She put her finger to her ear, pressed down on it, then tried the phone again.
Cain was saying, “... don’t you think?”
“I couldn’t hear you. My ears were ringing. What did you say?”
“I said that must have made quite an impression on the neighborhood.”
At once she became conscious of the fact that she was still in a neighborhood, a quiet place where the only normal noises were the birds singing in the trees and the occasional car driving down the street. Anyone within one hundred yards or more could have heard the explosion and probably did, and she wondered how many of them were right now calling 911. Maybe someone across the street, or right next door, a concerned neighbor who despite the fact the house belonged to a child molester was still worried that something awful had just happened.
And something awful had just happened indeed. A man had died brutally. It didn’t matter that he was a child molester. Nobody deserved to die like that. Except, she thought, maybe Cain.
“Why did you do that?” she asked.
“I told you. To give you an example of what’s to come.”
“Where’s my son?”
“Home, Elizabeth. He’s waiting for you.”
She was running before she knew it, back down the driveway, under the shade of elms, toward the side of the street where she’d parked her car. She was inside and had the engine started a moment later, the tires squealing as she sped away.
It hit her much too late that she should have taken her time, that her squealing tires would draw attention to her, but then she figured what did it matter—at the moment she had no control over the events at hand, was merely a game piece being moved around at will, and the only thing that mattered right now was her son.
Her foot never once touched the brake, the needle of the speedometer rising steadily with every second. She had no choice but to stop at the intersection on the main drag.
The light turned green and she made the left, punching the gas. Here it became two lanes and she whipped past the other cars. Their apartment was less than ten minutes away; she thought she might be able to make it in seven minutes. Not that it made much difference in the larger scheme of things, but after just witnessing a man having been denied his extra minute of life, sixty seconds had become a tangible concept.
The speed limit here was forty-five miles per hour, strip malls and car washes and chain restaurants on both sides, and the speedometer’s needle was at fifty-five, working its way toward sixty, when she saw the cop car.
Parked in the same spot as it always was when running speed trap, just waiting for that careless driver who was in a hurry for no good reason, it didn’t move for a couple of seconds—Elizabeth’s gaze transfixed on the rearview mirror—but then, predictably, its roof-lights started flashing as it rolled out into the street.
Her fingers tightened against the wheel, her foot lifting off the gas. The phone was silent and still, Elizabeth for the first time wishing Cain would call because he would know what to do. Or would he? It didn’t matter. What mattered was that a cop was coming up behind her, the car growing larger and larger in her rearview mirror, and one of the things Cain had told her was she couldn’t talk to the police.
For an instant the idea to try to outrun the cop popped into her head, but she immediately dismissed it. That would only make things worse, at least as worse as things could get, and besides, the cop was right on her tail now so there was no thinking he was after anyone else. She had no choice, so she pulled the car over and waited.
CHAPTER 10
“LICENSE AND REGISTRATION.”
She already had it ready for him and handed it out through the driver’s-side window as calmly as she could.
The officer took them and glanced at both, then glanced back at her. She could see her face reflected in his sunglasses and tried guessing whether or not she looked guilty.
“Do you know why I pulled you over?”
Always deny, the man who’d once been her husband had told her, because if you admitted fault then you were automatically guilty. She didn’t know why she thought this now or why she went along with it, but she did.
“No.”
Studying her license as if it were a rare baseball card, he said, “I clocked you doing fifty-eight in a forty-five zone.”
“Really?” Her voice surprisingly steady. “I wasn’t aware I was going that fast.”
“We normally give about a five mile per hour cushion, but—”
“There was a bomb threat.”
“Excuse me?”
“At my son’s school. I just got a message about it and was on my way there. I, well, as you can imagine I’m sort of freaking out and didn’t realize how fast I was going. I mean, I know it’s no excuse, but ...”
She let it hang there, surprised that the lie came out so smoothly, wondering at what moment Cain would call and ask her just what the hell she thought she was doing. Except for what happened in the middle school parking lot, he always seemed to know where she was, what she was doing. Was he following her in a car? If so, where had he gone now that she had been pulled over?
“Yes, I heard about the threat.” The cop had been studying her license and registration again but now glanced up at her. “But the elementary school is in the opposite direction.”
She just stared back at him, at her reflection in his sunglasses that had suddenly begun to look more than guilty. She thought about Matthew, how according to Cain he was waiting for her at home, and she wanted to tell the officer this, tell him how her son had been abducted and how Reginald Moore had been blown to pieces and how she had thrown up in his backyard.
Remembering this last bit, she quickly reached up and touched her mouth, hoping that no vomit residue was there.
“Ma’am?”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry.”
He stared at her for a long moment, saying nothing, and then finally nodded and said he’d be right back.
It took him five minutes before he returned with her ticket, another minute for him to explain the details of the ticket, and then, with a sort of flourish, he ripped it off his board and handed it to her.
She took it from him, feeling like a volcano about to erupt. She should already be home, should already be with Matthew, but instead she was here with this cop staring down at her with eyes she couldn’t even see.
“How about we slow it down a little,” he said. “If you plan accordingly, there’s never any reason to be rushed.”
CHAPTER 11
NOT EVEN TEN seconds after she had pulled back onto the road, the cell phone vibrated.
Cain said, “What the hell was that?”
“I was pulled over for speeding.”
“You told him about me, didn’t you.”
“No.”
“I don’t believe you, Elizabeth. You’re a liar. You’ve been living a lie for the past five years.”
She glanced at the rearview mirror. The cop was still parked alongside the road, finishing up his paperwork.
“I just want my son.”
“And you’ll get your son. If you’d just listen to me, you’d know that by now. My intention here is not to harm you or your son unless I’m given no other choice.”
“You killed that man back there.”
“He killed himself.”
“You were the one that put that collar around his neck.”
“From the moment he touched a child—no, from the moment he thought about touching a child—his fate had already been sealed. Besides, I did him a favor. I did the entire town a favor.”
She came to another major intersection, the traffic gods taking pity on her and favoring her with a green light. She made the turn, her apartment complex less than five minutes away.
“What is it that you want?”
He ignored her. “Would you believe it if I said I admired your husband? Or should I call him your ex-husband? You never got an official divorce, did you? How could you have after you d
isappeared like you did?”
Her fingers tightening once again around the steering wheel, she repeated, “What is it that you want?”
“I want you to hurry home. I want you to see your son. Only then will you truly understand the gravity of this situation.”
The gravity of this situation—she didn’t like those words, didn’t like them one bit, but before she could ask him what he meant Cain clicked off.
She tossed the phone on the passenger seat and kept driving. Her complex was now less than a mile away. It was a low-rent place, one of the cheapest in town, and while she could have afforded something nicer she had thought it best to keep a low profile.
The large wooden sign at the entrance said SUMMER RIDGE. It was a peculiar name for an apartment complex, seeing as people lived there year-round and was located nowhere near a ridge, but again, the rent was cheap, only six hundred a month for two bedrooms.
After she parked and grabbed her cell phone, she hurried for the stairs leading toward her apartment. She took the steps two at a time, gripping the railing for balance, because now that she was this close her body had begun to shake again.
She came to her apartment door, the key already prepped to be inserted in the lock like this was just another day coming home from work or the grocery store. She paused, thought a moment, then gripped her keys in her fist so three of them poked out between her fingers. She stepped to the door, reached out with her other hand, gripped the knob.
It should be locked—she had locked it herself this morning—but it turned easily in her hand.
She pushed the door opened. It creaked. She didn’t move.
“Matthew?” she called.
There was no answer.
She started forward, slowly, holding the fist full of keys by her side. If Cain was here—if anyone other than her son was here—she would aim for their face, try to poke out one if not both of their eyes. There would be blood, yes, but she would manage. She would have to.
Despite her better judgment, she called out again.
“Matthew?”
Still no answer.
One slow step after another, taking her down the hallway past the table where she always placed her keys and the mail. A picture sat on the table, a photograph of her and Matthew taken last year at the Six Flags in St. Louis, the place her son had first been introduced to the marvel of roller coasters. He’d been too young and small to ride on them, but he loved watching them and they planned on returning this summer for his first ride.
The first room she came to was the kitchen. It was empty. She continued on to the living room. Her body had stopped shaking. Her breathing had slowed. She was suddenly calm and didn’t know why. She took several more steps and came into the living room and then all at once stopped.
The TV was on. Matthew was on the screen. He was tied down to a bed. Tape was over his mouth. A blindfold was over his eyes. And around his neck, just like Reginald Moore, was an explosive collar.
CHAPTER 12
THE SOUND THAT emerged from Elizabeth’s mouth was neither a scream nor a yell nor even a shout. It was a primitive noise, going all the way back to the beginning of time, the type of sound a caveman would have been familiar with. It started deep down in her soul and worked its way through her heart, into her lungs, and then out of her mouth in an animalistic cry she had had no idea she could even produce.
She rushed toward the TV, fell to her knees, placed her hands on the screen as if by doing so she would somehow reach through the glass, grab hold of her son, and pull him to safety.
She thought about the day he was born, how he had entered the world with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, and despite her exhaustion she had immediately sensed the panic in the room, knew before anyone else that something terrible had just happened to her baby. She had tried getting up, moving from the bed, wanting to do something to help her son, but the nurses held her down while the doctor unwrapped the cord, severed it, and took her baby away into another room, the entire time Elizabeth screaming to him to bring her child back to her. Ten minutes passed before word came that her son was okay, that he had started breathing again, and for Elizabeth those ten minutes were the worst she had ever had to endure. Not even the day the FBI had come to take Eddie away, when she had learned the horrible truth about her husband, could compare. Those ten minutes when she was convinced the life she had just given birth to was now dead was the absolute worst.
That was until today.
A phone was ringing. Elizabeth was faintly aware of this but wasn’t sure what it meant. Her cell phone was still in her pocket, set on vibrate. It would be the only phone in the apartment, as they didn’t have a landline.
So what did it mean?
Elizabeth blinked, realized the ringing was coming from the top of the TV, and quickly stood up.
It was a BlackBerry. On the screen were the words UNKNOWN CALLER.
She wiped at her eyes, hesitated, then answered it.
Cain said, “So how are you enjoying the program so far?”
“You sick son of a bitch. Give me back my son!”
“Not quite yet. First I want you to help me.”
“Help you do what?”
“If you don’t help me, your son will die just like Reginald Moore.”
“Help you do what?” she repeated, nearly shouting now.
“Before I tell you, Elizabeth, I want you to understand this is nothing personal. I have nothing against you or your son. But, unfortunately, to get what I want, I need you.”
“Let me talk to him.”
“What?”
“Let me talk to my son. Right now. I won’t help you do a goddamn thing until I hear his voice.”
There was a silence on Cain’s end, and then he said, “Hold on.”
Elizabeth stepped back so she could see the television screen. Her son just lay there motionless, like he was dead, and she wanted to look away, turn it off, but she feared that by doing so she would never see him again.
For the longest time nothing happened, and then a black-gloved hand appeared in the left-hand corner of the screen. The black-gloved hand became a black-shirted arm as it reached toward Matthew’s mouth and pulled the tape off. Then, before she knew it, Cain’s other black-gloved hand was holding a phone to Matthew’s ear.
“Hello?” her son said in a tiny and terrified voice.
Elizabeth wiped at her eyes again, holding back more tears. “Honey, it’s me. It’s Mommy.”
“Mommy?”
“I’m here, baby.”
“Mommy, I’m scared.”
“I know. I know you are. But it’s okay. I’m going to make sure everything’s okay.”
On the screen Matthew’s body was jerking as he sobbed. He went to say something else, but Cain pulled the phone away and placed the tape back over his mouth.
“Happy now?” that dark robotic voice asked.
“You better not lay one fucking finger on him. I swear to God, I will kill you.”
“A little overdramatic, wouldn’t you say?”
“What do you want from me?”
“That’s quite simple.”
But before Cain could continue there was a sudden knocking, hard and frantic, coming from the apartment door.
CHAPTER 13
THROUGH THE PEEPHOLE she could see Todd standing on the other side of the door, still dressed in khakis and collared shirt from substituting, his tie hanging loose around his neck. He leaned forward with his left hand placed flat against the doorframe, using his other hand to bang urgently on the door.
“Sarah?” he called. “I know you’re in there. Please, let me in.”
In her ear, Cain said, “Who is it?”
“Nobody,” she whispered.
“It doesn’t sound like nobody.”
Todd banged on the door again. “Sarah, please, open up. I’m not leaving until you do.”
“A friend,” Elizabeth whispered.
“Will he eventually go away?�
��
“I don’t think so.”
“I see,” Cain said. “Then this will make it harder for you.”
“What will?”
“Killing him.”
Through the peephole she watched Todd step back from the door, loosen his tie even more. He looked both ways down the hallway, stepped close, began banging on the door again, calling her name.
Elizabeth whispered, “You’re joking.”
In her ear Cain chuckled a dark robotic chuckle. “I am. Just make him go away. Do not let him in the apartment and do not hang up on me. I want to hear everything you say.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes, thought for a long moment, though Todd’s constant banging on the door and calling her name wasn’t helping her concentrate. Finally she opened her eyes, engaged the door chain, and opened the door.
“Hi, Todd.”
He looked surprised, his fist suddenly frozen in midair. Immediately he said, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.
“When I called you earlier, you hung up on me. Then when I called you back, you didn’t pick up.”
She tried remembering the excuse she had given him. “My battery was really low. It went dead right after I’d talked to you.”
His fist was still frozen in the air. He lowered it to his side, frowning at the chain. “Can’t I come in?”
“Now’s not a good time.”
“Why?”
“Matthew’s sleeping. He was really worked up about what happened at school.”
“I’ll be quiet.”
“You mean quieter than you just were?”
“Sorry about that. I was worried.”
Elizabeth stood with her face looking out through the narrow gap, the BlackBerry in her left hand behind the door.
“I appreciate that,” she said, forcing a smile. “But Matthew’s fine.”
“I’m sure he is. I was talking about you.”
The forced smile faltered. “What do you mean?”
The Serial Killer's Wife Page 4