Free Slaves to Evil - 11 by Lee Goldberg Page B

of stairs going down.
    He crept up the stairs, waiting for the telltale creak that would give him away. It didn’t come. The upstairs hallway led to four doors, all closed. He went to the first door and pressed his ear against it. Nothing. Maybe no one was in there. Or maybe one of the police officers was waiting silently on the other side of the door.
    Matt opened the door quickly, gun ready. No ambush by cop. He was in a little boy’s bedroom, with a prominent football theme. On the child-sized bed was a pale, dark-haired woman with one hand cuffed to the headboard. Her face was swollen and bruised. Her chest was covered in cigarette burns. She wore a thin negligee. And the big leather dog collar.
    She shrank back as he approached. Matt couldn’t blame her. He was a kidnapper himself, after all. He put the revolver in his pocket and held up empty hands. “It’s all right,” he said softly. “I’m going to help you.”
    She didn’t answer, still wary. He slowly came closer and examined the handcuffs. No T-shirt rope here. He should have searched Ross for a handcuff key. Now he’d have to get one from the other cops.
    All he could do at the moment was take off that collar. He tossed it aside with disgust. “I’ll come back for you,” he told her.
    Matt ventured back into the hallway. He went to the next door and listened. More silence. He charged in dramatically, only to be startled by the reflection of himself, his face streaked with blood from the scratches under his eye. It was a bathroom, as spotlessly clean as a catalog photo, thankfully unoccupied. A second door led to the next room. As he leaned in to listen again, Matt felt his heart pounding. Each door was a new unknown. What would be waiting for him—the lady or the tiger?
    For a moment he actually thought he heard growling. Then he realized it was a low groan—a male voice, groaning with pleasure. Which meant the guy was distracted.
    He burst in to find a beefy man with his pants around his ankles, getting a blow job from a blond girl who didn’t look more than thirteen. Matt realized that he recognized him from a picture accompanying a news story he’d read about Lennox. It was hizzoner himself, Mayor Perkins, looking almost comically surprised by the interruption. Matt’s fist shot out, delivering a very satisfying uppercut to the mayor’s jaw. The man’s pants caught around his feet and he fell to the floor hard.
    Matt figured that the thud would attract attention, and he was right. In a moment there was a soft knock at the door and a voice asking, “Is everything all right, sir?”
    Matt stood by the doorway and gave a pained moan. Officer O’Neill quickly stepped in. Matt pressed the barrel of his gun to O’Neill’s cheek, just above the line of rot extending from his neck. “Not a sound.”
    He moved O’Neill inside and closed the door. They were in another bedroom, this one with more adult decor. The bed had an elaborate wrought-iron frame. He gestured toward the foot of the bed with his gun and told O’Neill, “Put your arm through the frame.”
    The young cop glared at him. “You don’t know who you’re fucking with.”
    “Actually, I do.” Matt aimed right between the cop’s eyes. O’Neill looked at him, evaluating how seriously to take this guy. Then he threaded one arm between the bars.
    Matt pulled the handcuffs off the man’s belt and snapped one around his wrist. He turned to the other man and held up the other manacle. “Mr. Mayor?”
    Perkins looked on the verge of tears. “I have money,” he pleaded.
    “Congratulations,” said Matt. “Give me your hand.”
    The mayor obeyed. Matt cuffed him to O’Neill, both of them now attached to the iron bed frame. He pulled a pair of briefs loose from the pants on the floor and stuffed them into Perkins’s mouth as a crude gag. He looked around for something to use for O’Neill.
    The blond girl picked up a loose sock and handed it to him. Matt smiled at her.