Annabel pulled into the disused gas station and hit the wheel with the palm of her hands, shouting curses as she did so. She hadn’t meant things to go that way. Why had Silver called the police on her? He could have just asked her if it was true, and she would have charmed him out of all belief that she had anything to do with Michael’s disappearance. She’d done it before.

She shook her head to forget the past, and glanced quickly over into the back of her wagon where Michael lay, eyes shut and chest rising slowly but steadily. He had enough drugs in him now to keep him that way for a good few more hours yet, and that was all well and good because she had no idea what to do next.

Why had she taken the most obvious vehicle in the parking lot? She could have taken the deep blue sedan that was parked there, but no, here she was in a red four by four with an open back, carrying an apparently dead person in full view. And what was worse was that she had reversed it into a wall and then driven it into the green Mitsubishi parked opposite as well in her haste to escape before the police arrived.

Glancing down at herself she grimaced. She hated stabbing people. There was always too much blood and it usually went everywhere. Something else conspicuous about her appearance.

Why had everything gone wrong? Why hadn’t this gone the way she had planned?

She slammed her hand against the steering wheel again and cursed loudly.

A moaning noise came from the back of the wagon and she turned smartly. “Shut up.” She said under her breath and glanced around. There was only her on this disused gas station and she looked at the station itself with curiosity. Perhaps there was some good she could salvage from this entire unfortunate event after all.

Climbing out of the truck she headed towards the derelict building, a crow bar in her hand.

************************************************************************************************************

John sighed as Eric handed him another cup of tea. It was surely the hundredth time he’d had one, and it was beginning to grate on his nerves, particularly as they had no way of leaving police custody with four policemen loitering around every exit in the new hotel they had been placed in.

“I’m getting sick and tired of this,” he finally ejaculated, causing Graham to almost choke on his pipe with alarm.

“Well there’s nothing much you can do at the moment John.” Eric said matter-of-factly. “We can’t do anything but sit here and wait.”

Graham nodded sagely and continued smoking.

John screwed up his face and began strutting around the room impatiently. “They won’t even let us leave the hotel! This is false imprisonment if anything!”

Eric laughed. “You may have studied law John, but not American law! Don’t go getting hoity-toity about this and causing a load of trouble.”

John scowled in his direction and Eric hurriedly brought his tea-cup to his lips.

“There must be something we can do?” John moaned quietly. “I feel so helpless!”

Graham shook his head. “You know the rules John,” he said, and then leant in conspiratorially, “and besides, we’d never escape from this lot. They’re all over the place, and they’re here for our own safety.”

Eric snorted and was cast a derogative glance from John. “Yeah,” John said threateningly, “they’re here just in case Idle drives me nuts and I murder him in cold blood.”

Eric poked out his tongue and continued drinking tea as John sat down again and Graham went back to smoking his pipe.

There was a long silence as each man remained in his own thoughts, and it was finally Graham who provided the next topic of conversation.

“I wonder who the witness is?” he asked, a question that seemed more rhetorical than a conversation starter.

“What?” John asked in a half aggravated half demanding manner. It was the first he’d heard of any witness.

“The witness,” Graham said matter-of-factly. “The one they were talking about when we arrived.”

“I didn’t hear anything about a witness.” John said suddenly alert and attentive.

“Oh yes, apparently there was a foot print in the blood that didn’t belong to any one else in the hotel.”

Eric leant forward and put his tea cup on the table in a deliberate manner, all the while eyeing Grahams face.

“You mean to say that there was someone else there, as well as Annabel?”

Graham shrugged. “I can only deduce that she either had an accomplice, or that someone came upon the scene after she had left. Maybe some innocent person.”

John’s forehead furrowed into a frown and he stroked his chin. “This doesn’t fit. Annabel can’t possibly have an accomplice. We’d have noticed if someone had gone missing amongst our ranks.”

Eric leant back in his chair and frowned. “Someone did.” He said and glanced at the two staring faces now contemplating him with angst.

“Someone did go missing didn’t they?” he asked them, and when they both seemed unable to come up with an answer he shook his head. “Chelsea.”

***********************************************************************************************************

Terry frowned as he put down the telephone and sat back in the chair in his hotel room, knowing that the next lot of information to impart on his wife would only convince her the more of going to find Michael themselves, despite his protestations that Eric, John and Graham would do a good enough job at it by themselves.

She pulled her legs underneath her and looked up into his face with all the beauty and innocence with which he had first met her many years ago, and now, looking at the cuts and bruises she had sustained and feeling the same love for her swell in his heart, he knew that he would do anything for her. She had only to ask.

“Well?” she said after a short pause.

Terry sighed. “The hotel John, Eric and Graham were supposed to stay in was fixed,” he said and stood up from the chair to pace around the room.

Alison looked up at him with confusion and he frowned. “I sent them to that hotel because I’d heard some information about one of its newest occupants and I thought it would be ideal for them to check it out. They know Michael; they know what both he and Annabel look like. If they had been there the guys would have noticed.”

“And?” Alison asked. She could sense more from the way his head dropped and his shoulders slouched.

“And when they got there they found dead bodies everywhere. Seems Annabel is a rather more dangerous character than any of us had first expected.”

Alison put her hand to her mouth to stifle a choking sob that rose in her throat and looked up at Terry with bewilderment.

“What can we do now?” she asked. “What if she has already gotten to Michael?”

Terry knelt down beside his wife and took her in his arms. “All those poor people.” She said and he felt the tears on his own face before he realised it. But it wasn’t for the people he cried, but for the thankfulness that Annabel had spared the life of his own precious wife.

“We have to go and catch her Terry. I won’t stay here a second longer.” Alison said and sprang from his arms, making for her carry case and pushing her belongings into it with vigour.

“Alison, be reasonable. There’s nothing more we can do!”

She shook her head defiantly. “We have to do something Terry! We can’t just sit here and wait for her to kill Michael.”

Terry looked away from her and turned towards the window. “Eric, John and Graham have it covered. We can’t leave Hollywood now. There’s still a chance we could find Chelsea here.” He turned and saw that Alison had stopped packing, and it was clear from her face that the idea of Chelsea had completely flown out of her mind. “When Michael returns he will want to know what happened to Chelsea.” Terry said softly and Alison looked up at him with all of the unspoken fear she had displayed quite clearly in her own eyes.

What if Chelsea was dead? What if Annabel had seen to it that Michael would never see her again either?

She slowly began to unpack the things she had hurriedly stuffed into her case and Terry took her hand in his and kissed it gently, before pulling her onto the bed and holding her tightly to him.

“I hope they are all alright.” Said Alison as they lay together quietly, and Terry, squeezing her ever tightly, hoped that they would all be alright in the end.

**********************************************************************************************************

Annabel grunted with the weight over her shoulder as she dragged Michael’s body from the back of the truck and through the dingy and dusty mist that belonged to the disused gas station. She had managed, after a great struggle involving her crow bar and eventually her brute strength, to wrench the metal door open and found, to her delight, the inside of the building fairly intact. There was certainly a problem with pests, but the counter would serve particularly well as a bed for her beloved, and she could tie him down quite simply to the struts supporting the ceiling.

She wiped the sweat from her forehead and the dust and grime from her arms as she made her way back out to the truck, and, with quick manoeuvring, she hid the truck against the farthest wall from the road, next to some unkempt trees. With this done she began a scavenge hunt around the place, pulling a torch from under the drivers seat and wheeling the beam around the inside with great curiosity and lunging upon anything she thought would be of use.

She found the toilet, still in working order and not too covered in grime, and she also found a conveniently forgotten stash of fuel and oil, candles, and a working telephone. She found cigarettes, a few light bulbs, some rope and bags and even found, to her delight, a set of kitchen knives in the small but effectual kitchen.

After scurrying around the place a little while she managed to create dim light using the candles, and, feeling quite secure in her new home, closed the door and wedged it shut with a huge barrel of a sour smelling liquid holding it in place.

This done she took off all of her clothes and washed with what little water the cold taps in the kitchen could administer, and, feeling slightly more invigorated than she had done before, began to examine her patient and her husband.

He seemed no worse for wear, despite the adventures she had placed him in, and she touched his forehead with a clean hand.

Michael stirred but did not awake, and she quickly flicked through her case for her vials. She frowned when she looked at her depleted stash, and hunted around for her reserve supply. She rampaged through all of the things she had brought with her and suddenly it dawned on her that one of her bags was missing. In it was at least 500mg of the concoction she was using, and she cursed herself out loud for leaving it behind.

Scurrying back to her supply she counted up how much she had remaining and knew that it would never be enough if she was to keep her patient with her until something more permanent could be arranged.

Flicking through her purse she sought out her credit cards and counted her remaining cash. She knew dealers all over the place. She could go and get some more at any time.

Glancing at Michael she smiled. If she could get more she could keep him with her longer. Glancing at her money she knew that it would be risky leaving him here, but who knew she was here but her? This was just a disused gas station to anyone who looked. The truck was hidden, the station unharmed unless you got close to it. She had even taken the time to cover the tire tracks on the dust, which hadn’t been hard to do with the wind as her aid.

Counting her money out in her hand she looked again at her captive and smiled, but faltered when she saw him beginning to move and writhe on the counter. He was coming out and she couldn’t have that.

With a dart and a swift application of his medication he was sated again, his eyes rolling back into his head and his tongue lolling in his mouth and a groan escaping his lips. She was about to administer a double dose when she stopped herself. She recalled the last time she had overdosed her patient, and she didn’t want this one dying on her.

Annabel pulled the barrel from the door and opened it a crack to see if she was being watched, and quickly, with a small glance behind her, darted out and into the truck, and she had sped out onto the free way with the intention of looking as though she had merely stopped off for a rest there. It was only half an hours drive to the city, and, although she would have to be careful, the police would never be looking for her in a dingy back alley trying to score some more of her powerful ally. And the druggies she dealt with would never in a million years grass up their wealthiest benefactor and most loyal customer.

She drove like a woman possessed, but with enough restraint to go unnoticed, and continued into the dives of Las Vegas.

************************************************************************************************************

John looked down at his hands. Never would he have considered Chelsea as Annabel’s partner in crime, and it seemed hideous to look at it like that now, but it also seemed odd that no one had heard a peep from the woman since the last performance of Python. It seemed an age ago since the last concert, and John remembered with fondness and sadness that night. They had all been having so much fun and it had all come to an end so quickly.

Eric, meanwhile, was arguing bitterly with the policeman at the door, claiming he wasn’t a suspect, he wanted to see the British embassy and that if it wasn’t for the English America wouldn’t even exist.

Graham was calmly ignoring his spectacle and was staring contemplatively out of the hotel room window.

“What are you thinking Graham?” John asked and Graham puffed a ball of smoke through the side of his mouth.

“I’m thinking about Chelsea.”

John nodded. “Do you think she is in league with Annabel?”

Graham pulled his pipe out of his mouth and looked John dead in the face. “I can’t believe you would ask such a thing.” He said in a tone most unlike Graham to use that it caused even Eric to stop in his remonstrations of the officer. “She has been our friend for many years, and you have the audacity to ask such a thing.”

John shrugged. “It’s in my nature to be suspicious,” he said, “especially of women.”

“But Chelsea isn’t just any woman is she? You know the things her and Michael have gone through. You know how they really feel about one another. You know all this and yet remain suspicious?”

John shrugged. “But it’s convenient. She certainly hasn’t turned up anywhere has she?”

Graham shook his head almost in bewilderment. “Chelsea hated Annabel. Hated her. She despised the very earth Annabel trod on, and wanted so much to take Michael away from her.”

“Precisely,” John said, feeling he had a point to make. “So maybe it isn’t Annabel we’re after at all. Maybe Chelsea stole Michael and has killed Annabel?”

Eric, who had made his way further away from the police man leant on the back of his chair and grimaced at John. “Sometimes you’re just sick.” He said with disgust. “Had you ever considered that it may be the other way around? Had the thought that Chelsea may be dead even crossed your tiny mind?”

John shrugged again. “You have to consider all possibilities.” He said defensively. “It’s in my nature to question these things. You have to see all sides.”

Eric shook his head. “But these are your friends John. These are people you love, and you know Chelsea as well as any of us. You know she isn’t capable.”

John nodded. “I love Chelsea and I know her. I know she isn’t capable. But you have to consider all the options, because otherwise what other leads will you come up with?”

Graham began smoking his pipe and looked John over, scrutinising him before smiling softly. “Maybe thinking is getting the better of you.” He said gently and John nodded and rubbed his temples with his forefingers. “I know that thinking of Chelsea alive and evil, is somewhat better than thinking of her dead,” he continued, “but I’d rather think of her dead than consorting with that bitch of a woman Annabel.”

Eric looked stunned, but when reason settled in on him he couldn’t help but agree with Graham, as did John. When it came down to it, they would all rather think the worst than try to find an excuse for it.

***********************************************************************************************************

“Any news on that witness?” asked Sam Nelson as she whisked through the office, casting a file of papers onto her desk and looking around the evidence room, raising her eyes to board where a brainstorm of ideas had begun in full earnest.

Kevin Donahue placed a cup of coffee in front of her as she leant over her computer and she smiled an appreciative smile before almost necking the hot liquid.

“Nothing’s yet come back from the lab except what Georgie told us earlier.” Said a small Chinese woman called Tia.

“And that was…?” asked Sam.

“Size 6 feet, probably trainers, and almost definitely a woman.”

Kevin scoffed. “How could she tell it was a woman?” he asked with ridicule.

Tia smiled. “The make of the trainer was female branded.” She saw Kevin’s face drop and laughed. “How does it feel Kev, to have a wife smarter than you?”

There was a small murmur of laughter around the office and Sam couldn’t help smiling too.

“So female. That doesn’t really help us any.”

Kevin flipped the file he had picked up in his hand and handed it to Sam. “I think this might,” he said as he took another sip of his coffee.

“Hair found in the blood. Belongs to a female, aged 25-30, dark hair…we searched the database here and they’re sending a sample over to England to see if there’s a match. We should know within a few hours who the hair belongs to.”

Sam flicked open the case file and glanced at the pictures of all the people in it. And then she came across the one she was looking for.

“I already know who it is.” She said, and placed stuck the photo on the evidence room board. “I want her found.” She said to all the people in the room, and there was a frantic scramble as people, without having any real direction, went at their work.

“Do you really think it’s her?” Kevin asked uncertainly.

Sam nodded. “It’s what I would do.” She said.

“You’d go and help a murder?”

Sam looked him full in the face. “She didn’t help in the murder Kevin. She went there to help him.” She pointed at Michael’s picture now firmly stuck on the board. “She went there to help the man she loves.”

“So she went there to help him, found the bodies, maybe saw Annabel doing it and followed her? Seems a little hard to believe Sam.”

She glanced at her partner and then back at the board, full of conviction. “Like I said,” she said. “It’s what I would do.”

Georgie’s figure in the doorway disrupted the silence that had fallen on her and Kevin and as she approached Sam, she looked quite beside herself with news.

“We found a bag in the hotel room. It’s small, like hand luggage, but that’s not really important. At first we thought Annabel was diabetic, because she seemed to have a lot of syringes in her bag, so it was the natural assumption, but when we tested this…” she produced a large bottle of some clear liquid with a triumphant smile, “we found it to be a concentrated dose of a substance rife in rape cases.”

Kevin squinted at her and screwed up his nose. “Annabel’s using date rape? What for?” he exclaimed, “she’s already got Michael! Why would she need to rape other people?”

Sam shook her head. “It’s not for other people. It’s for Michael!”

Georgie nodded. “It explains why she left marks on the floors, why she would have had to drag him to the car. It also explains why we haven’t found any traces of Michael’s blood. If she had hit him unconscious she would have to do it over, and there would definitely be some trace of this interference.”

“So she’s drugging him to keep him quite.” Kevin said and put a hand to his forehead.

“We need to check out where she’s getting her supplies from,” said Sam after a little thought. “I need units at every drug dealers in an instant. We will catch this woman, I swear it.”

********************************************************************************************************

Michael was aware of gloominess and of not being able to move, and when he began to come fully around he glanced about him in dismay, knowing this to be no longer the hotel room, but some other place his assailant had brought him in order to keep him safely with her.

It smelt, at any rate. It smelt old, musty and a distinct odour of gasoline reeked through his nostrils and burnt the back of his throat. It made him thirsty and he wished for some relief somehow from, not only that, but the nightmare he seemed to have found himself in.

He found that, eventually, when his was able, he could rest his elbows on the edge of the surface he was lying on and could life himself partially as far as his bonds would allow to look about him. At first this was a sickening process due to the main fact that he must have spent an age lying on his back and hadn’t been vertical, as far as he was aware, until that moment. But after persevering and being sick once, he was finally able to look about himself with some interest.

There were candles dotted around the room, burning themselves down so low that they seemed useless against the pervading dark. His bags were open on the floor, and he found, with interest that Annabel’s bags were there too, only opened and scattered around the floor. There was dust and grime everywhere. She had obviously been hunting because there was a collection of some odd ends and useful tools next to the exit, and near that was a large barrel. The door was open onto minutely, and the smallest sliver of light entered the main room where he was. He gazed at the light longingly and found himself wishing to be once again under the sun and not trapped in the dark. He could feel the warmth on his skin now, and it flashed back into his mind the memory of holding Chelsea on the hotel veranda back at the beginning of their trip to Hollywood, where the awkwardness of their past had melted away and the beginning of something new between them had begun.

He smiled at the memory and felt himself breathe easily in its heavenly peace. It had been a perfect moment in his life that he had no idea that he had stored away. He was glad of it now for the comfort it brought him was immense and the beauty of her countenance that day far outweighed any other delightful image he could call up.

He looked back at the sliver of light and sighed one of the most heartfelt and innermost sighs he could muster, knowing that the life he and Chelsea had once had was as far away now as the moon itself, and he knew it would be very hard to get back from this place of hell he had found himself in.

He was about to turn from the sliver of light when he was sure he saw it flicker. He shut his eyes and opened them again, and told himself the darkness was getting to him when the light went out all together.

Michael’s heart began racing, knowing that the only one coming to him was surely Annabel, and he knew what that would mean for him. More darkness and more black than he could remember. He would forget and miss days and would not be able to look after himself properly. He would always remain helpless in her captivity.

The door creaked as a pressure was placed upon it, and the sliver of light had disappeared. The door groaned and there was a sound of metal scraping metal as it was shoved open.

Michael shut his eyes and felt the sunlight enter the room with a burst of warmth. The light blinded him when he opened his eyes and he felt hands touch first his hands and then his face.

It was at this moment that Michael believed he was dead. And it was when the angel spoke to him that he knew he was dead.

“You don’t have to be in the dark anymore,” she said, and Michael, overcome with shock and fear fainted into the arms of his angel, unaware of who she was and why she was there.