by Dan Padavona
Tyner ran a hand over his head and stared at the table.
“Irvin saw the whole thing. He saved his life that day, but the legend died. Sophomore season, the kid can’t hit a free throw. Ridiculous, right? He had a career three-point percentage above forty, but he couldn’t make a free throw with everyone looking at him and expecting him to fail. He quit before his junior season. Said he couldn’t deal with the pressure.”
He thumped his finger on his forehead.
“That’s how your mind turns on you. I trust Gardy is going through counseling.”
“It’s mandatory,” said Bell. “He doesn’t have a choice.”
“Good.”
“I wish I could do more to help.”
“Stay on Gardy about his appointments. Make sure he does more than the bare minimum. Anyone can show up and put in his sixty minutes. He needs to remain open to the process.”
“I’ll keep an eye on him.”
“Of course, you will. That’s what a good partner does. In the meantime, don’t be so hard on the guy. Give him time. He’ll come around.”
Tyner and Bell stopped talking when the waitress returned. They both ordered the super stack of strawberry pancakes. After the waitress moved on to the counter, Tyner leaned over the table.
“Nobody knows better than you, Agent Bell, what the human mind is capable of after a shock event. Consider Derek Longo and Alan Hodge. I’m not a big believer in good versus evil. They probably started off as ordinary people. Life experiences turned them bad.”
Bell dug her nails into her thighs. She didn’t want to think about all the Longos and Hodges stalking the shadows.
“What about Logan Wolf?”
The blood drained from Tyner’s face.
“That’s a different situation.”
“How so?”
“He’s the devil incarnate.”
***
The pancakes sat at the bottom of Bell’s stomach like a bowling ball as she climbed the steps of the Pronti Inn. She wished she’d brought antacids. Good luck finding an open drugstore at this time of night.
It was after dark, the lampposts throwing off circumferences of refuge that the night slowly devoured. A neon light flashed down the road outside of Delbert’s. The rest of Pronti had gone to the grave. Her sneakers scuffed and clonked on the stairs, an unsettling sound amid the quiet.
There was an abandoned cart of sheets, blankets, and cleaning supplies at the end of the walkway. Odd. Housecleaning typically finished before three.
Gardy’s room sat in darkness beside hers. She considered knocking and thought better of it. Let him rest.
The key card didn’t work on the first two passes. She swung the bag over her shoulder and tried again, and a green light flashed indicating success.
She pushed the door open and sensed something was wrong. Pulling the Glock-22 from her hip, she aimed the gun into the black. She listened for a moment. Nothing.
Using the wall as a shield, she slipped her arm around the entryway and flicked on the light.
The room was empty.
Brightly lit, it no longer carried the burden of dread. Bell felt a little silly for scaring herself. After today’s horrors, it was easy to imagine The Skinner dragging himself out of the morgue and hunting her down. She made a mental note to take a break from horror movies for a while, at least until the memory of the bones lost its bite.
Tossing her bag onto the bed, she fluffed the pillow and turned down the covers. The bed looked heavenly, but she needed a shower almost as much as she needed eight hours of uninterrupted sleep.
She reached for the bathroom light when the motel room went dark.
“Hello, Scarlett.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX
A thump on the wall brought Gardy awake. Thinking he was at home in bed, he reached for his nightstand and touched the motel telephone. He remembered.
He flicked the light switch and squinted at the infernal brightness. The clock read eleven. His body and mind drained from the grisly discoveries in Pronti, he’d fallen asleep before nine. Now he was wide awake, a sheaf of frayed nerves. He glanced up at the ceiling, then behind him to the neighboring wall, and uttered an oath to hunt down the idiot who woke him up.
Gardy pointed the remote at the television and watched the sports scores. When that didn’t make him drowsy, he muted the volume and stared at his mobile phone. Bell kept sleeping pills. They didn’t prevent her nightmares, but they helped her get back to sleep after a bad dream. He felt sleazy asking Bell to share prescription medication, and heaven knew she needed them more than he did, but he’d be up all night and no good to the search crews tomorrow on two hours of rest.
As though they had a prayer of capturing Logan Wolf. The search was a dead end.
He picked up the phone. Bell was probably still awake. He moved his thumb over the call button and stopped himself. This was stupid. If he woke her up, they’d both be zombies tomorrow.
To hell with it.
He pressed call and the phone rang.
After several seconds, her message started. Bell kept her ringer on, so she should have answered. He called again, worrying this call would yank her out of a deep sleep, and then she’d really be pissed. Again, the call ended with her message.
He pocketed the phone and padded to the window. Pinching the blinds open, he looked into the parking lot and saw her rental beside the Escalade. She hadn’t gone out. Regardless, Bell would have taken her phone with her.
Gardy sent her a quick text and waited at the window. Any minute now, he expected to hear Bell’s door open and close, then a frustrated sniff before she pounded on his door. She never came.
As the hockey highlights played, Gardy dragged his sweatpants on and pulled a jacket over his t-shirt. After a moment’s consideration, he grabbed his ID badge and put the Glock on his hip. He looked ready to go to war if it wasn’t for the Tampa Bay Rays sweatpants.
He turned the key card in his hand as he leaned an arm on the wall and tried to talk himself out of this foolishness.
She was a deep sleeper, wasn’t she? Not that deep.
That’s when the creeping sensation that something was terribly wrong came over him. He hadn’t felt this way since…
Since when?
Not since the moment before the sniper’s bullet almost took his head off.
Gardy pulled the door open and stepped into the crisp night. The orange-tinted moon was full, its face screaming down on Pronti as he cupped his elbows and stepped barefoot to her door.
He knocked quietly at first, and when that didn’t rouse her, he pounded on the door.
No response. Not even the whisper of feet crossing the carpet.
He took a deep breath and let it out before checking his phone one last time.
Gardy descended the stairs two-at-a-time and followed the walkway to the welcome desk. A bleary-eyed college kid with a face full of scruff hopped out of his chair when the door opened and pretended he hadn’t been asleep.
“Can I help you, sir?”
Gardy flashed his badge.
“I need you to open room 203.”
The kid stammered and glanced around the office as though the answer lay on the desk.
“I…don’t think I can…who did you say you were again?”
“Agent Neil Gardy, FBI.”
“Don’t you need a warrant or something?”
“Look, nobody’s in trouble. My partner is in there. She’s not answering her phone and didn’t respond when I knocked.”
“Maybe she went out.”
“She didn’t go out. Her car is in the parking lot.”
The kid wrung his hands and spun toward the phone.
“I better call the manager.”
Gardy leaned over the desk. His jacket slumped off his hip and exposed his gun. The kid’s eyes widened.
“No, there’s no time for that.” Gardy cocked his head and whispered conspiratorially. “Between you and me, this is about all the bodies
they dug up outside of town.”
The worker’s face turned pale.
“I thought the killer was dead.”
“Yeah, but who killed the killer?”
Gardy lifted an eyebrow and invited a response.
“Oh, damn. You don’t think the other killer came here and—”
“I won’t know anything for certain until I get a look inside the room and ensure my partner is all right.”
Conflicting emotions warred on the kid’s face. Finally, he nodded.
“Okay. But I have to be there when you go inside.”
As they climbed the stairs, the worker shot worried glances over his shoulder. He knocked on Bell’s door and gave her several seconds to answer while Gardy tapped his hand impatiently on the wall. The kid checked the walkway and made sure no one watched, then he slipped the master key card into the slot.
Bell’s door opened to an empty room. The bed covers were turned down, the bathroom light on and the fan buzzing. Gardy aimed the Glock-22 as he slipped around corners. The kid watched from the doorway, afraid to cross the threshold. The bathroom was empty, the tub and towel dry.
His eyes fixed on her bag. It was tucked under the bed, which is why he hadn’t seen it before. Gardy sifted through the contents and closed on her wallet. The key card to her room lay beside her ID badge on the nightstand. No phone. She must have taken the phone and left her wallet, and that didn’t sound like Bell. Nor was she prone to forgetting her room key.
Where the hell was she?
“Was the killer here?”
Gardy turned to the kid.
“I don’t know. This stays between the two of us, got it?”
The kid nodded.
Gardy pulled out his phone and called the only other person he trusted in Pronti—Jerome Tyner.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN
Bell opened her eyes to the interior of a long, dark room. Rows of shelves and boxes. The bitter, metallic scent of heavy machinery.
Seated on a folding chair, she blinked once, twice, tried to make sense of things. The memory from the motel room flashed like lightning across her mind. Her muscles went rigid. Heart hammered.
She wasn’t alone in the room.
She pulled her hands up and expected them to be bound by ropes. They weren’t. Nor were her legs, which she slid forward to work out the numbness.
Instinctively, she reached for the Glock-22 and found it missing, along with her phone. Of course.
“I trust you are well rested.”
His voice seemed to come from everywhere. It reverberated off the walls and through the dark corridors, yet she knew he was close.
Logan Wolf. Who else could it be?
“Where am I?”
“You are safe, Scarlett. No need to panic.”
He stepped out from the shadow and faced her from down the row. He appeared as a black silhouette, rigid and statue-like.
“What did you do with my gun?”
He chuckled. Edged a little closer.
“You’ll have your weapon in due time. Exercise patience, please.”
Right. He’d hand the Glock to Bell after he slit her throat and threw a bag over her head.
“You’re…Logan Wolf, I assume.”
Another chuckle.
“In the flesh. We finally meet in person. I awaited this day for many months.”
She was weaponless, but if he thought she couldn’t defend herself, he was in for a rude awakening. She shifted forward on the seat, a subtle change in position which would allow her to spring at Wolf when he came closer.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
His voice was eerily persuasive, eloquent and compelling. It scuttled up her spine and whispered at her brain stem. Bell assumed he held a gun, probably her Glock, and would cut her down the second she leaped from the chair. Why not shoot her now and be done with it? Why the games?
“Or what? You’ll murder me? Slice my throat open and bag my head as you did to your wife?”
He froze. She imagined his face twitching.
“I…did not murder my wife.”
Bell smiled. Good. She’d hit a sore spot. What other buttons could she press?
“You claim you waited a long time to meet me, yet you ran when I saw you at the mall.”
“It was neither the time nor place for us to talk.”
“Seems to me you were scared.”
Wolf smiled. She caught the gleam of his teeth reflecting in a thin shaft of moonlight.
“I have no reason to fear you, Scarlett.”
He took another step forward. Part of his cat-and-mouse game. Wolf wanted her scared before he swept the blade across her neck. In a moment, he’d be on top of her. There was no hope in fighting a trained male agent with a weapon, but she wouldn’t sit still and be butchered.
She shot off the chair and angled down the next row with no idea where the exit was or where she headed. The shadow form leaped after her, and she heard his shoes pounding the floor as he closed the distance between them.
At the end of the row, she swiveled, unsure which direction to run. The moment of indecision cost her.
Wolf pressed Bell against the wall and covered her mouth with his hand. She bit down. He cursed and drove his forearm into her chest, pinning her against the wall. She saw his eyes now. The black irises and pupils blended together without beginning or end as though he carried the night sky. To Bell, he appeared sick, a man who’d lost a lot of weight in a short period of time. The skin didn’t fit over his bones.
“Don’t fight me, Scarlett.”
She pushed against him, but he was too strong. He held the Glock-22 when she glanced down. That struck her as peculiar. Wolf murdered with a knife, never a gun. Was this a show of respect? Admittance he needed the gun against a BAU agent?
She relented, her breath coming quick and hard as he glared into her eyes.
Tyner’s words came back to her. He’s the devil incarnate.
Something in his coat pocket brushed against her hip. Another gun? The knife? A crazy idea came into her head—pick his pocket.
Wolf observed every move she made. If he caught her, she’d die. Hoping to deflect his attention, she lowered her shoulder and shoved him off the wall. When he pushed her backward, she reached inside his pocket and closed her fingers over the object.
She lifted it and spun the item into her own pocket before her mind processed what it was. Not a weapon. Her phone.
“Now, I will bring you back to the chair so you are comfortable, and we will cease these ridiculous games.”
“What difference does it make? You’ll kill me anyway.”
“Murder you? Is that what you think this is about? Dear Scarlett, had I desired to murder you, I would have done so already. There were opportunities, were there not? In Milanville. The motel room.”
“You couldn’t kill me there. Someone would hear me scream. That’s why you brought me here.” She ran her gaze over the warehouse. “Wherever here is.”
“Fair enough,” he said, releasing his grip. He still held the gun on her. “If you are convinced I mean to murder you tonight, then you have nothing to lose by hearing me out.”
“Why would I believe anything you say?”
He tutted.
“You don’t have to believe. I only require you listen.”
Bell’s eyes strayed down the next row. A rectangular box jutted off the shelf and blocked her view, yet orange light slid around the edges. An exit sign.
She averted her eyes before he figured it out.
“Okay, Mr Wolf. Lead the way.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT
The Jeep’s motor announced Jerome Tyner’s arrival before Gardy saw the headlights sweep across the window. Having changed into jeans, Gardy double-checked for his gun and badge and closed the motel room door.
“So you last saw her at the diner?”
Tyner checked his watch.
“We left at a little after seven.”
“Dammit, Jerome. Didn’t you offer her a ride back?”
The big man sighed.
“That partner of yours is as stubborn as a mule. She refused.” Tyner saw Gardy heating up and raised a hand. “Now, you know me, Gardy. I wasn’t about to let her walk in the dark by herself. I trailed her to the motel, stayed back a few hundred feet so she didn’t get the drop on me. Even waited until she was safely inside her room.”
Gardy thumped the Escalade’s trunk.
“Yeah, I knew you would. Besides, I already knew she made it back. Like I told you on the phone, her key card and wallet are inside.”
“You think someone took her?”
The thought had scrabbled around inside Gardy’s head since he awoke. Hearing Tyner speak the words aloud hit him with a fresh wave of panic.
“Or lured her out of the room. I don’t know.” Gardy ran his gaze over the lonely town. “Christ, Jerome. What if it’s Wolf?”
“Don’t jump to conclusions.”
“It makes sense. He figured out Bell’s address and stalked her to California.”
“You said Agent Bell took her phone with her?”
“I think so. It’s not in the room.”
“All right, then. Let’s track the phone. I’ll call my people.”
Gardy climbed into the Escalade.
“Better yet, call Quantico. If anyone can locate a phone, it’s Harold. Hop in. We’re going after her.”
They stopped at Reggie’s Diner on their first pass through Pronti. The same waitress was on, and she recognized Tyner when he stepped inside. No, Bell never returned, though the waitress wished to thank her for the generous tip. Trips to the gas station, convenience store, and Delbert’s bar, the only establishments open at this time of night, came up empty.
Harold’s voice spoke through the Escalade’s speakers.
“The last location on Agent Bell’s phone is the Pronti Inn.”