Filed to story: Return of the Reaper Story
He locked himself in the bathroom.
Braced against the sink cabinet, he listened to footsteps approaching on the hardwood floor. Cucumber infused sweat dripped from his face. The door between him and the invading strangers was a hollow fill door made of Masonite and recycled materials. It was part of the eco-friendly restoration of the house that Jordan insisted on before they moved in thirty years earlier. It would never stand up to whoever was in the hallway. The only window in the room was a double-glazed insulated window fixed in its frame with no opening options. It was only a matter of time before the door came down and they had him.
Jordan surprised the man in the hallway by pulling open the bathroom door.
The man stepped back raising a pistol of some kind at the naked doctor.
“I’m not resisting. There’s no call for violence,” Jordan said holding his palms out.
The long-haired young man’s expression melted from surprise to a cruel leer. He used his gloved gun hand to brush the hair from his eyes.
When he saw this man’s eyes the doctor reassessed his decision to give in so easily and admitted it might not have been the wisest course. The eyes looked like he imagined a hawk’s might when soaring high above the earth looking for prey.
“Say nothing more or I shoot you. Come with me or I shoot you,” the young man said in accented English.
“May I put on some clothes?” Jordan said.
The young man raised the gun to aim at the doctor’s face.
Naked, Jordan led the way to the head of the steps with the young man following.
Hands bound with tape behind his back, Jordan Roth was packed into the confines of a car truck where he lay pressed against Marcia’s back. Still naked. He shivered in the cold while searching the invisible organ of his mind for a solution that would save their lives.
This had to be about Isaac Kane, his son-in-law. What kind of trouble was he in? What had he done that brought these men to the door of the Roth home?
Marcia was crying and whispering incoherently. It was a prayer. The sound of it made it difficult for Jordan to concentrate on his thoughts.
“Please, please,” he whispered and nudged her back with his knees.
She mistook it for an effort to comfort her and reduced the noises she made to intermittent whimpering.
They rode a long way. The doctor lost track of time but it seemed like a long drive with many turns. They came to rest a moment. A rhythmic metallic rattling. A garage door going up. The car started forward again. The sound of the motor resonated now in echoes. They had pulled inside a building rather than a garage. The car stopped. The engine died. Two doors opened and slammed shut.
The trunk popped open. The young man and the brute were there. They hauled the Roths from the trunk and walked/?dragged them over a concrete floor to a metal chair by a table. Jordan was placed in the chair. His wife dropped to the floor.
The building was a cavernous empty space. An industrial warehouse abandoned for many years. Stacks of debris were pushed against the wall. There was a tang of rust and oil in the air.
The brute busied himself taping Jordan securely in the chair. The glue tugged at his naked flesh. Jordan remained silent. He would not plead. He would not bargain. He would wait to see what these men wanted and then decide his course. This was the decision he’d come to on the ride to this forgotten place. They would set the conditions of the game. He would play their game and win. They were thugs with simple minds and simple motives. He was an educated man with an agile mind.
The objects on the table were cause for alarm. A battery operated power drill. A hammer. A box of four inch nails. A can of charcoal lighter. A pair of adjustable pliers.
The younger of the two leaned back on the table.
“Isaac Kane is your son-in-law?” Nestor said.
“Yes. He was. Until my daughter died,” Jordan said, voice level, eyes turned away from the tools on the table.
“Do you know where he is?”
“I do not know where-“
Nestor nodded.
Karp pulled the Browning from his waistband and shot Marcia twice through the head.
Jordan stared. First at his wife lying shrunken and dead still in a spreading lake of blood. Then into the predator eyes of the younger man.
“That is to show that we are serious. Continue to lie and, believe me, you will envy your wife.”
“But I don’t know where he is. I’d tell you if I knew. I’d have told the police if I knew.”
“Police?” Karp said, glancing at Nestor.
“What do you mean by police?” Nestor said, stepping from the table to lean close to Jordan’s face.
Jordan began to speak. Nestor held up a hand.
“Wait. Wait. Wait.”
Nestor took his tablet from an inside pocket of his coat. He poked and swiped. A voice speaking a foreign language came from the device. A gruff voice with a basso tone that was discernible even through the tinny speakers of the tablet. Nestor answered in the same language. A curt exchange followed.
The tablet was held up before the doctor’s face. On the screen as the face of a hard-looking man of perhaps Jordan’s age, maybe older or younger. The man locked eyes with Jordan over the link as intensely as if they were in the same room.
“You talk to police? Of what do you talk to police?”
“My son-in-law. He took my granddaughter without permission. I filed charges. I told the police all I knew.”
“It’s true. We saw the legal papers,shef,” Nestor said.
“You told police all you know. What is it you tell them?” the man on the tablet asked.
“That Kane is insane. He’s dangerous. He suffers from PTSD. He’s on psychotropic drugs, mood altering medications. He’s capable of anything and he has my granddaughter with him.” Jordan stated his case clearly. They both wanted the same thing. They could all be reasonable men.
“He is crazy. He is dangerous. This I know. Where is he? That is what I need from you,” the tablet said.
“I don’t know where he is. I told you that. I would tell you where he is if I knew.”
“Will he call you? Will he be contacting you?”