Then she heard the sound of her captor’s nostrils inhaling at her ear. Then a sudden pain, deep in her shoulder. She’d been bitten. She gritted her teeth, as her attacker moved away and slammed the cage door and locked it.
The wound throbbed and stung. She was alone with a psychopath and nobody knew where she was.
The sand grains stung his bare legs as the wind whipped it underneath his kneeling body. Raindrops pockmarked the beach around him and he was aware of his mother panicking to pack everything away. His prisoner in the rusted paint pot captivated him though, its sideways motion gaining momentum, clockwise circles becoming more frantic. It had been out of the water for a good while and bubbles were frothing at its mouth opening.
He could hear the raindrops inside his head, hard impacts on his skull. He opened his jaw to see if he could change the sound it made like he did when he flicked his cheek and modulated the sound with his puckered lips.
Flesh glistened within the cracks of the crab’s shattered shell, but there was no way he would be able to eat the animal. It was too full of life. He could feel its vibration when he rested his fingers on its damp back. But, inside or outside the paint pot, it was helpless.
A shadow fell over the pot. He was stood behind him.
“Refill?”
Will caught his head before it could fall and looked around at the other occupants of the diner. He’d watched the waitress approach a truck driver at the front of the restaurant and she’d just reached him. He hadn’t fallen asleep, but his mind had slipped a gear while it was idling.
He looked at his watch. 2.15pm. He needed some fresh air so got to his feet. He was about to sign out, but tried the cursor on the next house one more time.
Ellicott City,
Maryland,
PHONE WHEN YOU GET THERE
His mind blocked out the sounds of the diner. Maryland? The new coordinates made his journey along the entire scrapbook street ineluctable. He seated himself again and, as he nudged the arrow over the red brick townhouse, its outline and address appeared again. He clicked it and found himself looking at a new window displaying images of the interior.
It was an older looking residence with luxurious rugs at the centre of expansive pine floors. There were French windows, transoms over interior doors and a cluttered library lounge.
He dreaded finding the same horrific photo that had been posted of the villa, but nobody was present. He could see family portraits covering one wall of the kitchen, but the picture wasn’t high resolution enough to be able to identify distinctive features.
Did this mean the people that occupied it were still alive? Why no address or zip code? He figured it was because he could alert the local police in advance. Even with Libby’s life at stake, he still wasn’t being trusted. With no accurate details there was no way he could warn them. But what item of clothing was he looking for when he got there?
He opened up a new window and located a map. Maryland bordered Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. Another quick search told him an average flight took just over two hours from Orlando International. And then he still had to locate the house. If he were to retrieve another item there he would have to be given more specific directions. He guessed they wouldn’t be released until he landed.
About eight hundred miles away a family was oblivious to what was about to happen. The only thing Will could do was board a plane and hope he reached them in time.
He signed out, picked up his laptop and headed for the door.
His legs stopped working when he was halfway across the lot. He’d watched the flash of his headlights and heard the warble of the car being unlocked, but stood frozen with the remote clasped in his hand. There was no cramp. It was as if the lower part of his body just shut down, refused to be part of what he had to do. He couldn’t take another step forward and suddenly he could feel his guts churning around the morsels of food he’d tried to digest. The laptop weighed heavy in his palm.
Grim images assailed him. The flies, the tattered ends of their insides, the dead sweat of the father’s skin as he’d wrenched the bracelet free.
Just a few more paces. But his instincts told him not to get into the car and drive to the airport; told him what he would find when he got to his destination and in all the other houses he still had to visit.
He had to make it home, to believe that Libby would be there, however remote a chance it seemed.
Traffic noise poured into his ears and he found himself moving again, the Volvo shakily magnifying as he focussed on it. He tried not to acknowledge the pumping of his legs in case they stopped again. He opened the door, threw the laptop in the back and slumped into the seat. He placed his feet immediately onto the pedals and sealed himself in.
Faces peered at him from Burrito Joe’s and from below the neon sign of the enormous liquor store next to it. He wondered how long he’d been stood motionless in the lot. He swiped Libby’s bracelet from the well in the dash and examined the coloured beads. Will imagined her buying it at one of the flea markets she loved browsing. She could never have known the significance it would assume.
She’d probably paid very little for it, but he would put it back in her hand at any cost. He slipped it round his own wrist and turned the key in the ignition.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Enjoy your vacation?” The same bemused valet who’d handed him the car keys took them back from Will less than three hours after he’d taken the car.
Having called Carla while he was stuck in traffic, his flight to Maryland was already booked. He made his way to the lounge to await flight 326. It still felt as if he had a thorn dragging at his gut, but he was glad of the discomfort because it kept him clear of the borders of sleep.
As he paced and waited and was processed into the boarding zone, the same thoughts went round in his head. Was Libby still sedated? If not, was she being fed? Was Luke able to look after her? He had to spotlight the questions concerning her wellbeing and not the cluster of darker ones that surrounded them.
When the plane pulled out onto the runway, he thought of the family he’d left behind in the villa, speculated about who they were and when their bodies would be discovered. Had they been chosen at random? It was unlikely, as he’d been summoned to that specific address. They had to tie in to Libby’s abduction and the other houses that led to his front door. He couldn’t even begin to make a connection between the murdered family and his own.
Perhaps they were from the UK and had been holidaying in Kissimmee. His memory tried to peer through the blood and flies to identify the father’s face, but all he could see were the tunnels in his head.
A wave of self-recrimination washed over him. Would his father have allowed him to travel the distance Libby had when he was eighteen? The lack of money in his family would have precluded it but, if it hadn’t been an issue, he seriously doubted he would ever have been given consent for such a trip. They were different times, but maybe the restrictive discipline he’d experienced as an only child was something he’d fought too hard not to replicate.
He’d spent a great deal of his childhood vexed by his parents’ curfews and social restraints and a lot of time confined to his room for minor transgressions. His father had enforced all the discipline, but had never lifted his hand to Will. Not even raised his voice. But there was something more insidious in the household – an undeclared but tacit disenchantment.
His father was a botanist, acclaimed in his field, and had published over a hundred papers on photobiology. Will was a slow developer and had shown no aptitude for academia for the majority of his childhood. His mother was a part-time history lecturer and quietly serviced his father’s disappointment with Will. By the time he’d stumbled on his aptitude for engineering they’d more or less resigned themselves to an unspectacular son. They’d funded his studies at Brunel, but they’d been in their sixties by then. Both heavy smokers, his father’s pipe brought about his death from emphysema in his first year and his
mother died of breast cancer in his second. Will felt he’d never vindicated himself.
Had he given Libby too much of the freedom he’d never received? He’d been conscious about spoiling her but, because of Carla’s family background, Libby knew she could always ricochet between them to get what she wanted. It was how she ended up with their blessing and the capital for the holiday with Luke.
He studied his new destination again on the laptop. There was no additional information in the pop-up box but, clicking through to the interior images, he could ascertain it wasn’t a holiday home.
In the lounge, sheet music lay open on an upright piano and in the kitchen artwork was taped to the green tile surround of a mantelpiece. He wondered if they were sitting in the room now and if they were being watched via the same window the snapshot had been taken through. As all the photographs looked into the house there was nothing to give away its location.
He navigated round the rest of the site and noticed the picture of Libby on the mattress had been removed. None of the other houses in the row were active and the message above them was unchanged.
THIS NEIGHBOURHOOD ISN’T REAL BUT THE HOMES AND
PEOPLE WHO INHABIT THEM ARE
CAN YOU GUESS WHAT THEY ALL HAVE IN COMMON?
He clicked through to Easton Grey and the pictures of the rooms seemed like depictions of a life he’d never get back.
He opened a separate window and did a quick search for some stats about Ellicott. It was an historic city with a population of about sixty-one thousand predominantly white people served by the Howard County Police Department. The most dramatic thing to happen there was a tornado in 2001 that killed two people. Only twelve residents were registered sex offenders.
Ingram had never had any business in the district. Will had no connection to the place and knew nobody who lived there.
He spent the remainder of the flight skimming the cursor over the cut-out of the three-storey house and thinking of his young self, pacing the prison of his bedroom.
Looked like there was a Saturday night sleepover planned. From her vantage point, Poppy observed the child being walked to the front door by Mom. How old was she? Nine, ten? She could barely see over the Moxie Girlz sleeping bag she carried. Mother and daughter waited on the doorstep.
A harassed blonde in blue sweat pants and an oversized tee shirt answered the door, too young to be the lady of the house. Poppy had already guessed she was the nanny. There was a brief exchange between her and Mom and then the little girl was handed over – delivered for safekeeping. Mom bent to say something to her, but Poppy could see from the irritation on the child’s face that a guarantee of good behaviour had already been promised on the drive over. She was holding her up from joining the others.
Poppy had watched three other girls turn up at the house already. The child turned from Mom and scuttled inside. After the same glibly humorous exchange Poppy had watched the other parents have with the nanny, the front door was sealed. Mom hurried back to the car, the engine still running. What was she doing tonight, something romantic maybe? Whatever it was, she was late. She took off without putting her seatbelt on.
Inside the house it would be popcorn, pizza, DVD then the compulsory exchange of secrets during lights out. She couldn’t really conceive of what it was like to be that young again. Have nothing in her head but the innocent apprehension of what lay ahead. Later the girls would be breathlessly discussing the boys at school, then the specific one they could scarcely bring themselves to name.
She recalled only one fantasy she’d salvaged from her childhood. That of the red rose petals she’d dreamt of having scattered at her feet on the day of her wedding. It was like a faint echo of someone else’s voice.
Through the front window of the lounge she could see the tops of the girls’ heads as they looked up at the wall-mounted TV screen. Some sort of Wii game was underway. The nanny reseated herself at a stool behind the kitchen counter at the rear of the room.
Poppy applied the cherry lip balm to her mouth and considered how soon innocence was over.
Tam lay awake, the bedcovers and the familiarity of his room failing to make him feel as safe as he’d thought they would. He’d made it back, had managed to climb up the fire escape and slip under the sheets without his parents knowing he’d gone. The apartment was quiet, no panicking father or mother in the kitchen talking with a police officer.
Despite the discipline that would have been involved Tam felt disappointed. If an explanation of where he’d been were extracted at least he could tell them about the girl in the cage. It was a secret he didn’t want, but he worried that confessing to his break-in at the chicken factory would prompt the sort of punishment Songsuda received. Would he be cast out into the street? After what he’d seen on his solo exploration he knew why his parents had warned him about being alone out there at night.
Maybe the girl in the cage had been disobedient. He knew what he’d done was against the law. Was that how it had begun for her until they had no choice but to lock her away? He wondered if he’d end up in a cage if he refused to listen to what he was told.
He’d learnt his lesson tonight. Now he realised why he had to be an adult to walk around after the sun had gone down. The adults were welcome to what was below his window. The thought of Songsuda being out there all the time she hadn’t been at home made him feel like he was suffocating every time he closed his eyes.
He wanted to feel safe again, the way he had before. He got up and made sure the door was tightly shut then positioned one of his pillows along the gap at its bottom before turning on his lamp. If the light shone across the hallway to their bedroom he knew his parents would be in to tell him to switch it off. But he didn’t want to be in the darkness with his unwanted companion, didn’t want to think of the sounds she’d made as he’d fled over the corrugated gates.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Teddy Boy Pope fought his pants off over his sneakers and threw them to the back of the News 55 OB vehicle like they were a pair of venomous snakes.
“Nice boxers.” Weaver appraised them from his perch on the step between the open doors where he was checking his camera and chewing nicotine gum. “Big Family Guy fan?”
Pope peered over the overhang of his belly and could just see the edges of them. They were a Christmas present from Lenora depicting some cartoon show he’d never seen “I can feel a draught. Is everything contained?” It was ninety-one and climbing and he only needed to look presentable from the waist up.
Weaver considered his answer and continued to pump up his jaw with the gum. “Like petrified bats in a cave.” Weaver was Pope’s occasional cameraman. He liked to wisecrack, but left himself open to assault by being barely thirty and having wispy blonde hair that had receded exactly halfway across his scalp. It was an unspoken agreement that everything was fair game except if it was related to either of their follicles.
Pope loosened his tie and turned to the other news reporters limbering up at the crime scene tape like it was the start of a sprint. It was stretched between telegraph poles either side of North Vine Street which kept everyone a significant distance from the gates of the villa.
He didn’t know anybody there. Some of the younger police and reporters recognised him though. They treated him like the bachelor uncle at a family gathering, with a mixture of affection and pity. He was fifty-five and they all knew he used black dye on his sideburns as well as his signature quiff.
He’d lost the hunger and aggression, knew his extra pounds and the way the breath caught in his throat made him want to hang back. But he didn’t mind that he was fast becoming the last resort of the channel. He’d had his moment of glory in 2008. It seemed like a career ago now. At fifty he’d been considering retirement and then it was all hands on deck when Tropical Storm Fay had made landfall and Bush declared the State of Florida a Federal Disaster Area.
He’d found himself collecting a Society of Professional Journalists Award for specialized reporting. �
�Your eye at the eye of the storm.” He’d come up with that on the spur of the moment. Now it was all he was remembered for. Thirty years of journalism and crime reporting never mentioned. At a small channel weather events were like wartime. When it was over everyone went back to what they were doing before. Perhaps he’d been doing the wrong thing all along.
He was sick of loitering on the margins of people’s grief. Hours of tedium and coffee that dried you out while the detectives worked the scene and occasionally came out to stare into the middle distance and tell you what you already knew. He took out his cell and called Lenora.
“How you doing?” She sounded sleepy.
Pope could never keep track of her erratic shifts at the nursing home and wasn’t sure if she’d just come in or was about to leave. “Hot and peeved; doesn’t look like I’ll be home for pot roast.” Lenora never cooked. It was their in-joke that only she still found funny. “Sorry to leave you home alone.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll have a few of the girls over.”
She tried to sound crestfallen, but actually seemed to brighten at the prospect. Lenora was thirty-three. She hadn’t been anywhere or done anything. That had been her choice, but Pope never begrudged her the wine cooler parties she seemed to throw whenever he wasn’t in the apartment. Trouble was, those occasions were getting less frequent and he didn’t know if she would want him hanging around for anything more than their already dwindling weekend sex.
“Anything juicy going on?” She always asked.
“Family murdered in their vacation villa just off 193 and judging by the police presence – plenty juicy.”
No new information had appeared by the time Will landed at Baltimore-Washington International so he dialled the number as soon as he’d stepped off the plane.
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