Across the narrow beach, he carried her limp form in his arms, searching for the path he’d earlier marked by tying strips of white cloth to trees along the way. Following his markers deep into the woods, he came to the clearing he’d prepared for the job at hand. He placed Genna on the ground, then leaving her still tied, returned to the boat where he retrieved the bag that held all he would need to complete his mission.
Retracing his steps, he removed the white ties from the trees. Just in case. . .
Genna lay on her side, one ear to the ground, and listened as his footsteps pounded softly through the earth beneath her. She rolled her head gently as best she could, encumbered as she was by her bindings, and sought to collect her wits. By laying quietly in the bottom of Patsy’s boat, she’d figured out early on that they were on their way to the beach at Shepherd’s Way. By counting the seconds it had taken Michael to carry her from the beach to the place where he’d laid her down, she’d been able to roughly pinpoint their location in the woods. They were about as far from the cabin area—which was crawling with law enforcement agents—as they could be, and still be on campground. With all of the missing women having been accounted for, there would be no reason for a search of these dense woods, particularly at night.
Forcing a few deep breaths to calm her, she tried to formulate a plan to escape, acknowledging that it would be damned hard to get away with her hands tied behind her back, and her ankles tied together. She would need to be rid of at least one or the other—the ankle or wrist ties—to get away from him.
Her senses came on full alert, hearing the first echo of footfalls that rang through the earth below her. The thought that she had escaped him once before, in these very woods, gave her courage.
And it was then that it occurred to her that if he had plans to rape her, he’d have to untie her ankles.
Had she not escaped once before by using her legs, her feet, to hurt him, to surprise him? Would he be remembering that detail tonight?
Around her the night sounds of the forest seemed to hush as he came closer. She turned her head just slightly so that she could see him enter the clearing, but her heart all but stopped in her chest as he drew near.
Appearing like some malevolent specter, Michael was dressed in the white robe he’d worn so many years ago. From the bag he carried, he set white candles into the ground around her in the shape of an arc. One by one, he lit the small candles, chanting as he did so.
When the last candle was lit, he lowered himself to the ground, his legs on either side of hers, and began to pray.
Following the unmarked Wick’s Grove police car along the dark and narrow country roads, John tried to put his finger on what precisely it was that was nagging at him, pricking, thorn-like, at his weary brain. It had been a very long day, and there would be hours more ahead before it would end. He recognized the fatigue for what it was and knew that something more than merely being tired had set him on edge.
His stomach rumbled, reminding him once again how long it had been since he’d last put something in it. Maybe at some point over the next few hours, he’d be able to steal five minutes to find something besides crackers from the hospital’s vending machines and too-dark coffee. Though right now, he conceded, even that didn’t sound so bad.
Not as good as homemade shrimp salad, he sulked momentarily, thinking that he should have asked Nancy to send some back for him with Genna.
It took another thirty seconds for it to hit him, and when it did, he slammed on the brake, stopping in the middle of the darkened road. He sat there, thinking back to the conversation, astounded that it had slipped by him.
“. . . so I did offer to make up a plate for Genna—she did say that shrimp salad was such a favorite of hers. . .”
Genna was allergic to shellfish.
The sudden realization stunned him, all but suffocating him with its certainty.
The car he’d been following had failed to notice that he’d stopped, continuing on ahead as if the driver, like John, was experiencing impaired reactions of his own that night. John made a U-turn on the narrow road and headed back the way he’d come, with his foot all the way down on the gas. He searched his pockets for his phone and hit speed dial, hoping, praying, that he could reach someone, and that it would not be too late when he did.
It took him ten minutes to find his way back to the little cottage that overlooked Bricker’s Lake. He wasn’t even aware that he left his engine running after pulling into Patsy’s driveway and slamming the gears into park.
He found the young state trooper laying in the driveway, a rope wound tightly around his neck. John stopped to check the man’s pulse, and was not surprised when he failed to find one.
Racing into the house, he called her name, knowing that she would not be there.
But where?
He ran next door, kicked in the backdoor, turning on the lights as he went from room to room. On a bedside table was a brown leather handbag, and the wallet inside contained a driver’s license in the name of Michael Holmes. A Styrofoam form on the dresser held a blond wig styled with bangs. The style was reminiscent of that in the photograph of Anna Homer, which Genna had lingered over in the front bedroom of Clarence’s house.
“Shit!” John yelled to the night as he went out the backdoor and slapped his hands on the railing of the deck that overlooked the expanse of lawn, which flowed down to the lake like a green river.
Where had he taken Genna?
From somewhere out in the night, a cat wailed.
Kermie.
John started tentatively across the grassy area, his eyes searching the dark for the orange tabby.
In the moonlight, the cat appeared like a Halloween caricature, standing on the end of the dock, his back arched, his tail raised straight into the air. As John approached, the cat wailed again, and it was then that John noticed that Patsy’s flat-bottomed boat was missing.
“Son of a bitch,” John growled, searching in the dark for the kayak.
A canoe rested against the large trunk of an old pine. Though not his first choice for water travel, it would have to do. He hoped he could manage to get it from one side of the lake to the other without tipping over.
“I’ll make sure there’s some extra Fancy whatever that cat food is called in your bowl in the morning,” John told Kermie even as he dragged the canoe to the lake and kicked off his shoes. Climbing awkwardly into the small craft, he tucked his Glock under the seat and leaned the paddle over his lap while he juggled his cell phone.
There was no doubt in John’s mind where Michael would be taking Genna. He only hoped that his call to the state police would get them—or him—there on time.
John forced himself to paddle methodically, trying to match his strokes evenly, one side to the other, to keep the canoe on course, hoping that the wind would not turn to his disadvantage. It had been so much easier, paddling with Genna, matching her strokes. The fist beneath his sternum tightened as he thought of her at the mercy of the man whose evil had stolen her childhood. Something she had said to him that afternoon as the surviving women had been bundled onto stretchers came back to him, something about how terrible that these women had been victimized first as children, then as adults, by the same evil force.
John’s jaw set firmly and he paddled a little faster, careful not to lose the rhythm he’d painstakingly developed, with one thought in mind: Michael may have destroyed a piece of the child, but he would not destroy the woman.
The clouds cleared from the moon, sending a ribbon of moonlight across the lake as if to light the way. Watching the shore as he passed by, hoping that something would appear familiar as he glided by, John scanned the landscape. And there, off to the left, was an open stretch of beach. Paddling more cautiously, he approached in silence, gliding across the lake, a chilly wind now at his back pushing him toward shore. There, close to the beach, Patsy’s flat-bottomed boat rode the faint ripple of lake tide, rising and falling ever so slightly in the shadows of th
e moon.
John angled the canoe behind the boat, then sat motionless, listening for some sound in the stillness of the late summer night. All he heard was the lapping of the water against the sides of the boat, and the occasional groan of the rope tied to something on shore. Hopping quietly out of the canoe into the warm lake, he dragged the canoe onto the beach and leaned over the side to locate his gun.
“Aaaaahhhhh!” An agonized scream rose over the trees and through them. Somewhere in the woods ahead, someone had been hurt badly.
Firing his gun twice into the air, hoping that someone from the vast law enforcement community gathered at the camp several acres away would hear, John ran to the edge of the woods. He had no flashlight, nothing to guide him except his instincts. Pausing, he strained his ears, hoping for one more such scream to guide him through the dark, but no sound came. He searched for something that could be an opening in the shrubs leading to a path, and finding one, proceeded to follow it, hoping it was the right one.
Seventy-five feet into the woods, he saw what appeared to be a faint glow off to his left. He slowed and made a concerted effort to make as little noise as possible as he passed from the shelter of one tree to the next, until he could see the pale yellow light of the candles in the tiny clearing straight ahead. He crept closer, silently, until he could hear a murmuring, as if an angry prayer was being uttered. A white-shrouded figure covered something on the ground.
His heart in his mouth, John knew with certainty what that figure was.
Lowering his gun, John sought an angle that would not put Genna in danger, but could not find one.
“Ah, hell,” he whispered, then hastened into the clearing, and smashed the butt of his gun against the back of the hood.
“Uhhhh!” The figure grunted and fell forward, then arching his back suddenly, threw John backward with a fury.
Using both hands like a club, Michael swung at John, connecting with his head, knocking him off his feet and throwing him backward. John landed on the ground with a thud, and managed to get off one shot as Michael fled into the woods.
John paused long enough to pull the gag off Genna’s mouth.
“Go after him!” Genna gasped as he sought his pocketknife to cut her hands free.
“I’m not leaving you here so that he can circle back around and slit your throat,” John told her, pulling her to her feet. “Besides, I think I hit him in the back of the leg. I don’t know how far he’ll be able to go.”
He wrapped his arms around her and held on for a very long moment.
“Are you all right?” he whispered in her ear.
“I am now,” she told him, leaning into him, letting the intoxicating euphoria of relief engulf her. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” he replied. He rocked her in his arms for one more moment, kissing the side of her face with utmost gratitude as he said a silent prayer of thanksgiving.
She flinched.
“Did he hurt you?”
“Only when he smacked me across the face,” she nodded, touching the back of one hand to her cheek. “I think it was his way of telling me he didn’t appreciate being kicked in a sensitive area.”
“You kicked him. . .”
“It worked the first time, I figured it was worth trying again. Unfortunately, it took me too long to get up with my hands tied behind me.” She tilted her head to one side and said, “I hear someone.”
“Too loud to be one person,” John said dryly. “It must be the reinforcements I called for.”
“Mancini!” someone yelled from yards away.
“Here!” he called back.
“How’d you lose him?” asked a member of the task force that had been formed that night, as he stepped into the clearing.
“Well, it was a choice between running blindly into the woods, where in all probability I’d get lost so that he could circle around and finish her off,” he nodded toward Genna, “or wounding him enough to slow him down while I untied Agent Snow. I opted for the latter.”
“Good choice,” the trooper nodded, “any idea which way he was headed?”
“He went off through the woods there to the left, but he could be anywhere. He’s obviously spent a lot of time around here these past few weeks, and knows the woods a lot better than any of us, especially in the dark. But if we could get some good flashlights back here, maybe we’ll be lucky enough to find a trail of blood and track him that way.”
“Well, we were lucky enough to find this.” A young officer wearing the uniform of the Wick’s Grove police department stepped into the clearing, Michael’s white robe over one arm. “And judging by the hole in the back, I’d say you did in fact hit him.”
He held up the back of the robe and turned it inside out, displaying a splatter of red in the flashlight’s glow.
“Good,” John said dispassionately. “Now let’s see if we can figure out where he’s gone to lick his wounds.”
24
It was almost three in the morning by the time Genna and John returned to Patsy’s cottage accompanied by two state troopers, two FBI agents, and Patsy’s nephew, Brian.
“Anyone know where my Aunt Pats might be?” Brian asked as the dark blue car with state government plates eased into the narrow driveway.
“Somewhere between here and Slippery Rock, last I heard,” Genna told him.
“I’m assuming she was driving her car?”
“I’m certain she was. What are you thinking?” Genna asked.
“I’m thinking I might want to put out an APB for her.”
“You think she’s in danger?”
“I don’t know what to think.” Brian ran his fingers through his dark brown hair. “There’s absolutely no way of knowing where Michael could be, or where he’s headed. Or what Patsy might have told Michael—that is, Nancy—about her itinerary.”
“My guess is that Patsy and my sister probably stopped at a motel somewhere between here and there, and they’re sleeping peacefully, blissfully unaware that there’s been any excitement whatsoever up here.” Genna paused on the dirt drive and turned to him. “But is it possible that Pats could have called Nancy—Michael—and told her—er, him—not to be concerned that they weren’t home yet, that they were staying over someplace and told her where? You betcha.”
“I agree. That’s totally in character for Pats. She might have left a message on the answering machine in there, expecting you to listen to it when you arrived last night. Michael could have played it—hell, if Pats called while Michael was in the cabin, he could have answered the phone and given any one of a number of reasons why he was in the house. So yes, there’s certainly a good chance that Michael knows where to find Pats and Crystal, if he’s looking for them.”
“Then I think if we can have them located without having them alarmed, that would be the way to go.”
“I agree.” Brian walked out onto the road and spoke softly with the two young state troopers who had accompanied them from the camp.
Genna stood in the middle of the yard, hugging herself, looking up into the heavens and giving thanks, not for the first time that evening. The moon still hung brightly over the quiet lakeside community, and the stars still danced overhead, twinkling like glowing gemstones in the night sky. But the beauty of the evening could not diminish the ordeal she’d been through, and John suspected it took all of her professional pride to hold her together at that moment.
“How ’bout we go inside and get some ice for that face of yours?” John asked gently. “You’re going to have some shiner come the morning. And then maybe we can grab a bite to eat—I’m ravenous—and you can lay down and get a little rest.”
“I doubt I can sleep tonight.” She shook her head. “He’s out there someplace. He’s angry as all hell now, and he won’t stop until he finishes what he started.”
“Then let’s go inside and at least tend to your eye.” John took her hand and led her to the front door, which still stood open.
“Crime scene,” one
of the detectives reminded them.
“Can we just grab some ice from the kitchen?” John grumbled.
“You’ll contaminate the scene.” The burly trooper crossed his arms over his chest, challenging John to pass him.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, Agent Snow’s face is swelling like a helium balloon. I think you can give us access to the kitchen. It’s right through the door there.”
“I’ll get you some ice,” the trooper told him as he disappeared through the doorway.
“Hey!” John called. “See if you can rustle up a sandwich while you’re in there.”
“There’s an all-night diner out past Wick’s Grove,” Genna tugged at John’s arm. “It’ll take us maybe twenty minutes to get there.”
“I can last that long,” he conceded, and searched in his pockets for his car keys as the trooper came back outside holding a plaid dish towel packed with ice cubes.
He handed it to Genna, who immediately raised it to her face and tilting her head back, eased the cloth onto the area right below her left eye.
“Genna, are you sure you don’t need to be checked out?” Brian asked for the fourth time.
She shook her head. “Except for my face, I really wasn’t injured. All I really need right now is food and eventually, a little rest. A trip to the emergency room would only delay both. I appreciate your concern, but all I really want is a hot meal. A few aspirin and the ice should take care of the face.”
“I’ll follow you down to the diner, if you don’t mind,” one of the Pittsburgh agents said, joining them. “There are some questions that I need to ask Agent Snow.”
“And there are some questions that I want to ask Agent Mancini,” she said as they started toward John’s car. “Like how did you know I was in trouble?”
He told her about Nancy’s comment about the shrimp salad.
“If she’d said anything else, I’d never have caught on. But she picked the one thing that you’d never eat.”
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