Full Tilt

by Rick Mofina

  At the office she got coffee, went to her desk and started working. It wasn’t long before Reeka was standing next to her, nose in her phone, thumbs blurring as she worked on the daily news sked.

  “What’ve you got for today?”

  “Nothing concrete, following up on a few things.”

  “We need news on the story, Kate.”

  “I know.”

  “We’ve had absolutely nothing in the past few days. Subscribers are getting weary of recaps and situationals. We need to break something.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?”

  Nearby, conversations trailed off and heads turned to them.

  “No one on this planet wants that more than me, Reeka!”

  A long moment of silence passed before Chuck joined Reeka at Kate’s desk.

  “Is everything all right here?”

  Chuck’s attention went from Kate to Reeka and back again.

  Kate stared at her monitor, said nothing.

  “Kate,” Chuck said, “I know these past few days have been hell for you. I’ve got every bureau looking into Vanessa’s case. You know that.”

  Kate nodded.

  “And if you need time off, you’ve got it. You know that, too.”

  Kate covered her face with her hands to salvage her composure.

  “I will see this through,” she said. “I’ll keep working.”

  Chuck let a few seconds pass to melt the tension.

  “All right,” he said. “It’s obvious you’ll give us a story when you have one.” Then he looked at Reeka as he said, “I don’t think we need to ask you for it.”

  * * *

  Kate spent the rest of the morning going through her messages. She was still getting a steady stream from her Today show appearance, things like:

  We’re praying for you and your sister.

  Such a tragic story. God bless you.

  My brother’s got a hunting dog who could find your sister.

  Aliens took your sister.

  I’m psychic and your sister’s a spirit now.

  Saw you on TV; you’re clearly a bitch who is doing this to make a name for yourself.

  Kate kept working, contacting people she’d talked to in Rampart, in Chicago, in Minnesota, in Denver and Alberta. She called her sources with missing persons agencies and she searched databases. When her stomach rumbled, she got a sandwich at the deli downstairs and ate at her desk.

  Nothing was emerging.

  Commentators on the network news shows speculated that Zurrn had committed a murder-suicide and that it was only a matter of time before he was found. Others believed Zurrn would succumb to being the most wanted fugitive in the country and make a mistake. There were those who were convinced Zurrn would attempt to grab the spotlight in some disturbing fashion.

  Despite the national media attention, despite all the tips to the task force, nothing new had surfaced, at least nothing that the investigators were willing to discuss. Kate had a vague feeling that something was happening but no matter how she tried, she couldn’t nail it down.

  Nobody was talking.

  By the time she lifted her head from her desk it was early evening and most of the day-side staff had gone. The smaller night crew was working quietly. As darkness fell, Kate went to the windows and studied the lights of Midtown Manhattan.

  Exhausted, frustrated and fearful, Kate felt a lump rising in her throat with a mounting sense of defeat. She had to accept that Zurrn was going to kill Vanessa, if he hadn’t done it already.

  That was how this was going to end. Kate would never see her sister.

  I had her and she slipped away from me again.

  She ached to see Vanessa, to hold her, to comfort her, to tell her how much she loved her and that everything would be okay. They probably wouldn’t even recognize each other, but that wouldn’t matter because they’d know the bond that had survived.

  Somewhere in the skyline’s glimmering lights Kate found hope.

  What am I doing? I can’t give up. There’s no proof of anything. After all she’s been through Vanessa hasn’t given up! I’ve got to keep fighting to find her!

  Kate returned to her desk, intending to call Brennan and push him hard for information.

  As she reached for her phone it rang.

  The number was blocked.

  “Newslead, Kate Page.”

  Kate heard nothing.

  “Hello,” she said, “this is Kate Page at Newslead.”

  “I saw you on TV.”

  The caller’s voice was robotic, monotone as if coming from a voice changer or electronic synthesizer.

  Her thoughts raced.

  Was this a joke? Was this Erich being cryptic again?

  “Who is this?”

  “Are you at a computer? Check your email and the link I’ve sent you.”

  Wedging the phone to her ear with her shoulder, Kate typed quickly, moved her mouse, found a new email and froze upon reading the subject line: Final Scene from The Kill Jar.

  “Did you find it? Open the link.”

  Holding her breath, Kate clicked on the link. It went to a live feed of a woman, her eyes wide with terror.

  “Say goodbye to your sister. I put her in her grave so you and the world can watch her die.”

  CHAPTER 65

  New York City

  No, this can’t be real!

  Kate was rooted in shock.

  The woman’s face—Vanessa’s face—was creased with terror. Her lips were moving, like she’s praying. Her upper body filled Kate’s monitor. At the bottom of the frame graphics of meters flashed while measuring her blood and heart rates; the level of carbon dioxide; the remaining amount of oxygen. A digital clock counted down the hours, minutes and seconds, left on Vanessa’s life.

  Kate’s hands were trembling when she called 911.

  “Police operator, what’s your emergency?”

  “I need to report a woman buried alive in a coffin! She doesn’t have much time—”

  “What is your name and location, ma’am?”

  “Kate Page, 470 West 33rd Street, Newslead.”

  “Where’s the woman buried, what’s the location?”

  “I don’t know! It’s online with a live feed!”

  “Online? Do you have a web address?”

  “It’s—hang on—it’s ‘ScenesFromTheKillJar,’ all one word.”

  The operator repeated it twice as Kate heard the rapid clicking of a keyboard.

  “You’ve got to track it, find her!” Kate said. “She’s running out of time! I’m a reporter with Newslead. This is the Sorin Zurrn case. Someone called me two minutes ago, telling me about the live video. I think it’s Zurrn. Alert Detective Ed Brennan, with the Rampart police department, the FBI, the task force!”

  “Stay on the line.”

  “Hurry, she’s got three hours and fifty-five minutes left!”

  Two night editors were drawn to Kate’s desk.

  “What the hell? Is this real?” Brad Davis stared at her screen.

  Kate nodded big nods, knowing that Davis, who handled copy from reporters in crisis spots around the world, had one of the quickest minds at Newslead. He turned to Phil Keelor, the junior editor.

  “Call our twenty-four-hour IT people. We’re going to need all the help we can get,” Davis said. “I’ll call Chuck to alert the honchos. We’ve got to move fast.”

  “Okay, Kate?” the operator said.

  “Yes!”

  “We’ve got people on the way to you.”

  Within the first hour the newsroom had filled with uniformed NYPD officers, detectives, FBI agents and investigators from several other federal agencies. They’d set up quickly in
the newsroom. They were monitoring Kate’s phone in case Zurrn called again. Someone had a trauma doctor on speakerphone. He was studying the meters that appeared to be connected to Vanessa. Kate could hear him.

  “If those meters are genuine, her signs are way up. Her stress is causing her to use more oxygen, which could reduce her time. Her carbon dioxide level is three percent, if it climbs to four or higher, we’re in trouble. And you’ve got to hope that the box doesn’t collapse under the weight and pressure of all the dirt.”

  Chuck, Reeka, along with executive editors Rhett Lerner and Dianne Watson arrived. Newslead’s chief legal counsel, Tischa Goldman, was on the line to advise them on releasing any information police may need to help locate Vanessa.

  As word spread, other news staff arrived to offer help, but most everyone huddled in small groups at terminals transfixed by what was playing out before their eyes. Kate couldn’t stop trembling, or praying, as she watched the seconds blazing by.

  Glimpsing at her framed photo of Grace, Kate called Nancy and told her what was happening.

  “I know,” Nancy said, “it’s been on TV with a breaking news bulletin.”

  Kate needed to know Grace was okay.

  “I’ll go down and check on her,” Nancy said. Ten minutes later, she called back to say that Grace was fine.

  As a precaution, Kate pulled one of the NYPD officers aside and requested that, given the fact Zurrn had called her, they send someone to her building to check on her daughter’s welfare.

  When Kate returned to her desk, her line rang. She looked at an FBI agent wearing headphones and waited for him to nod before she answered.

  “You’re seeing what’s happening online, Kate?” the caller asked.

  It was Erich. Kate indicated to the agent that the caller was a friend.

  “Yes, Zurrn called me.”

  “He called?”

  “We’re sure it was him. He wants the world to see him kill Vanessa.”

  “He’s getting attention.”

  “We’ve got the NYPD, the FBI and I don’t know how many others, trying to locate her. Tell me the truth, Erich, can we find her?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Erich, will we find her?”

  “It depends.”

  “On what?”

  “How good he really is at hiding his tracks.”

  “That’s not what I need to hear right now.”

  “You got people working on it. I’ll work on it and I’ll get my friends to work on it. Everyone’s trying to pinpoint the source of the feed and Vanessa’s location.”

  “Hurry!”

  As the first hour became the second, the press picked up the situation via social media. The New York Times, Reuters, NBC, CNN, the Associated Press and several other news organizations called Newslead for interviews.

  “All our efforts are concentrated on the safety of Vanessa Page, whom we consider a member of the Newslead family,” Dianne Watson said in an issued statement.

  Strained calm permeated the newsroom as the second hour passed with investigators working with other experts across the city and across the country. Several blocks south in Manhattan, near the Brooklyn Bridge, a team of analysts had been put on Vanessa’s case at the NYPD’s Real Time Crime Center, which was located in a windowless room on a midlevel floor of One Police Plaza. The team used every high-tech resource in trying to trace the live stream to Vanessa’s location.

  The FBI, with experts in combating cyber-based terrorism, had activated cyber squads at the New York Field Office in FBI headquarters. They were also working with other federal agencies, including the Department of Defense and Homeland Security. They soon determined that the person who’d called Kate had used a disposable phone. The call had been made in the greater New York City area, but that was all they had so far.

  In the urgent life-and-death effort to track the video feed to Vanessa, analysts had made emergency requests for data to several dozen service providers. The companies had twenty-four-hour hotlines with lawyers on duty. All cooperated immediately without requiring subpoenas or warrants.

  “The challenge is,” an FBI agent explained, “our suspect has masked and encrypted the signal. It’s bouncing off satellites and towers all over Canada, Mexico and everywhere in the US. He’s even using Russian and Chinese-based IP addresses. It’s complex and it’s a fast-moving target.”

  “So what do you do?” Lerner asked.

  “We keep working, exercising different strategies.”

  “We’ve got a little over two hours left.”

  In a far corner, Reeka was lobbying Dianne and Chuck for Newslead to put out its own story.

  “I don’t know,” Watson said, “there’s some ambiguity here.”

  “The case is already public,” Reeka said. “We’ve already issued a statement. It’s news. We owe it to subscribers to cover it.”

  Watson turned to Chuck. “What do you think?”

  “All valid points. We’ll get someone other than Kate to do a straight-up news piece.”

  At her desk, Kate stared at Vanessa’s image, her heart breaking again and again with each second that passed.

  This can’t be real. It can’t be happening all over again.

  First underwater, now underground, Vanessa was slipping away before her eyes.

  Please, don’t let this happen again.

  Kate pressed her hand tenderly to her monitor, aching to hold her little sister one last time.

  Where are you?

  A commotion rose across the newsroom among several FBI agents.

  “New Jersey! Central New Jersey, north of Trenton!” someone shouted.

  Kate stood and searched the crowd for meaning, her heart rising.

  “They’ve isolated it to a location just outside of Hopewell, New Jersey!” someone else shouted to cheers.

  Ellie Ridder, a Newslead reporter and Sal Perez, a photographer, rushed to Kate.

  “That’s a ninety-minute drive, Kate,” Sal said. “Let’s go!”

  CHAPTER 66

  New Jersey

  Darkness.

  Vanessa had been devoured by absolute darkness.

  The air was heavy. The suffocating stillness overwhelmed her. The only sound of life was the thumping blood rush in her ears from her beating heart.

  Buried alive! I’ve been buried alive like Brittany!

  Screaming sobs exploded from her.

  Don’t let me die! Please, God, I don’t want to die here!

  She kicked her feet and pounded her bound hands against her coffin’s lid before she realized it and stopped.

  Stay calm! You’re using up air!

  It took several jagged breaths before she got a semblance of control, sniffling and brushing at her tears. The air was hotter. She was sweating as she gradually slowed her breathing.

  She didn’t know how much time had passed, how long she’d been entombed. She flinched when a light came on.

  Blinking her eyes to adjust, she saw soft, blue-tinted LED lights directed at her and from behind her overhead. She gasped as the illumination defined her horrible claustrophobic space.

  Midway down above her waist, suspended from the lid, she saw the line of small glowing screens with active level bars and numbers. Cables meandered from the monitors to the clips Carl had attached to her fingers. Farther down, at her feet, she saw the cylinder shape of the oxygen tank. In the row of screens, the one to the extreme right was the largest.

  It came to life with text scrolling slowly.

  “I hope you’re comfortable. The world is watching you, thousands of people, as each second ticks down. It’ll grow to millions around the planet, for this is a global death and viewers will be riveted. Especially since I’ve installed the meters to moni
tor your vital signs, the amount of oxygen remaining, and the clock, which is calibrated to my precise calculation on how much time you’ll have to live. Each one is identified for you. Remember, the more you panic, struggle or flutter, the more you’ll deplete your oxygen. You’re six feet down. The casket is steel, but it’s cheap steel and it’s possible it could be defeated by the tonnage of earth above you. It’s pointless to struggle against it. No one can hear you and no one will ever find you. I hope you’ll forgive me because I wanted to take you with me to my new base of operation to be part of my new collection. It’s going to be glorious. But you interfered and betrayed me and must suffer the penalty. I’ll miss you terribly. Of all my specimens, you were my favorite. Goodbye.”

  Vanessa’s heart slammed against her rib cage. Her scream sent the level bars on the monitors soaring as tears blurred her eyes.

  No, please no! Oh, God, somebody help me!

  At that moment she detected a light sensation—something moving—atop her midsection, a gentle pressure. What’s that? She raised her head, then her hands to block the light directed at her, so she could better see. A curtain of fine dirt was leaking from the coffin lid at the seam between the upper and lower doors.

  No! No, no, no!

  Vanessa gasped and tried not to think but was suddenly haunted by the screams—the horrible screams—of all the girls Carl had killed before her.

  Now it’s my turn! Now it’s me!

  Her panicked mind reeled, pulled her back to another life, to a moment of absolute joy as she was enveloped by brilliant sunlight. She was floating and floating. She saw her mother—her real mother’s smiling face, then her father’s. Then she heard their laughter as she ran in the park with her big sister—Kate!

  Yes, her name was Kate!

  Suddenly, the sunlight is gone, her parents are gone, and now Vanessa is underwater, cold, black rushing water, and Kate’s hand is pulling her…saving her…please save me, Kate!