Nature of Darkness

by Robert W. Stephens

  She swiftly headed back down the stairs, but tread lightly attempting to remember where the creaks had been. Hopefully she could find something in the basement that would work. Jenna went to the table that was closest to the staircase. It was covered with a sheet. She thought it might be a workbench. She pulled the sheet off and saw a stainless-steel surface. It wasn’t the type of table you’d find in someone’s house. It looked more like an operating table in a hospital. There was a metal bucket under the table. She looked inside and saw traces of dried blood on the bottom.

  The only other things in the room were the tall objects covered by canvas sheets. Jenna turned to the nearest one. It was about the same height as her. She yanked the sheet away and saw a white mannequin underneath. The mannequin’s face was covered with a gruesome mask. Jenna examined it more closely and saw the mask resembled the skin of someone’s face. She looked back to the medical table and grew sick when she realized that man must have removed the person’s face in the basement.

  Jenna frantically pulled the sheet off the next tall object and saw another white mannequin. This one also had a mask of flesh. With a morbid fascination, she spun around and quickly yanked the canvas sheets off each object. They were all mannequins, and all but one had the skinned face of one of Mike’s victims. With rising panic, she realized the last mannequin must be for her.

  The man who called himself Mike sat on the edge of his bed and watched the video feed. His bedroom was in darkness and the only light was from his phone that had the security app loaded onto it. He’d placed the high definition camera on the heating duct that ran the length of the basement ceiling. It had a wide-angle lens that was pointed toward the table in the center of the room.

  Jenna had surprised him by picking the lock on the handcuffs, but he knew there was no way she could get past the basement door. Jenna was going nowhere, but she had discovered the secret under the canvas sheets.

  “Kill her, now,” the voice said.

  “It’s not time. You told them they had three days,” Mike said.

  “It doesn’t matter. We will not return her.”

  “You said we wouldn’t harm her. She isn’t on the list.”

  “You will take her face and add it to our collection. If you don’t, then I will take yours,” the voice said.

  Mike touched the flesh of his cheek without thinking. The skin was smooth and soft.

  “No, I won’t let you.”

  “You will kill her for us,” the voice said.

  Mike dropped to his knees and covered his face with his hands.

  “No, I won’t hurt her. She’s done nothing wrong.”

  Mike then screamed from the pain. He felt the flesh of his face tearing as if someone were dragging several dull blades across it at once. He crawled to a nearby mirror. He slowly lowered his hands. Even in the darkness of the room, he could see the blood rolling down his face and onto his neck.

  “We’ll take your face,” the voice said, “and reveal you to be the monster you really are.”

  23

  The Fishing Pier

  Penfield hadn’t driven home after his meeting with Marcus at Central State. Instead, he’d taken Henry Atwater back to Richmond and then driven southeast on interstate 64 to the Hampton Roads region of Virginia. He’d lived and worked there most of his life and knew the area like the back of his hand. He could easily picture the area in his mind, yet he hoped something would come to him if he were there in person.

  There was something about standing at the scene of a crime that would trigger something deep inside him – some vital clue his conscious mind had missed. Angela Darden’s supposed death hadn’t come at the hands of someone else, but it may as well have been. The MAI investigation had broken her, as it had almost broken him.

  Fort Monroe, which had been an active Army post for over a hundred years before the Pentagon had shut it down, held a special significance to Penfield, as it had for Angela. It was the setting for Penfield’s last case as an official member of law enforcement. That had also been the investigation where he’d reconnected with Henry Atwater and his career had taken a trajectory he could never have imagined.

  It was dark by the time Penfield exited the interstate and drove down the back roads to get to the fort. The temperature had dropped as a cold front moved in and the wind had picked up. That explained the complete lack of people as Penfield parked his car by the wooden fishing pier, which was almost always full of people in the warmer months.

  Penfield climbed out and immediately heard the waves of the Chesapeake Bay crashing into the rocks of the seawall. He walked toward the entrance to the pier. Penfield looked around the area. There were no security video cameras anywhere, not that there should have been. Fenwick Road, which ran past the fishing pier, had very little traffic. It didn’t even have a stoplight.

  There were a few homes that had a good view of the area, but their living rooms and master bedrooms were most likely in the back of the houses and faced the stone walls and moat of the fort.

  Angela could have come here in the middle of the night with almost no chance of anyone seeing her jump off the pier. Of course, there was another possibility and it was the one Penfield was counting on. She could have left her car at the dock and walked a few short blocks to another parking lot.

  Fort Monroe consisted of a combination of soldiers’ houses and office buildings. Most of the houses had been rented to private citizens after the Army left, but the bulk of the offices were still empty several years later. None of the buildings or homes could be sold since the Fort Monroe property was owned by the National Park Service.

  Furthermore, the buildings all violated current safety codes. A local business would have to dump tens of thousands into renovating a building they could never own. It didn’t make sense, which is why they were still empty almost a decade after the military’s departure.

  That would have played to Angela’s advantage. She could have placed a second car in one of the large empty lots and no one would have noticed. Or she could have taken a taxi to the train station, which was only a few miles away. From there, she could have gone anywhere in the country.

  Penfield walked to the end of the pier and looked out to the Chesapeake Bay. The bay averaged twenty feet deep, which was more than enough to drown yourself. Still, drownings made up a small percentage of suicides. Of course, that didn’t mean she hadn’t done it. Penfield reminded himself that he was basing his thoughts on how he felt today, not ten years ago. His feelings were still raw, but they’d been a thousand times as intense during the case.

  He hadn’t been anywhere near as close to Marcus as Angela had been. She was also recovering from a brutal injury. Penfield had first-hand experience of what it was like to get shot. It wasn’t just an injury to the body. The mental toll was also taxing and in some ways it was worse.

  The body could heal, but the mind was never the same. It changed you. It made you more fearful, more anxious, and you questioned everything you did, hoping you wouldn’t make the same mistake that had put you in that situation to begin with. Angela’s soul had been devastated. It was foolish to believe that she might not take her own life.

  Penfield closed his eyes. He felt the bitter wind on his face. He heard the waves around him. He thought back to his conversations with Angela, not the ones that involved murder investigations, but the moments in between. Sometimes it had been a few minutes in a car as they drove to a crime scene. There had also been the handful of times the team had gone out for a drink after solving an especially difficult case.

  Penfield was an investigator at heart, but he didn’t need to be one to have noticed the attraction between Angela and Marcus. They’d been work partners, yes, but that always seemed to extend into social situations, even in larger groups. She’d hung on his every word, as he had on hers.

  There had been moments, though, when Penfield had been alone with her. He remembered one stakeout in particular. They’d spent the night together in his car,
watching an apartment for signs of a local thug who’d killed a clerk in a liquor store robbery.

  Their conversation had wandered from one topic to another that night. At one point, she’d discussed her love of art, especially the paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe that he’d seen before in her home. He’d been reminded of that after seeing O’Keeffe’s work hanging in Lisa Darden’s living room.

  It had been more than that, though. Angela had discussed her desire to see New Mexico and the beautiful light and landscapes that had attracted so many renowned artists. Penfield had told her about a cross-country trip he’d taken with a friend in between college semesters. They’d driven through Albuquerque on their way to California, but they hadn’t taken a side trip to Santa Fe. It was one of the handful of cities he’d wanted to see that they’d not gotten around to.

  If Angela had faked her death, then she would have needed to start over somewhere. From Penfield’s perspective, there were two possible courses of action. The first was to go somewhere that offered some economic advantage, namely a piece of property that had been willed to her, or a friend who could help her build a new life. He discounted that option since it would have defeated the reason for her staged suicide.

  The second option was that she’d go somewhere where she could become a new person. It wouldn’t be a destination chosen at random. There would be a symbolic purpose behind the decision. She would not call herself Angela. She would not be a cop. She would be the other person she dreamed about during that long stakeout in the car.

  Penfield turned from the Chesapeake Bay and looked back toward the fort. He saw the lighthouse that had helped guide ships for decades. He saw the brick and wooden houses that ran along the outer edge of the moat. It was the same view Angela would have had ten years ago. She was alive. She had to be.

  He walked back down the fishing pier and climbed into his car. He grabbed his phone off the passenger seat and logged onto an internet travel website.

  Doug McMahon left his house before Cameron’s friend arrived. He sent her a text message and asked her to get there as soon as possible. His wife had gone into their bedroom and locked the door after their argument in his study. He didn’t blame her. He knew he could be cold and borderline hurtful when he was deep into an investigation. Jenna’s abduction had taken that to a new level.

  He flip-flopped between wanting to tell Cameron everything or nothing at all. He also knew it was a ridiculous internal debate since his wife knew him better than anyone. Sometimes he thought she might know him better than he knew himself. He couldn’t keep things from her, not unless she was content to not know something.

  The drive from his home to Quantico seemed to take twice as long as usual. He couldn’t keep his thoughts from drifting back to Penfield. The man he thought could never let him down had betrayed him and it had come at the worst possible time. He didn’t understand how his friend had thought it was a good idea to take that crazy old man to the interview with Marcus Carter. Henry Atwater couldn’t be trusted, yet Penfield had brought that snake into the investigation. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to forgive his friend.

  McMahon finally arrived at Quantico. He exited his car and entered the office building. Agent Porter was already there. They made eye contact. Then he saw her eyes dart to a tall man with a military-style haircut and the hard look to match. It was Samuel Granier, the agent assigned to take over for McMahon. This was about to get even more uncomfortable.

  McMahon walked up to Porter and Granier.

  “Sam,” McMahon said, and he nodded to the agent.

  “My condolences on your daughter getting taken. We’ll get her back. Don’t worry,” Granier said.

  “I appreciate that, Sam, but if that was your way of also telling me I’m not wanted here, then you have another think coming. There’s no way I’m not involved,” McMahon said.

  “I expected as much, but let’s get one thing clear. I’m running this operation now and you know exactly why. You would be saying the same thing if the situation was reversed,” Granier said.

  McMahon didn’t reply.

  Porter turned to him.

  “We got that information you wanted on Angela Darden’s bank account,” Porter said.

  “What did you find?” McMahon asked.

  “She had two accounts with Bank of America – a savings account and a checking. She closed both accounts a few days before she died. The savings account had fifteen hundred in it and the checking had a little more than twenty thousand.”

  McMahon thought back to his conversation with Penfield. He’d told him that Angela had left her niece ten thousand dollars in cash. That left over ten thousand dollars unaccounted for. So, where had the rest of the money gone? It was more than enough to start over. Angela wouldn’t have been living in luxury, but she could have easily bought a bus ticket for a city anywhere in the country.

  “Why did you want her to check into those accounts?” Granier asked.

  McMahon gave him the rundown on Marcus Carter’s demand to see Angela and the theory that she might not have killed herself.

  “She left ten grand to her niece, so that means there was a nice chunk of change unaccounted for,” McMahon said.

  “Is there anything else you want me to follow up on Angela Darden?” Porter asked McMahon.

  Before McMahon could reply, Granier answered for him.

  “No, we don’t have time to chase down some ghost. Our attention needs to be on finding Jenna McMahon. We find her, we find our guy.”

  McMahon was about to say something when he saw Santos and Webb approaching.

  “I think we finally caught a break,” Santos said.

  He handed Granier the folder he was carrying. Apparently, Santos and Webb had gotten the message loud and clear that McMahon was no longer in charge.

  McMahon walked closer to Granier as he opened the folder. He saw a photograph of a Hispanic male. He guessed his age at around thirty-five.

  “That’s Luis Vargas,” Webb said. “He’s one of the security guards at Central State.”

  “We ran background on him like we did all the employees. He has no criminal record, not even a speeding ticket. There was also nothing unusual about his bank accounts or phone records,” Santos said.

  “What makes you suspect him?” Granier asked.

  “We went over all of the recent surveillance footage of Marcus Carter’s cell. We know Kara Carr was taken recently,” Webb said.

  “So, unless Marcus planned her murder months ago, then someone would have had to have talked to him in the last few weeks,” McMahon said.

  “Yes, and according to the video, no one talked to him, nor does he talk to anyone else,” Santos said.

  “But we know he had to,” Porter said.

  “Someone must have altered the footage,” Granier said.

  “Vargas is one of five people with easy access to the surveillance system. I had all of them tailed. Guess what we found when we followed Vargas on his day off? He was driving a brand-new BMW X5. That car goes for close to sixty thousand. Vargas makes all of twenty-eight thousand as a security guard,” Webb said.

  “You ran the plates?” McMahon asked.

  “The car is registered to Vargas’ mother who he lives with. She’s retired and living off social security. Vargas owns a ten-year-old Honda Civic, which is what he drives to work. We spotted his Civic in the surveillance video of the Central State parking lot. He never once drove the BMW to work,” Santos said.

  “Could he really be that foolish?” Porter asked.

  “Trust me. I’ve seen way worse,” Granier said, and he turned back to Santos and Webb. “What about his accounts? Do they show him making payments for the new car?”

  “He’s got a credit card that’s maxed out and he’s got a little less than five hundred in a checking account. We didn’t see any payments to a car dealer, not even a deposit,” Webb said.

  “He paid cash for the car,” McMahon said.

  “Vargas wo
rks the night shift, doesn’t he?” Porter asked.

  Santos nodded.

  “It would be easy for him to get to Marcus unnoticed,” Porter continued.

  “That’s him,” Granier said, and he held up the photo of Luis Vargas so the others could see it. “This is our link between the two men.”

  McMahon looked at the photo again. Vargas might not know where Jenna was being held, but he would know how to reach the man who did.

  24

  Santa Fe

  Penfield left Fort Monroe and drove to a nearby store. He bought a few items of clothing, some toiletries, and a small gym bag. Afterward, he checked into a hotel near the Norfolk airport and was asleep by ten o’clock. He’d booked an early morning flight to Santa Fe, New Mexico with a connection in Dallas, Texas. He hadn’t told McMahon about the trip. He didn’t want to be a distraction to his friend, especially if his hunch about Angela proved to be a dead-end. He didn’t want to even consider what he’d do next if she wasn’t there.

  The flight from Norfolk left on time, as did the connection in Dallas, and Penfield arrived in New Mexico by late morning. He was starving since he hadn’t eaten anything the day before. He grabbed a sandwich and a bottle of water at one of the overpriced shops on the way to the rental car booth. He didn’t have a reservation for a car, but he was able to rent a four-door sedan with no trouble.

  Santa Fe’s population was under a hundred thousand, but he still thought he could find Angela quickly, even though she’d almost certainly changed her name. He’d researched the area the night before, as well as during the two flights. The arts district, which Angela would have been attracted to if his theory held water, was confined to a fairly small place. Someone would recognize her photo. He simply needed to come up with a convincing and non-threatening story to compel a person to give him the information.