I hold her in my arms while he conducts a cursory examination. “She’s breathing,” he says. “That’s a good start. She doesn’t seem to be in any respiratory distress at all. I’ll take some blood and send it off on the emergency courier to the lab. In the meantime, get her to the hospital basement. That’s the only place we can treat her. My potting shed isn’t exactly well stocked.”
“I didn’t know you had a baby, Black.”
“She’s a three-month-old schnoodle,” he says. “And she’s not mine, but she screams the bloody house down whenever she thinks she’s alone. It’s called separation anxiety.”
I am of course familiar, but now is not the time to offer psychological advice about a dog. Now is the time to get Laura to a hospital.
Thirty minutes later, we are both in a place where there is actual medical assistance available.
Black has changed his pajamas for a suit, and Laura’s blood reveals she’s been given a substance that will ensure she is asleep for another twelve hours at least. There’s nothing to reverse, per se.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “This is disturbing. Would you like me to perform an examination to see if…”
“I’ve looked. She hasn’t been touched.”
“Then this is a threat,” he says. “Someone’s trying to send a message. Telling you that she could be taken, could be hurt if they wanted her to be.”
I am inclined to agree. This is why I was so desperate to keep her existence a secret to the world at large. There are too many people who would take advantage of knowing there is some way to hurt me.
They are going to break her to get to me. They didn’t do it tonight, but I am sure I will hear from them soon enough. That’s how to build psychological pressure. I am not going to be able tolet her out of my sight unless she is under guard from here on out.
Just as I am coming to this conclusion, my phone rings.
The timing is too good.
I answer it wordlessly.
“Cute girl, Sam. But you know you can’t keep playthings. Get rid of her.”
I breathe something like a sigh of relief. There are many entities who might have an interest in a love of mine. These are probably the most harmless of them all, because they like to imagine they are the good guys. That limits their scope to a certain extent, sometimes.
“I am not going to do that, and you’re lucky you don’t have a bullet in your head this very moment.”
The voice responds to me with a smugness that would make my blood boil if I were capable of normal feelings. “You have to. You’re not the sort of man who can ever have a girlfriend, or a family. You’re a monster. One we allow to exist because you are useful. You have the life you have because we let you. You are a dog on a leash, Dr. Rollins. I think it’s time you remembered that.”
I respond to his commentary with another threat, one that is really more of a promise.
“I am going to kill you for touching her. I am going to ensure that each and every one of you are…”
“We didn’t hurt her,” the voice says. “And she gave us plenty of reasons to. She’s disrespectful, and she’s mouthy, and she knowstoo much. She talks too much, too. If you insist on keeping her, make her disappear.”
“You could have said this in a phone call. There was no need to take her. Even less need to drug her.”
“We wanted to see how much of a liability she was. She can keep her mouth shut, to a certain extent. Didn’t give you away even when she was high. But she’s breakable in ways we didn’t explore, and we both know it.”
They are not taking me seriously. They think I am threatening them to save face after they outwitted me when it comes to my woman. But I mean every word I am saying. I am going to kill these men. And I will kill the ones who come after them. I will shed rivers of blood comprised entirely of the essence of those who decided I should be threatened.
“What I know, Agent Boyle, is that your wife likes to go to the gym on Tuesday nights. Is she home yet?”
I hear him swallow. “Don’t come for my family,” he says. “Don’t you dare.”
“But you decided to come for mine. You lectured me like a toddler trying to keep a stray puppy. You spoke to me with disrespect, and for that you will pay. I will see either you or your wife in the next twenty-four hours, do you understand?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean in the next twenty-four hours, I will kill either you or your wife. You can choose which of you would prefer to die.”
“You’re threatening a federal agent.”
