Hell's Highway

by Gerri Hill

  “My God,” she whispered.

  “Focus, Ross,” Reynolds said, his light flashing in the corners of the room, illuminating medical equipment that looked like it had been scattered in haste.

  “Clear,” she said. She turned, finding the light switch, nearly gasping as it all came into view. Dried blood covered the floor, the countertop, the table...and Andrea lay naked on top of it, chained by the arms and feet.

  “We should,” he said, clearing his throat as he stared, “we should secure the house.”

  But Cameron didn’t move, her eyes were glued to Andrea, her heart filled with fear. She felt sick to her stomach. Andrea couldn’t be dead. She just couldn’t be. It was then she saw the needle sticking out of Andrea’s arm, the IV drip, the vials. It jolted her into action, rushing forward, reaching out, then pausing, hoping to feel warm flesh, not cold. Her hand trembled as she touched Andrea’s arm, relief flooding her as she saw her shallow breathing. She jerked the needle out of her arm and flung it to the countertop. She did the same with the IV, tugging it out of her arm, feeling remorse as blood seeped out from her actions.

  “Oh, God,” she murmured, bending low, feeling her faint breath on her face. “Hang in there, baby,” she whispered. She looked up, seeing Reynolds staring. “Find the goddamn keys,” she said as her hands tugged at the chains.

  “She’s alive?”

  “Yes.”

  They both looked up, hearing sirens in the distance. Their backup, she hoped.

  “Here,” he said, tossing keys at her.

  She fumbled with them, finally finding one to open the locks and release the chains holding her arms. When she did so, they fell helplessly off of the table, dangling lifelessly beside it. She went to her feet, glancing at Reynolds who was trying to avert his eyes.

  “Find me something to cover her, please.”

  But there was nothing in the blood-filled room. Reynolds took off his suit coat, handing it to her.

  “Use this.”

  “Thanks. Remind me not to give you shit anymore about wearing a suit all the time,” she said as she covered Andrea the best she could. She tucked her arms along her sides, bending down again, making sure she was still breathing. She patted her face several times. “Wake up, Andi. Wake up.” The sirens were loud now, the emergency lights flashing against the window. “You go. I’ll stay with her.”

  After he left she very nearly broke down, her chest still so tight with fear. She choked back tears that were threatening. She didn’t have the luxury of tears. Not now. She squeezed Andrea’s hand tightly, making herself move away. It was a contaminated crime scene already so she didn’t bother with proper protocol as Reynolds had suggested.

  An empty vial lay on the countertop, tipped on its side. Two others were beside it...waiting. There was a pile of unused syringes, all still neatly wrapped in their plastic containers. She glanced around the room, her eyes landing on a bloody saw, pieces of mangled flesh caught in the blade. She turned away, trying not to picture Andrea meeting the same fate as the others.

  “In here,” she heard Reynolds say and she stepped aside as two paramedics rushed in.

  They unceremoniously ripped off Reynolds’s jacket, leaving Andrea naked again.

  “What do we have here?” one asked as he held a stethoscope to Andrea’s bare chest.

  Cameron was about to protest when Reynolds grabbed her arm. “Come on. Let them do their job.”

  “Yeah. Okay.” She pointed to the countertop. “There’s an empty vile. Ketamine.”

  The paramedic only nodded and Cameron supposed it wasn’t his place to ask questions. That was her job.

  “Come on,” Reynolds said. “We have a job to do too.”

  She nodded, knowing it was true, but she felt like she was abandoning Andrea. She glanced back once again, seeing her ashen complexion, so unlike the normal healthy, vibrant glow that she associated with Andrea.

  Out in the hallway, there were four San Bernardino sheriff’s deputies waiting for instruction. She almost wished Reynolds would take over as her emotions were all over the place but she took a deep breath, summoning up the best professional face she could muster.

  “Is this it?” she asked, looking at them.

  “Crime scene team is en route. They’re about fifteen minutes out,” one of them said.

  She nodded. “Our guy slipped away. He took to the desert, I guess. Check the perimeter. We didn’t hear an engine so assume he’s on foot.”

  They nodded, all dispersing quickly.

  She walked into the makeshift kitchen, the only room where a light had been on. Reynolds stood watching her.

  “Why was this light on?” she asked, not really expecting an answer.

  She looked around, seeing an old dorm room sized refrigerator in a corner, a tiny microwave sitting on top of it. There was a set of cabinets—shelves, no doors—on one wall. There was nothing there but a couple of plates and a can of beans. There was a sink, but no faucet. A bucket of water, half empty, sat beside it.

  “Electricity, but no running water.”

  “Explains the mess in the other room,” Reynolds said.

  “No running water, yet not a shred of evidence was ever found on the bodies,” she mused. She stepped back, looking at the room as a whole, frowning. The table and chairs were off center.

  “What is it?”

  She squatted down, seeing that the old dusty rug had been moved. “Son of a bitch,” she murmured. She pulled the rug back, revealing a door.

  “Trap door,” Reynolds said. He bent down, reaching for the handle but she stopped him.

  “Don’t be stupid,” she said as she lay down on the filthy floor. “Give me your flashlight.”

  She shone it along the seam of the door, slowly lifting it. She felt the tightness and stopped, seeing what appeared to be trip wires on the latch. She let out a breath, gently closing the door again.

  “What?” he asked.

  “It’s wired.”

  “Wired?” He shook his head. “He wouldn’t have had time to wire it. Chances of there being a bomb down there are slim.”

  “Yeah, well you’re goddamn crazy if you think that.”

  She jerked her head up, hearing the rolling of the gurney in the hallway. She got up and went to the door, thankful they had covered Andrea finally.

  “How is she?”

  “Vitals are good.”

  She felt some of the tension leave her body and she nodded. “Where will you take her? Vegas?”

  “Needles. CRMC.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “I’m not from around here.”

  “Colorado River Medical Center,” he said as they quickly wheeled Andrea away.

  They had no sooner left than three crime scene investigators arrived. Cameron held up her FBI credentials to them, pointing to the room Andrea had been held in.

  “Did you guys work the scene where the headless woman was found east of Barstow?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” one said. “Jesus Christ,” he murmured when he looked in the room. “Is this it?”

  “We think so.”

  “Where the hell do you start?”

  “It’s been contaminated,” she admitted. “Us two,” she said, pointing to Reynolds. “And paramedics. We had a live victim.” She almost choked on the word, hating to call Andrea a victim.

  “We’ll sort it out,” he said, the other two already getting to work.

  “Do any of you know anything about bombs?” she asked.

  The lone female of the group looked up and shrugged. “Just enough to be dangerous. What do you have?”

  “Trap door. Trip wires,” she said.

  “I’ll take a look.”

  She got down on the floor much as Cameron had done, lifting the door slowly. She stopped and nodded, lowering the door again.

  “Yep. Trip wires.”

  “So the simple matter of cutting them should be safe?” Cameron asked.

  “They’re looped over the bars on the lat
ch. That’s your pressure point. Cut the wire as close to the center as you can. Make sure there’s not a secondary wire.” She studied the floor. “Even so, the blast radius is probably right here at the opening. I doubt it’s rigged to blow up the whole place.”

  She left them with that word of advice and Cameron and Reynolds stared at each other.

  “She doubts?” Reynolds said, apparently now convinced there could be a bomb.

  “Swiss army knife?”

  “No.”

  The woman stuck her head back in the door and tossed a pair of heavy-duty scissors at Cameron, which she caught in one hand.

  “Thought you might need those,” she said, winking at Cameron before joining her team again.

  Reynolds shook his head. “Flirting at a crime scene. We’ve lost all sense of professionalism.”

  “Yeah. Especially you, without a coat and tie,” she said dryly, resuming her position on the floor. She glanced up at Reynolds. “Would you rather do this?”

  “No, you’re doing fine.”

  Cameron pulled the trap door up again, stopping when she could see the wire. “Get down here. I need you to hold the flashlight.”

  He hesitated, looking first at the filthy floor then at his properly pressed pants, then back to the floor.

  “Don’t piss me off, Reynolds,” she said. “It’s been a really bad night so far.”

  “God knows what’s been on this floor,” he muttered as he joined her, holding the light under the trap door like she’d asked.

  “Over here,” she said as she scooted down. “There. See it?”

  “Yeah.”

  She took a deep breath. “On three,” she said quietly. She closed her eyes briefly. Please don’t let us blow up. “One, two...three,” she said, snipping the wire.

  They were both quiet, waiting, then grinned at each other.

  “No big bang,” she said. “That’s a good thing.”

  “You think he’s down there?”

  Cameron pulled her weapon. “If he is, he’s a dead man,” she said fiercely. “Open it up.”

  He lifted the door slowly, flashing his light along the door as if looking for more wire. Then he flung it open and it landed against the rickety table with a crash. His flashlight illuminated the room, looking like nothing more than an underground root cellar. Cameron went down the steps first, nearly afraid the old ladder wouldn’t hold her weight as each step made a creaking sound.

  “Whoa,” she murmured.

  Reynolds landed softly beside her, his light held fast on the explosives.

  “Where the hell did he get C4?” she asked quietly.

  He moved his light around the room, finding what appeared to be a tunnel. “There,” he said, making a move for it.

  She grabbed his arm. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Let’s go after him.”

  She shook her head. “You’re insane. First of all, there’s a wad of C4 staring at us that I’m not real crazy about. Secondly, if the door was wired, then there are probably booby traps, maybe more C4. No way.”

  “What’s with you? I always heard you’d go in head first and ask questions later. You getting scared in your old age, Ross?”

  Cameron very nearly accepted his challenge, but she realized the answer to his question was pretty simple. She no longer had only herself to think about. In the past, yeah, she wouldn’t even consider not going into the tunnel. But now there was Andrea, now she had someone who loved her. Her responsibilities, her priorities had changed. Because she had changed. But not so much that she couldn’t glare at Reynolds with a near snarl on her face.

  “Why do you keep putting up the challenge flag? I’m sick of it. You learn that shit from Collie?”

  “I’m just saying, we have the bastard. Let’s go after him.”

  “And I’m saying you’re goddamn crazy, Reynolds. You’re dressed in your fancy, pressed suit, shiny shoes and you want to go running blind into a tunnel?” She felt the pressure of the day settle on her shoulders as her voice got louder. “That’s fucking insane. You want to blow yourself up, go ahead. That’s fine. But you let the rest of us get the hell out of here before you do anything so goddamn stupid,” she yelled, feeling the vein in her head about to explode.

  “Ah...excuse me.”

  They both looked up, seeing two of the sheriff’s deputies looking down at them.

  “If you guys are through yelling at each other, we have something you might want to see.”

  Reynolds looked back to the tunnel, as if still considering it, then climbed back up the ladder, Cameron close on his heels.

  “We need a bomb squad,” she said to one of the deputies. “Close this trap door. Gently. There’s C4.” She shook her head as she followed the others outside into the darkness. It’s a wonder they didn’t blow the whole damn building up earlier when they’d just tossed open the door without a thought. She’d seen unstable C4 detonate from only a cough.

  “There’s a shed over here. It was locked up tight,” he said, showing them the broken lock. “I ain’t never seen nothing like this my whole life. I hope to never again.”

  “Trophy room?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “You found the heads?”

  He nodded, then stepped aside so she could enter.

  An old dusty lightbulb hung on a wire, swaying now with the desert breeze that blew in. It swung gently back and forth, the shadows dancing with its movement, skeletal and decomposed heads going from light to dark to light again, like a bad horror movie.

  “Jesus Christ,” she murmured, absently taking the large flashlight one of the deputies handed her. She covered her nose with her shirt, breathing through her mouth. The heads appeared to be attached to a sturdy peg or dowel stick, displayed along shelves, just like a hunter might display his kill. Which was exactly what he was doing.

  “There’s so many,” Reynolds said quietly.

  “Seventeen.”

  Cameron shone her flashlight at each one, some so old they were just bones, others decayed, still others with flesh on the bones. She flashed to the most recent, expecting to find their three women. Instead, she found four heads.

  “What the hell?”

  “There’s a body we haven’t found,” he said.

  “There are apparently a lot of bodies that haven’t been found.”

  “We got more,” the deputy said. “In here.”

  There was an open doorway going into a small room. There, hanging on hooks and piled on the floor were clothes and shoes, some purses and jewelry, even a couple of pretty hats. The light landed on the dress and shoes Andrea had been wearing—the latest addition to his collection.

  “Goddamn bastard,” she said. She glanced at the deputy who was standing in the doorway. “Get one of the CSIs. They’re going to need to call in help on this. There’ll be an FBI forensics team sent in too.”

  Back out in the fresh air, she took deep breaths, chasing away the decomp that still lingered on the latest victims. She tried not to picture Andrea like this but, damn, it had been close. If he’d thrown the watch out earlier, if Andrea hadn’t alerted them to the fact that they were following the wrong truck, she’d still be in there, chained to that table, waiting for him to play whatever sick little games he liked. Waiting for him to eventually get tired of her and...and kill her like the others.

  “Hey, you okay?”

  She glanced at Reynolds and shook her head. “No.” But she didn’t elaborate, not feeling the need to share her thoughts with him. By the look on his face, she didn’t have to. He knew exactly what she was thinking. “Call Murdock, would you? Get a team sent down to help with all this,” she said, motioning to the shed.

  She walked over to her truck, realizing she had never turned it off. As she leaned in to kill the engine, she heard Rowan’s frantic voice.

  “Can anybody hear me? Anybody?”

  “Rowan?”

  “Cameron? Thank God!”

  “Oh, man.
Sorry.”

  “Please say you found her.”

  “Yeah. They took her by ambulance to Needles. I’m headed that way.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “She was drugged. Sedated. Something.” She watched Reynolds as he approached. “I think she’ll be okay.” She cleared her throat. “Have you been in contact with Eric?”

  “Yes. They’ve got the manager of the trucking company. They’re holding him in San Bernardino.”

  “Hold him overnight. We’ll be there in the morning.” She motioned for Reynolds to get in. “I’ll be in touch, let you know how Andrea is.”

  “Does this mean you didn’t get the guy?”

  “No. He had an escape...tunnel or something.” She turned to Reynolds. “You give them our contacts?”

  “Yes. But they said it would be days, if not weeks, before they had it all sorted out.”

  She nodded, then turned the truck back down the dirt road to the highway. “Rowan, we found where he kept the heads. There were seventeen. Some appeared to be decades old. But of the recent ones, there were four, not three. San Bernardino County is processing the evidence. Can you monitor that for me? Keep us up to date with what they find until we get a team in here?”

  “Sure. No problem.”

  She sighed. “Thanks. Good work tonight, Rowan. Talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Thanks Cameron. Good night.” A pause. “Oh, and you too, Special Agent Reynolds.”

  Cameron smiled. “He’s a good kid. Sharp.”

  “Yes, he is.” He stared at her. “You want me to drive?”

  “No, I’m okay. It’s been a long-ass day, but I just want to check on Andrea.” She hated feeling uncertain, especially in front of Reynolds, but she needed some reassurance. “You think she’s going to be okay, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” he said without hesitation. “I think she’ll be just fine.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Cameron’s chest felt tight as she stared into the brightly lit room, a crisp white sheet covering Andrea. Other than an IV drip, she appeared to be just sleeping. Her color was good, not the pale, ashy color she’d had earlier.