by D. K. Hood
With care, he rolled to one side and tried to sit on the side of the bed. Agony flamed through him but he managed to drop both legs over the edge. He tugged out the catheter attached to him with disgust. The drip in his arm no doubt carried pain meds. Whatever drugs they had used on him before had gone way past pain relief; they’d turned him into a zombie.
The room moved in and out of focus and threatened to fold in at the edges. Long moments of nausea followed and he gripped the edge of the bed like a life preserver until the ebb and flow of his balance subsided. He wanted to speak to Olivia, then glanced down at his nakedness. The last thing she needed was to see a naked man approaching her bed. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he tugged at the blanket and fashioned a toga, then eased his feet onto the cold floor. Sweat covered his skin and dripped down his nose with the effort of taking one single step. The pain in his side seemed to crush his lungs, preventing an intake of breath.
He reached for the curtains around his bed and they opened with a swish of metal runners. The girl was staring at him and he placed one finger over his mouth to signal her to be quiet. He scanned the room, searching for any CCTV cameras, then dropped his voice to just above a whisper. It came out husky from his dry throat. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you. They had me on some strange drug, I couldn’t move.”
“I know. They pump that shit into us all the time.” She blinked at him. “I couldn’t do anything to stop him either.” Her bottom lip quivered and tears welled in her eyes. “It was terrible. I thought he was going to cut out my eye.”
Not sure what to say, Doug nodded. “I’m so sorry.” He swallowed the lump in his throat. “We have to tell someone what’s happened.”
“Doctors can’t just drug people, tie them down and frighten them like that.” Olivia sniffed. “I hope we’re not in a psychiatric ward by mistake. I’ve heard of nurses doing all sorts of terrible things in those places.”
“I have no reason to be in one.” Doug eyed her cautiously. “Have you?”
“No.” Olivia blinked away tears. “I was driving home for the holidays with my mom and she wrecked the car. When I woke up, I thought I’d been hurt. Then he showed up and… well, you know the rest.” She let out a little sob.
The poor woman was terrified. “Nothing here makes sense. I can’t remember anything happening to me, yet I have a dressing on my side that hurts like hell.” Doug waved a hand toward the door. “How often do the doctors come by?”
“I’m pretty sure they’ve left for the day.” She indicated toward the beeping machine beside his bed. “Turn off your machine in case your increased heartbeat signals an alarm and get that needle out of your arm. The machine drugs us every four hours. I know because I heard them talking.” She looked at him wild-eyed. “They give me a different drug when that awful man comes to visit and I can’t move. He is a sick SOB and insists I’m tied to the bed and drugged.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “I never know what he’s going to do next. It’s like he gets off on scaring me.”
“We have to go get help.” Horrified by her words, Doug turned and shuffled to the monitors and disabled all of them, then pulled off the wires attached to his chest. He removed his drip, then released Olivia from the restraints, noticing the way she shrank away from him. “Hey, I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to get the hell out of here.” He stared at the door. “They don’t just leave us alone all night, do they?”
“I don’t think they care if we die.” She rubbed her wrists, then, as if making a decision, held out one trembling arm. “Can you take my needle out?”
He detached her drip and made her press down on the wound. “Have you told anyone what Jim is doing to you? That’s his name, isn’t it? I met him when we pulled you out the car wreck but I don’t know why I ended up in here.”
“Did you see the accident?” Her eyes became wide and fearful. “Is my mom okay?”
Doug swallowed hard, not sure what to tell her. He was only taking Jim’s word the woman had died. Rather than make the situation worse, he shrugged. “She went through the windshield. We had gotten you out the car, then I’m pretty darn sure Jim stuck me with a needle.” He looked at her tragic expression. “I don’t know for sure but my friend was there. She had my cellphone and my truck.”
“Okay.” Olivia visibly pulled herself together. “So my mom could be here too?”
“Maybe.” He glanced at the door. “We need to find out. How many people work in this ward?”
“Only two but they talk about someone else. The nurse knows what Jim is doing to me. He jokes about it.” She bit her bottom lip. “I’m not hurt apart from a bump on the head, so why do you figure they’re keeping me here?”
From the quantity of drugs the nurse had pumped into them, he figured the hospital could be part of the sex-slave industry. Once hooked and under control they would be sold overseas to work as prostitutes. He glanced at Olivia’s frightened, ashen expression and shook his head. Right now, she didn’t need to know. “I’m not sure what’s going on but we need to get out of here.” He dashed a hand through his hair. “I know Jim is a medical student and I guess the other one is a nurse.”
“Yeah. He’s the one who administers the drugs and cares for us.” She avoided his gaze. “He does what Jim tells him to do. Jim is the creepy one. He has dead eyes. I’m terrified he’s going to kill me.” Olivia pushed into a sitting position and used the sheet to wipe away her tears. “I heard them talking but I don’t know why you’re here or how you came by that injury.”
Doug touched the dressing on his side. “I don’t remember being hurt at all.”
“I don’t know either but they mentioned you were here because of someone called Sky.”
Thirty-Five
Friday afternoon
Jenna slid the search warrant for the recycling yard into the pocket of her coat, collected her satellite phone and met up with Kane at the front counter. She could see Wolfe and Webber leaning against Wolfe’s new SUV in deep conversation and headed outside. The town resembled a frozen tundra, icicles as long as swords hung dangerously from the gutters and snowdrifts in some places came up to her waist. A blast of freezing wind filled with ice blasted her cheeks and she heard Kane’s moan of displeasure. The cold would be causing havoc with his head injury but if she suggested he should remain in the office, he would give her one of his disgruntled looks and shake his head. She flicked a glance over him, glad he had taken every precaution to keep warm. Not even the tip of his nose was showing under his sunglasses.
Snow fell in a constant relentless curtain, covering everything in minutes. The frozen trees creaked, threatening to snap in two and shed mini avalanches of snow onto the footpath and any unsuspecting people walking under them. The snowplows and salt-spreaders had been by during the day in their never-ending effort to keep the roads clear. She wrapped her scarf around her head but the woolen cap and hooded jacket did little to protect her face. After sliding her sunglasses on, she moved with caution over the ice-coated sidewalk to speak to Wolfe. “We’re meeting the owner, Bill Sawyer, at the yard. He did say no one has been there since the shutdown two weeks ago.”
“How did you manage to get a search warrant?” Wolfe straightened and indicated to Webber to get into the car. “We don’t have much in the way of probable cause.”
Jenna lifted her chin to look at him. “We do. Kane visited the yard on Tuesday and noticed someone had opened the gate after the blizzard. The owner states no one has been there, so I went with what we had, a witness saying an axman attacked Sky. Her car is missing and we have reason to believe the vehicle could be at that location. We need to find evidence Sky or her car was there.”
“One good thing about winter. The cold preserves DNA.” Wolfe pulled open the door to his truck and slid inside. “We’ll follow you.”
Jenna climbed into Kane’s black truck and noticed his usual supply of hot drinks and snacks piled into the center console but the bloodhound was missing. She waited for him to
slide behind the wheel. “Where’s Duke?”
“Believe it or not, he’s behind the front counter in his basket, with Maggie. She has a heater near her feet and feeds him treats all day long. I guess the clingy stage is over at last.” Kane pulled down his scarf and smiled at her. “I asked him to come with me and he pretended to be asleep.”
Jenna chuckled and unwound her scarf. “I don’t blame him; I’d rather be inside in this weather too.”
They headed downtown past the park, surprisingly filled with rosy-faced children playing around the gigantic decorated tree while others created snow angels in the new drifts. The giggling kids were such a contrast to the huddle of parents, hunched against the cold with their hands pushed deep in their pockets. The noise of laughter and screeches of delight as a small group pelted each other with snowballs filled her mind with fond memories of her own childhood. The holidays had been special, filled with warm hugs. She swallowed hard, at that moment realizing having her own kids was an empty dream. The day she’d walked away from being Agent Avril Parker and become Sheriff Jenna Alton, she’d given up everything. In truth, I don’t exist.
“It’s harder in the holidays.” Kane glanced at her as if he’d just read her mind. “The memories are a bitch. They blindside me at the strangest moments.”
“Me too.” She turned in her seat. “I think deep down I wanted to have kids but after my folks died I shut off my emotions. I didn’t really consider the future and what it meant to be an agent.”
“I knew the risks but I figured they’d be overseas, not here.” Kane slowed to take a bend and then, once on the interstate, increased speed. “Worse still was not being able to speak about it to anyone, or being able to do anything.” He wiped his hand down his face, then turned to smile at her. “Wolfe wants us to spend Christmas Day with him and the girls.”
Filling with a warm glow, Jenna grinned. “Really? I’d love that.”
“Me too.” Kane chuckled. “The girls told him it wouldn’t be Christmas without all the family. They wanted Rowley too, and Webber, but Rowley is spending the holidays with his folks and I hear Webber has a girlfriend.”
Jenna gaped at him. “Really? I thought he was interested in Emily and Wolfe was concerned because he was too old for her.”
“Long story.” Kane shrugged. “I gather Wolfe told him to keep his distance until Emily finished college and since she came home, it seems her crush on Webber is over.”
The radio crackled and Wolfe gave his call sign. Jenna picked it up. “Go to our safe channel. Over.”
Not that she considered any channel on the radio safe but she switched to channel two and waited for Wolfe to speak.
“As you are waiting on my findings for Mrs. Palmer’s cause of death, I checked her rate of thawing before I left and I should be able to conduct an autopsy on Sunday morning. Problem is our housekeeper likes to attend church and morning tea with her friends. Would you be able to watch my girls for a couple of hours? Emily could stay home with them but I would like her to observe the procedure if possible. Over.”
Jenna smiled and glanced at Kane’s grinning face. Wolfe had never asked a favor and she welcomed the chance to get closer to his family. “We’d love to. We’ll come pick them up first thing. What time is good for you? Over.”
“Eight-thirty.” Wolfe cleared his throat. “Julie is keen to see the horses. Over.”
“We’ll take them for a ride.” Jenna stared ahead into the blanket of white, trying to recognize her surroundings. “It will be a nice break from searching for potential murder victims. Over.”
“Are you assuming the Axman disposed of the bodies of the potential victims by using the crusher? Over.”
Jenna exchanged a glance with Kane. “Yeah, is there a problem? Over.”
“It would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. If the killer is smart enough to do that, he wouldn’t leave the crushed remains close by but add them to a pile. Usually there are stacks of cubes of flattened piles of metal waiting for pickup by the recyclers. I figure it will be best to look at the ones that have the least amount of snow on them. I’ll do them first then scan the office for trace evidence. Over.”
“Sure. Over and out.” She hung up the radio. “The truck ahead of us made the turn to the junkyard. I figure that’s the owner, Mr. Sawyer.”
They followed the vehicle along the snow-covered road but, surprisingly, the going wasn’t as bad as Jenna had expected. In fact, she could see the tracks of a number of vehicles in the hard-packed snow. “This road has been in use during the shutdown.”
“It was clear like this when I came by on Tuesday. I figured the snowplows kept it open for the plants.” Kane swung the truck around a sweeping bend, then pulled up beside a red pickup. “I’ll call them when we get back to the office and get their schedule.”
Jenna turned to look at him. “I’ll speak to the owner while Wolfe and Webber are hunting down the crushed vehicles and conducting a sweep for trace evidence.” She glanced at the many rows of snow-covered cars. “Check out the cars at the front and see if Sky’s car is there.”
“Okay. My truck will fit down those rows.” Kane rubbed his chin. “If it’s not in the first few vehicles, I’ll take a drive around the yard.” He gave her a long look. “I did a background check on Bill Sawyer and he came up clean, but take a look at him. He fits the description Ella gave us of the Axman.”
Jenna’s attention moved to the man getting out of his vehicle. “So I notice.”
Thirty-Six
Jenna climbed out the truck and, wrapping her scarf around her face, crunched through the snow to the burly man standing beside the gate to the recycling yard. “Bill Sawyer?”
“The one and only.” Sawyer’s ruddy face creased into a good-natured grin. “Now what’s all this about illegal use of my crusher?”
Jenna pulled the search warrant from her pocket and handed it to him. “We have a warrant to search your premises; we believe there may be evidence to support a missing person’s case we are investigating.”
“Okay.” Sawyer stuffed the warrant inside his pocket without glancing at it, pulled out a set of keys and unlocked the gate. He waved them inside. “Knock yourselves out.”
“I’d like you to explain the system to me.” Jenna waited for him to walk inside the yard then followed him, with Kane and the others close behind.
“When the vehicles arrive, my crew strips them of all working parts and pulls out anythin’ that can be resold. Hazardous materials are removed, the battery and the air conditioning drained. What’s left is crushed or shredded.”
Jenna nodded. “How many people have keys to this yard?”
“Me and my cousin Wyatt. He’s holdin’ a backup set in case of an emergency. I hold his spare set too.” Sawyer indicated past Jenna with his chin. “He owns the meat processing plant up yonder but that’s on shutdown right now too.”
Making a mental note to get his cousin’s full name, Jenna glanced behind her. Wolfe and Webber were busy brushing snow away from stacks of crushed metal and Kane had climbed up to peer inside the open mouth of the crusher. She turned back to Sawyer. “Do you have many vehicles waiting to be crushed?”
“That line there will be next.” He waved toward the rows and rows of vehicles piled up at the back of the lot. “The ones at the back we use for parts mostly, and when they are just shells, we crush them.”
“Do many people come by and ask you to crush their vehicles without removing anything?” Jenna watched his face but there was no change in his expression.
“Some do.” He shrugged. “I’ve had a few where the wife has argued with her husband, got his car in the divorce settlement then crushed it out of spite, but if they insist on crushin’ the entire vehicle, we still remove the battery and hazardous waste but we charge a higher price. Our profit comes from recyclin’ parts.”
Jenna nodded. “I gather you check the title before you crush the vehicles?”
“In most cases, yeah I
do.”
“So you believe it’s not always necessary? That would be illegal.” Jenna stared hard at him, but the man did not miss a beat.
“Nope. If they are abandoned and not valued at more’n five hundred, I crush them; and I get shipments via insurance companies, burned-out wrecks, abandoned cars with no identification numbers or plates. They are logged and then crushed.” He gave her a long look. “I check inside and the trunks before I crush anythin’. I don’t want no dead bodies stinkin’ up my place.”
Jenna’s neck prickled. He had just voiced her exact suspicions. “That’s a strange thing to say.”
“I’ve seen movies where bodies are crushed in cars.” He gave an indignant huff. “It’s not happening in my yard.”
Jenna turned at the roar of Kane’s truck as he drove between the rows of stacked vehicles, obviously searching for Sky’s yellow sedan. She looked at Sawyer. “What happens to the waste metal?”
“I sell it.” Sawyer smiled. “A scrap metal recycler collects it and ships it to a place where it’s shredded, melted down and reused.”
Jenna pulled out her notepad and pen. “I’ll need the name and contact details of everyone with keys to the yard and I’d like to inspect the logbook for the crusher for the past two weeks.”
“Sure thing. They’re in the office.” Sawyer led the way to a small brick building heavy with snow and icicles. He opened the door with a key from his bunch. “Let me get the light.”
Jenna noticed the lack of snow in front of the office door and the crunching under her boots. “Is this sand and salt?”
“Yeah, we drop a couple of bags here before the snow so we don’t have to dig out the office.” Sawyer kicked the snow from his boots and walked inside. “We shut down for three weeks is all. I drop in from time to time to add more salt.”
