SVU Surveillance

by Julie Anne Lindsey

  * * *

  LUCAS CLIMBED OUT of Derek’s Mustang twenty minutes later. Blaze’s jeep and another unmarked precinct car were in the driveway. Every light in the house was on and the front door open. Neighbors watched blatantly from their windows and lawns.

  The simple two-story home was in need of upkeep, and built in a neighborhood that had once belonged to the working class, but now belonged to landlords and the elderly.

  Bruce, the senior detective on Lucas’s team, met them at the door. He offered his hand to each brother. “Figured you’d be here soon. Blaze is already upstairs. He thinks he’s running this show despite the fact that there hasn’t been a murder or a single other reason for a homicide detective to be poking through our case.” He craned his neck to shout the words up the steps behind him, then grinned. “All you Winchesters and your Boy Scout camaraderie.”

  Lucas clapped the older detective on his shoulder as he entered, thankful again for his family. Blood-related and otherwise.

  Blaze appeared on the steps, headed their way. His expression was off. “There’s something you should see,” he said, skipping any measure of greeting and moving straight to the point. Something else Lucas was thankful for.

  Lucas, Derek and Isaac followed Blaze through a first floor cluttered with officers and little else, to a back room lined with desks and monitors. The equipment was new and high-end, easily the most expensive things in the house. A tech officer was in position, scrolling through captured footage from outside Gwen’s home.

  Lucas’s skin crawled at the sight of all the feeds. “So, this is where he watched her.” When he couldn’t be there in person.

  Blaze crossed the room to a closet door and opened it. “There’s more.”

  A collection of trinkets sat on a small table inside. A bracelet. A few hair ties. A handful of coins. Gel pens in pink and purple. Mismatched gloves and a pair of sunglasses. “We believe these are things Gwen has dropped, or he’s flat-out stolen from her over the years,” Blaze said. He tugged a string hanging over the items, and light erupted in the space. He pushed a line of hanging clothes aside. Behind them, the wall was papered in images of Gwen and Phillip in a number of false scenarios. “Looks like he used Photoshop to add himself into his surveillance shots of her alone and to impose their faces on the...other images.”

  Lucas moved closer, rage rattling that lockbox of emotions once more.

  Phillip had pasted images of his face and Gwen’s onto participants in a number of erotic encounters. She was never smiling. “He’s demented. What kind of sick—”

  “Freeze,” Blaze said, cutting Lucas off and slapping his hand with an extra pair of blue gloves. “Don’t touch anything without these.”

  Lucas’s stomach pitched and rolled as he jammed his fingers into the gloves. He could only imagine what the psychopath was doing to her now, alone somewhere, knowing his time was nearly up.

  Isaac moved into the space at his opposite side. “You okay?” he asked, hands hovering, ready to give medical advice or try to treat him somehow. But what ailed Lucas could only be treated one way. By putting Phillip Cranston behind bars for as long as possible and soon. “I’m okay,” he told Isaac. “This guy’s previous victims might not have had the evidence they needed to get him arrested, but I don’t think there’s a lawyer in existence who can get Phillip off now. Not when his creepy house speaks for him.” He turned to Blaze, confused. “How’d you get a warrant to come in here like this?” The case had to be airtight, or Phillip would walk like so many others. “All I gave you was a name, and the officer at my place made it sound as if Phillip didn’t have any related arrests. Only allegations.”

  Blaze’s gaze jumped to Derek, then away. “We used photos taken inside the house to make our case.”

  Lucas tensed. “How’d you get inside his house without the warrant?”

  Derek grinned his signature cocky grin. “I’m excellent at reconnaissance.”

  Blaze lifted a hand, stopping the conversation before it went too far. “Why don’t we focus on finding something that will lead us to Gwen? I’ve got one more thing to show you.”

  “There’s more?” Isaac asked, appalled. “I’m afraid to ask what it is. At least it can’t get any creepier,” he added more softly.

  “Wrong,” Blaze said, leading them through the kitchen to a door with two padlocks, already removed. He opened the door and flipped the light switch.

  “The basement?” Lucas asked, a cold sweat breaking on his brow. Images from every awful case he’d ever worked flooded his mind with dark and twisted possibilities.

  Blaze marched forward, leaving the obvious answer to lend itself.

  The trio followed dutifully.

  Phillip’s basement was typical. Unfinished, musty and damp. Filled with old boxes and shelves of things no one really cared about.

  But there were bars over the glass block windows. That part was not usual and definitely not good.

  Blaze stopped at a doorway in a newly erected wall. Dust from the installation still littered the ground. A line of padlocks hung open on the doorjamb.

  Lucas stepped forward, drawn by morbid curiosity to whatever was on the other side of the wall. He pushed the door wide.

  Thin vinyl flooring had been rolled out inside the space, covering the basement concrete. The walls were painted a serene and faded teal, like the accent color Gwen used inside her home. A small vanity and king-size bed had been placed against the walls. An armoire, rocking chair and two-seat dinette completed the furniture. The bed was dressed in white and piled high with lacy pillows. An old photo of Gwen and Lucas in a lovestruck embrace sat in a frame on the nightstand. Lucas’s face had been replaced with Phillip’s.

  “There are cameras here, too,” Blaze said. “They’re monitored from upstairs, as well.”

  Lucas ghosted through the room, dumbfounded and sick. “He planned to keep her here? Indefinitely?” He’d never seen anything of this magnitude in real life. This was the kind of insanity saved for television dramas and horror movies.

  Blaze rested a hand on the gun at his hip, his shoulders tense, expression blank. “Based on the amount of Rohypnol we found stashed inside an empty oatmeal box in the pantry, he planned to keep her drugged, and for a very long time.”

  “Detective?” A man’s voice called down the basement steps.

  “Yeah?” Blaze and Lucas answered in unison, then caught each other’s eye and headed in the man’s direction. The others followed.

  Blaze cut in front of Lucas at the stairs, then took them two at a time. “What do you have?”

  The tech officer from the makeshift office gave the line of Winchesters a look, then turned his eyes back to Blaze. “You’d better see for yourself.”

  They tracked him back to the row of desks and monitors where a small cabin in the woods centered a screen. Infrared gave the feed an eerie green glow.

  “It’s another surveillance feed,” the officer said. “I came across it while I was going through the files on the computer.”

  “Where is this cabin?” Lucas asked, certain this was the answer they’d been looking for.

  “We’re trying to find out,” the officer answered. He lowered into the chair once more and took control of the computer. He backed the video up ten minutes, then pressed Play. Headlights flashed over the cabin, then went out.

  “Was that a car?” Lucas asked. “Tell me we get a look at the plate.”

  The officer didn’t answer. Didn’t look his way. He just stared at the screen, drawing Lucas’s attention back there, as well.

  An image of Phillip appeared. He had Gwen over his shoulder like a caveman, her arms dangling limp and bound beside her motionless head. He worked the padlocks, opened the door then carried her inside.

  Lucas stumbled back. Pressing his palms against the cool surface of the wall to anchor himself. His head s
wam and the world tunneled.

  Isaac clutched his arm and pulled him into an empty folding chair. “Breathe.”

  Lucas inhaled deep and slow, but there was only one thing on his mind.

  Gwen’s attacker had carried her, unconscious, into the woods, not to the creepy little room he’d made for her in his basement. He knew the cops were onto him. Knew he couldn’t come home again. And that gave him no reason to keep Gwen alive.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Gwen opened her eyes to a blast of icy air.

  Confusion became terror as the details of her night returned. Her pounding head and rolling stomach were the combination of a probable concussion and too much Rohypnol-laced water.

  Her captor stretched a knit cap over his head, then stepped silently outside. He shut the door behind him, effectively cutting off the wind and delivering Gwen into comparative darkness.

  Where was he going? And why?

  She struggled to clear her vision and find a weapon she could use against him. She pushed into a seated position with a groan and a grimace, feeling a resurgence of pain in her still-healing side. Her still-bound wrists were sore and aching.

  Through the filthy window, she could see the silhouette of him, standing frozen and staring into the distance. Down the path he’d driven the car in on last night.

  She scanned the room again for a weapon she could manage and came up short.

  His car keys, however, were laying peacefully on the table beside his wallet and an unopened box of condoms.

  Gwen’s mouth opened and bile poured out, mixing with the contents of her stomach spilled there the night before. She wiped her eyes and mouth, biting back the tears. She couldn’t fight like this. Couldn’t run. And the things he would soon do to her were more than she could bear. He might not have assaulted her while she’d slept, but the ready box of condoms suggested it wouldn’t be long now.

  She steadied herself on the couch’s edge, still struggling to gather her senses.

  The white noise of a radio crackled nearby, and a voice barked out directions and coordinates. Orders and acronyms.

  Outside the window, Phillip turned to face the cabin, anger painted across his face.

  Gwen ducked. She surged forward, scraping the keys off the table, then diving back onto the nasty couch. A plume of dirt and animal hair rose around her as she pushed the keys between the cushions and closed her eyes. Her nose itched and eyes burned, but she couldn’t gag, couldn’t whimper or sneeze. Couldn’t let him know she was awake. If he knew that, he’d also know she was the one who’d taken the keys.

  The door swept open, filling the small space with another gust of icy air, and Phillip stormed inside. He slammed the door behind him, and her shoulders jumped involuntarily. He went to the table, listening intently to the rambling voice Gwen now recognized as a police dispatcher, delivering details of local law enforcement’s hunt for him.

  Phillip removed his phone from his pocket, then powered it down with a curse. He pulled the battery and SIM card, then threw the phone against the wall.

  Gwen jumped again without intention, and her assailant looked her way. “Where am I?” she asked, not needing to fake the grogginess in her tone or expression. “What happened?”

  He scowled. “They’re coming. So, we’re going. I’ll take my car as far as I can, then swap it for something else.” He looked her over, contemplating. “You look awful. I can’t take you in public like that.” He reached for her, roughly pulling her into a seated position. He tried to smooth her wild curls, then stuffed a ball cap over them instead.

  She whimpered as the material scraped against her cut and aching forehead.

  “Put this on,” he said, grabbing a jacket from a hook near the door and tossing it in her lap.

  “My hands,” she said, raising her bound wrists and blinking to clear her vision.

  Phillip cursed. His gaze swept over her, then around the cabin, presumably in search of a plan.

  Gwen’s plan was to stall. If she understood the situation correctly, help was closing in, and Phillip didn’t plan to kill her and dispose of the evidence. He planned to take her with him. She could work with that. “I need to lie down,” she said, swooning backward, pretending to go boneless from the drugs.

  His expression lit. “That’s perfect.” He grabbed the water bottle from the table and forced it against her mouth. “Drink.”

  Her gut knotted at the idea of going under again. She let her eyes drift shut. She couldn’t drink that water.

  “If you drink this, I won’t put you in the trunk again,” he said. “You can sleep up front with me. I’ll even remove your zip ties.” He tapped a finger to the plastic bindings.

  Untied and not in the trunk were two things she needed to be if she was going to escape.

  She nodded slowly, then let him put the bottle to her lips. She sipped gingerly, making more noise than necessary and holding the small amount in her mouth.

  He watched her swallow, then breathed a sigh of relief. “I’ll get the knife for this,” he said, touching the binding again.

  When he turned away, Gwen buried her face in the disgusting cushion where her head lay and spilled the water from her mouth into the fabric. She pressed her cheek and hair against the wet spot before he turned back, wishing she hadn’t swallowed any, but thankful for the amount she was able to reserve and spit out.

  Phillip cut the ties with a pocketknife he pulled from a coat pocket, and she let her hands fall limply to her sides. “Okay,” he said. “We have to go, and you need to keep drinking to stay hydrated.” He set the bottle beside her, then pulled her up again. “Let’s get your coat on and get out of here.”

  He fed her arms into the oversized sleeves of a black men’s coat, then pulled her onto her feet.

  She fell against him, overacting possibly, but he didn’t seem to notice. His distraction grew with every new syllable from the police scanner in the corner.

  “Where are my keys?” He patted his pockets and turned in a small circle, dragging her with him. “I put them on the table,” he said.

  Gwen bent her knees, sliding down his body and forcing him to set her back on the couch.

  He crouched onto the floor, searching desperately for his missing keys.

  Gwen slipped a hand up to the water bottle and loosened the cap until it spilled over the cushions near her face. She coughed and choked, as if she’d been trying to drink.

  “Hey!” Phillip glared in her direction, clearly seeing the nearly empty bottle and furious about it. “What did you do? That’s all the water I had for you. Now it’s gone!”

  She forced her expression to remain slack and her body still, but internally, she wanted to run. Adrenaline pumped hard in her veins, preparing her to take action, whatever that might be.

  “Radio silence,” the dispatcher called. “In three, two...” And the voice was gone. Only white noise remained.

  Phillip jolted upright with a wail and a curse. He punched the wall in a rage, then slammed his fists on the table before kicking everything in sight, including the couch where Gwen lay. He whacked the water bottle off the cushion near her cheek, then spun suddenly away.

  She pressed her eyelids shut, terrified he would rip one of the guns from the wall and kill them both rather than be caught or surrender.

  The rustle of fabric pulled her eyes open a moment later, though her lids felt heavier than before.

  Phillip had stepped into his ghillie suit and pulled on the balaclava. “They can’t have you,” he said coolly. “I won’t allow it.” He yanked a rifle with a scope off the rack near the door, and he walked outside.

  * * *

  LUCAS SECURED THE straps of his bulletproof vest and tucked a small communications device into his ear while members of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s strike team made battle plans.

  It was a bit of
a shot in the dark, but the plot of tax-delinquent property in the middle of nowhere was the only hope Lucas had. Public records showed the property had belonged to Phillip’s father and had been inherited by Phillip upon his father’s death. There were no known structures or road frontage, but it was remote and familiar to Phillip. The perfect place for a psychopath under pressure to rest and regroup.

  Lucas zipped his coat, tugged on his hat, then freed his sidearm from its holster. He nodded at the strike team captain who’d taken Lucas’s call, and he’d mobilized a squad while Derek had raced Lucas across the county to join them.

  Now, they moved in single file, up a rutted, leaf-covered lane into the wilderness, while the first fingers of dawn climbed the trees.

  * * *

  GWEN GRIPPED THE WINDOWSILL, steadying her body and wishing she hadn’t swallowed any of the drugged water, but feeling the impact of the amount she had.

  Phillip moved like a ghost through the trees beyond the window, looking completely at ease. As if he’d done the same thing a hundred times, which he had, she realized, while stalking her. He squatted in a thicket twenty-five yards away, then set the barrel of his gun in the deep V of a dying tree and pointed it down the muddy pitted path they’d taken to the cabin.

  Gwen counted to ten, making sure he was staying put. Then she reached for the radio and turned up the volume. She needed the dispatcher’s voice to come back. Needed to know what was happening out there, and needed to warn whoever was coming that Phillip was lying in wait.

  She considered digging the car keys from the couch and attempting to drive away, but how far could she really get? Without being shot? Falling down? Or hitting a tree? The cabin slanted beneath her feet, as if confirming her inability to get far on her own. She stumbled toward the couch, woozy again and desperate to sit before she fell. Her toe connected with something small and hard on the way.

  Phillip’s cell phone skated across the floor, and Gwen nearly cried in response.

  She dropped to the floor, chasing the device beneath the table and begging her eyes to stay open. She found the battery near the wall, then rushed to install it before Phillip shot someone or came back for her.