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I Get Carried Away

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Daniel Sullivan stared at the text message floating on his phone screen. A chill unease crawled down his neck as the threat imprinted itself in his mind.

Drop the racketeering case. NOW. Your wife is in danger.

He pushed back his chair from the desk and stood, beginning to pace back and forth, counting his steps. His wife, Reema, looked up from her laptop at her own desk in their home office.

“You okay?”

“No… how can you tell?”

“You only count your paces when something's stressing you out more than usual.”

He sighed and nodded. Ten steps elapsed in silence.

“It's the racketeers, isn't it?”

Dan tried to speak and gave up. He reached for his phone and handed it to her. She studied the message and handed it back.

“We aren't dropping the case.” Her voice was firm. “Hundreds of millions of dollars are getting laundered in those gambling halls, and the lead we're tracking down indicates minors are involved.”

“You're not afraid?”

“Honey, we didn't get into the detective business to be scared off by a little text. This is the most important case of our career. If they're threatening us it means we're getting close.”

He nodded again, pausing the pacing to take a closer look at the number the text came from. It was a dead-end five-digit code, the kind that sent promos and passkey authentication messages.

“From now on, we're doing everything together.”

“We do most things together anyway.”

***

The warnings kept coming: a note slipped in the mailbox, left under the windshield wiper, or texted from another disposable number. One morning, Dan and Reema went out to the car to find all their tires flattened and the passenger window shattered. Spray paint scrawled a command in red on the driveway: STOP.

“We’re not stopping until they're stopped… right?”

Dan's throat tightened. Reema was usually his shotgun rider—in a seat now covered with broken glass.

“Right. We're in it for the long haul.”

Her eyes met his, unwavering. He pulled a handful of business cards out of his back pocket, shuffling through them, ostensibly to find a mechanic, but also to diffuse his anxiety by ensuring they were in alphabetical order.

“You know what?” He looked up at her. “May—maybe you should take a nice long retreat to a Swiss convent in the mountains.”

She laughed, tossing her hair away from her face.

“Aw, that's a good one!”

“No, I'm serious.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “For your safety. I can't have you—”

“We're a team, Dan.” She put an arm across his shoulder. “How would you wrap this up without me? You know the drill: you do the legwork, I do the research. That's how it's been since we started, three years ago. They can't faze me with petty sabotage and cheap threats.”

“I—”

“I'm as well trained at self defense as you are. Look, we can get this over faster together, ok?”

“Yeah. But if anything happens to you…”

He tucked the last business card in the back of his deck with a heavy sigh and started punching numbers into his phone.

***

About a week later, Dan was preparing dinner with Reema in the kitchen. She went out to the yard to cut some fresh rosemary for the pasta.

A scream tore through the air. He grabbed a butcher knife from the counter and shoved out the back door.

Reema was tangling with three masked men on the side yard by the rosemary bush. She sent the smallest figure flying into the brick wall. Two larger men overpowered her. They smothered her in a blanket, dragging her towards an idling Sprinter van and hauling her inside before Dan could get there.

He skidded to a stop, heart pounding, gravel flicked in his face by the van as it sped off. Dan spun on his heel. He got down in the mud, nose to nose with the one left behind. He held the knife against his throat.

“Where are they taking her? If you don't tell me—”

The disheveled guy struggling to sit up and catch his breath looked to be barely past twenty.

“Murfreesboro—empty warehouse—near the tracks…”

“Naturally.” Dan yanked the younger man to his feet by the collar. “You're coming with me.”

In his car, Dan glared at the red light. He reached out to rearrange the row of rubber ducks lined up on the dashboard, succumbing to an OCD need for control. His eyes flicked to the rearview mirror, frowning at the wannabe racketeer slouched in the backseat.

“Why'd they bring you?”

“Gambling debt,” he mumbled. “I'm working it off.”

Dan snorted, resuming a tight grip on the steering wheel as the light glowed green.

“You bloody fool.”

“I'm sorry…”

“You show you're sorry by helping me get her out of this alive. Otherwise, I have no compunctions about ending your puny life.”

“You—you done this before?”

“Listen, I'm a private eye. I do what I have to.”

Dan didn't mention he had not yet taken a human life in his career. He could only brace himself for what lay ahead.

***

He swung into a crumbling packing yard alongside an unused railroad side shaft. The warehouse Sidney directed him to was every bit as ramshackle and foreboding as one would expect, especially as the evening shadows grew longer. The Sprinter van was parked outside a rusty service bay.

Dan parked backwards, facing the alleyway to facilitate escape. He pulled his gun out of the glovebox, slipping the unsheathed kitchen knife in its place instead and locking it away.

He turned to face Sidney, who pressed back against the seat, eyeing the weapon.

“Can I trust you to bring the police?”

“Yessir.”

“You're not returning to their side? Because if you do…”

“Sir, I—I don't want the lady to die.”

“Precisely. You don't want to die, either. Do as I tell you.”

Dan ushered him out of the car, watched him slip away into the shadows like a gutter rat, and approached the door by the sealed roll-up bay. It hung silently ajar, as if any activity therein had already concluded.

Inside, his eyes adjusted to dim, yellow florescent lights. Voices echoed behind a chin-high wall of cardboard boxes. He nudged it, found them empty, and sent them flying across the floor with a sweep of his arm.

A harsh laugh broke through the hollow clatter.

“We knew you wouldn't be long.”

Dan's wife was bound to a chair, gagged and blindfolded with bloodstained cloth. Her head drooped low to her chest.

“Reema!”

She raised her head sluggishly at his voice. He lunged forward.

“Stay back!”

Only then did he have eyes for the two armed thugs on either side of her. One moved to hold his gun to her head. The other aimed his at Dan.

“Raise your hands and drop your weapon.”

A tall, thin man stood behind the chair, giving orders, arms folded.

Dan let his gun fall to the floor. His hands shook as he held them up.

“Leave her alone!” It came out a choked plea.

The tall man moved around to stand between Dan and Reema.

“You were aware it would come to this, Sullivan,” he said, his voice a low purr like a tiger playing with mice. “I can assure you no further harm will be done to your wife if you follow my recommendations.”

Dan's jaw clenched. Rage boiled inside.

“I'd rather punch you out.”

The kingpin raised an eyebrow.

“It would be ineffably stupid for you to instigate a brouhaha. And don't think you can bamboozle your way out of this, either.”

Dan looked over the man's shoulder at Reema. Her chest heaved once, twice. He tried to distinguish the sound of her labored breathing from theirs.

“Uncover her face. She's suffocating!”

The kingpin gave him a slow, cruel smile and moved behind her chair again. He peeled away the gag and blindfold, tipping her head up by tugging at her hair.

Her eyes met Dan's with a glassy, dazed expression, barely cognizant. Dried blood streaked her face from a swelled gash congealing across her forehead. Her chafed mouth hung partly open as she gasped for air.

Dan's heart shattered. He pressed a hand to his own forehead in shared pain. How could he let this happen to Reema? His shoulders sagged. He raised his eyes to the cold, level gaze of the kingpin.

“What do you want from me?”

“A contract has been prepared. You agree to give up the investigation against us. We ensure you turn over to us all evidence you’ve gathered. If you reject our terms, I have no choice but to enforce the consequences—on both of you.”

“Fine. Whatever you say. Just—let her go.”

“Ah, not so fast. Come this way.” The kingpin came around, waving Dan to a makeshift desk in one corner.

Dan glanced down at the floor, counting his steps. The gun he had dropped lay two paces to the right of Reema's chair. While headed to the kingpin's desk, he kicked it casually towards one of the thugs. The thug bent to pick up the weapon at his feet.

With this opportunity, Dan grabbed the kingpin by the shoulders. He hurled him into the other thug like a bowling ball, sending them both tumbling against the wall. The one picking up Dan's gun straightened to meet a left hook square to the jaw. He hit the floor, out cold.

The gun was back in Dan's grip. He spun around, firing a spray of bullets at the two remaining men scrambling to stand up. As if in a video game, the kingpin collapsed, struck in the head. The thug fell to his knees, flailing in blood and moaning.

Dan surveyed the scene, heart pounding. He wiped the sweat off his brow. For a few seconds all he could do was lean on the back of Reema's chair, catching his breath. Then he knelt, pulling a Swiss army knife from his pocket to cut away the zip ties binding her.

As he worked on the ties, gravel crunching and headlights flashing announced the failed stealthy arrival of vehicles outside. Tactical officers swarmed in, guns drawn.

“Everyone put your hands up!”

Dan dropped the knife and stood up.

“I neutralized the threat. My wife needs immediate medical attention. So do these brutes here.”

Sidney, slipping in somehow between the lawmen, stared at the three bodies on the floor, his eyes bugging.

“Gawd! I knew you were a killer.”

Dan stifled a crazed laugh, deciding not to set the record straight.

“I get carried away.”

***

At a stoplight on the edge of town, Dan rearranged the rubber ducks on the dashboard. He glanced at the GPS, aimed for their favorite lakeside retreat.

“Are you still fretting?” Reema arranged her hair over the fading scar on her forehead and patted his knee. “It's been two weeks, honey. I'm resilient.”

He pulled in a deep breath, struggled to speak and gave up, focusing on the road ahead. How could he forgive himself for putting his wife in harm's way?

“I guess I should’ve taken you up on the offer of a vacation at a Swiss chalet, after all.” Her bright, clear eyes twinkled with amusement.

Dan chuckled for the first time since it happened.

“I said convent, actually…”

Her gentle, reassuring laughter melted his anguish like sun through the clouds. One hand stayed on the wheel. The other pulled her closer to his weary heart. There was nothing he wouldn't do for Reema.

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