by Karen Rose
Deacon couldn’t let it go. He crossed the room to stand beside his brother, so that they could see each other’s reflection in the window. ‘Does Jim hit you?’ he asked, enunciating the words so that Greg could read his lips.
Greg’s mouth fell open in shock. ‘No. Where’d you pull that from?’
From too long on the job, Deacon thought. Greg’s surprise seemed genuine. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t happening here. ‘Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ He let himself out with a quiet good night to Jim, who grunted in response, then waved to the two old ladies who lived across the street when they peeked at him through their curtains.
Sentries, he thought and once again wished someone had been there for Arianna tonight.
Someone had been, though. Faith Corcoran. Deacon started his SUV, his mind conjuring a picture of her face. Her troubled green eyes. The hands she’d folded neatly in her lap to hide their tremble when she’d dropped that little bomb. I stalked him first.
What the hell had she meant by that? He was going to find out.
Quickly he checked his phone to see if anything had changed in the time he’d been in Tammy’s house with Greg. Nothing much. Tanaka was still processing and Adam was still with Sheriff Palmer, who’d brought in a canine search team. Still no trace of Corinne Longstreet.
He saved the email from Dani with ‘Your witness’ written in the subject line for last. Expecting a summary of Faith’s injuries, he was surprised to find a set of links to a victim message board. He glanced at the clock on his dash. He’d already used most of the time Dani had given him. He should go back to the hospital. But he was too curious about the links to put his phone down now. He’d read for just a minute. Then he’d go back.
Eastern Kentucky, Monday 3 November, 11.10 P.M.
The buzzing of his phone interrupted his rhythm, making the shovelful of dirt he’d thrown over his shoulder fall short of the pile. It was a notification from his tracking app. Faith’s red Jeep was on the move. Away from the house. Back towards the city. At least something was going right tonight.
It was time to deal with the woman once and for all. Before she went into the house and ruined everything.
Hurry and finish this job. He had to get back to the city, but first he needed to dispose of his cargo. The hole wasn’t quite as large as he’d wanted it to be, but it would have to do.
He found a wheelbarrow propped up against the cabin and pushed it to the van. He dragged the power tech’s body out first, then used the barrow to dump the body into the hole.
Excellent. Plenty of room left for both the locksmith and the stew-making trespasser.
He made quick work of it, dumping them in, then filling the hole with the dirt he’d removed. The bodies were hidden beneath eight inches of earth, enough to keep the smell contained and the scavenger animals away. Especially after he replaced the floorboards.
Once he’d done so, he walked across the floor several times, making sure it was even and there was no echo of his footsteps in empty space. He still needed to remove the extra fill dirt, but he could do that once he’d taken care of Roza and Corinne. And Faith, he thought with a frown. He’d be back soon enough and he’d clean up the cabin then. Better yet, he’d make that Roza’s first task when she finally woke up.
Now to deal with Corinne. Behind the cabin were the double doors leading to the root cellar. It wasn’t a large space, nowhere tall enough for him to stand upright, but it would do. Corinne Longstreet would be comfortable enough down there until his return. He’d leave Roza in the cabin, properly restrained, of course. He didn’t want her to have anything more to do with his captives ever again. He didn’t want to have to kill her too.
Chapter Ten
Cincinnati, Ohio, Monday 3 November, 11.55 P.M.
>>SuzyQ253: What he did to you was pure evil. Tell somebody. Get help.
>>Jen1394: You don’t understand. I can’t tell anyone. I can’t tell my teacher. She’ll call the cops. I sure as fuck can’t tell my mother. She’ll throw me out on the street. She already did it to my sister. But he’s still there. My mom won’t make him leave.
Deacon frowned when the screen disappeared, interrupted by an incoming call. He’d been engrossed in reading the posts from real victims, pouring out their anguish in a forum of their peers. Real victims who’d been counseled by a therapist named Faith.
He backed out of Tammy’s driveway and headed toward the city. ‘Novak.’
‘It’s Bishop. I’m still at King’s College. We finally got their video feed. It’s way too grainy, but we found where the girls disappeared. It’s on the path between the library and the dorms – a section that’s not covered by cameras.’
‘Of course it wasn’t. Deliberate sabotage, normal technical issues, or poor planning?’
‘Two and three, I think. I talked to a student who’s been blogging about the security concerns – trying to get the school to fix the issues. She’s posted a list of all the places where the cameras don’t pick up as a warning to the other students.’
‘Or as a how-to for an abductor.’
‘Exactly. I’ve got the area cordoned off and uniforms on watch. Tanaka’s got all the spotlights over at Corcoran’s place, so we’ll have to wait till morning to process it. It’s been a few days and it’s a public area, so I’m not sure what we’re going to find in the way of evidence, but we’ll look anyway.’
‘What about their dorm rooms, their friends?’
‘I’ve searched their rooms and have CSU boxing up their belongings to bring in to the lab. So far nobody seems to know Corinne Longstreet very well. She’s older than the other students and keeps to herself. According to Arianna’s roommate, neither Corinne nor Arianna were party girls. Corinne is ex-army, did half a tour in Afghanistan but was medically discharged. I’ve requested her records, but it doesn’t look like a psych discharge. I found bottles of prescription meds and vitamins – enough for a damn pharmacy.’
‘Painkillers?’
‘No. Hold on, I’ll read you the list. There’s prednisone, Cytoxan, Rituxan, Trexall, Bactrim, and Fosamax. Plus a huge bottle of folic acid and other OTC vitamins. I hope none of this is for a life-threatening condition.’
‘Text me the drug names and I’ll ask the ER doctor when she’s done stitching up Corcoran. She may be able to tell what condition Corinne has. Based on the prednisone alone, it could be an immuno disease, or maybe arthritis. Either way, she might not have been strong enough to fight her abductor and escape like Arianna did.’
‘Or make it as far as Arianna did if they managed to get away together. I thought as much when I saw all the bottles. Kimble says they haven’t found any sign of her, though.’
‘What about Arianna? What did her roommate tell you?’
‘The roommate is Lauren Goodwin. She and Arianna are freshmen. Lauren said that Arianna and Corinne met in an art class and became BFFs right away. Lauren figured Arianna had gone away with Corinne for the weekend when she didn’t come back on Friday night. She didn’t get worried until this evening, when Arianna still wasn’t back. Lauren’s family is Arianna’s foster family and they’ve been called to the hospital. Corinne doesn’t have any family listed on her university records. I’m hoping her Army records will be more complete. So far that’s all I’ve got. How’s our Good Sam?’
‘Not what I expected,’ Deacon said carefully. ‘Her stalker’s name is Peter Combs. In the last year she’s filed thirty complaints against him. I’ve requested them from Miami PD, but so far, nada. He hated her enough to try to kill her at least twice.’
Bishop gave a low whistle. ‘Shit. Why?’
Because I stalked him first. ‘I was just getting to that when the doctor came in to stitch her up. But it doesn’t seem that she offered Combs or any other offender therapy because she wanted to or believed in them. She says she did it because the victims wouldn’t get therapy outside of a court-mandated order.’
‘I guess that makes some sense in a twisted-logic ki
nd of way, but it’s still her word.’
He could hear the warning in Bishop’s voice. ‘I know. And her stalker might be in Miami and have nothing to do with Arianna and Corinne, but something tells me they’re all connected.’
‘Your famous gut?’ she asked, amused but not scoffing. Novak’s gut had more than proven itself in the month they’d been partners. His sense about people was rarely wrong.
‘Something like that. Where are you going now?’
‘Back to the lab to go through the boxes we took from the dorm rooms, to see if I can find anything to indicate if these women had boyfriends or planned to meet up with someone. You?’
‘When the doc’s done stitching up Corcoran, I’ll take her to her hotel. I’ll have a squad car sit out front, just in case my gut is lying to me, but I don’t think she’s directly involved. Then I’m going back to the house. Tanaka’s had six hours. I want to see what he’s found.’ His phone vibrated. ‘Hold on, I have a text. I have to find somewhere to pull over.’
‘I just got a text too. Is yours from Adam?’
He glanced at his phone long enough to check. ‘Yeah. You read it,’ he said, glad that his cousin had texted instead of calling. He wasn’t ready to deal with Adam directly. Not yet.
‘Nothing on Longstreet, but they did find the road that the abductor used to get away. Dirt road, hidden by brush. Connects to Kellogg Avenue, down by the river.’
‘Which means he could be anywhere,’ Deacon said. ‘Where are the traffic cameras?’
‘On that stretch of US 52, there’s a gas station near the highway entrance.’
‘It won’t matter until we have a vehicle make and model, but I want to be ready. When Arianna wakes up, hopefully she can give us a description of her abductor and his ride.’
‘Have they checked river access points?’ Bishop asked. ‘As your Good Sam pointed out, he got away with three victims – the power guy, Corinne, and potentially the locksmith, if he was there. There’s a good chance he dumped the bodies in the river. Wait, I have another text,’ she said, then quietly cursed. ‘The locksmith was definitely there. Adam just found his car.’
‘Hell. I’ll talk to the locksmith’s family on my way back to the O’Bannion house.’
‘What about a BOLO on Corcoran’s stalker?’ Bishop asked.
‘I posted one already. I haven’t talked to any actual MPD detectives. I left a message with their desk for whoever worked Faith’s case to call me.’
A beat of silence. ‘Didn’t Faith tell you who worked her case?’
Deacon shoved back the instant rise of annoyance. In Bishop’s place, he would have asked the same question.
He realized that even though it had only been a few short hours, he no longer thought of Faith Corcoran as a suspect or even a witness. He thought of her as his to protect.
And that was not okay. ‘No, she didn’t. Not yet. When I get the police reports I requested, I’ll forward them to you. Call me when you know more.’
Eastern Kentucky, Tuesday 4 November, 12.10 A.M.
Please let him be gone. Corinne ached. Every bone, every joint, every inch of her body simply ached. Her shoulders and arms had already hurt from trying to cut the damn rope, but then he’d dragged her out of the van and into that wheelbarrow like she was a sack of potatoes. It had been all she could do not to make a single sound. Not a wince.
She had clenched her teeth against the pain, hoping it was too dark for him to notice. Hoping he’d be in too much of a hurry to see that the duct tape wasn’t exactly as he’d first placed it, because she’d flung it back over her eyes with a quick jerk of her neck that left her feeling like an eighty-five-year-old with whiplash.
But when he’d dumped her out of the wheelbarrow and down a short flight of steps . . . oh God, that had hurt more than anything. Still she’d swallowed the cry of fear. Of pain. Most of it, anyway. A little whimper had escaped and she’d prayed he hadn’t heard.
Luckily she’d landed on her face or he would have seen the tears she couldn’t control. Within a minute he was gone and she could let the moan out.
It was really cold. She didn’t have a coat, but at least she still had her shoes and the sweater she’d been wearing the night she’d been taken. It was bulky and warm – with sleeves loose-fitting enough to hide the penknife she’d taken from the old man’s pocket.
The dead old man. Don’t think about him. Not yet. Not till you get out of here.
She made herself go quiet and listened. Really listened. She could hear nothing. Had heard nothing since he’d driven away . . . how long ago now? Maybe ten minutes, maybe an hour. It was hard to tell. Maybe he was trying to trick her.
But she didn’t think so. Besides, if she lay here and did nothing, she’d freeze to death.
Rolling to sit up, Corinne jiggled her arm until the knife slid from her sleeve. All it would take was one good cut. She gritted her teeth, visualized the outcome and managed one more jab with the knife. And then she was free. Free.
Fingers trembling, she peeled the tape from her eyes and brushed away the dirt from her face. At the top of the stairs she could make out two doors, sitting at a slant.
Storm cellar, she thought, scenes from Auntie Em’s house in The Wizard of Oz rolling through her mind. She was in a storm cellar.
Where is the girl? He must have put her elsewhere, because she wasn’t here.
A hard shiver shook her body, making her teeth chatter. She shook her arms and rubbed her hands together to get her blood moving. The joints in her fingers were stiff, partly because of the cold, partly because she’d been tied for so long, and partly because of the illness she’d just gotten under control. How many doses of her meds had she missed? How long would it take to reverse the damage this time?
Goddamn asshole. He had to be coming back soon. He couldn’t leave her like this for too long and expect to find her alive when he got back. So move your ass, Corinne.
She felt for the little knife and grimaced as her now burning fingers plucked it from the cold dirt. She bent at the waist and began working on the ropes that bound her ankles. She managed about thirty seconds of sawing before looking up to the doors at the top of the stairs, remembering the sound of metal clanging after he’d slammed them closed.
A chain. Sonofabitch had locked her in. ‘How the hell am I gonna get out of here?’ she whispered to the dark, defeated. I’m going to die here.
No. You are not going to die here. She hadn’t survived a war zone in Afghanistan only to come home and die in a dirty storm cellar. A little at a time, Corinne. You can eat an elephant, one bite at a time. It had become her life’s mantra after she’d woken up in the army infirmary, a shadow of the woman she’d once been. Do it for the little girl. Do it for Arianna.
Cincinnati, Ohio, Tuesday 4 November, 12.10 A.M.
Deacon pulled into the ER parking lot, replied to Adam’s texts, then went back to reading the remaining post from the victims’ forum.
>>SuzyQ253: Ask for Faith. She really cares and helped a lot.
>>Jen1394: And now you’re all fixed. :P Yeah, right. What BS.
>>SuzyQ253: I’m not fixed. But I’m not broken anymore either.
That Faith cared about the victims was clear. Because I stalked him first. Deacon had begun to wonder what she had been willing to do to help these young women.
He’d crossed the parking lot when he heard Dani calling his name. She was pacing outside the ER entrance wearing only her lab coat, hugging herself against the cold.
‘What are you doing out here? Where is your coat?’ he demanded.
‘Inside. I’m waiting for an incoming GSW. Faith is downstairs in the room where I left her. Did you get the link I sent you?’
He nodded. ‘Yeah, I did. Did you tell her what you’d found?’
‘I did. I also told her that you were a good man. Don’t make me a liar, okay?’
Deacon dropped a kiss on her cheek. ‘I won’t.’
Dani closed her eyes, leaning
into him until she was tucked under his chin. ‘I’m so glad you came home,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve missed you so much. Christmas was never enough.’
His heart squeezed with both love and guilt. He’d left her to shoulder far too much responsibility. ‘Me too, kid.’ His phone buzzed. Bishop had texted Corinne’s meds. He showed Dani the screen. ‘Do you know what condition these drugs might treat?’
She scanned the list, then her eyes flicked back up to his. ‘These were prescribed to the victim that Faith Corcoran found?’
‘No, to her friend, who’s still missing. What are we dealing with?’
‘Definitely a condition of the immune system. Let me check my pharmacopeia app. Ah. Yes, I was right. She could have RA or Wegener’s.’
‘Rheumatoid arthritis I know. What’s Wegener’s?’
‘Wegener’s granulomatosis. Usually affects the kidneys or liver or upper respiratory. It can cause restricted blood flow or inflammation that can destroy the organs. Or both.’
‘Fatal? Infectious?’
‘Infectious, no. Fatal, yes, if untreated. Usually renal failure.’
‘How long can she be off her meds?’
‘Depends on how controlled her disease has been. With all those drugs? I’d say she’s not in remission yet, so not long. She’ll start to have joint aches and trouble breathing. But if the victim you guys brought in earlier is any indication, her current situation is a greater risk than her disease. Either way, you’re working against the clock.’
‘That’s what I needed to know.’ He dropped another kiss on her cheek. ‘Thanks, kid. I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Not sure when I’ll be back tonight.’
‘Me either.’
‘Why are you still here? Can’t you go home now?’
‘The incoming GSW is deaf.’
And Dani signed fluently. She and Deacon had both taken classes when Greg was a little boy, but Dani had stayed close to home with Greg when Deacon joined the FBI. Without constant practice, Deacon had forgotten most of what he knew. Luckily Greg was skilled at speech-reading and voicing, but Deacon’s project after finishing the house was to retrain himself to sign.