by Lena Bourne
Blackman gasps and doesn’t exhale.
“Do you think his father could still be alive? Do you think they’re in this together?”
Blackman doesn’t say anything for a couple of moments and it takes all the self-control I have not to demand he answer.
He finally exhales and I hear crackling on the line like he’s running his fingers through his hair.
“I doubt it. Russell hated his father. He ran away as soon as he could and stayed away as far as I know,” he finally says.
“So, what? Did he take up with a man he now considers his father? A man crazy enough to help him commit these murders?”
“I doubt that,” Blackman says slowly. “Russell was a lone wolf sort of child. Only really cared about his little sister. I doubt he’d partner up with anyone. He could just be riling you up. Telling you lies.”
That’s not what it sounded like when he said it. It sounded like gloating. Like he was rejoicing in the fact that I failed. He used the last of his strength to tell me that. But I don’t explain all that to Blackman. We’ve wasted enough time on this trip down memory lane already.
“Did you look at the map?” I ask. “Do you have any idea where he might’ve been heading the night he abducted the dwarfs?”
And my girlfriend. But I don’t say that. I wouldn’t be able to get it off my tongue, I’d choke on the words.
“The easternmost one is closest to the road, but hidden behind tall pine trees and is a former cattle farm,” he says. “I’d bet on that one since there’s bound to be a slaughterhouse attached to it, complete with hooks and tools for bloodletting.”
The image his words painted twist my stomach so painfully hard I gasp. Eva hanging from a hook by her perfect little feet, her blood slowly trickling from her body. And now I can’t unsee it.
“I’m sorry,” he blurts out and I don’t want to hear anymore.
“That one’s the biggest to search,” I say. “It’ll most likely take everyone the German’s have at their disposal to send.”
The farm is made up of ten buildings, most of them huge. It’s spread out around a sizable courtyard complete with cow pens and pig pens and whatnot. He could be holding Eva in any one of those buildings. And as Blackman said, the trees would most likely allow him to see us before we see him.
“The other ones, especially the one with no good photos, are too remote,” Blackman continues matter-of-factly. “He has to transport the bodies and the props and he wants it all to look perfect when it arrives at its destination. That to me says he’ll want to drive over as little rough terrain as he can.”
The one I have my eye on is twenty kilometers west of the one Blackman is suggesting. There’s no telling what kind of condition the road leading up to it is, but it’s probably safe to assume it has not been taken care of in the years since the farm has been out of commission. If Blackman’s reasoning is sound, which it most likely is, then that is the last one the killer will pick as his hideout. But it’s in the middle of nowhere and there’s no village or town near it. If we approach through the fields where the apple trees once grew we might be able to surround its three buildings before he knows we’re there.
“I’ll go to the place you suggest first,” I tell him.
“I’ll meet you there,” he says and hangs up.
Blackman is better at this than I am. He has years of investigative work on me, as well as years of studying sick and twisted serial murderers behind him. With Eva’s life on the line, I’m not too proud to admit that. He deduced the location of Sleeping Beauty on nothing but sparse evidence, an incomplete profile, and experience. I should listen to his advice.
30
Eva
A row of broken springs in the thin mattress is poking me in a spot just above my lower back, growing more and more painful. The little I can move due to the tight restraints I’m in does nothing to relieve it.
The fog in my brain caused by whatever he’s giving me to sedate me is receding, waking other aches and pain associated with lying in the same position all the time.
Whatever he gives me makes it hard to want anything but to sleep and rest. Makes it hard to care about anything other than that.
But as it fades, everything returns.
My heart’s racing, flushing the drugs out of my body even faster, and I’m struggling to get out of my restraints so hard the whole bed is rattling. I’m not tied down with ropes, but chains. I can hear them clinking against the metal bed frame.
And I’m wearing a diaper. The indignity as I realize it needs to be changed brings angry tears to my eyes.
I don’t remember him ever changing it, which is a blessing, though just imagining it happening is bad in itself.
He’s late coming to renew my dose of the sedative.
And the implications of that are a frenzy of fear, sadness, and anxiety in my brain, culminating in utter terror. I’ll starve to death in this bed, I’ll die covered in my own shit, he’s letting my mind get clear so I’ll feel every last thing he plans to do to me. The cycle just goes on and on and no amount of deep breathing and telling myself to calm down is helping. It’s like all the emotions of this ordeal I didn’t feel because I was drugged out of my mind are coming back all at once, jumbled together, no head or tail to them.
The room is freezing cold, so cold I’m shivering, and the draft from the broken window is growing colder. It’s bringing in the clean, pure scent of fresh, undisturbed snow and nothing else.
The house is creaking around me, wood settling, pipes clanking, air hissing in radiators that don’t work.
And footsteps. Coming closer. Falling against the floorboards in the hallway, softly and steadily, but I hear it as a stampede of wild animals.
I’m about to find out what Selima went through, what all the victims of The Fairytale Killer went through. It would make one hell of an article. One I’ll never write.
A door creaks open.
Worrying about what will happen is not worse than finding out for certain.
I scream. It’s the last thing I can still do to save myself. My last goodbye.
31
Mark
The bright white spots that are the four farms we’re looking at are pulsing on the screen like living things as I walk back to Schmitt. I’m trying not to imagine Eva alone in one of the cold rooms of those houses. But it’s better than imagining her dead.
“That one seems most likely,” I say and point to the one Blackman suggested. It’s in the lower-left corner of the big screen. “But I want to check them all.”
“The tactical unit told me we don’t have the manpower to check them all at the same time,” Schmitt says. “at least not thoroughly. Maybe two, they’re saying, if they stretch themselves thin. Perhaps it’s best we check one at a time.”
The blue-green light of the screen is reflected on his hard as stone, expressionless face, making his dark eyes glow unnaturally.
“There’s not enough time,” I say, the words hurting my throat and mouth since they come out like broken glass.
A flash in his eyes tells me he already thinks it’s too late. He doesn’t say it though.
“So that one,” Schmitt says. “I’ll make the calls.”
He leaves to make the arrangements, and the longer I look at the pulsing screen the more unbearable the tightness and nausea in my stomach grow. This is my last chance—my only chance—to save Eva. And my intuition, or gut, or whatever you want to call it is telling me to check the apple farm too.
The problem is, I dare not trust it.
What Blackman said all makes perfect sense. It’s close to the main road, hidden by a copse of pine trees, and it was a cattle farm just fifteen years ago. The facilities for the kind of work The Fairytale Killer does are all there and fully equipped.
And what do I have to go on? The fact that Snow White took a bite of a poisoned apple?
It’s not enough.
“Tactical will need an hour to prepare,” Schmitt informs
me in a gruff voice.
“Maybe you should just hit it with all you’ve got, all at once,” I suggest. “It is the most likely place and the biggest. Trying to go in stealthily will just take too much time. That way tactical can check the other two larger farms.”
His first reaction is pity and disbelief, but I don’t break eye contact with him as he considers my suggestion. It takes a couple of seconds, but eventually, he nods, his eyes narrowing as he thinks.
“You make a good point, Novak,” he says.
“And I’m going to the apple place,” I say before even fully deciding to.
The longer I think about it, the more it’s nagging at me that I need to check the place. I’ve learned to trust my flashes of intuition over the years. They’re a hard thing to pin down, and even harder to explain, but ignoring them never brings anything good. It always just takes me on a longer, more round-about way to the thing I should’ve done in the first place. But too much is riding on the outcome of this operation to tie all the forces we have at our disposal to my gut feeling.
“What? Alone?” Schmitt asks.
“I’ll call if I need backup,” I say. “Don’t worry, I have the training.”
I don’t know if it’s the worst idea I’ve ever had or the best one. I just know I can’t sit around and wait any longer. If they find her at the slaughterhouse, then they’ll find her. If they don’t, we’ve put all our eggs in one basket and lost. I won’t be able to live with myself if that happens. I might not be able to live with myself if we find Eva dead, but I’ll worry about that after, not before. Not now.
I’m good at reading maps. It actually has nothing to do with being in the Army and everything to do with my grandfather’s love of hiking. He was happiest on the trail, and we used to take these long multi-day hikes in the wilderness together. He started taking me along as soon as I was old enough to walk without falling every ten steps, as he put it. I’ve almost forgiven myself for not going with him on his last hike, the one on which his heart stopped. We argued, and I refused to go with him. I was sixteen and stupid. Might be I could’ve saved him. I try not to think about it too much and this is certainly not the time for it.
I mapped out the best approach to the orchard on the hour-long drive to the farm, which only took me a little over forty-five minutes.
Now I’m standing under tall, lance straight pine trees that were planted around the property to protect the orchards from the worst of the north wind. Said wind is strong tonight, frost laden, cold and cutting as a razor blade. But it’s driving the clouds away, so the night is clear thanks to it. I’m waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. The moon is half full but hanging high in the sky, its silvery-white light reflecting off the snow covering the field, casting more than enough light to see by.
Before me, there’s a vast field dotted with spindly, gnarled, bent, broken, and fallen apple trees. The fastest way to the farm buildings is across it. I can just barely make them out as denser, darker blobs against the night sky in the distance. The stealthier way to approach is longer, under the tall pines that surround the property. Despite my need to get to the building as fast as I can, I choose that one.
There’s not much snow under the pines, and my footsteps are muffled by the blanket of fallen needles and the hissing and creaking of the trees.
I can make out more and more of the farm buildings the closer I get. There’s a large, boxy, three-story house dominating the side where I’m approaching from, blocking my view of the rest of the structures. It has small windows, five a floor, all identical, and all dark. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was a dorm of some sort or a nursing home. But it’s most likely a family home from a long time ago, when this type of simple construction was the way to go for building affordable, large family homes.
The line of pines ends about two-hundred meters before the buildings. I will have to cross that open ground and climb over a wooden fence surrounding the complex and do it all in plain view of all those windows. At least I’m wearing a dark coat and dark pants.
Just as I’m about to make a run for it the sounds of a car engine overpowers the hissing of the pines. A car is approaching up the winding road leading to the entrance, its glowing orange lights shining through the line of pine trees opposite me.
I don’t think, just run to intercept the car before it reaches the farm. Whoever’s in it, even if it’s the owner coming to check on his property, will answer my questions before he does anything tonight.
But I know this isn’t just an innocent visit.
This is the killer returning to his lair. If I allowed myself to think of anything other than getting in position to intercept him, I’d be hoping he’s here to start his work and not finish it. But I’m not thinking. I’m just letting my training guide my footsteps, glad I kept up with it.
I reach the shadowy area around the big house just as the car pulls into the courtyard. I pull my gun from the pocket of my coat. I don’t carry it daily, just keep it in the glove box of my car, and I didn’t want to waste time putting on the holster before coming here. Good thing too, otherwise I’d have missed this guy by moments.
I jog along the house to the corner, no longer mindful of the noise I’m making. The sound of the engine and the crunching gravel under the approaching car’s tires are masking any noise I’m making anyway.
The car’s headlights are illuminating the larger face of the house, revealing large, ornate double doors and the tall windows on that side. Thankfully, the beam is missing the corner of the house where I’m hiding, keeping me hidden in the darkness.
The driver makes a U-turn in the courtyard, coming to a stop with the back of the car facing the front door and the front exit from the compound.
He turns off the engine, the lights going out at the same time. Looking at glaring headlights has destroyed my night vision.
The driver opens his door, which is now on the other side of the car from where I’m standing and gets out slowly. He’s wearing a long coat with the collar popped and a brimmed hat. I can’t see his face at all, and I give it a few seconds to see if there’s anyone else in the car. He makes his way towards the door, walking slowly and carefully since it’s very dark and most likely icy.
No one else gets out of the black or dark blue Kia sedan he drove here in.
“Stop or I shoot!” I say in my most menacingly commanding voice.
The man flinches, but doesn’t turn to me. Instead, he shuffles back to the car, which is more than fifty meters away from where I’m hiding.
I hesitate before making good on my threat, giving him enough time to get inside the car. Stupid. By the time I fire the first shot, aiming at the tires, the engine is already on.
He speeds off and I run after him, firing off three more shots, but I’m slipping and sliding so badly on the icy ground, they all go wide of the car.
I should’ve shot first and asked questions later.
The front door of the big house is shut tight but unlocked, and it opens with surprisingly silent ease. The windowless foyer is a wide cavernous room, its edges lost in complete darkness. The moonlight from outside only reaches about a foot into the room, but I can see the outline of a grand wooden staircase in front of me. The house smells of dust, rot, mildew, and something much more sinister. Old blood.
I no longer have any doubt that I found The Fairytale Killer’s lair, and that I just missed my best chance of taking him out, but I won’t think of that yet. I turn on the flashlight on my phone, thanking whatever genius came up with the idea to install that feature onto these new smart gadgets, and run up the wide staircase, kicking up even more dust and making the smell of rot worse.
The man might be back at any moment and he has a much better knowledge of this building and its secrets than I do. The wide stairs separate the first floor into two identical hallways, lined with identical dark wood doors, all of which are shut. The floor’s been swept, but not neatly and a set of faint footprints—made by boots
with a rugged sole good for walking on snow and ice—are leading down the one on the left-hand side.
As good a place as any to start, so I follow them.
I’m halfway down the hall when a faint, desperate scream sounds from further down the hall. It’s more a cry than a scream and tugs at something so deep inside me I don’t think, I just sprint towards it.
She screams louder as I kick the door to the room open.
“Eva! It’s me,” I tell her, cutting her off mid-scream, or mid-wail, more like.
I’ll never forget the terrible sound of her cry for help, but I already know I’ll forever hope to.
“Mark?” she whispers like she doesn’t believe it. I shine the flashlight at the wall by the door and find the light switch. It’s an old circular switch, with a smaller circle in the center to turn the light on, but thankfully it works. The yellow light cast by the bare, dirty bulb in the center of the ceiling shows me a scene from my worst nightmare. But at least Eva’s alive. At least I found her in time.
“Yes, it’s me, I found you, are you OK?” I’m rambling as I rush to her bedside. She’s lying on a metal camp bed with a thin red and blue-striped mattress. That and the wooden chair next to it are the only two pieces of furniture in this cavernous room with four tiny windows.
Her wrists and her ankles are secured to the frame of the bed with the kind of padded restraints they use in hospitals so patients don’t hurt themselves and a wide, dark blindfold is covering her bright blue eyes. My hands start shaking as I fumble to undo the restraints, but I will them to stop and they do. This is no time to lose it. I still have to get her out of here, we’re not safe yet. Why the fuck did I come here alone?
Her hair is dyed black and cut shorter than it was. She’s only wearing a thin, sleeveless white nightshirt, the lace collar cinched tight around her neck.