by L. T. Vargus
Chapter 69
When Sierra spoke on the recording, it was like she was right there in the room with Darger once more. Alive. Resurrected. It made the hair on Darger’s arms stand up straight. A chill coursed all through her, cold enough to constrict her breath.
Sierra’s voice was slurred, whether from her own drugs or those of the killer, Darger couldn’t be sure. Her panic, however, was still discernible.
Dispatcher: 911, what is the address of your emergency?
Sierra: He’s tryna kill me!
Dispatcher: Ma’am, can you please tell me where you’re at?
Sierra: He’s— I’m at… at the… next to the, the… Dairy Mart on Broadway.
Dispatcher: What’s that?
Sierra: Across the street from the Dairy Mart.
Dispatcher: What’s the problem?
Sierra: He’s gonna kill me! He’s got a knife and a gun and he’s gonna kill me! Please hurry!
Dispatcher: Ma’am, are you injured?
Sierra: No. Yes. A little. Hit my head, I think.
Dispatcher: He hit you in the head?
Sierra: I don’t know. I can’t remember.
Dispatcher: Where is he now?
Sierra: I don’t know, but if he finds me, he’s gonna kill me. You have to hurry. Please! I’m scared.
Dispatcher: You can’t see him?
Sierra: No. No, I ran. I ran from the room.
Dispatcher: He had you in a room?
Sierra: And I was tied up.
Dispatcher: Are you tied up still?
Sierra: I kinda freed myself. He put me in the room and then he left. And I ran.
Dispatcher: How far did you run?
Sierra: I don’t know. A mile. A couple miles. I was in the woods. I don’t know.
Dispatcher: Do you remember seeing anything else when you were running?
Sierra: When he first put me in the room. There was a woman.
Dispatcher: There was a woman with the man?
Sierra: No, not with him. She was outside. Outside of the room. Across the street. She was running. A whaddyacallit…
Dispatcher: A jogger?
Sierra: Yeah. Wait, no. How much longer?
Dispatcher: What?
Sierra: How much longer? I’m scared.
Dispatcher: Just a few more minutes.
[Pause]
Sierra: I see lights. I see the lights. I hear them.
Dispatcher: You hear the police lights?
Sierra: Yes. Oh, thank god. Oh, thank you. I thought I was going to die.
Dispatcher: Just hang on with me a little longer, until the officers get there, OK?
Sierra: OK. Oh God. He was going to kill me.
Dispatcher: Can you see the cars now?
Sierra: Yes. Yes, I see them.
Dispatcher: OK, just stay with me until the officers get there.
“That’s it,” Janssen said when the file finished playing.
“A woman outside of the room, she said. Across the street. Running. It seemed like she was going to say something else after that, but she was rattled. She lost track.”
“Yeah, she was pretty messed up that night.”
“What do you think it means?”
“Who the hell knows? Mighta hallucinated it for all we know.”
Darger didn’t think so. Sierra had been confused that night, her memory foggy, but she hadn’t been delusional.
“Can I copy that onto my phone?”
“The call?” Janssen asked, then glanced at the computer with mild distrust. “I’m not really very technical.”
Darger was already pulling the USB cable from her bag.
“I know how,” she said.
She took a step closer to the laptop and paused.
“If you don’t mind.”
He raised his hands in defeat, not looking thrilled about it, but probably figuring the sooner she got what she wanted, the sooner she’d be out of his hair. Darger connected her phone to the computer and dragged the file over. It was done in under a minute.
“There. Finished.”
Just to be sure everything had worked correctly, Violet opened the audio of the 911 call on her phone. It was all there.
“Great. Now, do you mind?” Janssen said, flipping off the light to the office.
He led her back to the front door. The cat followed in their wake, and before Darger exited the house, she bent to pet the top of its head.
She paused on the stoop and readjusted the strap of her bag.
“Janssen. Thank you.”
“Yeah,” he said and unceremoniously closed the door on her.
Well, she thought as she strode to her car, you can’t win ‘em all.
Chapter 70
Sandy Metcalf couldn’t believe how cold it was. The chill hit her in the foyer as soon as the automatic doors of the gym parted, and it only got worse when she left the building and walked across the parking lot, the frigid wind battering her in the face all the while. Her hair was still a little wet from hopping in the shower after her workout. It was only a quick rinse, but her face and scalp were paying the price for it now. The harsh air seemed to not just strike her but scrape across the exposed flesh, abrading it in bursts like aggressive swipes of steel wool.
Walking between two SUVs provided her some cover, the pocket of stillness enveloping her. An empty warmth seemed to well in her there. Almost a sense of weightlessness. Her nerves all confused after the violence of the wind. She took a deep breath, her chest fluttering.
“Windy enough for you?” a man’s voice said right next to her.
She jumped a little, the voice startling her, but she recovered quickly. The voice had come from a mustached man sitting in the driver’s seat of the Explorer parked next to her RAV4. His window was part of the way down.
“It’s brutal,” she said. “If this is what we’re getting in October, who knows what winter will be like?”
The man chuckled.
“Oh, it’ll be nightmarish. I promise you that.”
She climbed into her car, her torso still tingling with cold tendrils of adrenaline from that moment of fright. There was nothing quite like feeling alone and finding out you weren’t in visceral fashion like that, she thought. It got her whole body stirring. Again, she took a deep breath into a quivering chest. The wind whipped across the hood and roof, whistling a little in that hollow just beyond the bottom of the windshield.
She started the car and applied some lip balm to her lips. That was one of her nervous ticks, even if her lips were genuinely dry at the moment. She applied it whenever she was spooked. Something about the ritual of it comforted her. The little snap of the lid popping off. The feel of it on her lips. This kind was coconut. A little greasier than she preferred, but it smelled nice. She closed her eyes as the flat surface brushed the perimeter of her lips. Then she clicked the lid back on, and the ritual was complete.
She pulled out of the parking spot, not looking back at the mustached man in the Explorer. She got another chill as the SUV eased out of the lot, goose bumps rippling over her arms. Funny how she couldn’t quite shake the fright of that man violating her private moment. No matter how sure she was that everything was OK, that creeping sensation wouldn’t quite leave her alone.
Chapter 71
He waits a time before he follows her out of the lot. Drums on the steering wheel with the heels of his hands.
Something had changed in him as he watched her this time. The shift. Some switch flipping in his head in that moment of fright he saw on her face right before she got into her car. The mustached man had spooked her somehow. And she glowed.
It always works this way. The voltage cranks up in his head. The current lighting up his brain. Making his jaw clench.
The shift is upon him.
He moves now. His Prius trailing well behind her RAV4. The SUV falling out of view now and again. Snaking around corners and bends. But he feels no fear of losing her now. No fear at all.
The clouds roil above. A relentless gray wall separating the earth from the heavens.
He no longer perceives himself as in control. No longer chooses what will happen next. No longer even wants to. It feels like a dream. An intense dream with his awareness turned all the way up. He watches the events unfold. Watches his body go through with it. Watches himself close in on the inevitable.
The current just surges and surges in his head. Such a powerful impulse. Something beyond desire. Beyond compulsion. It beats in his chest and pulses in his limbs. It presses him forward to the next act. To the next deed. It’s not merely a throb in his skull to be obeyed. It is everything. Everything. The only thing that’s real.
The shift.
He feels it in the tightening of his jaw. In all those cords and muscles in his neck drawn taut enough to snap. He feels it in the cold sweat slicking his skin. The surface of his body prickling with a tiny version of that electrical charge burning out in his head.
He crests a small hill and she comes back into view. The red RAV4 waiting at a blinking red light. He already knows where she will go. Knows her every move three steps in advance.
But what will he do? That he doesn’t know. Not yet.
But he will. Soon.
He can almost smell it. That electric current in his skull. It’s like the ozone odor of a computer’s power supply. Sharp and clean.
Chapter 72
Sandy’s hand moved to the stereo in the center of the dash, but her fingers stopped shy of the touchscreen. She’d gone to turn on the radio reflexively and thought better of it. The noise would be too stimulating just yet — either music or talk. She needed a little peace and quiet. Something to clear her mind of that anxiety. She took another deep breath, trying to fight that tremble of the muscles in her chest and failing.
The RAV4 moved out of a wooded area and into the open, and that change in atmosphere seemed to calm her some. The wind howled through the open space, however, its restlessness not so easily quelled.
The image of the grocery store flashed in her head. She needed half and half and she’d planned to break her post-workout tradition by swinging by Seaman’s to grab a quart. But now… Her skin crawled again. It didn’t feel right.
The incident in the parking lot had rattled her in a way she couldn’t shake, and she didn’t want to do anything out of the ordinary. Didn’t want to break her routine.
God, this was so weird. She hadn’t felt this vulnerable in a long, long time. She was a woman in her late 30’s who’d lived alone since the divorce. Five years on her own. She didn’t spook easily. Not anymore. But this had her wound up. And something about that only frightened her more.
She’d been with Dan for over ten years before they split. The divorce was his call, but she wasn’t shocked or even particularly upset. They’d never been very close and never had children. They just went through the motions in both their relationship and their lives. Maybe they’d both been too focused on their careers at the time. She appraised homes, something she liked doing as it involved travel and photography. He worked in auto insurance. She had never quite been clear what his job actually entailed. Paperwork. That’s all she knew.
Still, she had always felt safe at night with him there next to her. The first months by herself were rough. Those long, black nights. Wide awake. Listening to every creak and groan of the house settling. The patter of her cat’s feet on the carpet in the hall. The wind swishing through the trees and bushes outside.
It took over four months before she could sleep the night through undisturbed. But she’d gotten there. And she’d really blossomed after that. The doldrums of a lackluster marriage lifted, and her life felt renewed. Re-energized. She started taking care of herself, both physically and mentally, in new ways. She upped her exercise regimen, switched to a vegetarian diet, and started treating herself to the kind of leisure activities that left her feeling fulfilled. Gardening, both vegetables and flowers. Vacations to Europe and South America. She dated some, too — enough to keep things interesting — but that seemed secondary to her other endeavors. For the first time, her life was all about her.
The grocery store approached in the plaza on the right. She wouldn’t be stopping. No, she would trust her gut. She’d follow her normal ritual of hitting Starbucks after her workout and leave it at that. A tall mocha. Sugar-free. Just like always.
The clock on the dash glowed green. Maybe she’d stop by Pam’s for a quick visit, bring her a coffee. Sandy and her sister texted back and forth nearly every day, but she hadn’t seen Pam in person in almost two weeks. She tried to remember Pam’s favorite drink at Starbucks. Caramel something something… or was it cinnamon?
Her eyes flicked to the rearview mirror as she stopped at a blinking red light. The road behind her was empty. No one following. Nothing suspicious going on. Everything was perfectly normal. She knew this, but some part of her still wouldn’t believe it.
Chapter 73
The stark silhouettes of trees that had already dropped all of their leaves rolled by as they drove into town for the memorial service. The branches reminded her of skeletal arms, reaching for the darkening sky. Crooked claws of bone.
Darger had forced Loshak to listen to Sierra’s 911 call three times that morning. He’d seemed distracted, his mind probably wandering to the vigil which was only a few hours away from commencing.
“If there was a witness to Sierra’s first abduction, and we could find her—”
“Now hold on, Darger. It could mean anything. For starters, it’s one of the things she recanted in her first interview. Janssen specifically asks her about the woman, and Sierra says she doesn’t know what the frig he’s talking about.”
“Yeah, but she was terrified and all screwed up from the drugs and getting hit in the head. It would make sense that she’d have the details mixed up, even an hour later.”
Loshak’s head tilted to one side and then the other as if he were weighing it.
“Maybe we should have Luck mention it in the next press conference. Anyone who might have seen something that night. Any women that may have been out for a walk or a run,” Violet continued.
At a stop sign, she watched a gust of wind pick up a pile of papery golden leaves and swirl them around like a miniature tornado.
Loshak said, “One thing at a time. Let’s get through the memorial tonight, alright? Can’t we just focus on that for now? For all we know, by the time it’s over, we won’t need this mysterious jogging woman, because we’ll already have a suspect in custody.”
“You’re gonna jinx it, talking like that.”
Loshak scoffed with amusement.
“Don’t get superstitious on me, Darger.”
The tires bumped up and onto a bridge spanning the Hocking River. Loshak turned to gaze upon the silvery water running beneath them.
“We’re about to catch a break. I can feel it.”
As they pulled into the lot near the auditorium, Darger spotted three officers already making their rounds through the rows of vehicles. They were in plainclothes, but as usual were easy to identify as police if you knew where to look.
The Worthingtons were stationed at the main entrance of the auditorium, greeting each visitor as they came through the threshold. It was a handsome historic building with red brick, arched windows, and large transoms over the doors. Mission-style sconces between the doorways emitted a welcoming glow.
Lois smiled broadly when she saw them.
“Agent Darger, Agent Loshak,” she said, holding out a hand for each of them. “Thank you so much for coming. And for everything else you’re doing.”
“Our pleasure, ma’am,” Loshak said.
After exchanging pleasantries with the rest of the family, they made their way into the auditorium. It was a huge space with two mezzanines. So far, it appeared they were limiting seating to the lower level, but judging by the large crowd, Violet wouldn’t be surprised if they opened one of the upper levels as well. The acoustics of the room
magnified the sounds of the mob; a clamor of voices so constant it was like the babble of a stream. Offstage, Darger could hear people doing vocal warm-ups. The program she’d been handed at the door listed two performances by the choir from the Worthingtons’ church.
“What does your spidey-sense say now?” Darger asked Loshak.
“Huh?”
“You think he’s here?”
Loshak’s eyes scanned the room and ran a hand through his hair.
“If he is, then it’s a damn good thing we have a solid plan in motion. If we’d been trying to sift through this crowd, we’d be screwed.”
Tucked into the shadows under the balcony of the first mezzanine was a line of cameramen testing their equipment. Loshak squinted over Darger’s shoulder and then wrapped his fingers around her bicep.
“We’ve been spotted. Let’s skedaddle,” he said, pulling her further into the mass of people clustering among the seats.
Behind them, Darger could hear a woman’s voice calling after them.
“Agent Darger!”
They ducked around a group of younger people and up a row of seats.
“Why, hello, Detective,” Loshak said.
Casey Luck was sitting at the end of the row, cloaked somewhat by the fact that this corner of the seating area was darker than the rest.
“Oh hey. I was trying to hide from reporters,” he said.
“Same here,” Loshak said.
Darger settled into the seat between them.
“Everything set at the grave site?” Luck asked.
Loshak nodded.
“Yeah. Already got one car on it. I’ll join him for the first round of surveillance after the vigil.”
Darger wasn’t listening. She had the program clutched in her hand. It was coiled into a tube, her thumb and forefinger wrapped around it. She stared into the hole in the center, going over Sierra’s 911 call again in her head.
One of them said her name, but it barely registered. Not until she felt a tap on her shoulder.
“Did you hear what I said?” Luck asked.
