Once Taken

by Blake Pierce

  As he followed the car into a suburban neighborhood, he knew that something was wrong. Even if he could catch the stout woman, he still wouldn’t be able to take her. The problem was simple.

  I didn’t choose the others. They chose me.

  The first time, five years ago, that poor woman in Eubanks had provoked him when he’d picked up some change that she’d dropped in a store.

  “Such a sweet boy!” she’d said.

  Those words and that tone—so condescending, as if he were retarded. It stung him unbearably, reminding him of his mother and the nuns.

  It was the same with the woman in Reedsport.

  “What a good boy!” she’d said when he helped her with her groceries.

  Both women had sealed their fates with those well-intentioned words. But this woman had said nothing to him at all. Without such an impetus, such a provocation, he was helpless to act.

  And if he didn’t act, he’d be at the mercy of the chains.

  The car he was following stopped in front of a house. The younger woman got out, waved goodnight to the driver, and went into the house. The other woman started driving again, and he kept on following her. He still had no idea what to do next.

  But now the chains were chattering to him, explaining everything. Somehow, he was going to have to provoke her into provoking him. And the chains had their own ideas about how to do that. It was going to require perfect timing, and the chains weren’t at all sure that he was up to the task. He decided to prove them wrong.

  Now he was following the woman on a road that wound through a park. He saw nobody anywhere. It seemed like the perfect place to act.

  “Here?” he asked the chains.

  The chains chattered in agreement.

  Up ahead, at the edge of the park, was a traffic light. The light was green, but the chains assured him that it was just ready to change. He carefully passed the woman’s car and drove directly in front of her. The light turned yellow, and he sped up a little, as if he were meant to make it through the intersection before it turned red.

  Then he hit the brakes good and hard. Sure enough, the woman’s car struck the rear end of the van with a sharp bump. The collision wasn’t hard enough to cause much damage, but it served his purposes.

  He shifted into park, put on the parking brake, and got out of the car. The woman backed her own car away from the van a few feet, then got out, looking very concerned. He walked to the back of the van and surveyed the minor damage to both cars. As the woman approached, he tried to explain to her what had happened—and to apologize.

  “I—I—I—” he stuttered.

  The woman’s face was suddenly full of sympathy.

  “Oh, you poor thing!” she said. “It was my fault, of course. I’ll go get my insurance information.”

  She got back in the car and opened her glove compartment.

  He felt exactly the surge of aggression and anger he needed.

  “Oh, you poor thing!” she’d said.

  What did she think he was, a baby?

  He opened the back of his van and took out a heavy bundle of chains. Then he stood there waiting, holding the chains behind his back with one hand. When the woman came out again, he pointed again to his back bumper, as if trying to draw her attention to some further damage.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  When she bent over a little for a closer look, he brought the chains crashing against the back of her head. She collapsed perfectly, falling head first into the bed of the van, completely unconscious. All he had to do was lift her legs into the van and shut the back doors.

  As he drove away, the chains were silent. He understood why. They were slightly awestruck. They hadn’t expected him to accomplish this so boldly and deftly. They had underestimated him. He had proven himself their master—at least for now.

  *

  He arrived at his house about an hour later. He pulled the van beside the house and backed it around to the basement door. Then he got out, walked to the back of the van, and opened the doors.

  There she was, lying completely still, a pool of blood around her head. He bent over to make sure she was still breathing. Fortunately, she was. The chains wanted her to be alive, at least for now.

  He’d stopped along the road outside of Albany put her into the straitjacket. Sooner or later, she’d regain consciousness, and the chains had thought it best to put her in the straitjacket right away.

  Now came the difficult task of getting her into the basement. The woman was slightly heavier than the others had been, and he was none too strong. He tugged and pulled until she fell out of the van, then tugged and pulled some more until he got her to the basement door. He opened the door and pushed her on inside.

  As he rolled her across the concrete floor, she emitted a loud groan, then fell silent again. He had the cot ready. Clumsily, he pulled the woman’s upper body up on it, then wrestled her legs onto it as well.

  From that point on, things were much easier. He began to wrap the chains around and around her, binding her tightly to the cot. The chains laughed with delight. They were well-pleased with his work.

  When he finished wrapping, he heard her speak.

  “Where am I?” she said, just starting to regain consciousness. “Oh, God, where am I? What’s going on?”

  He shushed her loudly. If he could only talk, he’d explain to her that she mustn’t say a word. In this place, only the chains were allowed to speak.

  But his shushing didn’t do any good.

  “Where am I?” she said in a slurred voice, her terror rising. “Somebody help me.”

  He stuffed a rag into the woman’s mouth, then gagged her by wrapping a chain all the way around her head. She continued to writhe and groan. Her wide-eyed gaze was fixed across the room. He followed the gaze and saw that she was staring at the little altar he had made.

  A bulletin board rested atop a table pushed against the wall. On the table he had respectfully placed shoes, a prison guard’s badge, a nurse’s uniform and nametag, a few buttons, and other items belonging to the other two women. On the bulletin board were pinned obituaries, funeral handouts, and pictures he had taken of the flowers he had left at the gravesites.

  He was glad she was looking there. It ought to give her some comfort. Surely she understood that she, too, would be memorialized there when the time came. A tear came to his eye and he thought about how he had mourned those two women—and how he would mourn this one.

  But the woman groaned sharply against the gag. She didn’t understand. It was infuriating. This whole thing was going to play out the same way it had before. He’d loosen the chains and remove the rag to give her a drink of water, and she’d scream uncontrollably.

  Maybe he could make this one understand. He took his straight-edged razor out of his pocket, opened it, and held it close to the woman’s throat, shushing again. Surely she’d understand that he didn’t want to slit her throat, and that the choice was hers. All she had to do was keep quiet.

  Her groaning quieted a little. Even so, he still saw a trace of defiance in her eyes. It was no good. Sooner or later, this one, too, was going to scream, and he’d have no choice but to kill her.

  And like last time, he would hang her up for all to see. The warning was absolutely necessary. The world had to know. The world had to understand. The world must be told to leave him alone. He didn’t yet know how and where he would display her. The chains would tell him what to do.

  This was how it always went. Killing the women was never his intention. But sooner or later the chains would give him no other choice. It was just a fact of life, and he’d never be able to change it.

  Chapter 27

  The message came on their third day in New York, while Riley and April were sitting in the food court of the Museum Natural of History. They were eating hot dogs loaded with a variety of toppings. Riley was startled to see that her buzzing cell phone showed a text from Lucy.

  “Sorry to bother U on vacation. Call i
f U can.”

  Riley’s interest was piqued.

  “What is it, Mom?” April asked Riley.

  “It’s Lucy—I mean Agent Vargas. You met her the night we had the break-in.”

  April looked intrigued. Riley hadn’t seen that look of honest interest on April’s face since they’d arrived in the city.

  They’d been doing all the obligatory tourist things—visiting the Statue of Liberty, going to the top of the Empire State Building, and taking in a Broadway matinee. Still shaken from her ordeal, April’s earlier enthusiasm had faded.

  Riley couldn’t blame her. The truth was, she was thinking that this trip might have been a bad idea from the beginning.

  “What does she want?” April asked.

  “She wants me to call,” Riley said. “It can wait.”

  “Why wait?” April asked with a shrug.

  It was a good question. It wasn’t as if Lucy was likely to spoil anything. Riley punched the number.

  “Riley!” Lucy almost shouted when she answered. “Am I glad to talk to you!”

  “What’s going on?”

  “We’ve got another victim,” Lucy said.

  Riley’s nerves quickened. She’d had a hunch that the killer was going to strike again sooner rather than later. Sometimes she didn’t like being right.

  “I’m in Albany,” Lucy explained. “A woman here disappeared from her car. She was a nurse. In uniform, like the last one.”

  Riley’s interest grew. That confirmed a definite pattern—a prison guard and now two nurses, all women in uniform.

  “Are you sure it’s our guy?” Riley asked.

  “Yeah, our field office agents are sure too. The police found a small length of chain on the pavement. They knew about the chain killer, so they made a report to the FBI field office and the agents contacted me in Reedsport. Of course, the chain could just be a coincidence, but … ”

  “But chains sure point to our psychopath,” Riley said, taking a long deep breath. Then she noticed that April was watching her and listening apprehensively.

  “Why did you want to talk to me?” Riley asked.

  A silence fell. Riley sensed that Lucy was getting ready to ask for a favor.

  “Riley, I called it in to Quantico,” the junior agent said. “Agent Meredith said they’d send somebody up to partner with me. I don’t know who yet. And of course I’m already working with the field office here, but …”

  Lucy’s voice trailed off.

  “Naw, it’s crazy,” she said. “You’re on vacation. I shouldn’t have bothered you. I’ll let you go.”

  “Tell me,” Riley said.

  There was another pause.

  “Look, whoever they send up, I’m probably going to be lead investigator, because I’m on this case already. I’m not sure I’m ready for that. I’m already feeling out of my depth. I was wondering if you could come up and …”

  Lucy stopped again, but she didn’t need to finish her sentence. Riley understood perfectly that Lucy wanted her to take charge again.

  “I don’t know about this, Lucy,” Riley said. “Meredith has got me under pretty strict orders to stay on leave.”

  “I understand,” Lucy said. “I knew it was crazy. Sorry to bother you.”

  “No, wait, don’t hang up,” Riley said.

  Another silence fell. Riley wavered as to what to say.

  “Let me get back to you,” she finally said.

  “Okay,” Lucy replied.

  They ended the call.

  “What was that about?” April asked.

  “There’s been another abduction in Upstate New York,” Riley said. “Lucy wants me to come up and work on it.”

  April’s eyes widened.

  “So what are you going to do?” she asked.

  “I’m thinking maybe I should go,” Riley said. “I’d have to get the next train to Albany.”

  April looked alarmed.

  “Oh, no, Mom,” she said. “Don’t even think of it. You’re not sending me back to stay with Dad. I’m just not going there.”

  Riley sighed. April had a point. But what were the alternatives?

  Then April said, “Why don’t I come with you?”

  She was smiling. Riley found it nice to see her smile again.

  “Maybe I could help,” April added.

  “Absolutely not,” Riley said. “If you come, you’re staying put in our hotel room. And I don’t want to hear any complaints about it.”

  April pouted just a little.

  “Okay,” she said. “But the hotel had better have a pool. And I’ll have to buy a bathing suit. I’m still on vacation, even if you’re not.” April fell silent for a moment, then added, “I promise to let you do your job. I’ll stay out of the way.”

  “It’s a deal,” Riley said. She dialed up Lucy to tell her that she was on her way.

  *

  About four hours later, Riley was in Albany, riding in a car with Lucy driving. They had just left April in a nice room that Lucy had reserved. It connected directly to another room where Lucy was staying. Riley and April had been able to buy a bathing suit right there in the hotel, and she had left her daughter happily splashing in the pool. It felt good to know that April was in a safe place.

  Lucy drove them into a park and stopped near a taped-off lane where an empty car still sat on the road. A couple of Albany police officers were nearby. That portion of the surrounding park was also cordoned off from the public with crime scene tape.

  “Here we are,” Lucy said. “I asked them to leave everything in place until you got here.”

  They got out and went to inspect the scene. Riley could see that the front end of the abandoned car was dented, but not severely. It obviously had not been a high-speed crash. The driver’s door was still open.

  “Her name is Carla Liston,” Lucy said. “She was on her way home after finishing her shift at the hospital and doing some shopping with a friend. That was Myra Cortese, another nurse. Liston had dropped Cortese off before she got to this point.”

  Lucy pointed to the pavement in front of the car.

  “Here’s just the trace of a skid mark,” she said. “And some glass shards on the road, but that’s from her headlight.”

  Riley bent over and inspected the dent in the front of the car. “Have these white marks analyzed,” she said. “They’re sure to be from the killer’s vehicle and they’ll identify the make. That also means that it has a dented back bumper.”

  Lucy said, “The abductor’s vehicle must have stopped suddenly at the light. My guess is that he deliberately tricked her into rear-ending him. He attacked her when she got out of her car to inspect the damage.”

  Riley nodded in agreement.

  “And we’re pretty sure he’s small and non-threatening,” Riley added. “So she wasn’t scared of him when she saw him. Have you got anything new in the way of a profile?”

  “Yeah,” Lucy said. “I think he stutters. I got that from a florist who remembered a stranger who couldn’t tell her what he wanted to buy for the funeral.”

  “Good work,” Riley said. “That could be an important lead.”

  She looked more closely at the front of the woman’s car.

  “The damage is higher up than you’d expect from a regular-sized car. That means probably a van or truck. We’d already guessed that he probably uses a van. What about the chain you said the cops found?”

  Lucy took a color photograph out of a folder and handed it to Riley. The picture had been taken while the chain was still laying the pavement. It was a short, small brass chain, the kind that might be used to latch a door.

  “It’s not the kind of chain he used to bind up the victims,” Lucy said. “Do you think he left it as some kind of a message?”

  “I don’t think so,” Riley said. “He makes his statement when he hangs up the victim. My guess is that this just fell out of the back of his van without his noticing it. He probably drives around with all kinds of chains in the van.”r />
  “But why?” Lucy asked. “I mean, aside from to attack his victims?”

  Riley didn’t reply. It was a good question, and an important one. Whatever was driving this killer wasn’t coming clear to her. She wanted another opinion.

  “I’m going to make a phone call,” Riley said.

  She walked over to a park bench and sat down, then dialed Mike Nevins’s number on her cell phone. Her forensic psychiatrist friend had a wide range of experience with various kinds of murderers and other criminals. The FBI often called him in as consultant on difficult cases.

  When she got him on the line, Riley said, “Mike, I need your input. I’m up in Albany working on the chain killer case. He’s abducted another woman.”

  “I thought you were on leave,” Mike said.

  Riley sighed. She really didn’t want to get into this with Mike. He wouldn’t approve of her defying Meredith’s orders.

  “Well, I was, but now I’m not. Don’t ask a lot of questions about it, okay? I take it you’re familiar with the case.”

  “Yes, I’ve been keeping up. He’s committed two murders. Both times the victims were found in straitjackets and wrapped with chains.”

  “That’s right,” Riley said. “And they’re wrapped with far more chains than needed to hold anybody. He even wraps them across the victim’s mouth. It looks like he’s just obsessed with chains of all kinds. He must collect them wherever he goes. God knows how many he’s got at home. It’s like chains are some kind of fetish.”

  Riley got up and began to pace.

  “The thing is, I don’t get it,” she said. “Why chains? Why not something else? And why are they even needed on top of a straitjacket? That why I need your take on it.”

  A long silence fell.

  Finally, Mike said, “I can think of possible reasons, but at this point it would all just be speculation. I do know somebody you should talk to—but you’ll have to visit him in Sing Sing.”

  Chapter 28

  A guard escorted Riley into a small room with cream-colored walls and a barred window. On one wall was a framed mirror that was obviously an observation window for anyone watching from the other side. The guard looked at Riley inquiringly and she said, “It’s okay.” He left and closed the door behind him.