Kermit growled ominously, "That MIGHT be enough to save your life, you son-of-a-bitch."
Kacie lay at their feet, fingers clawing at the dirty carpet as she writhed in pain. The back of her sweatshirt was in shreds, and patches of blood soaked through the fabric.
"Enough! She's had enough!" Nixon shouted in the woman's face.
For a moment, Ski Mask looked as if she were about to attack the man, but then her rage faded as quickly as it had flared. "Get back to your camera work," she said calmly, stepping dispassionately over the body at her feet.
The viewers in the squad room watched as the man hesitated a moment, staring down at Kacie, before reaching down to retrieve the camera. The lens scanned crazily about the room before coming back into focus in its previous position and location, Nixon apparently retaking his position in the back of the room. Ski Mask sat at her original spot, breath ragged and rapid from her agitation and exertion.
Peter sat locked in a helpless rage. Every fiber of his being wanted to retaliate physically or vocally, but the unstable behavior he had just witnessed made him afraid to say or do a thing. The unused adrenaline rushing through his system caused him to tremble violently, ashes from his cigarette scattering on his desktop.
The masked face stared at him, and though he said nothing, the muscles in Peter's jaw twitched and his nostrils flared. His expressive hazel eyes blazed in a murderous rage.
"What's wrong, Detective? You look a little upset."
"What…do…you…want?" Peter's words were barely audible, his throat too tight to allow volume.
"I want you."
"When? Where?"
"Oh, sure, and have the cavalry show up instead of you."
"I'll come alone. No tricks. You have my word that I won't try and pull anything."
Ski Mask nodded slowly. "I'll see that you get the details tomorrow."
"Tomorrow? Why not tonight? Why not now? Why…?"
"You ask too many questions, Detective. I'm not in the mood for questions any more today. I wanna rest up for tomorrow. I'll be in touch with the details."
"Wait! Wait! Let-let me talk to my wife again. Please!"
The face turned away to look behind herself, then turned back again. "She doesn't look real talkative to me, but you can see her if you like."
She motioned to her partner, and the camera moved around the room before coming to settle on the prostrate figure on the floor, the lens zooming in to catch the occasional shudder from Kacie's huddled form.
Peter sucked in a sharp breath and started to hiss, "You sick son --"
"Excuse me, Detective, but are you about to insult me?" The warning in the voice was unmistakable.
Closing his eyes and swallowing hard, Peter clenched his fists and shook with an anger that had nowhere to go.
"You know, Detective, life is just full of choices, isn't it? Sometimes when we look back on choices we've made, we realize what mistakes we made." The black gloves were once more braiding and unbraiding the now stained leather straps. "All you had to do was say 'yes', just once, and all this unpleasantness could have been avoided. But no-o-o. You were too pure, too noble, too…faithful." The fingers kept up their ceaseless movements, plaiting and unplaiting the strips. The voice was calm and conversational. "All of you could have been nice to me. But were you? Hell, no. You never gave me a chance. You always treated me like an outsider. Always. Fat lot of good your little club is doing now." She yawned. "Well, tomorrow is another day. See ya."
The camera flipped and the screen read: your server has lost its connection with URL address.
Peter pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes and gulped his air in quick, shallow breaths. "We got nothing, did we." His words were more a statement than a question.
Kermit shot a look over to Blake. The gray-haired detective shook his head gravely before sagging back in his chair.
"Shit, we still ended up stalling at the Ukraine. We bounced from phone connection to phone connection, all over the world, until we ended up in Kharkov." Kermit's sigh came out a groan. "Unless and until we keep the connection going for at least six hours, there's no way to track the physical location of the transmission."
Skalany got to her feet and paced restlessly. "Do you think they knew they forgot to turn the scrambler back on?"
"I doubt it. They were too careful about everything else earlier this morning. The way the woman was acting, she was on something." Kermit watched Peter from the safety of his darkened lenses. The younger man seemed not to pay attention to the conversations swirling around him; he just stared woodenly at the darkened screen before him, his face twisted in anguish.
Skalany pulled at her lower lip in thought. "There was something familiar about the woman's voice. I don't know…the speech patterns…something."
Kermit frowned and agreed. "She kept talking about a little club here. How did she put it?"
"I'll play it back for you," Blake offered, rewinding the recorder. The tape squealed a moment, then the woman's voice taunted: "…so quiet today, Detective? What? You and your exclusive little club… "
"There! That's it!" Skalany and Kermit exclaimed simultaneously.
Blake rewound and played the message again. "…What? You and your exclusive little club…"
"Again," Kermit ordered, a thought niggling in the corner of his mind.
After hearing the same section of tape for the third time, he smacked himself in the middle of his forehead with the heel of his hand. "Rezac! The morning she shoved Kacie down our stairs! Remember? Skalany, you decked her, and she said that we acted like an exclusive little club!"
"She was always after Peter. Remember the wedding ring business? And the way she kept throwing herself at him?"
Peter's hands dropped away from his face and he twisted in his seat to face his friends. "Her voice doesn't sound like that."
"When was the last time any of us talked to her?" Kermit asked quickly. "Voices can change over time."
Simms snatched up a phone and quickly punched in some numbers. "This is Captain Karen Simms of the 101st Precinct. Get me Captain Morgan. I need to speak to him about one of his detectives." She tapped her foot impatiently as she waited.
"This could be our break, Kids." Kermit felt his pulse quicken at the possibility.
Peter sought out his father's eyes, and could almost touch the hope and renewed energy being telegraphed across the room. His head whipped around as Simms started to speak, and he leaned forward tensely as he listened.
"Captain Morgan? Karen Simms at the 101st. What can you tell me about Sara Rezac? She transferred over to your precinct almost a year ago…Yes…She what?…"When?….I see…I see"…Do you have an address?"
Simms snapped her fingers and motioned for something to write with. Kermit handed her a pad and pencil, and she quickly started to scrawl on the paper, holding the phone between chin and shoulder.
"I've got it…Yes…Thank you, Captain." Simms hung up the phone, looking grim. "Rezac was fired three weeks ago after failing a random drug test. She received a DOD, and no one there has seen or heard from her since."
"What-what was she using?" Peter's throat was dry.
"Methamphetamine."
Blake had been sitting quietly, thinking furiously. "Wasn't she at that banquet we all had to go to a month or so ago? Seems to me I thought I saw her there, now that I think about it."
Peter shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. I don't know. I don't remember seeing her, but whenever I was with Kacie, I never noticed any other woman."
The gang exchanged startled looks, Kermit's eyes meeting Simms's and the unspoken message flashed between them. {He's already using the past tense.}