Into the Darkness

by L. T. Ryan

  Everyone took a seat and Pennington proceeded to tell us what had gone down with Seth.

  “He was hiding near the house. Claims he was watching it, making sure no one came along and vandalized the place. Says that he was sure we missed something inside. Cerv pushed him on this, but Seth wouldn’t give us a clue what it might be. Just a feeling.”

  They hadn’t the time to leave the station, so the clue inside was probably nothing. Something had to have happened while Seth waited.

  Pennington continued. “Seth noticed a van pull up sometime late afternoon. A man got out, went around the back of the house. Seth changed his vantage point, saw the man go inside. Seth gets into the back of the van and hides under one of those heavy moving blankets.”

  “Get the hell out of here,” I said. “Seth did this?”

  “Tougher than we thought,” Cervantes said.

  “Or stupider,” I said. “So, what happened?”

  “The man gets back in the van and drives off. Stops a few times. Opens the back after one stop and tossed some heavy bags inside. One landed on Seth, he had to keep from yelling out.”

  “What was in the bags?”

  “I’m getting there,” Pennington said. “After a while, the ride gets rough, like they’re off road.”

  “Took him to the woods.” Sam leaned over his forearms.

  Pennington smiled and nodded. “You’re quick.”

  “Well that explains why the asshole was out there today,” I said. “But why’d he attack me?”

  “He thought you had been following him and were going to arrest him,” Cervantes said.

  “I don’t like the guy’s meddling,” I said. “He’s always on the outer fringes of where the action is. Like he knows what’s going to happen before anyone else.”

  “We’ve said the same thing,” Pennington said. “But him being in the back of the van isn’t all we got from him. Check this out.”

  Cervantes pulled five photos from his bag and placed them on the table, facing Sam and me. They were shots of a couple bags of dirt, some fertilizer, lye, and calcium nitrate.

  My stomach tightened and I felt my head go light. “You think she’s dead? All this was to bury her and get the body to decompose as quickly as possible?”

  “We can’t know that until we have the van,” Cervantes said.

  “We think there’s an alternative here.” Pennington seemed excited over the news. I sensed he cared about Cassie almost as much as I did. If he feared she was dead, his manner would be different.

  “What’s that?” Sam asked.

  Pennington pointed to the fertilizer. “See that brand? It’s a local store. I have a small plot next to my house. Grow my own vegetables. Quarter-acre farming… Something the wife and I like to do together. Anyway, that’s the store where I shop.”

  “Local place,” Sam said. “Probably know all the employees pretty well, huh?”

  Pennington nodded. “Same ten people have worked there for all the years I’ve been going. I called over right before you guys got here and spoke with one of them. Then I emailed scans of the photos of what was found in the back of Novak’s van, along with a picture of Novak.”

  “Success?” I asked.

  “A few of them recognized him.”

  My pulse quickened in anticipation. “What’d they say?”

  “We got them on a conference call,” Pennington said. “Might’ve been better to go do it in person, but we felt waiting for you to get here and then heading over would waste an hour we might not be able to afford.”

  I’d had all the drama I could take for the day. I wanted him to get to the point, but he insisted on dragging this out. “So, what’d you find out?”

  “No one person could give us all the details, but it seems Novak has a need to talk about himself. Maybe he’s trying to get the women to loosen up around him so he can decide if they are worthy enough to be one of his victims.”

  “Why do you say that?” Sam asked.

  “They knew the most details,” Cervantes said. “The men at the store couldn’t tell us much.”

  “That’s right,” Pennington said. “He’d revealed more to the women about himself and what he was doing with everything he bought.”

  Cervantes pulled a notebook and mechanical pencil from his bag. I spotted the Mont Blanc white star emblem on the cap from across the table. Four hundred bucks was some pretty serious coin for a cop to drop on a pencil.

  “Here’s what it all boils down to,” Cervantes said. “Novak has a greenhouse or multiple greenhouses on a plot of land that he maintains somewhere between here and Charleston. Records search shows no indication that he’s the owner of the property.”

  “You mean he’s working it for someone?” Sam said.

  “Might be squatting,” Pennington said. “Or it might in fact be his land. But the public records search shows nothing in his name.”

  “What about Mark O’Connell?” I said.

  Pennington shrugged. “I’m not familiar with that name.”

  “We learned that Novak has a history up in our area,” Sam said. “The guy we used to clean up the gas station footage, he recognized Novak as O’Connell from a case he worked years ago.”

  Pennington straightened. “And he’s sure it’s Novak?”

  “He pulled out the old file,” Sam said. “We saw the photos from over a decade ago. Same guy. No doubt about it.”

  Pennington repeated Novak’s alias as he rose and headed for the door. “I’ll be back in a while. Cerv, fill them in on the plan.”

  Cervantes closed his notebook and leaned back in his chair, taking an exaggerated deep breath as he soaked in the new information. This could be it. The one piece of information they’d been waiting for. He exhaled toward the ceiling as his head tipped back.

  “What’s up, Cervantes?” I said. “What are you planning from here on out?”

  “It’s a long shot, at best,” he said. “There’s so much land to cover. A hundred miles in a straight line. Then you gotta figure forty miles east to west.”

  My ears and cheeks started to burn. “If we gotta get out there with bloodhounds to find her, then that’s what we do. We owe that to Cassie.”

  Cervantes stared at the ceiling for a few moments before lowering his gaze to me. He held it there for several seconds. “Yeah, Mitch, we do.”

  “Great, glad you agree with me.” I attempted to hold back the sarcasm from my tone. “So, what the hell are we gonna do about it?”

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  He’d left the woman unconscious on her bed. It was the damn picture of her with her twins. Twins! As in two babies born almost the same time. He never would have guessed it. And now the police would hear about what he’d done because he left this one alive.

  Who cared if they knew? The area would now be off-limits. Hadn’t it always been, though?

  It was a stupid decision to cross into that section of town. Novak didn’t belong there. If the desires boiled over again, Novak would take a drive up to Charleston, or head west to Augusta, and look for a tourist traveling alone. No one would miss her for a few days, at least. He might even decide to bring her home if she were nice enough. That’s what he’d wanted with the fine ass he’d just left. After all, he’d left her alive.

  That’s not what he wanted to do though.

  He could always get help bringing her to the greenhouse before someone found and untied her. No one would figure out how she’d gone missing. And Novak had the perfect cover. A cop who would lie for him. And everyone would believe that cop when he told them that he dropped the woman off in front of her apartment. What reason would they have to think a law enforcement official would lie to them?

  The relationship with the officer had been forged some years ago, before Novak went away for what he had done to Cassie. The guy was a sadistic son of a bitch. Outside of a few incidents, which were swept under the rug, the cop could no longer satisfy his desires through legal means. Abducting and later kill
ing a woman was out of the question, too. That’s where Novak’s services were valuable. He found that he enjoyed bringing them home, using them for his own needs, and holding them there while his partner and protector got himself off through some sort of sick role playing. Novak was rarely allowed to be around when his partner came over, though he’d relented on that since Novak came back.

  And when the cop had no use for the women anymore, Novak disposed of them.

  It was the cop who had arranged the escape from that hellhole prison. Novak still had no idea how the man had done it. He hadn’t needed to know, either. All that mattered was he got out and had been returned to his land. He’d purchased it several years ago, under his old name. Mark O’Connell had died long ago. If the property had been worth something to anyone else, it would have been claimed years before Novak found it. But no one gave a shit about the land, Mark O’Connell, or Novak.

  He was still surprised the cop had given up Cassie the way he did, not that his partner was happy about it. But he realized Cassie would discover or lead them to the evidence they needed to find Novak. And then the cop would be screwed. So, he sold her out.

  For whatever reason, she’d been left solely to Novak to do with what he pleased. The woman fought back. Hard. So, he used the miracle of modern pharmacology to assist him with his needs.

  Novak pulled the truck to the side of the road and cut the ignition. The wind whistled through the nearby trees. The temperature had dropped ten degrees in the past hour. Felt good sitting there with the windows down.

  He pulled a cigarette from the glove box and lit it. Wasn’t something he did often. In fact, he used to despise the habit. But you pick up some strange ones behind bars, and smoking had been his. He could go through two packs in a day if his brain was busy. After breaching the walls, he cut down to a few here and there. So much more to do on the outside.

  He closed his eyes and leaned his head back on the seat. Images of his new plaything ran through his mind. My, how sweet she looked stepping out of that shower, dripping wet. All he had to do was hold a finger to his lips and she understood. Didn’t even try to scream. One crack of the baton to her back stopped her from running. She led him to her bed, prepared for anything he had to offer.

  And then he saw that God forsaken photo.

  Novak leaned forward, took one last drag on his cigarette and flicked it through the open window. No one had driven by during his pit stop. It was safe to enter the trail. Novak turned the key in the ignition, threw it in reverse, and drove back about fifty feet to a forest service road entrance. The ruts were deep but hidden by overgrowth. They’d been used heavily at one time, but no one other than Novak and the cop travelled on them now.

  The journey through the woods lasted seven minutes and ended at the rundown property he called home. The path he took through the field was well-defined after his month of tramping down the grass. It hadn’t been hard to find it after he had returned. The cop must have used the place frequently. Brought his whores out, perhaps? Did he use another partner during that time? At least the asshole kept the crops watered and fertilized.

  Novak parked the truck under a rusted carport near the greenhouses. He grabbed his twelve-pack of Budweiser and headed out on foot to the east greenhouse. He spent twenty minutes working while nursing a lukewarm beer. He walked back to the end, paused in the doorway, closed his eyes, and listened. The wind whispered through the tall grass. An airplane droned past high overhead. He was alone on his land, at least above ground.

  He hurried to the west greenhouse. His decision to leave the padlock off the door had left him uneasy. Anyone could enter. Anyone could snoop. Anyone could find the hidden exit.

  Feeling along the exterior of the building, he knew his concerns were unwarranted. He always attached a thin string to the door and the structure, and found it in place. It wasn’t as though the place were Fort Knox. Anyone could break in. And anyone who would go through the trouble to do so would also be more inclined to snoop around. And with their senses on high alert, they’d likely find what he wanted to hide.

  Novak walked softly on the concrete pad, not that his footsteps would disturb anyone below. He didn’t want to give his position away should someone lie in wait inside. Who? Didn’t matter. A number of people would kill him on sight. That might not be a bad thing, you monster. He hushed the voice in his head. Damn thing showed up and offered its stupid opinions when it had no idea what really made Novak tick. Take earlier for instance. Gracious. He really needed the release that fine woman would have given him.

  Again, he worked for twenty minutes, downing three more Budweisers during that time. The alcohol had started working its effects on him. Normally he wouldn’t feel a thing after four drinks. But after the events of the morning, his brain was still abuzz with euphoria. The alcohol accentuated it.

  He dug his fingers into the cool, moist dirt and left them there for seconds at a time, burrowing further and further down with each plunge. An earthworm surfaced and slid along his wrist. He had to wash her off of him. Couldn’t let his friends below know that he’d almost been with that woman. He didn’t want them to think he’d been unfaithful. Then they might want to leave.

  Novak gathered his empties and crunched them down to hockey pucks. He placed them in the cardboard container and carried it into the tunnel. Dim lighting from his cell phone provided enough illumination for him to move through without counting his steps. He did it anyway. Habit. He enjoyed the cool air as he traversed the corridor. At the other end, Novak proceeded with caution. Anything could have happened while he was out. The cop could have invited friends over. Though unlikely, Novak had prepared himself for what he would do in that situation. Mass death was the only answer. And he was willing to turn his pistol on himself before allowing them to take him back to jail. Truth was, the cop would kill Novak before allowing him to be arrested. He knew too many secrets.

  He paused at the end of the tunnel, next to the hidden entrance. One had to know exactly where to reach to open the door. He listened for a few moments before proceeding inside. Above ground again, he grabbed three cans from the box and tossed the rest in the fridge. Two were for him. One would be for a friend. Which friend depended on Cassie’s mood.

  Novak walked through the house, checking each room. Once, he’d found a homeless man who said he always stayed there when passing through. The guy got squirrelly when Novak asked if he’d ever told anyone about the place. He offered the man a bourbon, then bashed his head in with a baseball bat. Cleaning that up was a bitch. The cop had made him use bleach. Novak still gagged from the smell alone.

  Satisfied that the house was empty, he descended to the basement and cracked a beer. He placed one on the table, and brought the other to Cassie’s room. She didn’t move when he opened the door. Her eyes fluttered when he cut on the overhead light. She turned her face away. She was still tied up, had been for a while now. If she accepted his offer of a drink, he’d free her.

  “Cassie,” he said. “I’ve got something for you.”

  She did not respond to him.

  “Just say yes and I’ll untie you. It’s nothing nefarious, my dear. Quite the opposite.” He chuckled. “It’s a can of Bud. Would you like to have a drink with me?”

  She kept looking away from him without speaking. Guess her mind was made up.

  He backed out of the room, squashing the anger biting at him. She had been sleeping. And was probably pissed at him for keeping her restrained for so long. She’d get over it soon enough.

  And there was still Alice.

  He rapped on her door and opened it before Alice could answer. The woman sat on her bed and drew her knees to her chest at the sight of him. He lifted his can to his lips and took a sip. His other arm was behind his back. Her gaze shifted to it.

  “I’ve got something for you,” he said.

  Her lips trembled.

  “No, no, sweet Alice,” he said. “Nothing like that. It’s just a beer. See?”

&nb
sp; As he brought his arm around, she flinched as though he were wielding a pistol or an axe.

  “Care for a sip?” he said.

  She nodded and held out her hand, which he graciously took in his own. Her breasts were exposed. He helped her up from bed and led her out of her room. She sat down at the table without further prodding. So accommodating, that Alice. The powder he’d slipped into both cans hit her first. Somewhere between the table and Cassie’s room, he blacked out, too.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  The helicopter hovered a thousand feet over the border between Georgia and South Carolina. The ground below looked like a painting of life a hundred-plus years ago. Quaint and free of the tragedies of modern day. They had their own problems back then, too. That was never lost on me. The scale was smaller to the average person, though. I could’ve lived with that.

  Pennington insisted we start closer to Charleston and work our way back. Didn’t make much sense to me. Everything centered around Savannah. Novak had to be close by.

  Cervantes and Pennington left before six to drive up to Charleston where they would meet a liaison there who would fly them. Sam and I were assigned to the local department’s bird.

  We weren’t supposed to stop, but Sam spotted two greenhouses on a large tract of land surrounded by woods.

  “Probably not what we’re looking for.” Sam’s voice sounded tinny in the earphones. “But worth checking out.”

  I leaned forward and touched the pilot’s shoulder. “Can you get us down there?”

  Thirty seconds later he clicked the radio hanging on his shoulder. “I called the location in. Waiting on verification of the property.”

  Sam leaned his forehead against his window, peering out over the lot below.

  I didn’t have the same view as him. “See anything?”