AngerArrogance Page 15

  Alana had placed him on her visitor’s log and furnished him with his own key card. He buzzed himself into her building and up to her apartment. The elevator ride to her floor was torture. Knocking softly at her door, his knocks went unanswered.

  It was a shot in the dark but Devin turned her door knob. Every hair on his body stood when the door sprang open. An ominous stillness met him when he stepped into her dim apartment. He called out, "Alana." Concern poured from his voice as his throat tightened in panic. When he clicked on her lights, his heart hit the floor and shattered. Her apartment was in disarray as things lay broken and tossed about. He yelled Alana’s name repeatedly, his heart thundering among the silence that returned his call.

  A tomblike silence filled her bedroom. Calling out louder and more urgently, Devin checked every corner of Alana’s apartment. Panic raped his mind as he sought to figure out what to do next.

  A strong tingling sensation took control his body; a mixture of anxiety and shock. Leaving her front door slightly ajar, Devin took the elevator to the garage. He exited the elevator and marched towards the guard shack.

  He surprised the newspaper reading guard. “Did you see Mrs. Nazari, Ms. Santos, leave this morning? Where is her car?”

  A worried expression graced the guard’s face. He pointed, “Her car is right over there. Is she all right?”

  Without saying a word, Devin rushed towards Alana’s car. In the background, the guard continued to ask questions. “Is everything okay?”

  Devin didn’t want to alarm anyone, so he waved his hand dismissively and lied, saying everything was fine although his world was falling apart. After taking a quick scan around her car, he headed back to her apartment. He took another look around until he realized he had no idea what he was searching for. To forgo wasting time playing investigator, Devin texted his cousin and was thankful Kevin had returned to California.

  It only took Kevin a few minutes to answer Devin’s urgent text. “Plse call, Alana may b mis n, @ her Apt.” Kevin texted back. “On d way…10 mins.”

  Devin was thankful he had his cousin to call on. Having returned from an emergency assignment in DC, Kevin hadn’t shared with him any of the details about the case but Devin could tell from their short conversation that the assignment had seriously impacted his cousin. Devin prayed he was overreacting about Alana being missing, but every internal sensor in his body screamed to him that something was wrong. He sat nervously on the couch, knowing that Kevin would know what to do.

  His eyes crept up to the wall in front of him. The fact that his cousin had not asked for directions to Alana’s apartment had just occurred to him. This confirmed that his cousin was every bit the spy he thought he was. Praying repeatedly, he asked for Alana safe return or that this be a false alarm. As horrible as it was to admit, he knew that someone had taken her. As weird as it was for him to know it, his heart told him that she was alive. He couldn’t explain it, he simply sensed it.

  ***

  In the short time it had taken Kevin to make it to Alana’s apartment, he had already called several of his friends. He had a feeling that Alana may have been taken by the very same Cartel he had been working to help bring down.

  Kevin had ties to and had worked with the FBI, DEA, CIA, and every agency in between. Only a select few knew he was a member of an elite group of agents that worked directly for Top, a secret spy organization that operated above and beyond normal cases. As a result, most of Kevin’s assignments were classified top secret or above.

  In exactly ten minutes, Kevin arrived at Alana’s apartment. He didn’t go through the garage or the main lobby. He had the means and methods of getting into almost any building undetected and had high-tech gadgets that the masses would never know about. Walking into Alana’s apartment, he found Devin red eyed with a look of sheer horror on his face.

  After taking only the briefest glance around, Kevin immediately knew that Alana had been taken. Standing in the middle of her living room, he took in the disarray. He called out to his cousin, “Devin?”

  “Yes.”

  He scanned the scene once more. “I’ll handle this personally. I promise you I will do everything in my power to get Alana back.”

  Devin had been socked in the jaw by his cousin's confirming words. “How can you know for sure that someone took her?”

  Kevin pointed, “Her purse and keys are still there. Although I don’t think there was much of a physical struggle, she seemed to have tossed everything except the kitchen sink at her captors.”

  Devin added, “The security guard never saw her leave.”

  Kevin spoke as he took a closer look at overturned and tossed around objects. “There are many ways to get in and out of this building. Right now, I am sure no one knows that I’m in here.”

  Sniffing the air several times, Kevin continued, “I can still smell the faint stench of chloroform in the air.”

  Sniffing the air while looking around, Devin didn’t smell anything. Now that Kevin had confirmed his worst nightmare, he staggered as he rubbed at the tightness in his chest.

  Kevin scanned cautiously. “While I was making my way up here, I found two sabotaged cameras. Security will see an empty hall on this floor until someone figures out something is wrong. The few cameras they have in the stairwell are easy to get around.”

  It was difficult for Devin to believe a word he was hearing. “So someone cleaver enough snuck passed cameras and security and took my wife? Shouldn’t I be calling the cops?” Devin was so jittery at this point he couldn’t do anything but pace and ask his cousin questions.

  Kevin had never seen his cousin so upset and after what he had just gone through in DC, he understood better than Devin could possibly imagine. He reassured him, “Give me another few minutes to look around, then call the authorities. No one will be the wiser that I and a few of my friends are already on the case.”

  Devin was perplexed. “How could you have friends already working?”

  Maneuvering two different tech devices, Kevin spoke, “You are more like me than you realize. You wouldn’t have called me if you weren’t sure. When you called me with suspicions about your marriage, I never questioned you because I know you. When you sent me the text that Alana was possibly missing, the first thing I did was call a few of my friends.”

  While sending photos back to his friends, Kevin continued sniffing the air like a bloodhound.

  Devin stopped pacing when Kevin took out another device with a small screen attached. His eye bulged when footprints appeared on the screen. His cousin had seemingly pulled footprints out of thin air. Using his phone, Kevin scanned each footprint to his spy friend on the receiving end.

  Devin had no idea what kind of technology his cousin used, but he prayed it helped find Alana. Focusing, he cleared his mind, attempting to find what his cousin had so easily discovered. He sniffed the air again, concentrating harder. A frown etched his face as the stench of chemicals filled his nostrils. Why didn’t I smell it before?

  Concern drove the sound of his voice. “Kevin, I smell it. I couldn’t before. It’s like rust mixed with a bunch of cleaning products and rotten fruit or something.”

  Kevin’s stopped abruptly and gave Devin a lingering stare.

  Devin knew his cousin well enough to know that he was surprised by something. “What is it?”

  Kevin replied, “You have to have a trained nose to pick that up.”

  What Kevin didn’t tell his cousin was that his nose wasn’t the only thing trained. All five of his senses were heightened to the tenth power like he had inherited traits from some superhero. Kevin didn’t know of any other cases like his, so he told no one of his abilities. He didn’t want anyone to tag him with labels or worse, treat him like something that belonged in a medical lab.

  Calling Devin over, Kevin asked him to look at the floor. He wanted to see if his cousin had inherited more than a good nose. Pointing at a spot on the floor, he asked, “Can you see them?”

  Devin
gave his cousin a peculiar look. “See what?” Devin was surprised to see his cousin look almost relieved that he couldn’t see anything.

  Stealing glances at his cousin, Kevin continued to investigate the scene. He had discovered in his teens that his unique abilities allowed him to track almost anyone or anything, but now he wondered if it were a set of traits passed to all of the Nazari men. Devin shouldn’t have smelled the chloroform. Kevin would have been floored if his cousin had been able to see the footprints that were likely only visible to his eyes. Now, he searched for anything else that would point him in Alana’s direction.

  He instructed Devin, “While you’re here very slowly explaining to the authorities what you think may have happened, I’ll be getting into this building’s video room and copying recordings from the last twenty-four hours.”

  Devin was convinced that his cousin would find his wife long before any of the local guys did.

  Following Kevin around, Devin paid closer attention to his every move.

  Standing still in the middle of the living room, Kevin explained, “There was two guys. They didn’t go any further than the kitchen entrance.” Turning and peering down, he said, “They subdued her here. They didn’t hurt her, but she didn’t make their task easy. Like I said earlier, she threw everything except the sink at them.” Continuing to scan the room, Kevin said, “The guys we are dealing with are not amateurs. Since its January and chilly out, even if someone saw them, they were probably covered.”

  Unable to pull hope from the air like his cousin, Devin instead beat back terror. The guys that had his wife sounded as if they were professional hit-men. He asked, “Do you think they took her someplace to hurt or kill…”

  Kevin stopped his cousin’s negative words. “If they wanted her dead, they would have done it here and left. They want something from her, either money or information. My best guess is that they are holding her someplace and if they can’t get what they want from her, they will eventually call you, your father or her father.”

  Devin noticed Kevin kept staring at nothing in particular. There were times it seemed like his cousin had the ability to see and hear things that no one else did.

  Giving Devin a hug, Kevin whispered, “We’ll get her back.”

  Devin watched his cousin leave. His mind was in shambles knowing that someone had come into Alana’s apartment and had taken her. He dialed the authorities.

  ***

  Devin had been waiting for the local authorities for so long he’d called his father. With powerful connections in the government and law enforcement, his father had instantly put in a call to some of his friends to help find Alana.

  Pacing nervously, Devin stopped mid-stride when he started to see faint shadows of the footprints his cousin had spotted earlier. Why am I seeing this now? Casting aside unrealistic thoughts, Devin surmised Kevin had probably sprayed some of his spy spray to make the prints visible.

  It took the authorities fifty minutes to arrive and the service they provided didn’t get any better. They asked questions and wrote things down, but they didn’t check for footprints, check for left behind odors in the air, or scan the entire apartment for clues as Kevin had done. Devin was thankful he’d called his cousin first. These guys didn’t seem the least bit interested in finding his wife. They seemed convinced that Alana may have been having an affair and ran away with her lover. They were so quick to latch onto their own theories, that Devin started tuning them out. The ridiculousness of these guys made Devin that much more sure that his cousin was his best hope of getting his wife back.

  After nearly an hour of questions that didn’t have anything to do with finding Alana, the cops mentioned they would go to management to see if they could review the recordings and ask questions. The recordings were the only things mentioned that sounded close to real detective work.

  Driving around pointlessly, Devin listened to his father’s voice pour though his phone begging him to come home before he went out on a witch hunt and hurt someone.

  The rest of his family didn’t take the news well. They had all grown fond of Alana. His father was on the phone with another of his contacts when Devin marched into the house.

  His father, like his cousin, had a reach that most normal people didn’t.

  Chapter 25

  Semiconscious

  A wailing cry from the door jolted Alana from a lazy doze. One of her large kidnappers strolled into the compact space. Putting on a strong front didn’t hide her trembling knees or her labored breaths, but Alana stared down her capture none the less.

  Creeping towards her, the dim lighting bounce off the man as if avoiding him. Without uttering a word, he stood at the foot of her bed, staring. Alana pushed herself to the far corner of her bed putting distance between them. She wanted to be as far away from the man as the tiny room would allow, just in case the calm he presented was a facade. The shadows of darkness hid a large part of Alana’s fear and held her hand as she faced the giant standing over her.

  The man’s voice boomed in the tiny space of the room, making Alana jump.

  He presented her a short one-sided brief that did nothing bit kick Alana’s anxiety up a notch. She found she was being held prisoner until someone named El Diablo came for her. The brief didn’t detail who El Diablo was or why he wanted her specifically. She had no absolutely no interest in meeting the Devil.

  ***

  Since time was immeasurable in this space, Alana guessed at how long she’d been held. She used her issue of rations to measure days. Twice each day she received a bottle of water and a dry sandwich of lunch meat or PB&J.

  On what seemed like the third or fourth day, she was given a second brief informing of El Diablo’s impending arrival. Although terrified, she fought to keep calm and sane.

  Unwilling to sit there and wait to be tortured or worse, Alana attempted to execute every escape scenario she could think of. Trying to dig her way out with a piece of the metal from the bed didn’t work. Screaming and yelling for help only resulted in her losing her voice. Banging one of the wooden legs from the bed repeatedly into the wall didn’t work either. It seemed the only thing that would get her out of her dark prison was prayer, an ax or a blow torch.

  She prayed her husband had discovered her missing and was searching for her. If her father knew she was missing, he’d know what to do. There was also Devin’s mysterious cousin Kevin. From what she gathered from the few times she had met Kevin, he had to be CIA or some other above the law type.

  Alana bit into what was left of her nails. Soon, she would be meeting Mr. El Diablo himself. She’d had countless nightmares of what would happen to her. She communicated with Devin every moment she wasn’t asleep, which was often. There were times she swore she heard his voice as clearly as she heard her own. She realized that being confined in a tight dark space was likely breaking her down mentally, but hearing her husband’s voice made her feel safe. Her voice bounced off the walls and vibrated against her cheek. “Devin, I’m so sorry. I wish I would have enjoyed more time with you. I wish I would have listened to you and not gone back to my apartment. I love you.”

  ***

  Semiconscious, Devin was aware of his surroundings but his mind was hazy, between sleep and consciousness. Although he couldn’t see her, he heard her. Alana was here, but here was not an actual place. His whisper barely cast sound. “I love you.”

  Her voice was distinct enough that she could have been standing right next to him. Reaching out, he needed to touch her, but his sudden movement shook him completely awake.

  He was definitely going to lose his mind if his father, her father or his cousin didn’t find his wife soon. Devin had started hearing Alana’s voice the day she disappeared. At first, low as if he had dreamed or imagined it, but the longer she was away the clearer her voice started to project. Losing it or not, Devin responded to her anyway. He had promised that he would never ignore her again.

  The connection and bond they shared while together was so
mething he couldn’t explain. She had opened something in him. The thought was bizarre, but he would venture to say that their connection went beyond normal.

  Since I’m going crazy, I may as well see if I can figure out where my wife is.

  Lying in bed, Devin stared at the ceiling. “Alana, if you hear me, tell me if you’re okay. Where are you? What do you see? Have you been hurt?”

  Nothing.

  He waited with roving eyes.

  Nothing.

  He hadn’t slept more than two hours at a time in the past four days. His life had been pure unadulterated hell. Loving someone as much as he loved Alana and losing her was driving him past crazy. Hardly able to keep his eyes open, his head bobbed several times as sleep grabbed at him.

  Her voice poured over him like faint sounds traveling through pipes. At first, he ignored it. His mind was playing tricks on him again.

  “Devin. Okay. Long…here…hurt…me.”

  Devin leapt up lightning quick. “Alana? Can you hear me?”

  “Yes…you.”

  He stood, wondering if he had finally lost his mind. Alana’s voice had pierced his ears, but how?

  Turning his head upward, he called, “Alana?”

  Spinning in a circle, he looked in every direction before continuing, “Do you know where you are? How can we find you?”

  Her voice returned faintly. “Don’t know…Dark…Diablo.”

  He stood completely still picking up as many words as he could. The message came in broken waves of sound, so interpreting what she conveyed wasn’t easy. Hearing the word diablo stretched his nerves so tight, they threatened to snap.

  Frantic and desperate, he struggled to keep calm.