Free Choke: A Thriller by Dani Amore

apartment complex in a run-down neighborhood.
    Vincent knocks softly on the door of Apartment 114.  There is no answer.  With his gun drawn, Vincent tries the door, it's locked.
    He looks up and down the hallway.  It's empty.  He rears back and kicks savagely at the door.  His heel leaves a huge gouge in the door, but it stands firm.  With savage purpose, Vincent rears back and kicks again and again and again.  At last, the door splinters and Vincent pushes it open.
    Vincent works his way through the apartment in complete darkness.  His gun is in his hand.  He sees a light at the end of the hallway and slowly goes toward it.
    The last room is a bedroom, with a single bed and night table.  There is a framed newspaper article on the table with a small light spotlighting it.
    Vincent picks up the frame.
    The article is about the crash.  When he was in high school.  The roads were wet, it was storming and although he hadn’t been drinking, his passenger, Kristin McCullough, had been.  He’d lost control of the car, gone over the guardrail into the river.
    He’d made it out.
    Kristin hadn’t.

55.
    Vincent is staring at the article.  It makes no sense.  Kristin was an only child.  Her mother died of cancer a few years after Kristin’s death.  The father died after that from a heart attack.
    More importantly, neither parent had blamed Vincent.  The storm had washed away part of the road along with the guardrail.
    And Kristin had been drunk.
    So who was doing this to him?
    Suddenly, the phone rings.   It rings several times as Vincent stands still in the darkness until the machine picks up.
    “Hi, it’s Miles.  I can't come to the phone right now.  Just leave a message at the beep and I'll get back to you as soon as possible.”
    The machine beeps.  There is a beat, and then Miles Lucas's voice comes back on.  But this time, it isn't a recording.
    “Vincent.”
    Vincent nearly jumps at the sound of the voice.
    “Come on, Dr. Keyes, I know you're there.  Remember how I said it's easy to keep track of someone with a few high-tech toys?  Well, I know you're there.  I also will know if you try to call the cops when we're done here, okay?  Pick up the phone.”
    Vincent crosses the room and takes the phone off the hook.
    “Let them go, Miles.”
    “Now why would I want to do that?”
    “I don’t know why you're doing this,” Vincent said.  He took a deep breath, then said it in a rush.  “But this isn't going to bring Kristin back. She died in that accident and it wasn’t anyone’s fault.”
    “Interesting theory, Vince.  But you know, I'm having an awfully good time.”
    Vincent reconsiders his approach.
    “Is that how this all makes you feel?  Good?  That's it?  You're going through a lot of trouble, you must be disappointed.”
    “Fuck you, Doc.  I've had enough of your psychobabble.  Listening to your bullshit about visualization techniques.  God, you are a pompous motherfucker you know that?
    “You seem to be the one craving attention.”
    “All right, I'm through fucking around.  I'm proud of you, Doc.  You've come a long way from that incident in your car where Rachel had to turn off the ignition because you were too chickenshit to do it.  God, you were pathetic, quivering like a schoolgirl.  Just like old times, huh?”
    “That's what you want?  To see me scared?”
    “And you did well figuring out it was me, I must say.  Could you tell it was me by the way I swung the crowbar?  Yeah, I figured that was it.”
    “Miles.  Here's what we're going to do.  You're going to trade my daughter and ex-wife for me.  Once you let them go, you can do with me what you will.”
    “Nice try.  I can already get you to do what I want and still keep them.  The thing that interests me is if you can pass the next test.  I'm going to kill them both in the next half hour.”
    “No.”
    “Oh, yes.  I'm going to kill them unless you come here and stop