Nature of Darkness

by Robert W. Stephens

  She’d been sixty seconds from putting the jack and lug wrench back in the trunk when a car had pulled up behind her. The man who’d gotten out had looked innocent enough. He’d been dressed in a blue polo shirt, khaki pants, and a black windbreaker. Still, she’d heard enough lessons from her father to know better than to trust some strange man. He’d offered to help her. She’d declined. He’d insisted. She’d declined again. Then the white powder had come.

  Jenna looked down at her right wrist. It was handcuffed to a thick metal ring, which was bolted to the top of a table. Her left wrist was free, though, so it gave her some movement to look around. The light was dim, but she could still make out details of the room. The walls were constructed of cinderblocks. There were no windows.

  She turned back to the table and examined it. It was bolted to the floor. She was sitting on one chair and there was a second chair on the opposite side of the table. Neither chair was bolted to the floor.

  There were several tall objects in the room. Each was between five and six feet tall and they were covered in dusty sheets. She turned around as best she could and saw the area behind her. There was another table. This one was much longer than the one she was beside. It was also covered with a sheet, but the sheet appeared much cleaner than the others as if it had been recently washed and pressed.

  There was a narrow staircase not far from the table. The staircase disappeared beyond the room’s ceiling, which meant Jenna was almost certainly in a basement.

  She rubbed her temple with her free hand. Her head was throbbing, and the pain came in waves. Her stomach was churning too, no doubt caused by the migraine.

  Jenna closed her eyes and tried to slow her breathing. It would do no good to panic, which was another lesson her father had taught her.

  Slow down. Breathe deeply. In through the nose and out through the mouth. Count to ten. Will your mind into a calm state.

  Her concentration was broken, though, when she heard footsteps on the stairs behind her. Jenna didn’t turn around. She went back to focusing on her breathing. She repeated a phrase in her head.

  Don’t let him see you scared. Don’t let him see you scared.

  “I was hoping you were awake,” a man’s voice said. “I wouldn’t want the food to get cold.”

  Jenna looked up and saw the man walk to the opposite side of the table from her. His clothes were different than when she’d seen him last. He was now dressed in a white dress shirt and black pants.

  He held a tray of food.

  “Of course, I could have always reheated it later, but it’s never as good the second time around, is it?” he continued.

  He placed the tray on the table.

  “Sole meuniere. I’ve always wanted to make it. It was a favorite of Julia Child. You may be a bit too young to know who she was,” the man continued.

  He pulled his chair out and sat down.

  “You can call me Mike, by the way. I know, it’s not a very original name and I’m sure you realize it’s not my real name. But it’s better than, ‘Hey you.’”

  He looked at the plate and then back to her.

  “Sorry about the plastic utensils. It seems like such a sacrilege to go through the trouble of making the dish and then expecting you to eat it with something you get in the economy section of an airplane. Are you familiar with the dish?”

  Jenna said nothing.

  “Now don’t be rude. I asked you a question. Are you familiar with the dish?”

  Jenna didn’t respond, and the man slammed his hand down on the table. Despite her best efforts, she jumped at the sudden movement.

  “I’m sorry to frighten you, but you have to learn the rules. When I ask you a question, you give me an answer. Do you know this dish?”

  “No.”

  “See, that’s all I wanted. It’s fine that you don’t know it. Many people don’t. Sole meuniere is a classic French dish. You dredge the sole in flour. Then you pan fry it in butter. This gives you a wonderful brown butter sauce. You also add parsley and lemon. Usually waiters will finish cooking it at your table as part of the show. They’ll also debone it for you at the table. I apologize for not doing so. Go ahead and try it.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Jenna said.

  “I doubt that. You’ve been down here for over twenty-four hours. You must be starving. Take a little bite.”

  “No.”

  “Now Jenna. I won’t ask a third time. Try the dish.”

  Jenna picked up the plastic fork with her free hand and tore off a piece of the fish. She put it in her mouth and chewed slowly.

  “I have to know. What do you think? Do you like it?”

  “It’s good,” Jenna said.

  Mike smiled, despite the obvious lack of enthusiasm in her compliment.

  “Wonderful. That makes me very happy. Like I said before, it was my first time making the dish. Would you like a glass of wine with it? Maybe a chardonnay or a chablis?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “My apologies also for this room. It certainly wasn’t designed for comfort. A relative built it years ago. It always used to give me the creeps when I’d visit, but now it serves its purpose.”

  “What are you going to do with me?” Jenna asked.

  “Hmmm, I’m surprised you asked me that.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re a smart girl, Jenna, at least that’s what I’ve been able to figure out from your class schedule. Still, there is all of this,” Mike said, and he gestured to the room. “I’m sure that’s having some impact on your ability to process information. To answer your obvious question, I’m using you for leverage. I want something from your father. Actually, let me be more precise. I don’t want it. I got what I wanted, but a colleague very much wants something from Agent McMahon. He’s asked nicely. I mean that’s what he told me, although I doubt that he was entirely forthcoming. It seems your father has been unwilling or unable to provide what my colleague wants. You, my dear, are motivation.”

  Mike looked at his watch. Then he turned back to Jenna.

  “The clock has already started ticking. Hopefully they got our message,” he continued.

  “What happens if my father gets this thing for your friend?”

  “First, let’s not refer to him as my friend. He’s anything but that. Second, you’re really disappointing me. I had to practically force you to try the sole meuniere. Now you’ve gone and asked me another foolish question. I’ve allowed you to see my face. Why would I do that if I intended to let you live? Don’t misunderstand me. I have no desire to kill you or any other person for that matter, but they’ve left me no choice.”

  “Who hasn’t left you a choice?”

  Mike hesitated a long moment.

  Then he said, “Perhaps I’ve judged you too quickly. You’re trying to build a connection with me, making yourself more human and vulnerable to me. Smart girl.”

  Jenna didn’t reply.

  “It will make no difference. They were all human to me. I’m not some cold-blooded killer. I didn’t want to do this, but one ultimately has to look out for oneself. There’s something else I realized. Our time here is so fleeting. In the grand scheme of things, it makes little difference if we’re here twenty years or one hundred. You are going to die in three days’ time, Jenna. Nothing will stop that. Now, I have one more thing to do before I leave you alone. I’d suggest you finish your meal by the way,” Mike said, and he stood. “If you’ll excuse me a moment.”

  He left the room but returned less than a minute later. Jenna heard a noise behind her. She turned and saw Mike hanging a large black cloth from two stands behind her.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “We don’t want to give away any details of the room. Yes, I know what you’re thinking. They can’t exactly find you by seeing a concrete wall, but we don’t want them to have any clues at all.”

  Mike walked back to the other side of the table. Jenna looked up at him and saw he had an old Polaroid ca
mera in his hands. He pointed the camera and snapped a photo of her. The photo ejected from the bottom of the camera. He pulled it out the rest of the way and waved it back and forth while it started to develop.

  “This will provide proof that we have you. I don’t think it’s necessary. They’ll know we do once they can’t find you, but I’m not the one calling the shots.”

  Mike looked at the dinner plate in front of her.

  “You haven’t touched your meal. You don’t like it after all, do you?” he asked.

  “I told you it was good.”

  “Jenna, we all know that actions speak louder than words. If you’d liked the sole meuniere, then you would have taken at least a few more bites.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and she finally broke down in tears.

  “Very well. I’ll finish it myself.”

  Mike took the tray of food from her and left the room.

  19

  Leverage

  “Anything?” Penfield asked.

  “Nothing,” McMahon said, and there was no hiding the anxiety in his voice.

  Penfield watched his friend take a quick look at Kara Carr’s mutilated body in the woods. Then McMahon turned away from her. He pulled up a second contact listing in his phone and hit the dial button.

  “Cameron, have you heard from Jenna today?” McMahon asked after a few seconds.

  Penfield noticed that McMahon had done his best to sound calm to his wife, but he doubted she’d be fooled. Penfield had had countless dinners with the couple. Cameron was as smart as they came, and she undoubtedly knew her husband’s voice well. His question had come out as too stiff, like a nervous actor in his theatrical debut who was terrified of forgetting his lines.

  Penfield couldn’t hear the other end of the call, but McMahon’s nervous expression didn’t change. That meant one thing. Cameron hadn’t heard from Jenna either.

  “Do me a favor and keep trying her. Do you have the numbers for any of her friends there?” McMahon asked.

  McMahon paused a moment while he listened to his wife.

  “No, I don’t know that there’s anything to be worried about. I just need to get a hold of her.”

  McMahon paused again.

  Then he said, “Call me if you learn anything.”

  He ended the call and turned to Penfield.

  “Nothing,” he continued.

  McMahon turned to Porter, who’d just approached him and Penfield.

  “I want you to run a trace on my daughter’s cell phone. I want to know exactly where she is. I’ll send you her number now.”

  Penfield watched as McMahon texted Porter the contact listing for Jenna.

  “It’s probably just a bluff,” Penfield said.

  “It’s not a fucking bluff and you know it,” McMahon said, and Penfield thought the statement had come out louder than McMahon had wanted.

  His friend turned back to Porter.

  “Call me as soon as you get that location. I also want a team sent there immediately. If you get any pushback from anyone, tell them I’ll have their fucking heads. Got it?”

  “Yes,” Porter said, and she hurried away.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” McMahon said to Penfield.

  Penfield nodded and they jogged back to McMahon’s SUV.

  They’d just merged onto I-95 when McMahon’s phone rang. He answered it through the vehicle’s Bluetooth system.

  “Hey, Cameron.”

  “I got a hold of Marie. She said they last saw Jenna at a hookah bar two nights ago. I looked it up. It’s on Old Picket Road in Fairfax.”

  Penfield searched for the name of the bar with his phone.

  “Marie said Jenna didn’t make it to class the next morning,” Cameron continued. “Doug, what’s going on? Where’s our little girl?”

  McMahon took a quick glance at Penfield. Then he turned back to the road.

  “Alex and I were at a crime scene today. We found something.”

  “What did you find?”

  “A note.”

  “Goddamn it, Doug. Are you going to make me beg? What did it say?” Cameron asked.

  “It said ‘I have her, Agent McMahon.’”

  “Oh my God,” Cameron said, and Penfield heard her gasp for breath.

  “I’ve got my team tracking down Jenna’s phone. We’ll find her. It’s only a matter of time.”

  “We can’t lose her. We can’t,” Cameron said through her tears.

  “We won’t. I promise.”

  “This crime scene…it’s the one that’s tied to Marcus Carter?” Cameron asked.

  “Yes, it’s the same one.”

  “Oh my God,” Cameron repeated.

  “We’ll find her. She doesn’t fit the pattern. He wouldn’t have hurt her.”

  “Don’t talk to me like I’m one of your fucking junior agents. I know when you’re lying.”

  Cameron ended the call before McMahon could respond. He slammed his hand against the steering wheel.

  “Fuck!” he yelled.

  After a long moment, Penfield said, “She’s alive, Doug. She’s leverage for Marcus, you know that. The alternative doesn’t make sense.”

  “The alternative? You mean that he’s already killed my little girl?”

  “That won’t happen.”

  McMahon’s phone rang again. He pressed the phone icon button on the steering wheel’s control panel.

  “What do you have?”

  “We found her phone. We’ve narrowed the field to an apartment complex in Anacostia. I’m sending a team there now,” Porter said.

  “Thanks, Carly. We’ll get there as soon as we can.”

  “Webb and I are on our way there now too. Hector is going to stay behind and coordinate with the locals,” Porter said.

  “My wife said a friend of Jenna’s had them at a hookah bar two nights ago.”

  “It’s called Astarte Hookah Lounge,” Penfield added, reading from a website he’d pulled up on his phone.

  “I want every one of their employees interviewed. I also want their security system checked out. They’re bound to have cameras all over that place,” McMahon said.

  “I understand. I’m on it.” Porter said.

  McMahon ended the call.

  Penfield understood his plan. McMahon had already moved beyond the apartment complex. There was almost no chance Jenna would be there in Anacostia. The person who lived there had either been paid to snatch McMahon’s daughter, which had been the extent of their involvement. If that was the case, then they probably had no idea who she was. Or, the second and more likely option was that they’d somehow come upon the phone after she’d already been taken by someone else.

  The hookah bar angle probably had better odds of paying off, at least in terms of getting an image of the killer. On the other hand, the guy had done a good job of avoiding surveillance cameras so far and they’d seen nothing to indicate he’d suddenly gotten sloppy. Still, someone might have noticed something and hadn’t realized the significance of it.

  The drive back to the D.C. area seemed to take forever, which Penfield knew had been the killer’s plan. There was a reason he’d dumped Kara Carr’s body in Hope Mills. It was at least a five-hour drive back to Fairfax and George Mason University. That meant five hours of McMahon living in hell before he could begin to get any answers, if they were even forthcoming.

  That would make McMahon reckless and desperate, the exact state the killer would want him in for the contact that Penfield was sure would occur in the near future. He just didn’t know how that contact would be made.

  They were approaching the North Carolina-Virginia border when McMahon’s phone rang again.

  “It’s Porter,” McMahon said to Penfield after taking a quick glance at his phone’s display. He answered the call, “What do you have, Carly?”

  “They got the phone at the apartment in Anacostia. The guy who lives there is named Troy Crane. They have him in custody now. He says he found Jenna’s abandone
d SUV early yesterday morning. Said it had a flat rear tire. All the doors were unlocked. He found her purse and phone on the front passenger seat,” Porter said.

  “Did he give you an address for the vehicle?”

  “Somewhere near Picket Road, a few miles from the Hookah Bar.”

  “Okay, get this Crane guy to take the team to exactly where he found Jenna’s vehicle. Tell them to send me the coordinates when they get there. Maybe a camera close by picked something up. The SUV will almost certainly have been towed by now. I want it found and I want a forensics team to comb every inch of it.”

  McMahon ended the call before Porter could respond.

  “They’re not going to find anything, are they?” McMahon asked.

  Penfield said nothing.

  “The people at the bar will have seen nothing,” McMahon continued. “We already know her friends didn’t, otherwise they would have said something to Cameron earlier. They haven’t seen her in two days, and they didn’t say a goddamn thing. Why didn’t they call someone?”

  Penfield had an answer for his friend, but he didn’t give it. People were busy leading their own lives, especially a group of distracted college students juggling a full class schedule and a possible part-time job. There were a dozen reasons for Jenna to have gone absent for a couple of days.

  He also knew where McMahon’s mind was going. The FBI agent was brilliant, and he’d already calculated the odds of finding Jenna alive. Penfield thought they had a five percent chance of finding her, if she wasn’t dead already. He hadn’t been honest with his friend earlier and he assumed McMahon knew that.

  Still, McMahon needed some sliver of hope to cling to. The truth was, though, that Jenna’s abductor didn’t need her alive to leverage McMahon. He just needed the hope of her still being alive and the abductor was bound to realize that a father would hold onto that hope no matter what.

  Their only chance was Marcus Carter. If he had ultimately been behind the kidnapping, as Penfield thought likely, then he would know they’d demand to see proof of life before agreeing to whatever deal Marcus wanted. And Penfield thought he knew exactly what that was.