Blind Spot

by Brenda Novak

  She was about to let herself out when she saw a shovel leaning against the wall with what looked like fresh manure on the blade.

  As she walked over to it, she noticed several spots of some dark substance just inside the door.

  She bent to see what the substance could be. It was difficult to tell in the dirt. Probably motor oil, she decided. The odor of the chicken shit was so nasty she didn’t want to stay any longer now that she felt it was safe to go.

  But those drops made her hesitate. If there’d been no car in here, why would there be motor oil?

  She followed the drips to the manure below the closest row of cages. Someone had been digging in it. It didn’t have the same conical shape as the others. But … why? Why would anyone brave the smell in here, let alone play around in the chicken shit?

  Moving closer, she lifted the beam of her flashlight a little higher. Then she dropped it as well as her gun and screamed.

  A human hand was sticking out of the manure, and the skin was falling off.

  25

  Anchorage, AK—Wednesday, 11:30 p.m. AKDT

  Evelyn could feel movement, a gentle and consistent rocking. She could also hear the steady thrum of tires. She was in a vehicle of some sort, lying on her side, the scratch of cheap carpet against her cheek. She couldn’t see anything except darkness, and she couldn’t move. Worse than anything, she couldn’t think clearly.

  What’d happened? How did she get here? And where was she going?

  As her addled brain struggled to find answers, an image conjured before her mind’s eye: Lyman Bishop opening the cooler door and coming inside.

  Had she dreamed that?

  It was possible, but since she was no longer inside the cooler, she didn’t think so. She remembered desperately wanting to get up, to shove him out of the way—fight him, if necessary—so she could get past him. The door had stood open; she’d finally had her chance to escape. But she hadn’t been able to take advantage of the opportunity, hadn’t been able to so much as lift her head. Then, like now, her body had been far too heavy.

  He’d crouched beside her, lifted her eyelids and checked her pupils with a penlight, as a doctor would do, while she ordered herself to react, to strike him, to kick him, to do whatever she could to incapacitate him. Now! This is your chance! her brain had screamed. But it was all for nothing. She’d offered no more resistance than a sack of potatoes when he rolled her to one side so he could tie her hands.

  Her hands were still tied, or so she believed. She couldn’t tell, couldn’t feel them at all.

  Light from an approaching car or truck filled the space around her like the tide rolling in, only to roll right back out as the sound of the other engine receded.

  Then she knew—and the realization hit hard.

  She was back in the van Emmett had used to kidnap her. She recognized the name etched into the paint on the wall: Billy, 2012. She had no idea who Billy was or why that date had been significant to him, but focusing on him, wondering about him, helped her keep from screaming once her mind began to produce other, more disturbing images.

  Edna. Bishop had been so angry when he’d brought their dinner he’d told her he was going to kill her bitch of a daughter, which had upset her so badly she’d refused to eat more than a few bites.

  She’d finally fallen asleep just before Bishop came in—at least Evelyn assumed that was what’d happened. She had no recollection of anything after finishing her meal, not until she’d heard the door open and roused enough to see him moving toward her.

  Whether Edna had been asleep or not, Bishop hadn’t seemed concerned about her until the older woman rushed him, screaming like a banshee. Edna might’ve been able to get around him while he’d been preoccupied tying Evelyn’s hands. That thought had struck Evelyn then as it did now and made her feel even worse. Edna had tried to fight him off for Evelyn’s sake—and for the sake of Evelyn’s unborn child. She hadn’t only been thinking of herself and her daughter, or she would simply have run.

  Tears welled up as Evelyn remembered seeing the older woman hit the wall. The way she’d fallen …

  Swallowing hard, Evelyn struggled to banish the memory. She’d prayed that Edna would rally or show some sign of life, but she’d given up hope when Bishop had gone over and started choking her. He’d been livid, sputtering and cursing and using his weight so that Edna had no chance of getting up or getting away.

  Only when Evelyn called out—or groaned, since she wasn’t capable of speaking coherently—had she been able to draw his attention back to her. Then he’d snapped out of his rage, become purposeful and efficient again and returned to finish tying her hands behind her back.

  He must’ve gagged her at some point, too. Although she didn’t remember that part, she could feel fabric biting into the sides of her mouth. To avoid having to cope with what was happening, she’d willingly surrendered to the dark void on the edge of her consciousness throughout the encounter.

  She wished she could do the same now—give up and just drift away. But she had to fight to overcome the drug he must’ve given her, or what happened to her next would be even worse than what’d happened to Edna.

  I’d rather be me, the older woman had said when discussing the future they each would likely face. Evelyn hadn’t admitted it at the time, but she felt the same. She would rather die than become Lyman’s next “Beth.”

  Music came on. Show tunes. Bishop seemed to like those. So did Evelyn. They were so familiar they calmed her fears, to a point, until he started singing along to “All I Ask of You” from The Phantom of the Opera and she got the impression he identified with Raoul instead of the Phantom. He didn’t see himself as a monster.

  Somehow, that knowledge made her face how terrible her situation really was. He’d taken her from the ranch before Amarok or anyone else could find her.

  Now she had almost no chance at all.

  Anchorage, AK—Thursday, 12:05 a.m. AKDT

  The scream he heard at the chicken ranch went through Amarok like shards of glass.

  After getting halfway to Hilltop, he’d suddenly whipped around and returned to Anchorage. Something about leaving had just felt wrong, and that sense of impending doom had grown worse with each passing mile. Convinced as he was that Edna Southwick was the key to solving Evelyn’s disappearance, he’d decided he wasn’t going to drop everything and hurry to Hanover House to see Jasper Moore. If it was that important, Jasper could share whatever he knew with someone else who could then pass on the information. Right now Evelyn needed him too much for Amarok to risk making any mistakes, and since he didn’t know what would be a mistake, not at this juncture, he could only trust his gut.

  When he’d reached Edna Southwick’s home, there’d been no one there. Considering what he had planned, he’d been grateful for the privacy. He’d thought it might be hard to break in, that he might bump into Anchorage PD, if someone had called them about Edna, or that the noise would draw the attention of a neighbor.

  But that didn’t prove to be the case. As he circled the house, he’d noticed that one of the windows wasn’t closed all the way, so he’d used his pocketknife to cut the screen, forced the pane up and crawled through. What took considerably more time was going through Ms. Southwick’s office, searching for the rental agreement that corresponded to the receipt she’d mailed to Emmett.

  He’d torn the whole room apart before realizing it wasn’t there, after which he’d had to go through the rest of the house. That contract was the one thing he needed, the one thing he had to have, because he knew it should have the address that she hadn’t bothered to copy on to the receipt.

  At last, he’d found it in a stack of mail shoved into one of the drawers in the laundry room, of all places. But the second he’d seen John Edmonson’s name, the five-hundred-dollar amount and the name of the property—Southwick Family Egg Ranch—he’d known he’d done the right thing.

  This was where Emmett had taken Evelyn; he was sure of it.

&nbs
p; Whether she was still there, however, remained to be seen.

  The second he’d had the address, he’d rushed to his truck, jumped inside and sped off. But once he’d arrived at the ranch, he’d had to slow his approach considerably. Although he saw no vehicle on the premises, there was a light on in the building. He had no idea what was going on in there. He’d just been creeping up from behind, his gun at the ready, trying to get close enough to decide what he was dealing with and how he would handle it when he’d heard the scream.

  Only it hadn’t come from the plant, as he would’ve expected.

  It’d come from one of the long, narrow coops not far from where he’d hopped the fence.

  Amarok arrived at that specific coop in a matter of seconds, but when he threw open the door and angled his gun and his flashlight inside, expecting to see Evelyn, he was surprised.

  A young woman he didn’t recognize was kneeling on the ground, trying to retrieve a handgun of her own. She grabbed it as he filled the entrance, and, for a moment, he thought she might shoot him. She pointed the muzzle at him but, thankfully, realized he was a police officer and dropped the weapon.

  “I’m Sergeant Murphy,” he said, lowering his gun, too. “Who are you? And what are you doing here?”

  She didn’t answer either question. Her hand shaking, she pointed at a pile of manure. “Th-there’s a dead body,” she said, and burst into tears.

  Amarok was just bending down to pick up her flashlight, which had rolled away from her, the beam forming an eerie white circle on the wall, when he saw what had, apparently, made her scream.

  Catching her by the arm, he helped her up and pushed her behind him so she wouldn’t have to see the gruesome sight any longer. Then he grabbed the shovel he found nearby and used it to uncover enough of the corpse that he could determine it wasn’t a woman.

  Thank God!

  “Emmett Virtanen,” he said.

  What with the bloating, skin slippage and insect activity—Amarok was fairly certain the body had been here for several days—it was difficult to determine what this person had looked like. He’d only guessed it was Emmett because it wasn’t Lyman Bishop and there were vague similarities between this corpse and the pictures he’d seen of Emmett in that grainy video from the Quick Stop.

  “Who’s that?”

  “No one you’d ever want to meet.”

  “And the short, balding man with the limp? He’s okay?”

  Amarok felt his pulse leap. “The limp? Are you talking about Lyman Bishop?”

  She turned bewildered eyes on him. “Isn’t his name John Edmonson?”

  “No. It’s Lyman Bishop, and he’s a serial killer from Minnesota, who I believe is currently in Alaska. He could even be on the property. You need to get out of here.”

  “Oh my God!” she whispered, covering her mouth. “I was right. He is dangerous. I could feel it. He made my skin crawl. You don’t think he killed my mother, do you?”

  “Your mother?”

  “Edna Southwick. Aren’t you here looking for her?”

  She didn’t give him a chance to answer before she added, “Please tell me we won’t find her if … if we keep digging. Please!” Fresh tears filled her eyes as she surveyed the piles of manure, but when she started for the shovel as though she’d find out for herself, Amarok stopped her.

  He couldn’t promise that her mother wasn’t dead. If Edna had had a run-in with Bishop, she could very likely be in a similar condition to Emmett. “We’ll look when we can,” he said. “But first, I have to see who’s in the building. What’s your name?”

  “Ada.”

  “Give me your phone number, Ada.”

  She seemed too upset to be able to remember it. “My number?” she repeated, bewildered. “Why?”

  Afraid Bishop or someone else would come up and surprise them, Amarok glanced at the doorway. “Because I need to get you off the property while there’s still time—but I might also need to contact you later if … if I learn anything about your mother.”

  She grabbed him, her fingers curling like talons into his arm. “I’m not going anywhere without you!”

  In case she was in shock, he wasn’t going to insist. He’d actually already reversed his decision, anyway. For all he knew, she’d bump into Lyman Bishop on the way to her car. He couldn’t send her anywhere alone, not around here.

  “Fine,” he said. “You can stick with me until we both know it’s safe. But whatever you do, stay behind me, don’t make a sound and, if there’s any trouble, run like hell.”

  Anchorage, AK—Thursday, 12:30 a.m. AKDT

  When Evelyn came to, the vehicle wasn’t moving anymore.

  Everything was dark and silent.

  She tried to lift herself up enough to see what was going on. If Bishop was gone, she might have the opportunity to escape. Now that Amarok had lost his best chance of finding her, she had to do something. The longer this went on, the less likely it was that she and her child would survive.

  But she was still tied up and in such an awkward position she couldn’t manage to even get to her knees.

  Winded by the effort, she slumped back to the carpet and tried to catch her breath, which wasn’t easy due to the cloth jammed into her mouth, and strained to make out any sound around her.

  She couldn’t hear anything distinctive enough to tell her where she was—no car doors slamming or people talking. That made her believe she was out in the middle of nowhere, parked on the side of the road. Was he taking her to Fairbanks? If so, it was a six-and-a-half-hour drive from Anchorage. How far into it were they?

  They couldn’t be too far. It was still dark, and it didn’t remain dark in Alaska for long, not this time of year.

  “Bishop?” His name came out like “Be-op,” but that was the best she could do with a gag in her mouth.

  He didn’t answer. Was he asleep in the driver’s seat or out going to the bathroom, getting a room at a motel or something else?

  She couldn’t even begin to guess, but being outside the cooler, being somewhere that seemed so close to the rest of the world, made her feel as though she just might escape, if only she tried hard enough.

  Closing her eyes, she concentrated on freeing her hands. She was relieved he hadn’t used zip ties. He’d used old-fashioned rope instead, probably because he’d found it lying around the ranch.

  “Come on, come on,” she whispered to herself, pulling and straining against her bonds because she couldn’t reach the knot, let alone untie it—not with numb fingers.

  She had no idea of the injury she was causing to her wrists, but she didn’t care. She didn’t feel any pain; she was too filled with adrenaline, too driven by the thought that if she could only get free and figure out where Bishop was, she could hit him with something so she could take the van and get away.

  Her heart was thumping so hard she could feel it banging against her chest.

  Boom, boom, boom.

  She tried to ignore it even though it seemed to reverberate around her, so loud anyone in the immediate vicinity could hear.

  You can do it. Keep fighting. Pull. Twist. She felt like a rabbit caught in a snare, chewing off its own paw in order to escape, but she was willing to make that sacrifice. At this point, she was willing to make almost any sacrifice if it meant freedom.

  To her surprise, her feet came loose but not her hands. Bishop must not have tied them as securely. She guessed he hadn’t been as worried about her feet, but she prayed that one small mistake—his first, as far as she was concerned—would be his undoing.

  Although it was plenty cool in the van, she was sweating by the time she kicked off the rope around her ankles. Were the restraints on her wrists loosening?

  Or was that just wishful thinking?

  She was still struggling when the driver’s side door opened with a loud, rusty creak and the cabin light snapped on.

  Clamping her ankles together as though they were still tied and rolling onto her hands to hide any bleeding, she h
eld her breath.

  The van swayed as Bishop climbed in. She had her eyes shut, so she couldn’t see if he looked back at her, but she prayed he’d believe she was still unconscious if he did.

  When the engine started, the radio came on. More show tunes. The engine and music snapping off so suddenly when he stopped was probably what had awakened her. Thank heaven something had.

  He switched stations as they pulled onto the road and Elvis came on. He hummed along to “Burning Love” as she continued to try to pull her hands out of the rope he’d used to tie her.

  It wasn’t long before she could feel a slick, sticky substance on her hands. She was bleeding, all right. But she didn’t let that deter her. Her life—and her child’s life—depended on how she handled the next few minutes. She just wished she were stronger. The drugs he must have slipped her left her feeling slow and lethargic, not to mention dim-witted.

  Dim-witted? She stiffened. Had he already performed the lobotomy he planned to give her? He’d been waiting until after she had the baby, but with everything else that was going on—this sudden flight from the ranch—he could easily have changed his mind. Maybe she wasn’t drugged. Maybe he’d cut into her brain while she was lying on the cooler floor so that she wouldn’t become a problem.

  She blinked rapidly, trying to tell whether there was any pain in her eye sockets. A lobotomy affected each individual differently. Some of the thirty-five hundred people who’d received a lobotomy at the hands of Dr. Walter Freeman back in the forties and fifties had lived relatively normal lives afterwards; others had not. Bishop’s track record for his victims’ survival was far worse, but still. If he’d drilled through her eye sockets, they would take a few days to heal and she’d likely have two black eyes even if she hadn’t lost all ability to think and reason.

  Fortunately, she couldn’t feel any pain or soreness. But whether he’d given her a frontal lobotomy or not, she couldn’t lie there and allow Bishop to take her even farther from Amarok. She had to use what faculties she had left to escape.