped out of his world. “Who’s?”

Ex boyfriend found dead.

Calico knew if she didn’t find a way to do something soon, make a move of some sort, then it was going to be all over for her.

Dr. Daniels was growing progressively more unhinged. Not that she’d ever found the man to be overly competent anyway. In fact she’d never known how he managed to finish medical school, graduate, and hold down a job.

But she hadn’t known he was like this.

He’d been creepy, and she’d always got a bad vibe from him, but she hadn’t realised he was this level of twisted.

As badly as she wished for an opportunity to try to take hold of her destiny, Dr. Daniels kept her drugged with sedatives and muscle relaxants so she could barely move her limbs in any controlled fashion let alone find a way to escape. He did everything for her, fed her, dressed her, washed her, he even gave her sleeping pills at night and rocked her to sleep like she was a baby.

It was terrifying.

When he moved into her line of sight, Calico tensed, trying to will her body to cooperate. Which it didn’t.

“Time to say goodbye,” Dr. Daniels announced, and her heart dropped.

While she had no idea how long he’d had her she assumed it was several days at least, but she didn’t think he’d get tired of her already.

“D-don’t, p-please,” she stammered weakly as he leaned down and scooped her up.

Ignoring her, Dr. Daniels carried her through the house. Only he bypassed the kitchen where he loved to prop her up at the table and take his time feeing her, laughing each time she flinched.

Today he headed for a side door that led into the garage. Calico assumed he was going to either kill her here and now then drive her somewhere to dump her body. Or he was going to kill her at the dump site.

Neither were appealing.

But instead of putting her in the car, he carried her to the back where she caught sight of Derek’s dead body. She had realised he wasn’t in the kitchen this morning when Dr. Daniels fed her breakfast but she hadn’t realised it was because he was ready to get rid of his son’s body.

“Kiss him goodbye, little girl.”

Derek’s body was already decaying, it was obvious he’d been dead several days at least before Dr. Daniels took her. But his father didn’t care about that. He gripped her cheeks hard between his fingers and forced her mouth to touch the dead’s man rotting flesh.

How much longer until she ended up like Derek? After all if Dr. Daniels could kill his own son in cold blood and not feel an ounce of remorse, then he wouldn’t feel bad killing her too.

Cops find a vital clue

Like a flip had been switched Garret was suddenly awake.

Awake and aware.

The second his eyes opened Tony was suddenly at his side, looking down at him with a worried expression.

“Do you have her?” Garret asked, hating how weak and croaky his voice was. If he could will his body back to full strength then he most certainly would. If he’d felt like a failure back after he’d been shot when he was supposed to be watching over Tony and Natasha it was nothing compared to the roaring fire of failure currently burning inside him.

“Here drink this.” Instead of answering, Tony held a straw to his lips.

Taking a quick drink, he reported his question. “Do you have her? Tell me you have her.”

“Sorry, man. But we’re looking. Every cop in the city is working this case. We’ll find her. We know who it is we’re looking for and he can’t hide forever.”

At Tony’s words, Garret shook his head. “No.”

“No what?” Tony asked, clearly confused.

“We were wrong. Not her ex,” he explained as best he could with pain throbbing through his body and threatening to send him right back to unconsciousness.

But he couldn’t.

Not yet.

Calico was relying on him and he couldn’t let her down again.

“Don’t think you know what you’re saying, man. I get it, you were injured in the crash and you were wandering around lost in the woods for hours before we found you. We know who took Calico, and we’re looking for her. Her ex can’t hide her away forever.”

“Not him,” he insisted.

“Remember the ketchup? Calico said it was her ex’s thing. We found it smeared all over your front door.”

He remembered.

Remembered it all.

Including what he’d seen after the crash before he passed out.

“Old man,” he croaked. “We were hit by an old man. It was an older man who took Calico. Not her ex. I think it was Derek’s father.”

Detective vows to get missing nurse back.

It was just as hard to tell the passage of time here, to keep track of what was happening to her, as it was to know what was happening out in the real world with Garret.

Instead she existed in a hazy world of colors and sounds that were too bright and loud, and then nothing but darkness.

Through it all persisted a deep sense that the end of her life was near.

Because of him.

A man who had always scared her, and who had gotten off on knowing he was intimidating.

“Wakey, wakey, little girl.”

The words sent a rush of icy dread through her and Calico blinked open heavy eyes to see that somewhere along the way she’d been removed from the table and placed on a bed. Thankfully she was still wearing the same clothes she’d been wearing when she and Garret were hit, but she knew that wouldn’t last.

As though reading her mind, the man shot her a smarmy smile. “I agree, my dear, sweet Calico, we should change you into something a little more appropriate. After a nice bath I think.”

She tried to scream, to beg and plead with him not to, but her voice wouldn’t work. All she could do was wildly shake her he’d and attempt to shrink away from him.

He merely chuckled as he removed the ropes at her wrists and ankles that she hadn’t even realised were there, and scoop her up.

“Don’t worry, little girl. Daddy will take good care of you,” her ex boyfriend Derek’s father crooned as he carried her into a bathroom and set her in an empty tub. “Just like he was always supposed to.”