Richard Hale - Frozen Past

“You had your chance,” is all that came out of the speaker. “You had your chance. You failed.” And the line went dead.

Luke held the cell phone in a hand that shook. Jaxon and Victoria had gotten to him even if he had ultimately refused to help them. He was feeling unsure of his actions and his resolve felt weakened a bit. He stared out the window into the dark night and talked to her.

“Ellie-I don’t know what to do. I’m sorry! I miss you so much. Please-tell me what to do.”

He slammed his fist into the wall and hot tears burst from his eyes. Of course, no answer came to him and he stood staring into the black void beyond the window and let his sorrow overtake him. He heard someone come into the room and he got himself under control. Just then a musical chime played from somewhere in the house. Luke had never heard it before.

“Luke!” Jimmy yelled. “His phone just turned on!”

“This could help us,” Jaxon said.

“How?” Victoria asked, the cell phone in her hand, silent after Luke Harrison hung up on them.

“We can use his own tool to help us.”

She looked at him. “What are you talking about?”

“We’ll get the software that he gave us and track his own cell phone with it. When he goes after Worthington, we’ll follow him to the spot and take it from there.”

She smiled and then frowned. “How will we keep Luke out of it?”

“He’s made his own bed. Now he’ll have to lie in it.”

“That’s not fair,” she said. “We helped make that bed and now we’re going to just abandon him to chance? We can’t do that.”

Jaxon knew she was right. The kid was only acting this way because he and Vick had dropped the ball. “What the hell do we do?” he asked. “We need him to lead us to Worthington.”

She nodded, thinking. “We need to beat him to Worthington.”

“That would take being a mind reader. We wouldn’t need Luke and his software if we knew where the asshole was.”

“Maybe we’ll be able to guess.”

“Big risk.”

“Any better ideas?”

He shook his head. “Let’s go to the Hoover building and get the laptop. We’ll grab it and wait with it in Luke’s neighborhood so we’ll be right on his tail. Just in case.”

She looked into his eyes and grabbed his arm. “He’s not going to win.”

“You don’t have to give me a pep talk, Vick.”

“Maybe I need one,” she said and smiled.

He squeezed her hand and smiled back. “Come on.”

Worthington’s phone was on, but he wasn’t moving. Luke, Jimmy, and John had all been watching the blip for the last hour. It sat stationary on I-495 near Tyson’s Corner. It wasn’t a house or hotel, just some random spot on the interstate.

“Maybe he parked the car and left the phone to lead us away.” Jimmy said.

“Are you sure you have the right phone number?” John said.

“Yes,” Luke said. “Bodey told me how to work the software and I watched Q use it too. The numbers that came up were just like when Q did it. He’s waiting for something.”

“Let’s go to him,” Jimmy said.

“Not yet,” Luke said. He wasn’t convinced Worthington meant to stay there. He would wait until they watched him move to a house or some other place they could approach without him knowing it.

His cell phone rang and Luke picked it up. He looked at Jimmy and John and they knew what he knew. Worthington.

“Hello.”

A deep voice, not the electronically altered irritation Luke had heard before, came over the speaker.

“Where are you?” he said, mockingly. “I’ve been waiting for you and you haven’t shown up.”

This voice, though normal, was somehow worse than the other one. This voice was human and Luke couldn’t seem to link it to anything human at all. The man was a monster and it bothered Luke that the monster could sound so normal. “Is she alright?” was all he managed to get out.

“Listen.”

Luke heard rustling and then a moan. Then her voice, sleepy, as if he was trying to wake her and she didn’t want to wake up. “No. I don’t want to eat,” she mumbled. “You can’t make me,” and her voice trailed off. The relief he felt was so great, he almost started to cry. Worthington stopped that.

“She won’t be alive much longer,” he said. “You’d better hurry.”

“Don’t touch her! I swear I’ll…”

“You’ll what!” he shouted. It made Luke jump. “I don’t see you here! I doubt you have it in you to even find me much less stop me. Bring it on, kid! Bring it on!” The line went dead.

“He’s moving,” John said.

Jaxon and Victoria sat in his car two blocks from the Harrison house. They were right by the pool complex with the laptop open and the tracking software running. So far, the Harrison boy was still in his house.

“You don’t think he left his phone at home, do you?” Victoria asked.

“I doubt it. Kids don’t go anywhere without them nowadays.”

“Still, what if he did?”

“We’re screwed.”

She sat silent for a moment and he knew her wheels were spinning. They had been spinning since they left the Hoover building. “What are you thinking?”

“About the pictures,” she said.

“What about them?”

“They bother me.”

“They bother me too, but we found his clue. He made it easy.”

“We’re missing something.”

“We’re missing a lot.”

She gave him a look and he turned away. The Harrison kid was still there.

“Why all the family shots? Why show us how his life was when he was with them?”

“Maybe he liked them.”

“Then why did he leave them for us?”

“He wanted to show me how I ruined his life.”

“Could be,” she said, but he could tell she didn’t believe that. “Or, he wanted us to see his house.”

“But we already know he lived there. That’s common knowledge. I’ve been there before and hell, I almost removed him from it.”

“But his house was in every picture,” she said, turning to him.

He thought about this and a little tumbler fell into place. Click. He jerked back to her and she was smiling.

“Every picture,” she said again.

“Shit!”

Just then he noticed Harrison’s cell phone moving. He pointed to it and she said. “He’s on the move! He must be on foot because he’s not moving very fast.”

“It has to be the house!”

“Let’s go!”

Ellie woke from the nightmare and shook herself awake. She had been having a horrible dream, but when she saw where she was, relief washed over her. It was all just a nightmare. Her kidnapping at the hands of her father had all been a dream. She looked around her basement and wondered why she had fallen asleep down here. The TV was off so her mother must have done it. She went to get up, but couldn’t move.

She was tied to the chair. Suddenly, she knew it had not been a dream. Her nightmare was real and she was still living it. She struggled in the chair, panicking, but it was useless. Her hands were tied behind her and her feet bound to the legs of the chair. She stopped, hearing a noise and realized someone was behind her. Twisting around, she could see blond hair in her peripheral vision, but nothing else. The person behind her was unmoving.

“Hey,” she said. “Hey! Wake up!”

A moan escaped the person behind her and she recognized the timber of the voice. Patrick!

“Patrick! Wake up! Come on! Patrick!”

He moaned again but did not wake. She heard voices coming from above now, and she recognized one as her mother’s. She listened quietly, because she could tell the other was her father. Her mother’s voice was high pitched and getting louder and then she heard a slap followed by her mother screaming. She panicked.