by Kylie Brant
Quickly she descended to retrieve the comforter. Fabric wasn’t going to be the most effective material, but it was all she had available. She spread it out, then rolled it as tightly as possible.
The ecru and ribbon lace couldn’t have looked more out of place in her prison. Before she could slam that mental door shut, she had a mental image of Cam sprawled out atop it, his arms wrapping her tightly to his chest. The feminine backdrop couldn’t have contrasted more sharply with his tough masculinity.
Pain from the memory shimmied through her, and she quickly forced it aside before it could weaken her resolve. She couldn’t afford to be distracted or weakened thinking about the past. Couldn’t afford to rely on others…
…Cam…
…to rescue her.
Time was running out.
Filled with a renewed sense of urgency, she ran back to the gate and climbed two rungs, struggling to maintain her balance while she reached up to wedge the roll she’d made from the comforter into the space between the gate and the wire. Triumph spiked through her as the wire bent a fraction. Redoubling her efforts she twisted the roll of fabric, forcing it harder. The wire caught at all the little holes in the lace, slowing the progress, but patiently she freed each snagged area to push it through further. When she had the folded comforter wedged halfway, she tested the gap it created in the wire.
Her heart plummeted. The gap of two inches was actually narrowing before her eyes as the wire pressed down on the forgivable fabric. It had the bulk, but lacked the firmness necessary to act as the wedge she needed.
Tears of frustration welled. Sophia forced herself to think. Maybe she could use the fabric to protect her fingers as she tried to unwrap the wire where it was crimped together. But even as the idea occurred, she knew it was doomed to fail. She needed a tool of some sort, and nothing in her search had…
The thought fragmented when a noise split the cavernous confines of her prison. Ancient hinges creaked protestingly. Her system quite simply froze.
And then a voice pierced the darkness, shooting her spine with panic.
“I came back for you, Doctor Bitch. Just like I promised.”
“I might have something. Where’s that file folder of violent sexual felons released in the state recently?”
Both Jenna and Tommy straightened in the chairs. Franks picked up the folder in question and slid it across Cam’s desk. Without shifting his propped feet, Cam leaned forward to grab it. He flipped through until he found the name he was looking for. “Stacy Marchand.”
“Stacy? That name would get a guy some special attention in prison.” Jenna muffled her yawn as she spoke.
“Not a guy,” he said absently, still trying to find the page in question. “A sister of one of the cons…ah.” He pulled out the sheet he was looking for and held it up. “Sister to Gilbert Humphrey. He was released eighteen months ago after serving twelve years for attempted murder.” Cam had checked on the man himself when he’d gone over the list previously. He stopped to re-familiarize himself with the details. “Abducted a woman from her car in a department store parking lot at gunpoint. Drove her to a wooded area and raped her repeatedly. Later tried to cover up the crime by setting her on fire.”
“Twelve years?” Franks uttered the words like an oath.
“He agreed to serve as an FBI informant in another investigation and had his sentence reduced. When he got out, he lived with his sister for a time. Stacy Marchand.” Adrenaline was rapid firing along his nerve endings. “I came across her name a couple hours ago. She’s worked for Dr. Pane for the last eight years, according to their employee records. The Des Moines branch. And the DMV has her listed as owning a 2005 white cargo van. Bought it in 2010.”
Franks stared at him. “So he uses his sister’s van to abduct Van Wheton from Edina. If we’re talking the same guy, maybe he paints it before abducting Sophia. Problem is DMPD has already searched all the Dr. Pane properties with the owner’s permission. Found nothing.”
“But we didn’t search the Zip’s Auto and Salvage properties.” Cam passed the sheet he was looking at over to Tommy. “That’s Humphrey’s current employer, according to the information on his parole sheet.” He reduced one screen on his computer, opened another and searched for the company. Before he could finish his search, Jenna was speaking.
“They’ve got a scrap yard on East Elm. Proprietor is one Ernest Zipsy. I’ll run a property search under his name. See what else he owns.”
Cam turned his attention to running Zipsy for priors. Minutes later, Jenna announced, “Two other business properties are listed with Ernest Zipsy as the owner. One is on Raccoon. That street would be adjacent to Elm. Might be the headquarters for the scrap yard. The other is south of the Martin Luther King Parkway. From the assessed taxation rate, it’s not much of a building.”
“Meaning it’s not one of the structures currently targeted by the urban development going on in the area.” Cam knew many of the historic buildings in that neighborhood were being refurbished as trendy lofts and boutique office spaces. But other streets were still lined with abandoned buildings and warehouses.
He paused, did a quick scan of what his search had brought up on the man. “Twenty years ago Zipsy went away for running a chop shop. Five year stretch. Looks like he’s been clean ever since. Or at least he’s avoided getting caught.”
Mind made up, Cam looked at Franks. “Call Treelord.” Steve Treelord was the DMCD lieutenant heading up the city’s law enforcement assistance on Sophia’s abduction. “Have him get someone to sit on Humphrey’s apartment for the duration.” At least keeping the man under surveillance would ensure that he wasn’t free to terrorize a victim, if indeed he was the offender they were seeking. He switched his attention to Jenna. “Check whether Humphrey has a license. And whether he has any moving violations. Maybe we’ll catch a break and one was recorded by a red light camera in the vicinity we’re looking at.”
He picked up his own cell and dialed a familiar number. “I’m going to call Fenton.” He saw her expression and accurately interpreted it. Hounding Al Fenton, the lab manager at the DCI criminal laboratory was a waste of time and energy. It was doubtful much had been done yet with the evidence collected at Sophie’s.
But nagging never hurt.
Cam was about to leave the first in what he figured would be a long string of voices messages. But to his surprise, Fenton answered on the first ring.
“Actually I was just about to call you.” Cam could visualize the manager running his fingers through his thinning hair. The man was mid-fifties, with a perpetually harried expression. It came, Cam imagined, from constant calls like this one asking for updates.
“You have something from today’s scene already?” The remark was intended to provoke. Then they’d start the inevitable two-step about a timeline for results. He knew the lab was only open until five, and some of the tests took days to administer. It was all part of the dance.
“We’re running a DNA comparison test on the blood samples we found on Dr. Channing’s bathroom floor with samples taken from her toothbrush.” Cam must have made a sound of amazement because Jenna and Tommy glanced up at him. “If we rush it, we can have results ready sometime tomorrow. Latents will take longer. We’ve got elimination comparisons to do, and then you can submit the unknown prints to AFIS.”
It took a moment for Cam to find his voice. “That’s fast work, Al.”
“There’s more.” A note of satisfaction threaded through the man’s voice. “We’ve got a couple sole prints from the garage doorway into the condo, one in Dr. Channing’s bedroom and another in the kitchen. Sneakers, size eleven and a half. I’ve got an analyst running the tread pattern against known brands. Might get lucky there. And dirt was collected from where it was ground into the carpet in a couple places. Aubrey is doing an analysis right now.”
Hope bloomed. Cam remembered a criminalist tagging the spots. If the dirt had come from a shoe tread, it could give them a hint about where th
e offender had been. Possibly even point to an occupation.
Then shock hit him. “Aubrey?” He checked his watch. “What’s she still doing there?” He wasn’t terribly surprised that the lab manager was still there at this time. The man was a well-known workaholic. But the lab’s budget rarely ran to overtime.
Fenton’s tone went defensive. “I’m still here because I had paperwork to catch up on. And if a few of the analysts insist on staying to finish the tests they were running on their own time, I’m going to turn a blind eye. A lot of us have attended forensic conferences with Dr. Channing. She helped write a grant last year to secure a freestanding fuming chamber for the lab. People here. . .” He paused for a moment and when he continued, his voice sounded gruff. “Well, let’s just say a lot of us think highly of her.”
Cam was surprised, but he shouldn’t have been. Sophie had that way with people. An innate ability to connect. He could only be grateful that she generated the same depth of loyalty from the lab personnel as she did from the agents at DCI. “She’ll be touched, Al.”
“Yeah.” Fenton cleared his throat. “You just make sure she gets home to hear about our efforts as soon as possible, okay? Tyler Skarlis will be doing the toxicology analysis on the syringe found in her bathroom first thing in the morning. No telling how long that will take. Depends on whether the contents are substances commonly test for.”
From working around crime lab criminalists for years, Cam knew Skarlis was considered by his peers to be nothing short of brilliant. Given the lab’s chronic backlog, coupled with the test requests for priority-flagged evidence from this case so far, the efforts Fenton and his crew were putting forth on Sophie’s behalf were staggering.
“Sounds like you’ve got things well in hand.” Cam was still a little stunned, but couldn’t have asked for a better update. “I’ll let you get back to work.”
“I’ll keep you posted,” Fenton promised.
When he hung up, Jenna was eying him impatiently. “That’s the longest conversation you’ve had with Fenton without uttering a veiled threat or bribe.”
“I never threaten.” He felt obliged to set the record straight. Intimidation was in the eye of the beholder. And the lab manager didn’t respond to it, in any case. “Benally is the one who requires bribes to get a tenth of the cooperation Fenton is showing us tonight.” He told the other two agents the gist of what he’d just learned from the man.Franks whistled softly. “I have to say in my thirty years with the agency, that’s a first.”
“It’s Sophia.” For a moment Cam thought Jenna’s eyes were shiny. An instant later he decided he’d been seeing things. “That’s the effect she has on people. The toxicology results might give us a valuable lead, too.”
“Maybe.” Cam’s response was noncommittal. The more common the substance, the faster the results, he knew. But that also meant they’d be harder to trace.
He turned his attention back to Gil Humphrey. Although the lab was moving at unprecedented speed, they were still talking a fifteen to twenty hour window to hear anything. Those were hours in which Sophia was still in danger. Vulnerable.
A sense of bleak desolation settled over him. It was a struggle to battle through it. Maybe Gonzalez was right. Maybe he shouldn’t be anywhere near this investigation. Because God help him, it was getting harder and harder to concentrate on getting the job done when images of what might be happening to Sophia right now were torturing him.
Time crawled to a stop. Frantically, Sophia tugged at the comforter to free it from where she’d wedged it above the gate. Part of it loosened, unfolding as she pulled. Other areas were caught on the wire.
Sophia heard the telltale squeak of unoiled hinges again. The bang of a door closing. Frantic now, her fingers were clumsy as they sought to find all the spots the lace was snagged on the wire.
A drumbeat of fear rolled through her chest. Like counting seconds between a lightning bolt and the inevitable accompanying thunder, she measured his approach. Her ears strained for the sound of footsteps even as everything inside her recoiled from the thought of seeing him again. Another spot of the comforter was freed. Then another. A beam of light shone in front of her cell. There was a scrape of a shoe on concrete and the light drew closer. Brighter.
She scrambled off the gate, picked up the expanse of comforter and yanked with all her might. There was a telltale ripping sound. Then the material released with a suddenness that sent her sprawling. She barely had time to backwards crawl to the edge of the mattress, pulling the fabric around her as she went, before the spotlight was abruptly blinding her. She threw up a hand to shield her eyes.
“No greeting? That’s just rude. Seems I need to teach you some manners, along with a few other lessons.”
Sophia battled to draw air into her lungs. It was all she could do to avoid scrambling into the corner, a huddling, shuddering mass of fear. She made herself look at him. Consider what he was. She’d spent her career helping law enforcement bring men like him to justice. The thought shot a little steel to her spine. She might be victimized by him. But she refused to be a victim.
The brave thought dissipated when she noted several threads hanging from the wire above the gate, like billboards proclaiming her recent attempt at escape. She couldn’t look away from them. A boulder-sized knot of fear formed in her throat. Would he notice?
In the next moment she realized the folly of that particular concern. What he had in store for her involved unimaginable suffering. A failed escape attempt could hardly worsen her fate.
He was dressed for the gym with a sleeveless dri-fit shirt that strained across his thick chest, gym shorts and sneakers. His arms were so corded with muscle he had to hold them a little away from his sides, reminding her of a primate. Sophia recalled again how all the victims had died of manual strangulation. She didn’t doubt for a moment that this man could accomplish the feat with one quick flex of his hands around a neck.
“It occurs to me that I’ve seriously misjudged you.” The calm words seemed to emanate from someone else. Someone who wasn’t currently cowering in panic. He blinked a moment and she knew her matter-of-fact statement had taken him aback.
“I said so, didn’t I?” He set the light down on the floor next to him. Not a flashlight at all, she realized now, but a portable floodlight of some sort. Powerful enough to bathe the interior of the cell with brightness and bathe the area outside it in a soft glow. “Don’t worry. You’ll have plenty of chances to apologize.”
“Of course. It’s what I deserve for disappointing you.” He’d used that word twice when they’d last spoke. The psychologist in her had recognized its significance and filed it away. Curious that the habit of analysis was so automatic even while her physical being was quaking. Her mouth seemed filled with sand. Every word had to be forced out of her closed throat. The unrelenting glare of the light pinned her like a bug to cardboard. A very nearly naked bug. “But I’m a professional. It bothers me that my profile of you was so very wrong, and that I left the public with an erroneous impression of you.”
He stepped out of her line of vision for a moment. Came back with a key. The gate rattled as he fitted it to the lock. “You’re about to start paying for that, bitch. You’ll pay for every word you wrote.”
“As I should.” Disassociation was critical. Sophia had to find a way to distance herself from the scene emotionally, even as shudders of fear racked her body. She couldn’t hope to mount a physical defense against him. Their short-lived struggle in her bathroom had proven that.
But a psychological battle? It was a slim chance. And her only one. “In my profession, mistakes are costly. They shouldn’t be tolerated. They especially shouldn’t be allowed to stand, when there’s an opportunity to make them right.”
The gate rattled, and then it was swinging open. And then—oh, God, then he was striding inside her cell. Rational thought took flight and instinct took over. She scrambled across the mattress, one hand thrown up in a futile attempt to ward him off
.
Hulking over her, he reached out a hand and grasped her by the throat, hauling her up with one hand and pinning her against the wooden side of the cell. Her ankle dangled helplessly off the floor. “You made a mistake all right.” He shoved her harder against the wall, his face close to hers. Dots swam before her eyes as the breath strangled in her lungs. “Maybe I should film your punishment. Stream it on the computer or something. Show people what happens to fuck-ups.” He shoved away from her then, and she crumpled at his feet, gasping for air.
She lay there for several moments, hauling much needed oxygen into her tortured lungs. When she spoke, she didn’t need to manufacture a weak voice. “You’re in charge.” Since offenders like this one operated out of a need for power and control, she had to play to that need. Pretend to accede to it. “If you think that will convince everyone of how wrong my profile on you was, of course, that’s what you should do. My idea is probably not nearly as smart as yours.”
Bending down he wrapped his fist in her hair and yanked her painfully to her feet, grabbing one of her breasts and squeezing it in a viselike grip. “Ideas? See, that’s the problem. Every time women go around thinking they have brains, we get mistakes like these. What would happen if dogs started thinking they were smarter than men? Or pigs? Females are on the same level. Lower. Least dogs can be taught to hunt.”
Cackling at his own words, he threw her to the side violently, so she tumbled to the mattress. He was on her in the next second, his hands running over her body, pinching, probing, squeezing. Panic clawed in her throat. It took more effort than she would have suspected she was capable of to rein in the primitive urge to struggle. Her limbs trembled from the stress of immobility.
“Of course, you’re right. And releasing a new profile was probably a stupid idea. You wouldn’t want to be interviewed by me so we can get the profile exact. And even if we did, there probably isn’t any way to get it picked up by the media.”