Terrified (26 page)

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Authors: Kevin O'Brien

Tags: #Mystery, #Thriller

BOOK: Terrified
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“Dan Lahart?” she echoed. Why did he want her to telephone her Matefinder date from over two weeks ago?
“Tell him you’d like to see him tonight. Invite him over. He’ll say yes.”
“What does he have to do with any of this?” she asked.
“Do as I say. I’ll give you another call before he comes over. And Lisa, see if you can’t try to look halfway decent for him tonight. Right now, sitting there at your desk, you look like shit.”
He hung up.
Megan automatically glanced toward the big plate-glass window at the front of the store. She didn’t see anyone out on the sidewalk. She didn’t see the SUV, and all the parked cars appeared empty.
But she knew he was out there.
C
HAPTER
S
EVENTEEN
S
itting there in the dark, he couldn’t stop shaking. Josh wished to God he could see
something
, just one little bit of light. For the last several hours—maybe even a whole day, he wasn’t sure—he’d been groping around in the pitch blackness, trying to find a way out of the smelly, claustrophobic room. The place had a damp, earthy stench that made him feel as if he’d been locked in some kind of underground vault.
But it was a bathroom. He knew that much, because of the toilet. The lid to the toilet tank and the seat were both missing. There was just a toilet—no sink, tub, or medicine chest, not even tiles on the walls. The surface of the walls was slightly rough, and as he moved his hand down toward the floor, he felt dampness seeping through—maybe even mold. Josh guessed the cold, hard floor was concrete. There was a metal door with a handle he’d twisted and tugged at again and again—to no avail.
He was shirtless and barefoot. Before all this had happened, he’d been wearing his Sunset Bowl jacket, a long-sleeved Mariners T-shirt, black Converse All Stars, and his jeans. All that remained on him were his jeans. Before, he’d been packing a wallet, his cell phone, some change, and his keys with the small pocketknife on the chain—a cheesy but cherished going-away gift from old Mr. Preebe, one of their neighbors from when they’d lived in the basement apartment. Mr. Preebe had since died and his was the only funeral Josh had ever attended—so far. Josh’s pockets were empty now. Feeling his way in the darkness, he didn’t come across any of those things or any of his clothes.
His teeth were chattering from the chill, and he could feel gooseflesh every time he rubbed his bare arms. The son of a bitch who had locked him in this makeshift tomb could have at least thrown in a lousy blanket.
Josh was thirsty enough to have contemplated drinking from the toilet. But for all he knew, the inside of the bowl could be full of shit stains, rust, and just about anything. He couldn’t risk blindly drinking from there, no matter how dry his throat was.
He was hungry, too. His stomach growled. He still wasn’t sure how long he’d been inside this little shithole—or how long he’d been unconscious before that.
He remembered somebody knocking him over the head in the front hallway after his Mom had driven him home from that pool party disaster. As much as the bathroom stank, he could still smell traces of pool chlorine on his skin. He thought of Laney Brinkmeyer topless, looking incredibly sexy as she frolicked around the pool area. That part of the night, which had filled him with a rush of giddy, hot, sweaty excitement, seemed to have happened so long ago. It seemed disconnected and days away from when everything went to hell.
The last thing he’d heard had been his mother’s screams.
He couldn’t help wondering if she’d been killed by the man who had abducted him. And he couldn’t help slipping into a horrible, inconsolable crying jag every few minutes. His mom had tried to push him out of the house. Her first thought had been about protecting him.
Was this some kind of kidnapping? It wasn’t like his mother had a ton of money to pay the ransom. Hell, had the kidnapper seen the car she drove? His abductor had been inside their apartment. He certainly had to know they weren’t rich. Maybe the guy was some psycho pervert. Was that why he’d taken his shirt? Was this just a cooling-off period before some kind of weird sex-torture session began?
Every so often, Josh screamed out for help—or for his mother. He thought she might be in another little cell down a dark hallway from where he was. But no one ever answered. Still, he could hear what sounded like a man and woman talking, sometimes even arguing. But they were too far away to make out what they were saying. Or maybe it was one person with two personalities. Josh shuddered at the thought of someone up there having a conversation with himself. He wondered if it was some recording—or a TV playing. He’d heard music blaring, too, symphonies with lots of booming bass. Like the conversations, it seemed to come from above.
The music and the muted talking sure beat the long stretches of silence, when he thought he was all alone, when he thought he might be stuck in this dark cell forever—starving and wasting away until he was dead.
He’d been enduring that awful silence for the last hour or so. “Is somebody there?” he screamed, his voice hoarse from yelling. He just needed someone to make noise, so he’d know he wasn’t all alone. He kept thinking that if something happened to his abductor, he was screwed. The guy might die without ever telling anyone that he had a prisoner down here.
Josh sank down on the cold floor, and curled up in a ball, trying to stay warm.
Then he heard footsteps in the distance. He sprang to his feet. A lock clicked, and more footsteps—closer this time. Suddenly a light went on, blinding him. Josh braced himself against the wall.
As much as it hurt his eyes, he kept looking around. It took a few moments for him to focus. He’d been right about where he was—a tiny bathroom with just a toilet. There were rust stains in the bowl, all right. And he noticed brown discoloration down around the base of the dirty, beige walls. The bare, glaringly bright light came from the ceiling, which was draped with cobwebs. Also overhead was a small screened vent, too small for him to squeeze through. And it was so high up he couldn’t have reached it anyway—not even if he’d stood on the toilet.
All of the sudden, he heard a
clank
, and then a
whoosh
. He glanced toward the gray metal door. A section near the bottom of it was a drawer that opened up. Josh hesitated before he moved over to the drawer. Inside was a rolled-up blanket—a faded, plum-colored quilt. Warily, he reached into the drawer and pulled it out. Unrolling the blanket, he found two bottled waters, some moist towelette packets, and a huge Nestlé Crunch Bar—the kind they sell in movie theaters for seven bucks.
Nestlé Crunch was his favorite candy. How did they know that?
Josh didn’t let the question stop him. He unscrewed the cap to the bottled water and guzzled down half of it. Then he tore off the wrapping to the candy bar and wolfed down several bites. He paused for a moment to catch his breath—and consider that someone was probably still standing on the other side of that metal door.
“Thank you!” he called weakly. Maybe if he was polite, the guy would eventually feel sorry for him and give him a break. But there was no response.
“Is my mother okay?” Josh called.
Again, no response.
Suddenly the drawer inside the door shut. The hollow slamming sound made Josh jump. If he’d still had his fingers on the lip of that drawer they would have been cut off.
“Is my mother all right?” he asked again. He dropped the candy bar and the bottle of water onto the floor. He started pounding on the door. “Hey, I’m talking to you! What did you do to my mother? Is she okay?”
Josh heard the footsteps retreating, which only made him bang on the door even more fiercely. “Come back here and talk to me!” he screamed. He couldn’t hold back his tears, and he started crying. “Who are you? Why are you doing this?”
In the distance, he heard a door slam. Josh knew he could scream and scream, and no one would hear him.
He knew he was all alone again.
 
 
“When I sent that last email, I figured I didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of hearing from you again. Anyway, I’m really glad you’re free tonight… .”
With the cordless phone to her ear, Megan listened to him. She frowned at her reflection in the front hallway mirror. She looked tired and sickly. She’d peeled off the Band-Aid along her jaw, revealing an ugly purplish slash. But she really didn’t give a damn how she looked for this arranged date.
Why was it so important she spend the evening with Dan Lahart?
She’d left a voice mail for him before heading home from work. That had been about a half hour ago. He hadn’t wasted any time getting back to her. And as Josh’s abductor had predicted earlier, Dan said yes to her last-minute dinner invitation.
“I have some restaurants in mind,” he continued. “Are you in the mood for anything in particular tonight?”
Megan sighed. “I thought I told you in my message, I’d like us to have dinner here. I really don’t want to go out.”
“Well, that’s great. I’ll bring some wine. Am I going to meet your son?”
“What do you mean?”
“You talked about him on our first date. His name is Josh, right? Will he be home tonight?”
Megan didn’t say anything for a moment. “You tell me.”
“Beg your pardon?”
She cleared her throat. “He’s spending the night somewhere else. I thought you might have known that already.”
“No, I didn’t,” he replied. “Megan, are you sure you really feel like getting together? You sound—well, you sound kind of tired.”
“I don’t think you know me well enough to determine from the sound of my voice whether or not I’m tired.”
He let out an uncomfortable laugh. “Well, okay, that—that’s probably true. Fair enough. What time would you like me to come by?”
“You tell me,” she said again.
“Is seven okay?”
“That’s fine,” she said. “I’ll see you then.” She clicked off, then wandered into the kitchen and set the cordless on the counter. What a creep—acting so coy and asking whether or not Josh would be home. He knew damn well where Josh was. Dan—if that was even his name—was in on this whole thing. And to think she’d been so attracted to him on their first date. What the hell was wrong with her and men?
The phone rang, and she snatched it up. She assumed it was Dan again, probably with some last-minute instructions he was supposed to pass on to her. “Yes?” she said impatiently.
On the other end of the line was a faint squeaking noise, and then a click. She glanced at the caller ID. It was her cell phone number. She realized the sounds she heard were the mechanisms of that old tape recorder. She heard a muffled cry on the scratchy tape—then Josh’s voice. He sounded so far away.
“Who are you?”
he screamed.
“Why are you doing this?”
It tore her apart to hear him sounding so scared. She could tell he was trying to keep from crying. As much as she’d physically ached last night and all day today, it was nothing compared with the anguish she felt right now. Every muscle, every organ, and even her bones hurt. Megan broke down and wept.
Then she heard that gravelly voice again: “Shall I tell him who I am, Lisa? Don’t you think it’s time he met his father?”
With the back of her bandaged hand, she wiped the tears from her eyes. “If you hurt him, I swear to God… .”
“Go to the living room window,” he said.
With the cordless to her ear, she made her way to the window. She wiped her eyes again and anxiously glanced out at the street. She didn’t see anything unusual. It was getting dark out. The streetlights had gone on—along with some lights in the windows of the two condos across the way and in the taller apartment building behind that. There was light traffic on the street, and an old woman was walking her corgi. She passed in front of the duplex. Megan studied the cars parked along the street, searching for the silver SUV among them.
“Turn on the light by your computer desk,” the man said.
She obeyed him, switching on the lamp closest to the window.
“Well, I see you still aren’t ready for your date tonight,” he said.
Megan shuddered. She realized he was out there, staring at her. She gazed at all the windows in the buildings across the way. And she knew he was standing in one of them with a pair of binoculars, studying her.
She couldn’t get her hopes up that Josh was there with him. He wouldn’t be this close. His screaming on the tape meant he was a prisoner someplace where people weren’t around to hear him. No apartment complexes or condominiums. He was most likely in a private residence, somewhere remote where neighbors wouldn’t get suspicious.
Megan remembered the article about Seattle’s Garbage Bag Murders. It had said the killer probably lived in a bucolic area, isolated, miles away from the urban homes of his victims.
She didn’t want to connect those grisly murders to what was happening with Josh. But it was unavoidable. Their attacker had laid out a garbage bag on the kitchen floor last night. It had been his way of telling her who he was. He was somehow connected to Glenn. He’d murdered all those women who had resembled her.
And he was watching her right now.
“Have you seen enough?” she said into the phone. “I’m done playing games with you. I want to talk to my son. That was just a recording. For all I know, you could have taped that last night, and he could be dead right now… .” Her voice started to shake. “I want to hear Josh tell me that he’s all right. I want to talk to him.”
She waited a few moments for his response, and it finally came in a rasping whisper. “Take off your sweater.”
Megan glared out the window. “You go to hell.”
“If I can’t get you to take off your clothes, I’ll just make your son take off his,” he replied. “Josh is already without his shirt and shoes. He’ll be down to nothing. He’ll be naked. He’s awfully cold where he is. I took pity on him earlier today, and gave him a blanket. But since you’re not cooperating with me, I think I’ll just confiscate that blanket. Let the little son of a bitch catch pneumonia and die… .”

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