by Chris Mooney
‘Did you find her?’ I ask.
‘Maybe. The guys in Denver traced the signal on her satellite phone.’
I make a show of trying to stand.
‘No,’ Coop says. ‘You’re still bleeding.’
‘I’m coming with you.’
‘You’ve suffered a major concussion, Ray.’
‘I want to help. Darby, I don’t want anything to happen to her.’
70
Darby’s satellite signal was coming from Route Six, near the Red Hill/Brewster line, a no man’s land of endless forest and cliffs known as Dead Man’s Curve. The patrolman who was driving Coop said the area had been named that because it was packed with so many roadside crosses it resembled a cemetery.
Then, for a reason Coop didn’t understand, the patrolman added how Red Hill had lost count of the number of cars that had spun out of control every time the road was wet or icy; how they would crash into each other and into trees, some tumbling down the steep slopes on either side of the road, never to be found again, some having to be lifted out by a crane.
Coop saw the road ahead of them turn sharply to his left, no guardrail there, and when the road dipped steeply, like the first steep plunge of a rollercoaster, he felt his stomach drop. Drenched in sweat, his clothes stuck to his skin. His mouth and throat were parchment-dry, his chest tight, and his heart felt like it had been dunked in ice water.
She’s not dead, he kept telling himself. She’s a fighter. She knows I’m looking for her, she’ll be okay.
Coop brought the phone back up to his ear. He had a guy named Lee from RCFL on the line, who was tracking Darby’s signal – and his.
‘There’s nothing out here but woods,’ he told Lee.
‘That’s where the signal’s coming from. You’re right on top of it.’
Coop told the driver to pull over. He got out of the car and heard the roar of water. Dread swam through him as he spoke into the phone: ‘Tell me where to go.’
‘North-east, about 500 yards.’
Coop made his way up an embankment of ploughed snow. An ambulance and uniformed deputies from the Brewster sheriff’s office had just pulled on to the road and parked, their lights cutting through the dark, cold air. He could see, directly below, a river bursting with rapids.
‘DARBY!’
He made his way into the woods. Because of the tree cover, the snow wasn’t as deep here. But it came up his boots, thick and wet, soaking his trousers. He ran as fast as he could with the flashlight gripped firmly in his hands, the beam zigzagging everywhere, searching for her.
‘DARBY!’
His voice echoed and died.
She’s alive, Coop told himself. He kept screaming out her name, knowing she would answer him any second now. She couldn’t hear him and he couldn’t hear her, because their voices were drowned out by the roars of wind and water.
He brought the phone back up to his ear. ‘I don’t see her.’
There was a slight pause, and then Lee said, almost sadly, ‘You’re right on top of her signal.’
Which meant the satellite phone he had given her was buried somewhere in this snow. Not Darby, just the phone. Savran must have tossed it out the window.
The woods took on a surreal, dreamy quality, as though this were a nightmare from which he would wake up at any moment, the normal flow of life restored.
Or she dropped it, Coop thought. She fought off Savran and escaped: she was running through these woods and she dropped the phone. She’s alive. All I’ve got to do is find her.
Coop moved more deeply into the woods, screaming out her name.
71
He put me in a chokehold. Ray Williams.
The words ran through Darby’s mind as she fluttered awake.
Ray Williams, the lead detective on the Ripper case, had put her in a chokehold. She remembered that, and she remembered how she had helped him to his feet – and then he had put her in a chokehold until she passed out. Next came a foggy memory of waking up on Kelly’s couch with her hands cuffed behind her back and Williams pressing her against the plastic-covered cushions. Williams had been talking to someone. A woman. Darby couldn’t remember what they had said or the content of their conversation, but she remembered he had stuck a needle into her neck, and whatever he had injected into her had burned. Then the drug kicked in and she had blacked out and she was … where? Where was she?
Her good eye blinked open to a darkness as thick as paint and she felt cold all over. Fear seized her, but her heart continued to beat at its normal resting rate.
The drug, she thought. Whatever drug he used is still in my system. She couldn’t feel the pain from the stapled wound on the left side of her head or on the split ear where Lancaster had pistol-whipped her. She couldn’t, in fact, feel anything, but the voice in her mind was awake, and it was telling her about Lancaster, how he had admitted to being the Ripper, how he had been killing families who had been standing in the way of the incorporation. And then Ray Williams had put her in a chokehold.
Had they been working together? If so, why had Lancaster tied Ray to the chair? And who was the woman who had entered the house to help Williams?
Darby saw that she’d been placed on her right side, on top of something soft, her head on a pillow and her hands tied behind her back not with metal handcuffs but something thin and hard that bit into her wrists. Plastic cuffs. She tried to move her arms and legs, but they wouldn’t respond. She couldn’t move anything.
Her ankles too had been bound with plastic cuffs. She managed to wiggle her toes – it seemed to take an enormous effort – and she felt the sole of her foot. Her socks were gone, which meant her boots had been removed, and right then she realized why she felt cold all over: Ray Williams had removed her clothes.
And he had placed something thick and tight around her neck.
Fear exploded through her and then vanished behind the drug, her heart still oblivious to her predicament, still snoozing. She could breathe and she had no problems swallowing, not yet. She knew she should be terrified but she wasn’t, because she was doped up to the gills. She felt herself sinking, her good eye fluttering shut as part of her said, That’s it, go back to sleep.
Darby didn’t want to go back to sleep. Knew it was stupid and foolish.
If you’re asleep, he can’t hurt you. Go back to sleep and –
A dim light came on. Darby forced her eye back open. The dim light came from a battery-operated camp light made of plastic. It sat a few feet away, on a concrete floor.
She couldn’t move her body, but she could move her eye, and she saw that she was lying sideways on a bare mattress. Then she heard what sounded like soft footsteps, and when they stopped in front of her she saw a pair of fuzzy pink slippers.
The person set a plastic bucket on the floor. Darby couldn’t see the woman’s face yet – but it was a woman because the hands that were wringing out the wet facecloth were feminine. The woman set the facecloth on the edge of the bucket. Darby licked her dry lips, wanting to speak, but the woman stood and moved away, out of the cell.
I’m inside a prison cell, Darby thought, staring at the iron bars. This wasn’t a jail cell but someone’s personal holding tank. Ray Williams’s personal holding tank. He had brought her here and tied her up and she had no idea why, not yet.
Then she caught a flash of khaki and polished loafers clicking across the floor, heading her way. Ray Williams picked up the facecloth and, kneeling, rubbed Darby’s bare arms, the cloth warm and wet against her skin.
‘You’re so beautiful,’ Ray said. ‘But you already know that.’
Again, Darby licked her dry lips. When she spoke, her throat raw, the words came out sounding dry and brittle, like paper crackling. ‘I saved your life.’
‘And I thank you for that,’ Williams replied. He kissed her gently on the forehead and went back to washing her.
Darby moved her good eye to track the other woman but she couldn’t see her. Where did she go? Was she a
part of this – and who was she? Then Darby’s gaze dropped to the concrete floor, to the dried, jagged lines of blood and the fragments of torn skin and broken fingernails. Someone had clawed at the floor.
Ray saw where she was looking and said, ‘Sherrilyn gave up too quickly.’
‘Sherrilyn?’ Darby’s eye darted back to him.
‘Sherrilyn O’Neil, the previous occupant. From Utah,’ Ray said, dipping the facecloth back in the bucket. ‘I only hunt in other states.’
Nicky Hubbard’s fingerprint, how Darby had told Coop that the Red Hill Ripper wouldn’t return to a previous crime scene – it all swam through her. The Red Hill Ripper hadn’t killed Hubbard inside the Downes bedroom; someone else had.
‘Nicky,’ Darby croaked.
‘Dead. Gone. You don’t need to worry about her any more.’
Ray ran the washcloth over her chest, paying close attention to her breasts.
‘You,’ Darby said, voice barely above a whisper. She so badly wanted to go back to sleep. ‘It was you who washed down that area. Lancaster filmed you.’
‘It’s all over now.’
There were two serial killers here in Red Hill: Teddy Lancaster, who had been killing families standing in the way of the town’s incorporation; and Detective Ray Williams, who had just admitted to hunting in other states.
‘Women,’ Darby said, voice coarse. ‘How many?’
‘Shh. You need to rest.’ Ray wrung out the washcloth again. ‘Go to sleep.’
‘How many?’
Ray Williams tossed the washcloth into the bucket. ‘I killed her there, in the bedroom. Nicky,’ he said. ‘I was the one who washed down the area that morning, before you arrived. And Lancaster caught me. Lancaster had no idea why I’d done it. He didn’t say anything to me because he was waiting to see if you guys found out anything before he made his move. Now he’s dead, and my secret is safe.
‘As for the other women I’ve hosted here, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you and I are together. You’re my special girl. I only have eyes for you.’
Ray Williams placed his hands on either side of her hand and then his lips were mashed against hers, breath stale and tongue probing, and he inhaled deeply as if trying to draw something out of her.
Then, mercifully, it was over. He stood and she watched him move past the iron door and out of the cell. The woman was waiting by a ladder. Ray was about to go to it when she grabbed him by the back of the head and pulled him towards her, kissing him deeply, one hand massaging his crotch as she glared at Darby like a hungry wolf protecting its food supply.
When Ray Williams finally pried himself away from the woman’s grasp, he turned to the ladder.
‘I love you, baby,’ the woman said to him. ‘Forever.’
‘I love you too, Sarah.’
As Ray climbed the ladder, Sarah entered the cell.
72
‘Relax,’ the woman said, as she picked up the washcloth. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’
Darby tried to speak, but the words dissolved in her throat.
‘It’s okay,’ the woman cooed as she cleaned Darby. ‘It’s okay. Go ahead and close your eyes and sleep.’
The woman hummed as she worked. Several minutes later, the woman gently rolled Darby on to her back. Darby, still immobilized from the drugs, couldn’t do anything but lie on her back with her wrists tied behind her and her midsection exposed. If the woman wanted to kill her, there was nothing she could do to prevent it. She was helpless.
‘Just remember,’ the woman said, ‘he’s mine.’
Darby wasn’t listening, her attention locked on the plastic-wrapped steel wire that ran from whatever was on her neck to a hole in a steel ceiling.
The woman saw Darby looking at it but said nothing.
Darby blinked, concentrating on the round, pale face hovering just inches away. The woman’s dark brown hair was greying at the roots, and cut short; her dark blue eyes were bloodshot, damp and puffy from crying. Her front teeth were crooked and gapped.
The woman noticed Darby staring and, self-conscious, clamped her lips shut and turned her attention back to the bucket.
I know who you are, Darby wanted to say. You’d go unrecognized on the street, because you’re a middle-aged woman now. Your face has filled out, and you’re wearing glasses and your hair is a different colour, but you’ve got the same eyes, the same nose and lips.
‘Nicky,’ Darby croaked. ‘You’re Nicky Hubbard.’
The woman paid no attention. She wrung out the washcloth and said, ‘Ray loves me and only me. Remember that. And fight back. Ray really loves it when you fight back. It makes us both so happy.’
Day Ten
73
It was a shock collar, the kind used to train dogs; but Ray Williams had modified it for human use, and there was no way to remove it.
Darby had tried. She couldn’t see the collar – there was no mirror in here – but she could touch it any time she wanted to. The obedience collar, as it was called, was made of thick steel and had a small padlock on the back, along with an O-ring. The inside of the collar was lined with fleece so it wouldn’t cut or irritate the wearer’s neck. Every time Darby swallowed, she could feel the four metal prongs that delivered the shock digging into her skin.
The collar’s O-ring was attached to a heavy steel-mesh wire encased in clear plastic – the kind of cable used in dog leads to prevent the animal from running away. The cable ran up through a hole in the ceiling, which was, along with the floors and walls, made of galvanized steel; it was attached to a pulley, and it allowed her to roam freely about her homemade six-by-eight cell, with its chemical toilet and mattress.
But the wire prevented her from getting anywhere near the cell’s steel door and iron bars, which separated her cell from a room that offered more creature comforts: a twin bed, which at the moment was neatly made and decorated with throw pillows; a nightstand and lamp; a small flat-screen TV and a Blu-Ray player; a high-backed chair, toilet and a small refrigerator stocked with bottles of water and cans of soda. The shelves above the bed held boxes of meal-replacement bars, toilet paper and an assortment of paperback books, the majority of which, as far as she could tell, were romance novels.
The adjoining room also held a ladder that led to what Darby guessed had to be some sort of trapdoor. She couldn’t see it from her cell, but she always heard it when it was opened, and it was being opened right now.
Darby sat up on her mattress and threw back the wool blanket and comforter. At the moment her cell was bathed in a complete and total darkness. Her facial swelling had disappeared; she was able to see out of both eyes; and the staples along her incision itched furiously. She had been given Tylenol with each meal, and she had been provided with ill-fitting but warm clothes: thermal underwear, fleece-lined sweatpants and a woollen sweater. No shoes, though, just two pairs of woollen socks. Williams was smart enough to know that a shoe could be turned into a weapon.
At least that was what Darby assumed; she hadn’t seen Williams since the day he had washed her. Darby figured he was tied up with Coop and the other federal agents who were avidly questioning him about what had happened at Sally Kelly’s house. What had Williams told them? That Savran had killed everyone inside the house and then taken her as his hostage? Was Savran alive or dead?
And how many women had been brought here to this private torture chamber, which was, she suspected, buried underground? She had a solid idea about the purpose this place served. There was no question in her mind about what Williams was going to do to her after the heat died down. Williams, she figured, could afford to wait them out.
Were the FBI still in Red Hill? Were they looking for her or did they assume Savran had killed her?
Her stomach dropped and her muscles tensed when she heard the trap door shut, followed by a padlock clicking into place. Then footsteps continued down the rungs, and a moment later she heard the click of a light switch, and the pair of lamps in the adjoining room ca
me to life.
74
Once her eyes had adjusted to the sudden brightness, Darby saw the woman Williams called Sarah slipping out of her boots. They were wet with snow. Wherever Darby was, she wasn’t inside Williams’s house. Was she on his property or had he tucked her away somewhere else?
Darby didn’t know, but one thing was clear: Williams had designed this place with care and detail to prevent anyone from escaping.
Sarah wore a pink fleece top with matching sweatpants. ‘It’s time for your feeding,’ she said, slipping her stockinged feet into a pair of slippers.
That was what she called Darby’s meals: feedings. Like she was some sort of caged pet. That’s exactly what I am.
Sarah smiled brightly. ‘Did I tell you Ray belongs to Netflix?’
Darby said nothing, looking at the neatly made bed outside her cell. The woman slept here almost every night, and she spent the majority of the day down here too, reading her Victorian romance novels and watching TV series and movies on DVD. She left for a couple of hours at a time and always came back with supplies – at least Darby assumed it was a couple of hours. She had no idea. There was no clock down here; no windows to tell here whether it was day or night; no calendar to mark off the passage of days. She was buried underground, trapped inside the waiting room to hell.
‘Ray allowed me to get the first season of The Tudors. If you’re nice to me –’
‘How many women?’ Darby asked.
‘We’re not doing this again. I told you, no questions.’
‘I know who you are. Why do you keep denying it?’
‘Please, I want to have a nice day today. Please.’
‘Your name is Nicky Hubbard.’
‘Nicky Hubbard is dead. Ray killed her.’
She repeated the same words every time Darby brought up the subject.
‘No, he didn’t. You’re Nicky Hubbard,’ Darby said. The woman could deny it all she wanted, but there was no doubt in Darby’s mind. ‘That’s why he’s hiding you down here with me. Red Hill’s swarming with the FBI, and other cops –’