Final Breath

DVD player. He hit the chapter selection so it was right in the middle of a sex scene. Then he raised the volume a bit. The music was churning, and both guys in the movie were groaning and grunting.

He turned and saw Joe standing by the bed in only his white briefs. Sweat glistened off his arms and chest. Troy unfastened his own belt.

'No, let me do that,' Joe said. He walked up behind him, reached around and ran his hands over Troy's stomach. He tugged at the belt, slowly pulling it past all the belt loops on his jeans. Troy shuddered gratefully as the guy gently slid the belt buckle's metal tongue up his back. He loved that mild scratching sensation. Joe was breathing in his ear.

On the TV, the music and the guys seemed to be reaching a crescendo. It got louder and louder.

Joe was now teasing him with the leather belt strap, wrapping it around his neck as he pushed his pelvis up against him from behind. Troy chuckled. 'Oh, man...police brutality...'

Suddenly, the belt tightened around his throat. Troy's head snapped back. He tried to yell out, but he couldn't. His hands came up and frantically clawed at the other man's fists. His face was turning crimson.

Oh, God, if this is a game, he has to stop, Troy thought. He opened his mouth, but he couldn't get any air. Please, God, no...this isn't happening...

The man squeezed the belt around Troy's neck even tighter. A fold of pinched flesh protruded over the leather strap.

There was a loud scream. But it wasn't Troy--or the man choking him. It was one of the actors in the porn movie.

Troy couldn't scream at all. In fact, he'd already taken his final breath.

She heard the waves rolling onto the beach. At her open window, the sheer curtains billowed. And on her nightstand, the digital clock said 3:11 A.M. Sydney was wide awake.

Yet she was exhausted, and her eyes were still sore from all the reading and Internet browsing. Delving through her files for the twenty-eight Movers & Shakers video shorts she'd filmed last year, she'd found six that had profiled couples--seven, if she'd counted Leah and Jared. Among them were a husband and wife in Columbus, Ohio, who trained service dogs for people with spina bifida, and a Kalamazoo couple who rescued four kids from a school bus after it plunged off a bridge into the Kalamazoo River. Sydney didn't just limit her search to traditional couples either. She included two teenage brothers in Winnetka, Illinois, who started their own Designated Driver service and made $3,000 in one semester, and two women, both mothers of leukemia victims, who had bought a vacant lot in their hometown outside Indianapolis and built a playground in the memory of their kids.

Sydney remembered all of them. She dreaded the notion that one of these amazing duets may have been killed recently. But to her relief--and from what she could tell from her search on the net--all of these Movers & Shakers were still alive and well.

She wondered if perhaps Kyle had been right. Maybe she'd been overreacting.

She remembered how full her life had been last year when she'd worked on those stories. It was strange, but she'd felt so independent while still with Joe; without him, she felt scared and needy. She'd been tempted to call him tonight several times

After all, who better to talk with about all of this business than a Chicago police detective? Angela had been killed in Chicago. Maybe Joe knew something about the case that hadn't been mentioned in the newspapers--or online. She told herself that Joe would listen to her, and maybe do something.

But each time she'd almost picked up the phone to call him tonight, she'd thought about that damn letter of his and decided against it.

She and Eli had gone out to dinner tonight: a five-block walk up Madison to Bing's for hamburgers. She didn't see any sign of Mr. 59. It was still light out both coming and going to the restaurant, so she felt safe. It was a good dinner, and a nice change of pace from cooking for two and eating with Eli in front of the TV, usually some movie or show she tolerated for his sake.

Tonight, they'd actually talked. Eli had admitted he still missed his dad, his friends, Cubs games, Vienna Beef hot dogs, really good pizza, fireflies, and thunderstorms. At the same time, he'd gone on about all the cool places in Seattle he would have liked to show his buddies, Tim and Brad: the beach, the mountains, Pike Street Market, Broadway, the bus tunnel; even the library was awesome--at least from what he saw on the outside. He didn't talk much about his new friend, Earl. But Sydney realized Eli was starting to feel more at home here than she did. Of the two of them, she was the one having a tough time being happy.

She glanced at the nightstand clock again: 3:27.

She heard a muted hum, followed by a mechanical sound of something shifting.

Sydney climbed out of bed and crept over to her bedroom door. The noise came from her office downstairs. She realized it was her fax machine. Rubbing her arms, she padded down the hallway and switched on the downstairs foyer light. In her pajama shorts and T-shirt, Sydney stole down the steps. She eyed the front door-- double locked, with the chain fastened.

She'd heard a story once about a murderer breaking into a house, then switching on the clothes dryer in the basement to lure a woman down there for the kill. She wondered if someone was just updating it a bit with a fax machine. Who would be faxing her something at 3:30 in the morning?

Sydney opened the closet door at the foot of the stairs and pulled out an umbrella, the same one Eli had brandished for their elusive intruder the night of July Fourth. She made her way to the kitchen, then switched on the overhead light. Nothing had been disturbed. The chain lock was still on the kitchen door. The fax machine let out a beep, indicating it was finished with the job. Sydney poked her head in her small office and turned on the light. She leaned the umbrella against her desk.

She saw something in the fax receiving tray. The top page was blank--except for some printing at the top:

Page 3 of 3 KINKOS/FEDEX 202/555-0416

STA 7-071408 06:32AM

'New York City,' she murmured, checking the phone number area code. Was someone from the network working early? But why would they go to Kinko's when they could fax her from the office?

Sydney looked at the next page: Page 2 of 3. On it were six squares, each with a simple illustration on how to give the Heimlich maneuver. The figures in the drawings were like the international symbols for men's and women's washrooms--mere faceless forms in different lifesaving positions.

Page 1 was a cover sheet addressed to her, but the sender line remained blank. The Kinko's/FedEx outlet showed an address on Seventh Avenue. The time was on there as well. Who would be sending her this diagram from New York City and at 6:32 A.M. Eastern time?

The phone rang, giving her a start. Sydney hurried back into the kitchen and grabbed the receiver on the second ring. 'Yes, hello?'

No response. But she could hear traffic noise in the background. She still had the fax pages in her other hand. 'Hello?' she repeated.

Sydney heard a click, and then the line went dead. She glanced at the caller ID box: CALLER UNKNOWN.

The phone rang again, and Sydney snatched it up once more. 'Yes, hello?' she said, an edge to her voice.

Nothing, just the background traffic noise, but she waited a beat. 'I got your fax,' she said steadily. 'Who are you? Damn it, who--'

There was a click, and the connection went dead again.

His hand lingered on the pay phone receiver for a moment. He stood outside the Kinko's/FedEx on Seventh Avenue. The fluorescent light from the store seemed a bit muted from outside now that morning was breaking. They'd already turned off the streetlights, and the city traffic grew more congested.

Of course, he hadn't slept at all last night, and he was dead tired. He had the burning eyes and dry throat that came from sleep deprivation. But his adrenaline was still pumping, and he felt elated, too.

He hailed a cab. 'JFK Airport,' he said, climbing into the backseat. 'And I'm in a hurry.' He had an 8:05 flight to catch.

The back of the cab was stuffy, and he rolled down the window. He could still smell Troy Bischoff's cologne and sweat on him. Some people relished the scent of their partner on them after sex; they enjoyed smelling like