Lynne Heitman - The Pandora Key aka The Hostage Room

I was careful to keep an eye on the bedroom door as I worked my way across the room. On the way, I checked under the bed. I checked the closet on the far wall. When I got close to the bathroom, I stopped.

I could feel my heartbeat in the tips of my fingers when I placed them on the damp door. I pushed. The hinges whined. The steam billowed out. My face got damp, and it was only as I was wheeling into the doorway that I realized there was now no interruption in the water’s flow, and unless she was standing perfectly still under the shower head, Rachel wasn’t in the shower at all.

She stepped forward, emerging from the thick steam like some kind of poltergeist.

“Don’t move,” she said, and I didn’t, because in her small hands, she held a 45-caliber revolver, and it was pointed straight at my right eye. Her.45 was bigger than my Glock, and her hands were shaking violently. There wasn’t much chance my gun would go off by accident, but I couldn’t say the same for hers, so I did as she asked.

“All right.” I had to make myself heard above the roar of the shower. “Let’s calm down here. No one has to get hurt. I didn’t come here to hurt you.”

“No? Let’s see, you track me down, you break into the house, you creep in here with a gun, and you didn’t come here to hurt me?”

I knew I should have had Harvey call her first, but I was afraid she’d bolt.

“I came to help.”

“With a gun?”

“You never know what you’ll find behind a closed door.”

She raised one shoulder to wipe away the copious amounts of perspiration dripping into her eyes, and the barrel of the.45 twitched. A defibrillator couldn’t have made my heart jump more.

“Be careful, please.” I put up my left hand, as if that would stop a bullet. “Let’s put the weapons down. We’ll do it at the same time.”

“No.” It wasn’t even up for consideration. “You first.”

“Why would I do that?”

“You’ve got no choice. You’re not gonna shoot me.”

“How do you know what I’ll do?”

“Because you’re Harvey’s partner, and I know Harvey.” The barest trace of a smile appeared. “But you don’t know me. ‘Maybe,’ you’re thinking, ‘she’s just desperate enough to do it. Maybe she doesn’t care if she lives or dies.’ Or maybe-” She pulled the hammer back. “Maybe this thing goes off accidentally.”

“Dammit, Rachel, be careful.” I pushed my hand farther forward. That would surely stop a bullet. “Do you know what that will do if it goes off?”

“Another good question. Do I even know how to use this?” Her smile broadened. She had slipped into something more comfortable-a Brooklyn accent. Either I had failed to notice it the other day, or it only came out in times of stress. She was also right. I had no idea what she was capable of. I did the high-stakes calculation again. I had a better chance of surviving if I put my gun down, even if she kept hers.

“All right. I’m putting it away.” I flipped the pistol around so it was aimed at the ceiling and engaged the safety.

“On the floor. Put it on the floor.”

“No.” I reached around and slipped it into my waist holster. “I’m putting it away so it’s not pointed at you. You do the same.”

“Put your hands up.”

“Rachel-”

“Put them up.” Her stress level was rising. It probably showed on her face, but I was watching the weapon, and all I could think about was the size of the hole a 45-caliber slug left in the targets at the shooting range, particularly from that close. I tried to keep my own nerves from showing as she moved to the shower and turned off the water. The silence was abrupt and welcome.

“Listen to me. If that goes off by accident, you’ll kill me. If you don’t want to kill me, point it toward the floor.”

I didn’t think she wanted to kill me, but I also didn’t think intent mattered at that moment. How light the trigger was, how twitchy her finger, how good or bad her aim-those were the things that mattered, and the longer she held the gun on me, the greater the chance that something would go wrong.

“How did you find me?”

“Your cell phone has a chip in it.”

“Who put it there?” She pushed the.45 at me, and I couldn’t help but turn my head slightly, away from the wrong end of that terrible weapon. Not that it would help much. Instead of blowing my face off, the blast would simply blow away the side of my head.

“Samsung…Nokia…Motorola…” She glared at me. “They come that way. We got your number from Gary, and we tracked you with the chip.”

I watched out of the corner of my eye as she began, very slowly, to lower her arms. I felt the pistol’s sight track down my body. Given the way my luck was running, I expected to be shot through the knee any second. When I was finally out of the bull’s-eye, I peeled my tongue off the roof of my mouth.

“Decock it, please.”

She did. Without even thinking, I was on her. I couldn’t have stopped if I’d tried. I grabbed the revolver and wrenched it out of her delicate hand. With her other delicate hand, she tried to gouge out my eyes. She wasn’t very big, and I was really mad, so it was easy to spin her around and give her a hard shove out the door. She ended up sprawled facedown across the bed.

“You bitch.” She said it with her face in the mattress. “You lying bitch. I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you.” She was strangely calm, almost resigned. When she started to turn and sit up, I pulled the Glock again and pointed it at her, but I kept the safety on. Harvey wouldn’t like it if I shot the love of his life, accidentally or otherwise.

“Put your hands on top of your head, Rachel.” I waited until she sat up and complied before flipping open the cylinder on the.45 and shaking the cartridges out into my palm. I put the gun in the sink and the cartridges in my pocket.

“Can I put my hands down?”

“If you sit on them.” She rolled her eyes but slid her hands, palms down, under her knees.

I found a wall switch and turned on the overhead lights. “How did you know I was here?”

“I heard a noise,” she said.

Not as stealthy as I thought, perhaps. I was soaking wet from the steam and a little shaky from having nearly died but otherwise okay. I pulled the stiff-backed chair away from the desk, dragged it over to face her, and sat down. We each took in a deep breath. I wanted to start over again. I did not, however, want any more surprises.

“Where are the people who own this house?”

“In Thailand for three months. They don’t even know I’m here.”

“Why are you still here? Why didn’t you leave town?”

She sniffed. “I didn’t have anyplace to go.”

“No family? No friends to take you in?”

“Haven’t you heard? I’m a hot commodity. For the first time in my life, everyone wants me. I can’t bring that into the homes of my family or my friends.”

“You didn’t have any trouble bringing it into Harvey’s home.”

She leveled her shoulders and smiled. “Harvey gets me. He understands me, and he likes helping me. It makes him happy.”

If that were true, Harvey must have been deliriously happy. “He’s home recovering from his abduction, in case you’re interested.”

“His ab-” She stopped herself, but not before her face had betrayed the slightest bit of surprise. I had been hoping for concern.

“Are you telling me you didn’t know that your friend Drazen Tishchenko sent people to pick him up?”

“My friend?”

“You brought Drazen into Betelco for a little postmodern plundering. Maybe that makes you more like professional colleagues.”

“How do you know about Drazen?”

“We had a power breakfast this morning. He’s looking for the person who killed his brother. That would be you, wouldn’t it?”