by Karen Fenech
“But, she didn’t go those few steps, and he got to live on.” Lowney smiled. “I planned on driving her car back to her house, and not call attention to it by leaving it on the road, and then I found Beth’s suitcase in the back seat of her car. She was fixing on leaving old Dean. No one was going to be looking for her, because they thought she was already gone.
“I picked Beth for the same reason I picked all the others. I . . . wanted . . . them.” Lowney shook his head slowly. “I can just imagine the way your brain is spinning right now, trying to analyze me. Trying to fit me into some FBI profile. Let me let you in on something, Clare.” He leaned in close. His eyes that had been animated an instant earlier dimmed and his lids lowered. “My daddy didn’t beat me. My mama never fondled my privates. I didn’t come from a dysfunctional family. My parents were good, salt of the earth, God-fearing, law-abiding people. There’s nothing wrong with me. I just like to hurt things.”
The hair on the back of Clare’s neck rose at the matter-of-fact way he said it.
“I grew up on a farm,” Lowney went on. “On weekends when I didn’t have school, I’d go out to one of the traps I set in the woods and get the squirrel or stray cat that was caught in it. Then, with a book of matches or a knife or both, I’d play with those animals. For years, I played with whatever got caught in my traps, or a stray dog, but when I was thirteen, there was this girl.” His lips curved in a smile. “Her name was Janey Black. I met her at summer camp. She was staying at the girl’s camp down the road. She’d sneak away and meet me.”
His gaze fixed as he looked inward. His smile widened with the fond memory. “There were so many things I wanted to do to her. I wanted to see just how long I could keep her alive, how much she could take. My technique was rough, though, and I didn’t get done nearly all I wanted to.” He pouted. “To be fair, though, she was weak and didn’t last nearly as long as she should have. But, hey, she was my first. I’ve heard it said that you always remember your first.” He laughed as if he’d made a joke. “After her, well, let me tell you, Clare, there was no going back to squirrels and cats and dogs.”
“I’ve gotten so much better since Janey. Isn’t that right, Beth?” he said, keeping his bright gaze on Clare.
Beth uttered a plaintive cry.
“I really want to keep you, Clare.” Lowney’s eyes slowly roamed her body. “I really want to be able to play with you. Miss Tough FBI Agent. I want to find out just how tough you really are.”
Beth drew her knees tight to her chest. Her shoulders shook as she began to cry. If Lowney noticed Beth’s reaction to his words, he gave no indication.
“I can’t keep you, though,” Lowney went on. “I guess we all have our disappointments. I have to kill you, Clare. Soon.”
Clare’s mouth went dry. “Killing me will only focus attention on you.” She struggled to keep her tone neutral. “Dannon is in custody. If I go missing or turn up dead, you’ll prove Dannon’s innocence. Your only hope is to let Beth and I go and to turn yourself in.”
Lowney crossed the distance between them. He drew back his foot. Clare covered her head with her unshackled hand. The blow connected and a bone in Clare’s middle finger snapped. She cried out.
He crouched, placed his hands on either side of Clare’s head and squeezed. “I could crush your head like a melon.” His voice was soft, intimate, as if he were speaking to himself, and fantasizing about the experience.
Clare grabbed Lowney’s arms as best she could and pressed her thumbs to the inside of his wrists. Her strength was waning and she was unable to apply enough force to override his grip. In fact, he seemed not to notice her feeble grasp at all.
“I can’t do that, though,” he said, more to himself than to her, and abruptly he released her.
He rose to his feet. “It would have been easier if Jake hadn’t shown up when I sent you that note. I planned to get rid of you that night. Or, easier if you’d just died in the fire.”
Lowney’s words penetrated the fog of pain in her head and hand. “You burned your own house?”
“To kill two birds with one stone. Get rid of the house that I couldn’t sell and stop you from poking around. Except that it didn’t stop you. Not even when I gave you Rich Dannon you wouldn’t let go.” Lowney shook his head. “You thought you were so smart. That you’d get me. But here you are. I got you. Now, all that’s left is to get rid of you.”
“If I don’t return,” Clare said, “you’ll never know a peaceful moment again. I’m a federal agent. My disappearance will not go unsolved.”
“Oh, you aren’t going to disappear.”
Clare narrowed her eyes in confusion at his statement.
Lowney tilted his head and regarded her without blinking. “Poor Clare,” he began, his voice low and rhythmic. “Distraught over her inability to find her sister, she lapsed into depression and despondency. Drinking too much. She even set the house she was staying in on fire while drunk. Career in shambles. Love affair down the toilet. Unable to find the sister she’s been searching for. Clare can’t go on any longer. She pops a handful of downers, gets into her car, and eats her gun.”
Lowney’s lip curled. “That’s how it will go down. A tragic end, but then you had a tragic beginning. Isn’t that what your mama planned all those years ago? To take her own life after she killed her children? Like mother like daughter, Clare.
“Rich Dannon will go away for Sara’s murder. If one day, someone happens to take a shovel out to those woods and digs up another girl, or two, or ten.” Lowney laughed, then shrugged. “Well, they’ll just blame old Rich. And as for Beth, with no proof of foul play in her disappearance, folks will continue to think what they want to think, that she just run off.”
Lowney bent and brought his face close to Clare’s. “The search for Beth will die with you, Clare.” He bared his teeth in a chilling smile. “But not tonight. We still have time, and I’m in the mood to play.”
He rubbed his hands together. He went to the table that held the lantern and removed a bucket from beneath it, then bent and wrapped his arms around a large glass jug. It was filled with water, and as Lowney lifted it, the water sloshed against the sides.
“Wouldn’t do for a coroner to find damage on any part of your body other than your head, Clare. My options are limited.” Lowney pouted. “But we can still have some fun.”
He filled the bucket with water then carried it to Clare. He seized her by the hair and pushed her head down to the bucket. “Let’s see how long you can hold your breath under water, Clare.”
Chapter Twenty Four
Jake had called Laura North and arranged for Sammie to spend the night. Jonathan ordered sandwiches and coffee from the Farley diner. That was hours earlier and Jake’s meal still lay uneaten on his desk.
Clare had not checked in at any of the hotels in Columbia, and Jake had sent her description and the particulars of her rental car to law enforcement across the state. He was hoping that the reason she’d been out of touch was something simple, like a dead phone battery, and some eager cop in a neighboring town would pull her over, getting her pissed as hell at Jake for sounding the alarm.
“Jake?”
Jake stood at the window in his office that overlooked the building parking lot. Night had descended and stars winked in the sky. At the sound of Stan’s voice, Jake turned toward the other man.
“Wainscott ran the P.O. box renters lists we got from the various post offices,” Stan said. “We got a name from one of the post offices in Columbia. It’s Earl Lowney.”
“Let’s go.”
Stan, in the seat beside Jake, rattled off the address, and Jake drove there. Lowney’s house was dark. His car was not in the driveway. Jake left his vehicle at the curb and he and Stan got out.
A dog in the yard next door barked. Someone had put out the trash and the ripe odor filled the night air.
A vertical window ran the length of Lowney’s front door. Jake peered into the house. The hall was in shadow but
he could make out an area rug, a table with a vase on it, and a stack of mail.
They returned to Jake’s vehicle and drove to Lowney’s store. The store was in darkness and Lowney’s car was nowhere in sight. Jake drove back to Lowney’s house.
“Where are you, you son of a bitch?” Jake murmured. He wanted to get inside and had to quell the urge to break down the door and charge in. He had to make sure the search, and the subsequent arrest, were legal. He turned to Stan. “Call the judge.”
While Stan arranged for the warrant, Jake called the Columbia field office. He needed help to conduct a search for Lowney and an evidence team to be dispatched to go over Lowney’s residence and business. His next call was to Petty. He needed to let the sheriff know that an operation was going down in his town.
The sheriff answered with a groggy, “ ‘Lo.”
“Oz. Jake Sutton. A team of agents are enroute to Farley. We’re picking up Earl Lowney for questioning in the Sara McCowan murder.”
“What? Hold on there, Jake, I was asleep. Not sure I heard you right. Did you say, Sara McCowan?”
“That’s right.”
“But Rich Dannon is up for that.”
“New evidence has come to light. We need to talk with Lowney.”
“Where are you now?”
“I’m at Lowney’s residence awaiting a team from the Columbia office.”
“I’ll meet you there.”
With that done, there was nothing to do but wait. Stan fiddled with the nicotine patch on his arm and popped a wad of chewing gum.
By the time the warrant came through, agents had arrived at Lowney’s residence, as had Petty and his deputies. Jake had agents at Lowney’s store. Petty and his people secured the perimeter around Lowney’s residence and Jake led Stan and the team into the house. Two agents went upstairs with Stan while Jake and another descended to the basement. It was one open room and it didn’t take long to determine that Lowney wasn’t in the basement.
Dusty work boots stood side by side against one cement wall. Jake turned them over. Dirt was caked into the soles.
The lid of the washing machine was open. An unwashed shirt and pair of pants were the only items inside. As with the work boots, the clothes were dusty. There was a faint musty odor to them.
Jake left the basement and went upstairs. Stan greeted him.
“All clear. Lowney isn’t in the house,” Stan said.
Jake exhaled a frustrated breath.
Footsteps thudded against the wood floor as the evidence team began their tasks. Lowney had a desktop computer in one of the rooms. Jake powered it up. There was a password on the system. Jake’s knowledge of computers was basic and he would have to pass the computer to the techs at the Bureau to get in.
Stan poked his head into the room. “Jake, you’re going to want to see this.”
Jake looked up from the monitor and followed Stan into Lowney’s bedroom. One of the female investigators was holding a cardboard shoe box.
“Got this from Lowney’s closet,” the investigator said.
She passed the box to Jake. Inside was a stash of trinkets. Among them was the ring that had been missing from Sara, and a gold bracelet with the name “Beth” engraved on it.
“It’s Lowney, then,” Stan said.
Jake examined the items. A hairbrush. A compact. A pen engraved with the name Rita Johnson. A watch with a crack in the crystal. He knew that watch. His chest tightened.
“He has Clare,” Jake said.
An image of Sara’s tortured and emaciated body sprang to Jake’s mind. He rubbed his hands down his face.
“Jake . . . Jake?”
After a moment, he glanced at Stan who’d spoken.
“We found DVDs, videotapes, and photos,” Stan said. “We popped one into Lowney’s VCR. The same nature as was found in Rich Dannon’s cabin. Recordings of women being tortured.”
“Clare?” Jake asked, his voice hoarse.
Stan shook his head, then added. “Not in the one we saw.”
Jake closed his eyes briefly, then followed Stan to a room with a recliner couch that housed a sophisticated entertainment center. State-of-the-art DVD and photographic equipment for best viewing of what were better than a hundred tapes and DVDs stored in a closet. Jake fingered Lowney’s collection. All were labeled and dated with the earliest one going back fifteen years. Lowney had been abducting women since he’d been in his twenties—or—to be accurate—he’d been recording his victims for that long.
“Do you want us to send this collection to the office?” Stan asked.
A technical analyst would go over the tapes when they reached the Bureau office. By that time, it could be too late for Clare and Beth and anyone else Lowney had in his hideaway.
Jake shook his head. “I want to see what’s on them now.”
Stan stuck a tape into the VCR, then took a seat on the couch and pressed play.
Jake stood, tense and straight as the tape began. The screen filled with the image of a brunette, staked out on a stained blanket. Lengths of chain at her wrists and ankles shackled her to four posts.
Behind her, providing background, and reflecting the light, was a white screen. She was dressed similarly to Sara McCowan, in a leather skirt variation that barely covered her bottom. The narrow bands of some kind of cut-off top or bra criss-crossed her front.
Jake studied the video. He was looking for something to identify the woman’s surroundings, but all that could be seen other than her was the white screen. There was nothing of the background in the shot to be able to identify it. Doubtful Lowney had ever anticipated these tapes would be viewed for the purpose of trying to determine his surroundings. The bright white of the screen eliminated any distraction from the main attraction—the woman—and was likely the reason Lowney had chosen that background. The fact that the screen also served to conceal the details of the location appeared incidental.
The woman was brightly illuminated, though the source of the light couldn’t be seen. The camera zoomed in, panning her body, slowly, taking time to pass over all of her. Her complexion was sallow. Her cheekbones, sunken. Her ribs, left bare by the cut-off top that ended above her midriff, protruded and Jake was reminded of Coroner Devoe’s belief that the cause of Sara’s death had been by starvation.
“Marissa.” Lowney’s voice, soft as a caress.
The woman made a keening animal sound.
“Smile for the camera, Marissa.”
The camera moved in for a close-up of her face. She wore thick makeup. Her eyes were huge, opaque with fear. She was crying. Mascara ran in rivulets down her bruised cheeks. Her lower lip was split and bleeding. Welts marked her flesh.
Lowney stepped into the frame. He was holding a lit cigarette. The woman—Marissa—began to make low, guttural sounds of terror as she began jerking the manacles, trying to shrink back from him and huddle into herself.
Lowney broke into a wide grin. “Cigarettes are such a filthy habit, aren’t they?”
He reached Marissa and removed her bra. Giggling now, he touched the cigarette to the tip of her breast.
Marissa screamed.
Lowney moved the cigarette to her other breast.
The screen went black as the tape ended.
“Sweet Jesus,” Stan muttered.
Jake’s rage felt like a living thing inside him. But the rage ebbed, overcome by fear that left him shaking. He was terrified that Lowney was making one of those tapes of Clare.