The Bear

by Dustin Stevens

  Which was much in line with what Reed expected. Warner wasn’t a bad place by any stretch of the imagination, but it wasn’t a destination. Like a thousand other small towns across the country, it was the sort of place one was either from or went to for a specific reason.

  Nobody willingly drove down from Muskogee just to eat at the Hanley Diner or walk Main Street, no matter how much Carver Ecklund might love to claim otherwise.

  “Right,” Reed agreed. “But this afternoon, I spoke to one of her professors. She gave me a list of places where the nursing program Serena is a part of does outreach, and I was hoping to bounce them off you and see if anything clicked.”

  The sheet of paper Trixie had handed Reed was still folded in his pocket, though he didn’t bother extracting it. In the quiet of the SUV while driving over he had ignored the sounds of Martin inhaling his cheeseburger by going through them, putting them in rank order, time, and again considering how to best approach this conversation.

  “The annual 3-on-3 basketball tournament here in Tulsa?”

  A crinkle appeared across Fisher’s nose as he shook his head quickly.

  “Naw, she hated basketball.” Taking a moment, he tilted the top of his head before adding, “Even if she did love Russell Westbrook.”

  Allowing a corner of his mouth to curl up, to acknowledge the attempt at levity that was being made, Reed said, “How about the powwow over on the reservation?”

  The mirth that had been there just an instant before vanished as Fisher shook his head. “That was actually a huge sore spot with her. Everybody around here saw her complexion and assumed she was Native American.

  “Turns out, she was actually Latina. Her mother’s maiden name was Gonzalez.”

  Recalling the picture that Deke had sent him, the visual of the girl lying in the morgue cooler that morning, Reed nodded. Because of where they were and Serena Gipson’s involvement, he had assumed the same, though he could definitely see the Hispanic in her features.

  Further confirmation that whatever was driving their kidnapper was purely visual.

  “Local festivals?” Reed asked.

  Propping one elbow on the table, Fisher raised a hand to his face. Pinching his bottom lip, he stared off for a moment.

  “No festivals I remember, but we did go to the Muskogee County Fair last summer,” he said. “Some of her friends wanted to go and watch the rodeo, so we tagged along.”

  Turning his focus back to Reed, he added, “Not really our thing. We stayed long enough to eat and say we were there is all.”

  Getting his first positive hit, Reed kept his features neutral. While it was a solid start, confirming anything from it would be almost impossible. Never had he been to the Muskogee County Fair, but he had to imagine there to be several thousand visitors annually, not to mention hundreds of vendors and participants of various kinds.

  Most of them dealing in cash, getting names or addresses on anybody there would be a longshot at best.

  It was still enough to hand off to Deke, but he wouldn’t be holding his breath in the meantime.

  “Okay,” Reed asked, setting it aside for the time being. “How about the local farmer’s market?”

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  There was no question that what Serena Gipson was about to do was going to hurt. Merely grazing her finger across her leg, using it to smear burn ointment over the tender wound, had been enough to ignite every pain receptor in her body.

  The mere thought of actually balancing any amount of weight on it was enough to draw her breath from her chest.

  Which was exactly the point.

  The scene earlier, seeing the man standing over her, holding her ankle in his hand, was all the motivation she needed. Seeing the way he stared down at her leg, knowing how easy it would have been for him to inflict more damage – this time much worse than a burn – implanted a haunting visual.

  The more time that passed, the less likely she was to ever get away. Day by day, the limitations on her food and drink would sap her energy. The steady decline in health would gnaw at her nerve.

  And always she would be exposed to his whims, always playing a game she wanted no part of, subjected to his bungled attempts at manipulation.

  Based on the way he had already mangled her face, showing no compunction about striking her in a most vicious manner, there would be no trepidation in doing the same to her ankle. Or her knee. Or whatever else he needed to in order to keep her immobile.

  Locked up in his homemade dungeon, she was a personal plaything, for his enjoyment and nothing more.

  Who the man was or what he wanted, why he insisted on referring to her as Molly, was now immaterial. Mere footnotes to the ongoing nightmare that was her current situation, they had no bearing on Serena’s next step.

  All that mattered was her making a move. Knowing that if this was to be her fate, if never she was to see her sisters again, it hadn’t been for lack of trying.

  Perched on the side of the bed, Serena lowered both feet to the floor. Placing down nothing more than the balls, she stared down at them side by side, barely recognizing her own appendages.

  On the left, a chain was clasped to her leg. Held in place by a shackle almost two inches wide, small tufts of carpet could be seen peeking up over the edges, an odd touch of comfort to what was essentially a medieval torture device.

  Opposite it, her entire right leg was swollen and puffy. Still unwrapped, the outside of it glistened beneath the overhead lights, ointment smeared across a swath more than six inches in height. The skin the length of it was irritated and red, the worst parts starting to strip away, layers as thin as tissue paper.

  Already, every possible shade of red was present and accounted for. In another day or two, it would resemble a paint-by-numbers. Bruising would set in, her body slowly beginning to heal from the trauma inflicted upon it.

  Which likely meant the man would then be back to inflict something more.

  Staring down, Serena felt her heart rate increase slightly. Pressure rose in her temples, anticipation setting in as she forced her palms into the mattress on either side of her. The muscles along her triceps bulged as she levied her weight upward, transferring it from the bed to her feet, her teeth clamped down to combat the inevitable.

  The first stabs of pain arrived as she was just inches above the mattress. Her legs still bent at a one-hundred-thirty-five-degree angle, signals began to hurtle the length of her body, telling her that things were amiss.

  Sliding her top teeth out over her bottom lip, Serena bit down. Tears came to the corners of her eyes, sweat arising on her forehead, as her arms reached full extension, her legs taking on her full weight for the first time since the brand had been applied.

  Making it upright for no more than an instant, Serena felt the room begin to spin. The combination of swelling in her head and pain in her leg overwhelming her body, blood rushed to her brain, her vision blurring.

  Able to do nothing more than stumble a single step forward, Serena willed herself to stay on her feet. Falling against the wall, she smacked hard against the gaudy yellow paper, feeling the unforgiving firmness of concrete block beneath it.

  Tears leaked the length of her face as she instinctively shifted the bulk of her weight to her left foot. Lifting her right heel from the ground, she left only her toes in contact with the floor as she leaned forward, pressing her forehead against the wall, using it to balance herself.

  Pulling in deep gasps of air, she clamped her eyes down tight, ignoring the pinpricks of pain in her face, the much larger stabbing in her leg. Entire body clenched, she waited as the first wave crested before slowly receding.

  The easy thing would be to retreat. To return to the bed and drop herself against the mattress, laying there until the pain faded to the background. To sit and wait as the blood redistributed, no longer a threat to overload her senses.

  After that, once she was no longer sweating or panting, she would be able to try again.

  Fo
rcing her eyes open, Serena blinked a half-dozen times. With each one, she forced a bit of the fog away, feeling anger well in her at the veneer of tears covering her eyes.

  Going back would be the easy thing to do, which in itself proved why she had to keep going. She had to show herself and her body that she could deal with the pain. That when the moment arrived in the near future, it would be hard but that she could get through it.

  Opening her mouth wide, Serena gulped in air. She rolled her face down so her cheek was against the wall, drawing in the cool of the concrete block beneath the paper.

  Her body balanced on one foot, she remained fixed in that position, putting her mind into motion, planning the next several moments.

  Right now, she needed to get to the toilet. Somewhere, he was likely watching all of it, studying her movement, curiosity beginning to set in.

  She needed to give him a reason. She couldn’t have him watching her, suspecting in the slightest that this was a test run, a mission to scout her environment a bit closer, preparing for the imminent.

  Waiting until the lights were extinguished and she was plunged back into darkness might have been better for her psyche, it may have made what she was doing a bit easier, but he had to see this. He had to watch her hobbling around, witness the pain she was in, and believe there was nothing to fear.

  Already, she was going to be at a disadvantage.

  The man was larger than her. He was in a much better physical state than her. He had eaten and drunk and slept more than her.

  The only chance she had was to surprise him, to make him believe she was far weaker than she was, sensing no threat whatsoever.

  Pulling in one last breath, Serena shifted her forehead back against the wall. She pressed her hands hard against it, extending her body to arm’s length, before turning to stare at the stainless-steel fixture.

  “Okay,” she whispered, gingerly lifting her right foot from the floor, knowing even as she did so the agony that awaited the moment she placed it down again. “I got this.”

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Reed didn’t realize he had missed an earlier call from Columbus until after he and Martin had arrived in Tulsa. Thumbing down through the call menu to the number that had tried him while they were driving, it was only then that he saw it had attempted to contact him once before as well, most likely while he sat on the bench with Trixie.

  Coming just minutes after his discussion with Grimes, less than an hour after sitting down in Ecklund’s office, the timing made sense, much more in line with what he would have expected.

  Chief Brandt would waste no time in trying to track him down. Feeling like her order was being ignored, that he was operating beyond the scope of his leave, she would feel the need to call and berate him, reasserting her dominance, no matter how uneven the score might be between them.

  A position that Reed imagined was only becoming more emboldened as he stood outside the Biological Sciences building, looking down at the same string of digits sprawled across the screen of his phone.

  For just a moment, Reed stared at it, contemplating what was waiting on the other end. He considered what three missed calls in a span of hours would mean, letting the thoughts linger for just a moment before shoving them away.

  With everything Adam Fisher had just shared sitting at the front of his mind, and all that it could mean moving forward working in behind it, he thumbed the call away, feeling his ire spike as he did so.

  If Brandt wanted to call from a thousand miles away and rake him over the coals for doing his job again, it would have to wait until morning.

  Right now, his focus was on helping Serena Gipson.

  Reaching out, Reed opened the rear driver’s side door on the SUV. Allowing Billie to bound up and in, he closed it behind her before doing the same, sliding behind the steering wheel.

  The smell of Martin’s monstrosity of a burger somehow seemed even stronger after having the better part of an hour in the warm interior to marinate, the scent permeating everything as Reed waited for the other man to climb in on the opposite side.

  Only once they were all seated did he turn on the ignition, pulling his phone over to his lap and tapping out a quick text message before putting it into gear.

  “Letting my computer research guy know what we just found out,” Reed said.

  His elbow propped on the passenger window sill, one hand wrapped around the handle above it, Martin asked, “Think it will help?”

  The remainder of the conversation had produced little more in the way of concrete information beyond Fisher informing him that Darcy Thornton was a regular at the local farmer’s market. A believer in farm-to-table eating, she’d gotten into shopping for local produce a couple of years before, spending nearly every weekend that weather permitted searching for the seasonal best.

  A practice the young man admitted somewhat ashamedly he had given her the occasional bit of grief about.

  Much like the admission that they had been to the Muskogee County Fair, Reed had made sure not to react in any way, even as every internal indicator he had had started to flash.

  Only a single place from the list that Trixie had given them wouldn’t be enough to prove anything conclusively. Two young women, living in relative proximity, attending something as large as a county fair could be nothing more than happenstance.

  Showing up there and at a market – a much smaller and more intimate venue – was something they could really run with.

  “Maybe not a ton,” Reed admitted, “but it would at least let him start narrowing things down.”

  As he said as much, the faceplate on his phone lit up, glowing bright from the middle console in the gathering darkness of the vehicle.

  Forcing himself to wait until he was through a traffic light and back on the road headed south, Reed reached out. Pulling it to life, he checked long enough to see Deke confirm that the information was received and usable before putting it back into place.

  “Been to the fair a number of times myself,” Martin said. Gone from his voice was his usual tone, replaced by a strain that was unmistakable. A tone Reed had heard on nearly every law enforcement colleague he knew at one point or another.

  A tone Reed would likely be employing as well if he were sitting in the passenger seat.

  What had started as a favor to an old friend, a lunch meeting with a neighboring police department to compare notes, was expanding fast. Pulling in cases from across the region, it hinted at encompassing two handfuls of women, a monster living in their midst working without fear of recourse.

  “Took the kids when they were little, grandkids are just starting to get old enough where they can get on the rides and stuff, too.”

  Nodding slightly, Reed knew what the man was getting at. Places like fairs were respites for families, things on the annual calendar that children looked forward to and parents bonded over.

  They were the sort of thing where nobody should have to be worried about who might be watching them, waiting to tail them home.

  “Never been to the farmer’s market, really,” Martin said. “Wife likes to garden. Cans most of what she produces.”

  A glance at the man would have confirmed the first part of the statement, Reed figuring that he was much more comfortable at places like the diner where his sedan was still parked than strolling the rows of open-air tents and scrutinizing the latest crop of squash or zucchini.

  Not that there was the slightest need to say as much, the man on his side extending a courtesy he didn’t have to.

  “We could use a third reference point,” Reed said.

  Outside, the density of Tulsa was beginning to thin as they headed south. Most non-eateries were already closed for the evening, bank branches and office buildings little more than dark silhouettes against the horizon line.

  For a Friday night, what traffic there was seemed to be headed in the opposite direction, folks going into the city in search of whatever entertainment caught their fancy.

 
In his periphery, he could see Martin look in his direction. “You mean like the powwow?”

  Pulling his mouth into a line, Reed gave a quick shake of his head. “No, I mean another one of the victims. We’ve got some crossover from Gipson and Thornton, but getting a third one...”

  He let his voice trail, considering it further, before glancing over to Martin. “You said your guys talked to the folks down in Longtown about Suzanne Bonham. That was just one of more than a half-dozen. If we can get somebody else to confirm a particular market or the fair, we could really zero in.”

  Raising a hand to his face, Martin rubbed his palm over his mouth and chin. The sound of late-day stubble was audible as he worked it back and forth, mulling the suggestion over.

  “Right,” he whispered, contemplating it another moment before adding, “Yeah, that could work. That would be good.”

  Dropping his hand, he said, “You want me to call my guys, see if they could set us up with Longtown?”

  Again, Reed remembered the directions Wyatt had given him earlier in the day. He envisioned the map he’d spent most of the afternoon pouring over, imprinting the various red circles into his mind.

  Much like the conversation with Fisher, the ideal would be to sit down with someone. To actually be able to peer across, watching their reactions, imparting how dire the situation was.

  The distance from Muskogee down to Longtown was right at fifty miles. Considering where they now were, that would put them closer to eighty-five, well over an hour away.

  Time Reed didn’t necessarily want to spend making a roundtrip, especially when there was no guarantee they would turn anything up when they arrived.

  Not well into the middle of a Friday evening.

  “We should call and loop them in for sure,” Reed said. “With them being in Checotah, maybe they could even pop down and have that talk for us.”