What Comes Next (49 page)

Linda squeezed his hand. “Don’t be long,” she said.

“I won’t be. You need anything from town?”

The conversation was typical of any young couple in love parting while one ran some boring weekend errands.

She shook her head. “No. I’m good.” She glanced around. From where they stood, she could see trees lining a distant field, waves of green grass, and weeds cluttering a rolling countryside stretching back beyond the ramshackle faded red barn where they’d parked their Mercedes. Broken wooden fences and rusted barbed wire stood marking enclosures that had once held cows or sheep. The long dirt and gravel drive up to the farmhouse wound through haphazard bits of leftover forest, which hid the main road from their sight and created a partial tunnel. The nearest adjacent home was close to a mile distant and barely visible through underbrush and tree branches. Like so many places in New England that fall into disrepair, the setting looked both old-time idyllic and worn and tired. That was the beauty of it, Linda realized; concealed within all the age and splintering, they had created an ultra-modern world. The surroundings were a perfect camouflage for what they were doing. “Look, I don’t want Number Four to hear the truck starting up. The thing makes a racket. You know,
rattle, rattle, ka-pow, clickety-click, vroom.
So count to ninety before you turn the ignition key. That will give me enough time to play something that distracts her.”

Michael thought that Linda often anticipated small but significant problems. “All right,” he said. “I can’t believe you would criticize my truck, it’s been totally reliable.” He joked and they smiled like any pair of lovers amusing each other with back-and-forth banter. “Okay. Ninety seconds, starting…” They both began to count, only Michael started at ninety and was going backward while Linda began with one and started up. They giggled like a pair of first-graders.

“Again,” he said. “But from ninety…
down.
”

She was shaking her head, tossing her hair back in the breeze. Then she started to count out loud as she made a rapid about-face and headed into the farmhouse. Michael scurried across the damp, muddy ground to the old truck, counting silently with each step.

They were having fun again. They could both see the end of
Series #4
and this made them both relieved and excited.

As he settled behind the wheel, he imagined Linda at the computer.
Music?
he wondered.
Maybe the playground again?

Whatever she chose, it would erase any noise he made with the truck pulling out.

Actually, Linda combined the two. Still counting out loud, she had settled down at the main computer bank and punched up some keys. First she played the sound of someone banging loudly on a door, which made Number 4 twist about suddenly on the bed. This was instantly blended with the raucous opening chords of Led Zeppelin’s “Communication Breakdown.” She saw Number 4 cover her ears with her hands, which was difficult but just possible with the handcuffs and chains that now made up the limits of her freedom.

Michael hurried through the warehouse home and hardware store, pushing a large orange shopping cart and purchasing many of the same materials he’d used to burn the stolen van.

He tossed items into the bed of the truck like a number of other do-it-yourself types and contractor’s assistants who were exiting the store along with him. He was aware that the chain had security cameras by the doors, in the aisles, and out in the parking lot. He kept his hat scrunched down on his head and his chin tucked in. He had turned his shirt collar up. He didn’t want any of the items traced back to the store, and he didn’t want any cop going over the tape and maybe identifying the truck.

Everything had to be erased. It was a constant fight for him to identify even the smallest of items that might serve for a link. Hair stuck in a comb? That might provide DNA. Fingerprints on the slick surface of a tabletop? He worried about some cop connecting prints to his old teenage arrest report. A sales receipt from a high-end New York City camera store? He always paid cash, no matter the cost. The hard drives from their computers? They needed special disposal attention.
Hard work,
he thought,
making sure that absolutely nothing is left behind when you disappear.

Michael stopped at a self-serve gas station and fueled up both his truck and half a dozen red plastic canisters with gasoline. He topped off all the tanks.

Graves to dig, trails to burn, he thought. Tickets to purchase. He knew he had to work out times and distances, dovetail them with airline flights and auto miles.

Disassembling
Series #4
was as difficult as planning it. The timing was tricky. Everything he had built had to be taken apart and erased. Lots of work, he thought, and coordinated efforts. Never quite enough hours in the day to do it all.

He drove, sticking religiously to the speed limit.

The farmhouse was several miles out of the small town, down a side road and just visible from the highway. As he pulled in, Michael could not imagine what it looked like when it had been a functioning farm. Now it was awaiting the arrival of a wealthy type who would want to rebuild it with high-end European kitchen appliances and imported hardwood floors, wrought-iron chandeliers from Vermont Castings and probably with a home theater in the basement that had once been Number 4’s cell. The house was perfect for some rich city couple looking for an isolated weekend retreat. They would want to replace one sort of theater with another. They would get out of the demands of their busy lives and want a place surrounded by nature—not wild nature but tamed ex-farmland nature—where they could have guests and watch Blu-ray movie discs and have no idea what real drama had been created in the very same spot. Everything about the rebuilt farmhouse would be fake and contrived. And in Michael’s imagination this trite and trendy couple would not have the slightest clue as to what truth had actually been witnessed in the same location.

Michael wondered if after they left the place would be haunted. He burst out in a small laugh: ghosts would probably disappoint his imaginary couple.

He stopped the truck near the front, carefully turning it so that it was pointed down the drive. He left the keys in the ignition. He liked the truck and would be sad to abandon it. He did not think about what he had to do to Number 4. Like the truck, she was now a commodity that was nearing the end of her usefulness. For an instant, he found his mind wandering. He was having difficulty remembering Number 4’s real name.

Janis, Janet, Janna—no, Jennifer.

He smiled. Jennifer.
Goodbye, Jennifer,
he thought.

Linda rocked in her fancy desk chair.

She was unsure playing the two injections of sound was a wise idea. The subscribers preferred the noise of Number 4’s labored breathing, which she suspected they considered a type of music. On the other hand, everyone seemed to get energized when they used one of the other disorientating sound effects. These triggered their fantasies, just as they did Number 4’s. Linda made a mental note that in the future they should increase the variety of added noises. Playgrounds and babies crying were good, police sirens were excellent, but they had to expand their repertoire. Number 5 needed to be surrounded by constantly shifting fake worlds.

Linda believed that they learned something new with each series as she picked up Michael’s outline for the last hours of
Series #4.

They were getting better and better at what they did but she simply wasn’t satisfied with the way he’d outlined the denouement. It didn’t have the right
passion.

Bad memories,
Linda thought.
Number 4 deserves a better send-off.

Number 1 had died accidentally. The rope they’d used to confine her snagged and throttled her when she tumbled from a bed in the midst of a nightmare. Michael and she had not been paying enough attention and it brought their first series to a premature ending. Her death had really upped the devotion they paid to monitoring
all
activities.

Despite their plans, Number 2 had died offscreen. Their initial scenario had been to combine rape and murder in traditional snuff terms—but it had devolved into a fierce cat fight, and Linda had been forced to cut the outgoing feed and help Michael with the knife. It had been sloppy and grotesque and unworthy of their professionalism. A huge mess to clean up, Linda remembered. It had left a decidedly sour taste in their mouths and had been a very poor business decision. They had been more careful with Number 3. They had spent hours working on the smallest details of her death, only to be cheated when she got precipitously sick. Linda had suspected that the illness was somehow related to the beatings they’d administered. They had overemphasized the physical aspects of submission. These mistakes were why they had been far more cautious with Number 4. Hurt but not
hurt.
Torture but not
torture.
Abuse but not
abuse.

Never before had the end actually played out on camera as designed, while everyone watched, glued to computers and television screens. She knew the clientele wanted this—no,
demanded
this. They wanted action. They didn’t want accident, or severed feeds, or excuses and they sure as hell didn’t want Number 4 to simply stop moving, choke up some blood, and die as her predecessor had.

But they also didn’t want Michael to simply execute her on camera. Linda even found this distasteful. It would make them little more than terrorists. They had to be far more sophisticated.

Linda glanced around the room and spotted the table filled with their collection of weapons. The beginnings of an idea formed in her imagination. She rose up, went to the table, and grabbed a .357 Magnum revolver. With an expert flick of the wrist, she opened the chamber and checked to see if it was loaded. Smiling, she replaced the pistol on the table and grabbed a stray pad of paper. She scrawled some notes, suddenly excited. A challenge, she thought. A unique challenge for the viewers. But even more so for Number 4.

Linda lifted her head. She heard the truck arriving outside. She bent to the task of writing, thinking,
Michael is going to love this.

It was like a present.

40

Adrian could feel Cassie moving about just behind his head. He leaned back in his seat and felt her fingers running through his hair. Then her arms wrapped around him, hugging him like a child. She was crooning to him, as once upon a time she had with Tommy, when he was young and feverish. It was probably a lullaby but he couldn’t make out the tune. Still, it calmed him, so when he heard her whisper “It’s time, Audie. It’s time,” he was ready.

Mark Wolfe was no longer important. The sex offender’s house, his mother, his computer—all the unsettling spots they had visited electronically—seemed to be sliding into a distant recess. Detective Collins was no longer important. She was confined by procedures and too worried about the wrong things to help. Mary Riggins and Scott West were no longer important. They were handcuffed by arrogance, uncertainty, and runaway emotions. The only person remaining actively hunting for Jennifer was Adrian, and he knew he was teetering on the precipice of madness.

Perhaps madness would be an advantage,
he thought. His dead wife and his dead child and his dead brother jumbled together with the image of the hooded girl reaching out through the computer screen directly to him. It was like listening to two instruments playing the same piece of music but in different keys and different octaves.

He pushed himself reluctantly out of his wife’s embrace. He could feel her hands slipping from his skin, leaving it on fire with recollection of happier days.

“You have enough to go on, now,” she said, prodding him.

“I think so.”

On a piece of scrap paper he had written the GPS coordinates for the website Whatcomesnext. He went over to his computer and hesitated.

“You know what you have to do,” she said cautiously, urging him to action. “Maybe not like Wolfe or the detective but you know enough. They would take what you’ve learned, Audie, and they wouldn’t stop until it was all over.”

He was thinking,
One would do something evil, the other would do something good. One was a criminal. One was a cop. But both would want Jennifer, even if for different reasons.

“Adrian, love…” Cassie was cajoling him forward. “I think you need to hurry.”

He looked down and saw his hands reach toward the keyboard. Cassie was steering his fingers.
Touch an
E.
Type an
R.
Spell a word. Click the mouse.
He thought he had become trapped between worlds. At first the disease had chipped away only simple things that most people would take for granted. Now it was stealing them wholesale. Inwardly, he stiffened. He told himself that it was only a matter of being tough and determined. He muttered, “You will not stop. You will not hesitate. You will do this just like you used to be able.” The sound of his own voice echoed about his book-lined study, almost as if his words were shouted at the edge of a deep canyon.

Adrian put aside doubts and employed Google Earth.

An address came up on the screen. He used that to get to a real estate listing.

A dozen color pictures of an old, ramshackle two-story farmhouse appeared in front of him. There was also a name and a telephone number for a real estate agent. He clicked on the agent’s smiling picture and saw that she managed many properties. Each of the places was described in glowing, desirable terms. The companion photographs made every listing seem quaint and solid, the type of investments that would inexorably rise in value. Adrian didn’t believe much of what he saw. Realtors could make even the most depressed and neglected New England rural area sound like
the next big real estate opportunity.

He could sense Cassie looking over his shoulder. She must not have believed what she read either.