Night Tides (20 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

T
HANKS TO THE
Internet, finding the address was a snap. It was on the far west side of town, past Middleton going toward Sauk City, on a dead-end road. Ethan showered, changed into comfortable jeans and an old Bucky Badger T-shirt, and put a gun beneath his seat. It was a Smith & Wesson M&P automatic, and he had a permit for it, since he often carried large sums of money. But he had no real intention of using it. What he wanted to do—what he needed to do—could be done only with his bare hands.

As he backed out of his driveway, he thought briefly about calling Marty. But he couldn’t. It would compromise Marty professionally, and he would never do that.

C
ALEB
J
OHNSTONE’S
house was a small brick ranch design, built during the early seventies. An old Toyota hatchback, all four tires missing, was up on concrete blocks in the driveway, with a maroon Ford pickup behind it. The yard was ragged around the edges, and grass grew up through cracks in the concrete drive. The holly bushes along the front porch were tall and irregular. Behind the house stood a wooden work shed with a green fiberglass roof.

The house windows were all dark, reflecting the harsh afternoon sun from their smudged and neglected surfaces. The garage door was down and the front door closed behind the screen. It was impossible to tell if anyone was home.

Ethan parked on the street, in front of the plastic mailbox. The nearest houses were a half mile in either direction, far enough that a scream from inside the house might not be heard. His chest tightened as he inadvertently imagined what Caleb Johnstone might do to Rachel to elicit such screams.

Ethan knew how hard it was for soldiers to go back into society. Once they’d been through training and emerged with a soldier’s mind-set, the civilian life felt alien. Ethan was lucky, in that sense. He’d done a good job regimenting and disciplining himself long before he joined the army, so the personality change wasn’t as great. But for a certain type of soldier, normal life, with its ennui and necessary compromises, was frustrating and infuriating. He’d seen that frustration in Caleb that morning at the diner.

Ethan opened the mailbox and flipped through the mail. It was all junk, except one letter from the VA. All were addressed to Caleb Johnstone, so evidently he lived alone. “He was quiet, kept to himself,” Ethan muttered ironically as he walked up the drive, making no effort at stealth.

He was about to climb the porch steps when he glanced again at the work shed. Something about it held his attention, the same way a particular “abandoned” vehicle had once done in Iraq. In that instance, the shivers had proved all too prescient; two insurgents burst from it, weapons blazing, and before they were both mowed down, one triggered the explosives inside it. Without Ethan’s instincts, his whole squad would’ve been wiped out. So he would be a fool to ignore them now.

He moved silently around the end of the house and peered into the backyard. A patio with rusted furniture and a grill that hadn’t been used recently were just outside the sliding glass doors, and an empty clothesline sagged across the yard. A limp wire fence marked the property’s edge, with fields beyond it. Nothing spoke of recent use, except for the worn path from the back door to the shed.

He considered going back for the gun but decided it would only escalate things and might put Rachel in additional danger. Bullets flying around would make no distinction between kidnapper, hostage, or rescuer. He took a deep breath, then quickly strode to the shed and opened the door.

His eyes took a moment to adjust. The shed was a typical jumble of tools and engine parts, with an old lawn mower disassembled in the middle of the floor. But the shaft of sunlight streaming in past him revealed something far more disturbing.

Pinned to the far wall was a magazine centerfold, with Asian throwing knives stuck into it at strategic anatomical points. On the floor beneath was a large pile of other discarded pictures, all similarly mutilated. Ethan felt a rush of both fear and triumph; clearly Caleb had issues with women, issues that could turn sexual and violent.

“What the hell are you doing here?” a voice bellowed behind him, and Ethan whirled. Caleb stood in the shed doorway, holding a long hunting knife.

Ethan was not even conscious of his movements. The next moment of awareness found him astride Caleb, with the older man facedown on the grass, his right arm bent behind his back. The knife lay several feet away. Over the blood pounding in his ears, Ethan said, “Where’s Rachel?”

“The fuck are you talking about?” Caleb said through clenched teeth. “Get off me!”

Ethan bent the arm a fraction more. His shadow fell across Caleb’s back, and sweat dripped from his face onto Caleb’s shirt. “I’m
so
not in the mood. Answer me, or get ready for orthopedic surgery.”

“I haven’t seen her!” Caleb yelled. “Not since two nights ago!”

That, Ethan realized, was the same night he’d seen Caleb at the pizza place and Rachel emerging from Father Thyme’s. “Tell me about two nights ago,” he said.

“Fuck
you!”

Ethan was ready to snap the man’s arm when he noticed the unmistakable slanted door at one end of the house’s foundation. The path to it was as clear as the one to the shed. “What’s in the basement, dickhead?”

“Nothing!” Caleb cried, but with no sincerity. In a voice so calm it was almost comical, he added, “Look, just let me go and we’ll forget this whole thing, okay? I won’t call the cops and I won’t press charges.”

Ethan stood and pulled Caleb to his feet. He held the older man’s arm locked behind his back. “Why don’t you show me the ‘nothing’ you’ve got down there?”

“It’s just old parts and furniture and shit, really.”

“I’m an antiquarian,” Ethan snarled. “Move.”

Caleb suddenly went limp. Reflexively Ethan’s hand opened as he reached to catch him. Caleb spun and slammed the heel of his right hand into Ethan’s chin. Ethan felt the impact to his toes. He thought he’d also been hit in the back of the head, until he realized it was simply his skull smashing into the ground as he fell.

Caleb straddled his chest, the big knife at his throat. He was bright red with fury, and his eyes gleamed. “All right, pretty boy, let’s see how tough you are, now that you’re not showing off for your precious Rachel.” He slid the blade against Ethan’s skin, nicking it just under his jaw. “Think she’ll still like you if I slice up that pretty face?”

The pain cleared the haze from Ethan’s brain. Now
he
was mad, as he’d been only a couple of times in his life.

He knocked the knife away, slicing his hand in the process. He grabbed Caleb by the crotch and crushed what he found there. Caleb shrieked, high and trilling. Ethan grabbed his throat with his left hand, lifted him, and drove him back into the house’s brick wall. Caleb fell to the ground and keened his agony.

Breathing heavily, wincing as sweat stung the cut on his jaw, Ethan yanked Caleb back to his feet. “If you’ve hurt her, cocksucker,” he snarled, “you’ll choke on your own balls.” He resisted the urge to drive his fist into the man’s now-pale face.

Blood from his injured hand soaked into Caleb’s shirt as he pushed the man toward the basement door. The latch wasn’t locked, and Caleb opened it with trembling fingers. Ethan kicked one door aside, then the other, and shoved Caleb down the stairs ahead of him. When he reached the bottom, he froze.

Three rows of marijuana plants filled the open space beneath hanging growing lights. They were thick, healthy, and damp from the misting humidifiers scattered around them. He saw no doors that might lead to other rooms.

“This is it?” Ethan asked.

“What did you expect?” Caleb croaked, still unable to stand upright.

Then a new voice said, “Don’t either one of you dumb shits make a move.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

I
T
HAD
TO
be anticlimactic, Rachel thought, but this was ridiculous. The kidnapper who’d riveted the city with his reign of terror was a short, gaunt man with a fringe of hair that grew to his shoulders and failed to compensate for the bare skull above it. His bald forehead shone with the sweat of his exertions. His too-large T-shirt nearly hung off one shoulder,
Flashdance-style
, revealing ropy muscles beneath sickly skin. He appeared to be in his forties, with graying stubble on his chin. His eyes were hidden in shadows. Elaborate tattoos curled up his arms and peeked from his collar.

Then Rachel blinked in surprise. She
knew
this man. She’d seem him twice recently without recognizing him, but now that she saw the ink on his arms and neck, she pegged him immediately. But he wasn’t her ex-husband, or Curtis, or Caleb Johnstone.

Arlin Korbus
—the man who’d slipped out of the diner after Ethan faced down Caleb and who had approached her at Father Thyme’s, where Patty Patilia was playing. And the man who, three years before, had given her the tattoo below her navel.

Without a word, Korbus turned and climbed the stairs. The door slammed shut, and the dead bolt on the other side clicked into place. The three women lay still on the basement floor, listening. Above them they heard footsteps, muffled TV voices, the sounds of a refrigerator compressor bumping on and off. Water sluiced through the pipes that ran along the ceiling.

The room was like a sauna, filled with the nauseating scent of bodily odors and functions. By squirming and pushing with her bound feet, Rachel managed to sit up against the wall. Then she instantly regretted it, as the damp concrete seemed to crawl with mold and other, more-mobile things that scurried against her skin. She leaned forward, her own breath loud in her ears. Her shoulders and lower back ached.

Arlin Korbus
. A man she hadn’t seen in years and wouldn’t remember now except that she’d spent a long, semidrunken evening staring at him as he drew the effigy tattoo beneath her navel. His studio was called Korbus Inks, and he’d been recommended by several diner patrons back when she’d first taken over for Trudy. At the time she’d felt no discomfort or ickiness with his hands so near her most intimate area, which had been her biggest worry. And she hadn’t knowingly seen him since.

No, that wasn’t true, she suddenly remembered: She
had
seen him, or glimpsed him, on the news one night as he came out of the courthouse. He’d held his hands to cover his face, but they’d also shown his mug shot and his name. What had he been charged with again? She couldn’t recall.

She had no idea how the legal case finally ended, but his shop, which she passed occasionally on her way to the downtown farmers’ market, closed soon after. Later it reopened as an Asian grocery. That had been around six months ago.

He’d been a trim, friendly man when he’d worked on her and Helena, laughing and teasing them. Now, though, he seemed wasted and cold, with eyes like those of the sharks she’d watched on The Discovery Channel. Something about him seemed
rancid
, as if his personality had gone rotten like a head of lettuce left too long in the crisper. Before, she’d actually gotten a secret tingly thrill from the way his rubber-gloved fingers lightly stroked her skin; now the thought of him touching her at all filled her with disgust.

Sweat covered her now, and she winced as it trickled into her eye. There was no way she could stand up with her ankles bound across each other, and he’d been too careful to leave anything available that might let her cut the tape.

She studied the basement. Pipes ran along the ceiling, but apparently even the water heater was upstairs. The walls and floor were empty of anything except mildew and the occasional small insect. Water seeped in along one edge of the floor and made a puddle about an inch deep. The back of the room was pitch-black, out of reach of the feeble light above her. They were trapped in a barren concrete box.

But why was
she
here? What connection did she have with young girls like Faith Lucas and Carrie Kimmell?

In the darkness, something announced its presence with a soft scrape against the floor. A shape formed from the shadows, pale and indefinite, and for a moment Rachel’s heart threatened to squirm up her throat and burst through the tape gagging her. Then the image resolved itself into another prisoner huddled in the shadows, knees drawn to her chin. Big eyes peeked out from beneath dark bangs. Rachel stared and felt something inside her twist with renewed despair.

It was Patty Patilia. Not only had Rachel not saved her, now they were to share the same fate.

Rachel slid sideways to the floor and allowed herself to cry again. The sound was muffled and impotent. The tape across her mouth itched, and the taste permeated everything. She had never felt so helpless, and never hated it as much.

She cried only enough to relieve the emotional pressure. It was a skill learned in the wake of her stalker, and it served her well now. She took several deep, calming breaths through her nose. Then she tried scraping the tape from her cheek by catching an edge on the concrete floor, but that merely left another raw spot that stung when sweat trickled into it. She finally gave up and worm-scooted on her side back to the wall. She was exhausted by the time she managed to sit up again and found it hard to catch her breath through the tape. Fresh perspiration trickled down her face and along her spine.

She made eye contact with Carrie Kimmell. Rachel could do nothing against their plastic ties, but if one of the others could make a tiny rip in the tape holding her, she could possibly escape and bring help. Through grunts and nods, she indicated what she wanted.

Carrie shook her head and scooted away, huddling beside Faith against the wall. Both girls had the dazed, glassy look of captives with no fight left in them.

Rachel turned to Patty in the dark corner. Patty’s eyes were clear, but she made no effort to move. Tears cut fresh tracks through the dirt on her face.

With a muffled cry of exasperation, Rachel squirmed along the wall toward Patty. It was difficult, and within moments she fell painfully to the floor. A sharp-edged sliver of glass poked into her shoulder.

Suddenly the door opened and Korbus stood silhouetted at the top of the stairs. He carried what looked like a whip looped in one hand.

Faith and Carrie huddled more closely together, as if they could escape his notice. Patty Patilia began to cry in earnest, the way a terrified child might.

Korbus came down the stairs and perused his captives like a pet owner admiring his animals. He’d changed shirts, and his hair was tied back in a ponytail. He stopped at the bottom, clearly a little winded.

His gaze settled on Rachel. She lay awkwardly on her side, her head twisted around to watch him.

He had the determined look not of a criminal but of someone with a large task ahead. “Looks like you’ve got a lot of initiative,” he said. “Trying to get someone to help you get that tape off, aren’t you? Seems like I got here just in time.”

She put all of her hatred into the glare she sent his way and was pretty sure her
Fuck you!
carried clearly.

He smiled. “Might as well get you caught up with the rest,” he said, and pulled a knife from his pocket. He flicked it open with a practiced twirl of his wrist, and the blade gleamed hotly in the light.

Korbus brought the knife down slowly and slipped it under the tape at Rachel’s ankles. She felt the flat of the blade against her foot. Then he cut the tape with an effortless
snick
. She winced as he yanked it free of her skin.

He put away the knife, grabbed her arm, and pulled her up. She got her feet under her and stood, freshly conscious of her nudity as her breasts swayed with the movement. She unsuccessfully fought the blush creeping up her shoulders and neck. Korbus glanced at her, and for a moment there was the male predatory appreciation she’d expect from a man who kept naked women in his basement.

But almost immediately it faded to the cool, clinical gaze of a technician at work. He unrolled the whiplike strip in his hand, revealing it to be a dog leash with a choke collar attached. Before she could react, he had the chain-link collar around her neck and the leash clipped to it. She glared at him, fury rising past fear.

He wrapped the leash’s other end around his fist; to choke her, he only had to tug. “Come on,” he said, and turned toward the stairs. She spread her feet and braced herself as the collar tightened against her neck.

He stepped close and spoke in a cold whisper. “Be sure you want to pick this fight, Rachel,” he said. “If you give me too much trouble, I’ll bend you over a table and show you what women are good for. Only I won’t use my dick, I’ll use whatever’s handy. Understand me?” He snapped her panties’ elastic waistband for emphasis.

The use of her name frightened her the most. She choked down a whimper but looked away from those paradoxically dead yet ravenous eyes.

“Then you’ll cooperate?”

She gazed at the floor, at her own bare feet now smeared with sweat and dirt. She nodded.

“Good. Up the stairs, then. You go first.”

She glanced at Carrie and Faith. Their incomplete tattoos told her exactly what was in store. Then the leash tightened, and she preceded him up the stairs. Her bare feet felt tender against the wood.