I made another quick leap.
Rachel!
I jumped up and yanked the door open. As I entered the seventh-floor hallway, I pulled my phone and punched in 911. The hotel was designed in a wide U pattern and I was on the upper right branch. I started moving down the hallway, checking the numbers on the doors. 722, 721, 720… I got to Rachel’s room and saw the door was ajar. I pushed through without knocking.
“Rachel?”
The room was empty but there were obvious signs of a struggle. Plates, silverware and French fries from a room service table were strewn across the floor. The bed covers were gone and there was a pillow smeared with blood on the floor.
I realized I was holding my phone down at my side and there was a tinny voice calling to me. I headed back out into the hall as I raised the phone.
“Hello?”
“ Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”
I started running down the hall, panic engulfing me as I yelled into the phone.
“I need help! Mesa Verde Inn, seventh floor! Now!”
I made the turn into the central hallway and caught a split-second glimpse of a man with bleached-blond hair and wearing a red waiter’s jacket. He was pushing a large laundry cart through a pair of double doors on the far side of the guest elevators. Though it had been only a quick view, the picture didn’t add up.
“Hey!”
I increased my speed, covered the ground quickly and hit the double doors just seconds after I saw them close. I came into a small housekeeping vestibule and saw the door of a service elevator closing. I lunged for the door, reaching my hand out, but I was too late. It was gone. I backed away and looked up. There were no numbers or arrows above the door that would tell me which way he was going. I smashed back through the double doors and ran to the guest elevators. The stairwells, at either end of the hallway, were too far to consider.
I quickly pushed the down button, thinking it was the obvious choice to make. It led to the exit. It led to escape. I thought about the laundry cart and the forward-leaning angle of the man who was pushing it. There was something heavier than laundry in it, I was sure. He had Rachel.
There were four guest elevators and I got lucky. As soon as I hit the button the door chimed and an elevator opened. I leaped through the opening door and saw that the lobby button was already lit. I machine-gunned the close-door button and waited interminably long as the door slowly, gently closed.
“Easy, buddy. We’ll get there.”
I turned and saw there was a man already on the elevator. He was wearing a conventioneer’s name tag with a blue ribbon hanging from it. I was about to tell him it was an emergency, when I remembered the phone in my hand.
“Hello? Are you still there?”
There was static on the line but I still had a connection. I could feel the elevator start to drop quickly.
“Yes, sir. I’ve dispatched the police. Can you tell me—”
“Listen to me, there’s a guy dressed like a waiter and he’s trying to abduct a federal agent. Call the FBI. Send every—Hello? Are you there?”
Nothing. I’d lost the call. I felt the elevator come to a hard stop as we reached the lobby. The conventioneer pushed back into the corner and tried to disappear. I stepped up to the doors and moved through them before they had barely opened.
I stepped into an alcove off the lobby. Adjusting my bearings in relation to where the service elevator would be located, I took a left and then another left through a door marked employees only and entered a rear hallway. I heard kitchen noises and smelled food. There were stainless-steel shelves lined with commercial-size cans of food and other products. I saw the service elevator but no sign of the man in the red jacket or the laundry cart.
Had I beaten the service elevator down? Or had he gone up?
I pushed the elevator call button.
“Hey, you’re not supposed to be back here.”
I turned quickly to see a man in kitchen whites and a dirty apron walking toward me in the hall.
“Did you see a guy pushing a laundry cart?” I asked quickly.
“Not in the kitchen, I didn’t.”
“Is there a basement?”
The man took an unlit cigarette out of his mouth to answer.
“There ain’t no basement.”
He gestured with the hand holding the cigarette. I realized he was going outside for a smoke break. There was an exit somewhere close.
“Is there a way out from here to the parking garage?”
He pointed past me.
“The loading dock is—Hey, look out!”
I started to turn back to the elevator just as the laundry cart came crashing into me. It hit me thigh high and my upper body pivoted over the edge. I put my hands out to break my fall into the pile of linens and the bedspread in it. I could feel something soft but solid under the covers and knew it was Rachel. I pushed my weight backward and slid back onto my feet.
I looked up and saw the elevator closing again as the man in the red jacket held his hand on the door-close button. I looked at his face and recognized it from the mug shot I had seen earlier that night. He was cleaned up and blond now, but I was sure it was Marc Courier. I looked back at the elevator control panel and saw a floor light glowing from the top. Courier was going back up.
I reached into the cart and yanked back the bedspread. There was Rachel. She was still wearing the clothes she’d had on earlier in the day. She was facedown with her arms and legs hog-tied behind her back. A terry cloth belt from a hotel room bathrobe had been tied as a gag across her mouth. Her nose and mouth were bleeding profusely. Her eyes were glassy and distant.
“Rachel!”
I reached down and pulled the gag down off her mouth.
“Rachel? Are you all right? Can you hear me?”
She didn’t respond. The kitchen man stepped over and looked down into the cart.
“What the hell is going on?”
She was bound with plastic cable ties. I pulled the folding corkscrew out of my pocket and used the small blade designed for cap cutting to slice through the plastic.
“Help me get her out!”
We carefully lifted her out of the cart and put her on the floor. I dropped down next to her and made sure the blood had not closed off her airways. Her nostrils were caked with it but her mouth was clear. She had been beaten and her face was beginning to swell.
I looked up at the kitchen man.
“Go call security. And nine-one-one. Now! GO!”
He started running down the hall for a phone. I looked back down at Rachel and saw she was becoming alert.
“Jack?”
“It’s all right, Rachel. You’re safe.”
Her eyes looked scared and hurt. I felt a rage building inside me.
From down the hallway I heard the kitchen man yell.
“They’re coming! Paramedics and po-lice!”
I didn’t look up at him. I kept my eyes on Rachel.
“There, you hear that? Help is on the way.”
She nodded and I saw more life returning to her eyes. She coughed and tried to sit up. I helped her and then pulled her into a hug. I rubbed the back of her neck.
She whispered something I couldn’t hear and I pulled back to look at her and asked her to say it again.
“I thought you were in L.A.”
I smiled and shook my head.
“I was too paranoid about going away from the story. And from you. I was going to surprise you with a good bottle of wine. That’s when I saw him. It was Courier.”