A Harmless Little Plan (Harmless #3)(18)

She turns around.

It’s Jane.

Jane.

I open my mouth to say her name but nothing comes out, because John casually presses his forearm against my throat. Something pops in my neck, right where a man’s Adam’s apple would be. It feels like a chicken bone caught in my trachea.

I can’t breathe. He’s pressing so hard I can’t breathe.

Jane’s eyes catch mine. She’s an animal, feral and caught in a trap, her breathing erratic, her face pale with shock.

Jane is no accomplice.

She’s a victim.

I can’t think. My vision swims. Instinct makes me grab John’s arm, fighting. I need to breathe, my chest spasming. I kick hard, finding leverage, losing it as he effortlessly presses the palm of his other hand on my pubic bone, hard.

I’m trapped.

I’m dying.

I’m fading out.

“Lindsay! God, no,” I hear Jane say as if she’s underwater, except I’m the one who’s drowning.

So this is how I die.

Naked in Drew’s bed with Jane watching.

Where are you, Drew?

I love you.

And then the world folds up neatly into a pinpoint of light that closes in on itself to become nothing.

Just like me.





Drew


Another female voice, screaming Lindsay’s name.

Fuck.

“I slid the note under the door,” Tiffany says, walking on those tiny stilettos, holding a compact mirror and some kind of pale beige makeup stick thing. “But your camera crew’s still not here.”

“They’re on their way,” I say tersely. The drill has to be turned on. No time for delays. Whoever is screaming Lindsay’s name is crying out for a reason.

Time is of the essence.

The drill sounds like a thousand rocks being ground up by giants using a mortar and pestle, but I use it anyway, scoring a three foot by three foot chunk of wallboard, popping it out, finding insulation. With my bare hands, I pull it out, locating the electrical outlet. My fingers feel like sausages. I’m sweating like a pig, but my throat is dry. The second knuckle of my right index finger won’t move properly.

I force it to move.

“Did you just kill her?” I hear distinctly, a woman’s panicked voice loud and clear. Now that the thin wallboard, exposed along with pipes, electrical wires and ducts, is all that separates me from Lindsay, I have a better sense of what’s going on.

And this does not sound good.

“Let go of her. Jesus,” says a man. Gagging sounds, then the distinct choking of someone vomiting.

“Lindsay, I’m so sorry, oh my God are you breathing? Are you okay?” The woman’s voice is familiar, but I don’t have time to figure this out. I slip the fiberoptic camera through the holes in the electrical outlet. It’s like putting a cooked noodle through a key hole.

I attach it to the phone Silas gave me, press a button, and --

Holy fucking shit.

Lindsay’s naked, on her belly, the soles of her feet facing me. She’s the source of that choking sound, dry heaving, her shoulders rising up, hair spilling away from me.

The mystery woman is Jane.

Stellan’s to the left and John is on the bed with Lindsay, not touching her. With a firm grip on Jane’s arm, Stellan looks like he’s calling the shots.

“She could give us good info, you idiot. Don’t choke her yet.”

Yet.

He grabs a piece of paper out of Jane’s hand. “What the hell is this? A message from Corning? What the fuck is he up to, John?”

Corning.

I go cold. Sucks to be right. Nolan Corning, Harry’s chief rival in his own political party, is behind everything. Processing the implications of this is impossible in real time. Absorbing the shock is critical, though. This explains it all, right down to my being set up and the technology advantage – among others – that Stellan, Blaine and John have had all along.

I also realize that if Stellan is openly talking about the guy in front of Jane and Lindsay, he’s planning to kill them both.

Thinking about Nolan Corning is a luxury I can’t afford now. John shouts, “How the hell should I know? What’s it say?”

“Says the neighbor’s having remodeling work done on her apartment and she apologizes for any noise.”

Bzzzzz.

I take that as my cue to turn on the drill and finish scoring the square I’ll punch out shortly. The element of surprise is my only weapon.

Emphasis on only.

My attention has to stay on the drill, but I’m not stupid, I look at the phone screen as well. John’s grabbing Lindsay and rolling her on her back. She’s groaning. Jane is in Stellan’s grasp, shaking. Her knees look like they’re about to give out.

“Fucking neighbor getting home improvements,” Stellan mutters, crumpling the note and throwing it right at the outlet where I’m observing. It pings, then bounces, rolling under my bed.

My bed.

Fury takes over, my emotions unrestrained as I watch my woman on my bed, naked and in peril. This is the first time she’s ever been to my apartment, and those fuckers do it like this?

She’s groaning, which means she’s alive. A nasty red line crosses her neck. I see bruises and small spots of blood on her legs.

They’ve hurt her.