by Blake Pierce
The car tires squealed as she rounded a curve.
Too fast!
She forced herself to slow down. It really did feel as though she was trying to drive away from the realities of her life. And her flimsy excuse was that she might find out something by driving to Magdalene High School and doing …
What?
She really didn’t know. She thought for a moment about turning around and going back to the motel, telling Crivaro that she really wasn’t in any frame of mind to work on this case, and trying to catch the first commercial flight back to DC.
But then she gritted her teeth and reminded herself of her genuine concern about Sister Sandra.
I might be right, she thought.
And Crivaro might be wrong.
If Sister Sandra really had been abducted, time was surely running out for her—if it hadn’t run out already. Riley felt like she had to do something. Making this trip to Boneau was surely better than doing nothing at all.
It was dark by the time she parked at the Magdalene High School campus. She got out of the car and shivered sharply from the cold.
What now? she asked herself as she looked around.
She knew that Sister Agnes lived on campus. Although it was dark, it still wasn’t very late. Sister Agnes would surely still be awake—if not in her office, then in her living quarters. Riley reached for her phone to call her and ask about meeting with her again right now.
But she hesitated. What questions could she ask the principal that she and Crivaro hadn’t already asked during their earlier visit? Riley didn’t know. She decided to walk around a bit and try to pull her thoughts together.
As she began wandering along the campus’s wide walkways, she reminded herself of something Sister Agnes had told them about Sister Sandra.
“She loves her nighttime walks on the school grounds.”
It seemed hardly any wonder to Riley, even on a cold night like this. The lamplight played and sparkled on the snowy ground, and everything was much prettier than it had been during the day.
Trying to retrace Sister Sandra’s footsteps, Riley wandered among the buildings and out into the surrounding woods. She tried to guess how Sandra could possibly have been abducted while walking this way, then carried off into the woods.
She found it hard to imagine. The woods were open, not thick, especially now that its leaves were gone. She couldn’t see any place where an attacker could have hid in order to take anyone by surprise.
Also, she couldn’t imagine how the attacker could have carried a woman off without a struggle, and without leaving some trace of that struggle in the surrounding snow. The walkways had been cleared, but beyond them the snow looked simply pristine everywhere she looked.
She continued out along the path to the edge of the woods and stood looking out over the Mississippi River once again. It was a cloudy night, and she couldn’t see very far out over the river, making it seem much larger and more mysterious than it had this afternoon.
An almost eerie feeling of peace began to settle over Riley—the same feeling Sister Sandra must have had during her walks out here. Riley remembered something else the principal had said.
“Magdalene is always such a safe, nurturing place. There’s never a hint of danger here.”
Riley sighed deeply. She couldn’t help feeling that Sister Agnes’s words were absolutely true. But if that was so, surely there had been no abduction at all. Agent Crivaro had been right when he’d said that Sister Sandra had left here of her own free will—although right now, Riley found it hard to imagine why anyone would want to leave.
Just as she had this afternoon, she felt nothing but good things about Magdalene High School. And although she couldn’t get any sense of the killer’s mind here, she could well imagine how Sister Sandra had felt walking here last night—especially if she knew she was about to leave.
She’d have felt sad, Riley thought.
Riley almost hated the idea of leaving here herself.
But it’s time to face facts—and life.
She figured maybe it was time to head back to DC after all.
But as she turned to walk away, something unexpected caught her eye.
Something large and white was just a short distance away, on one of the other walkways that meandered through the woods. In the light of the lamps, she could just glimpse it through the trees.
Instead of returning the way she had come, Riley made her way along the other path toward the object. She soon saw that a white van was parked there. Its headlights were on and its motor was running.
Riley felt a jolt of confusion as she wondered—what was a vehicle doing out here on these walking paths?
Surely that’s not normal, she thought.
She flashed back to the scene where Kimberly Dent’s body had been found, and the indistinct tire tracks that Crivaro had uncovered at the edge of the road shoulder. The tracks had obviously been left by the killer.
“Heavy enough to leave traces,” Crivaro had observed, but they hadn’t been able to determine what kind of vehicle had left them.
And now she realized it could very well have been a van, a vehicle exactly like this.
More than that, she began to understand how the killer might have made use of such a van—including right here on the school grounds. Surely Sister Sandra wouldn’t have expected to see a van here. Perhaps the killer had driven right up to her and caught her unawares and …
And what?
She wasn’t sure. But she did know one thing.
This might be the killer.
But what was he doing back on these paths where he’d abducted Sister Sandra in the first place?
She walked cautiously toward the van. Its driver side was facing her, and it had no side windows except for driver window. It didn’t look as though anybody was seated at the wheel.
She gasped as it occurred to her—perhaps he had returned here with the body, and he intended to leave it here, gracefully laid out like the bodies of Kimberly and Natalie. If so, he might be tending to that grim task at this very moment on the far side of the van.
And if so, Riley needed to be ready to confront him.
Her nerves tightened as she drew her weapon and approached the van.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
As Riley cautiously moved forward, she noticed that her Glock was trembling in her hands. She knew why. This was the first time she’d drawn her weapon since …
Don’t think about it, she told herself.
She couldn’t let herself get distracted at a time like this. She had to keep herself together.
When she reached the vehicle, Riley hesitated and listened for a moment. She thought she could hear a faint scraping sound from the far side, but she couldn’t guess what that might be.
She stepped out from behind the vehicle.
A figure was hunched there on the ground, apparently still unaware of her presence.
She was about to announce that she was FBI and tell whoever it was to put his hands where she could see them. But before she could open her mouth to say anything, the flashback hit her with full force.
Instead of a crouching stranger, she saw Heidi’s dead face with its innocent, childlike eyes looking right at her.
She heard a loud clattering sound.
Then a man’s voice brought Riley back to the present.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God!”
She saw a muscular, bulky man rising shakily to his feet. Then she realized that she had dropped her gun.
“What do you want?” the man cried as he raised his hands. “Take anything you want.”
The sheer terror in his voice told Riley that this was not the killer. If it was, he would surely have grabbed up her fallen weapon, and she might well be dead by now. Instead, she had just crept up on some innocent guy who just naturally assumed he was being robbed.
As she reached down to pick up her gun, she said, “You can relax. My name is Riley Sweeney, and I’m an FBI agent.”
Some FBI agent, she thought.
She couldn’t imagine having handled the situation any more clumsily.
“FBI?” the man said, lowering his hands. He didn’t make any comment about the dropped gun. Instead he just asked, “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here on an investigation. I’m sorry I alarmed you.”
“Alarmed me?” the man said. “You scared me half to death. What are you investigating, anyway?”
Riley didn’t reply. On one hand, she didn’t want to tell this man she was investigating two murders and a possible abduction that might have taken place right here. On the other hand, she was still trying to regain her composure. She found herself wondering anew just what anyone was doing with a van out on these walking paths.
“Who are you?” Riley asked.
The man said, “I’m Leroy Stimac, and I’m the groundskeeper here at Magdalene.”
He pointed to a trash scoop standing next to a small dead animal lying on the pavement. He began to chatter away nervously
“I was just driving through here making my last rounds for the night when I saw this dead squirrel. I wanted to scoop it up so the students wouldn’t see it tomorrow. The kids here are awfully fond of the squirrels around this place, almost like they’re pets. They get all emotional whenever anything bad happens to one of them. Hey, you didn’t answer my question about what you’re here to investigate.”
“I’m not at liberty to say,” Riley said. It seemed like the best way to avoid telling him the truth.
“Well, okay, then,” the man said.
He let out an awkward chuckle and continued his chatter.
“Trouble is, these squirrels are so spoiled and tame, they don’t have any survival instincts, and they don’t know how to stay out of trouble. What’s worse, folks from town drive right along these walking paths, even though we’ve got signs up saying they’re not supposed to. They like to use these paths as a shortcut to the river.”
Then he pointed the way Riley had just come and added, “There’s a really nice view of Old Man River right over that way.”
Of course Riley knew that already.
As Leroy Stimac continued rattling on nervously about squirrels and trespassing vehicles, Riley’s mind began to click away, toying with new ideas. A few moments ago she’d been convinced that Sister Sandra couldn’t have been abducted on these paths. But now that she’d been told that vehicles sometimes used these walking paths, she began to see things differently.
The sliding side door of the van was standing open, and Riley could see inside.
Interrupting Stimac’s rambling chatter, Riley asked, “Does anybody else use this van except for yourself?”
“Nope. It’s just me here taking care of these grounds. Oh, I sometimes hire a hand or two when I need to get something built or repaired. But nobody else drives the van.”
Then he resumed talking about squirrels and cars again.
Not really listening, Riley peered into the vehicle. She saw that that it was equipped like a little toolshed, with tools and equipment everywhere. There were no seats inside the sliding door, leaving an empty bed for a workspace. That space was separated from the driver and passenger seats by sturdy wire mesh.
A strange feeling began to creep over Riley.
It took a moment before she realized what it was.
I’m getting a sense of the killer.
The truck’s interior brought that feeling into focus. The feeling seemed sharper now than it had yesterday at Kimberly’s murder scene.
She could imagine this vehicle emptied of all its tools, its wide metal floor bared and a similar kind of fencing separating the back area from the front seats.
It would be perfect for him, she thought.
And she could picture how it had happened. If he’d known about Sister Sandra’s late night wanderings, he could have pulled right up beside her on the path and jumped out of the van and …
No, that wasn’t how he did it, she thought.
Sandra could have run away too easily. Riley sensed instead that he had parked here and patiently waited for her to walk into his trap. She wouldn’t have felt fearful at the sight of such an innocuous vehicle—not on these peaceful grounds, or even after Sister Agnes’s announced warning. The warning might even have slipped her mind completely. The idea that any danger might be lurking out here would have seemed as unimaginable to Sandra as it had to Riley just a few moments ago.
And the killer knew that.
He’d waited patiently for her to walk up to him—either out of simple curiosity at why he was parked here late at night, or to scold him for driving on these grounds when there were signs saying not to. And then …
He pounced.
He’d grabbed her and thrown her into the back of the van, which Riley now imagined having no door handles on the inside. He’d slid the door shut and jumped back into the driver seat and driven away.
But was Sister Sandra conscious?
Or did he knock her unconscious?
She realized it didn’t matter one way or the other. The fencing would keep him safe from her, and she couldn’t open the door. And he could get away from these grounds without anyone hearing her screams.
Riley shuddered deeply at the vividness of her impressions.
But what was the killer’s state of mind when he’d done all this?
She remembered the feelings she’d gotten at Kimberly’s murder scene. She’d felt sure that the killer hadn’t acted out of anger or hostility. Instead, she’d imagined him feeling a certain satisfaction—even a sense of righteousness.
And now Riley got the same feeling right here.
Although he’d apparently resorted to force to get Sandra into the vehicle, he’d felt no animosity. As far as he was concerned, he’d simply done what needed to be done. Perhaps he’d even imagined he was doing it for her own good.
Force without hostility, Riley thought. A very unique killer.
Riley’s sense of the killer’s mind began to wane, and she became aware again of Leroy Stimac’s ongoing chatter as he tossed the dead squirrel into a garbage bag.
“Here’s the thing about squirrels that I don’t get,” he was saying. “We’ve got thousands of them around here—maybe tens of thousands. And all of them have to die sooner or later, don’t they?”
With a shake of his head he continued, “But in all my years working here, I’ve never run across one that seemed to have died from natural causes. The dead ones are always killed by something—usually a vehicle. Where do the rest of them go to die? You’d think there’d be some kind of a vast squirrel graveyard somewhere around here, but there’s not. I can’t get my head around that.”
Riley wasn’t in the mood to think about dead squirrels right now.
She asked him, “Did you happen to see anything unusual on these grounds last night? Another vehicle like yours, maybe?”
Leroy shrugged and said, “No, but I left before it got really dark. I’m working unusually late tonight. Why do you ask?”
“Just part of my job,” Riley said.
“I wish you’d tell me—”
Riley interrupted, “I’m sorry, but I can’t talk about it. Thank you for your time. You’ve been more than helpful.”
As Riley walked back across the campus, she thought again about calling Sister Agnes and asking to meet with her. But it was getting late, and Riley still didn’t know what kinds of questions she’d ask the principal. She figured she might as well head right back to Dalhart.
When she pulled into the motel parking lot a little while later, she wondered whether she should wake Crivaro up …
To tell him what?
That she had some sort of hunch about how a utility van might have been used to abduct Sister Sandra? She was sure that wouldn’t be enough to change Crivaro’s mind about anything. So what should she do instead?
Try to get a g
ood night’s sleep, she figured.
Not that that’s likely.
Her head was crammed with doubts and anxieties. But she did feel sure of one thing.
I’m not ready go back to DC.
I’ve got urgent work to do right here.
As she parked and got out of the car and went on into her motel room, she thought over what she’d learned back at Magdalene High School.
Or did I learn anything? she wondered.
She couldn’t be sure. It was still entirely possible that Crivaro was right, and Sister Sandra hadn’t been abducted at all. Riley wasn’t a psychic, after all. And her instincts were far from infallible.
But somehow, the sight of the inside of that truck had changed things for her. She now knew that it was at least possible that Sister Sandra had been snatched up on those walking paths.
And if so …
Riley shuddered with dread.
She’s very likely dead by now, she thought.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
As the man drove his van along the dark and empty back road, he thought about the hours he’d spent in the dimly lit room with the young woman who was now in the back of his van. It had seemed like a very long time—much longer than he had spent with the two younger girls.
Almost like a lifetime.
Like the others, she’d been bound hand and foot, and terrified over what was happening to her. He’d asked her the same question he’d asked before.
“Why have you made this choice about your life?”
Like the others, she’d given him no understandable answer.
Although he’d never kept track of the time he spent with each of them, he felt sure he’d put more time and effort into his questioning of Sister Sandra Hobson. That was because he felt more emotionally invested in her than in the others. After all, she was the only one of the three he’d known in the past. Some ten years ago, when she was still a high school student, she had listened carefully to his advice.
Back then, he’d really felt hope for her. She’d seemed to understand the danger she was in, the prospect of terrible suffering if she followed her own notions rather than his counsel. She had promised him to make the right choice, and he’d believed her.