Dixon looked over the area again: nothing but tall grass, weeds, and gravel. Then he hit his elbow against the window. It didn’t do anything at first, so he hit it again and again, each strike harder than the last. Finally, it cracked, and he focused the blows on the fracture, making it larger and larger until pieces fell. When the hole was large enough, he reached in, unlatched the window, and opened it. No alarm.
Dixon sneaked through first. Once he got through the drapes, he rose and scanned the front room.
The space was dusty, old, and unused. The furniture had dense plastic covering it, and no decorations hung on the walls. Except one: a painting near the front door of a sigma and mu.
Dixon opened the door, and Baudin came in, blowing out a puff of smoke. He noticed the painting and grinned.
Wordlessly, they began searching the house. The front room was first, but there was practically nothing there. Then they started on the bathrooms and bedrooms. Dixon went into the kitchen. He checked the fridge, which had nothing but an old box of Arm & Hammer, and the dishwasher. A door led out to the garage, and he opened it and froze.
“Ethan, you better come look at this.”
Baudin came up behind him and said, “Shit.”
A Ford truck was parked in the garage. The tires were dirty, and the scent of exhaust hung in the air. Someone had driven here not too long ago.
“There’s someone in the house,” Dixon said, pulling out his revolver.
Baudin took out a .40 semiautomatic pistol, and they turned toward the house. Whereas their first search was quick and haphazard, they now moved quietly, scanning the areas they’d already searched for any disturbances.
Neither of them had been upstairs yet. Baudin went up first, his back pressed against the wall, his eyes up, his gun held in front of him. Dixon went up the other side, his heart pounding as he felt the stickiness of sweat on his neck.
On the top floor, they turned two separate directions. Dixon checked the bedroom first: dark, with a large bed and open space and an empty closet. Baudin was coming out of the bedroom he’d searched and shook his head.
Dixon stepped into the bathroom. The shower curtain was drawn, but he didn’t think anything of it… until he saw a few drops of water on the sink.
Before he could react, the shower curtain ripped away, and the blade came barreling toward him. Dixon moved, but only enough that the knife caught him in the chest rather than the neck and slid down to his belly, leaving a trail of blood and burning pain.
He tried to lift his gun, but the man swung wildly with the knife, catching him on the cheek. Dixon ducked to try to tackle him. The knife came up, and then Dixon went deaf.
The man collapsed against the bathroom wall, a hole in his cheek the size of a quarter. Blood poured out of it, filling his mouth, and then it began to drain out of his nose. He was choking, but it only lasted a moment. Then he stopped moving.
Dixon leaned against the sink, checking the wound on his chest. A thread of blood stained his clothing. He lifted his shirt; the wound wasn’t deep, but it sure as hell hurt.
“You okay?” Baudin said.
“Fucker almost got me in the throat.”
They looked at the body on the floor.
“I’m guessing that’s Casey,” Baudin said.
Dixon moved, and a sharp pain went through him as his abdominal muscles contracted.
“You need a hospital?”
“I don’t know. How’s my cheek?”
“Just a scrape.”
Dixon looked at himself in the mirror. “How exactly am I gonna explain this to my wife?”
Baudin bent down over the body. He searched the pockets and didn’t find a wallet, just the keys to the truck in the garage. “I wonder if he lived here.”
Dixon took out his phone. “I’ll call it in.”
“No, man.”
“What are you talking about? We got a dead body. It was a clean shoot.”
“Yeah? And what are we doing in his house?”
Dixon froze. He was right. They were in the house unlawfully. Since a death occurred, the felony murder rule might apply if some prosecutor got creative and charged them with a felony, and self-defense wasn’t applicable to felony murder. Which meant it didn’t matter that Casey came at him first.
Felony murder was a capital crime in Wyoming.
“Shit,” Dixon shouted. He punched the wall. “Shit!”
“Calm down, man. No one knows we’re here.”
“We fucking killed someone, Ethan.”
“This piece of shit? I hope there is a hell and he burns in it, man. I’d kill him again.” Baudin came close to him, resting his hands on Dixon’s shoulders. “No one knows we’re here, man. All right?”
“All right.” He nodded, running his tongue along the inside of his cheek. “All right. Let’s go.”
“I wanna look in that bedroom really quick.”
“Are you nuts?”
“Go downstairs and wait for me. I’ll be right there.”
Dixon turned. He felt as if he was swimming through milk right now. Everything had a hazy glow to it. His mind was a jumble of thoughts and images, of conversations he’d have to have. As he turned down the hall to head downstairs, a noise made him stop in his tracks. Something from the bedroom. He looked at Baudin, who was staring in there, too.
“You hear that?” Dixon said.
Baudin went in gun first. Dixon followed and noticed for the first time that his hands were trembling. He consciously worked to stop them, forcing them to calm.
The bedroom had one other door, one he assumed led to a bathroom. Baudin slid to the right side of the door, and Dixon stayed on the left. They looked at each other, and Baudin nodded. Dixon flung open the door, and Baudin went in, sweeping left to right.
Inside, hanging from chains that had been bolted to the ceiling, was a nude woman. She had a black mask over her head, something like an executioner’s mask. She was young and white, and deep red lashes covered her torso and back.
“Fuck me,” Dixon mumbled. He reached for her, and Baudin grabbed his hand.
“She can’t see us, man.”
“I won’t leave her here.”
“I’m not sayin’ that. I’m just sayin’ she can’t see us.” Baudin turned to her. Her head was bobbing lightly as though she’d been drugged, and every few seconds a soft whine would escape her lips. “I’ll drive his truck down and take her to a hospital, then I’ll dump the truck. I don’t want nobody at the hospital seeing my car.”
Dixon reached up to the chains. They were fastened with screws that could be turned with the fingers. Undoing both of them on her wrists, Dixon caught the girl as she fell limply into his arms. Dixon grabbed the sheets off the bed and wrapped her in them. The two men carried her down to the garage and put her in the back of the truck.
Baudin sat in the driver’s seat, and Dixon stood outside. They held each other’s gaze, some solemn promise or oath between them. Dixon knew that neither one of them would ever tell anyone about this; this was a secret that would die with them. And it gave them a bond they couldn’t have formed any other way: the bond of secrecy.
“Get goin’,” Baudin said. “I’ll pull out when you’re gone.”
Dixon ran out of the house and up the street. By the time he was at the car, the truck was out and headed down the road. He caught a glimpse of Baudin as he sped out of Valley Mills, and his taillights disappeared into the black.
49
Baudin took the curves back down to the valley quickly and then realized the last thing he needed was to be pulled over by some highway patrolman. So he slowed down to under the speed limit.
The girl was more aware now. She was moving and crying. He glanced back at her. “Can you hear me?” he said. No response. “I’m taking you to a hospital. I’m here to help you.”
Baudin thought back to the shot that had killed the man he thought was Casey. A bullet through the cheek that flooded his lungs with blood. Baudin had ki
lled before. The military had seen to that. He’d gotten over the moral repugnance, the aversion that was ingrained in people since they were children. But something about taking a man’s life still stuck to his ribs. Then again, he’d erased an entire line of victims that would’ve existed if that man had lived.
Burn in hell, asshole.
“Please,” a meek voice said from behind him. “Please…”
The voice was hardly audible, like the chirp of a bird. Baudin pulled over to the side of the road. He turned back to her.
“Are you awake?” he said through the window.
“Please…”
“I’m not going to hurt you. I’m taking you to a hospital. Do you understand? Hospital?”
“Y—yes.”
“What’s your name?”
A long silence. “Rebecca.”
“Rebecca, I need you to relax. You’re safe now. No one’s going to hurt you. But I can’t take your mask off just yet, okay?”
The girl started crying again, kicking her legs and begging him. All she would say was “Please… please.”
He began driving again. The first hospital in his GPS was a ten-minute drive from where he was. Cheyenne Regional.
The hospital had a massive parking structure and consisted of separate buildings. Baudin pulled right up to the emergency room. He removed the girl, holding her in his arms, and debated going inside. Deciding against it, he laid her at the front entrance.
He got into the truck and drove across the street. People already surrounded her. A nurse or orderly ran out, and they helped her inside. One of them pulled off the mask. He couldn’t make out her face, but she was young, perhaps no more than eighteen.
He pulled away and took off.
Dixon got home so late that every light in every neighbor’s house was off. He had spent some time at the park, sitting on a bench and staring into the pond. After that, he made a quick stop at the ER and, luckily, didn’t require any stitches. They cleaned the wound and bandaged it before sending him on his way.
Murders had come across his desk, as had rapes, kidnappings, and every other thing they told you about in Police Officer Standardized Training. But a girl hanging like a doll from the ceiling, to be used and discarded as if she were a piece of trash… that was something he wasn’t prepared to see. He hadn’t thought humanity’s cruelty could surprise him anymore. Even with the death of Alli Tavor, it hadn’t affected him like this. She was dead. She was an object to be theorized over. The girl at the house was alive and suffering, and the more she suffered, the more aroused her captors got.
His house was quiet, the only noise the sound of crickets coming through an open window in the front room. He closed the window and decided that they would be getting an alarm tomorrow.
After checking on the baby, he undressed, brushed his teeth as quietly as he could, and climbed into bed. Hillary was rolled onto her side, but he could tell she wasn’t sleeping. Only a spouse could tell that about another spouse. Something in the pattern of their breathing, maybe.
“You wanted to tell me something?” he whispered.
She sniffled, as though she’d been crying, and said, “It can wait.”
50
The next few days, Baudin didn’t do anything. Dixon had called him every day, first checking on Heather and then asking what they planned to do.
“Nothing,” he would say. “Not yet.”
After five days of what was really an involuntary committal, Heather was released from the hospital’s psychiatric ward. Baudin drove her over to Molly’s. He would be getting a new house. They were just renting anyway, and breaking the lease here apparently was a minor inconvenience. Talk of lawsuits and lawyers didn’t even come up. All the landlord said was, “Well, sorry to see ya go.”
The house had an energy to it now. Baudin, someone who considered himself above superstition, was embarrassed that he held on to this minor irrationality: he fully believed that locations could hold the energy of events that occurred there, good or bad. The scenes of murders, no matter how many a detective had worked, always held an eerie feeling that couldn’t be shaken. He didn’t want the energy of Heather’s attempted suicide in their home.
He walked her inside, and Molly hugged her and wept. She took Heather to the kitchen table, insisting she looked thin as bones, and began frying breakfast for her.
Baudin sat on the porch and smoked. His suspension was over today. He could go back to work and get his badge and gun back. Somehow the allure of it wasn’t there.
Sometimes the work was all there was, the only reason to get up in the morning. But now he saw that was an illusion. His daughter was why he woke up in the morning, and the work only got in the way of that.
He had one thing he had to finish. After that, whatever came his way came his way.
He walked inside and wrapped his arms around his daughter, planting a big kiss on her forehead. “Back to school tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“Good.” He kissed her again. “I’ll be back in a few hours, and then we’ll head out to see your counselor.”
The sun was bright without any clouds to dim the light. He stopped at a gas station and bought a pair of sunglasses, putting them on awkwardly. He didn’t like the feeling of them on his face, but he didn’t take them off, either.
The precinct wasn’t far—in fact, nothing was really that far. Not LA far. Not sitting-in-three-hours-of-traffic far. It amazed him that people still complained about traffic here.
He got to the precinct and went inside. Dixon was at his desk. When he saw Baudin, he rose and followed him out without a word. They stood on the sidewalk.
“We need to go see her,” Baudin said.
“You know where she is?”
Baudin nodded. “She was released from the hospital yesterday. Her name’s Rebecca Sapps. She lives in an apartment with her mother. Eighteen.” Baudin stopped and exhaled. “You wanna know the thing about freedom, Kyle? It’s painful. And people don’t want it. If you wanna make someone free, they’ll fight you. You break their ideology, and ideology is comfort. You wanna make someone free, you best be prepared to fight them.”
“I don’t know what any of that means, Ethan.”
“I’m saying, we may learn some things about this city and the police that you can never unlearn. You may not be able to ever live here again.”
He nodded. “I’ll drive.”
The Sapps lived in an apartment complex called Green Groves. The apartments were laid out like an H with a row in the middle that was unusually out of place. Anyone driving down would have to go around the row of apartments and enter a blind spot where children playing would probably get hit if they weren’t on their toes.
Baudin parked in front of complex X, a flat, square building that housed four separate units. They got out of the car and strolled up to the door. Outside on the pavement, children’s toys were thrown around, as were old beer bottles and cigarette butts.
Baudin knocked, and there was no sound from inside. He rang the doorbell and again nothing.
“Maybe she ain’t here?” Dixon suggested.
“She’s here. She can’t leave her comfort zone yet.”
He rang the doorbell again and then said, “Ms. Sapps, it’s the police. We aren’t leaving.”
After a while, the locks slid open, and the girl’s face appeared at the door. Baudin knew it was her, even though he’d only seen her from across a street and in the hospital’s dim lighting.
“Ms. Sapps,” Dixon said, “We’re detectives with the Cheyenne Police Department. We’re following up on your case and had a few questions for you. If you don’t mind, that is.”
The girl didn’t move, didn’t speak. She was like an alien who crash-landed on a strange planet and didn’t know the customs, Baudin thought. A look of bewilderment. He’d seen it before, in people who had accepted their own deaths and then suddenly, miraculously, had lived. The world was an alien place to them after that.
Her eyes went wide, and tears welled up inside them. He wasn’t sure she’d remember his voice, but there it was. He smiled, and she closed the door, slid the chain off, and opened it.
51
The café had a delightful smell. Melted chocolate, Hillary thought, because of the fondue they sometimes served.
She sat by the window and stared at the passersby. Some of them, the younger couples, seemed so happy. They couldn’t keep their hands off each other. She remembered when Kyle and she had been like that. Hell, she thought with a grin, Kyle was still like that. Only she had matured, grown up in a way that didn’t seem to affect Kyle. Maybe she’d just grown cynical, and he hadn’t.
After waiting ten minutes, she grew impatient. How dare he be late for this? This was her life, her entire life, unraveling. And he had the nerve…
No, it wasn’t his fault. He was just as lost in all this as she was. They had committed a great sin together. She didn’t mean a sin against God. Though she went to church and played the good wife as Kyle wanted, she didn’t believe in it anymore. Her faith had slowly dissipated over time until there weren’t even ashes left anymore. Kyle would never accept that, not in the way Chris accepted and understood it.
Chris walked in a good twenty minutes late. He sat across from her without a word and stared into her eyes.
“You’re late,” she said. “Don’t be late again or I’ll leave.”
He grinned. “You look beautiful. Even when you’re sad.”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what? Tell the mother of my child that she looks beautiful?”
She recoiled at the words. “Why do you have to do that? Throw it in my face all the time?”
“I love you, you know that. I just want what’s best for you and for my son.”
“Then why don’t you leave us alone?”
He shook his head. “Do you honestly believe that that boy is better off living a lie? For how long? The rest of his life? You gonna take this to the grave with you, Hillary? Or are you gonna tell him one day? What’s he gonna think? Is he gonna thank you?”
Vanished - A Mystery (Dixon & Baudin Book 1) Page 20