by Dale Mayer
The doctor had been in earlier, almost as soon as Miles had left. After checking her over, he’d said that he wanted her to stay overnight, and then they’d see how the bruising and her other injuries were. She had only then heard about the stitches at the back of her head. They hadn’t bother her when she laid down, probably because of any numbing gel and painkillers. But, since there was no concussion, it could have been much worse. She’d thought something was in her hair, but, as she had explored the area, she found a couple sutures. No wonder she had a headache.
When Nico finally came back, she studied his face and asked, “Good news or bad news?”
“Well, they found dozens of photographs of you in the second apartment,” he explained gently. “So the police know they’re on the right track. Forensics is working on it. They’ve picked up a couple fingerprints but don’t know whose they are yet.”
“Well, fingerprints would also be good news. Photographs at least to link him to my case,” she said. “And I know that’s good news, but I feel sick to my stomach.” As a matter of fact, her stomach rolled inside as she thought about this man taking photos and stalking her.
“I hear you,” he said, “but stand strong. You’re free, and this guy’s on the run, and now he’s lost his home base too.”
“Or his home base is one of many,” she said. “I didn’t get the feeling that he cared particularly about anything. As if, like I said, he’d done this many times before.”
“And that’s quite possible,” he said. “We just need an ID, and then we can maybe track some more of his movements.”
“If he’s really stayed to ground all this time,” she said, “he could have places like this in multiple cities.”
“We believe he may have been doubling up on apartments everywhere.”
“That’s a huge cost,” she muttered.
“And so then we have to consider how he’s making his money. How much money does he have?” Nico asked. “Do you know anybody in your world who has that kind of money to do something like this?”
“Of course,” she said. “Modeling puts you in touch with all kinds of people. But I don’t think I know any who are serial kidnappers or people who would buy another person. But money does funny things to you. I think it can ruin the core of many bad people and even some good ones.”
“It doesn’t have to,” he said with a smile. “In some cases, it allows a good person to help lots of people.”
“Then I’ve met the wrong kind,” she said sadly. She shifted in the bed, wincing as her ribs once again screamed at the ache from the movement. “Can you help me lower the bed so I can stretch out for a nap again?” she whispered.
He helped her adjust the bed so it was flatter. “Isn’t your sister coming back with coffee?”
“Yes,” she said. “I just need to close my eyes for a little bit.”
“Good enough,” he said. “I’ve got lots of work here.”
“What kind of work?”
“Well, your captor rented that second apartment under the alias John Smith.”
That startled a surprising snort out of her. “Well, that’s not very original.”
“But it obviously works,” he said. “Just think about it. The guy managed to rent an apartment.”
“But both of them?”
He shook his head. “The other one was a corporation who thought the place was empty.”
She stared at him. “Seriously? So, we have a plain thinker, and somebody who likes to keep things simple. He’s not creative, and he likes to do things by routine.”
Nico’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s a very good analysis,” he said.
“Yeah. I should be a profiler in my next life,” she said in a deadpan voice. “Obviously I’m kidding. But he’s youngish. Under forty probably and yet has money. He’s also very, very efficient.”
“How did he move?”
She stared at him in confusion. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Did he have a strict military bearing? Was he relaxed? Did he have clipped footsteps?”
“He glided,” she said. “Almost couldn’t hear his footsteps when I had the blindfold and the earmuffs on. And, when they were off, I kept straining to hear. But there was like nothing to hear. Just a little bit of a sound on the flooring.”
“So he was really good at moving in the shadows then?”
“But there was something else. Like an economy of movement, if you understand what I’m trying to say,” she said, thinking about it. “No wasted efforts. He didn’t, you know, move a muscle or move his hand any farther than was absolutely necessary. So, when I say efficient, I mean, he did what he did, and there was no dropping of his hands or waving of his hands, and, when he needed to reach out, he did what he wanted to do and then put his hand away again.”
“I’ve met guys like that,” Nico said. “An economy of movement is a good way to describe it.”
She smiled and said, “It’s what you do when you’re hurt or when you’re tired. Or at least I do. I preserve every muscle effort, so I do the absolute minimum.”
“But some people aren’t automatically smooth like that,” he said.
“Well, this is one of those guys who are. Yet he never appeared tired. He never appeared to be dragging his feet. He came in, did what he needed, then left.”
“Right. But bored?”
“Yes,” she said and shared the way he spoke and acted, even the way he’d fed her the sandwich.
“As if he’s done this so often that he knew exactly how you’d react.”
“Which I think is the only reason why I got away. He didn’t expect me to be any different than the other women he’s kidnapped,” she said slowly. “This guy really needs to be taken out.”
“We’ll take care of that,” he said. “You just close your eyes and sleep. If Ruby returns in the meantime,” he said, “she can sit and wait. But chances are, she’ll be a little bit yet.”
“Make sure you wake me,” she said. “I don’t want to miss seeing her again.”
“I’ll wake you,” Nico said. “Just go to sleep.”
She listened to his voice, realizing that she was already three-quarters under. “Good night,” she whispered and let sleep take her deep beneath.
With every cupboard and every drawer opened, the authorities found little bits and pieces about who this man was. He didn’t cook. There were no dishes other than one plate and one bowl and one cup. Just to feed his captive, damn him. There was no cutlery. There was a coffeemaker, and there was instant coffee. “I don’t think he lives here full-time either,” Miles said to the detective.
“I agree with that. This is another apartment that he uses for a purpose.”
“There are no laptops, no electronics, no chargers,” he noted when they both stepped into the bedroom. “Why are there no chargers?”
“He probably has a backpack and takes everything with him.”
“I don’t know if he had a backpack when Vanessa saw him at street level.”
“Would she have even noticed?” he asked. “She was in a panic, injured and saw him briefly.”
“I know.” He pulled out his phone and sent a text, asking his contact for the video feeds from the sidewalk and if anybody had searched them for a visual on our John Smith, our John Ambrose.
It came back, replying, Yes, but nothing.
How can that be?
Not sure.
Miles frowned and put away his phone. “There should be some traffic cam that picks him up. This is a busy intersection.”
“Quite true,” the detective said. “We’ve already searched though. And the traffic cam outside this building went down this afternoon. We think it was due to a major accident at the intersection.”
“Of course, just around the time that he was here?”
The detective looked at him and nodded.
“What’s the chance he’s got some handheld device that scrambles the camera feed at the time that he comes close?”
“Chances are not very many people would have access to it anyway,” Miles said. “The problem with devices like that is they’re often not shared.”
“Which is a good thing.”
They checked everything they could, and as soon as he was done and the forensic team was called in, Miles handed over his cell phone number to the detective and said, “Let me know what the forensics come back with.” And, with that, he disappeared. He headed downstairs and outside, looking for as many cameras around the street area as he could.
If there was a tool out there that disrupted cameras, he wanted to know about it. But it was likely to be some invention that nobody even heard of. It was one thing to have the electronics intact. As he walked around the corner to where Vanessa lived, he called Nico. “So cameras on the street that should have seen the incident and the kidnapper and potentially caught him on film were apparently disabled at the same time.”
“How very convenient,” Nico said.
“Too convenient,” Miles said. “Can you get traffic cam access to the other corners and see if they’re all out too? I’m wondering if he has some way of disabling or at least stopping himself from being seen on the cameras.”
“Some personal stealth mode?”
“I don’t know, but it’s weird and a little too coincidental to have the cameras always out at those times. There should be some camera views at every angle. Particularly as this is a main intersection.”
“Good point. Did anybody recognize which way he went once he hit that intersection?”
“Go through the witness statements and see if anybody saw him. And what about Vanessa herself? Maybe ask her.”
“I will when she wakes up. She’s out for the count again.”
“Good,” Miles said. “Has the doctor been by?”
“Yes. He said she’s doing better, but she’s to stay overnight, and he’ll see her tomorrow.”
“I suspect she’ll get released tomorrow, and we have to make plans for that.”
“Suggestions?”
“At the very minimum, she needs security at her home,” he said. “And beyond that, we need to find this guy so he doesn’t keep coming after her.”
“And the sister?” Nico asked.
“I know. I was thinking of that. If you can’t get one, you take the other, right? And then I keep coming back to the fact that if he can get one and there is another, why not take both?”
“That’s an ugly thought.”
“All of these are ugly thoughts.”
“When I was talking to Vanessa earlier,” Nico said, “she kept talking about how efficient his movements were, like nothing was wasted. Very economical movement is how she put it.”
“Interesting.”
“Martial arts could really help to train a person to be like that.”
“Great,” he said, “as if we don’t have enough shit going on. But what else would we expect? She never saw him with any weapon, did she?”
“Wow. I didn’t even think to ask her that,” Nico said. “Again something to discuss when she wakes up.”
“I’m walking around the corner to her place,” Miles said. “And taking photos as I go. I highly suspect that this guy will keep an eye on both apartment buildings.”
“I would,” Nico said. “If nothing else, he’d be afraid of anything he might have left behind.”
“He left the photos behind,” Miles said. “If those were my photos, I wouldn’t be happy. But, if I took the photos, I can always get more printed.”
“True enough and from his own printer.”
“Except for one thing,” Miles said. “No electronics were in that second apartment at all.”
At that, Nico whistled lightly. “So you think he has a third place?”
“I think he has to have someplace that he calls home, too far away to bother driving back and forth, so he keeps this place because it’s convenient and because that’s where his prisoner is.”
“So, what’s too far to drive?”
“And that’s another thing. Do we even know if he drives?”
“Odds are he does,” Nico said. “I think you know the percentages would say that he does.”
“So, is an hour one way too far? If so, then we need to determine a radius and see how many of these women disappeared an hour away from London.”
“I can do that. I’ll start with that parameter, then widen it if necessary,” he said. “Gives me something to do while she’s sleeping.”
“Okay, I’ll do a full sweep on her apartment, and then I’ll come back in.” And he hung up.
Chapter 9
Vanessa woke up to see her sister sitting there quietly beside her.
“Hey, sleepyhead.”
She smiled, then murmured, “Did you bring coffee?”
“Sure did,” she said. “Not much good it is if you’re sleeping though.”
“I’ll still drink it cold,” she said.
“Don’t have to. I just got in.”
With her sister’s help, she shifted in the bed so she was sitting up more, and then, when the pain finally eased, she relaxed into the multiple pillows and smiled up at her bright and cheerful younger sister. “How were things out there?”
“Completely normal,” she said. “It’s as if nobody has any idea there’s this dark underbelly that thrives in a metropolis like our city.”
“All cities are like that,” Nico said from the side. “People only live in the upper half. Nobody ever wants to descend and see what’s happening in the underbelly of society.”
“Of course not,” Ruby said. “It’s ugly down there.”
He nodded, his tone serious. “It is, indeed. But it’s that darkness, that ugliness, that creeps from the underside up into your world.”
“So how do we get rid of the entire underbelly?” Vanessa asked with interest. “I’ve been touched twice by it now, and I really don’t want to have a third encounter.” She watched his face, but he didn’t show any signs of understanding what she was talking about, so maybe Miles hadn’t shared what had happened to her as a child.
“I’m not sure there’s any way to avoid it,” he said, “and I think, if you fear it, it attracts it.”
“Probably,” she said. “But I’m lying here thinking about the options of moving to a new place, and I really don’t like that. We were really proud and happy when we bought that apartment.”
Ruby nodded.
“Do you know your neighbors?” Nico asked the sisters.
“I can tell you that my captor is not one of them,” Vanessa said with a laugh. “I’d certainly recognize him, if that were the case.”
“Me too,” Ruby added.
“But considering that he owns multiple apartments not very far away from you, and you didn’t know …”
Vanessa wrinkled her nose up at him. “That’s hardly fair.”
“Remember. This isn’t about fairness,” he said. “This is about finding the asshole who did this to you.”
A hard knock came on the door, and then it opened immediately.
She watched as Miles stepped toward her. Her heart jumped, and, even as she recognized it was him, her hands reached for him. He grabbed her fingers and leaned over, then kissed her gently on the cheek while she hugged him. “I told you that I’d come back,” he whispered.
She smiled, nodded and sank back. “You did, indeed. A man of his word. I like that.”
“Good,” he said with a soft smile. “How are you feeling?”
She could see his gaze running over her features and down her hands and arms. “I’m fine,” she said a little too firmly.
“Well, you’re improving. We’ll go with that.”
“Okay,” she said. “It’s just so hard to believe he had two apartments.”
“And I just came from your apartment,” he said. “Interesting place.”
>
“I could have met you there,” Ruby said, “and given you a tour.”
“And maybe we’ll do that later,” he said. “I wanted to see the size, the views and how many people were about. Things like that.”
“And did you go to the little grassy space in the back?” Ruby asked.
He nodded. “It’s a nice little area.”
“It used to be,” Ruby said. “But an asshole watching me as I sat there and stalking me will not make me go back again.”
“Good,” he said. “In daylight, it’s probably not a bad idea. But it’s never a good idea to make your actions habitual.”
“But that’s because we don’t think like you,” Vanessa said. “How can we? It’s just way too dark a viewpoint. We don’t want to live like that.”
“Maybe, but it doesn’t change the fact that somebody targeted you.”
“Because of the color of my hair,” she said in disgust. “That makes no sense.”
Miles turned to look at Nico. “Did you get that mapped out?”
“Yes,” he said. “And it’s pretty interesting.” He opened up his laptop and clicked a few times and then swiveled it so that Miles could see. He walked over and lifted it up to take a look and saw at least eight dots within that circle.
“So, if he’s using this as a central base,” he said, “then there has to be some other place here that’s even closer.”
“That’s what I was wondering,” Nico said. “Eight of them just in this circle. So, eight redheads were taken within this general area around London. And they’re all fairly scattered.”
He nodded. “What about the other nine? Did you map them?”
“Here’s a map of all seventeen that we have figured out so far. And now, of course, one has escaped.”
Miles shot her a special smile at that.
She could feel her heart warming, knowing she’d done something that he really approved of. Hell, she approved of it too. She shouldn’t be looking for his approval, but it was really nice to see how proud he was of her for managing to escape this psycho. She motioned at the laptop. “May I take a look at that, please?”