Do Not Disturb by Alessandra Torre
“You know you’re ringing,” Simon says, smiling as if he is funny, his hand taking too long to pick out the key. I stare at his key ring and wonder if, shoved far enough down his throat, it would choke or kill. “Your cell?” he adds helpfully, as if I don’t know that my cell phone is ringing.
“Unlock my door before I kill you.” The words break out of me in a barely controlled stream of rage.
He squints at me as if deciphering the words, while his right hand turns the lock and the door cracks open. I shove past him, slamming the door the moment my feet enter the sanctuary of my apartment. “Lock it!” I scream, my eye at the peephole.
He looks up and down the hall as my hand closes around the gun. Shakes his head before twisting the key in the opposite direction. I sink to my knees as I hear the tumbler move, my hands pulling out the cell and engaging the call.
“I’m fine,” I say. “I’m home. I’m locked in.”
“Jesus Christ!” Derek thunders into the phone, the emotion greater than I have ever heard. “Do you have any idea what… what I’ve been picturing?”
“Yeah,” I whisper, my voice unable to reach much further than that. “I’m tired, Derek. I need to sleep.”
“We need to discuss this, Deanna. Where were you when I called?”
“I’m in the apartment, Derek. I’m safe. So is everyone else. I didn’t do anything.”
“That’s not good enough—”
“I’m going to bed,” I interrupt. “I’ll call you in the morning.”
“Promise me.” His tone makes me pause, makes my thumb stop in its journey to the “End Call” button. It is pleading, concerned. I love it.
“I promise,” I mumble. “Tomorrow morning.”
Then I end the call, pull the gun out of my sweatshirt, and crawl, with filthy feet, into bed.
CHAPTER 63
MIKE TENSES WHEN the man stands. He fights the reaction, trying to keep his body relaxed, his hands from shaking, when the man moves toward him, the knife held loosely in his right hand, a flip of his wrist spinning it, letting Mike know in one easy movement that he has held it countless times. Used it. This short, thin man with his dark eyes and soulless smile… he cannot get to Deanna. Yet Mike, made even shorter by his chair, seems to be the only thing standing in this man’s way. The asshole rolls his wrist, then gestures with the knife.
“Let’s move to your computer.”
Stepping back, out of the way enough to allow Mike to wheel, through the living room, into the bedroom, his eyes skipping everywhere as his brain tries to think, tries to work through the best way to pull up the information that shouldn’t be given.
Logging in, he bypasses the mainframe, doing a simple search in the database for Jess Reilly. Jess Reilly’s name in the computer will only bring up the numerous creations that confirm her false identity, all true knowledge housed under her real name. He opens a client file, stealing a piece of paper from the printer and writing the address in clear, neat print. Jess Reilly. P.O. Box 2499. Des Moines, Iowa.
“A P.O. box isn’t worth shit,” the man interjects. “I need a street address.”
“She probably lives in a dorm,” Mike murmurs, turning back to the computer and pulling up Facebook, to the page where he spends a good part of every day.
“No. Stop bullshitting me. My tech guy said she’s not at the college.”
“Was that the same guy who told you she lives here?” He regrets the sarcasm as soon as it comes out, covering it with a shrug, turning to glance over his shoulder. “That’s all I got, man. It looks like I sent the bills to her P.O. box, she paid them. Last job I did was build her website, and that was…” Reaching up, he scratches the back of his head in a gesture he hopes is convincing. “Uh… a few years ago. Long enough that I don’t remember it.”
Dropping his hands to the arm of the chair, he forces himself to keep his head forward as the man walks behind him, and there is suddenly the edge of the sharp blade against the delicate cords of his neck. The next exhale, cautious in execution, causes a prick of pain, and Mike’s hands shake slightly when he lifts them from the keyboard.
“Are you sure?” the asshole says slowly, dragging out each word.
The shake of his head is a mistake, the blade showing exactly how sharp it is, the gentle movement across the edge burning hot against Mike’s skin, and he inhales slowly, as carefully as possible. “I’m sure,” he says softly. Slowly. “I told you. I don’t know anything.”
The knife is removed so quickly that it skitters across his neck in its exit, a searing heat of pain quick and light, the fear shaking him more than the hurt, the shock of it all freezing the hacker in place for a moment before he pants in relief.
Stab. The movement is unexpected, the man moves quickly, jerking his hand in a downward motion to the shoulder, the smooth cut of blade passing through clothing, skin, and tissue. Every thought process is instantly immobilized, sudden, intense pain screaming through Mike’s body, the agonizing pain bringing to mind the time, back when he had full use of his body, that the snot-nosed neighbor from three houses over slammed his fingers into the car door, the five intense seconds of pain before the door was yanked open by a frantic parent’s hand. Only this pain doesn’t stop. It continues, screaming bloodred across every pore in his body, dots appearing in his vision as he struggles for breath, for speech, for thought. Gripping his shoulder tightly, shaky fingers discovering what his awkward glance is too short for. The butt of a knife. Blood, lots of sticky liquid underneath his fingers, soaking his shirt, his world gasping as the fuckhead before him says something that his mind can’t hear because it is too obsessed with the struggle to stay conscious. He won’t betray her. This psychopath, who will stab an innocent man without a second’s pause, cannot get near her. Who knows what she has done to him, if there are other Ralphs out there, what grudge this man holds against her beautiful self, and what he might do to avenge that grudge.
More dots. His torso sways and he tries to stay upright, wheezing aloud, the sound of the asshole’s curse ringing out, the man suddenly standing before him, his eyes in his vision, arresting. They are so close they could kiss, the stranger’s breath too clean for the dirty ass that he is. Anger. Mike’s brain focuses on the avenue, anger over pain, and the dots cease enough for him to understand the words.
“Look at me, you prick. Convince me that you’re telling the truth. Don’t be a hero for her.”
A hero? He’s never claimed to be one. He’s a worthless excuse of a man, but one who has done right by one person: her. Fuck this man and his knife. Fuck the shell of a life that exists in this chair. This man has no plans of leaving him alive.
“I can give you money,” he gasps out, a plan formulating, the details sorting as he breathes through his teeth and tries to handle the pain.
The man laughs, close and hard in his face, and he was wrong, this breath is not clean. Not a speck of this man is. His eyes are hard and dead, his manner almost gleeful, his compassion nonexistent. “I have money.” The man sneers.
A believable statement. Mike owns a duplicate version of the watch on his wrist. Bought it when he did his first big deal, back when he was an impressionable hacker who sold his morals for cash. Got his first half-million-dollar payday and wanted some flash. Something that a girl, looking at his webcam, would notice. Be impressed by. So he plunked down thirty grand for the Breguet, his own wrist for a short time matching this bloodthirsty maniac’s. Now, it sits somewhere in a sock drawer. Mike would have sold it by now, should have sold it by now, but time passed and distractions occurred. And now it is too late. Thirty-thousand-dollar watch sales are the kind of thing that FBI searches pull up. Find suspicious. Can be the final straw that pushes a judge to stamp “Approved” on a warrant. He’s smarter now. All his cash goes to the Caymans. Like Deanna, he stows it away for a rainy day that will probably never occur.
“I’ll give you everything I have. Over a million dollars. Every dollar I’ve saved for five years.”
The blurred image before him straightens, and he gasps through his sobs, his shoulder seizing, and all he can wonder is if the knife in his shoulder is doing permanent damage. His shoulder, the joint that gives his hands life. Why couldn’t the man have stabbed his leg?
“Set up a transfer. Every dollar you have. You’re right, I don’t believe you’d do that to protect this slut.”
CHAPTER 64
THE MONEY HAD been a stroke of personal brilliance, one that came to Mike amid the searing pain and threat of death. Hopefully Deanna wouldn’t mind losing a million bucks in exchange for a cryptic warning. He frowns, his mind reanalyzing the plan from her perspective. It is a rather expensive warning. But it is too late to change course now. At least if this asshole kills him, the warning—expensive or not—will get to Deanna. A way to catch her attention and put her on the defense. Mike carefully straightens before the keyboard and begins the process, leaving his personal funds intact. He also ignores around two hundred million of his clients’ funds, thirty different Deannas, spread throughout the United States, a quarter of the money clean, most of it dirty, all in easy access of his handicapped fingers. Instead, Mike beelines for one place, Fifth Third Bank, worming into and going straight to one account: Deanna’s US holdings. Combined balance: $1,342,109.12
“You know the account number you want the funds put into?”
The man thinks for a moment. Pulls out his cell and calls a number while Mike makes every attempt to stay conscious despite the hole in his shoulder.
“It’s Marcus.”
Marcus. The asshole has a name. Marcus… Marcus… a lightbulb clicks. He’s most likely Marcus Renza, the client Deanna blocked just a month or so ago. The rapist who had just gotten out of prison. Mike’s breaths shorten, a new wave of panic overtaking him, the weight of his responsibility increased. He is the weak link between this monster and her. A sudden image of her smile pops into his head and he closes his eyes. Tries to find strength that he hasn’t needed since he was a child. The man speaks from behind him.
“A few months ago. Got an account number? I got that million for you, what’s remaining on our hotel debt. Consider anything extra as additional interest.”
The fucker laughs, a short sound that actually contains humor. “Sounds good. It’ll be there soon.” He leans back over Mike, the hard edge of his elbow digging into his arm, but Mike says nothing, watching as the man scribbles a long number down.
“I’ll need the routing number,” he mumbles.
“Routing number?” Marcus speaks into the phone, then waits, scribbling a second figure on the pad before pushing it across the desk and stepping away. Continues his conversation like no one is bleeding to death before him.
Mike makes an initial transfer, from her account to his, with one word in the memo line: RUN. Then, three minutes later, moves the funds again, making enough stops on the way to prevent this asshole from ever backtracking his way to the original account number.
“Done?” The man’s mouth, close to his ear.
“Yes,” he hisses, reaching across his chest in an attempt to examine the wound. “Are we good?”
“We’re good. You fuck with that transfer, I’ll come back and peel the skin off your crippled body. Understand?”
The concern is more, at this moment, with the present situation. In the corner of his mind, a glimmer of hope surfaces that he might survive this ordeal. He nods. “Yes, sir.”
The man likes that, a beam coming over his face as he pats his good shoulder. “Sorry about the shoulder. I’ve been lied to a lot.”
There has never been a moment when a handicap is more hated than this. If there were only a knife or a gun in this weak excuse for a home. If only the legs attached to this body worked and he could spring from this chair and kill this man. Mike looks away and prays for the man to leave.
The hand at his shoulder lifts, the man examining the fingers of his glove closely, a look of undisguised disgust crossing his features. Probably blood. Cripple blood often offends. Mike’s eyes close, afraid to watch, hearing the man step back, the bathroom door squeaking open, additional light filling the dim bedroom when he flips on the light. The scrub of terrycloth heard. The run of water.
Fuck. Something’s wrong. An alert of some sort, blaring through Mike’s brain, not loud enough to cut through the pain. Not loud enough to stop his head, which is now nodding, the dots of nausea returning. He needs an ambulance. He needs help. He—
“You piece of shit motherfucker.”
That his brain hears, his head snapping back as he cranes his neck over, sees the photo the asshole grips in gloved fingers, her sunny smile shining at him across the room. His eyes close.
Yeah. That was it. The picture. Two years old, printed out because he couldn’t help himself. She’s in underwear, covering her breasts with both hands and laughing. He’d taken a screenshot, captured the moment, one of her real ones. The ones that made him think he was different than the others. That they had some sort of real connection that the others only dreamed of. It was his screensaver for a bit, then he printed it out. Taped it to the corner of his mirror so he can see it every morning. Reminds him that there’s a life outside this house. A girl, like her, out there, that he will one day be with. Be good enough for.
“Just kill me.” His eyes are closed when he says the words, when they stumble off of his lips, but he means every word of them. He will protect her to his death, a final destination that seems to be quickly approaching. There can’t be a pain worse than this one. If there is, his fragile state can’t handle it.
Steps sound against the floor, his presence felt as he nears, and Mike repeats the words, just in case this son of a bitch missed them.
“Just kill me. I won’t tell you anything.”
He’d like to say that he made it. Retained his silence. Was the hero. That when his eyes opened and the rapist is there, kneeling down before him, at a height that puts their eyes level, the stranger’s face close enough to bite, that Mike doesn’t shake. He wants to say that he stares him down and isn’t nervous. But then the man reaches over his body to the side table, and what he lifts up causes Mike, the parts of him that still have movement, to shake. Shake like the ten-year-old boy that he still very much is.
Wire cutters. Heavy duty, with green plastic grips, the kind that allow a handicapped man to cut through computer mainframes, hard drive harnesses, and impenetrable plastic casing. With dead eyes he watches the man’s hands, long fingers that don’t match his short stature, that damn Breguet watch glinting in the dark, the cutters loose in hand, carried with the same easy nonchalance that the knife had afforded, the knife that still sits, butt-deep, in Mike’s shoulder. Mike moves his hands to his lap and clenches them tightly, looking to the side, away from the hand, away from the eyes, and swallows nervously.
He had wanted to do it. Had wanted so badly to be strong for her. To be her hero.
CHAPTER 65
MIKE’S EYES WATCH the sharp blade of the cutters, a stare of desperation as the man pulls his hand closer, placing his right index finger in between the metal blades. Mike tugs against his hand, straining to free the finger, all movement halting when the asshole squeezes the handles. Just an inch, just enough to bring the blades closer and to create a sharp pinch of pain. He freezes, looking up into the man’s face.
I am weak. She deserves a better protector than me.
“Please. Just kill me,” he whispers through weak tears of anticipation.
“Who is she?”
“Jessica Reilly.”
The man squeezes the blades enough that he screams, a gargled, girly sound that he should be ashamed of, but isn’t. Ashamed got left
“Know what’s worse than death? Your life, how I could make it.” He depresses fully on the clippers, and Mike bucks against the chair, the pain so intense it brings fresh tears, the spots in his vision giving him a brief hope that he will pass out from the pain. Oblivion would be heaven right now. He blinks rapidly, afraid to look down, the drag against the hand telling that the digit has not yet been severed. But the moment had been felt when those blades touched bone and literally tested the strength of his marrow.
He closes his eyes tightly and the final piece of his strength breaks.
“Deanna Madden. She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Please, stop. Please. Just kill me.”
His head is spinning, his fingers throbbing, the blood flow unnecessarily rushing to a place it doesn’t need to exist. This man will kill me. He will torture until he learns everything, then he will kill. There is nothing else that can be done to protect her. Her fate is already sealed.
Through despair, Mike hears the clink of metal and moves his eyes slightly to the desk, to the tool that was just set down. The metal blades are wet. Red. He closes his eyes as a wave of nausea sweeps through him.
There is warm breath on his face and he opens dead eyes to find the monster staring at him. “Show me everything. Prove who she is. Then, I’ll decide whether to kill you.”
Not the most encouraging statement. This prick should work on his pep talks. The man rolls the wheelchair around, repositioning Mike’s broken body in front of the keyboard; struggling to think, he lifts broken hands to the keyboard. His world glosses over red, and he struggles to stay upright, absent of even the consciousness to curse his own soul to hell.