Web of Fear

by Mike Omer

  The hell with it. She needed to be with Mancuso and the rest. She came out of the bathroom and looked for her handbag.

  “Where are you going?” Jurgen asked.

  “I don’t know yet,” she said. “Mancuso told me to get to Koche Toolworks.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather go to Megan’s house?” Jurgen asked.

  “I’d rather do what I’m told for once,” Hannah said shortly. “Thanks for all your help.”

  “Can I come with you?”

  “Absolutely not.” She opened the front door. “I really appreciate everything,” she said. “You’re not such a bad—”

  Her phone rang. Mitchell. She answered. “Yeah?”

  “Hannah?” he shouted. He sounded as if he was riding in a car. “I’m with Agent Ward. I don’t think Megan is in her apartment. She rented a warehouse a month ago. Down on Marsh Creek Road! We’re all on our way, but it’ll take us some time, it’s on the other goddamn side of the city—”

  “Marsh Creek Road?” she said, surprised. “I’m just five minutes away.”

  “What? Where are you?”

  “I’m at Jurgen Adler’s house.”

  “You’re what? Why?”

  “Never mind! I’m going there now!”

  “Hannah, listen!” Mitchell half yelled. “This could be a hostage situation. Don’t do anything stupid! Wait for the SWAT team!”

  Said the man who cornered a serial killer with a hostage, Hannah thought. “I’ll just look around,” she said, leaving the apartment and running down the stairs. “I won’t go inside unless Abigail is in immediate danger.”

  “Hann… Don’t… Megan…” The reception was breaking up in the stairway. She reached the exit and froze.

  A storm raged outside. The street had completely morphed, the water pouring down, flooding the road. The wind bent the treetops, pushing the torrent of rain sideways.

  “Oh, hell!” Hannah muttered. Last night she had found a parking spot a few blocks away, no more than a five-minute walk from the building. But now it would be a twenty-minute swim against the wind.

  “Where are we going?” Jurgen asked, materializing beside her.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Hannah said angrily, bracing herself for the struggle toward her car.

  “This is my car right here,” Jurgen said, pointing at the blue Ford Fiesta parked directly in front of them. Hannah recognized it from a previous encounter.

  “Okay,” she said. “But I’m driving. Give me the keys.”

  “No one drives Sharon but me,” Jurgen said.

  “Sharon? Seriously? Jurgen, I’ve seen you drive.”

  “Take it or leave it.”

  She hesitated for a moment. “Fine!” she finally said. “Come on.”

  Jurgen pointed the remote at the car and unlocked it. Although it took no more than three steps to get to the car, both of them were soaking wet by the time they were inside.

  “Where to?”

  “There’s a storage facility on Marsh Creek Road,” she said.

  “I know it,” he said. He started the car, and the engine revved as he navigated the car out of the parking spot.

  The road was mostly empty. The few cars on it drove slowly as the rain spattered against them. This was Glenmore Park, and the residents were used to snow and rain, but people still preferred to stay at home when the weather could be described as “the wrath of God.”

  Jurgen drove fast, his car screeching as he passed a small van. Hannah curbed the desire to tell him to slow down. She wanted to get to the storage facility as fast as possible

  “So, do you want to barge inside, save the girl from Megan?” Jurgen asked.

  “No,” Hannah said. “It’s too dangerous. This is not the time to be a hero. We’ll get there, make sure she’s there, and wait for SWAT. They can disable Megan and secure Abigail without anyone getting hurt.”

  Jurgen nodded. Hannah stared grimly ahead. It was hard to see even three feet in any direction. The darkness of the rain surrounded them, swallowing the car’s lights whole. The water on the road was deep in many places, and Hannah prayed they wouldn’t get stuck. Damn the weather! Couldn’t this storm have happened a day or two later?

  Two red lights appeared in front of them: tail lights. In front of them was a white Buick, and like all the other cars on the road, it crawled slowly ahead. Jurgen sharply swerved the steering wheel to pass, and Sharon moved into the other lane. He hit the gas, the car’s engine screaming in anger as they overtook the Buick.

  And then, out of the darkness, a pair of bright yellow lights—headlights—appeared. Close. Too close.

  “Jurgen!” Hannah screamed, her voice swallowed by the roar of the engine as Jurgen floored the pedal. He swiveled the steering wheel, their car veering sharply back to their own lane, the Buick behind them honking furiously—and the beam of Sharon’s headlights hit the windshield of the opposite car for a second as it breezed by.

  Hannah stared in front of her, shocked, her mind processing what she had just seen. “Turn the car around!” she screamed at Jurgen.

  “What? Why?”

  “That was Megan! She was driving in that damn car! She’s getting away!”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Abigail screamed her throat hoarse, half in terror, half in desperation. This time, the woman hadn’t bothered with knocking her out. She’d just dumped her, still tied up, in the trunk of the car, then shut it. The darkness was suffocating. Could she run out of air? It felt as if she could. She breathed heavily, feeling the vibration of the car.

  A few minutes after she was shut in the trunk, the engine hummed into life and the car began to move. Then, almost immediately after, a terrible roar filled her ears and she began screaming again, twisting, kicking around her with her tied legs.

  It was rain, she finally realized. They were outside, and it was raining on the trunk.

  Exhausted, she lay still, feeling the bumps in the road as they jarred her bones. She ached all over. She was tired; she wanted it all to be over. She half regretted stopping the woman the night before. She was going to die anyway. What was the point of prolonging it?

  She closed her eyes and thought of her parents. On rainy evenings, her mother would sometimes get a board game, like Monopoly or Scrabble, and the three of them would play together. Sometimes her dad made popcorn. She could almost smell the aroma of the warm popcorn as her dad placed the bowl on the table, always warning her to avoid the uncooked kernels.

  She’d never see them again. She wanted to cry, wanted to sob, wanted to mourn herself. But she was too tired to do even that.

  Something was hurting her leg. She could feel it, a sharp object, jostled out of its place by one of the road bumps, now wedged against her ankle. Another bump and she screamed in pain. The thing had cut into her.

  The knife. The bloody knife the woman had threatened her with yesterday. She had thrown it into the trunk. Abigail twisted around, trying to grab the sharp object, but she only managed to cut her leg again. It felt deep, and her head was dizzy with pain.

  Switching strategies, she tried to kick the blade away. She could try to get it closer to her hands—or at least further from her bleeding legs.

  The roar of the rain mingled with the hum of the engine and the keen whistle of the wind as she kicked again and again. She missed twice, her every movement clumsy and cumbersome. Her third kick hit the mark. She felt the contact, heard the thing clattering somewhere, but she didn’t know where. She had lost it.

  She twisted very carefully, afraid that a sudden movement would impale her on the sharp blade. Slowly she moved like a snake in the small confines of the trunk, trying to feel with her entire body for the knife.

  Her stomach hit it first—the knife’s handle, by the touch, to her immense relief. It was a slow process, but she managed to turn around, her fingers clumsily grabbing the handle.

  The blade was sharp, but it was difficult to cut the rope tying her wrists. She cut herself twice m
ore, the second time nearly dropping the knife. Then, all of a sudden, she could feel the bite of the rope ease. She was loose!

  She whimpered again, this time in relief, as she clenched and unclenched her fists, feeling the blood flow into her hands.

  Once she was done, cutting the ropes on her ankles was easy.

  She stopped to think. She was untied. She had a knife.

  Now what?

  The rain intensified, the noise on the car’s roof deafening. Hannah found it almost impossible to hear anything above the torrent. She was yelling at Mitchell on the phone.

  “No!” she screamed. “We’re not going to the warehouse! We’re following Megan’s car, damn it!”

  At least, she prayed it was Megan’s car. They were definitely following a dim set of taillights, the only ones they had spotted after they had turned around. The car they were tailing was driving very fast considering the weather, which made Hannah suspect they were chasing the right one. Of course, it could also be a dumb college student with a death wish. Jurgen’s face was a frozen mask of concentration as he followed the car. In this rain, the taillights could disappear at any moment.

  “Is Abigail in the car?” Mitchell yelled back.

  “I don’t know!” Hannah shouted. “I only saw Megan in the driver’s seat. Abigail could be in the back seat, or she could be in the trunk!”

  “I’ll talk to Mancuso, she’ll send some agents to the warehouse, check if anyone’s there!” Mitchell said. “Can you describe the car?”

  Damn it. The best she could come up with was it’s wet. “I couldn’t see it very clearly. The color’s dark! Black, or dark green, I’m not sure, and—”

  “It’s a dark green Honda Civic,” Jurgen said, his fists clenching the wheel tightly. “License plate ends with the digits three nine two.”

  Hannah glanced at him in amazement. She had been with the man for less than twelve hours, and he had already displayed a frustrating amount of talent. She repeated the description for Mitchell.

  “Okay, where are you?” Mitchell asked. He had to repeat the question three times until Hannah understood.

  “She’s driving up Sycamore Pass Road!” Hannah shouted. “We just passed Johnson’s Bend.” Johnson’s Bend was named after the Johnson family, who had lost control of their car on the bend, flipped three times, and crashed into a tree, killing them all. It represented the edge of the urban part of Glenmore Park. Beyond it there was a large reservation area that spanned the rest of the way, until it ended at Route 128.

  “So she’s driving north.” Mitchell said.

  “I think so.”

  “Okay! I’ll talk to Mancuso, give you an update as soon as possible!” he yelled and hung up.

  Sycamore Pass Road was completely empty except for their car and the car they were following. It was a route best avoided in bad weather, since large tree branches often littered the road; sometimes, in bad storms, whole trees fell and blocked the way. But it was the fastest way to get to the highway.

  “Where do you think she’s going?” Jurgen asked.

  “I don’t know,” Hannah said darkly. “I think she’s mostly just trying to get as far as possible.”

  “How will we stop her?” Jurgen asked. “I mean, if she has Abigail—”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We can’t force her off the road if—”

  “Damn it, Jurgen, I don’t know! But we’re not going to lose—look out!”

  A huge branch hit their hood, then flew off. Jurgen swerved, momentarily losing control of the car, then he straightened, his fingers white with effort.

  “Jesus!” he said. “This damn road! We need to get the hell away from it.”

  “That’s what’s going to happen,” Hannah said darkly. “She’s getting on 128. Keep your eyes on her.”

  She had a feeling Megan had noticed them. The woman was about to try and lose them amidst the traffic on the highway. And Hannah did not intend to let that happen.

  “We’re trying to catch up with Detective Shor!” Mitchell yelled into the phone. “She’s on the suspect’s tail on 128!”

  “Where are you, Mitchell?” Mancuso asked.

  “Just getting on Sycamore Pass Road from Clayton Road!” Mitchell shouted. “Mancuso, you need to blockade 128. We can’t let her escape!”

  “I’ll handle it, Detective,” Mancuso said. “Is Detective Shor driving on her own?”

  “What’s that? I can’t hear you!” Mitchell shouted. He had heard her just fine, but this was a discussion he wasn’t about to get into.

  “I said—”

  “Agent Mancuso, you’re breaking up! I will call again once we’re on 128. Just get that goddamn blockade ready!” he hung up.

  Agent Ward’s Chevy hummed like a jet plane, and Mitchell suspected it had a similar engine. The car hurtled down the road at breakneck speed. Mitchell’s heart hammered in terror. Could Ward even see anything beyond the bridge of his nose in this weather?

  “Ward, slow down, we’re getting to Johnson’s Bend!” He shouted.

  “What?”

  “Slow do—Shit!”

  They reached the bend too fast. Ward turned the wheel as hard as he could, hitting the brakes, and the car swerved out of control, running into the opposite lane. Oncoming headlights were getting closer frighteningly fast, as the car skidded, screeching… then suddenly veered back to its own lane, the headlights in the opposite lane blowing past them.

  Mitchell heard a loud screaming, and realized it was coming from his own throat. He stopped and took a deep breath, looking down. A surprising item was lying on the floor, by his feet. It was a lacy white bra.

  “Ward,” he said in a shaky voice, “please don’t do that again.”

  “Okay,” Ward said, his voice tense. “I’m… sorry.”

  “There’s a bra on the floor,” Mitchell said.

  “Oh.”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “It must have been under the seat, and the sharp turn… dislodged it,” Ward said.

  “Right.”

  Another moment of silence followed as Ward carefully accelerated again. “It’s not mine,” he finally said.

  “Whose is it? Your girlfriend’s?”

  “No. I don’t have a girlfriend. It belongs to an acquaintance.”

  “Oh,” Mitchell said, and grinned. “I wish I had acquaintances like that.”

  Ward glanced at him, his face unreadable. “Yeah,” he finally said. “She’s something else.”

  Megan realized that she had been gritting her teeth for the past twenty minutes, ever since she had noticed she was being followed. The car on her tail kept pace with her as she accelerated, zigzagging between the cars on 128. Perhaps she should be trying to camouflage herself in the traffic, but whenever she decided to slow down, she would notice the headlights of the car following her getting closer, and her foot would step on the gas pedal.

  When had she stopped following the plan? When had she started making abrupt decisions, obeying her instincts instead of her brain?

  Was it when she had killed that boy that broke into Darrel’s home, letting the child see her face? Or when Lance had shoved his hand under her skirt after the police showed up, trying to get her to cheer him up for old times’ sake?

  Or maybe the breaking point was when she had decided to kill her partner.

  Whatever the moment was, she hardly knew what she was doing anymore. The plan had been to wait a week after the kidnapping and then leave Glenmore Park for a long vacation out of the States, probably in Mexico. She’d still thought she was going to Mexico the night before. But then she’d turned north when she realized she was being followed. No good reason behind it, just something in her mind that whispered she should.

  She should have killed the child. She shouldn’t have killed Darrel. She should never have kidnapped the child. She should never have slept with Lance.

  Shoulda, woulda, coulda.

  She had three million dollars in
a duffel bag in the back seat, a kidnapped child in the trunk, and she was headed north on a very stormy day, being tailed by at least one car. What would Megan the planner tell her to do?

  Megan the planner would say that she should assume whoever was following her was in contact with the FBI. Which meant blockades. And helicopters. Except, as long as this God-sent storm was blowing, no helicopters for the FBI.

  Fine. Blockades on major roads. Like 128.

  Megan the planner would tell her to get off the highway, and to turn west as soon as possible. Then go south, road-tripping down to Mexico.

  Megan the planner would tell her the child is a useful hostage right now. It was the only reason her tail was keeping its distance. But once she lost her tail, she should lose the child. The child was a liability.

  Should she kill the child, or set her free?

  Megan the planner couldn’t care less.

  Megan the impulsive angel of vengeance grinned.

  She got closer to an exit sign. Exit 56, it read. Scotland Rd Newbury.

  Megan the impulsive angel of vengeance got in the leftmost lane. The car chasing her did the same.

  And then she abruptly twisted the steering wheel, crossing the two lanes, the car thumping as it got off the road, missing the exit by a few feet, driving on mud and grass. For a moment she thought she might skid, or get stuck. But she didn’t.

  “She’s getting off!” Hannah screamed. “Follow her!”

  Jurgen veered, then saw the headlights in the rearview mirror. He screamed, and twisted the wheel back, the car squealing as it went back to the leftmost lane. There was a sickening crunch as the oncoming car’s side mirror crashed into their own side mirror.

  “No, damn it!” Hannah shouted at him. “She’s getting away!”

  There was nothing he could do about it. They breezed past the exit. Hannah screeched at him, cursing, her face twisted in a mask of disappointment and rage. Jurgen slowed the car, taking a deep breath. There was one chance, only one chance.