The Vanishing Girls

by Callie Browning

  Lloyd’s chest heaved as he pulled the scarf off his neck and secured her wrists behind her back. She screamed at the top of her lungs hoping someone would hear, but Lloyd quickly clamped his hand over her mouth and dragged her toward the prep room.

  Eileen knew all too well about the monstrous instruments and chemicals in that room. Was this how it was to end? With him killing her inside that room, washing her blood down the drain? He took a scalpel off the tray and turned to face her.

  He lay beside her on the floor and smiled, exposing his teeth as he ran his free hand down her cheek and across her chest. His breath came in sharp bursts as he squeezed her breast, hefting them in his hand as she felt his excitement growing and pressing against her leg. She winced and looked away.

  Lloyd licked his lips greedily as he touched the other breast.

  She thought of the pollen on the victims and the dried yellow blossoms at the last crime scene and her stomach clenched.

  “You killed those girls,” Eileen said through gritted teeth.

  He waved the scalpel at her like a teacher chiding a student for a wrong answer.“It was you that called the other day, wasn’t it?”

  She bit her lip. “Yes.”

  “Does Holden know?”

  “No,” lied Eileen. “I never told him that I figured out that the killer was finding his victims through the classifieds.”

  The shape of Lloyd's tongue traced a circle on the inside of his cheek as he studied her for a moment.

  “That number in the ad,” began Eileen slowly. “That’s the payphone outside this building, isn’t it?”

  Lloyd didn’t answer, but the tightening of his mouth told Eileen she was right. Suddenly restless, he started to pace the floor, sweat beading his brow as he started muttering to himself.

  “You don’t know what it’s like,” he said as he pounded his head with clenched hands. “I never got a woman unless I gave her money. That was okay at first, until Davis took the government contract from us. Money ran out…so did the women. One even told me that if a man wasn’t giving a woman money, he’d better be giving her a job. That’s where I got the idea. It’s just… Dorothy never cared about a man other than Clifford. She had him and that was enough.”

  Eileen’s mouth went dry. “Is that why you killed your sister?”

  Lloyd looked at Eileen like a man begging a woman to understand. “I — I didn’t want to, but…”

  “She found out, didn’t she?”

  Lloyd nodded miserably. “Dorothy got suspicious because I kept waiting by the phone booth for calls, so I started using the unlisted number at the house. She answered one of the calls and said I had to be up to no good and she’d call the police.” Lloyd’s lip trembled. “She had no right to do that. I injected her neck with air and told Dr Thorpe that I’d help him with the forms. Everybody knows Thorpe always takes a short cut if he can.”

  Eileen watched the way Lloyd paced, the way he shook his head irritably as he talked. Lloyd was not in his right mind and what made it worse was that he seemed completely comfortable with the fact. He’d kill Eileen too, she was sure of it. She wiggled her hands trying to loosen the knots as she said, “You didn’t have to kill those girls. They belonged to people, they had families.”

  “I didn’t mean to kill the first one. But it felt good, powerful — sweeter than sex ever made me feel.” His voice changed; the lust rose up so powerfully in him that his entire body tensed. Lloyd gripped her shoulder like a lover would as he said pleadingly. “I just wanted to try one more time and see. You know?”

  Eileen felt faint as she listened to him. He spoke fondly of murdering women, as though it were a rite of passage that he wished he had discovered sooner.

  “Then I’d make love to them. When I was a boy, I’d play with the ones in the chiller before my father embalmed them.” Eileen shuddered. “They would do the job but I wanted to try a warm one.”

  “I realized how perfect it was if I killed them myself. I could do whatever I wanted while they were almost lively.” Bile rose in Eileen’s throat. He spoke like a man with a proud legacy, a man ahead of his time. His eyes shone and he sometimes sighed as he spoke, reliving the visions that resided rent-free in his mind. “I branded them, you see, made them mine. They’ll never be anyone else’s.”

  “But you won’t ever understand. You’re a pretty girl; you can have anyone you want. And I can’t let you leave.”

  Eileen’s mind thought back to the red dots she’d marked on the map. It just occurred to her that they formed a perfect circle around…“Your house…” Her eyes widened and her stomach churned. “You dumped all of those girls close to home.”

  Lloyd’s shy grin was sickening. “Yes. I wanted them close to me.”

  “Gonna leave me in a canefield with a big L on my neck too?"

  Lloyd smiled as though Eileen had granted him a gift he'd yearned for. He knelt on his haunches, fluffing the skirt between his legs as he rested the scalpel's steel blade against her pulse. He traced the shape he wanted, as though trying to find the perfect orientation. A smile crossed his lips. “I’ve got something special planned for you."

  Chapter 30

  A Watery Grave

  Holden's chest burned as though hot pepper sauce had been poured into an open cavity. Eileen's village sat on an elevation in the middle of the country, offering a bird's eye view of the country. At night, twinkling house lights spread across the island’s gently undulating hills like a smattering of fallen stars laid out on black satin, a romantic sight when seated on a windy hilltop with champagne and a loved one. But tonight, each the lights mocked Holden, signifying just one of the thousands of places where Eileen could be holed up with a man.

  Holden's mind was restless as he drove across the two-lane highway, his elbow resting on the window as he tapped his fingers irritably on the steering wheel. Going home wasn't an option; surely he'd go mad as he lay in bed watching the shadows and trying not to imagine Eileen with someone else. Without realizing it, he had circled one roundabouts three times, driving back and forth as he tried to figure out where to go. Eventually, he clicked on the left indicator and headed to town. Clifford usually spent his Saturday evenings at a dingy little rum shop not too far from the funeral home. If Holden showed up, a raised eyebrow and some verbal jabs were certain, but so was a drunken oblivion that would help Holden to sleep for most of the next day.

  The car's engine hummed as he drove through the quiet streets. Although the rum shop was just around the corner from Davis and Sons, he purposely took the long way to avoid passing the business. It would be like rubbing salt in the wound to pass the spot where they’d met, the place where he’d grown to love her. But there was a crucial misstep to his place since he’d have to pass Eileen’s new place of employment to reach the shop. He noticed Eileen's car parked outside Happy Home and his heart skipped a beat. Solace stole over him as he realized that blessedly, instead of being on a date Eileen was at work. No longer needing Clifford's company or alcohol, Holden briefly considered going home but decided against it. Instead of letting his nerves get the better of him, he’d try to talk to her tonight.

  Unlike Davis and Sons that was fashioned after traditional merchant buildings, Happy Home was a long one-storey residential conversion with a hipped roof so deep that it almost doubled the building's height. A single light bloomed from one of the rooms at the rear of the building, a sure sign that Dorothy and Eileen were still at work.

  Holden was just about to flick on his indicator when the lights on Eileen's car came on and to his surprise, she pulled onto the road, turning right instead of left. That's not the quickest way for her to get home, Holden thought. Something inside his stomach squirmed as he spun the wheel and kept a distance behind her as he followed.

  One of the Toyota Crown's brake lights glowed red when it reached the intersection by the Constitution River, turning right onto the winding road and heading into the city. It bypassed the bus terminal and drove straight acro
ss the street, passing Trafalgar Square on the right and headed for the inner ledge of the murky careenage. The narrow arteries were hemmed in by tightly packed clusters of bond buildings. Many of them were hundreds of years old, strategically placed next to the basin as warehouses. Small fishing boats and shipping vessels bobbed on the water, the moon's reflection mirrored on its inky surface.

  Holden felt an uncomfortable sensation course through him. The area was adjacent to the screw dock, the last of its kind in the world and, as such, wasn't a place that saw much activity after nightfall. The only signs of life were the faint strains of music coming from a tiny cafe on the waterfront that glowed like a beacon against the darkness of the careenage. Eileen's headlights dimmed and then went dark as the car turned off the narrow road between the bank of buildings, heading away from the cafe and toward the screw dock.

  Switching off his motor, Holden parked and got out of the car to walk through the dark alleyways to see what on earth Eileen was up to. His was the only car on the tiny road and the wind whistled eerily as it barrelled between the tall warehouses. He got to the end of the road and realized that Eileen hadn't parked when she had turned off the road; not a single car was to be seen. Holden looked around, suddenly uneasy. Eileen didn't like the dark, so why on earth would she come to a place like this at such a late hour to wander?

  He turned at the end of the row, his footsteps quickening before he finally broke into a light jog, peering between buildings as he ran and looked for Eileen.

  He had reached the end of the row of buildings when he saw the rusty Toyota Crown with its broken rear lights and leaky roof coursing smoothly toward the careenage. Holden stopped short, his mouth agape. The car gathered momentum, the rubber of its spinning wheels squeaking as it made its way to the edge. For a moment, it tottered on the edge like a thing intent on defying gravity, rocking once, twice like a see-saw with two small children on either half.

  Then finally, it gave in to gravity’s demands, tipped further forward and with a gut-wrenching splash, fell into the murky water.

  Chapter 31

  Sink or Swim

  Holden stood rooted to the spot. He knew the car had mechanical issues; had the slack handbrake made it roll away after Eileen parked? But the answer to his question became apparent when he saw none other than Dorothy Greaves emerge from the shadows. She didn't seem to notice him as she hustled in his direction since Holden was hidden in the shadows of the building. But her nervous gait as she kept glancing back toward the water told Holden that something was wrong. It wasn't the urgent stride of someone hurrying for help but the impatient walk of someone who was trying to get away.

  Holden stepped out of the shadows right in front of her and asked, "Where's Eileen?"

  Startled, Dorothy staggered backwards, anxiously fixing the wig on her head as she said, "Oh, Holden... didn't know you were here."

  "That's not what I asked you," he said angrily.

  Dorothy glanced over her shoulder. Her tone was urgent, sympathetic as though trying to make Holden see reason. "She's no good, you know. Always a million men calling for her at work, going to lunch with a different one every day. She finally got tired of her worthless existence."

  Holden's eye twitched. "She's in the car?!" he thundered.

  Dorothy pointed to the water. "Maybe you can still save her."

  Holden grabbed hold of Dorothy and shook her. To his surprise, the wig fell off and a shiny bald head beneath glinted in the moonlight.

  Holden stared at the person before him, his mind trying to reconcile what his eyes saw. "Lloyd...?"

  He turned his wrists, tightening his grip on the frilly collar and yanking Lloyd toward him. “Don’t play with me! I swear to God I’ll take my time breaking each of your limbs."

  A twisted sneer played on Lloyd's lips. "Your little girlfriend is drowning, star boy. Where are your priorities?"

  Reluctantly, Holden released him and raced toward the edge of the wharf. His heart thudded in his throat as he ran to the spot where the car had fallen in. The careenage was the only stretch of water on the island that often looked dark and bottomless. Visibility was even worse after sunset. Behind him, Lloyd’s chunky shoes beat a hasty retreat as he ran off into the night. Without a second thought, Holden dove in.

  The water was still warm after a day of relentless sunshine, but there was nothing pleasurable about the way it swallowed Holden whole as he tried to find the car in the cloudy depths. He had only a trail of air bubbles to guide him; the hint of moonlight that broke the surface wasn't enough to illuminate the car's position. Holden kicked forward, stretching his hands out in front of him, feeling for anything large and solid and praying that Eileen stayed clam so he’d have enough time to locate her. He swam a few feet deeper, but again, all he felt were small fish circling him. His eyes stung, and his lungs strained until finally, he turned his head to the surface and kicked upward. A hollow clang echoed through the water when Holden flipped his feet, not unlike the sound of a shoe kicking a car door.

  Holden spun around and opened his mouth in astonishment, swallowing a mouthful of the turbid water before he saw the faint outline of the car's roof beneath him.

  Holden hurried to the surface, his lungs pumping like bellows as he swallowed gulps of fresh air. Despite the pain in his chest, he dove down again, his lungs protesting as he thrust frantically toward the car. He found it quicker this time, but being more than ten feet beneath the surface made it impossible to see anything at all. His hands roamed over the metal body as it kept sinking, dragging Holden with it as it edged closer and closer to the bottom. He swam quickly, running his hands along the left side of the car, pulling door handles that wouldn't budge and hoping for an open window.

  A heavy thud came from inside the car and Holden's heart skipped a beat: Eileen was alive. It sounded like she was kicking glass. Relieved that she was still alive, he swam over the top of the car and went to the right side of the car and remembered her faulty rear window that never rolled right up and was always falling. Holden's chest wheezed painfully as he propelled himself downward and slipped his fingers between the edges of the window and its frame. With a shuddering heave, he forced the window down and reached inside. With a jolt of relief, his hands ran over Eileen's unconscious form on the back seat, her wrists bound tight with something that felt like silk. Holden's pulse raced as he grabbed her, pulled her through the window and kicked frantically as he guided them to the surface. Beneath his hand, a weak heartbeat pulsed in her chest, but Holden knew he still had some way to go before he got her to the top. But under his relief, anger coursed through him.

  There was no way Eileen could have bound her hands and feet in such a fashion, put the car in neutral, pushed it until it gained momentum and jumped into the backseat before it plunged into the water. Lloyd had lied to him.

  Cool air washed over them as their heads broke the surface and oxygen flooded Holden's body. He lay on his back, clutching Eileen to him as he undertook a determined one-armed backstroke toward the embankment. The tide worked in their favour, ushering a tired Holden and unconscious Eileen toward a Moses boat that bobbed gently in the onyx waters. He pushed her into it and then hauled himself up, sputtering and gasping as he fell to the bottom of the tiny boat and got tangled in a damp fishing net. The odour of melts and seaweed filled his nostrils as the boat swayed beneath them. Every muscle in his body ached as he reached over and puffed air into her mouth and pumped her chest to revive her. His formal training had never required him to keep anyone alive and he’d only become acutely aware of that after his father’s accident. He’d asked Clifford to teach him mouth-to-mouth and other life-saving techniques, so determined was he to never feel so helpless again.

  He thought back to the night they met, the arguments they'd had, the fear of losing her and he knew that he’d never forgive himself if she died. He wanted the arguments, the kisses, the drives through the country, the candlelit dinners and everything else they'd shared. Tears welled in
Holden's eyes at the thought of living without Eileen. He put his fingers against her pulse. A split second later, her back arched, her chest convulsed and Eileen coughed out a mouthful of water onto the bottom of the boat. With a grateful shudder, Holden put his arms around her and sighed.

  Chapter 32

  The Message

  Salt water chafed Eileen’s throat like sandpaper as it forced its way from her lungs and out of her mouth and nose in a spate of raspy coughs. The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was a bright sickle moon and a fishing net. A scarf held her hands in place and one of her wrists was bruised and tender.

  “Thank goodness you’re okay,” Holden said as he pushed himself up on one elbow and looked at her. His eyes were bloodshot and his breathing was laboured and for a moment, Eileen’s foggy brain tried to remember the bizarre circumstances that had led her here. Then she remembered it all: Lloyd dragging her into her car, driving her to the careenage, her cries when he’d let down the handbrake and pushed it toward the water. It was sunk quickly. She’d sworn she’d die until she’d seen someone floating through the cloudy waters trying to get into the car. The rear window never stayed rolled up and she knew she was taking a chance by kicking it; the force of the blow might have caused it to fall and let in water quicker, but if the person could prise it open, they might be able to get her out. The down side was that the water had rushed in faster, dragging the car to the bottom, sucking in fishes and snake-like eels. Eileen had tried to hold on, tried to stay alive but she couldn’t. The last thing she remembered was feeling someone pulling her out of the car before she lost consciousness.

  Holden’s eyes never left hers as he reached over and untied the scarf on her wrists. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  She blushed. She never imagined she would see Holden again given what had happened between them and she had never expected him to be her saviour. To know that he had saved her life was surreal. “I’m good. Why?”