Page 107 of Vicious Arrangement
Even before theelevator doors open, I know something is wrong.
Angus is going insane, barking up a storm, and it only gets worse and more urgent as I step in. He lunges at me and nips my coat, trying to drag me. Then he lets go and barks, running off around the corner where the hidden emergency exit stairs are. He barks and barks, then comes back, biting my jacket and pulling, something tears.
“Angus, where’s your mama? Where’s Aria?”
I don’t give a fuck about my jacket because in moments I’ve taken in the scene. A lipstick on the grounds. Scattered shopping bags. I put a hand on Angus’s soft fur because something’s sticking out.
In horror, I pull it out of his neck, above his collar.
A syringe.
He starts barking urgently, and this time when he lunges for my coat, I go with him.
Oh, God, oh, God, there’s blood on the wall next to the elevator, a little higher up than Aria’s height. Or her height in heels.
The world wobbles.
I race down to the stairs, where emergency lights are always on, but there are scratches at the back of the door, and I get what’s odd. The alarm isn’t blaring. Most people need a key to enter on each floor, but this one has an alarm. And it’s been disabled.
Whoever it was got in this way, but not out. At least, I don’t think so. Not on this floor because they’d have to race across the third floor to get to the bottom of the stairwell and then spill out on the street with Aria.
No one can enter from the street unless they’re the fucking FDNY.
It’s designed to let people out in an emergency, not in, not unless you’re the fire department.
Shit. Fuck. And Angus isn’t barking here. He’s back at the lift. Barking. Someone must have had a car right outside the door.
“Aria?” I scream her name even though I know she’s not here. I knew it the moment I stepped off. “Aria?”
No answer. Angus keeps barking, and even though I know she isn’t here, the marble statuette on the floor, some piece I bought in Venice a number of years ago is on the floor, some blood on it and I’m frozen inside.
“Aria!”
Angus and I race through the place, throwing open every door to every room top to bottom. We race around the terraces, and there’s no fucking sign of her. She’s gone. Slowly, I pull out my phone. Who the fuck do I call? The cops. But maybe she had an accident. Maybe something happened. Maybe?—
“Maybe Aaron got in and took her.”
I close my eyes as a wave of nausea, so strong I almost fall to my knees, washes over me.
If I call the cops, they’ll take too long. I don’t know what to do. For the first time I don’t know what to do.
Aria… I can call, see if she just went out.
It’s ludicrous, the fact her dog’s been drugged at some stage and is in a frenzy, or was, but is now leaning heavily against me, tells me just how idiotic her just going out is.
But still… I try to call her, and of course it goes to voicemail.
Then, across the great room, I spy something black. I run to it. Her phone. And it’s fucking smashed.
Frantic, I call Asher.
“I need your help. Please…”
“What is it?”
I take a breath. “Aria’s phone’s smashed. I need you to see if you can access it. She’s gone. She’s gone.” My throat closes. “I think she’s been kidnapped.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
