Keeper of the Bride

“If you hurt her, Spectre — if anything happens to her — I swear I’ll kill you.”

“Is this a law enforcement officer I’m speaking to?”

“I mean it. I’ll kill you.”

“I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell you.”

“Spectre!”

He was answered by laughter, soft and mocking. And then, abruptly, the line went dead.

Frantically Sam redialed and got a busy signal. He hung up, counted to ten, and dialed once more.

Another busy signal. Spectre had taken the phone off the hook.

Sam slammed the receiver down. “She’s still alive.”

“Where are they?”

“She never got the chance to tell me.”

“It’s been an hour. They could be anywhere within a fifty-mile radius.”

“I know, I know.” Sam sat back, trying to think through his swirl of panic. During his years as a cop, he’d always managed to keep his head cool, his thoughts focused. But tonight, for the first time in his career, he felt paralyzed by fear. By the knowledge that, with every moment that passed, every moment he did nothing, Nina’s chances for survival faded.

“Why hasn’t he killed her?” murmured Gillis. “Why is she still alive?”

Sam looked at his partner. At least Gillis still had a functioning brain. And he was thinking. Puzzling over a question that should’ve been obvious to them both.

“He’s keeping her alive for a reason,” said Gillis.

“A trump card. Insurance in case he’s trapped.”

“No, he’s already home free. Right now, she’s more of a liability than a help. Hostages slow you down. Complicate things. But he’s allowed her to live.”

So far, thought Sam with a wave of helpless rage. I’m losing it, losing my ability to think straight. Her life depends on me. I can’t afford to blow it.

He looked at the phone again, and a memory echoed in his head. Something he’d heard over the phone during that brief pause between hearing Spectre’s voice and Nina’s. That distant wail, rising and falling.

A siren.

He reached for the phone again and dialed 911.

“Emergency operator,” answered a voice.

“This is Detective Sam Navarro, Portland Police. I need a list of all emergency dispatches made in the last twenty minutes. Anywhere in the Portland-South Portland area.”

“Which vehicles, sir?”

“Everything. Ambulance, fire, police. All of them.”

There was a brief silence, then another voice came on the line. Sam had his notepad ready.

“This is the supervisor, Detective Navarro,” a woman said. “I’ve checked with the South Portland dispatcher. Combined, we’ve had three dispatches in the last twenty minutes. At 11:55, an ambulance was sent to 2203 Green Street in Portland. At 12:10, the police were dispatched to a burglar alarm at 751 Bickford Street in South Portland. And at 12:13, a squad car was called to the vicinity of Munjoy Hill for a report of some disturbance of the peace. There were no fire trucks dispatched during that period.”

“Okay, thanks.” Sam hung up and rifled through the glove compartment for a map. Quickly he circled the three dispatch locations.

“What now?” asked Gillis.

“I heard a siren over the phone, when I was talking to Spectre. Which means he had to be within hearing distance of some emergency vehicle. And these are the only three locations vehicles were dispatched to.”

Gillis glanced at the map and shook his head. “We’ve got dozens of city blocks covered there! From point of dispatch to destination.”

“But these are starting points.”

“Like a haystack’s a starting point.”

“It’s all we have to go on. Let’s start at Munjoy Hill.”

“This is crazy. The APB’s out on your car. We’ve got people looking for it already. We’d be running ourselves ragged trying to chase sirens.”

“Munjoy Hill, Gillis. Go.”

“You’re beat. I’m beat. We should go back to HQ and wait for things to develop.”

“You want me to drive? Then move the hell over.”

“Sam, are you hearing me?”

“Yes, damn you!” Sam shouted back in a sudden outburst of rage. Then, with a groan, he dropped his head in his hands. Quietly he said, “It’s my fault. My fault she’s going to die. They were right there in front of me. And I couldn’t think of any way to save her. Any way to keep her alive.”

Gillis gave a sigh of comprehension. “She means that much to you?”

“And Spectre knows it. Somehow he knows it. That’s why he’s keeping her alive. To torment me. Manipulate me. He has the winning hand and he’s using it.” He looked at Gillis. “We have to find her.”

“Right now, he has the advantage. He has someone who means a lot to you. And you’re the cop he seems to be focused on. The cop he wants to get back at.” He glanced down at his car phone. It was ringing.

He answered it. “Gillis here.” A moment later he hung up and started the car. “Jackman Avenue,” he said, pulling into the road. “It could be our break.”

“What’s on Jackman Avenue?”

“An apartment, unit 338-D. They just found a body there.”

Sam went very still. A sense of dread had clamped down on his chest, making it difficult to breathe. He asked, softly, “Whose body?”

“Marilyn Dukoff’s.”

HE WAS SINGING “Dixie!” as he worked, stringing out wire in multicolored lengths along the floor. Nina, hands and feet bound to a heavy chair, could only sit and watch helplessly. Next to Spectre was a toolbox, a soldering iron, and two dozen dynamite sticks.

“In Dixieland where I was born, early on a frosty morn-in’…”

Spectre finished laying out the wire and turned his attention to the dynamite. With green electrical tape, he neatly bundled the sticks together in groups of three and set the bundles in a cardboard box.

“In Dixieland we’ll make our stand, to live and die in Dixie. Away, away, away down south, in DIXIE!” he boomed out, and his voice echoed in the far reaches of the vast and empty warehouse. Then, turning to Nina, he dipped his head in a bow.

“You’re crazy,” whispered Nina.

“But what is madness? Who’s to say?” Spectre wound green tape around the last three dynamite sticks. Then he gazed at the bundles, admiring his work. “What’s that saying? ‘Don’t get mad, get even’? Well, I’m not mad, in any sense of the word. But I am going to get even.”

He picked up the box of dynamite and was carrying it toward Nina when he seemed to stumble. Nina’s heart almost stopped as the box of explosives tilted toward the floor. Toward her.

Spectre gave a loud gasp of horror just before he caught the box. To Nina’s astonishment, he suddenly burst out laughing. “Just an old joke,” he admitted. “But it never fails to get a reaction.”

He really was crazy, she thought, her heart thudding.

Carrying the box of dynamite, he moved about the warehouse, laying bundles of explosives at measured intervals around the perimeter. “It’s a shame, really,” he said, “to waste so much quality dynamite on one building. But I do want to leave a good impression. A lasting impression. And I’ve had quite enough of Sam Navarro and his nine lives. This should take care of any extra lives he still has.”

“You’re laying a trap.”

“You’re so clever.”

“Why? Why do you want to kill him?”

“Because.”