The engine went silent, and so did her world.
The trunk opened a moment later, and the stars were no longer visible.
Phillip had parked beneath some sort of makeshift carport. Instead of the night sky, there were old rotting boards and a rusty tin roof riddled with holes. He stared down at her, a vulnerable expression on his boyish face. “Sorry it took us so long to get here,” he said, reaching slowly in her direction. “I had to be sure we weren’t followed.”
Gwen flinched, rolling deeper into the trunk, pulling away from his grasp.
He sighed, then grabbed her by her elbows and dragged her back to him. “You can’t stay in the car all night. You’ll get cold.” He hefted her up and tossed her over his shoulder with some effort. As if she wasn’t a grown woman, or even human. More like a sack of groceries or something to be hauled around. Like a toy, she thought. A plaything under his control.
Her head pounded with the sudden movement and slamming of the trunk. Her vision blurred and her stomach rolled until she was sure she’d be sick. She strained her muscles to minimize movement and combat the excruciating pain inside her head.
He crossed a wooden deck to some sort of outbuilding covered in limbs and leaves. Then he began the process of unfastening the padlocks.
She lifted her head slowly, turning it left, then right, searching for signs of life. Signs of people, homes or a road. Some way to signal she needed help. But there was none of that.
Silhouettes of trees were everywhere, backdropped by a deep velvet sky. The green eyes of night-things stared back at her from weeds and branches, watching as her life drew closer to its end.
* * *
HER ARMS SWAYED over her head, dangling past her ears, toward the ground. Her muscles ached from the clenching, a useless attempt to keep her still. She wanted to kick and fight, to get away and run, but she was useless like this, hurting and barely able to open her eyes.
He had her right where he wanted her, and they both knew it.
Inside the building, her world flipped and righted. Phillip flopped her off his shoulder and onto a couch that smelled of animals and dirt. She pressed her bound hands to her head, adding pressure to the pain and crying out when it only got worse.
Lights flashed on, blinding her and causing her to cry again. The wadded rag in her mouth stuck to her pasty tongue.
Phillip made a dismissive sound. He pulled the gag free and gave her a disappointed look. “You can scream all you want out here, but no one will hear you, and you’ll just get yourself all worked up.” He poked her bound hands with something hard and cool. “Here.”
She pulled her hands back and squinted at the blurry water bottle in front of her.
“Take it,” he said. “You need fluids to heal, and I bet that rag tasted terrible. You can wash that away.”
“Where are we?” she croaked, her throat raw from screaming. She barely recognized her own voice.
He smiled, looking a bit apologetic. “Welcome home.”
Gwen opened her mouth, and the extremely limited contents of her stomach poured out.
“You’re going to have to clean that up,” he said. “I’ll let you wait until you’re feeling better, but that’s on you. Just like this place. I had a nice room set up for you at my house, but the cops are there now. Also thanks to you.”
Gwen rolled onto her back on the couch, wiping sweat from her brow with the sleeve of her shirt. She forced her eyes open again and promptly wished she hadn’t. The space around her was small and cramped, filthy and barely more than a shed. A card table in the corner held basic kitchen equipment. A coffee maker. A toaster. Canned foods and paper goods filled a clear-lidded container. Camouflaged gear and guns hung from pegs on the walls. And a collection of hunting knives was spread out on a toolbox beside his ghillie suit. “Hunting cabin?” she guessed, speaking more softly this time and hoping not to be sick again.
“Sometimes,” he said. “This place is my secret, and it keeps my secrets. Unlike you.” He pressed his hands to his hips, managing to look completely put out. “My dad always said you can’t trust a woman. You’re schemers, and a man’s got to work hard to keep his woman in line or she’ll step out on you.”
“What are you talking about?” she snapped, the pain and anguish getting the best of her.
Rage flashed in Phillip’s eyes. “I’m talking about how you were faithful for six years, and then you weren’t. Now, I’m doing my part to fix that.”
“I wasn’t unfaithful,” she argued.
He paced the small space between them in khaki pants and a polo shirt, as if he might be on his way to a nice office job instead of in the woods preparing to commit murder. Somewhere along their way, he’d removed the O’Grady’s deliveryman shirt and hat. “Women always say that.”
She moaned and closed her eyes against the pain.
“Drink,” he said, pushing the bottle against her hands again. “You need to heal.”
A new idea formed, and she opened her hands to accept the offer.
He uncapped the bottle with a satisfied smile. He wanted her to heal so they could live out his fantasy in the creepy shed.
She wanted to heal so she could get away.
“There. That’s better.” He helped her with the bottle, raising it gently, then wiping the dribble from her chin when she finished. “This would’ve been a lot easier if you hadn’t talked to Dr. Bloomsbury,” he said. “But you just kept pushing. Even after I’d warned you. And she gave you my name. Then you gave it to the police. Now I can’t go home. And here we are.”
“Cops are at your house?” she asked, a flame of new hope rising in her.
“Yep. They’re at the office, too. Which is why I came for you early and how we ended up here. If I have to be stuck in the woods day and night, at least we can be together.”
Gwen’s stomach revolted against the water, and a round of dry heaves sent bullets of pain through her head.
Phillip dug his fingers into his hair and pulled. “I wanted this to be perfect. Bloomsbury ruined it. You can blame her if you want. I do. She’s always had a big mouth. Nosy, too. She only remembered my name because she caught me watching you one day. During our loneliness hotline training.” He scoffed at the memory. “She suggested I talk to you and reminded me that the whole point of being there was to make friends and to help others do the same. I walked out, and I couldn’t go back after that.” He offered her another sip of water.
She accepted, going easier this time to appease her stomach.
“No one besides Bloomsbury would’ve connected me to that program or to you. Not even you,” he said.
He was right about that. “Why are you following me?” she asked. “Why did you start? What did I do?”
“Do?” He frowned. “Nothing. You were just pretty, and I liked taking your picture. It became a game to guess where you would be. When I was right, I rewarded myself with a photo. When I saw you struggling with your computer in the library, I helped you, and you were so appreciative. You thanked me again and again. I liked that. And I could tell you liked me, too. I thought about talking to you again, but I liked watching more than talking. And I already knew you liked me. It worked out for a while. I even turned the other cheek when you met Lucas Winchester. I liked watching the things you did together, and I knew you were thinking of me when you did them, so that was okay. I was thinking of you, too.” He stroked a finger over her cheek.
She recoiled.
He smiled. “I lost my temper once, when you said you’d marry him, but you got the message. We fought, but you saw that I’m the one in charge, and you let him go.”
“You raped me,” Gwen said, pain and anger lancing through her. “You hurt me. I almost died because of you.”
“I was angry. You made me angry. I had to do something or you were going to leave me. I only planned to talk to you that nigh
t, but you wouldn’t listen.”
“You didn’t talk to me,” Gwen yelled. “You haven’t talked to me in eight years!”
“Liar!” He threw his hands wide with a snarl. His knuckles collided with a nudie poster on the wall, and it fell to the floor. Behind it were photos of Gwen and Phillip in romantic and even compromising positions. None of them were real. All of them were disturbing.
“What are those?” she asked, feeling the panic build in her once more.
He’d photoshopped their faces onto a number of erotic images and placed himself in pictures he’d taken of her life. “Us,” he said.
Bile rose in her throat. And the truth of his words hit like a punch to the gut. “You think we’ve been dating for eight years? And that I didn’t marry Lucas because you raped me and left me for dead on campus?”
He grimaced. His fists closed tight before him. “That wasn’t rape. We were together.”
“We weren’t together. We’ve never been together. And I begged you to stop. I said no, and that was rape,” she assured him, her voice ratcheting higher and louder with every word. A torrent of emotion ripped through her chest. “I begged,” she repeated. “And you beat my head on a rock.”
“We were in love!” he screamed. “We are in love. And women always say no.”
“You’re crazy,” she said, feeling the crowded room grow impossibly smaller. “No always means no.” The word slurred and her tongue began to thicken.
Her frantic thoughts became slippery, and her vision dimmed.
How many women had he raped? How many times had he justified the attacks to himself and to his victim using this sick mindset?
She blinked heavy lids at him, her gaze sliding to the bottle in his hand. “What’s in that water?”
“Rohypnol,” he said, moving in close and stroking her cheek. “Just a little something to help you relax. Drink this every day, and you’ll be happy for the rest of your life.” His fingers drifted lower as her eyes finally closed.
And she wondered how long that life would be.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Lucas fought the waves of electricity that had temporarily short-circuited his body, willing his brain and limbs to work together once more. He swiped the cell phone off the floor beside him, then forced himself upright. “Derek,” he croaked, lurching upright. He staggered forward, falling against the doorjamb where traces of Gwen’s blood still clung.
How had he let this happen?
“Lucas?” Derek asked. His voice boomed over the roaring engine in the background. “Where is Gwen?”
Lucas stumbled through the open doorway and onto the porch, letting the cold night air smack his face and bite his skin. The street outside was dark and silent. No traffic. No pedestrians. No Gwen. “Gone.”
Emergency vehicles screamed through the neighborhood, their lights already flooding his street. Cruisers and ambulances typically arrived in ten minutes or less. Often, less. Which meant that wherever Phillip had taken her, they hadn’t had time to get far.
“We need a make, model and plate on all vehicles owned by Phillip Cranston,” Lucas said, his training kicking in.
“Already on it,” Derek said. “I called 911 right after she called me. I filled them in, then left. I stayed on the line in case she came back to it. I passed Phillip’s name on to dispatch when she said it, but it sounded as if they were already working on him.”
Lucas rolled that idea around, recalling slowly. “I sent a text to my team asking them to look into him before I ordered food from O’Grady’s.”
“I saw a cruiser at O’Grady’s when I got off the highway. How much do you want to bet one of their deliverymen was robbed? Food, uniform and all?”
Two cruisers and an ambulance swung onto Lucas’s block and cut the sirens. Derek’s Mustang was only seconds behind.
Lucas bumbled back inside, careful not to touch anything he didn’t have to as he grabbed his sidearm, jacket and badge. Then he reached for his keys and cursed. His truck was in the shop.
“Hey,” Derek’s voice boomed through the door behind him as a parade of medics and officers tramped inside. “What happened?”
The crew stopped, all awaiting the same answer. He recognized the lead officer as Brent Martin. One of the paramedics was Isaac.
Lucas swallowed his humiliation, stuffed his pride and emotions into a tightly sealed box, then relayed the events flatly. Just the facts.
Officer Martin looked up at the term stun gun. “You were tased?”
“Twice.”
Isaac’s jaw sank open. His hand was on Lucas’s wrist in an instant, checking his pulse, before Martin had stopped speaking.
Lucas jerked free on instinct, but Derek’s hands came down on his shoulders, holding him in place.
“Can you give me a physical description of the assailant?” Martin asked, fighting a smile as the Winchesters battled silently through a rudimentary exam.
“Yeah,” Lucas said. “His name is Phillip Cranston.”
“The man we’re looking for,” Martin said. “Good to know we’re on the right track.”
Lucas frowned. “We need to get out there and search the neighborhood. We might spot Phillip’s car. He might’ve stopped for gas or supplies. Someone might’ve seen him traveling with an injured woman.” His gaze jumped to the blood smear on his door.
“Be still,” Isaac snapped, pressing a stethoscope to Lucas’s chest. “You were tased twice tonight. Let me listen to your heart. Your guys are already going through the neighborhood.”
“I want to go through the neighborhood,” Lucas snapped back.
Isaac sighed. It wasn’t a battle he’d win, and everyone in the room knew it. “Give me three minutes to finish evaluating you, then I’m coming along. My shift was up when I heard the call and recognized the address. I can go with you in Derek’s car.”
Defeated, and thankful for the support of his brothers, Lucas stopped fighting and let Isaac work.
Derek folded his arms and watched the police officers. He moved methodically through the room, gaze traveling slowly, sticking appropriately. To the cast-off stun gun. Dropped delivery food. Blood on the doorjamb. “He’s good, but your girl won this one for you when she called me for help and gave me Phillip’s name.”
“We got the name from a professor,” Lucas said, feeling the effects of the stun gun losing the last of their grip. “Then we found him online. I made the call to my team before we ordered the takeout.”
“Blaze is at Phillip’s place now,” Officer Martin chimed in. “He went with the team to look for this guy after they ran his name through the database. Turns out Phillip Cranston has a lifelong record, if you count all the times he’s listed on his dad’s arrests for domestic violence. Textbook hot mess family situation in my opinion.”
Lucas stilled. He knew what Martin meant, and a violent upbringing too often led to an out-of-control adult. Some kids grew up and broke the pattern, but too many were stuck in the rut. Those kids grew up repeating the mistakes of their parents, madder for it all the time, and lashing out harder as a result. Creating a vicious, dangerous, deadly cycle. “Tell me about Cranston.”
“Dad was an angry drunk,” Martin said, painting the ugly picture. “Beat the mom regularly till she ran off, then he beat a bunch of other ladies who came in and out of his life. Phillip stayed with his dad until college. He turned eighteen before graduation and had a number of arrests. Vandalism. Fighting. Domestic disputes. Things were quiet for a while after he enrolled at Bellemont. He moved onto campus, and his dad settled down when his overall health took a turn for the worse. He died a few months later, and it wasn’t long after that Phillip’s dates started filing reports with campus security.”
“What kind of reports?” Lucas asked.
Martin’s expression turned grim. “Stalking behavior and accusations of rape. Tha
t’s why there’s a team at his place and looking for him now. Even if he hadn’t shown up here tonight, we had enough to believe he was Gwen’s attacker.”
Lucas felt the lid on his tightly boxed emotions begin to rattle. “He raped others before Gwen? And the precinct knew it? What the hell happened here?” Rage pounded against the waning calm.
“Reports were filed, but the investigations never led to any arrests. The women claimed to have been drugged. Their memories were unclear and inconsistent.”
“Which is consistent with being drugged,” Lucas growled.
Martin nodded again. “Phillip claimed to have dropped the women off after they had too much to drink. There were witnesses each time. He drove them home, then left. The rapes happened later that night. After Phillip was seen saying goodbye.”
“He went back,” Lucas said. “He planned ahead, set things up, then went back when there wouldn’t be witnesses.”
Martin released a defeated sigh, beginning to process the crime scene. “He could’ve unlocked a window or the back door while he was inside to pick them up for the date. Could’ve accessed their house key while gallantly taking them home, drugged. Lots of theories. No proof. As for the claims made about him following a woman his freshman year, they were in two of the same general studies courses. That put them in expected proximity on campus. Add in a communal student center, library and computer lab for all students, and two freshmen pursuing the same field of study are bound to run into one another frequently. She left Bellemont at the end of the semester.”
Isaac stepped away, finished prodding and poking.
Derek spun his key ring around one finger. “Time to go. Officer Martin can lock up. I’ll drive you and Isaac to meet Blaze at Phillip’s place.”
Lucas cast a look at Officer Martin.
He nodded. “Go on. We’ve got things under control here.”
SVU Surveillance Page 17