Mariah Stewart - Last Words

“Like what you see, sugar?” He leaned down and touched the face of the woman on the bed. “I know you do, baby. And it’s all yours. All for you…”

He eased himself down on top of her, his breathing coming faster now.

“And if you’re a good girl, after I’m finished with you, maybe I’ll give you some water. Would you like that?”

The woman struggled inside her bonds. The sounds she made were choked, incoherent.

“Yes, I know you would. Now, are you going to be a good girl?”

She nodded her head with as much vigor as she could muster.

He chuckled and pulled the gag from her mouth.

“Now, sweetheart, you know that-”

She spat in his face.

At first he froze, then he laughed. “Well, well, we still have a little fight in us, do we? Baby, you ought to know there’s nothing that turns me on more than a little bit of fight.”

He shoved the gag back into her protesting mouth. Before he forced himself inside her, he reached under the bed, seeking the recorder he kept there. Once located, it was activated with the touch of a finger.

“Later, baby,” he whispered over her muted cries. “We’ll have plenty of time to talk later…”

Two years later

The sun was just rising, hot and round, tentacles of color wrapping around the early morning sky like fingers around an orange. From his kitchen window, Gabriel Beck watched the pinks turn coral then red.

Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.

“Oh, yeah,” he grumbled under his breath. “This sailor’s taking warning…”

The coffeepot beeped to announce its brew was ready, and he poured into the waiting St. Dennis Chamber of Commerce DISCOVER SAINT DENNIS! mug. He unlocked the back door then stepped onto the small deck and inhaled deeply. Early June in a bay town had scents all its own, and he loved every one of them. Wild roses mixed with salt air, peonies, and whatever the tide deposited on the narrow stretch of coarse sand that passed as beach overnight. It was heady, and along with the coffee he sipped, was all he really needed to start his day off right.

His cell phone rang and he patted his pocket for it, then remembered he’d left it on the kitchen counter. He went back inside, the screen door slamming behind him.

“Beck.”

“Chief, I hate to do this to you so early in the morning, but we have a two-vehicle tangle out on Route 33,” Police Sergeant Lisa Singer reported.

“Injuries?”

“One of the drivers is complaining of back pain. We’re waiting for the ambulance. Traffic’s really light right now, but if we can’t get these cars out of here within the hour, we’re going to have a mess. I’ve got Duncan directing traffic around the accident but it’s going to get hairy here before too much longer.”

“Christ, the Harbor Festival.” So much for starting the day off right. “I’ll call Hal and see if he can come in a little early today.”

Beck tossed back the rest of the coffee and set the mug in the sink. “You called Krauser’s for a tow truck?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t get an answer. I called the service and asked them to page Frank, but I haven’t heard back yet.”

“I’ll have Hal stop by on his way in, see if he can shake someone loose. Chances are Frank left his pager on the front seat of his car and he and the boys are outside shooting the shit and no one’s opened the office yet.”

“That’s pretty much what I was thinking.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Beck turned off the coffeepot and the kitchen light, then headed out to his Jeep, his phone in his hand. Once behind the wheel, he punched in the speed-dial for Hal Garrity as he backed out of his driveway. Hal, one-time chief of police in St. Dennis, Maryland, was now happily retired but always agreeable to working part-time hours in the summer when the tourists invaded the small town on the Chesapeake Bay. At sixty-five, he was still in fine shape, still took pride in being a good cop, and had no problem taking direction from his successor. After all, he’d been instrumental in hiring Beck.

Hal answered on the first ring. He was already on his way in to the station, but was just as happy to head out to the accident scene, and wouldn’t mind a stop at Krauser’s Auto Body to check up on that tow truck. Beck smiled when the call ended. As much as Hal loved retirement, he sure did love playing cop now and then.

The narrow streets of St. Dennis were waist-high in an eerie mist that had yet to be burned off by the still rising sun. Wisps of white, caught in the headlights, were tossed about by Beck’s old Jeep, the ragged pieces floating across Charles Street, the main road that ran through the village, from the highway straight on out to the bridge over the inlet that led to Cannonball Island. Here in the center of town all was unbroken silence. No other cars were on the street, no shops opened, no pedestrians passed by. All was still. Peaceful.

This was the St. Dennis Beck loved, the one he remembered when he thought about moving back two years ago. But, with all the renovations, and every available building being bought up and fixed up and turned into one fancy shop or another, the St. Dennis he’d known would someday be little more than a fond memory. Now, though, in the early morning hours, before the tourists came out and the shop lights went on, the village was his home again. Peaceful, the way it was supposed to be.

Except for that damned traffic accident out on the highway, and knowing that by nine this morning the first of the tourists would arrive. They would be eager to spend their money in the picturesque boutiques and crowd his peaceful streets as they did every day starting in the middle of April and going strong right on through till Christmas. Today would be especially lively.

Beck checked the time. It was not quite six. The third annual Harbor Festival officially began at two that afternoon, but soon the first cars would begin to pull into the free parking lots across from the municipal building, and the early arrivals would descend on one of the three eateries in town that opened for breakfast.

He made a left onto Kelly’s Point Road and eased slowly down the narrow stretch to the municipal building. He parked in front of the sign that read RESERVED: G. BECK and got out of his car. The tightly compacted crushed clam and oyster shells that covered the parking lot and served as fill crackled under his feet as he walked toward the building.

Beck entered his department through double glass doors off the lobby and was greeted by the dispatcher.

“Morning, Chief.”

“Morning, Garland. You’re in early. Who was on night dispatch?”

“Bill Mason. He had an asthma attack around five and called me to come in.”

“Mason called you at five and asked you to come in?” Beck frowned.

“I didn’t mind. I was already awake. He filled in for me when my car died in Baltimore a few weeks back.”

“Glad you guys get along.”

“Two peas in a pod,” Garland replied before turning all business. “You heard about the accident out on thirty-three?”

“Lisa called a while ago. She’s out there with Duncan. Hal should be out there by now, too.” Beck looked through a short stack of phone messages that had come in overnight. “Give Lisa a call and tell her to come on in. And tell Duncan to make sure he’s back in town before nine. I want him on foot patrol. By then, Hal ought to have the accident scene cleaned up, and we can put him on parking.”

“Will do.” Garland Hess, a thirty-five-year-old transplant from Boston three years earlier, went to work.

A long hall separated the quarters assigned to the police department exactly in two. Beck’s office was at the end of the hall, and ran the width of their end of the building. On the opposite side of the lobby were the town’s administrative offices, and a combination of meeting rooms and conference rooms, with storage on the second floor. The basement was a damp black hole that invited mold to grow on anything placed down there, and the attic was hot in summer and cold in winter. Some old police files and council meeting records going back decades were packed away in fading boxes tucked under the eaves, though no one ever ventured up there. Beck suspected that if examined, many of the boxes would be found to have been gnawed on by mice or covered with bat droppings.