by Keri Lake
Swinging around, he plants his hands on his hips. “I really don’t think you need to stay here with him,” he says, pointing up toward the apartment.
“What? Aren’t you going to arrest him?”
“That’s not how it works, Nola. I can’t just arrest him based on something you saw in his apartment.” With a sigh, he rubs his hand over his skull and shakes his head. “That’s where he claims he found the watch. In the apartment. That belonged to you and Denny.”
“That’s bullshit, Jonah! I saw the watch on Denny that night!”
“I understand … but you left, Nola. There’s a gap in the timeline where … Denny could’ve removed it. No judge is going to grant a search warrant based on something you think you saw months ago.”
Hands up, I shake my head, eyes clamped for a moment. “None of this matters to me right now. I don’t care if he’s a fucking dangerous psychopath. I’m not leaving this house tonight. If Oliver comes back, I want to be here. Here.”
“Fine. I’ll stay here with you. Get in the car. We’ll start by searching the neighborhood. I’ll call the station. You call any friends of Oliver’s.”
Doing as he says, I clamber into his truck, every muscle in my body tight and trembling. Beside me, Jonah climbs into the driver’s seat and starts the vehicle.
“Jonah, I’m so scared. What if he …. What if something happened? What if someone … I can’t even imagine.” Burying my face in my palms fails to hide the release of panic, the tears streaming down my face.
“Hey.” Arms wrap around me, and Jonah pulls me in. “We’re going to find him. I promise you.”
“You can’t promise me that, Jonah. You can’t. Someone might’ve taken him.” I glance up to the apartment, where Voss stares down at me through the window. The intense beam of the headlights doesn’t quite reach as high as the window, but add just enough glow to see his face, and stern eyes add a severe glower to his naturally rigid features. Deadly.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say he looks like he’s about ready to kill something.
5
Voss
Carl, you rotten piece of shit. Whether you harm the boy, or not, I plan to skin you alive when I get my hands on you.
I need to find somewhere I can review the video footage of the last few hours. I’m guessing the kid didn’t take off. In spite of his shithead moments, it’s obvious he loves and cares for his mom. Even his animosity toward me is born out of a need to protect her, so no way he upped and skipped off on his own. My guess is, he was swiped when Nola and I were fucking, which kind of sucks. What was undoubtedly the best sex I’ve had in years, tainted by my bastard uncle—who will pay dearly, if he harms the boy.
Gathering up my bags, I move swiftly, keeping my eyes on Nola, who stares at me through the window, phone to her ear, as I make my way to the car. The two of them probably waited a minute to make sure ‘the creep’ has properly vacated the premises. Unfortunately, I think the real creep vacated hours ago, taking her son with him.
I won’t tell her, or her brother, that, though. Not that I want to keep Nola in the dark, or watch her suffer the unknowns, but I can’t afford police fucking things up.
Carl didn’t take Oliver to hurt him. He took him to toy with me. To lure me out of my dormancy, this comfortable space I’ve fallen into with Nola, growing weak and lazy. He took him to trigger a reaction, and hells bells, the little prick is going to get one.
Once at my car, I take another minute to look back at her as the pickup truck backs out of the driveway, and I search her expression for any inkling that she doesn’t absolutely loathe me. The sadness and betrayal in her eyes tells me everything I need to know, though. The woman doesn’t trust me. Probably never will, after this, especially if she thinks I had any part in taking her son away.
I might be a torturing bastard, but there are a select few who’ve earned some immunity from my bastardly ways, and Nola is definitely one of them. I’d stab my own heart out before I’d put her through any level of suffering.
But, I suppose, she doesn’t know that.
I take off down the street, eyes peeled for Oliver, just in case I’m wrong about everything. In an empty Starbucks parking lot, I pull over and nab my phone from the passenger seat. Clicking on the app, I open the surveillance files for the last few hours, before wading through the footage for the camera placed out in the hallway, just past Oliver’s bedroom.
The camera detects movement, indicated by the narrowing of the lens, focused at the top of the stairs. Seconds later, a shadow appears, his face concealed behind a shiny latex mask. Even with the hallway light flipped on, I can’t make out any of the details. His clothes, equally obscure, seem to be a black coat and pants. For whatever reason, he places his hand over his chest as he passes by the camera that follows his movements.
It pans after him, while he makes his way down the hall, to Oliver’s bedroom door.
He opens the door.
Oliver is sitting on his bed, the white cord of his earbuds trailing down from his ears an indication that he can’t hear what’s going on.
His face snaps up from the cellphone in his hands, a moment of struggle shows the shadow standing over him, a flash of something shiny, and in the next scene, I see Oliver’s legs still against the bed.
Hoisting him off the mattress, the stranger drags Oliver’s unconscious body out of the room, backing himself past the camera, down the hall, then the staircase.
I rewind the footage to the point when the stranger first walks in and pause it.
The look on Oliver’s face sends a chill even through my usually unruffled bones. The quality is a bit shitty, but I can make out his fingers curled into the pillows. His mouth gaping, eyes panicked. Whoever walked into that room scared the shit out of him. There was no momentary confusion of trying to decide who entered his room. Trying to contemplate who might be behind that mask.
No, from the moment Carl walked in, Oliver knew.
He knew because he’s seen that mask before.
I switch to the outdoor camera and rewind it back to the same timeframe. The white van sits parked in the driveway. Broad daylight. From the house, he carries Oliver to the van and sets him inside the passenger seat.
Broad fucking daylight.
I’ll assume Jonah does his job and interviews any witnesses, but in the meantime, I know who took the kid and what he was driving.
* * *
It’s dark by the time I reach the Marriott—same place, same room as the last time I brought Nola here. With my belongings left beside the bed by the bellhop, I stand in the middle of the room, hands on my hip, staring off through the window across from me at the cityscape. Somewhere in that menagerie of buildings and skyscrapers, Carl is likely putting Oliver through hell. Probably has him locked in a room with no lights, as he often enjoyed doing to me.
A slap in the face.
Cunning little prick stole the kid and my cat right from under my goddamn nose, and that doesn’t happen. Not to me. I’ve gotten lazy, distracted.
He has the upper hand.
“Fuck!” With both hands rubbing my skull, I pace beside the bed.
Years ago, I’d have tracked him down, taken him out and closed the deal. I’d have used every resource available to me, including the victims themselves, like bait, to get to my quarry. A thought that disgusts me where Nola and Oliver are concerned.
He’s toying with me, though. Biding his time. Setting me off on these little scavenger hunts for clues, which I’ve been too lazy, too complacent to piece together on my own, relying on the scraps fed to me by my half-wit assistant. Nothing against Jackson, really. He’s basically a kid, but every piece of intel he’s provided is lacking the single thread that would stitch everything together inside my head.
There’s something I’m missing in all of this. Something that doesn’t make sense. Coming to a halt, I take a moment to scour my mind for whatever piece that isn’t coming to light. A detail that hasn’t fit in th
e puzzle since the beginning.
Nola.
Why his interest in her? Why didn’t he abduct her that night, well before I arrived, when he left the note on her car?
Makes me wonder if he left notes on the other victims’ cars. Like Marnee’s. The security cameras in the parking garage where she was last seen would’ve been helpful, but by the time her body was found, they’d already been overwritten, according to building management. Her car was nowhere to be found.
Four girls have gone missing, five including Bethany. Only miles apart from one another. None of them appeared to know each other—on social media, at least. Approximately the same age as Nola, socially active, single, or, in Bethany’s case, swinging. All attractive. Superficially, all very similar to Nola, but that isn’t how Carl works. He’s counting on me to discover the differences here. What makes her unique.
It isn’t Oliver, because one of the women, Kelly, also had a young son she’d left with her mother the night she first went missing. I don’t know what the connection is to all of these girls. Maybe they’re all random, including Nola.
I open my briefcase and remove my laptop from inside. It’s been a while since I’ve taken the time to investigate the information otherwise spoon-fed to me by Jackson over the last few years. Shitty intel, no doubt, but I’ve made it work. There’s only so much the police investigations can provide, though, because unfortunately for them, they don’t know who killed those women.
I know who killed the women, and possibly even why. Had I not been so cocky and taken the time to really dig into what he’s been doing these last few years, it might’ve provided a bit more insight into where Nola falls. Perhaps I’ve become too accustomed to dealing with sociopaths over psychopaths. Most of the assholes I hunt are impulsive and sloppy, volatile and easily rattled. Nowhere near as meticulous and methodical as Carl. Perhaps the most hair-raising trait about my uncle was the way he so easily flipped on his charm, mimicking feelings and emotions he never actually felt himself, just to gain trust.
That’s how he slipped past me.
I might’ve been a bit arrogant in my assumptions, and maybe a little too confident of my skills. As much as I’ve evolved, so has Carl.
Back when Jackson first provided the victims’ names, I conducted some cursory research and found that, in each case, these women liked to flaunt themselves on social media, all of them socialites—party girls, with too much time and money. All except for Bethany, of course, but even she gave off a party girl vibe, albeit the lower class version. Marnee’s Instagram account was essentially a feed of selfies, some taken in her bedroom, others in bars, at parties, some teasing images taken in a bubble bath. Kelly seemed to prefer Snapchat, and posted a number of images, standing in front of the mirror in panties, covering up bare breasts, one with her son playing in the background. Of course, Bethany’s social media, particularly Facebook, hemorrhaged with everything wrong about her life and marriage, with an obvious attempt to garner attention. The fourth and fifth victims were no different from the others. Nauseating, in a sense that every one of them had a fairly large following of sympathizers or admirers.
Pulling up Marnee’s account, I click through some of the comments below a picture I considered a massive call for attention. Plump, silicone-stuffed lips pucker, as she holds a rose up to her face, sniffing it. Her shirt is a half cut, baring the lower part of her obviously fake tits to just below the nipple, where part of her areola sticks out, and the caption on the image says, ‘I love the smell of fresh cut roses’. As if we’re all to believe the point of the post is the rose in her hand.
Hundreds of comments below carry a number of messages—from the tongue and wet emojis, to guys trying to look like they’re sensitive and decent by calling the image a beautiful use of lighting and composition.
‘Fucks sake.
Trying to find a psychopath on social media is like trying to find a needle in a stack of needles. Some of these commenters could probably pass a Rorschach test with flying pathology.
Each of the girls’ profiles are the exact opposite of Nola’s. Aside from some pottery shots, she hasn’t posted anything to Facebook in about a year. Prior to that, it was sunsets, a baby picture of what appeared to be Oliver from the back, and an early one, posted three years ago, of her and a blond-haired guy I assume was Denny.
Thanks to Jackson’s anemic research, I learned something new about Nola earlier in the day, as well. She had a sister who went missing.
Nola’s married name is Tensley, but on her profile, it’s hyphenated Tensley-Stiever. Her maiden name, I’m guessing. I don’t know her sister’s first name, so I type Stiever into Google, and a number of images pop up with her brother’s face, while some are an older man I’ll assume is her father, Gordon.
With blond hair and blue eyes, he, nor her brother, for that matter, look anything like Nola, so I’m guessing she takes after her mother.
I type Stiever Missing Persons, and click on the first search result. A local news article, dated seventeen years ago.
Seventeen years.
The date hits me first.
The accompanying image, second.
Staring back at me on the screen is a blonde, blue-eyed beauty who clearly takes after her father, looks-wise. Nora Stiever. A nineteen-year-old pre-vet student, attending Loyola University, before she ventured out to meet up with her boyfriend one night and was never seen again.
I stare at her long blonde locks, and at a flash of memory, blinding like that of a camera, I see it matted and dirty, clinging to blood that’s dried on her face. Pale skin glows onscreen, but in my head, it’s marred with bruises and cuts, coated in a thin layer of dirt and sweat.
Almost unrecognizable when compared to the woman staring back at me with a bright smile, as if she hasn’t yet seen the darker side of humanity.
And just like that, everything clicks. Snap. Snap. Click. Like a photograph.
I throw the laptop off me, wanting to get away from that face, but it’s too late. It’s already seared inside my mind, and when the unbidden memories claw at me, I have no choice but to let them take me.
6
Voss
Seventeen years ago …
“Please don’t leave me!” The Girl’s voice echoes through the room, the sound of it tightening my muscles.
My heart is beating so fast inside my chest, I can hardly draw in a breath.
If Carl finds me, he’ll lock me in the closet again. Or worse.
But I can’t leave her in the cellar alone and risk he’ll hurt her.
“How did you get down here?” I ask.
Lips downturned, she lowers her head. “I was …. I stopped at a gas station, on my way to a … friend’s. And … a guy …. He looked like a nice guy …. He told me there was a kitten stuck inside a drainpipe behind the building. So, I ran to look. The last thing I saw were the wheels of a vehicle, because I was lying on the ground.”
A cold sickness twists in my stomach. I’ve seen too many animal carcasses to know whatever he plans to do with her isn’t good.
He never catches and releases.
“I don’t know if I can carry you out of here. He’ll catch us.”
“Please. My dad … he’s a police officer. If you help me, I can help you get out of here, too.”
What if her father thinks I had any part of this, though? How can I trust she won’t tell him that I helped Carl stash her away down here?
On the other hand, what if she doesn’t?
“Just wait here a second. I’m going to see if I can get help.” None of the neighbors have ever really cared to investigate my living conditions. They’ve always kept to themselves. But this girl …. She might be something new. My ticket out of here. A chance to get away.
“No! Please! Don’t go!”
“Shhh! He’ll hear you!”
The music still plays above, the muffled sound of James Hetfield blasting through the floor. He does this when he’s doing something in his room
and doesn’t want me to come around. Like humping his mannequin, or masturbating to hardcore porn. The kind that’s made my stomach turn, on the few occasions I’ve walked in on him.
Twisting back toward the girl, I contemplate whether, or not, I could carry her up the stairs. She’s pretty slim, but so am I. Plus, she’d be deadweight.
I’d be better off running to the kitchen to dial 9-1-1.
“Okay,” I whisper over the hammer of an electric guitar. “Be quiet. I’m going to call the police here. You be sure to tell them … that I didn’t do this, okay? Tell them I had no part of this.”
“I promise.” Her voice is shaky, like she’s about to break down. “Please just get me out of here.”
With a nod, I turn back toward the staircase, panic beating down my spine with every step I take toward that vacuous door. The music blares on, offering a small measure of protection. Something like an invisible lookout.
It’s not until I reach the top of the stairs that the door swings open, and I tumble backward, down the stairs, until the cold cement smashes into my spine.
The agonizing ache spirals up the back of my skull and into my sinuses, and the room turns blurry for a moment, with floating circles, which I attempt to dissolve by screwing my eyes shut.
“Are you okay?” the girl whispers, and when I open my eyes, the view is sharper than before.
Carl stands at the top of the stairs. From my angle, his form is imposing, like a giant looking down on a defenseless mouse. The cold hostility in his stare sends an icy chill across my skin. It’s the last I see of his face, before he pulls his mask over it, hiding himself, and closes the door behind him.
Stairs creak, and even though my ankle is throbbing, I hoist myself up onto my elbows and back away from him. Across the room, I drag myself, the gritty concrete biting into my elbows, until I reach the room that houses the girl.
