Her mind scrambled for some way out of this. She could always try to run. Get to a phone and warn Karen to get out of the house and go straight to the police. But Roach was one step ahead of her, like he could read her mind. “Tat, you get out first and stay by the driver’s door until I come around.”
At the other end of the parking lot, shoppers were heading to and from their cars, but wouldn’t be able to see her, and even if they could, she would be of little interest. Headlights flashed on, motors came to life. More cars turned into the lot.
His hand gripping her shoulder, Ken Roach quickly ushered her to the stolen car and opened the driver’s side door. “Get in. Keep to the speed limit.” Tattoo and Donnie scrambled into the back.
She’d figure something out when they got to the motel, she told herself. There would be a computer there, phones. Whatever she did, she knew she’d better do it soon and it had better work. They had real leverage now. They were holding Karen and her family hostage almost as surely as if they had held them physically.
It came to her suddenly then that the boys had gone off to hockey camp. She remembered Karen telling her that. So little got through to her these days. They wouldn’t be at home, would they? Relief swept through her like a warm wave. At least they wouldn’t be able to get their filthy hands on Kevin or Darren. But the threat to Karen and Pete was still real.
How much money did Ken Roach want her to take out of the bank anyway? Surely he must know that any large withdrawal would attract unwanted attention and get the police involved. She’d just have to wait and see what he had in mind. He’d escaped from a maximum prison, so he wasn’t without his wiles.
As her own mind darted from one thing to another, she was ever aware of the beast’s eyes burning into the back of her head like lasers. The thought of sharing a motel room with the three of them, particularly him, made her feel sick with apprehension. I need to find a way out of this, she thought desperately, her hands clutching the wheel so tight she could see her white knuckles in the light from the dash.
And then, as clearly as if he were sitting in the car beside her, she heard Corey say, “You do have a way, Abby.”
And he told her what it was.
~*~
Pharmacist, Calvin Barry thought the man who’d left his store just a short while ago looked familiar. In fact, he looked incredibly like one of these three escaped prisoners on the flyer he hadn’t yet had a chance to put up in the window. Now he held the glossy flyer up to a table-mounted Halogen light and studied the face of the man on the far left. Yes, it was the same person, he would swear it. In court, if he had to. Especially when he took those glasses off. It hadn’t been easy for Calvin not to let the recognition show on his face, but with his life possibly at stake, he managed to keep his cool. The guy might have had a gun on him for all he knew. Though he looked harmless enough, Calvin thought, even a bit backward. But looks could be deceiving.
The cops suspected they might be responsible for the terrible murders of that elderly couple at Three Brooks. Calvin would bet on it. God knew what they might do next, or had done before that. He had to wonder about the so-called brother with the bad eye and how he got that bad eye. He was pretty certain he hadn’t fallen on a stick.
Calvin Barry set the flyer down on the counter and retrieved his iPhone from the pocket of his white coat. He dialled 911. Even before he finished his call, it struck him with a jolt that the guy might be coming back with his friends, that they might have sent him in to case the joint. Why not? He had money in the till, drugs. He looked about the store and saw one lone customer, a woman in a green coat, trying on reading glasses. He couldn’t take a chance on sending her out there in case they were returning. He hurried to lock the doors. She’d just have to wait with him till the cops got here.
When he explained the situation to her, he watched her eyes get huge and her hand fly to her mouth in abject horror.
Chapter 21
“This is definitely her cabin, Pete,” Karen said, holding up the damp, bunched-up white socks, purple stripes at their tops, made brighter by the sun streaming through the window. “They’re wet. And there’s a couple of leaves stuck to this one. Weird. They were under the bed. Her book and scribblers are here too, right on the table. Proof that she was trying to get back on track with her writing.
“Abby, are you s...?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Of course I’m sure, dammit,” she snapped. Then, “Pete, I’m sorry. Look, I know you’re just trying to keep me from going off the deep end, but please knock it off. I know my sister. Abby was here, I tell you. These are her things. Look, her name is written in her own hand inside the book. It’s her personal copy. Besides, I can feel her in the room.”
“She dedicated this book to you, didn’t she?” He turned to the title page.
“Yes. And I was with her when she bought these socks,” she said, practically shoving them in Pete’s face. “Same day she bought the Nike’s. I wonder why the cops took those and nothing else.”
Pete closed the cover on the book and went to open a cupboard door, revealing some basic white dishes and a box of Fruit Loops. Abby ate them dry like peanuts. “To check them against some shoe prints they found near Hartley’s truck, I imagine.”
“Surely they can’t think Abby...?”
“No, of course not. But if they were wet or muddy like those socks the cop probably had to wonder why. They were there, so he took them. They’ll bring them back when they’re satisfied there’s no connection.”
He sat down in the chair by the table and rubbed his stubbled chin thoughtfully. Karen could almost hear the scratchy sound it made and knew Pete wasn’t unaffected by all this either. Not like him not to shave. This whole nightmare was wearing on him.
“So what now?” he said, glancing up at her.
“I don’t know. We keep looking.” She stroked his cheek. “Thanks for hanging in there with me.”
“You don’t have to thank me. Why wouldn’t I? I just wish we could find her.”
“Me, too. And we will. Like I said,” I can feel her here, but I feel someone else too.” She wrinkled her nose, sniffed the air. “Maybe more than one someone. There are smells in here that don’t belong to Abby.”
Pete had noticed it too. Faint, but detectable. Abby hadn’t exactly been mindful of her appearance for a while there after the accident, which he understood was a symptom of her depression, like letting the apartment go. But this was different. It was an offensive odor, reminding him vaguely of sulphur and pungent cheese. A male smell.
“Whoever it belongs to,” Abby said quietly, reading his mind as she so often did, “took her. They have her now.”
Pete could find no argument against it.
He stood in the open doorway looking out at the peaceful scene, mumbling to himself, “Where’s a cop when you need one?” Last night on the news, this place was alive with uniforms, bursting with urgent activity. Circles of light were bobbing through the woods and over the terrain, voices shouting to one another. This morning, however, there was only the sound of birdsong, and the faint buzz of bees in the wildflowers, both somehow emphasizing the silence. The skies were blue. A bright, sunny day in serene surroundings. He could see the lake through the trees, hear its gentle murmur against the shore. Pete could easily see why Corey and Abby bought this place and called it their secret hideaway.
Behind him, Karen was rummaging through cabinet drawers, opening and closing them, looking for some clue as to Abby’s whereabouts, but finding nothing. Karen’s phone rang, startling both of them. She fumbled in her purse for it, almost dropping it on the floor before she got it to her ear. “It’s the radio station,” she whispered to Pete. She had to take another call.
Seconds later, the caller was back on the phone and Karen was saying ‘yes’ and ‘thank you’. Her eyes were big and filled with fear, fastened on Pete as if he might have an explanation for a conversation he couldn’t hear. He went to stand beside her, lay a hand on her should
er for support, for whatever news she was hearing. Finally, she thanked her caller and closed the phone.
“They found Abby’s car,” she said. “In the parking lot of Erinville Mall.”
“What? Who...?”
“A woman who works at one of the eateries heard me on the Fred Toller show. She’s apparently a big fan of Abby’s, even drove to one of her book signings in town. Anyway, she jotted down the car’s make and license number, and lo and behold, Pete, there it was this morning parked near the back entrance of the mall. The mall wasn’t opened yet.” Her eyes brimmed with tears. “Oh, Pete, I’m scared.”
“C’mon, let’s go.”
“She said the police are already there.” She snapped the seatbelt closed. “The woman didn’t see any keys or purse or anything inside the car. She said there were beer bottles on the floor in the back seat. Abby doesn’t even like beer.”
Even before Pete had quite stopped the car, Karen was out the door and running toward the Honda, parting the crowd as she went. Seeing the car sent a wave of terror through her, as if Abby having gone missing was up to now only speculation. Now it was real. The dark blue car with its few scratches on the front bumper, the familiar license plate number, gave stark reality to the theory that she had been abducted. How often Karen had seen that car parked in front of her own house, or Abby’s apartment. Or in a different mall parking lot while they went inside to shop.
Where are you, Abby?
Karen got a quick look inside the car and saw the beer bottles on the floor of the back seat that the woman had mentioned, empty potato chip bags. Forcing her voice steady, she said to the policeman who was trying to discourage onlookers, including her. “I’m Karen Rawling,” she said. “This is my sister’s car. Her name is Abby Miller and she’s missing.”
He took a notebook out of his pocket. “How do you spell Rawling? With an ‘a’ or an ‘o’?”
‘A’. She was staying at her cabin at Loon Lake and I think she was kidnapped. In fact, I’m sure of it. I think whoever murdered the Nichols’ couple in Three Brooks has Abby.”
He stopped writing and looked at her. “You have some evidence to back that up?”
Pete had parked the car and was weaving his way to her through the small crowd of curious onlookers who were probably anticipating some high drama, and glad not to be at the center of it.
“I called the station this morning,” Pete told the officer. “I talked to a Detective Redding. He said he’d get back to me, that he had some news about my sister-in-law, Abby Miller. I’m guessing he got too busy and that this is the news.”
“You called the station?” Karen asked, surprised. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to worry until I had something definite. I’ve actually called a few times.”
The policeman perked up. “Abby Miller, the author. Right. You’re her sister, you say?” A couple of teenagers were stretching their necks to see inside the car. What do they hope to see? Karen wondered as the policeman moved them along.
“Yes. This is my husband, Pete Rawling.”
A gust of wind blew his blond hair to one side. A comb-over. She told him about the call from the radio station. Pete gave him a brief rundown of their own efforts the past couple of days.
“Whoever killed that Nichols couple, and we believe they’re the same three men who escaped from Pennington, are on the run right now,” Pete said. “And they’re in need of money. Kidnapping someone who can get them that money isn’t a far reach. Like my wife said, she was staying at her cabin, working on a new book. Her photo is on her book, which was with her. They’ve probably already used her ATM card. That’s easy enough to check, isn’t it?”
They had his full attention now. “I think they’ve already... sorry, Ma’am. Hold on a minute. Let me talk to Detective Redding. He’s just over there. Don’t go ‘way.”
“No, we won’t.” Karen let out a sigh of gratitude. “We’ll be right here.”
He approached an older man with thick, greying hair, nice looking, rangy, plainclothes, who was in conversation with another man, who Karen guessed was also law enforcement. Detective Redding glanced over at Karen and nodded. The younger cop returned and directed them to follow him in their car to the station. “Detective Redding will meet you there,” he said.
She thanked him. Finally, they were listening.
~*~
The detective was just wrapping up his interview with Karen and Pete Rawling when a call came through from a pharmacist in Erinville named Calvin Barry. He said he had a customer earlier in the evening whom he recognized as one of the three escapees, name of Donnie Leaman. His picture was on a flyer a policeman had dropped off at the pharmacy. He told Al the man purchased some anti-biotic ointment for his ‘brother’s’ infected eye. Also a bottle of boracic acid and anti-inflammatory medicine. “He told me his brother fell on a stick,” Calvin Barry said. “I think he was lying.”
Al thought so too and he dispatched an officer to talk to Barry. “See if you can get any more details.”
The pieces were falling into place, to paint a picture, if not one you’d want to hang on your wall. Finished with his interview, he ushered Karen and Pete Rawling from the office with a promise to call them the instant he had something concrete. “You could get a call from her abductor, Mrs. Rawling,” he said. “I have a feeling they’re getting desperate. They need a stake, and right now they’re only getting dribs and drabs from Abby’s account. It will probably be Ken Roach who calls you. If he does, get in touch with me right away. We’ll take it from there.” He gave her his card with his cell-phone number written on it.
Abby Miller’s sister hesitated in the doorway and looked at him with frightened eyes. “I will. I’ll let you know. Do you...?
“We’ll find her, Mrs . Rawling.”
She nodded. “Thank you.”
“We’ll find her.”
Al only hoped they would find her alive. But he knew that statistically these things didn’t usually end well.
Chapter 22
Tattoo sat on the toilet seat in the tiny motel washroom reluctantly letting Abby tend to his eye. She had already given him a couple of the anti-inflammatory pills Donnie had brought back from the drugstore, even though she had little faith in their effectiveness. She was bathing the eye with cotton balls dipped in a boracic acid solution mixed with warm water. His bulk practically filled the small space and Abby felt his closeness like a personal assault. The whole time she bathed his eye, he was snarling and cursing under his breath. “Bitch,” he said. “You did this. You’re gonna pay.”
“You think I’m not paying,” she said tightly after about the fourth tirade. “You wanted to hurt me. I was defending myself.” She wanted to tell him he stank, but bit her tongue. Before he and Donnie returned to the motel, Ken Roach had given in to her request for a quick shower, so at least she didn’t feel quite so grubby.
His grumbling went on. Once he grabbed her wrist, and twisted it until she cried out. Then he laughed and let it go. She did her best not to cry but the tears came anyway. “Don’t you want me to help you? I can’t do that if you break my wrist.”
He said nothing. Just stared at her out of that one good eye, and rested his huge hands in his lap. “Go on. Fix my eye.”
“I’m trying.” Damn him. Damn them all. She laid the sodden cotton ball over the eye and held it there. She felt like pushing it through the socket.
His hand suddenly shot out grabbed her between her legs. “You want it, don’t ya, baby? You want the big man. You’re a whore just like the rest of them.”
She jerked away from him, tossing the cotton ball in the sink, Something snapped inside Abby then. The shower had lost its effectiveness. She felt filthy, as if disease-swollen bugs were crawling over her body. The words vomited from her mouth of their own volition. “You’re a disgusting thing taking up space on the planet. You’re crazy. You’re the one they should have named Dog, you bastard, only the name is too go
od for you, insulting to dogs.”
She barely got the last sentence out when she saw his eye flash fury and spittle form at the corners of his mouth. And then he was on her, grabbing her around the throat. He slammed her against the door, which hit the wall with a loud bang. She fought to pry his hands away but he was too strong. He was squeezing, squeezing ... her lungs were on fire. She kicked her heels against the wall in an attempt to rouse help.
“Knock off the racket,” the Roach hollered. “I’m trying to hear the TV.” The fluorescent light exploded into sparks over her head, and the Roach’s voice sounded far away as he said, “Don’t kill her for Christ’s sake, Tat, she’s our meal ticket. C’mon, let her go.”
In some faraway place in her mind, she heard Donnie scream, “Tattoo, you leave Abby alone, you bastard.”
His hands loosened on her throat and she gasped in air, coughing and choking. “Slut,” he hissed into her face before flinging her to the floor. Her head struck the hard tile and pain shot through her skull. As the beast stepped over her, he gave a sharp kick to her ribs and she cried out in agony, drawing her knees up into a fetal position.
There was a loud banging on the door to their room. “What the hell’s going on in there?” someone yelled.
“Sorry, man,” Roach said through the door. “Wife was napping and had a nightmare. Everything’s good. Really sorry.”
Whoever it was went away grumbling.
“Told you not to make him mad,” Ken Roach said, looking down at her. Louder, he said, “You took those pills, Tat. Why don’t you go lie down for awhile. You need rest.”
Abandoning Abby, he put an arm across the beast’s shoulders (having to reach up) all friendly like and led him to the bed while Donnie was helping Abby up off the floor.
When she was finally upright, she had to lean against the wall to keep from sliding down it. The room spun before her. Her throat felt scalded and she massaged it where the beast’s thumbs had pressed into the soft tissue, cutting off her air supply. Another minute or maybe less and she wouldn’t be here.
The Deepest Dark Page 11