Terrified (49 page)
He was free to come and go. He spent more and more time in Seattle, watching Lisa. But between him turning eighteen and her obvious pregnancy, Travis convinced himself that he had to move on. Besides, he was suddenly a millionaire. That was when he returned to Chicago and started his whirlwind courtship with Selena Cummings. He had truly thought he was in love with her. It was about three weeks after the wedding, when he bought the
Cassidy II
, that he realized Selena bored him.
Cassidy II
, that he realized Selena bored him.
She wasn’t Lisa.
During his second time out on the water with Selena on the boat, he decided how she would die and how he would disappear. He wanted to go back to Seattle. And like Lisa, he didn’t want anyone knowing where he was. He’d gotten away with murder, but there was still a chance he would get caught.
He figured the odds worked better in his favor if everyone thought he was dead.
As he’d packed for the final cruise of
Cassidy II
that morning in late June, Travis had thought of Willow. Driving to the Marina, he’d swung by a Jewel supermarket and he’d picked up some champagne and strawberry ice cream for his young bride.
Cassidy II
that morning in late June, Travis had thought of Willow. Driving to the Marina, he’d swung by a Jewel supermarket and he’d picked up some champagne and strawberry ice cream for his young bride.
That had been over fourteen years ago. And one thing hadn’t changed. Lyle was just as sentimental as young Travis.
Taking the bedspread from the dryer, he shook it out and covered the bed. Lyle left the door open so the basement bedroom could air out. Then he lugged the vacuum cleaner upstairs and put it away in the broom closet off the kitchen. He peeked out the window over the sink at the SUV. Everything looked quiet from here.
Lyle opened the refrigerator and pulled out the champagne. He heard Monica scampering around upstairs as she finished packing all her possessions for their move to the city.
The poor pathetic thing, she had no idea she’d never leave the farm.
And after tomorrow, neither would Lisa.
He held his breath and watched as the man came to the kitchen window. Dan had managed to wriggle his way between the two front seats, but now he remained perfectly still. He knew with every movement, the SUV shifted slightly.
The guy seemed to be looking directly at him. But with the interior light off in the car, he probably couldn’t see anything except a reflection on the SUV’s darkened windows. Just the same, Dan didn’t move an inch. Throughout it all, the smartphone on the front passenger seat beeped persistently, the tones in rapid succession now. The screen was lit up, but the phone lay facedown, so he couldn’t see what kind of message or graphic it displayed.
The man in the window was the same one who had ambushed him on the roadside: early thirties and pale, with dark, wavy hair and a five-o’clock shadow. The guy kept staring for a few more moments. Then he smiled and turned away from the window.
Dan figured if he could get ahold of that phone and dial 911, maybe the operator would put a trace on the cell’s location to bring the police out here. But he had to free up his hands first. He thought about using the cigarette lighter to burn the tape off his wrists, but as he gazed down at the console, he discovered the lighter was gone.
But he found something else—in the cupholder. Someone had left behind a key chain with a small pocketknife attached to it.
He squirmed to one side and pushed himself farther into the front seat. Turned around, he was staring up at the SUV’s ceiling, trying to work with his hands restrained behind him. The console became wet with his blood as he blindly struggled to reach inside the cupholder. He could feel the SUV shifting a bit from side to side. He prayed the guy stayed away from the window for the next few minutes. At last, his fingertips brushed against the key chain. He snatched it up and managed to open the pocketknife. The blade wasn’t exactly razor sharp, but the end of the knife had a point that might tear at the duct tape.
Dan slid down lower and managed to turn himself around so his body wasn’t so contorted. He started jabbing the knife at the tape around his wrist.
“Monica? Sweetheart, are you ready yet?” Coming from within the house, the man’s voice was slightly muffled. Dan couldn’t make out exactly what he said after that—something about ice cream melting.
He kept poking the small knife at the tape. A few times he nicked himself slightly. It was just a little bit of bleeding compared to what he’d endured earlier tonight. He felt a section of the tape fraying. He could move his wrists a little more freely now.
Past the smartphone’s Geiger-counter-like beeps, Dan heard someone inside the house calling back to the man. It was a woman, but he couldn’t discern what she was saying. He kept glancing over at the kitchen window. He knew the guy was checking the SUV every few minutes, and he knew just the slightest movement might give him away.
Dan watched two shadows sweeping along the kitchen’s plaid wall. He heard murmured conversation, and the woman giggling. He continued to work the knife point against the tape. The first thing he would do when he got his hands free was tear the damn duct tape off his mouth. He still couldn’t get a decent breath, and his head wouldn’t stop throbbing.
Suddenly a loud shot rang out, and then a scream.
Startled, Dan gaped at the kitchen window. He heard the woman laughing hysterically. She came to the window. He only caught a glimpse of the pale brunette before she turned away and waved a dish towel in the air. She was still giggling. A moment later, she appeared in the window again, the dish towel in one hand and a champagne glass in the other.
Dan figured someone had just opened a bottle of champagne. And there was probably a sink in front of the window, because she tossed the dish towel somewhere in that general vicinity. Then she turned around again.
The beep tones on the phone came one after another with hardly a beat between them. Dan still didn’t know what it monitored. And maybe he’d never find out, because something was happening to the phone. The volume didn’t seem quite as loud as before. Was the battery dying? The mode it was in probably took up a lot of juice. He prayed the phone didn’t give out before he could call the police on it.
“God, no, wait!”
the woman shrieked.
the woman shrieked.
Something got knocked over and shattered.
Dan looked up at the kitchen window and saw the shadows darting around on the wall. Suddenly, the woman came to the window, looking terrified. It seemed like she was reaching for something. Stone-faced, the wavy-haired man stepped up behind her. He grabbed the cord for the window blinds and quickly wrapped it around her throat. The blinds dropped down a quarter of the way, hanging askew. The woman frantically clawed at the cord around her neck.
Helpless, Dan struggled, too. He yanked and tugged at the tape around his wrists. He wanted to cry out for her, but he couldn’t past the adhesive across his mouth. In horror, he watched the brunette’s pale face turn crimson.
Pulling at the taut cord, the man behind her seemed so calm.
The woman shook violently—until her tongue slid out past her lips and her arms fell to her sides. Suddenly she didn’t move at all. Her dead eyes remained open.
Dan watched the man. He seemed to heave a sigh, and then he carefully unraveled the cord. It was embedded so deeply in her flesh that it left a red, bloody ring around her neck. Stepping back, the man let her limp body drop to the kitchen floor.
Even in the SUV, Dan could hear the thud.
He didn’t move a muscle. The man was still standing at the window, looking out. He tugged at the cord to adjust the blinds until they were evened out and open all the way. Then he picked up the dish towel and wiped something off the glass.
He turned away from the kitchen window. And all Dan could see was the singular shadow moving around in the kitchen.
It was solid black all around him. Josh couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face. Yet he knew exactly where he was. At first, he’d been a little foggy after waking up from that chloroform drug or whatever it was. But then he recognized the awful stench in the back of that U-Haul parked in the barn. He felt the corrugated tin walls. And amid all the blackness, he spotted above him the pinpoint green light he’d seen earlier. It was part of the infrared camera. Though he couldn’t see a damn thing, someone was probably right now watching him on one of those TV monitors down in the basement.
Despite the ugly sweater, Josh shivered from the cold. His feet were sore, and he still couldn’t get used to the shit smell in here. He kept thinking the last person in this windowless, tin room had probably ended up in that claw-foot tub today. He remembered those muffled, anguished cries and later, the pinkish drop of water on the tub’s edge.
Josh gazed up at that tiny green light. He didn’t want them to see how scared and disoriented he was. So he got angry. He started pounding on the U-Haul’s door. “Let me out of here!” he bellowed. “Can somebody hear me? Somebody, help… .”
He’d seen the layout of the place. He knew no one else was around except the man who had locked him in here. But Josh still banged on the door and screamed. He didn’t stop until his throat dried up and his hands throbbed. Depleted, he finally sagged against the door. He was too tired to even cry. All he could do was whimper.
After that deafening racket he’d made, everything suddenly seemed so still and quiet.
Then in the distance, amid the silence, he heard a car’s motor purring.
Megan saw the rickety old rooster weather vane on the pole at the end of the driveway. Switching off the car lights, she turned onto the narrow road. Gravel crunching under the tires seemed to announce her arrival. But she was still so far away. She could barely see the lights from the two-story, decaying farmhouse in the distance. Megan figured she’d pull over up ahead and hide the car amid some of the bushes and shrubs along the driveway. She wanted to park the car as close as possible for a quick getaway.
Her stomach in knots, Megan struggled with the notion of calling the police. She had the address and the name, Lyle Cassidy, to give them. But what was to keep them from descending on this place with their sirens wailing and strobes flashing? If Josh was here—and it looked like he might be—how could the police save him? She imagined them surrounding the house, and a cornered Lyle deciding to cut his losses—along with her son’s throat.
As the car inched forward, Megan reached into her purse. She fished out the revolver and the cell phone.
She stared at the house and the sinister-looking barn at the end of the driveway. She couldn’t help wondering where Lyle cut up those bodies. Had he taken Dan here for just that purpose? And if he had, was Dan still alive?
If she could just get the layout of the place and figure out where Josh and Dan were, then she’d call the police and explain everything to them.
“Call them now,” she whispered to herself. It would take them at least ten minutes to get here. A hell of a lot could happen in ten minutes.
Stepping on the brake, she picked up J. Knoll’s phone.
Megan hesitated, and looked toward the end of the driveway again. Behind a tall elm tree between the house and the barn, she saw a light go on. It was the interior light of a car—a silver SUV.
The tiny knife broke while Dan was cutting at the tape around his ankles. But at least his hands were free, and he could breathe through his mouth again. He’d made a substantial slice into the layers of tape, and it gave him a starting point to rip the tape apart.
Crouched in the back of the SUV, he wanted to get the hell out of there now that he was mobile again. He hadn’t seen any activity in the kitchen, not since catching a glimpse of the man about ten minutes ago. From the way the guy had bent down at one point, it had looked as if he’d been dragging the woman’s corpse to another location within the house.
He hadn’t returned to the kitchen yet.
The volume to the smartphone’s incessant, rapid beeping faded in and out. Dan looked at the display screen. It showed a map with a blinking white dot. The location of the dot was an artery road off Rural Route 3, near milepost six in Maple Valley. Dan figured it wasn’t too far from where the guy had shot out his tire and later attacked him.
He switched the phone over to call mode, then pressed 911. Through the static, a female voice answered: “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”
“I need to report a murder,” Dan whispered anxiously. He kept looking toward the kitchen window and the front of the house. “A woman’s been strangled. I’m at—I’m outside a farmhouse near milepost six, Rural Route three… .”
“Could you repeat that, please? You’re breaking up.”
“I’m outside a farmhouse in Maple Valley, milepost six, Rural Route three,” he said, still whispering when he wanted to shout it. “A woman has been murdered here, and I think someone else is being held hostage on the premises. I don’t know the exact address, but the house is sort of a gingerbread style, and there’s a barn and a silver SUV parked in front… .”
“Can I have—?” Then she broke up.
“Can you hear me?” Josh whispered. “Did you get any of that?”
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