by David Archer
As soon as he was gone, Jake strained to get as close to Angela as he possibly could. "Angela, can you hear me? It’s me, Jake Claridge. Talk to me, Angela. Please? I'm going to do everything I can to help you get out of here and go home. I promise, Angela, everything I can."
She slowly turned her head to look at him, and finally he saw a dim light of recognition in her eyes.
“Jake?”
Jake nodded. “I’m here,” he said. “He thought we must be getting close to catching him, so he kidnapped me to try to find out. Angela, do you know where we are?”
She slowly shook her head. “He keeps me doped up,” she whispered. “Sorry I look like this…”
Her head drooped down onto her chest and she lost consciousness.
This has to end, Jake thought. No matter what I have to do, this has to end.
When the door opened again, Alan walked down the stairs carefully, carrying a small folding table. He set it on the floor in front of Angela and then gently tapped her face to try to wake her.
"Angie? Are you gonna eat by yourself today, or do I need to feed you again?"
Angela looked up at him, and then she looked over at Jake. Their eyes met for just a second, and Jake nodded.
“Go ahead and eat, Angela,” he said. “You need to eat.”
Angela slowly looked back at Alan, then down at the table in front of her. She carefully picked up the spoon and started eating the tomato soup, picking up a slice of bread in her other hand.
"There you go, baby," Alan said with a smile. "That’s better!"
When Angela had finished eating, Alan moved the table aside and crouched down in front of her.
“That was so much better,” he said. “You’re going to be just fine, baby. I'm so proud of you, you just can’t even imagine.”
Chapter 22
Jake woke up with a start when he heard the basement door open. He glanced at his watch. It was 3:52 a.m. When Alan had gone back upstairs earlier, Jake had tried to talk to Angela, but he had heard her breath even out as she drifted back to sleep. He had carefully examined the handcuffs and the radiator pipe he was cuffed to, but had found no weak spots. At some point he had fallen asleep, though he didn’t really remember it.
Alan came down and walked right by Jake, not even acknowledging him. There was a scent of shampoo around him, as if he had just showered. He knelt down in front of the chair and shook Angela. "Angie? Come on, baby, time to wake up. I'm about to head for work, you can go back to sleep after I leave."
Jake could see Angela's body tense as she woke, but she didn’t raise her eyes to look at Alan.
"Angie? Come on, baby, wake up for me. Please?"
He was gently rubbing her face, trying to get her to rouse, but she was pretending to remain asleep.
"It's okay, Angie,” he said. “I understand. All you really want to do is sleep, now, don’t you?”
Jake's heart stopped. Was this it? Had the timeframe changed? Why? Was it his fault? Don't upset the killer's routine, that was in every textbook he had ever read.
Time was running out, and Jake knew that he had to do something, but he could only think of one possibility. He stood up, moving as close to the chair as he possibly could. "Hey Alan,” he asked, “why did you do it?"
Alan froze and turned his head toward Jake.
"Why did you kidnap her? Why did you bring her here? You claim you’re in love with her, but why would you treat her this way?"
Alan shook his head, frowning. "No, you just don’t understand. Angie and I belong together, we always have."
Jake ignored him. "How did it feel, when you drugged her and brought her here? Did it make you feel like some kind of hero, or is there some part of you that still realizes that what you’re doing is a terrible thing? Think about all those girls, the ones you tried to replace her with. Did you tell them all that you love them? Did you mistreat them all the same way?"
Alan put his hands over his ears and started shaking his head. "No, it wasn't like that. They just weren’t good enough, that’s all. You know how it is, they just—you try to focus on something else, so you won’t make a fool of yourself, but sometimes it just doesn’t work out. I just had to do the best I could, that’s all."
Angela's eyes were wide as she kept her eyes moving between Alan and Jake, the fear and confusion clearly visible in her face.
"The best you could? Is that what you honestly tell yourself about all the other Angies? Those girls weren’t her, and there wasn’t any reason for you to try to make them take her place. There wasn’t any reason for you to kill them, Alan. So what are you planning to do now? If you really love her, what you need to do is let her go. You can understand that, can’t you?"
"NOOOOOOO!" Alan flew up from where he was kneeling on the floor, his eyes wild as he approached Jake. "You don't know anything!" he yelled as he swung his fist.
The first punch to his face was so fast that Jake didn't have time to even try to duck away. It jammed him back against the wall and knocked the breath out of him. He gasped as the metal pipe he was chained to bit into his lower back. Jake pushed out with his arms as far as he could, to try and keep Alan back away from his body, but Alan's next strike was at his legs, and as they were swept out from underneath him, Jake spun around and fell.
He fell onto his arm, the one that was cuffed to the pipe, and he could hear the nauseating pop as his shoulder dislocated. The sudden pain was shocking, and he could hear himself screaming, but it almost seemed like the sound came from far away. Alan was kicking him after he fell, but his whole body felt numb as shock set in. He knew he was being injured, but he couldn’t tell how badly until his body seemed to burst into flame, pain screaming from so many places he couldn’t even focus on them. He rolled himself into a fetal position, trying to protect his head by curling his good arm around it. Alan was screaming incoherently at him, calling him names, telling him that he just didn't understand. Jake prayed that it would be enough to make Alan forget about whatever it was he had been about to do to Angela.
After what seemed like an unending eternity, the beating finally stopped. Jake heard Alan stomp up the stairs and slam the door behind him, and a brief sense of relief flooded through him. He tried to turn over and check on Angela, to tell her everything was going to be okay, but his body refused to respond. A darkness began to appear at the edges of his vision, and it slowly spread until he couldn't fight it off anymore and slipped into unconsciousness.
* * *
The mood at the substation was very tense. Things were getting busy at the command center again, despite how late it had become. Bernie and his son, who worked as a chef at the restaurant, had sat down to work with a sketch artist. They said that though they recognized the customer who had been there when Jake left, they didn't know anything about him except the kind of burgers he liked. He would come in every now and then, always ordered the pizza burger, and he always paid cash. The sketches had been shown around to everybody on the team, and some of the deputies thought he might look familiar, but they couldn't place him. Pete thought there was something familiar about it, as well, but even Bernie and his kid admitted they weren’t sure it was a genuine likeness. As officers came in, they were all shown the sketch, but nobody actually knew who it was.
Pete just looked tired, and he was continually rubbing his hands over his face. He knew, from years of experience, what the statistics would say and how bad the odds were, but he wasn’t about to give up on Jake. If anybody could out think the killer, it would be him. Pete was certain the kid would be doing everything possible to help himself in the situation, but that didn’t mean they could relax and wait for him to come walking in.
Chance was frantic, and was talking louder than normal. He kept digging through all of the evidence, but just couldn’t manage to focus. He kept insisting that they had whatever clue they needed to catch the guy, that all they had to do was find it, but nothing he looked at gave him any ideas.
Tina had spent most o
f the night on her phone. Nervousness was showing in her face and all her mannerisms, as she chewed her lip and played with her hair, but her voice remained steady. She moved constantly between the groups in the room, talking to Lewis and Floyd and Jason, then with Pete and Chance, then finding other investigators and pulling together all of their thoughts and ideas.
Josie had spent the entire night at home, sitting in her wheelchair and tapping away on her computer, searching through the list of suspects and witnesses that had been compiled so far. She had come to like Jake, and desperately needed to feel like she was doing something worthwhile, something that would help find both Jake and Angela.
"We're getting nowhere," Chance groused. "Jake's been gone for more than eight hours now."
"And Angela Lambert has been missing for five days," Pete reminded him. "As much as I like to kid, Chance, they are both important. We need to find them both, and we need to find them soon."
"Yeah, but Angela still has twenty hours to live," Chance argued. "Jake could be dead on the side of the road, for all we know! Why would the son of a bitch take him?"
"Do you think Jake somehow identified him in the restaurant?" Gabriella asked, stifling a yawn.
"I doubt it," Pete said, idly running his finger back and forth over the rim of his coffee cup, eyes focused somewhere far away. "Not unless the killer somehow gave himself away, but I don't see how he could’ve done that. This abduction is so far out of his pattern, I just don’t know what to think. I think it was probably just a crime of opportunity. Maybe he thought he could learn something from Jake, something that would help him avoid being caught."
"The owner of the restaurant said that they talked about Jake being a private eye," Gabriella said. "He might have overheard them. We know that he has to be under a lot of stress about the investigation. Suddenly having a whole team of unknown outsiders could be too much for him. He may have seen Jake as a threat that he needed to eliminate."
"No, I don't want us even thinking like that," Tina said. "If he's a threat, then there wouldn’t be any reason to keep him alive. He could have just done away with him right there in the parking lot. Why leave all his things behind and take off with him?"
"Maybe it's a diversion," Carol said. "Maybe he’s trying to throw us off, something to give him more time to finish whatever he’s planning to do with Angela."
"No," Pete said. "If that was his plan, we would have received a ransom note or some other kind of contact by now. As it is, he would know we are just going to keep looking for both of them in the same place. I suspect that it was probably some sort of impulsive decision, something he didn’t really think through. He's probably not very sure about what to do with him now that he has him."
"Well, that doesn't help us get any closer to finding him, does it?" Chance was frustrated. “And it means Jake may be in even more danger than Angela. He’s the most expendable.”
* * *
Waking up was never Jake's favorite part of the day, and today was no different, especially since it took him an inexcusable amount of time to figure out where he was and what had happened. His entire body ached and he was incredibly thirsty. Had he gone out and got drunk last night? That was when the complete numbness of his left arm registered and everything came rushing back. Angela!
It took some maneuvering to sit up, and when he finally had his back firmly planted against the wall, he was trembling and panting, and sweat was running down his back. He looked over to the chair, where Angela was looking right at him.
"Hey, Angela,” he said. “How are you feeling?"
The girl just looked at him, but didn’t respond.
"Has Alan been down here again?"
Angela shook her head this time.
"Good."
He heard the floorboards creak above him, and the sound of water running. He looked at his watch. The glass had broken, but it was still working. It was just after seven a.m. He knew that Alan had said that he had to take the bus to work that morning, and that he was always the first one to arrive at work. If that was the case, he should be leaving shortly, and that would give Jake a few hours to figure out a way to escape and get Angela to safety.
Unfortunately, he didn't have even the slightest idea about how that wonderful idea could become a reality.
The basement door opened and Alan came down with the folding table again. He ignored Jake completely as he set the table down in front of Angela. It held a plastic cup full of milk and a plate with pancakes and syrup.
"Good morning, Angie. I have to leave a little early today, but it's Friday, so I might be able to get off a little early tonight. As soon as I get home, I think it’s time for us to take the next step, don’t you?”
Angela looked at him, her eyes wide. “What’s the next step?” she asked weakly.
Alan gave her a bright smile. “I think maybe it’s time you moved upstairs,” he said. “I’ve been redecorating the bedroom, fixing it up so it’ll be just right for us, now that we’ll be sharing it.”
He turned and started toward the stairs, but then stopped by Jake and squatted down in front of him. He smiled, but there was something demonic in it. "I figured out what to do with you, tonight, too,” he said. “I figured out a really great place to hide you away in, in a way to leave exciting little hints for your friends to find. Then we'll see who they really want to look for first." He laughed. "I really do wish I could see their faces when they find you. Unfortunately, you’ll probably miss out on the fun."
"And why is that?" Jake said calmly, trying to show that he wasn't afraid.
"Well, you know all those things the papers seem to think I'm doing to those pretty girls? Well, since everybody already figures I’m a killer, that I might as well just be one, right? Besides, it might be fun, don’t you think?"
Jake kept his face passive, but his stomach was roiling.
Alan chuckled again, patted Jake on the cheek as if they were old friends, and stood up. As he walked up the stairway, he called out, "See you tonight, Angie. You’re going to love what I’ve done with the place."
When the door was closed, Angela sat up and grabbed the milk, draining the glass in seconds. When it was gone, she reached for the plastic fork laying beside the plate, but then looked over at Jake. She stuck the fork in the pancakes and picked up the plate, holding it out to him.
"No, thank you, Angela,” he said softly. “That's very nice of you, but I can't reach it, anyway. It's probably a good idea if you eat all of it. I'm trying to figure a way to get us out of here today, and you’re going to need your strength."
Upstairs, the front door slammed shut as Alan left the house. They were alone.
While Angela began eating, Jake tried to check himself out. His left leg seemed to have missed out on all the punishment, but his right knee was so swollen that the pants he was wearing felt tight on it. His back and belly hurt like hell after being kicked so many times, but he wasn't terribly worried about any internal bleeding, because his belly wasn’t hard and swollen. He was badly bruised, though, and it was certainly painful. Running his hand over his ribs hurt, and he was fairly sure that at least a few of them were in bad shape. He hoped they were just cracked, but he suspected at least two of them were actually broken. His face hadn’t taken any new damage, other than a sore jaw from that first punch, but the skin on his right cheek felt warm and tender, indicating that infection had set in. He probably hadn't managed to wash out all the dirt last night. His right arm was bruised, but otherwise okay. The pinkie and ring finger were probably broken, though, but he could live without them for the time being.
His biggest problem was his left arm. The shoulder had been dislocated for several hours, and he knew that without treatment, he was in danger of permanently damaging the nerves and blood vessels around the shoulder. He had dislocated it once before, actually, and still remembered how it hurt when it was reset. He had no idea how to reset his own, but he knew it had to be done. Besides, his arm was completely useless this
way, and he was certain he would need it for an escape attempt.
Glancing at Angela, who seemed occupied with eating the pancakes, Jake slowly turned around so that he was facing the wall. He had to use his right arm to help guide his left arm, but he managed to wrap the fingers of his bad arm around the sturdy pipe. Taking several deep breaths to prepare himself, he threw himself backward, the action forcing his shoulder joint violently back into place. Excruciating pain flowed through Jake, wrenching an unwelcome scream from him, leaving him panting and sobbing.
When the pain became bearable again, he carefully let his right hand seek out his shoulder, poking and prodding. Thankfully, it seemed as if he had succeeded on the first try. He wasn't sure he would have been able to do it again, now that he knew how much it hurt. He could already feel a tingling sensation in his fingers as they started to come to life again.
He looked up at Angela. The girl looked at him with a pained and terrified expression, tears flowing down her face.
"I'm sorry, Angela," he said, his voice shaky from the pain. "I didn't mean to scare you, but I had to fix my shoulder. I'm okay now."
The girl just stared at him for a moment. She licked her lips finally and said, “Do you really think we can get out of here?”
Jake forced himself to smile. “We are damn well going to try,” he said.
* * *
At eight a.m., the command center had virtually emptied, as every officer went out to go door to door with the sketches. Chance had spent the morning hounding Josie every fifteen minutes, but so far she hadn't found anything new that might help. There was still a lot of stuff to go through, and she was putting both her computers and her own skills to the test. It was now nearing lunch time and no positive reports had come in. The PDI team were all nervous and edgy, but none more so than Chance.
He was constantly lashing out at people, questioning whether they were working hard enough, or if they had the proper skill for their tasks. Both Gabriella and Pete had taken him aside several times to ask him to relax, or even to take a break. People had been patient with him all morning, but that patience was wearing thin.