“Don’t worry, they’ll all be off-road once they get to the search area,” I said.
“I must say, Matt Peters was right. You’re very resourceful.”
“We’re lucky to have met the right people,” I said.
“What are you expecting to find, if you’re able to locate the hideout?”
“An empty house with facilities for carrying out illegal organ removal,” I said. “I’m sure that whoever was operating this racket will be long gone though.”
“And if they are, how do you plan to locate Marisa? Knowing you I guess you have a plan.”
“Marisa’s a bright, intelligent and resourceful girl. When she left a message on Jillian’s answering machine after she’d been kidnapped, she left a subtle clue. I’m hopeful she may have done the same when the place was abandoned. If she had any idea where they were going she’d have tried to leave something behind to put us on the right track. Other than that we only have the car: the maroon Eldorado. Sooner or later someone somewhere is going to spot that car.”
“I’m afraid we’ve drawn a blank on that so far, but everyone’s been alerted. Good luck on Sunday. I’ll put a couple of my boys at your disposal so that the locals aren’t spooked.” He eyed me steadily. “But listen, if you’re theory is correct then two people have died at the hands of these people and the place is a potential crime scene. We’ll need to have it swept for fingerprints and other forensic evidence. I want your word that if you find it you won’t touch anything.”
“You have my word.”
Chapter Twenty Two
The Girl in the Basement
After leaving Benson’s office we headed to the hospital to check on Vicky’s progress. She was propped up in bed reading a magazine, or maybe just looking at the pictures.
“Hello Vicky, I’m Lucy and this is Kane. We’re friends of Marisa’s father,” she said, as she sat down by the bedside. “Do you remember Marisa?”
“Of course,” she said.
Lucy looked over at me and smiled. “We’ve come to try and find her, Vicky. Do you think you might be able to help us do that?”
“I’ll try,” she said. “Who are you again?”
“We’re friends of Marisa’s father. He asked us to look for her. You were in an accident and you’ve been sleeping a long time. I expect the doctor told you all about that.”
“He’s nice,” she said. “He’s very kind. But he said I’ve been unconscious for over a week. It doesn’t feel like that. It’s strange.”
“Well the most important thing is that you’re safe and you’re well. I expect you’ll be going home soon. Do your parents know where you are?”
“No, I can’t…I can’t remember their…I don’t know how to contact them.’
“Well, don’t worry; we’ll help you do that. We don’t want to tire you; would you like to rest for a while?”
“No, I want to find Marisa.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“I don’t know,” she said. She started to cry.
“Don’t be upset. Look, we’ll go get some coffee and then we’ll come back and see you again a bit later. Maybe you need some time to get your thoughts together. You were in a nasty accident, but Dr. Fletcher says you’re going to be just fine.”
“The doctor told me I was hit by a car. It’s funny, I don’t remember that. I just remember trying to get away…to get away from that…that awful place…” She started to cry again.
“You get some rest,” Lucy said. “We’ll see you again a bit later.”
“You will come back, won’t you?” she said. “You promise?”
“I promise. We’ll come back a little while later. Try not to worry about anything, okay?”
“Okay,” she said.
“We’re in luck,” I said, as we sat in the hospital canteen. “It’s much better than I expected. Fletcher thought she might have amnesia about the whole thing.”
“And she wants to help. That’s encouraging too.”
“We don’t need her help to find the location where she was being held before the accident,” I said. “I’m sure we’ll find that tomorrow. But it will be helpful if she can tell us what happened after she and Marisa left Springfield. It will let me know if my…our theory is correct.”
Lucy smiled up at me over the top of her coffee cup. “Whatever would you do without me?”
“It doesn’t bear thinking about,” I said.
“We better call Mr. Roberts.”
“Yes. But let’s see what Vicky’s able to tell us first.”
We sat there for more than an hour, talking about this and that. At eleven o’clock we went back to Vicky’s room.
*
“Hi Vicky,” Lucy said. “How you doing?”
“I’m okay.”
We sat down on either side of the bed. “I’d like to ask you a few questions,” Lucy said. “Is that okay?”
“Sure.”
“You know you’ve had an accident, right?”
“The doctor told me about that. He said I was hit by a car. The man who came to see me with his wife – he was the driver.”
“That’s right – he came to make sure you’re okay now. That you’re getting better.”
“That’s nice. The doctor told me it wasn’t his fault. He said…said…”
“Can you tell me what you can remember yourself?”
“There were some lights…a road. I don’t remember.” She thought for a while. “It was dark…raining.”
“Why were you in the dark – in the rain? Do you remember that?”
Vicky shot Lucy a look, her eyes wide.
“To get away…get away from that terrible place.”
“What place, Vicky? What place was that?”
“Let me think.”
Vicky closed her eyes and thought for several minutes. The she said, “The place where they took us. Marisa and me.”
Lucy looked over at me, unsure how hard she should press her. I nodded and she continued.
“Who took you there, Vicky?”
“Those people…the ones we met in…Springfield. By the college.”
“Where did they take you?”
“I don’t…I’m not sure. It was a house. A ranch house.” She thought for a moment. “They kept us there.”
“Would you like to rest for a while?” Lucy said.
“No, I’m okay. Really. It’s just that I can’t remember.”
I took out a picture of Marisa. “Who’s this Vicky; do you know?” I said.
She looked at the picture. Her eyes had a deep sadness in them.
“Marisa.” She sat up in bed.
A nurse appeared in the doorway. “Sorry to interrupt,” she said. “I just have to take Vicky’s blood pressure. How you doing sweetheart?” she said.
“I’m feeling fine now,” Vicky said. “These are Marisa’s friends. “I’m trying to remember…”
“Well you just take your time, honey. Dr. Fletcher says it’ll all come back to you soon enough,” the nurse said. “But you’re not to tire yourself.”
“We’ll give her a break,” I said, getting up to go.
“Don’t go,” Vicky said. “Help me remember…please.”
I looked at the nurse – she nodded and left the room.
“There were five of them,” she said. They called themselves…”
“Regenerators,” I said.
“Yes, that’s right. Regenerators. We met them in Springfield on Thursday.”
It was as if three weeks had been erased from her memory. “And they took you somewhere?” I said.
“To the house.”
Lucy and I waited patiently to see if she would remember anything else, but she said nothing. She was frowning, concentrating; trying hard to remember. I took a chance.
“Do you remember a sick girl in the house? Did Marisa try to help a sick girl there?” I said.
She
thought for a while. “She was downstairs; in the basement – but I didn’t see her. Marisa saw her.”
“Why was she sick?”
Vicky thought for a moment or two.
“Marisa said she was dying – she had…some…kind of…infection. Marisa said she was real sick. She needed to go to the hospital, but…”
“What happened to her, Vicky?”
Tears welled up in Vicky’s eyes and slowly rolled down her cheeks.
“What happened to her Vicky?” Lucy said.
“She died. Marisa told me she died. And then…the next day she wasn’t there anymore.”
“You’re doing great, Vicky. Really great,” Lucy said.
“Then they took Marisa away. Now I remember. They took Marisa away. She saved me.”
“How did she save you?” Lucy asked.
“Let me just think for a minute. Marisa told them we had to go back to Springfield. She said that…Jillian would send someone to look for us. So they took Marisa away to call Jillian.” She looked at Lucy. “That was her wasn’t it? Jillian. She was here.”
“Yes,” Lucy said. “Jillian was here with me when you woke up.”
Vicky lay back on the pillow and smiled.
“They took Marisa away to call Jillian.”
“Why didn’t she call her from the house?” I said.
Vicky looked over at me in surprise. “There wasn’t any telephone in the house.”
“Couldn’t she use her cell?”
“There was no signal there. It was kind of far away from everything.”
“You said Marisa saved you,” I said.
“Marisa told me she had a plan to get them away from the house. She’d found some…those things that make you sleep.”
“Barbiturates?” I said.
“Yes, she gave them to me. She told me to try to put it in their food. Wait, let me think. I have to get this straight. I remember now. Let me start again. I think if I can tell you from the beginning it will help me remember.”
“Look, we’ll take a coffee break, Vicky,” Lucy said. “You try and think things through and then when we come back you start from the beginning. You’re doing really great – I’m so proud of you.”
Vicky sank back into the pillow and closed her eyes. Then she sighed. “Thanks,” she said.
Chapter Twenty Three
The Escape
We didn’t go for coffee. Instead we called in to see Dr. Fletcher.
“It’s all coming back to her,” I said. “But I hope it’s not going to trigger some kind of relapse. Do you think it’s alright for us to keep talking to her? We don’t want to tire her out.”
“On the contrary,” he said. “Even though she may have suffered a mental trauma after what she went through she knows she’s safe now. She’s physically fit and what she needs now is to be helped as much as possible to get her memory back. There’ll be gaps, and some confusion probably, but it won’t do her any harm.”
We decided to let Vicky have more time to think things through.
“I don’t think we’re going to find anybody at the house when we locate it,” I said to Lucy. “There may be clues there as to where they went – they’ll have left in a hurry with little time to cover their tracks – but we can’t count on it. What we need is the license number of the car; that way we may be able to trace them; but I think the chances of Vicky being able to help us there are pretty slim.”
“Well let’s see. Most of it’s coming back to her now.”
We waited in the hospital canteen until twelve and then took the elevator back to the second floor. Vicky was sitting up in bed and was pleased to see us.
“I think I’ve got things straight now,” she said. “I can remember most of it quite clearly.”
We sat down again, on either side of the bed.
“I’ll tell you everything I can remember,” she said. “We met this group – they called themselves regenerators − in Springfield last…back in January – the end of January. They told us they were into meditation, yoga, living off the land – that sort of crap. They told us it was important to get back to simplicity, get away from technology, all that kind of thing. I thought they were loopy, you know, naïve, but Marisa was intrigued. They invited us to visit their commune. We talked it over and Marisa persuaded me to go with her. It was only supposed to be a few days ’cause I really needed to work. Anyway we met them on…a Saturday. There were five of them – two girls and three guys. Nothing much happened that first evening, but in the morning they wanted Marisa to look at a woman who was sick. They knew she had some nursing experience. At first they told us that she had food poisoning or something. They said they’d been to Springfield to collect some medicine; but when Marisa saw her she knew she was real sick. Later she found out she’d had some kind of operation. She had a fever. We knew that something wasn’t right; that if she was sick like that she should have been in the hospital. Marisa had a big argument with them and gradually they admitted what had happened to her. She’d donated a kidney. They had a surgeon who did the operation, but he wasn’t there anymore. They said they were helping people. Plenty of people needed kidneys and there were plenty of people willing to sell theirs – so their logic was that they were helping both the sick and the needy.
“We tried to make calls on our cell phones but there was no signal. Marisa needed to call her dad because it was his birthday, but there was no phone there and no signal for the cells. Anyway, the day after we got there we couldn’t find our cell phones. Marisa was mad and told them we had to leave, but they said they’d take us back to Springfield after the girl got better. Only she didn’t get better. Marisa knew she wasn’t going to get better. She had some kind of serious infection. The guy that had operated on her had disappeared and wouldn’t help. Marisa did what she could, but on Thursday the girl died and the next day Marisa told me there was no sign of the body.”
Vicky looked at each of us in turn.
“How am I doing?” she said.
“Real good,” I said. “Take your time, and go on when you’re ready.”
“We were really scared. We knew they wouldn’t let us go. They couldn’t because…”
Vicky squeezed her eyes shut, and tears ran down her cheeks.
“Take it easy, Vicky. Why don’t you rest for a while?” Lucy said.
“Marisa saved me,” Vicky said. She sniffed back her tears and took a deep breath.
“Marisa told them that we were expected back by friends in Springfield. She said there’d be people looking for us if we didn’t go back. So they told Marisa she had to call her friends and make an excuse, so she offered to call Jillian, but they had said that she couldn’t use a cell phone. They said they’d take her somewhere to make the call and that I had to stay there. Two of the group stayed behind in the house with me – both of the girls and there was some guy who was in the house when we first arrived but he left after a while so there was just the three of us. They said if Marisa tried to tell anyone where they were then I’d be the one to face the consequences.
“But Marisa had found some barbiturates and she told me to try to put it in their food or drinks. It was a powder she’d found downstairs. She told me to wait until they slept and then try to get away and get help. After they left there were just the two girls and me. I managed to put the stuff in their coffee during the afternoon when Marisa was away. Late in the afternoon I got my chance and ran. There were dogs outside but I’d given them some meat with the powder on it – I threw it out the window. It was already getting dark and it was raining. I didn’t know which way to run. I wandered around for several hours trying to find a house or a road. I didn’t know how long it would be before the others came back or the drug wore off.”
Vicky stopped talking. She was reliving the scene in her mind.
“Do you remember the car, Vicky? The one that Marisa was in when they left?”
“I didn’t pay much attention.
I don’t know much about cars. It was a red color, I think. Like plum red. It wasn’t the car we were in before.”
“You mean the car that they drove from Springfield in?”
“Yes – that was bigger. It was an SUV. It had like three rows of seats.”
“Do you remember the color of that car?”
Vicky frowned and thought for a while.
“It was a dark color, but I can’t remember. It was always parked out front. It was new, I think.”
“Did you notice the license plate?”
“I guess I must have, but I can’t remember now.”
“Were they Missouri plates?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know.”
“Okay, Vicky you’ve done really well. We’re going to find the house tomorrow. We know roughly where the accident happened, and we know the direction you came from, so it’ll be easy for us to find now. We don’t think Marisa or the group of people who held you will still be there, but we’re hopeful we’ll find them soon. Try not to worry about anything; we’ll be back to see you tomorrow.”
*
I decided to treat Lucy to dinner in the best restaurant we could find. We ate barbecued ribs and home-made apple pie and then went back to the hotel bar for a nightcap.
Back in the room we took stock of what we needed to do in the morning. I’d arranged for the Scouts to congregate in the hotel parking lot and I’d reassured the management that there was nothing for them to be concerned about. I told the manager that if he had any concerns he could talk to the sheriff. I explained that we were all involved in a search for a missing girl and that we wouldn’t linger long so as not to alarm the other guests.
“When we locate the house that Vicky described the police are going to need to examine everything very carefully,” I said. “I’m quite sure that if Marisa knew where they were going she would have left something behind as a clue; although she may well have had no idea where they were headed.”
“You would have thought someone would have spotted the Eldorado by now,” Lucy said.
Missing - Mark Kane Mysteries - Book Five: A Private Investigator Crime Series of Murder, Mystery, Suspense & Thriller Stories...with a dash of Romance. A Murder Mystery & Suspense Thriller Page 14