by Tim Kizer
They could lift the fingerprints and send them to Holly’s cop friend, or they could hand the phone over to the Houston police.
When they left Buffalo, he would search online for stores selling fingerprinting supplies in Houston.
Chapter 6
1
As the bus turned off the highway, Osiris glanced at his watch. It was 1:44 p.m. They were only five minutes behind schedule. Good job, driver.
The bus pulled onto Main Street, then drove into the parking lot of the Sunrise Mart, which also served as a bus station, and stopped at the curb near the gas station sign.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is Buffalo,” the driver announced. “We’ll be here for fifteen minutes. According to my watch, it’s one-forty-five. If you get off the bus, be sure to get back on board by two o’clock. I repeat: we leave at two o’clock.”
Has any bus passenger ever been left behind?
The world was full of unpunctual morons, so Osiris supposed that happened a few times a year.
A few people got out of their seats. Osiris put on his sunglasses and headed to the door.
Is Veronica going to get off the bus? he wondered as he moved down the aisle behind a chubby guy in a faded plaid shirt and baggy pants.
He stepped off the bus, walked a few paces toward the gas pumps, and spotted Castor standing in front of the Sunrise Mart beside an empty wheelchair. Castor, who had informed Osiris of his arrival in Buffalo twenty minutes earlier, wore a loose, long-sleeved dress revealing his shaved legs, a long curly wig, big sunglasses, and lots of makeup. It wasn’t the first time he’d pretended to be a woman to capture their prey. Castor looked good in drag, and Osiris thought he would make a great Cher impersonator.
Osiris nodded to his partner in crime, and Castor nodded back. Osiris put on his cap, turned around, and saw Veronica emerge from the bus.
A chicken restaurant and a pizza place adjoined the convenience store. Where was Veronica headed?
Maybe she’s going to the restroom?
Because there were no surveillance cameras there, kidnapping Veronica from a public restroom would be a piece of cake.
When Veronica was about twenty feet from the Sunrise Mart, Osiris started toward the store, feeling the adrenaline surge through his body.
Abducting someone in broad daylight in front of dozens of witnesses took guts and brains. What a thrill it was! He lived on the edge and enjoyed it.
His mind clear and focused, synapses firing on all cylinders, Osiris was confident he’d be able to solve any problems that might arise during the kidnapping in a split second.
Osiris unzipped his fanny pack, retrieved a small hypodermic syringe filled with a powerful sedative-hypnotic, and palmed it.
Castor watched Veronica open the door to the convenience store and walk inside. He’d probably recognized her.
Osiris stood by the entrance to the Sunrise Mart a few feet from Castor and said, without looking at him, “The one in the purple tank top. We’ll do it when she comes out. Be ready.”
“Okay, Os.” Castor stepped behind the wheelchair and grabbed the handles.
Osiris smiled as he imagined strangling Veronica, stabbing her, slitting her throat.
He loved to kill. He killed for fun, and he killed for a living (it was nice to be one of the lucky few who got paid to do what they loved). He had lost count of the people he had murdered; he was sure he had taken at least a hundred lives, most of them on the Agency’s orders.
A short black-haired man in his fifties, Osiris’s fellow passenger, went into the Sunrise Mart.
Osiris glanced into the store and saw Veronica standing at the counter.
“Get ready,” he told Castor, and placed his thumb on the plunger.
Veronica came out about ten seconds later with a black plastic bag. Osiris waited a moment, then walked up behind her, stuck the needle into her left shoulder, pushed the plunger, and pulled the needle out. He moved fast; it had taken him only a second to administer the injection.
Veronica started, turned her head, and looked at Osiris, a grimace on her face.
“I’m sorry. I’m very sorry,” he said, and resumed walking.
Veronica said nothing.
“Are you okay, honey?” Castor asked the woman as he pushed the wheelchair up to her. “Are you okay?”
The sedative in the syringe had been developed in the Agency’s secret labs and was so strong it knocked you out in seconds (Osiris had two twenty-milliliter vials of this stuff in his fanny pack). Veronica dropped the bag and her legs buckled as Castor reached her. He caught the woman before she collapsed.
“Don’t worry, honey,” Castor said as he sat Veronica in the wheelchair. “Everything’s going to be okay.” He picked up Veronica’s bag, set it in her lap, and then placed her feet on the footrests.
A thin, wiry man with sunken cheeks came out of the store and walked by, paying them no attention. Castor took a Dallas Cowboys cap from the armrest pouch, put it on Veronica’s head, pulled it down over her face, and started pushing the woman toward the south side of the lot, where his panel van was parked.
As he passed under the gas station canopy, Osiris glanced back to see if everything was going smoothly, then checked his watch. The bus was leaving in twelve minutes. He placed the syringe back in his fanny pack and zipped it up.
They had gotten another birdie in their clutches. A hot Latina birdie.
Who are we going to kidnap next?
How about the blond chick?
Engine growling, brakes hissing, an eighteen-wheeler pulled into the lot and parked in the front, parallel to the street.
Osiris stood by the gas station sign and fixed his eyes on his partner in crime.
No one bothered Castor on the way to his van. He slid open the side door, lowered the ramp, and pushed the wheelchair into the van.
What’s her blood type? Castor wondered as he folded the ramp. Hopefully, it’s O negative.
He closed the door, slipped behind the wheel, and started the engine.
A thin smile crossed Osiris’s lips when Castor drove off the lot. He stared into space for half a minute, thinking about Veronica and the things he wanted to do to her, and then went to the pizza place.
2
After leaving the Sunrise Mart’s parking lot, Castor turned south onto the freeway service road and drove for seven minutes before pulling over.
Castor had known Osiris for six years, and they had been killing together for five. Castor and Osiris weren’t their real names. It was Osiris’s idea to use aliases; he thought it was cool. Osiris had named himself after the Egyptian god of the afterlife, and Castor after a son of Tyndareus, the king of Sparta (according to Greek mythology, after Castor’s death, Zeus transformed him and his twin brother, Pollux, into the constellation Gemini).
It was Osiris who had suggested this trip. He wanted to try something different, to add more risk to the game.
They planned to abduct three women during this hunt. There was another girl on the bus that Osiris liked. They would probably kidnap her in Houston.
Castor set Veronica’s bag on the floor, took her cell from her pocket, and removed the battery. After putting the phone and battery in his duffel, he pulled out the woman’s wallet and checked her driver’s license. Veronica Mendez was twenty-two years old and lived in the Dallas suburb of Mesquite. He placed the wallet in his bag and grabbed a roll of duct tape and two zip ties.
“Veronica.” Castor gently shook the woman’s shoulder. “Veronica.”
No answer.
The girls before Veronica had woken about two hours after the injection. Veronica would be asleep for at least another hour and a half.
Houston was two hours away. He would give her a big dose of sedative within the next hour.
Castor ripped off a piece of duct tape and covered Veronica’s mouth with it. Then he tied her hands behind her back and bound her feet.
“Nice, very nice,” he said, eyeing Veronica from head to toe.<
br />
He pulled up her tank top, unhooked her bra, and squeezed her breasts. They were big and firm, capped with light brown nipples.
He smiled. “Nice titties.”
He grabbed the woman under the arms, lifted her, and laid her on her back on the floor.
He couldn’t wait to fuck and kill Veronica. Hopefully, they would kidnap the third woman in Beaumont or Baton Rouge.
Castor picked up a black plastic sheet from the floor and covered Veronica with it. Then he looked inside the woman’s bag and saw a half-liter bottle of Diet Coke (he preferred diet sodas, too, because he was watching his figure), a bag of Lay’s potato chips, and a plastic-wrapped ham sandwich.
As he stepped into the cab, he checked his watch. 1:59 p.m.
His next stop was the Houston bus station. He had to get there before Osiris’s bus, which was about to leave Buffalo.
He started the engine, shifted into drive, and hit the gas.
Twenty minutes later, Castor pulled off the highway at a rest stop and injected Veronica with a sedative. He would give her another dose in six hours.
Chapter 7
1
Nick was among the first passengers to get off, and he returned to the bus five minutes before it was supposed to leave. Unfortunately, the killer didn’t approach him. No one stalked him or tried to strike up a conversation with him.
Would the killer try to get his phone back in Houston?
Had he decided to stay in Buffalo?
When he climbed into the bus, Nick saw that the guy in the green T-shirt wasn’t in his seat. There were a few people standing near the bus, but the guy in the green T-shirt wasn’t among them. Nick scanned the lot. The guy in the green T-shirt was nowhere in sight.
There was a red duffel bag under the guy’s seat. If he was going to get off in Buffalo, he would have taken his bag with him, wouldn’t he?
Nick wished the bus were empty so he could open the bag and examine its contents.
The knife he used to kill those women could be in this bag. Or a body part he took as a souvenir. Or a diary where he wrote down the details of his murders.
A paperback lay facedown on the seat. Nick turned it over and read the title: The 4-Hour Work Week. The subtitle was Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich.
It appeared the guy didn’t make a lot of money and was lazy.
The four-hour work week. What an interesting concept.
It’s probably one of those books that tell you to believe in yourself and claim that if you visualize it, it will materialize.
“Excuse me,” a woman’s voice said behind Nick.
“I’m sorry,” he replied, and walked to his seat.
He asked Holly, “Have you received any more messages from him?”
“No.”
“Did anyone ask you about the phone?”
“No. You?”
Nick shook his head.
“You think he’s gone?”
Nick shrugged. “Maybe.”
Two more passengers, a young black woman with long dreadlocks and a young black man with a shaved head, got back on the bus.
Was the killer coming back?
“Can you ask the driver if anyone got off in Buffalo?” Nick said.
Holly had a better chance of getting this information than he did because she was a cute young woman.
“Okay.”
Holly exited the bus, spoke to the driver, who was standing near the gas station sign, (the conversation lasted less than twenty seconds) and then came back.
“He can’t tell me who got off in Buffalo,” she informed Nick.
Would fifty dollars change his mind?
Nick checked his watch. 1:57 p.m.
“Did you see anyone leave the bus with a bag?” he asked.
“No.”
“Did the driver open the luggage compartment?”
“No.”
Nick heard someone enter the bus, looked down the aisle, and saw the guy in the green T-shirt. He had a small pizza box in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. Nick watched him sit down in his seat and put the pizza box on his lap.
“Send him a message,” Nick said. “Ask him what his name is.”
“Okay.”
Holly typed the message and sent it.
Nick stood, stepped closer to the guy in the green T-shirt, and saw that he was holding his phone in his left hand. The phone screen was dark.
The man pulled a slice of pizza from the box and took a bite. Nick returned to his seat to let a passenger through, and as he did, the guy in the green T-shirt glanced back. Nick looked away before their eyes could meet.
“Did he reply?” he asked Holly.
“No.”
The driver climbed into the bus and got behind the wheel. The guy in the green T-shirt kept eating his pizza.
“What are we going to do if he got off in Buffalo?” Nick said.
“We’ll call the police.”
If the cops met the bus at the Houston station, they would be able to figure out the killer’s name: he would be the one who wasn’t supposed to get off in Buffalo but had.
Of course, the killer could have bought his ticket under a false name with cash.
At exactly two o’clock the driver closed the door and pulled out of the Sunrise Mart’s lot onto Main Street.
Is the killer still on the bus?
When they got back on the freeway, Nick took out his phone and watched the video he’d shot to refresh his memory.
“I’ll check if anyone got off the bus,” he said to Holly, and went to the front of the bus. The guy in the green T-shirt had finished his pizza and was placing the box on his duffel bag as Nick passed him.
Nick started the video again and headed to the back of the bus, scanning the passengers. The guy in the green T-shirt was now reading a book.
None of the first-row passengers was missing. The same went for the passengers in the second, third, and fourth rows. When Nick checked the fifth row, he saw that the young woman who sat next to the guy in the green T-shirt wasn’t in her seat.
She didn’t look like a serial killer.
She might be in the restroom. Or Buffalo might have been her destination.
Nick checked the remaining seats and found that no one else was missing.
It was the third time he had gone from one end of the bus to the other, wasn’t it? The passengers probably thought he was a weirdo.
Who cares what they think?
Nick knocked on the restroom door. No answer. He opened the door and discovered that the restroom was empty.
That woman was not on the bus.
She might have lost track of time and missed the bus.
Was there a bag under her seat?
Would the driver turn the bus around and go back to Buffalo if I told him that someone was left behind?
Probably not. It wasn’t the driver’s problem that she had missed the bus.
Nick walked to the fifth row and looked under the woman’s seat. No bag.
“Excuse me,” Nick said to the guy in the green T-shirt.
The man lifted his eyes from the book and looked at him. “Yes?”
Pointing at the seat next to the man, Nick asked, “Do you know where the woman who sat next to you was headed?”
“No.” The man shook his head.
Nick held out his hand. “I’m Nick.”
The man stared at his hand for a moment and then shook it. “Sam.”
“I was wondering if she missed the bus.”
“Oh.” Sam glanced at the seat next to him. “She didn’t tell me where she was headed.”
“Do you know her name?”
“Veronica.”
Nick doubted Veronica had given Sam her number but decided to ask anyway. “Do you have her number?”
“No.” Sam glanced at his watch and said in a low voice, “Nick, don’t tell the driver she missed the bus.”
“Why?”
“I have another bus to catch
in Houston. I don’t want to miss it.”
What a selfish jerk.
Nick nodded. “Yeah, sure.”
By the way, he had another bus to catch in Houston, too, and the scheduled layover was only forty-six minutes.
“It’s her own fault,” Sam said. “Am I right?”
“Yeah.”
Something bad might have happened to her.
Like what?
She might have been run over by a car.
Chapter 8
1
“One person got off in Buffalo. A woman,” Nick told Holly when he returned to his seat.
“A woman?”
Did he kill her? Holly wondered, and a chill ran down her spine.
Would the killer have dared to commit murder with so many witnesses around?
Maybe she got off in Buffalo because it was her destination.
“The killer could be a woman, you know,” she said.
Nick nodded. “Yes.”
“Where did she sit?”
Nick pointed to a man in a green T-shirt in the fifth row. “Next to that guy. He says her name’s Veronica.”
“Did you catch her on video?”
Holly remembered that Veronica was young and had long dark hair, but her memory of the woman’s face was hazy.
“Let’s see.” Nick started the video and paused it when Veronica appeared on the screen. She had on a purple tank top and blue jeans; her face was turned to the window, so you could not see it. Nick pointed at Veronica and said, “Here she is.”
Holly stared at the screen for a few moments, then restarted the video and paused it when the next row came into view. Veronica never turned her face to the camera.
“She doesn’t look like a serial killer,” Nick said.
“Jeffrey Dahmer didn’t look like a serial killer, either.”
If he killed Veronica, did he hide her body? Where could he have hidden it?
She should call the police. Did Buffalo have a police department?
“Is there a bag under her seat?” Holly asked.
“No. Maybe she missed the bus.”
It was certainly possible.
“I need to go to the restroom,” Holly said.
“Okay.”