FACETS (JAKE SCARNE THRILLERS Book 6) Read online

  When Alana emerged from her building, Riverside Drive was crowded with students, and the cars and cabs picking them up. She realized she did not know what kind of car Willet would be driving. Then she heard a car horn and saw a hand waving to her from a vehicle several doors up and across the street. She wheeled her bag over to the car, a rather beat-up maroon Toyota Camry that badly needed a paint job.

  “Just throw your bag in the back,” Willet said.

  He saw the look on her face.

  “It’s my weekend car,” he explained. “No sense keeping a good car in the city. My Saab is in the Hamptons. ”

  “Makes sense,” Alana said, as she put her bag in the car, next to a black wet suit, flippers, masks, snorkels and other scuba gear.

  “You are taking all that stuff with you to the Islands?” She asked. “Don’t most people just rent?”

  “I’m very particular about my equipment,” Willet said.

  That, too, made sense, she thought. Alana knew Willet was a dedicated swimmer. She often saw him doing laps at Uris Pool in Columbia’s Dodge Physical Fitness Center. After Barnard closed its own small and antiquated pool in 2013, Barnard women were forced to use Uris to fulfill the college’s equally antiquated but still-mandated 75-yard swimming requirement for graduation, as well as for recreation. Alana didn’t mind the switch. As opposed to the Barnard pool, so small and shallow one could stand at either end, the Columbia facility was a world-class Olympic training facility. She could swim like a fish and thought that some of her classmates, mostly Muslims, who objected that they did not like swimming in front of males, were idiots.

  Alana had a spectacular figure and rather liked being ogled by the Columbia men, teachers and students alike. She had even caught Willet looking her over on occasion. She did not mind that, either. For a man his age he was in excellent shape. She’d never slept with an older man. But like most girls her age, she’d fantasized about it. They were supposed to be better lovers. And assuredly grateful ones.

  “What are you smiling about”? Willet said as she got in the passenger side.

  “Oh, nothing,” Alana laughed.

  “Don’t forget to buckle your seat belt.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She threw him a mock salute and Willet chuckled. As Alana buckled up, she said, “What’s that smell?”

  “What do you think?”

  He pointed at the two cup holders in the center console.

  “Chai lattes! I don’t believe it. That’s really thoughtful.”

  It was a favorite drink of hers. She and Willet had shared many in one of the student cafeterias when they bumped into each other. He picked up his cup and held it out.

  “To a nice vacation for you,” he said.

  Alana picked up her latte and they carefully “clinked” cups. They both took long sips. Willet replaced his cup and pulled out. He headed south on Riverside Drive.

  “I really appreciate this,” Alana said. “I hope it’s not too much trouble. How long will you have to wait for your flight?”

  “Oh, not long. This is no trouble at all.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Sint Maarten, which is the Dutch part of the island of Saint Martin.”

  “The other part is French, right?”

  “Yes. But the best diving is on the Dutch side.”

  Alana yawned as Willet pulled out.

  “Sorry. I’m sleepy all of a sudden. Was up late getting ready for the trip. Have you been scuba diving long?”

  “Since my teens,” Willet answered, looking at the girl closely.

  “My mother told me she went scuba diving back in college.” Alana yawned again. “With one of her boyfriends.”

  “Did she keep it up?”

  Alana laughed.

  “God, no. She’s all business now. I don’t know what she does for fun. If anything.”

  They were at 122nd Street and Willet made a right turn, and then another on to Riverside Drive West.

  “Shouldn’t we be going downtown?”

  “We can cut across Martin Luther King,” Willet said. “Avoid the traffic.”

  “You’re the boss,” Alana said.

  “You better believe it.”

  They drove on. Suddenly Alana shook her head.

  “Oh, Christ.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Jeez, I feel dizzy all of a sudden.”

  “Drink some more latte,” Willet suggested.

  “What?”

  He sounded far away.

  “I said drink some more latte. It may clear your head.”

  “Right.”

  Alana did. She was still very dizzy.

  “Why don’t you put your seat back,” Willet said, gently taking the cup from her hand. “The controls are on your right.”

  Alana had trouble finding them but finally was able to recline the seat.

  “Can we pull over, Mr. Willet? I feel like I’m going to pass out.”

  “It’s OK. You will. We’re almost there.”

  “Almost where?”

  She could barely get the words out.

  “The George Washington Bridge.”

  “But … my … flight is from … J ...”

  The girl’s head slumped to the side. She was unconscious, although no one outside the tinted-window car would have noticed. Barry, one of his students at Bronx Community College, where Willet also taught some classes, assured him that the Ketamine and GBH combination would keep someone under for at least four hours. The kid, a burnout heroin addict, never asked why his teacher needed the drugs. All he wanted was the hundred bucks, which went to feed his own habit, and a passing grade he never could have earned.

  Willet reached over and patted the unconscious girl’s thigh.

  “By the way,” he said, “I don’t own a Saab or have a place in the fucking Hamptons. And I’m not going to Sint Maarten. Just yet.”

  ***

  Once over the George Washington Bridge, Willet took I-80 West toward Stroudsburg. On a good day, it was at most a two-hour drive from the George Washington on I-80 through East Stroudsburg to Willet’s rented cabin at Pecks Pond in Pike County in northeastern Pennsylvania. But Willet did not trust the druggie, because he was a druggie. So while he was still in New Jersey he exited I-80 at Dover and took State Road 15. It would increase his driving time by a half-hour, but the rural, two-lane road offered many isolated turnoffs that lead to local fishing spots on the many small ponds dotting the area.

  So, an hour into the trip, he took one of the cutoffs and pulled up to a small clearing by the water’s edge. After making sure that there was no one behind him, he got out and opened his car’s trunk, which he had prepared earlier. Then he opened the passenger door, unhooked his captive’s seat belt and dragged her to the rear of the car. Lifting her up, he put her in the trunk and quickly bound her hands behind her back with heavy-duty hemp rope. Then he did her feet. There was plenty of room for her unconscious body, which was why his scuba gear was in the back seat.

  Willet used duct tape to cover the girl’s mouth, being careful to make sure her nose was not obstructed. During the process Alana Dallas barely moved and Willet worried that Barry had provided too strong a potion. But the girl’s breathing was steady. He went through the pockets of her jeans and found her smart phone. There was a small tool box in the trunk. He opened it and took out a screwdriver, using it to remove the license plates from the car, stolen from another car in a long-term parking lot at LaGuardia Airport. He replaced them with his car’s actual plates. He walked to the pond and skimmed the stolen plates into the water. He returned to his car, put the tool box away and slammed the trunk.

  Willet leaned against the Toyota. He was shaking with fear. It took him 10 minutes to get his breathing under control. So far, everything had gone like clockwork. By parking across the street from the girl’s apartment, he avoided being seen by the security cameras that covered the front entrances of all the buildings that basically served a
s off-campus housing for Barnard students. So many students were getting into vehicles he doubted anyone would remember Alana Dallas crossing the street to get into his. He’d driven at the speed limit all the way into New Jersey, knowing that any cop who stopped him would check his stolen plates. An accident, even a fender bender, would have been catastrophic. But, so far, he was free and clear. He had one more major hurdle to clear. The girl might have told someone that he was taking her to the airport. He would ask her, in a way that he knew she’d tell the truth. But he couldn’t be sure no one knew until he made one final move, back at school. It would be a huge risk. But everything about his plan was risky. From the first day he’d seen her and made the connection, Willet knew that it was all or nothing. He’d be dead, in jail or very, very rich.

  He was willing to take the chance, motivated as he was by more than mere greed.

  ***

  The half-mile-long dirt road leading up to the cabin was rutted and pocked with water-filled holes. The last time he drove up the road, when he prepared the girl’s bedroom, the surface was frozen, and, while slick, easier going. Now, driving through a tunnel of trees on a cloudy day in the failing light of late afternoon, it was much more difficult. Willet couldn’t tell the depth of the holes, but after one hubcap-jarring bounce he slowed at every one he could see and tried to ease his way around them.

  Still, no matter how carefully he drove now, it was a rough ride and he wondered how things were going in the trunk. Once or twice he thought he heard a muffled thump behind the rear seat. He had placed several blankets in the trunk to cushion the ride, but they probably were not doing much good.

  Finally, he reached the small clearing and the two-bedroom cabin on the water’s edge of Pecks Pond at which the road ended. He got out of the car and instinctively looked around. Except for the water-lapping sounds on the heavily wooded shoreline it was dead quiet. He went to the trunk and opened it. The girl was wide awake and looked at him with terrified eyes. So much for the four hours the zonked-out druggie had promised.

  Willet reached under her arms and legs and began to lift her out. The girl was slight, but he was not as young as he once was, and he felt a twinge in his back as he straightened up with her in his arms. Damned sciatica. Probably should have cut her leg bindings and let her walk to the cabin. It wasn’t as if she could run away with her arms bound behind her back. They were in the middle of nowhere. Well, a good swim later would ease his back muscles.

  Gritting his teeth, he carried the girl up the three steps to the front porch and propped her up while he unlocked the door. She sagged and he let her slump to the floor. Then he picked her up and carried her into the cabin, through the eat-in kitchen with its coal stove to one of the two bedrooms in the rear. Along the way they passed some Catalina Pony Bottle Tanks lying against a wall. Smaller than regular scuba air tanks, pony tanks were mainly used by expert divers, particularly in cave or night diving.

  Unlike Willet’s bedroom, the windows in the one he now entered were boarded up, both inside and out. He lay the now-squirming girl on the metal-framed bed, which was bare except for a sheeted mattress and one pillow. The only other furniture in the room was a small chest of drawers purchased at a consignment shop. He reached into his pocket and took out a Swiss Army knife, opening the longest blade. The girl’s eyes widened. But he simply cut the bindings at her feet, which were bare. Her shoes had probably fallen off in the trunk of his car. With her legs untethered, the girl began to really struggle.

  He slapped her face.

  “Stop it!”

  She stopped moving and glared at him. There were chains attached to each post at the end of the bed. The end of each chain contained a handcuff. He took one and attached it to her right ankle.

  “Sit up.”

  The girl did.

  “Do you want me to untie your hands?”

  She nodded, and he used the knife again. Her hands free, she tried to scratch his face, aiming at his eyes. But the drugs had robbed her of both speed and coordination. Besides, he expected it and easily slapped her hands away. Then he grabbed her throat and pushed her head down against the pillow, putting the point of the knife against her cheek.

  “A little tiger, aren’t you?” he hissed. “Your mother’s daughter. But if you try anything like that again, I will cut up that pretty face of yours. Do you understand?”

  She nodded.

  “The bed is bolted to the floor. If you try to get out of bed you may hurt yourself and you won’t accomplish anything. Your foot will never fit through the cuff. Do you want me to take the tape from your mouth?”

  The girl nodded again.

  “You can scream if you want. Get it out of your system. Look around. The room is soundproofed. And there is hardly anyone about.”

  The man took hold of one end of the tape.

  “This won’t be pleasant. But the faster the better.”

  He ripped off the tape.

  She did not scream. There were small streaks of blood on her lips. She put her right hand to her mouth.

  “Sorry. Good girl. I’ll get you some lip balm.”

  She looked at him. There were tears in her eyes, but they were tears of pain from the tape being pulled off. This was a tough girl. Willet knew he would have to be careful how he handled her. She had to be handled firmly, but she could not be pushed too far, no matter how hopeless her circumstances.

  “What do you want? Is it money? My mother will pay you. We’re rich.”

  He merely smiled. Her eyes flashed.

  “She will never stop looking for me. And when she does, she will kill you.”

  “She will never find either of us. Now sit tight. I’m going to run a bath for you and get you some clean clothes. And I suppose you will want to use the bathroom.”

  He took her right hand in his.

  “I almost forgot about this.”

  Willet started to remove the Italian cameo ring that was the only jewelry she wore.

  Alana curled her fingers and hissed, “No!”

  He hesitated and with difficulty spread her fingers. The ring was flat, no sharp points. On its agate surface was an engraving of a mother holding a child.

  “Did your mother give you this?”

  “My grandfather. It was my grandmother’s. Please.”

  “Will you behave?”

  Alana Dallas nodded.

  “Then you may keep it.”

  CHAPTER 4 - OLD HOME WEEK

  There is always a moment of seeming weightlessness during a martial arts session when one has enough time to contemplate how painful a landing will be.

  Jake Scarne was experiencing just such a moment as he flew through the air, and expected the worst. And despite relaxing his body, as he was taught, that expectation was met.

  The “thump” of his crash into the mat and his subsequent grunt of pain were loud enough to draw looks from other combatants in the Police Academy gymnasium. Flat on his back and with the breath momentarily knocked out of him, Scarne could only look up at the opponent who had so effortless parried his thrust and then flipped him through the air like a Frisbee.

  “Are you all right, sir?” the young woman said as she hovered over him.

  “Only his pride is hurt, sergeant,” Richard Condon said from where he was sitting in a chair next to the wall. “It’s not the first time he’s underestimated a woman.”

  The female police instructor held out a hand and helped Scarne up. All around them men and women were fighting on nearby mats. There were plenty of thumps and grunts, but none, Scarne realized, came close to his.

  “What was that?” he asked. “I thought I knew all the judo moves.”

  “It’s called nage waza,” the instructor said. “It’s a variation of traditional judo, modified by Okinawans. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have used it on someone who never saw it before. But the Commissioner told me not to hold anything back. He said you learned hand-to-hand in the Marines and would be insulted if I did.”

 
Scarne looked over at Condon, who merely smiled. The N.Y.P.D. Police Commissioner had a towel around his neck. He had already finished his bout with the instructor who, Scarne now realized, had treated her boss much more gently. Rank had its privileges.

  “I’m going to hit the showers,” Condon said. “After she finishes mopping the floor with you, I’ll be in the break room.”

  “Try to leave me a donut,” Scarne said as Condon walked away.

  Scarne turned to the female police officer, who stood silently shaking her sinewy arms at her side to loosen their muscles. She, like him, was barefoot, and wearing gym shorts and a blue tank top. Her breasts were flattened by an athletic bra, but Scarne could tell they were substantial for a woman of her stature, which he estimated was five-five, at most. Her calves were strong. She wore her brown hair in a tight bun and her features were just short of striking. But since she was wearing little or no makeup, Scarne decided that, dressed and made up, she would be. And high heels would do wonders for her legs. He, of course, wondered how she would be in bed.

  “If she doesn’t kill me here,” Scarne thought, “maybe I’ll ask her out.”

  “Thinking about that donut, sir?”

  He smiled.

  “Not exactly, Sergeant. Show me that Okinawan move again.”

  She did, and this time Scarne managed to stay on his feet. For the next 15 minutes, he held his own against the woman, and even managed to throw her a few times. At the end of the session he high-fived the instructor, asked her to dinner and found out she was married with two kids. He headed to the showers.