Tag: suspense

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.”

Breaking news cop rescued.

Everything hurt.

One second it seemed like everything was bright. So brightly light that it hurt his eyes.

Then it would be dark. So pitch black that Garret stumbled around not knowing where he was or where he was going.

Everything was fading.

Slowly but surely.

To the point where he didn’t even know now why he had to keep moving. Something deep inside him kept urging him on but he no longer knew what that was.

Only that something drove him.

Wouldn’t let him give up.

Forced him to keep going when all he wanted was to give into the pain and exhaustion.

So he moved, stumbling along confused and disoriented, stopping only when his body collapsed on him. Even then he’d hover in and out of a hazy slumber, dragging himself back to his feet as soon as he was able.

“Garret!”

The voice calling his name was much too loud, and he couldn’t seem to figure out where it was coming from. Were these trees surrounding him? It looked like it, only some of them had faces and appeared to be moving towards him.

“Found him, he’s in bad shape, we need EMS here ASAP,” the voice continued as someone reached out to touch his arm.

Was he lying down again?

Garret didn’t remember falling.

Didn’t know who the man looking at him with concern was either. Wasn’t even sure if it was a man or a tree.

“Is Calico with you?” the man asked.

Calico?

Why did that name stir up a whirlwind of emotions he couldn’t handle right now?

“Don’t worry, you’re going to be okay, and we’re going to find Calico. Everything is going to be alright.”

The tree man’s words didn’t soothe him, and as a wave of unconsciousness pulled Garret under he couldn’t help but feel that nothing would ever be alright again.

Blood trail leads to new discovery in the search for missing nurse and cop.

It killed her not to know what had happened to Garret, to have no clues whether he was still alive, and if he was what condition he was in.

Just because she knew there was no way she was walking out of this alive, didn’t mean that Calico didn’t hope and pray with ever fiber of her being that he was alright. That he would live, that he would find happiness, and live out his dreams.

Even if that couldn’t be with her.

And it wouldn’t be.

Things were so much worse than she’d thought. Much, much worse.

Any hope that she might have had that things would work out had evaporated the second she heard that voice. A voice from her nightmares but not in the way she’d been expecting.

She thought she knew what was going on, but it turned out she’d known nothing. Everything she thought she believed had been turned on its head, and she had no idea how to process this new revelation.

No idea how to work with it either.

Maybe she would have stood a chance against Derek. Maybe she could have convinced him that he didn’t really want to hurt her. Maybe she could have even convinced him to get help.

But as she looked across the table where she’d placed, her wrists and ankles bound to the chair’s arms and legs, to the obviously dead body of her ex boyfriend, which was also sitting bound to a chair she knew that it was useless.

Derek she possibly could have reasoned with but the man who had taken her and killed the boyfriend who had almost stolen her life, she could never reason with him.

Killer escalating again. Nurse and cop missing.

Garret wasn’t sure if the words were real, something he’d read or heard, or just something he’d made up in his own head.

Actually he wasn’t sure of much.

Only one thing registered in his mind.

Find Calico.

Get to Calico.

Sve Calico.

The killer had tracked them to his place, followed them as he was trying to get her to the police station. Slammed their car with his own, and by the time he woke, not only was he consumed with pain, but Calico was gone.

His Calico. She’d admitted as much. When he told her that nothing could make him leave her side, that being with her was exactly where he wanted to be, she’d told him she felt the same way.

But he’d failed.

Just like he’d failed Tony and Natasha.

Calico was gone. Snatched away from him. He’d broken his promise to her to keep her safe, and to remain with her.

Which is why he had to find her.

Something sharp scratched his cheek but he had no idea what it was. Had no idea where he was. Only that it didn’t matter that he was hurting because if he didn’t find Calico before it was too late there would be a permanent ache in his chest that would never heal.

He had no idea how long he walked, or how he was even remaining upright.

All Garret knew was that when his body finally gave out on him and he hit the ground hard enough to see stars, that he’d failed and Calico was going to pay the ultimate price.