Rainey could not answer that question. She only knew she was leaving the cottage to find the house, where the kidnapper had taken Katie. Her mind raced through the neighborhoods and cul-de-sacs of Chapel Hill. Finding his lair was all Rainey could let herself think about. There was so much new building since she had lived here, the old wooded areas were now speckled with houses. She needed her laptop and picked it up from the coffee table, as she went by. If Rainey looked at Google Earth images of the town, she had a better chance of finding a secluded area, with widely spaced houses, near Katie’s school. If Danny was right, and the kidnapper had not escaped the area, the piece of shit had to be nearby, holed up in a residence.
Just as Rainey’s hand hit the handle of the front door, after shutting off the alarm, one of the agents said, “Who are we supposed to watch, if you’re not here?”
“I think your services would best be used searching for this fucker, but that’s just me. You should ask your supervisor.”
The agent who had asked the question immediately pulled out his cell phone and frantically punched in a number. Rainey did not wait to find out what the supervisor said. She and Mackie went out the door, leaving the confused agents to work it out on their own. When she reached the car, she heard footsteps and turned to see two agents running down the stairs. The agent, who had been making the phone call, stood at the top of the stairs, with the phone pressed to his ear. A big black SUV was coming down the road, from where an agent had been stationed, out of sight. The guy with the phone yelled, “Stay with her!” at the agents, now standing in the yard waiting for a ride.
Rainey said, under her breath, “Good luck.”
She and Mackie climbed into her car. Rainey put the shotgun on the floor of the back seat and positioned the laptop in its holder. She fired up the engine on the Charger, just as the other agents were climbing into the black SUV. They had no chance to catch her. The Charger had already started down the driveway, before the big SUV turned around. She left rubber on the road, where the driveway met the pavement, kicking up a cloud of smoke that trailed off behind her. The Charger vanished from sight, slipping into the shadows where the trees closed in over the road.
Rainey floored the car down US Highway 64 to the junction with Highway15, called Chapel Hill Road by the locals. Mackie got on the phone with a buddy in the highway patrol. By the time she turned onto Chapel Hill Road, Rainey had an escort cruiser speeding in front of her, lights flashing, leading the way. She headed the Charger north, counting off the time in her mind that the bastard had already been holding Katie.
Rainey knew the guy probably stunned and drugged Katie. At least she would not remember the first part of her captivity, Rainey thought. The Y-Man liked to take his time, which was helpful to the investigators searching for Katie, but the more time that ticked by brought Katie closer and closer to death.
Rainey’s cell rang. She knew it had to be Danny, before she even answered it.
“Goddamnit, Rainey. I told you to say put,” he shouted at her when she answered.
Rainey hit the button on the rear view mirror and hung up on him. He could shout at her to her face when she got there, but she was coming. Rainey was coming too fast to listen to Danny barking at her through the radio speakers.
She told Mackie to fire up her laptop and pull up the satellite image of the neighborhoods around Katie’s school. While he did that, Rainey drove the car right on the cruisers tail, weaving through the early evening traffic. Darkness was enveloping the sky completely, as they flew by the downtown area of Chapel Hill, and out to the last place Katie Wilson had been seen alive.
Rainey’s cell phone rang again and she almost did not answer it, but she had to, in case it was important. Maybe Danny had calmed down. She hit the button again on the rearview mirror and answered, “Don’t yell at me, Danny.”
The faked little boy voice that spoke next sent chills down her spine. Every hair on her body stood up and the color drained from her face. She looked quickly at the mirror, as if she could see him in it. What she saw was her own white pasty face and frightened eyes staring back at her.
“Hi Rainey, do you want to come out and play?” the excited little boy voice said.
Mackie’s head snapped up from the laptop. He looked at Rainey, his eyes wide with the recognition of who the voice belonged to. He could tell from Rainey’s reaction.
Rainey thought quickly. She needed to play his game. She said, “Yes, I want to play.” Then pressing him “Is Katie there with you? Can she play with us?”
“Yep, she’s here… but she’s asleep now,” the eerie voice answered.
Rainey’s breath caught in her throat and then she asked, softly, “Can you wake her up?”
She heard him moving around. She listened to him trying to wake Katie, like a kid waking an older sibling, because mom is on the phone, “Hey, wake up! Wake up, Katie. Rainey wants to talk to you.”
Then Rainey heard the sound for which she was praying. After a few moans of protest, Katie’s heavily sedated voice, barely audible, whispered, “Rainey... help… me.”
Rainey’s heart leapt against the wall of her chest. She had to stay calm and though she wanted to scream it, Rainey said softly, “I’m coming Katie, hold on, I’m coming.”
“She’s gone back to sleep,” the voice said, in singsong.
“What’s wrong with her?” Rainey asked.
“I played with her and now she’s tired.” Rainey could almost see his preschool shrug when he answered.
Rainey needed to focus him on her, not Katie. She had to keep him talking. “You know my name, but I don’t know yours. I have to know your name so we can play together,” she said.
“It’s… Johnny,” he spit out reluctantly.
“Good, now I know what to call you, Johnny. So Johnny, how do we play the game?” Rainey asked. She repeated his name to pull him in closer to their conversation and distract him from Katie.
“First, we have to have some rules to play the game,” it was him again, talking like a six year old organizing a group of kids in the backyard. “Rainy, you have to come by yourself. If one other person tries to play our game, then Katie loses, and you know what that means.” He added quickly, “That big guy is with you, I know it. You have to drop him off, before you get here. He scares me.”
“I have an idea, Johnny,” Rainey said, in the tone that adults use with small children. “Why don’t you let Katie go home and you and I can really play alone together, just like before?”
He thought for a moment, then said, “Okay, I’ll let her go when you get here, if she can walk, she’s kind of tired.” He paused to let that sink in. “Yeah, I’ll let her go,” he was bargaining, “but you have to leave your guns in the car. I’m not allowed to play with guns.”
Mackie was motionless, wide eyed, staring at her, while she talked to the maniac on the other end. His first move was to grab his cell phone, which he flipped open in his hand. He started to punch a number, but Rainey stopped him, by silently placing her hand over his.
Rainey answered the boy inside the man, “That’s a deal, Johnny, no guns, but you have to let Katie go, or I won’t play. You have to promise.” She had to talk only to the boy, not remind the childlike creature on the other end that he was insane. He probably knew it, when he was not living a fantasy, but right now, the child was in control.
“Okay, I promise,” he said, a little whiny. As always with children, some codifications had to be added. The boy said, “You have to pull over and let the big man out, so I can hear him leave.”
“Do you want me to do that right now, Johnny?” Rainey eyes darted around her. They were on a busy highway.
The child became insistent, “Do it now, Rainey, or Katie can’t go home.”
“Okay, I’m pulling the car over Johnny.” Rainey did as she was told and slowed the car, pulling off onto the emergency lane. The highway patrolman stopped about three hundred yards further down the road.
Mackie was s
haking his head no. He was not about to let her go off alone, especially since he did not know where she was going. Rainey looked at him, mouthing the words, “Get out.”
Johnny was impatient, “I didn’t hear the door open.”
Mackie opened the door, but did not move. Rainey begged him with her eyes to get out. She was even more insistent when Johnny said, “I can still see you.”
Rainey looked around her, eyes flashing on every vehicle.
“No, silly,” Johnny said, “I can see the inside of your car.”
Mackie and Rainey both checked every surface of the car. They found the small camera above the windshield, cloaked by the black cloth interior, almost invisible. It was wireless, sending a signal to the killer. He had to be close, in a car driving by, or parked on an overpass, or in a house nearby, and she had driven into his range. He knew she had to come this way to get to the school. Rainey knew the specs on the best wireless cameras on the market. She knew that meant the man calling himself little Johnny was within at least two thousand feet of her location. She could not tell Mackie that, Johnny could see her hands and face probably, but someone would know. Someone would know where to look for them.
Johnny’s voice took on a more sinister tone, “Tell him to get out, or we don’t play the game, and I go back to playing with Katie and you will never see her again.”
“Get out, Mackie,” Rainey said.
He stared at her helplessly and slowly got out of the car. Mackie gave her one last look, pleading with her not to go alone, before he closed the door.
“He’s out,” she said to the voice in the speakers.
“Now, drive ahead and turn east on Cleveland Road.”
Rainey did as she was told. She passed the highway patrolman backing down the highway to pick up Mackie, who was waving his arms in her rear view mirror. What a sight it must have been to people driving by; the huge black man with a pistol showing at his waist, flagging down a highway patrolman. The 911 calls were probably hammering the switchboard.
Rainey turned right onto Cleveland Road at the next junction in the highway.
“Now turn left onto Hampton Road and follow it around to the farmhouse, at the end of the road. Stop, in the big turn, and throw the guns you’re wearing out the window. I’ll be watching,” the boy instructed, his voice having taken on a more sadistic tone. He now had Rainey alone and the game had begun.
She was right. He was close. She hoped Mackie and Danny would figure that out. Still there were hundreds of houses south and west of where she turned onto Hampton Road. There appeared to be no development in the wooded area to the right of her and the highway was on her left. She followed the paved road to where it turned into a gravel path and made a sweeping wide turn back to the south. How would they find this one isolated old farmhouse? Maybe Mackie would remember her saying to look for isolated places on the satellite image, around Katie’s school.
Rainey was trembling with adrenaline when she took off the shoulder holster and dropped it out the window. It landed in the middle of the road, the guns clattering against the pavement. She hoped someone would see it, someone who was looking for her. The camera could not see the Sig Sauer pistol in the waistband of her pants. Little Johnny did not know it was there. Rainey slid the jacket back over her shoulders to keep it that way.
“Goodie, we can play now,” Johnny, said.
Rainey needed to take control away from him. She said, “Bring Katie out of the house, so she can take my car home.”
“Rainey, I don’t think she should drive. She doesn’t look like she feels good.”
Rainey lost the control game. She raised her voice, “What did you do to her?”
He laughed, enjoying himself, “I gave her a shot. Maybe I gave her too much.”
“Bring her outside, Johnny. She can sleep in the car,” Rainey said. She needed to get Katie away from this guy. “Don’t you want to play with just me?”
“You know, I changed my mind. I want to play with both of you. It will be twice as much fun,” he responded, happily.
Rainey was at a disadvantage. He had Katie and he knew Rainey would come for her, no matter what. She could see the farmhouse now. It was a two story, dimly lit old home, the roof of the porch sagging with the weight of its years. It needed painting. Many years after it was built, someone had added a three sided, aluminum carport on one side, sheltering an exterior door, Rainey suspected. She slowed the Charger down, rolling to a stop a hundred yards from the driveway.
Rainey could hang up now, call Danny, and be surrounded by FBI in minutes. From the rolled down window, she could hear distant sirens. They were looking for them. They were coming. Rainey could wait here for backup. That would be the smart thing. The maniac in the house must have sensed her thoughts.
His voice rang out in the singsong pattern, “If you hang up now, I’ll give Katie another shot and she will go to sleep forever.”
He must have heard the sirens too. Rainey was running out of time. Rainey had no choice. She took her foot off the brake and rolled slowly forward.
“Okay Johnnie, here comes Rainey.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Rainey’s every nerve was on high alert. She slowly rolled the Charger into the driveway. She parked right at the end, near the gravel road, blocking the exit of the old Jeep she saw parked under the carport. He could still drive through the thin carport walls, but at least he wasn’t coming back out the driveway. A door near the jeep was lit, by a single bare light bulb, and led into the house. Rainey opened the car door slowly. She took the phone from the clip on her hip and flipped it open. She now had control of the call on her cell. Just before she stepped out of the car, she ripped the small camera from above the mirror and threw it as far as she could from the car.
Sirens blared in the neighborhood nearby. Rainey watched the house for any signs of life. She listened to his breathing growing faster, on the phone, next to her ear. He was moving around again, probably watching her through the stained, faded sheers, in the windows.
“Come in the front door, its unlocked,” the excited little boy said.
Rainey eyed the side door again. She would rather go that way, less open yard to cross. The front door was lit by a yellow bug light that cast an amber glow across the lawn. Rainey would be out in the open, with no back up. He could just shoot her, but she knew he would not do that. This killer liked his victims up close and personal. No, he was waiting somewhere in there, holding Katie hostage. She took a few steps toward the front door. Through the heavy trees, on the south side of the house, she could see the faint flashes of blue and red lights. A helicopter was closing in on her position, but from the sound it was making, it was still a few miles away. If Rainey could just get to Katie, before he killed either of them, they might survive.
“Rainey, I have to hang up now so we can play the game, but you know what I thought would be fun?” he paused, and then added with a giggle, “If we played hide and go seek, in the dark.”
The lawn and house were plunged into darkness. There were no streetlights to cast a glow on the yard and the moon was in its darkest phase, not visible at all. It was pitch-black and Rainey was alone about to take on the psycho that nearly killed her. The connection ended with childish, sadistic laughter, ringing in her ear. Rainey flipped the phone shut and put it back on her hip mechanically. She crouched down instinctively and slowly removed the pistol from her waistband, bringing it around, aiming it in front of her.
Rainey tried to control the trembling and her breathing. She crossed the few remaining feet to the steps and shielded herself, her back against the side of the house, near the front door. Her flashlight was on her waist, so she pulled it out and clicked it on. Rainey tried the door handle behind the old screen door. It turned easily. She let go of the handle and the door slowly opened itself, creaking in a low slow whine all the way.
Rainey yanked the screen door open and rushed in, jerking the light to every corner of the front room. There was nothin
g there, but an old ripped up couch against one wall. Across the room from her, an open doorway led to the rest of the house. The trembling in her hands was growing worse. Rainey once told a fellow agent that Jodie Foster’s hands shook too much, when she was tracking the killer in the dark basement scene, in “Silence of the Lambs.” Rainey would have to change her mind about that, because her own hands shook uncontrollably and her breathing was shallow and fast.
Rainey had been in on the capture of some very sick and dangerous criminals, always remaining calm and in control throughout. However, this time it was different, she was not the only one hunting. In this dark house, Rainey was prey, too. She checked the floor in front of her and saw dusty footprints leading to the hallway. She followed them to the central part of the house, a passageway dominated by a staircase leading to the second floor. Partially opened doors, which led to the rest of the areas and rooms of the bottom floor, were seemingly all around her. There were so many places Katie could be and so many traps that could be waiting to be sprung. There were footprints going in and out of each doorway. Rainey would have to check them all. She listened to the house for a moment, trying to pick up any sound other than her own beating heart.
Rainey’s attention was snapped to the top of the stairs when she heard music begin playing on the second floor. It was a familiar tune somehow and then it came to her. It was the same music she vaguely remembered hearing, when he captured her the first time. Only she could never place the tune, because of the drugs he gave her. Now she could hear clearly it was a children’s song. A needle was scratching out an old warped recording of, “Hush a Bye Baby.” The playback speed fluctuated, giving the music a psychedelic trippy sound, because the only person who could appreciate it would have to be on acid or a stark raving lunatic. Guess who was upstairs?
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