Vicious

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Her hand was bleeding, but she couldn’t see it.

The little cell had become pitch black—except for faint traces of moonlight through the slats of the box fan. Moira had been working in the dark for an hour now.

She’d managed to move the moldy, fetid mattress aside. Then she’d felt her way back to the metal shelving unit and dragged it over to the wall that had a built-in fan up near the ceiling. The metal bookcase had made a loud scraping noise against the cement floor. Every few moments, Moira would stop, catch her breath, and listen for his footsteps. But she didn’t hear him. She didn’t hear anything except that constant flapping noise outside.

Moira wondered if the slime bucket was even around. Maybe he had another motion detector going off in another location, or perhaps another girl in another little room somewhere.

Her ankle hurt like hell every time she put weight on it. But Moira managed to climb up three shelves of the wobbly metal bookcase. There she precariously stood, praying the damn thing would hold her up without tipping over. With the bracket piece she’d found, she tried to unscrew the frame around the fan box. But the screws, once she’d located them, didn’t move easily. In fact, at first, they didn’t budge. Moira’s fingers ached from putting so much pressure on the bracket piece until each screw began to turn. The apparatus’s sharp edges kept cutting into her finger and thumb.

It seemed to take forever extracting the six screws from the rusty metal frame. And after all that work, the stupid fan still stuck to the wall. Moira tried to pry it out with the bracket, but the frame wouldn’t budge. Finally, she shoved the bracket piece in her jeans pocket, grabbed the dusty fan blades, and started tugging. “Please, God…please…” she whispered. She was so tired and hungry and scared.

After a few more tugs, she started to get angry. “Damn it, you son of a bitch, move!” Moira frantically pulled at the fan blades until they started to bend. At last, she heard something snap, and she felt the fan piece shift. Her hands and arms were so sore—and her back ached from balancing herself on the rickety shelving unit. But she was suddenly filled with a renewed determination.

She grabbed another pair of blades and yanked at them until the fan box started to give. It sounded like pebbles rattling inside the wall, and Moira knew she was so close. She kept tugging at the fan until the contraption finally let out a loud creak and popped out of the wall.

But Moira lost her balance and fell. She landed on the mattress, but the impact knocked the wind out of her. It was too dark for her to see the metal bookcase teetering, and with an earsplitting clatter, it came crashing down—just missing her. The sound seemed to echo in the cold, tiny room.

Moira caught her breath and listened for his footsteps. He certainly would have heard that noise if he was anywhere in the vicinity.

She waited, her heart racing against her chest. She didn’t hear anything—just the wind and that constant flapping noise outside.

A dim light seeped through the slats on the other side of where the fan had been. From plaster-caked cords and wires, the fan contraption loosely dangled against the wall. It swayed back and forth like a pendulum.

Moira kept waiting for the footsteps—or that dreaded clanking sound on the other side of the door. But there was nothing.

She was alone.

He was gone—probably hunting down his next victim.

Susan heard a car coming up the driveway.

She got up from the easy chair and glanced over at Mattie. Curled up on the sofa, he didn’t stir. Her windbreaker still covered him, and he had Woody tucked under his chin.

The pellet gun in her hand, she tiptoed past the locked sliding glass door and peeked outside. Moths and bugs fluttered around the porch lights. The sailboat gently rocked on the silver-rippled inky water.

Susan continued on toward the front of the house. She noticed the glare of headlights through the sheer curtains of the living room windows. She glanced out and saw the red MINI Cooper pulling up beside her car in the driveway. “Thank God,” she murmured.

Susan hurried to the door and unlocked it. But then she remembered what the deputy had said about Tom living like a hermit, and how no one had seen the inside of Tom’s house in years.

She’d been taken in by his good looks and his charm this afternoon. But perhaps her first impression of him at the Arby’s in Mount Vernon had been more accurate. She’d specifically told him not to come here. Yet, here he was, being overly solicitous again.

With one hand on the doorknob and the other holding the pellet gun, she wasn’t sure what to do. At this point, even if Allen pulled into the driveway, she wasn’t sure she could welcome him without some qualms. With all his secrets, she didn’t think she could ever trust him again. Right now, the only person she really wanted to see was the deputy—and maybe another cop who could escort Mattie and her to the Smugglers’ Cove Inn.

Better yet, she wanted someone to come here and tell her Allen was fine and she could take Mattie home. She would have gladly endured the two-hour drive at night if it meant going home right now. It was strange, that ideal scenario didn’t include Allen. How could her feelings for him change so much during just part of one weekend?

She listened to the car door open and shut.

Susan took a deep breath and then opened the front door.

Tom looked very handsome. He’d changed into a sports jacket, a white shirt, and khakis. He came up toward her, but stopped just a few feet short of the front stoop. “Hey,” he said with an uncertain smile. He seemed to read the apprehension on her face. Then his gaze shifted to the gun in her hand. He let out an awkward chuckle. “Wow, you’re packing heat….”

Susan kept the barrel pointed down—not at him. She nodded. “Yes, it’s on loan from the local police force,” she explained. She decided not to tell him that it only discharged pellets. “There have been some new, strange developments since I saw you last.”

“What happened?” he asked. “Are you okay? Is Mattie okay?”

She gave him a tight smile. “We’re all right, just shook up a little.”

“Well, what happened?” he pressed. “You don’t seem all right to me. You—you’re acting like it’s Arby’s all over again, like you’re not happy to see me.”

She just shrugged uneasily.

He let out a long sigh. “Listen, Susan, I know you told me not to come here. But I called your cell number and kept getting this automated recording. So I started to worry.”

“Well, that’s very nice of you,” she said. “I appreciate it, Tom, I really do. The deputy should be here soon. They’re getting Mattie and me a room at one of the inns in town. So we’re okay, thank you.”

He glanced down at his feet for a moment and then at her. He cocked his head to one side. “Is that your polite way of saying ‘get lost?’”

She gave him a halfhearted nod. “For now, yes. I’m sorry, Tom.”

“I’m sorry, too,” he murmured. “Did I do anything wrong?”

She wanted to say, Yes, you should have invited me inside your house this afternoon. Maybe then she wouldn’t be so wary of him right now, and he wouldn’t seem like such a stranger.

“No, Tom, you didn’t do anything,” she said finally.

“So—be honest, on the creepy scale, where am I right now?”

“I just wish I knew you better,” she admitted. “That’s all.”

“I’d like to know you better, too,” he said with a guileless smile. “Can I at least call you later?”

“Of course.” She wasn’t sure if she’d answer the phone. She wasn’t sure of anything right now. Even though she was asking him to leave, Susan didn’t really want him to go.

“All right, I’m out of here,” he said. “Can’t I do anything for you, Susan?”

“We’re fine,” she replied, stepping back from the doorway. “Thanks for stopping by, Tom.”

He nodded, then turned and lumbered back toward his car.

Susan stood there by the threshold. She watched the red MINI Cooper back into the turnaround and then head out the driveway. She hated not being able to trust him.

She’d thought once he was gone, she’d feel relief.

Instead, she only felt more scared and alone. And she wondered if maybe her last chance of being rescued had just driven away.

Deputy Corey Shaffer didn’t quite believe everything Jordan had told him.

The last known person to see Allen Meeker today was this once-troubled teenager, and he seemed to be covering something up. Jordan had said he’d gone to the old Chemerica plant this afternoon—less than an hour after running into Allen Meeker at Rosie’s Roadside Sundries—just to “explore,” “hang out,” and “kill time.” Corey wasn’t buying it. That squirrelly kid wasn’t telling him the whole story.

That was why the deputy now sat at the wheel of his patrol car, headed down the cracked, potholed access road to the Chemerica plant.

It had been nearly an hour since he’d issued that APB on Allen Meeker’s black BMW, and so far no response. He had a feeling Meeker hadn’t left Cullen on his own steam. Perhaps he’d never left at all.

The squad car’s headlights cut through the darkness and illuminated the little shack that was once a guard station in front of the sprawling two-story plant. His car window was halfway down. He could hear the old window shades flapping and the wind howling through the dark, deserted building ahead.

Earlier this afternoon, Jordan’s Honda Civic had driven out from behind that lonely, decrepit edifice. Corey headed back there now. He switched on the driver’s side searchlight and studied the woods next to the driveway and loading area.

He noticed some tire marks in the mud at the edge of the cracked pavement. He remembered the mud on Jordan Prewitt’s shoes earlier. It was even on the cuffs of his jeans.

Corey switched on the strobe and grabbed his flashlight before stepping out of the patrol car. He made sure he had his nightstick and then checked his gun. He didn’t think he’d be running into anyone, but he wasn’t a nature lover, and there were bears and coyotes in some of the woods around here. Directing the flashlight on the ground, he followed the tire tracks along a mud trail though the darkened forest. There was only one set of tire tracks. It looked as if the car had made a one-way trip—toward a marsh that was dead ahead.

Corey kept looking for a second set of tire tracks. But all he saw were footprints, one set—probably belonging to Jordan Prewitt.

He picked up a few stones along the way and started to toss them in front of him—one after another—until he heard one hit water with a hollow thwunk sound. The swamp was in front of him, and those tire tracks went directly into the mire. He threw out another stone and heard another hollow thwunk. He tossed still another stone in the muddy water, just a little farther out. He saw it splash, but the sound it made was totally different—a hard, tinlike ding—as if he’d hit something metal just under the murky surface.

Corey had a feeling he’d just found a black BMW.

One more kick would do it.

Moira had been telling herself that for the last few minutes. The outside piece to the exhaust fan was a metal frame with slats. She’d tried pushing and pulling at it, but the damn thing wouldn’t budge from the wall. In the darkness, she’d discovered several pipes overhead. She’d found if she grabbed the pipe and hoisted her butt up on the fourth shelf of the metal unit, she had the leverage to give that slatted frame a forceful kick.

But it was more like twenty forceful kicks.

Her one good foot started to hurt like hell. Still, Moira kept kicking. The frame bent and shifted a bit more each time. But the shelving unit teetered with every blow, and her arms ached from hanging onto the pipe. One more kick became her mantra.

This close to the hole in the wall, she was pretty certain she could squeeze through to the outside. But once she was out there, she’d have to make her escape crawling or hopping. She prayed to God her abductor wasn’t anywhere out there. One thing at a time, she told herself, one more kick.

Gritting her teeth, she shoved her foot into the porthole with all her might. The battered metal frame finally flew off the outside wall. From the clanking it made, Moira guessed the thing landed on some rocks directly below the opening.

At last, she could see outside. A dried-up dead bush blocked her view of anything else—except a little patch of night sky. She breathed in the fresh air and allowed one hand to let go of the pipe above her. She shook it out to get the blood flowing again. She did the same thing for her other arm. Then Moira hoisted herself up—headfirst—through the porthole.

The opening was rough and jagged. Little sharp bits of concrete scratched her hands and arms as she squeezed through to the outside. She was halfway out when the tall shelving unit toppled over again and went crashing to the floor. Her legs flailed and kicked in the air for a few moments as she struggled through the hole.

Moira kept thinking that if her abductor was around, he certainly would have heard that last loud crash. Panicstricken, she clawed at the rocky ground and finally pulled herself outside. She rolled onto the dirt.

She’d been right earlier. Her dark little cell was in a basement. Moira found herself at the side of a rundown, deserted, beige-brick building. The flapping sound she heard came from some torn shades in the broken windows of the second floor. They looked like blinking eyes. The windows on the first floor were boarded up. Along the side of the building, among the dead shrubs, she noticed old beer cans, pop bottles, and other debris.

Moira tried to get to her feet. But she couldn’t put any weight on her left ankle, so she braced herself against the side of the building. She caught her breath and glanced around. The place was surrounded by woods, but up ahead, she saw a row of streetlights that were out. She guessed it must have been a parking lot at one time. And where there was a parking lot, there was a road out of here.

Leaning against the side of the building, she hobbled toward the old parking area. Every muscle in her ached, and she started to feel faint. But Moira pressed on. She glanced down at her sore hand and now saw all the little bloody cuts on her thumb and fingers from working that bracket to unscrew the fan box. She checked her jeans pocket to make sure she still had the bracket piece. But then she realized it wouldn’t be very effective warding off her abductor. So she bent down and retrieved an empty beer bottle.

Up ahead, she thought she saw a light sweeping through in the parking lot.

Moira staggered forward and watched the beams of light. Past the flapping window shades and the howling wind, she heard the purr of a car engine.

She was about to scream out for help, but hesitated. What if the car she heard was that black Jetta—the one driven by that man calling himself Jake?

Moira peered around the corner, and for a moment, the headlights blinded her. She ducked back and fell to the ground. When she peeked around the corner again, she saw the vehicle veer around a little guard house toward a driveway. It was a police car.

“WAIT!” she cried. She tossed aside the empty beer bottle. On all fours, she scurried onto the cracked, potholed pavement. She frantically waved at the patrol car. “Help me! Please, help me….” But her throat was so dry and sore. As much as she tried to scream, all that came out was this pathetic, squeaky little voice.

Helplessly, she watched the squad car turn down the driveway.

Moira got up and hopped on one foot to chase after it. She kept waving her arms above her head and trying to shout. “Please…please…stop….”

The patrol car’s taillights got smaller in the darkness as it drove farther and farther away down the narrow road. But Moira kept pursuing it, always on the brink of tripping and falling on her face. She couldn’t give up. It looked as if the squad car was about to disappear in the night. But then Moira saw the brake lights go on.

“Yes!” she cried, staggering down the road toward it. “Yes…please…dear God…”

Moira watched the prowler make a U-turn. Exhausted, she stopped and collapsed to her knees. She began to laugh and cry at the same time. She kept waving her arms.

The cop car slowly approached her, and its high beams went on. Squinting at the patrol car, Moira dragged herself up from the cracked pavement. The squad car came to a stop about twenty feet in front of her. Past the headlights’ glare, she saw the cop step out of the car and hurry toward her.

Moira smiled gratefully at him.

Then she saw him reach for his nightstick. And she saw his face.

“Oh, God, no!” she screamed, recoiling.

“How the fuck did you get out?” he asked.

Deputy Corey Shaffer didn’t wait for an answer. He cracked her over the skull with his nightstick.