Into the Darkness

by L. T. Ryan

  Don’t be a fool. You never know what lurks behind the veil.

  His gaze drifted away from her exposed flesh and traveled toward the tree line. What if a wayward hunter or a couple of day trekkers lingered just out of sight?

  More killings.

  Fundamentally, not a problem. Practically? Another story. It would involve effort. And risk. One could get away from him, and the last thing he needed was for authorities to close in on his special place. Even all of the probing he went through during the trial and afterward in jail, they had never uncovered this spot.

  The place where he brought the special ones.

  Novak knelt next to Cassie, shielding himself from view in the waist high grasses. “You are the most special one, Cassie,” he whispered. “Maybe not at first. I was blinded that night, I suppose. Didn’t have the sight to realize the magnificence of you.”

  He hovered over her, waiting for a response that would not come. At least, not yet. Novak dragged his fingertips lightly along her arm. Her skin pricked in response. Not all senses were dulled or deadened.

  “Now, I don’t want you thinking that you’re gonna make it out of this, Cassie. No one does. You’ve just got a little more time. And perhaps the most minute of chances to sway me.”

  Rising, he scouted the field and wood’s edge and determined it was safe to move on. Cassie felt like a hundred-and-thirty-pound sack of sand. He scooped her up, hoisted her over his shoulder and moved on.

  “Only a couple hundred feet to your new home.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  “The hell is going on?”

  Pennington and Cervantes approached, pistols drawn and aimed at me. I didn’t know whether to retreat to the back of the apartment or throw my hands up in surrender.

  “Step out here, Tanner,” Pennington said.

  “Why don’t you point that thing somewhere else?” I said.

  “Come out here, let us make sure you’re unarmed.”

  I was in position to slam the door and make a break for the back of the house. They’d have to travel to the end of the block to get to the back alley. And then, they’d have to choose which end to run to. No car was fitting through that narrow lane. Then what?

  If they wanted me, they’d find me. And that was the reality.

  “Come on, Tanner,” Pennington said. “Let’s not make this any more difficult than it needs to be.”

  “Just tell me what this is about,” I said.

  “Can’t do it right here,” he said.

  “Why the guns drawn?”

  Neither man spoke.

  By this point, a few people had gathered across the street. Before long it’d grow, someone would start filming with their damn phone, and I’d be on the news. And if that reached Philly, I’d never get my badge back. Chief Warren would choke on the hard-on he’d get knowing he could get rid of me once and for all.

  “All right,” I said. “I’m coming out.” I crossed the threshold. Pennington put his pistol away and retrieved his cuffs. My legs and back stiffened. The door shut behind me.

  “Turn around,” Pennington said.

  “The hell?” I said.

  “Do it,” Cervantes said, his body rigid, his aim steady.

  “Christ, I’ll go peacefully.” A lie that wouldn’t work.

  The cuffs dangled from Pennington’s fingers. “We just want to get in the car and ask you some questions.”

  “About what?” I was out of options and didn’t think I could delay them any further. They weren’t going to reveal anything standing on the sidewalk, which was expected. Tell me I’m arrested and I’m gonna put up a hell of a fight. “Come on, Pennington. Level with me. What’s going on?”

  Pennington backed up to the sedan, reached backward with his left hand and opened the rear passenger door. He never took his eyes off me. Didn’t he trust his partner to cover his ass?

  “All right, Tanner.” Pennington tucked the handcuffs away. “Let’s do this your way. Okay? Climb in and we can talk.”

  I bounced on the balls of my feet, looking left and right, ready to sprint. Their sedan blocked the path straight ahead. The closed door behind me made a dash through the apartment impossible. And the two detectives blocked a sidewalk escape. The crowd across the street expanded, spilling into the road as they jostled for position to see the out-of-towner taken down by their local guys.

  Pennington remained in position holding the door open for me. He swept his hand in front of the opening. “Sooner we do this, the sooner you can get on your way back home.”

  I stopped a foot away. Raised my voice. “Home? Philly? Just what in the hell is going on here?”

  Pennington glanced over his shoulder at the crowd across the street. A few more of them had their cell phones out, recording the action. His lips drew thin as he turned his head back to me. “Get in the car, Detective Tanner.”

  I wanted to call Sam, leave the phone on so he could hear everything that happened. But Pennington shut me down when I reached for my cell in my pocket.

  “Hands where I can see them.” He reached for his piece but stopped short of pulling it back out. The point was made. I was going one way or another. It was my choice whether there’d be handcuffs involved.

  “I’m a reasonable man,” I said. “I’ll go along for the ride. But if you think you’re getting me on a plane back to Philadelphia before we find Cassie, you’re out of your goddamned mind.”

  Perhaps he’d learned from his previous outburst, because Pennington didn’t say anything. He stepped back as I moved forward. He pulled his hand off the door as I stuck my leg in the car. Once I was fully inside, he kicked the door shut. I reached for the handle without thinking, pulled it back. The door didn’t move. I felt like a caged tiger. Unless I planned on ripping out the barrier separating us and climbing over the front seat, they had me where they wanted me. The vinyl was cold to the touch from the frigid air that blasted from the vents. I slid to the middle of the backseat where the air streamed into my face.

  Pennington took his place in the driver’s seat. At least the guy saved me the humiliation of flipping on his strobes and sirens. I might skirt the law at times, but I’m far from a common criminal.

  Cervantes climbed in after talking with the folks who’d been watching. The detectives shared a quick glance, then Pennington dropped the car into gear and sped away.

  I waved at my crowd of supporters. If the window had been down I might’ve yelled something to get them riled up. Instead I decided to save that for my fellow detectives.

  “One of you clowns gonna read me my rights, or what?”

  Pennington looked up into the rearview. “Did you do something that would require us to do so?”

  I shrugged and offered no reply.

  “You know this looks bad, right?” Cervantes said. His tone had grown menacing, more so than usual. “Cassie’s gone missing, and since then, you’ve been inside her house and spent time at the murder scene.” He half-turned in his seat to make eye contact with me. The look on his face matched his voice. “Someone might think you were trying to cover your tracks.”

  “And someone with even half a brain might realize I was trying to be proactive rather than sitting on my ass. You know, do something, anything, to help us locate Cassie.” I threw up my arms and fell back against the seat. “You guys are wasting your damn time. Mine, too. Let me out here so at least one of us can do something other than sitting on our thumbs.”

  We were heading west out of the historic district, presumably on our way to Cassie’s house. It’d be a pointless exercise. I’d already combed the house. They needed to send a forensics team over there instead of us tromping through and destroying any remaining evidence, if there was any to begin with. Could they find something proving Novak had been there? Sure, I guess. Point was, neither he nor Cassie were there now.

  “What’d you guys find out at the girls’ house?” I craned my head to watch each of them in the rearview.

  Pennington kept
his eyes on the road. Cervantes stared down at his phone. I asked again and they continued ignoring me. Guess they didn’t want to talk to me, at least not now in the car. Whatever they had to say was going to wait until we reached Cassie’s house, and hopefully it didn’t include the words “you have the right to remain silent.”

  We pulled to a stop. A group of six girls walked in front of the car. One had on a SCAD t-shirt. Did they know the recently deceased? I resisted the urge to tell them to be careful when picking up strangers. Doubt they would’ve listened, anyway. Those girls hadn’t a care in the world, despite what had happened recently. After they passed, I took note of the intersection. Montgomery and West Hall Street. We were west of Forsyth Park. That didn’t seem right. Then to make matters worse, Pennington turned right on Gwinnett, taking us in the wrong direction.

  “Where’re we going?” I asked.

  Neither man replied. Shocker. Less than a minute later we were hugging the on-ramp for I-16 West. Pennington pinned down the accelerator, only taking his foot off to slam on the brakes as he wedged into a small space between a black Chrysler minivan and an eighteen-wheeler carrying a load of empty cages. Loose chicken feathers floated off the bed and onto the windshield. Some remained caught in the slipstream, spinning and circling in the air.

  Pennington gunned the engine again and whipped the wheel to the left. For five minutes he wove in and out of traffic until it had thinned enough he could do ninety in the left lane.

  “Are you assholes gonna tell me what’s going on?” I said. “Where’re we going?”

  Cervantes looked over his shoulder. His brows were knit together, a crease forming between them and running the length of his forehead.

  Pennington glanced up in the rearview. He didn’t share the same concerned look of his partner. It almost looked as though the bastard was smiling at me. “You sure you don’t already know, Detective?”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  The voices told her to leave. They instructed her to get up and get out. They said she was not safe. Problem was, Cassie couldn’t see anything. She had no idea where she was. The musty smell stifled her lungs. She blinked in the darkness, shedding fragments of uncertainty, revealing memories that she started piecing together.

  The time she spent with Mitch lingered like champagne on the tip of her tongue. Warmth filled her, but only for a moment. The memory passed and then she was back at the girls’ house. The bodies strewn about, discarded as though they were refuse. The weight of what had happened to them pressed firmly on her chest, strangling her heart and lungs.

  She kept her eyes clenched shut to avoid the spirits. There was no escaping them, though. They remained close, whispering to her, pleading with her to leave. That was not an option at the moment. She tuned them out as best she could. A banging from somewhere within the room grabbed her attention. She opened her eyes again, surprised to see an overhead light had switched on to a low setting. The thin filament burned light orange, clear in the round tube. Slowly a warm halo of light began to spread around her.

  Cassie attempted to push off the bed, but discovered her wrists and ankles were bound. She lifted her head and saw the restraints were tied to four short posts that rose from the frame like skeletal fingers about to close in on her. She laid in the palm. The thumb hovered behind, ready to smother her face.

  A shadow moved in the corner of the room. She turned toward it, but it was gone. Something smacked against the wall from the other side. The sound was muted and hollow. Her breath caught in her throat. Tingling raced down her arms. Her abdominal muscles began clenching, cramping.

  “Slow down,” she whispered to herself. She breathed in through her nose, held it for five seconds, then expelled hot air out through her mouth. She caught a whiff of her metallic breath and squinted against it. There was hardly enough saliva available to swallow the taste away.

  Light flooded the room in a growing cone as the door cracked open, groaning on rusted hinges. A howl of wind blew in and swept over her sweat-soaked body. She looked down and saw only a sheer nightgown, which offered little protection and revealed everything. Where had it come from? Where were her clothes? She stifled the disgust overtaking her that someone had stripped her down and put her in the lingerie.

  He appeared in the entryway, bright light silhouetting him. The dim room cast shadows over his face. Fine. Cassie didn’t want to look at his features anyway. She struggled against her restraints but gave up as he shook his head. There was no way out.

  Not yet.

  The activity in the room died down as he stepped foot inside. The spirits ran from him. Even in death they feared his touch. Cassie couldn’t blame them. She had spent countless nights agonizing over what had happened to her at his hand, reliving every horrible detail in slow motion. She could still feel the rain washing over her, stealing her life.

  Why was he standing there? He hadn’t advanced more than two feet into the room. She swore he was smiling, even if she couldn’t see his lips peeled back, revealing the whites of his teeth. It was a game. Who could go the longest without speaking? Cassie clenched her eyelids shut. For the first time since she’d awoken, she pleaded for the voices to return. Anything to pull her focus away from the deranged asshole staring at her from the doorway.

  The ticking of a clock echoed around the room. Tick-tock. Click-clack. It wasn’t a timepiece making the noise. He was doing it. A plan to add to the madness of the moment? Perhaps so. And it was working.

  “What do you want?” she screamed.

  He chuckled softly. She couldn’t help but think it sounded like a child laughing at a joke he didn’t get only because his parents found it amusing. But she knew that was not the case. He’d won, and he knew it. She gave him the in, and now he could say whatever he wanted. “You look beautiful in that dress.”

  “Piss off,” she said. “This isn’t any dress I’d ever wear for you.”

  As he glided through the entryway, the overhead light burst into a strong glow. No longer was the filament visible. Cassie blinked against the brightness until the pain in her eyes subsided. The bed dipped and bounced a couple of times. She lifted her head on the thin pillow. He’d joined her on the mattress. He sat with his left leg pulled under his right, facing the door, which remained open. She strained to see what lay beyond but couldn’t make anything out other than part of a table.

  Several seconds passed. Now what? Was he going to stay there until she said something else? What would his next move be if she said the wrong thing?

  She opted for something a little more subtle.

  “Where am I?”

  His right hand drifted backward, fingertips skating along the top of the blue fitted sheet. Inch by inch they drew nearer to her. He was on a collision course with her bare flesh near the spot the nightgown met her thigh. Cassie arched her back and lifted her buttocks off the mattress, sliding over as far as she could. It was only a few inches, but at least it would take that much longer for his repulsive touch to reach her.

  He turned his head far enough to see her out of the corner of his eye. He’d shaved since they’d arrived. The corner of his mouth twitched. “You’ll come to appreciate what I can offer you, my dear.”

  “Only if that means you’ll finish the job you started in that graveyard,” she said through her clenched teeth.

  He pulled his leg out from under the other, then turned and leaned over her, one arm on either side of her torso, leaving them face to face. “What makes you think I’ll do that?”

  Cassie matched his intense stare with one of her own. She didn’t have to pretend. All fear had left her body. All that remained was rage.

  “Why else bring me here?” she said, knowing she couldn’t believe any response he could muster. “You can kill and dispose of me here and no one would ever know, right? I mean, if they knew, they’d already have broken down the doors to rescue me.”

  “I do not have any plans to kill you, my dear Cassie.” He lowered his gaze to her breasts. Her
nipples showed through the sheer material. His eyes settled in on them. “That is precisely why I brought you here.”

  She looked down her body. “For my breasts?”

  He smiled, his gaze returning to meet hers. “To not kill you.” His mouth hung open as though the words still needed time to escape his brain. He leaned in closer. Their lips were inches apart. “I tell you, though, that is entirely up to you. Cooperate with me and you live.”

  “Kind of hard to do otherwise when I’m tied up like this.” She pulled hard with both arms toward him, fingers clutched like talons. They barely made it past her elbows, but she felt the bedposts give a little, like maybe they weren’t as secure as they should’ve been to hold an adult.

  His stare diverted to the corner of the bed. He’d noticed the posts moving, too. How long until he took care of it? The calm look on his face dissipated in the blink of an eye. She hardly noticed him lift up and draw his right hand back across his chest.

  She sure as hell felt it when he backhanded her across the face.

  Cassie’s head snapped back into the thin pillow. The initial flash of pain dulled and then spread across her face. She felt a warm trickle from her nose. It settled into her upper lip and slid around the corner of her mouth and down her cheek.

  He hopped off the bed and made it to the door in three steps, stopping there and looking back at her. “That, my dear, is precisely how you will wind up dead.”

  With a flick of his wrist he shut off the overhead light. The soft glow from outside the room offered a glimpse of the table in the outer room, but it didn’t last long enough to make sense of anything else. He slammed the door shut, and Cassie once again descended into the darkness.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  “You backwoods assholes better not have any sick ideas running through your heads.” I slammed my fist into the seat to the left. We’d been driving for more than half an hour and they hadn’t said hardly a word to me or each other. Whatever the plan was, Cervantes and Pennington had worked it out prior to picking me up in front of the apartment.