In The Bleak Midwinter: A Special Agent Constance Mandalay Novel (33 page)

Constance watched as the display flashed “1
MESSAGE SENT,” then she shoved the cell back into her coat pocket.
It was set to silent mode, so she resolved to check it later for a
reply. Surely he was still up. He was like a big kid when it came
to Christmas.

She noticed a dim afterimage brought on by
the relative brightness of the LCD. It remained floating in her
sightline no matter where she pointed her gaze. She blinked and
then stared off into space, waiting for it to disappear as her eyes
readjusted to the negligible illumination making it to the interior
of the house. After thirty seconds or so, she was back to seeing
blue-black shadows and shapes.

The caffeine pills she had downed would
probably be kicking in soon. After all, she had taken them on an
empty stomach, which was probably not the best of ideas, but it was
sure to get them into her system quickly. She felt a gurgle flutter
through her gut as her body made an attempt to inform her of its
displeasure with the aforementioned emptiness.

Annoying as it was, Ben had been dead on the
mark with his admonishment earlier in the day. She was pushing
herself way too hard and ignoring her body when it told her as
much. However, there were times when taking yourself beyond the
limit was all part of the job. If she could make it through the
next several hours, then she would finally be able to give in and
let go. Until that time, however, she needed to stay focused on the
task at hand, so since she was doing nothing other than playing the
waiting game at the moment, heeding her stomach’s call might well
be a good choice.

With a quiet sigh, Constance slowly reached
over and found the paper bag of sandwiches. Plucking it off the
counter she began to carefully unfold the top. Egg salad for
Christmas dinner, not exactly her first choice.

Still, she had to admit, at least a sandwich
should be easy to eat in the dark, and better yet, it wasn’t that
MRE.

C
HAPTER
25

4:47 A.M. – December 25, 2010

632 Evergreen Lane

Hulis Township – Northern Missouri

SHERIFF
Carmichael was correct. His
wife did make a good egg salad sandwich. In fact, it was excellent.
Constance wasn’t sure if she had reached that conclusion because it
really was that superb or because she was starving. She supposed it
could be a little of both.

Unfortunately, as good as it was, and even
though she had eaten it almost five hours ago, the sandwich was
still sitting heavy on her stomach. She knew it wasn’t the
sandwich’s fault, of course. Most of the blame had to fall squarely
on her growing anxiety. She had been waiting all night, and she
knew that contrary to what a horror movie might depict, killing and
dismembering someone with an axe wasn’t a trivial process. It
wasn’t something that could be accomplished quickly. It required a
little time and dedication to the task. Since there were only a few
hours of darkness left to go before daybreak, she felt sure
something should have happened by now.

What was left of the guilty burden for
creating the brick in her stomach surely belonged to the half dozen
caffeine pills she’d taken over a better than eight hour span. Of
course, the lack of sleep they were working to combat certainly
wasn’t helping her situation either, so she was caught between the
proverbial rock and a hard place.

More than one, when she really thought about
it.

She was still sitting in the dark, perched on
the kitchen counter just as she had been since Skip had left her
here. After a while, the close-in stretching exercises had ceased
to help much. She could almost feel her muscles seizing up, so she
had switched tactics. Now, every fifteen minutes or so, she would
slowly flex her knees and rotate her ankles, then stretch her arms
to her sides and rotate her shoulders in shallow orbits while
arching her back. The latter was the hardest part, given the
constrictions of her Kevlar vest. At the very least the limited
movement was keeping the circulation going. What she desperately
wanted to do was stand up, really stretch, bend, twist, and walk
around. She had been sitting still for far too long and she needed
to loosen up. She was sure a bit of movement would do wonders for
her stomach brick as well.

It would warm her up too.

While the house had started out like a
deep-freeze, it seemed as though it only became worse as the night
wore on. She could feel the prickly fingers of the coldness clawing
at her joints with each passing hour. She was chilled all the way
to the core, and she imagined that at this point the only things
standing between her and hypothermia were the insulated
undergarments beneath her layered clothing and coat, the Kevlar
vest, and the thick wool socks on her feet.

Yes, moving around would definitely help.

But she had to stop thinking about it. Moving
wasn’t an option right now, so dwelling on it just added to the
torture. It was almost like having a really bad itch in a place you
couldn’t reach.

Definitely, she had to focus her mind
elsewhere. No matter what the sheriff had said, she was sticking to
the stealth approach, and that meant sit here and moving as little
as possible until it became necessary.

Focus, Constance,
she thought.
Stay
on task.

She sent her eyes searching through the blue,
black, and gray shadows, reassessing the status for the thousandth
time. The back door was still secure; it hadn’t budged. The shadows
in the hallway hadn’t changed, which told her the basement door was
still closed, just as it had been all night. While the front door
was well out of her view even if she had light, she hadn’t heard
the hinges even creak, and all reports from the outside indicated
the house was still secure. However, it couldn’t stay that way if
this murder happened.

And, if and when the killer somehow managed
to sneak past the eyes outside without being seen, and he was bold
enough to come through the front, back, or even a window, he would
still need to pass through the corridor in front of her to get
downstairs. She had no intention of being duped, as had apparently
been the case in the past. This was ending here, on her watch.

Constance still had the volume on her radio
tweaked to just barely above a whisper, but that shouldn’t present
an issue. It was still audible as long as it was next to her, and
besides, for the most part it was so quiet in the house she could
hear her own heart beating in her chest. She doubted she would miss
a call if something went down outside.

She slowly lifted her arm, rolled it in close
to her stomach, then slid her other hand over and pushed up her
coat sleeve. Cupping her hand around her watch, she pressed a
finger along the side. The dial instantly illuminated and glowed
back at her. There were still a little over ten minutes left before
the next radio check. Also, according to the calendar she’d
referenced before leaving Skip’s office, sunrise was at 7:17. That
meant only about two and one-half hours until it would start
getting light out. Not much time. If something was going to happen,
it would have to be very soon.

This whole operation was starting to look
like a total bust. Of course, to hear Carmichael tell the story it
was as if the body parts simply appeared out of nowhere, so for all
she knew they were already down there in the basement, arranged and
waiting to be found.

No
, she thought.
I don’t buy that.
We must have spooked the killer this time…

She was still staring at the digits on her
watch face as they clicked from 4:47 to 4:48.

That was when she heard the whimper.

At first, she wasn’t certain that she’d
really heard anything at all. The wind had been making a habit of
sighing and moaning whenever it blew through the trees outside. Now
and then the radio had quietly popped or chirped from random
interference or someone inadvertently keying up outside. She would
always listen intently, but so far the events had amounted to
nothing.

That’s probably what this was too.
Nothing.

When she thought about it, what she had
imagined to be a whimper had really been just a single thin peep,
barely perceptible in an audible range at all. It could have easily
been the tip of a blowing tree branch briefly scratching against
the siding of the house. However, she had to admit that it sounded
as if it was coming from somewhere inside, not outside. Of course,
that was explained easily enough as well. It could have been a
complaint coming from the countertop after having to support her
weight in one spot for so long.

Still, Constance held her breath and even
tried willing her heart to pause so that no other noise could
interfere, then she cocked her head and waited to see if she could
hear the sound again.

Nothing.

She continued to wait, listening intently to
the silence.

When she could no longer hold her breath, she
let it out in a slow, quiet stream, then shifted as carefully as
she could. The countertop let out a single thin peep as she moved,
and she softly sighed a measure of relief. There it was, and there
was the source. No reason for alarm.

She settled back into her motionless state
and tried to relax. However, that unreachable itch was back, and
she was once again feeling a desperate need to move. With the way
things seemed to be playing out, she was now starting to consider
throwing caution to the wind and going for a complete change of
position. Maybe even standing up for a while. Her right butt cheek
was actually starting to go numb from the cold, or maybe from the
lack of movement. In truth, it was probably a combination of the
two.

Her heart was starting to settle from its
sudden flutter brought on by the nothing noise. At least something
good had come of it. The rush was leaving her feeling momentarily
energized, and that wasn’t a bad thing. She drew in a deep breath,
and thought about the sound, but more than that, her reaction to
it.

“You’re imagining things...
” She
mutely chastised herself. “
You’re sleep deprived... You’re
hopped up on caffeine pills… You’re
...”

The rest of the thought was unceremoniously
truncated by an obviously male-sounding voice. However, it spoke no
words. Its muted cry entered her ears as nothing more, and nothing
less, than a surprised and pained yelp, coming up through the floor
from the basement.

The adrenalin dump was instantaneous.
Constance felt a hot flush come over her as every muscle in her
body tensed. She immediately launched herself from the counter, her
feet thudding hard against the floor. Stealth had now ceased to be
important.

Her right hand went immediately to her Sig,
thumb fluidly catching the quick release on the
FLETCH
holster as her fingers slipped firmly into position and she filled
her hand with the weapon. She brought it up and reached back with
her free hand, fumbling for a second before snatching the two-way
from the counter.

Keying the radio, she yelled, “Backup! Backup
NOW! There’s someone in the house!”

She didn’t wait for a reply. She dropped the
radio, and it bounced from the edge of the countertop, then
clattered across the floor. She was already in motion while pulling
a small flashlight from her coat pocket. With a flick of her thumb
it was on. Although her eyes had been adjusted to the dark, the
powerful blue-white LED beam was now welcome as it bloomed to
life.

Holding it upside down with the business end
at the heel of her fist, she brought her left forearm up in front
of her chest, projecting the swath of light outward. She rested her
right wrist atop the other in a stable firing position, cocking her
elbows in close as she aimed her eyes down the sights of her
weapon. Advancing out of the kitchen she paused at the archway,
glancing right to check the front door, fully expecting Sheriff
Carmichael or one of his deputies to come bursting through.

No one did. Not from the front, nor from the
back.

“Dammit!” she muttered. Maybe in her haste
she hadn’t fully keyed up the radio. She shot a rapid glance over
her shoulder at the device lying on the floor, but there was no
time to turn around for it and call them again. A weaker, but still
audible, gurgling half-scream came up from the floorboards beneath
her feet, and it was followed by a sickening, wet sounding
thump.

There was another soggy thump and then the
ping of metal against concrete.

She needed to get to the basement right
now.

Since she was wearing her vest, she prayed
that if a deputy or the sheriff came through the door unexpectedly
and fired without warning at whatever they saw moving, they’d stick
to their training and go for center mass… Or preferably miss her
entirely.

Taking the chance, she advanced quickly. In a
half-dozen long steps, she moved down the hallway toward the
basement door, crossed in front of it, then turned and reached for
the doorknob with her left hand while keeping her Sig Sauer poised
in firing position with her right. Grasping the round, brass handle
with her fingers and thumb while palming the flashlight, she
twisted.

It didn’t budge.

She rapidly stuffed the still-illuminated
flashlight into her pocket, wrapped her hand fully back around the
doorknob, gripping as tightly as she could, and tried again to
twist it in either direction. It remained frozen and
unyielding.

She suddenly recalled the last time she had
been at the butcher shop while they were cutting meat on a block
behind the counter and the sound of the cleaver hacking against
flesh and bone. Then she remembered the metallic ping she’d created
earlier, each time she had hammered the tire iron against concrete.
Now, beyond the door, continuing at random intervals, she could
hear the dull echoes of a hauntingly similar sickly thump and ping,
and she found herself wanting to vomit.