by Dan Padavona
“You feel that?”
Gardy looked at her, confused.
“It’s fear,” she said, continuing.
The setting sun took the villagers’ resolve with it, dragging it into the ground. The few people remaining on the street hustled to their cars with lowered heads and hands cupping arms, wearily glancing up now-and-then as if expecting someone to leap out of the shadows.
“Makes you wonder if the village will ever be the same.”
Gardy sighed.
“We both know that answer. Before Friday, nobody could conceive something this horrible was possible. Maybe in New York City or Rochester or Buffalo. Not in Coral Lake.”
The breeze off the water was chilling. It would take another month before the cold breath of winter disappeared from its depths. Bell rubbed goosebumps off her arms.
“Maybe we should go someplace warmer.”
They found a bench in the village park. Cut in silhouette, a mother duck led a train of ducklings across the water. The tour boat was nothing but a blinking light on the horizon.
“So it doesn’t appear Ethan Lancaster is our guy,” Gardy said, watching the boat vanish. “That is if we believe the father.”
“He doesn’t fit the profile, regardless.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“Our guy is a loner. He might go out for a drink, but I guarantee he sits at the end of the bar away from everyone else. I don’t see him holding an office job. Too many people would look at him. So if he happens to work in an office, he has a corner cubicle.”
Gardy stuck his hands into his pockets and jiggled his legs to stay warm.
“You believe he watched Kacy for a long time, months perhaps. So I agree.”
“He was likely abused as a child. No siblings and a one-parent household. The unknown subject needed space to hide and construct his own fantasies of dominating and controlling others.”
“That ties back to why he stole Kacy’s clothes.”
“And scalping her, though that was rather unexpected.”
“What do you think that represents?”
“I don’t think the clothes and hair are necessarily trophies, at least not in the way these guys usually think. No, I feel he’s keeping her alive. For himself. And that tells me she was special to him.”
At the clicking of heels, Bell lowered her voice as a woman strode along the sidewalk.
“Somehow he knew her.”
“In a village this small it’s not hard to believe,” said Gardy. “But that doesn’t explain how she was special to him. A neighbor, perhaps?”
Keys jingled with desperate intensity as the woman looked over her shoulder. Her eyes locked on Gardy’s and Bell’s shadows, then she whipped open the car door and drove off without turning on her headlights.
“Yes, possibly a neighbor. Except Lerner interviewed the Deering’s neighbors and nobody fit the profile. Loner, strong.”
“Then not a neighbor. He saw her in a different setting. We could go round and round for hours and never get close to an answer. Look around. In daylight, I could sit on this bench and watch a hundred girls walk through the park.”
“Right,” she snickered. “And ask them if they were a Pisces.”
“I’m just saying. If you were really obsessed with someone, you wouldn’t have to go far to watch them every day in this village. It’s supposed to hit 80 degrees by Saturday. I bet half the town will be in the park.”
Bell leaned forward, elbows on knees.
“We missed something at the Walsh house.”
“Between the crime scene techs, deputies, and our walk-through, I think we covered all the bases.”
Bell rubbed at her temples and closed her eyes.
“No. Something isn’t right about the break-in. I want to look again.”
“Okay, but it can wait until tomorrow. It won’t do us any good to paw around in the dark.”
No, she thought. It can’t wait until tomorrow. I need to figure out what I missed.
In the end, she decided he was right.
But time had already run out for them.
CHAPTER NINE
Angela Thiele hated this part of her job. The employee parking spaces stood at the back of the lot, away from the lamps and the pharmacy’s brightness.
The paper bag was in her hand, filled with blood pressure medication for Mrs. Ives. It crinkled and brushed her legs as she walked, her shoes clonking against the blacktop. She could see her father’s Nissan Rogue under a clump of trees, the vehicle’s white glow barely visible, and she chided herself for parking in the shadows during the heat of the day so the sun wouldn’t bake the interior. What difference would it make? Her deliveries didn’t begin until after dark, and closing time was midnight. Now the mosquitoes nipped at her, the air uncomfortably cool without a jacket.
The shifting wind brought music from the village square as she passed between two cars. She had to turn sideways to squeeze through, the bag of medicine held above her head as she danced between the parked vehicles. It felt strange that nobody was in the parking lot except her. No customers. No employees taking a smoke break. Scary, like strolling through a graveyard at midnight.
The parking lot opened to a vast, desert-like empty space. It was ridiculous Mr. Ripple made the employees park this far from the store. The lot was never more than quarter-full during peak hours. What would be the harm in allowing her to park near the lamp lights? She would be sure to bring it up to him before she left for school in August. If he became angry, it would be no skin off her back. This was just a summer job. Next year she’d be sure to apply at the marina. Anywhere but the pharmacy.
The keys jangled in Angela’s hand as she approached the Rogue. She needed to weave between Karla’s Jeep and Ron’s Volkswagen to reach her father’s vehicle. Close now. Only a few more seconds alone in the dark.
She saw the van parked beside the Rogue. It was too close. The sides brushed up against her driver side door. Her first worry—how would she explain it to her father if the van scratched the exterior? Then her worry turned to irritation. Even if the Rogue was unscathed, she’d have a helluva time squeezing into the driver’s seat. She might need to crawl in through the passenger side and shimmy over the gearshift. If she ripped her skirt doing so, she’d take her keys and rip a long, sharp line down the side of the shitty van. Whose van was it, anyway? It wasn’t Ripple’s. Angela didn’t know what kind of vehicle he drove, but she bet her life he eschewed the employee parking rules and pulled up close to the pharmacy.
When she reached the Rogue’s bumper she peered down the tunnel formed by the van and her father’s vehicle. It was a tight squeeze for sure, but she thought there was just enough room to wiggle through and pry open the door. If her door clipped the side of the van, tough shit. That’s what you get for parking too close.
She edged sideways past the van and took in its shabby appearance. Rust pockmarked the sides. The bulk leaned slightly to the right, something wrong with the undercarriage or whatever held vehicles upright. She didn’t know much about how vehicles were built and didn’t particularly care as long as they got her where she needed to go.
Halfway to her door, she noticed a long, metal box through the van’s windows. It was probably filled with tools, yet its presence made her skin prickle. It looked too much like a casket.
The way forward constricted. The van was angled slightly to the right. Too tight. But the door was so close she could reach out and touch it with the tips of her fingers.
Stubbornly, she pushed forward. And stopped.
The van trapped her against the Rogue, pressing against her skirted thighs. A nervous giggle and Angela reversed course, admitting defeat. This wasn’t such a good idea. Better to try the passenger door.
Except she couldn’t move.
The ridiculous predicament might have made her laugh had she not been alone in the dark, the pharmacy on the other side of the lot seeming a million miles away. Panic rose in her throat. She thought of calling for help but
didn’t want the indignation of someone finding her in this predicament. No, she could get herself out of this. She needed to stay calm and think things through.
Angela stepped sideways. The rusty van scraped at her thigh and seemed to bite down. The girl yelped and shoved her hands against the van’s bulk, hoping she could force her way backward and buy herself a fraction of wiggle room. When that failed, she gripped the top of the van and struggled to pull herself up. Her legs writhed between the vehicles, their cold exteriors like dead hands against her flesh. Struggling only worsened her situation. The two vehicles crunched the bulge of one kneecap, the pain excruciating. She yelped and twisted toward the back door until her body popped free.
She bent over to touch the throbbing knee and froze. She wasn’t alone in the parking lot.
As she clutched the keys and limped out from between the vehicles, the man’s silhouette filled the tunnel. Before she could react, the pipe wrench came down on her head.
The night spun. She crumpled to the pavement. Fingers brushed against her father’s Rogue as a powerful hand gripped under her arms and dragged.
To the van. Eyes fluttered as unconsciousness pulled her down and down.
The door slid open.
And then there was only darkness.
CHAPTER TEN
The alarm tore Bell out of a dream. She glanced at the window, through which morning light shone brightly. Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she checked her phone and found two missed calls from Gardy and a message.
Where the heck are you? Call me.
Her hands were jittery as she rolled through her phone settings. Bell’s mother used to tell her she could sleep through a tornado, but lately the slightest noise awakened her and often left her anxious and unable to close her eyes for the rest of the night. The settings confirmed the ringer was off. She certainly hadn’t turned the phone off. Damn Apple.
She started texting Gardy when he knocked on the door. Throwing the sheets back, she climbed from the bed and rushed to the door. The mirror stopped her as she touched the lock. She wasn’t dressed to answer the door. The nightshirt barely made it past her hips.
“Bell, you okay?”
Her answer came out as a croak. She cleared her throat.
“Just a second.”
She pulled on a pair of sweatpants and brushed her fingers through the rat’s nest atop her head. Not exactly presentable, but it would have to do.
When she pulled open the door his eyes were averted toward something interesting on the rug. Clearly he expected her to be less than decent.
“It’s okay. Come in.”
Gardy cautiously rolled his eyes back to the doorway until he verified she was clothed. He raised his hands as if to say, why in the hell won’t you answer your phone?
“I know, I know. My ringer was off. Don’t ask me how.” She sat on the edge of the bed, the sheets and blankets a rumpled mess. “What’s going on?”
“Our target might have struck again last night.”
“Oh, Jesus. Where was the body?”
“No, there isn’t a body. Not yet anyway. Let’s hope it’s just a coincidence, but I have my doubts.”
She chewed a nail as he sat on the ottoman, elbows on knees, looking down. He rarely met her eyes when he was nervous.
“Then I take it we have a missing person.”
“Another teenage girl. The sheriff’s office took a call about an hour ago from the parents of Angela Thiele. She hasn’t been seen since halfway through her shift at Brockhart’s Pharmacy yesterday evening, and she was due to get off work at midnight.”
“Wait. The parents are just reporting this now? What took so long?”
“Apparently she sleeps in late after work, not too different from some people I know.” He shot her a meaningful glare. “So nobody thought twice when she didn’t come down for breakfast. The father was the first to notice his Nissan Rogue wasn’t in the driveway when he went outside to grab the garbage cans. Even then they figured she’d spent the night at a girlfriend’s house.”
Bell was up now and digging through her bag for something to wear.
“What time did the pharmacy say she left?”
“Lerner pulled the manager out of bed an hour ago. Guy named Derrick Ripple. He said Thiele went out for a delivery run around nine o’clock and that was the last he saw of her. Apparently he’d overheard the girl telling a coworker she was thinking about quitting, so Ripple figured she’d blown off the delivery.”
“Idiot.”
“Lerner said as much about the guy. Regardless, the sheriff’s department found the Rogue at the back of the lot where the employees are supposed to park. The side door is all scuffed up, maybe a sign of a struggle. They’re testing for DNA now.”
Bell grabbed a change of clothes and headed for the bathroom, leaving the door half-open so they could continue speaking.
“You think it’s the same guy? Kacy’s killer, I mean?”
Gardy exhaled.
“If it’s the same guy, he struck awfully fast again. That in itself is unusual. It’s a different pattern, too.”
She spat toothpaste and leaned her head through the doorway.
“Maybe not a new pattern at all. Perhaps he thought the lot was too risky to kill the girl, so he needed to take her somewhere.”
“Which is why we have to figure out where he took her…if this is our guy.”
Bell didn’t need to reply. It was the same person who killed Kacy Deering. Gardy knew it, too.
A half-hour later they were inside the sheriff’s office. The parents were there. Bell estimated they were both around forty-five-years-old. The father had a thick mat of black hair and wore a golf shirt and khakis. The mother’s clothes suggested she was ready to work in the garden before the panic began. She leaned her head against her husband’s shoulder, eyes flashing around the room like birds trapped in a greenhouse. After they interviewed the parents, Gardy and Bell sat in chairs across from Lerner. The sheriff sat behind his desk. Bell caught the hint of a quiver when Lerner moved his hands, the sheriff obviously overwhelmed.
Lerner removed his hat and rubbed at his forehead.
“What do we do now?”
“We keep rattling the bushes,” Gardy said. “Brockhart’s is close to the village square, isn’t it?”
“About a block-and-a-half away.”
“Then chances are somebody saw the guy’s vehicle. Call in anyone off work today and canvas the neighborhood. Talk to Angela’s coworkers. Ask if anyone saw an unusual vehicle hanging around the lot, something that didn’t fit.”
Bell tapped the pen against her cheek, thinking.
“In particular, focus on vans seen in the area. See if that rings a bell with anyone. We’re dealing with an abduction now, and while it’s not impossible the unknown subject drives a car, he likely used a van.”
Lerner blinked.
“That makes sense. Would be easier to catch the girl and throw her inside.”
“Not only that, but it gives him a greater sense of isolation and solitude, and I believe that’s very important to him. In the meantime, hold the Thieles a little longer and get Stephanie Deering to come in. There has to be a common relation between them, someone who knew Kacy and Angela.”
Lerner slapped his hands on his desk.
“I’ll call Crandall and get him in early.”
When they were out of earshot Bell leaned close to Gardy.
“I still want to look at the Walsh house.”
“You sure? The priority is finding the link between Kacy and Angela. You said so, yourself.”
“I missed something important, Gardy. The sooner I figure out what it is, the better. It’s our best chance to find Angela.”
“First we need to check out the area around the pharmacy. Talk to people. This will take most of the day.”
“I understand. When we have a moment.”
With a shared glance, she and Gardy agreed to revisit the Walsh house after they exhausted
their remaining options.
Bell noticed the Thieles staring. She nodded back at them, a promise to do her best and bring their child home alive. They dropped their eyes to the floor.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The bare bulb casts harsh light inside the tight confines of the shed. When Hodge moves the shadows are elongated, grotesque. It makes him edgy, makes him clutch his hair and yank. His hands come away with a clump which he brushes on his jeans.
Inside the shed, the heat builds, humidity bleeding rivulets of sweat down his neck, soaking his shirt and producing a greasy vinegar stench. The sun will soon set judging by the long shadows cutting among the trees. It will be warm tonight. The full heat of summer has arrived in Coral Lake. Winter no longer sleeps in the shadows. He should shower, he thinks. He should clean himself so he is presentable to the women. It is true they are under his control, but decency is important. The problem is the shower is in his home inside the village, and he can’t leave them alone.
The girl is asleep on the cot. Her wrists are bound behind her back by rope, knees drawn to her stomach. When she breathes her chest swells and recedes, a gentle lake tide he wishes to touch and swim within. There will be time for that. They have the rest of their lives together.
Sharing the cot is Kacy, the girl he continues to hide from Mother.
He isn’t insane, Hodge tells himself, understanding the mannequin isn’t flesh and bone. When he runs his nailed fingers over the mannequin’s skin, it is stiff and cool to the touch. Dressed in Kacy’s clothes, the pelt fixed upon its head, the life-size doll is Kacy. Squinting, he observes her chest and wills the flesh to expand and contract as does the other girl’s.
He reaches out, desires to touch the new girl’s skin. She has slept a long time. Occasionally the girl mutters and squirms, legs running dog-like in her sleep. Apprehension grips him. The new girl will love him as Kacy does. Yet she is deep in a dream now and will be frightened by the sudden touch.
Her skin is tan and young and perfect. He can no longer help himself.