Page 71 of More than a Memory
As she was licking the envelope containing the bill, her cell phone rang. She didn’t recognize the number, so she answered with her business greeting,
“Morgan Private Investigating, may I help you?”
At first, all Darcy could hear was a muffled conversation, which made her strain to catch anything she could. “Hello? Hello? This is Darcy Morgan, is anyone there?” She was just about to hang up, assuming it was a pocket dial, when she thought she identified Liam’s voice.
“Liam? Liam are you there?”
It quickly became obvious that either Liam didn’t know he had dialed her number or he was unable to respond. She turned off the music she had been streaming in order to be able to pick up more of the discussion on the other end of the line.
She recognized Liam saying, “Mr. Cohen, you don’t have to do this. We can negotiate. I’ll forget the payoff if you give Gina the dissolution she deserves.”
“Ha! ‘You’ll forget.’ You’re in no position to be bargaining for anything. I don’t take kindly to blackmail, and you’re nothing more than a traitor and a spy. All this time while you worked for me, you were fucking my beautiful wife and secretly collecting information about my business. That disgusts me. You have no loyalty, I thought serving your country would have instilled some obedience and allegiance to your superiors, but apparently I was grossly mistaken.”
“Mr. Cohen, come on now, we both know that you don’t even love your wife! What difference would it make to you to let her go? Why even keep her around?”
“SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU DOUBLE-CROSSING, DUPLICITOUS, UNTRUSTWORTHY, TWO-FACED, SON OF A BITCH!” Cohen screamed in fury. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
Darcy could hear a blow and a grunt that she could only assume was Liam taking a punch. She heard a different male voice say, “What do you want me to do with him, Boss?”
“Take him to the warehouse and convince him that it would be in his best interests to give us all the evidence he has gathered: the recordings, the photographs, the documents, all of it! If he doesn’t cooperate, make him beg for mercy,” Cohen said viciously.
“Get up!” the male voice commanded. “No fucking around, Asshole, Remember, I will have my gun trained on you the whole time,” he said menacingly.
Darcy heard a scuffling noise and another grunt as she realized that they were more than likely moving him from the Cohen Technology headquarters to some warehouse, God only knew where. She would have to act quickly if she was going to be of any help to Liam.
She opened her computer to see if any Cohen properties besides the main headquarters were listed. She didn’t want to hang up the phone yet, but staying on the line put her at an extreme disadvantage as far as reaching out for help in locating the warehouse and calling the cops for backup were concerned. She finally decided that she had better hang up. Time was of essence.
* * *
Liam prayed that Darcy had picked up his call and heard what was going on. It was the only hope he had. After being shoved in the back of a car, several minutes went by without conversation until finally Liam said, “Where the hell are you taking me?”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“Please, don’t do this! How far will your loyalty go? Murder?”
“I said, shut the fuck up! Last time I saw you I got a broken nose for my trouble. It will be my pleasure to extract information from you slowly and painfully,” the man snarled.
“What did you expect? A welcome mat? Come on, you would have done the same. Let me go.”
The driver decided he was done with conversation and didn’t respond to Liam’s pleading. He drove for about ten minutes and turned into the parking lot of what looked like an abandoned warehouse.
Liam knew he was in big trouble. There would be no one there to rescue him. He was alone. He would have to be prepared for any opportunity that presented itself. His survival instincts were in full mode; the soldier in him was mentally armed and ready.
The driver stopped the car next to another SUV, the only other vehicle in the lot, and came around and jerked Liam out of the car. Liam stumbled but caught himself, now on high alert, his adrenalin surging.
34
Darcy managed to reach Gina and get the address for the Cohen warehouse and hightailed it there. She put in a call to the police while in route and told them to approach without sirens, and with caution. She would be ahead of them by about ten minutes.
She pulled into the lot and noticed the two vehicles parked on the otherwise barren mass of asphalt and killed her engine. She quickly hopped out and positioned herself against the building, gun drawn. She inched her way to the first door she found and tested the latch, discovering that it was unlocked. She quietly turned the knob and cracked the door, listening intently for any sounds or voices. Hearing nothing, she slipped through the door and crouched down. There was a long hallway with several doors along both sides of the passage. With her back against the wall, she silently made her way. At each door, she stopped to listen and, when satisfied the rooms were empty, moved to the next. When she reached the end of the hallway, it opened up into a large warehouse with forklifts and skids and aisles of stacked wooden boxes about the size of coffins. She shivered.
Stopping to get her bearings, Darcy could hear faint conversation in the distance, coming from the west end of the cavernous room. She crept along until she had almost reached the area where the voices were coming from. Looking between the gaps in the rows, she could see that Liam was tied to a chair and his face was bloodied and swollen.
“Well, Fuck Face, have you had enough?”
Liam spat and said, “Fuck you.” He let out a groan and UMPH as he was kicked in the shin.
“Thought you were pretty smart, didn’t ya Scumbag? We don’t like traitors. Loyalty is rewarded, treasonous bastards are punished.” The man grinned maniacally, obviously relishing his role as perpetrator.