Gone (44 page)

Stan entered Jake’s office as Jake ended the call with Wainscott.

“No match with anyone from Farley?” Stan asked.

“No one who gave his Farley address to one of those companies. Our unsub may not want packages from one of those retailers delivered to his home and may have rented a P. O. box. Post offices would have the billing addresses of its clients. We need to flag anyone in Farley, Blane County, Grave, Arkenwood, and Columbia who has a P.O. box.”

Stan nodded. “I’ll get the warrants for the post offices.”

While Stan attended to the warrants, Jake checked his watch again. Clare had been out of touch for almost ten hours now. Jake called Jonathan’s extension number.

“Yes, Jake,” Jonathan said.

“Have you found Clare?”

“Nothing yet.”

* * * * *

Clare heard the pad of footsteps on the hard-packed ground. The sound overrode the scratching and squeaking of the rodents who shared this space with her and Beth. Lowney was back.

The beam from the flashlight appeared. Lowney went to the table and lit the lantern once again.

“Hi girls, did you miss me?” He grinned at his own humor.

He went to the tripod where his DVD recorder was set. He aimed it in Clare’s direction, then flicked a switch and a light came on, indicating that it was now recording.

“Smile pretty for the camera, Clare,” Lowney said, his own smile wide.

“Why Beth?” Clare asked.

“Why Beth?” Lowney repeated. “Why not ‘why Sara’ or ‘why Jane’ or ‘why Marissa’?”

So many. Clare forced herself not to think of the others and pressed on. “Why take a risk by abducting a woman from your own town?”

Lowney grinned. “Beth made it so easy for me.” He glanced over his shoulder at Beth. “Didn’t you, Beth?”

He turned back to face Clare. “I was driving by Connie’s when Beth pulled out. At that moment, she just looked so pretty. In a way she hadn’t before. I just had to have her. I pulled in behind her and followed her out to the county road. When she pulled the car off the road, and got out to walk, I pulled out in front of her. She didn’t even try to run. She wasn’t afraid. Didn’t think she needed to be since I wasn’t a stranger. She knew me. At that time, I didn’t know that up a ways on that road, she was planning on meeting that trucker.” Lowney laughed. “If she’d taken a few more steps, she’d have seen him parked on the roadside. And he’d have been able to see her. I would have had to kill him.

“But, she didn’t go those few steps, and he got to live on.” Lowney smiled. “I planned on driving her car back to her house, and not call attention to it by leaving it on the road, and then I found Beth’s suitcase in the back seat of her car. She was fixing on leaving old Dean. No one was going to be looking for her, because they thought she was already gone.

“I picked Beth for the same reason I picked all the others. I . . . wanted . . . them.” Lowney shook his head slowly. “I can just imagine the way your brain is spinning right now, trying to analyze me. Trying to fit me into some FBI profile. Let me let you in on something, Clare.” He leaned in close. His eyes that had been animated an instant earlier dimmed and his lids lowered. “My daddy didn’t beat me. My mama never fondled my privates. I didn’t come from a dysfunctional family. My parents were good, salt of the earth, God-fearing, law-abiding people. There’s nothing wrong with me. I just like to hurt things.”

The hair on the back of Clare’s neck rose at the matter-of-fact way he said it.

“I grew up on a farm,” Lowney went on. “On weekends when I didn’t have school, I’d go out to one of the traps I set in the woods and get the squirrel or stray cat that was caught in it. Then, with a book of matches or a knife or both, I’d play with those animals. For years, I played with whatever got caught in my traps, or a stray dog, but when I was thirteen, there was this girl.” His lips curved in a smile. “Her name was Janey Black. I met her at summer camp. She was staying at the girl’s camp down the road. She’d sneak away and meet me.”

His gaze fixed as he looked inward. His smile widened with the fond memory. “There were so many things I wanted to do to her. I wanted to see just how long I could keep her alive, how much she could take. My technique was rough, though, and I didn’t get done nearly all I wanted to.” He pouted. “To be fair, though, she was weak and didn’t last nearly as long as she should have. But, hey, she was my first. I’ve heard it said that you always remember your first.” He laughed as if he’d made a joke. “After her, well, let me tell you, Clare, there was no going back to squirrels and cats and dogs.”

“I’ve gotten so much better since Janey. Isn’t that right, Beth?” he said, keeping his bright gaze on Clare.

Beth uttered a plaintive cry.

“I really want to keep you, Clare.” Lowney’s eyes slowly roamed her body. “I really want to be able to play with you. Miss Tough FBI Agent. I want to find out just how tough you really are.”

Beth drew her knees tight to her chest. Her shoulders shook as she began to cry. If Lowney noticed Beth’s reaction to his words, he gave no indication.

“I can’t keep you, though,” Lowney went on. “I guess we all have our disappointments. I have to kill you, Clare. Soon.”

Clare’s mouth went dry. “Killing me will only focus attention on you.” She struggled to keep her tone neutral. “Dannon is in custody. If I go missing or turn up dead, you’ll prove Dannon’s innocence. Your only hope is to let Beth and I go and to turn yourself in.”

Lowney crossed the distance between them. He drew back his foot. Clare covered her head with her unshackled hand. The blow connected and a bone in Clare’s middle finger snapped. She cried out.

He crouched, placed his hands on either side of Clare’s head and squeezed. “I could crush your head like a melon.” His voice was soft, intimate, as if he were speaking to himself, and fantasizing about the experience.

Clare grabbed Lowney’s arms as best she could and pressed her thumbs to the inside of his wrists. Her strength was waning and she was unable to apply enough force to override his grip. In fact, he seemed not to notice her feeble grasp at all.

“I can’t do that, though,” he said, more to himself than to her, and abruptly he released her.

He rose to his feet. “It would have been easier if Jake hadn’t shown up when I sent you that note. I planned to get rid of you that night. Or, easier if you’d just died in the fire.”

Lowney’s words penetrated the fog of pain in her head and hand. “You burned your own house?”

“To kill two birds with one stone. Get rid of the house that I couldn’t sell and stop you from poking around. Except that it didn’t stop you. Not even when I gave you Rich Dannon you wouldn’t let go.” Lowney shook his head. “You thought you were so smart. That you’d get me. But here you are. I got
you
. Now, all that’s left is to get rid of you.”

“If I don’t return,” Clare said, “you’ll never know a peaceful moment again. I’m a federal agent. My disappearance will not go unsolved.”

“Oh, you aren’t going to disappear.”

Clare narrowed her eyes in confusion at his statement.

Lowney tilted his head and regarded her without blinking. “Poor Clare,” he began, his voice low and rhythmic. “Distraught over her inability to find her sister, she lapsed into depression and despondency. Drinking too much. She even set the house she was staying in on fire while drunk. Career in shambles. Love affair down the toilet. Unable to find the sister she’s been searching for. Clare can’t go on any longer. She pops a handful of downers, gets into her car, and eats her gun.”

Lowney’s lip curled. “That’s how it will go down. A tragic end, but then you had a tragic beginning. Isn’t that what your mama planned all those years ago? To take her own life after she killed her children? Like mother like daughter, Clare.

“Rich Dannon will go away for Sara’s murder. If one day, someone happens to take a shovel out to those woods and digs up another girl, or two, or ten.” Lowney laughed, then shrugged. “Well, they’ll just blame old Rich. And as for Beth, with no proof of foul play in her disappearance, folks will continue to think what they want to think, that she just run off.”

Lowney bent and brought his face close to Clare’s. “The search for Beth will die with you, Clare.” He bared his teeth in a chilling smile. “But not tonight. We still have time, and I’m in the mood to play.”

He rubbed his hands together. He went to the table that held the lantern and removed a bucket from beneath it, then bent and wrapped his arms around a large glass jug. It was filled with water, and as Lowney lifted it, the water sloshed against the sides.

“Wouldn’t do for a coroner to find damage on any part of your body other than your head, Clare. My options are limited.” Lowney pouted. “But we can still have some fun.”

He filled the bucket with water then carried it to Clare. He seized her by the hair and pushed her head down to the bucket. “Let’s see how long you can hold your breath under water, Clare.”

Chapter Twenty Four
 

Jake had called Laura North and arranged for Sammie to spend the night. Jonathan ordered sandwiches and coffee from the Farley diner. That was hours earlier and Jake’s meal still lay uneaten on his desk.

Clare had not checked in at any of the hotels in Columbia, and Jake had sent her description and the particulars of her rental car to law enforcement across the state. He was hoping that the reason she’d been out of touch was something simple, like a dead phone battery, and some eager cop in a neighboring town would pull her over, getting her pissed as hell at Jake for sounding the alarm.

“Jake?”

Jake stood at the window in his office that overlooked the building parking lot. Night had descended and stars winked in the sky. At the sound of Stan’s voice, Jake turned toward the other man.

“Wainscott ran the P.O. box renters lists we got from the various post offices,” Stan said. “We got a name from one of the post offices in Columbia. It’s Earl Lowney.”

“Let’s go.”

Stan, in the seat beside Jake, rattled off the address, and Jake drove there. Lowney’s house was dark. His car was not in the driveway. Jake left his vehicle at the curb and he and Stan got out.

A dog in the yard next door barked. Someone had put out the trash and the ripe odor filled the night air.

A vertical window ran the length of Lowney’s front door. Jake peered into the house. The hall was in shadow but he could make out an area rug, a table with a vase on it, and a stack of mail.