Death Notice

by Lolli Powell

  The rest was easy, first one leg twisted around until the foot passed through the circle made by her arms and the cuffs, then the other. She relaxed her throbbing shoulders for a few moments before pulling the gag from her mouth, starting to feel a glimmer of hope. Her hands weren’t free, but they were in front of her where they might be of some use. Her feet were free, and her mouth available for screaming—or better yet, biting, since she didn’t think screaming would do much good. No, it would be better to attack first and yell for help later.

  ***

  He felt high with his accomplishment, his blood racing and his heart pounding sharp bursts of pleasure through his body. It had been ridiculously easy. She was his, had always been his, and he had taken her. In his mind, he replayed the scene of her stooped over the old woman, her head bent, like a sacrificial animal waiting for the blow. It had been beautiful.

  His plan was moving like clockwork. The trap had been set, and soon the man who had taken his father from him would take the bait. Then the real fun would begin.

  CHAPTER 53

  Fate had smiled on Will all the way from Indianapolis as he drove twenty, and sometimes thirty, miles over the speed limit without seeing a single police cruiser. He slid into the lot of Jen’s building, praying he hadn’t used up all his good luck. He had to find her, and he had to find her quickly.

  Lonnie had called him shortly after he’d left the Indianapolis city limits and told him about finding Ada. He’d also told him about the envelope left with his name on it.

  “He’s got her, Will.” Lonnie’s voice had broken, and for second or two, there was silence on the phone. Then Will heard him take a deep breath before he continued. “He’s left a phone number and says you—and only you—have to call it or he’ll kill her.”

  Will swerved to the side of the road, bouncing over uneven ground, tires throwing gravel, and fought the wheel till he came to a stop.

  “Give me the number.”

  “No.”

  “What do you mean, no?” He gritted his teeth. “Give it to me.”

  “I’ll give you the number, but I’ll only give it to you in person.”

  “We’re wasting time—”

  “I give it to you now, you’ll go after him on your own, and we’ll probably never see either one of you again. Meet me at Jen’s apartment. I’ll give it to you then.”

  Lonnie had disconnected before Will could respond, and after he slammed his hands on the steering wheel several times, tears of anger, frustration, and fear filling his eyes, he slumped back in the seat for a minute. Lonnie was right. He had to be smart about this if he hoped to save Jen. If she wasn’t already dead—and he couldn’t accept that she was—then he had some time. Artie—and he was sure it was Artie now, Artie getting his revenge for Will’s role in capturing his father—had lured him to Indianapolis with the phone call. He would know it would take some time for him to find out the phone call was a fake and get back to town.

  An hour later, he slid into Jen’s lot, threw the gearshift lever into PARK, and was out of the car before the engine had completely died. Two marked units sat next to Lonnie’s unmarked, along with Pat O’Neill’s van. As he opened the door to Jen’s building, he saw a uniformed officer exit the building across the street and head toward the one next to it. They were canvasing the neighbors to see if anyone had seen anything, but it was pointless. He knew who had taken Jen, and finding a neighbor who had seen it happen wasn’t going to save her.

  “Give it to me.” He stepped through the door into Jen’s apartment, his hand extended.

  Lonnie’s eyes widened slightly, but he didn’t argue. He handed the envelope to Will and stepped between him and the door. Will started to tell him to get out of the way, but he stopped. First, the note. He stared for a second, noting the gray fingerprint powder that surrounded his name on the front, then turned it over. The flap had been torn open.

  “Pat checked it and the envelope for prints,” Lonnie said. “He got nothing, so he probably wore gloves. Note’s short and to the point.”

  Will pulled out the folded piece of plain white paper smudged with the fingerprint powder. He felt a wave of nausea wash through him at the thought of Artie’s hands having held the sheet, but he fought it off and unfolded the note. Lonnie was right about it being to the point.

  “Call the number below if you want to see Detective Dillon alive again. If I hear any voice but yours, she dies—slowly.”

  “We haven’t been able to trace the number to anyone—no surprise. It’s bound to be a burner. We can put a trace on it, though, and when you call it—”

  “No.” Will started for the door, but Lonnie sidestepped to block him.

  “What do you mean, no? Who do you think you are, Anderson?” Lonnie’s face was turning a dangerous shade of red, and the part of Will’s mind that wasn’t focused on Jen wondered if he had high blood pressure. “She’s been ours a lot longer than she’s been yours.”

  Will took a deep breath. It wasn’t going to do Jen any good if they wasted time fighting turf battles.

  “I’m not saying you don’t care about Jen,” he said. “But a trace isn’t going to do any good. Say you narrow down the location he’s in when he answers my call. How long do you think he’s going to stay there? He’s probably going to run me all over creation making phone call after phone call and will probably have me under observation the whole time to make sure I’m not followed. If he sees cops showing up where he was when he answered the first call, that will be it for Jen. I’m not taking that chance. Artie wants me, and I’m going to give him what he wants.”

  Before Lonnie could respond, Will continued.

  “Brandon?”

  “He’s okay,” Lonnie said. “The marked unit sent to get him got there just as the taxi he’d called pulled up. He’s scared, but he’s okay.”

  Will closed his eyes for a second.

  “Thank God,” he muttered. Then he remembered the old lady. “What about Jen’s neighbor?”

  “She’s not okay,” Lonnie said. “Still alive, but last time I checked, she hadn’t regained consciousness. He hit her pretty hard. My guess is he intended to finish her off, and he probably would have, but…”

  “Jen showed up,” Will finished for him.

  “We think so.” Lonnie ran his fingers through his hair. “Look, Will, I get what you’re saying, but you know we have to have some way to know where you end up. We can put a tracker on your car—”

  “Then do that,” Will said. “And you can use Find My Phone and Find My Friends—that is, until Artie tosses my phone. Don can get me something wearable from the Cincinnati office.”

  He pulled out his cell phone and pressed Don’s number.

  “I need a tracker,” he said as soon as Don answered. “Something I can wear that Artie won’t be likely to find. And I need it fast.”

  “Way ahead of you,” Don said. “Lonnie told me what the note said. I’m on my way back from Cincy now with a couple of things you can use. Where do you want me to meet you?”

  Will started to tell him to come to Jen’s apartment, but he stopped. Maybe he was being paranoid, but there was always the possibility that Artie had left a bug when he took Jen. Maybe he had heard everything Will had said.

  “That’ll take too long,” he said. “I’ll just have to go with the car tracker and hope for the best. I’ll go to the station and get that and make my call from there.”

  “Okay.” Don sounded puzzled, but he didn’t question it. “I’ll see you there.”

  “It would be a couple of hours at best before he could get back with something,” Will said in answer to Lonnie’s questioning look. “Let’s go. Artie’s probably going to give me a time limit to get wherever it is he wants me to go, so I don’t want to make the call until I’m ready to roll.”

  Don was waiting when Will and Lonnie strode into the detective section. Will had explained his worry about a bug to Lonnie on their way into the building, and he quickly explaine
d it to Don.

  “So what have you got?” he said.

  Don laid out a key ring with a fob tracker, a chain with a St. Christopher medallion, and a pair of shoe inserts.

  “These.” Will picked up the inserts and sat down to remove his shoes.

  “Shoe inserts?” Lonnie said.

  “Developed to keep track of dementia patients, but it works for undercover work, too,” Don said.

  “I can’t keep up with technology.” Lonnie shook his head. “But why not go with all of it? That way if he tumbles to the key ring or the medallion, he might think that’s all you got.”

  “Good idea.” Will pulled his key ring out of his pocket and tossed it to Don. “Do me a favor and transfer my car keys to that ring.”

  Lonnie stepped out of the room to get the tracker for the car. By the time Will had the inserts in his shoes and the shoes back on his feet, Don had transferred the keys. He handed the medallion and key ring to Will just as Lonnie stepped back into the room.

  “The bird’s on your car,” Lonnie said, using the department’s nickname for the tracker. “You ready to make the call? We can record and track it and maybe we’ll get lucky—”

  “No. I’m not making it from a department phone.”

  “Come on, Anderson,” Lonnie started to protest, but Will cut him off.

  “I know you’re clueless on technology, but even you have to know that the number calling shows up on all phones nowadays. Don’t you think Artie will recognize the department’s number?”

  “Well, yeah, sure, but wouldn’t he expect you to at least try to trace it?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. I’m not taking the chance. I’m calling from my cell, and I’m calling from my car.”

  He started for the door, but Lonnie jumped in front of him.

  “Wait a sec. You can’t just walk out of here—”

  “I can and I am. The tracker’s on my car, I’ve got my phone and key fob in my pocket, a medallion on my neck, and trackers in my shoes. So track me but not too close. Okay?”

  They stared at each other for several seconds before Lonnie sighed and stepped out of Will’s way.

  “I guess it will have to be, won’t it?” he said.

  CHAPTER 54

  Jen snapped awake as the world fell silent. The car had stopped and the motor had shut off. She shifted position to try to get the kinks out of her body, amazed that she had dozed off. A combination of the head blow and the hum of the engine, she guessed, hoping her falling asleep wasn’t an indication that her head injury was serious. Wasn’t a person with a concussion supposed to stay awake, and if the person didn’t, wasn’t that a bad sign?

  Although, she thought, a concussion is probably the least of my worries now. If I don’t get away, dying from a head injury might be a blessing.

  But she wasn’t going to die yet, period. She had to get those thoughts out of her mind. She had to live for Brandon, and she had to live to put an end to the monster who had killed all those women and probably killed Ada.

  She heard the creak of a car door hinge that needed greasing, and a few seconds later she heard the door shut. She rolled onto her side, facing the back of the car. After she’d worked the cuffs over her feet and around to the front of her body, she’d slipped her pumps back on, wishing she were wearing athletic shoes or boots or steel-toed work shoes. If she’d had an inkling she’d be trying to kick a killer in the face, girly shoes would not have been her first choice. But it was too late for a wardrobe change now.

  She heard a clicking sound as her abductor hit the trunk release on his remote. The trunk lid started moving up, and she squinted her eyes against the sunlight. As the gap widened, she saw tan chinos first, then a brown leather belt with a brass buckle, and as the bottom of a blue plaid shirt came into view, she pulled her right knee closer to her chin. At the same time she stretched her left leg out as far as she could and pressed her left foot into the side of the trunk for stability. Her aim would have to be good the first time because she wasn’t likely to get a second chance. Her first choice would be a kick to the face or throat, but even a hard kick to the chest might give her enough time to get out of the trunk where she could try to do more damage. She’d already eliminated the idea of running, at least at first. Unless her abductor was incapacitated, he’d catch her quickly. She had to hurt him bad enough to slow him down.

  As the lid continued upward, the question of who it would be flickered through her mind. Was it the creepy coroner’s assistant, Larry Adams, or the red-Corvette-driving Steve Cochran? Or was it someone they hadn’t even suspected—a customer or employee of BodyFit or someone who prowled The Factory or someone Judy and Carla and Vicki and Trish had crossed paths with at the supermarket? The only positive to the situation in which she now found herself was that she’d finally know. She just had to live long enough to tell someone.

  The lid moved the rest of the way up, and her eyes widened in spite of the sunlight as she stared at the face looking down at her. All along, it had been him. For a second she froze, but she shook it off and started to swing her foot in the direction of the face.

  “Uh-uh-uh.” The man looming over her moved his right hand from behind his back, and her attention shifted from his face to the black hole of the barrel that was pointed at her. “Don’t be a bad girl, Detective Dillon. I don’t want to have to kill you just yet, but I will.”

  He laughed.

  “You’re quite a prize, you know. I thought you might try something, but getting out of the rope and getting those cuffs around in front? Impressive!”

  He reached down and took hold of the chain that connected the two cuffs.

  “Makes it easier for me to drag you out, too.”

  He gave a yank, and the cuffs tightened and slid, abrading the skin of her wrists. He continued pulling, stepping back as he did, and she bit back a cry of pain as she felt the pressure on the bones where her wrists joined her hands. She tried to get some purchase with her feet, willing to climb out of the trunk voluntarily at this point, but he wouldn’t stop pulling. He could have ordered her to climb out at gunpoint, and she would have had no choice but to obey, but he wanted to hurt her. That was part of the fun for him.

  Her upper body slid over the edge of the trunk, then her lower body. She managed to get one foot on the ground, but before she could steady herself, he yanked hard. She stumbled, and as she started to fall, he let go of the cuffs. Her forearms took the brunt of the impact as she fell onto gravel, and she heard him chuckle. She started to push herself up, but before she could get to her knees, he grabbed hold of the cuffs again, and started to pull. He was going to drag her wherever he wanted to take her, she knew—drag her across gravel to hurt her more.

  Suddenly her anger boiled to the surface. Just as he raised a foot to take a step forward, she yanked back against the cuffs, ignoring the protests from her hands and wrists, and curled her legs under her. He hadn’t been expecting that, and the sudden movement caused him to stumble a step back toward her. She rose up on her knees and lunged forward, embedding her teeth in the meaty outer edge of the hand that held the cuffs. He yowled—a mixture of pain and anger, instinctively trying to pull away. She tasted his blood as she dug in deeper. He wanted to hurt her, did he? Well, she wouldn’t be the only one to get hurt.

  She’d gotten one leg under her and started to push off from the ground, intending to tackle him, when he swung the gun hard against the left side of her head. Her vision clouded over, and her bite loosened. He yanked his hand out of her mouth and doubled it into a fist. It seemed to come at her face in slow motion.

  Her last thought before the world went black was that he had seemed like such a nice man.

  CHAPTER 55

  It had been over three hours since Will had left the station. He’d called the number in the note and a robotic voice—the result of a voice changer he knew—had directed him to go to a nearby Walmart, buy three disposable phones, and leave his own on one of the shelves in the electronics sec
tion.

  He’s counting on it being stolen, Will thought. He’s counting on it being tracked and leading the cops away from me.

  He’d asked if he should call back on one of the disposable phones after he had them, but the voice had told him not to worry about it.

  At the store, Will paid for three flip phones and asked the clerk if he could activate them for him.

  “I won’t have Internet access for a while,” Will said, “and I need the phones.”

  The clerk had just finished activating the phones when the phone on the counter rang. Will had turned and started walking away when the clerk called out to him.

  “Hey, mister. Wait up.”

  He turned back and saw the clerk hold up a finger to wait while he scribbled something on a notepad.

  “Will do,” the clerk said. He hung up, tore the paper off the pad, and extended it to Will. “Your friend said he’s not going to be able to pick you up. Said to give him a call, and he’ll explain.”

  Will had taken the paper and nodded his head, but based on the look on the clerk’s face, his feelings must have been written all over his. He’d gone to his car, chose one of the phones, and punched in the number. A new voice that sounded like its owner had sucked on a helium balloon instructed him to go to an address three blocks away and call the number again. When he got there, he found himself in a residential neighborhood. He pulled over to the curb in front of the address and punched in the number.

  “Do you see the gray Chevy on the other side of the street?” a voice that sounded like a cartoon squirrel said.

  Guess playing with the different voices is part of the fun for him, Will thought. He’s like a sick kid.

  An older model, gray Malibu was parked two houses down facing the opposite direction. Other than his own, it was the only car parked on the street. Most driveways were empty, the cars either inside garages or driven to work by their owners. Artie had picked the neighborhood well.