by L. T. Vargus
Nicole couldn’t have reached the door yet — she still had a few more rows of cars and an alley to cross. So where was she? She couldn’t just vanish.
Darger swallowed, eyes swiveling everywhere, heart thundering in her chest.
She waited a few seconds for Nicole to emerge, to pop out from behind a row of cars, futzing with a broken heel, some simple explanation like that. The girl could be lighting a cigarette. Texting. Checking her phone.
But she wasn’t. Darger knew she wasn’t. She felt it.
Nicole didn’t appear. The clicking of her heels did not resume.
She was gone.
Wait. Wait. Darger caught herself before the panic took hold. She couldn’t leap to the worst case scenario. She’d done that last night and made a fool of herself. Really pissed Nicole off, too. If she blew this, the girl would never forgive her. They might lose her for good. Darger had to stay calm. Reasonable.
Think.
OK.
Maybe the john wanted to conduct business in his vehicle? Could that make sense?
No. Nicole was definitely headed inside. She’d mentioned entering the side door specifically.
Darger’s eyes still scanned the lot. No Nicole. Nothing.
Then she saw it. Movement to her left.
She snapped her head that way. Squinted.
Someone stood in the lot. A man wearing a baseball cap. He was moving, leaning against the passenger door of a pickup truck with his back to her, but she couldn’t tell what he was doing.
This wasn’t right. Something wasn’t right.
A truck.
The truck? The one from the gas station security video?
The man squatted to the ground, and she could just see his head and shoulders. He was moving something. Something heavy.
Darger moved without thought, her hand finding the door handle. She pulled it, careful to avoid making noise. Slid the door open a crack.
The dome light clicked on — lit up everything — and she panicked for a moment. Worried he’d see.
Now her hand flailed at the light. Found the switch. Turned it off.
Shaky breaths entered and exited her nostrils. She could hear the blood squishing in her ears.
He hadn’t turned. Hadn’t seen. Though he seemed to be frozen for the moment. Spooked, maybe.
Good. She didn’t want him wary, of course, but his pause was buying her time.
Time to get close.
She eased out of the car, crouching beside the door, closing it with a soft touch.
Now she shuffled forward. Staying quiet. Staying low.
She skittered between cars, sneaking glances across the way.
A red glow flared, lighting up the hotel lot. Brake lights from the truck. The engine whirred to life.
This was it. He was leaving. She was going to lose him if she didn’t hurry.
She sprinted to the back of the pickup. Stopped just shy of it, staying low to keep out of the rearview the best she could.
She stared through the back windshield.
Nicole was there. Lit up green from the dashboard lights.
The girl’s head slumped over on one shoulder. Limp.
And the man leaned over her as Darger watched. Wound something around the girl’s wrists.
Darger couldn’t see, but she knew what it was: a plastic zip tie.
Ice water coursed through Darger’s body, the cold rush of adrenaline.
It was him. It was Stump.
She reached for her gun.
Nothing.
It wasn’t there. Her holster was empty. Then she remembered taking the gun out. Setting it on the passenger seat. Covering it with the box of chocolates when that old couple had passed by the car. Jesus Christ.
But there was no time to go back for it. She barely had time to think.
If she lost him now, she’d never find these girls. Not alive, anyway.
And she realized it wasn’t even a choice. Even if she’d had the gun, there was no choice — because of Emily.
If she arrested Stump here and now, they’d never find the other girl. He’d never tell.
There was only one way.
The manual transmission whined as he popped the clutch. The truck rolled backward, inching just a little closer to Darger.
It almost seemed like an invitation.
She didn’t think twice. She climbed into the bed of the truck, sliding forward on her belly.
When the truck lurched, her weight shifted with it. It felt like it was pulling her in, welcoming her.
She went with it, rolling her body under the crumpled blue tarp that was now flapping in the wind.
She watched the hotel lights grow smaller and smaller as they cruised down the street.
The wind whipped her hard as the truck picked up speed. Cold. Slapping the tarp at her.
But it was OK.
This truck would take her to Stump’s lair, would take her to Emily Kessler, would help her save Nicole.
It was the only way.
Chapter 38
Loshak sat at a red light, arms draped over the steering wheel. His eyelids were heavy, and a frustration headache pounded at his temples. Too much time in the rental car. This long behind the wheel gave him a headache every time.
But his ride-along shift was mercifully over, and as soon as he dropped the girl off, he could get back to the hotel and stretch his legs out. Get some sleep. At last.
His eyes drifted up to the mirror, gazed on the strange creature in the rearview.
The girl, Misty, hunched in the back of the rental. She was frail. Small. All bony elbows and long neck. Makeup smudged raccoon blackness around her eyes.
Her thumbs danced atop her phone’s screen, and little typing sound effects and notification chirps accompanied her furious texting. She blinked a few times, and he thought perhaps she felt him watching her, but she didn’t look up. She never did. Not once during all of the hours they’d now spent together in this car had she made any kind of eye contact with him — in the mirror or otherwise.
The light turned green, and Loshak’s foot slid from the brake to the accelerator. The car coasted out of its stillness and got up to speed, the lights and buildings along the streetside turning back into that incessant flicker rushing past the windows.
His lips parted, but he didn’t speak. The mundane question he’d been forming there died somewhere in the back of his throat. What would the point of pestering her be? She didn’t trust him — not even a little — and he didn’t blame her. It was understandable for a girl in her position to be guarded. He was well aware of the way most prostitutes characterized their treatment at the hands of law enforcement. Trust would never be possible for many of them. In any case, she’d made it plain — absolutely obvious — that she didn’t want to talk to him, and that was OK. He could let it be.
Even when the car pulled into a parking spot outside of her building, the silence between them seemed reluctant to let up. Loshak waited a beat — hoping, he supposed, that she’d realize where they were and exit the vehicle without words passing between them.
Instead, her face remained tilted toward the glowing screen in her hands, expression all blank and slack, thumbs pistoning away.
He lifted a finger for reasons unclear to him. Perhaps he hoped the movement would catch her eye, but it didn’t.
No. Of course not.
He licked his lips, felt his breath hesitate in his nostrils. It took a real effort to get his mouth to obey the command to talk.
“We’re here,” he said, finally.
Her shoulders jerked a little. He’d startled her. Ripped her out of the phone’s abstract reality.
Still, she said nothing. She gathered her things, shoved the glowing phone into her bag, and stepped out into the night.
Loshak’s eyes stayed fixed on the mirror. He watched the empty spot where she’d been, the parallel lines stitched into the upholstery. He thought she might have made a little noise — more a vocalized syll
able than an actual word — just as the door slammed behind her, but he wasn’t sure. Either way, he took it as a goodbye.
He turned his head. Watched her pass through the doors of her apartment complex. Her silhouette flitted on the other side of the glass, just faintly visible through the glare. Her shape disappeared about halfway up a flight of steps, finally moving out of the window’s view.
His hands assumed their position on the wheel and gearshift, but they held steady there. He sensed a reluctance in them, in himself. Something, somewhere told him to wait. Nothing more. Just to wait.
So he waited.
His eyes flicked back to the door, half expecting Misty to reappear there, but the glass remained occupied by drywall and carpeted steps, empty of humanity. Still, he watched. He couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something he was missing.
The stillness grew awkward around him, made his shoulders twitch just a little.
Christ. What was he doing? He must be more tired than he’d realized.
And then he saw it. His phone caught his eye, resting in the cup holder. He’d turned it off some hours ago. He always turned it off when he got a headache. That was what he’d been missing. He needed to check his messages. See how Darger and the others were faring.
He fired the phone up, the once blank screen now shining bright white in his face. He waited for it to load, fingered the appropriate button.
And now the robotic voice spoke in his ear. He had one voicemail message. From Claire.
As soon as the girl’s voice exited the tiny speaker, Loshak sat forward in his seat.
“Hey, um. Hi. It’s Claire. I just…. There’s a situation I thought you should know about.”
She sounded distraught, like maybe she’d been crying or still was. And she sounded scared.
“Things are getting a little weird tonight is all. I guess I was thinking…. I don’t know.”
Loshak’s off hand returned to the shifter, ready to roll out. Despite the hemming and hawing in Claire’s words, he heard trouble in the tone of her voice. He heard danger. He heard someone asking for help. Didn’t he?
“You know what? I’m being a little over the top. This is nothing to worry about, OK? I was hoping to talk to you, but I know you’re busy, and I’ll try you again later tonight. So. Yeah. Talk to you later on.”
Loshak’s brow furrowed. Now he wasn’t sure what to think. Had he been hearing things?
He played the message again, listened to that note of fear exit her voice all at once halfway through her call. When the message was done, he sat there, listened to the long beat of silence transmitted over the line, and now the robot voice squawked in his ear again.
“End of messages.”
He hung up the phone, slowly peeled his hand away from the gearshift. Maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe what he’d heard wasn’t danger after all. Nothing serious. Nothing immediate.
He dropped the phone into the cup holder where it rattled around the rim before settling down.
Stump’s return had stirred up a lot of emotions for everyone connected to the case, Claire more than anyone else. Maybe she just needed someone to talk to about that kind of thing.
He grabbed the phone. Swiped. Hovered his finger over her name.
Maybe. Maybe not.
She said she’d call back. Would it be better to let her proceed on her own terms? Yeah. Probably. She did emphasize that she was fine and everything.
Again the phone dropped from his hand, danced in a spiral around the perimeter of the cup holder, fell into a leaning rest.
Finally, his hands took their place on the wheel and gearshift in earnest, and this time, he followed through.
The car lurched forward, merged with the sparse flow of traffic here. The evening had hit that point of dusk when the first signs of grayscale crept into all things, and about half the cars had flipped their headlights on.
Something about it gave him a chill. Somewhere out there in the city tonight, Leonard Stump was probably driving around in one of those vehicles. Was he one of the people with his headlights on, or one of those yet to fully embrace the night?
He drove a meandering route to his hotel, careful to wind his way around the Strip. His headache was bad enough without dealing with the droves of tourist traffic and lights.
Claire’s message replayed in his head as he drove, the most dramatic fragments echoing around in his skull.
He didn’t know if he’d made the right choice in not calling her back, had no feel for it one way or the other. Even so, he found some relief now that he was in motion. Rocketing forward to something else, whether it was the right thing or the wrong thing.
Another stoplight halted his progress toward slumber, the car’s engine changing its pitch to a low rumble as it idled.
Stump. God, they were close to him, weren’t they? One step ahead of him for the first time in twenty years. If they got lucky with the ride-along detail, they might well have him in custody within a day or two. It was a big if, but it felt real. It felt possible. For the first time in so long he couldn’t remember, it felt possible. Like he could actually breathe again.
The light turned green, and he pressed on.
The bigger buildings of the downtown area died out, and smaller brick structures lined the streets in their place. Seedy strip joints and 24-hour wedding chapels, and right in the middle of it, his hotel, with his little box of a room that gave him that picture postcard view of a barren desert landscape. Hellish, really.
The phone vibrated against the plastic wall of the cup holder, the brittle rattle of it catching him off guard, making his skin crawl. He grabbed it once it was done trembling and clattering, the screen still bright.
He knew what the sound meant. A text. He checked it. From Claire.
The body of the message featured one word:
Help.
Chapter 39
The truck hummed beneath her, the steady thrum of a purring cat, only catching now and then when Stump changed gears.
Well, Darger thought to herself, this might just be the most ridiculous stunt you’ve pulled yet. Hopping into a moving vehicle with a serial killer. And don’t forget the part where you left your gun behind. Good one, dummy.
She sighed, knowing she’d had no choice. If she hadn’t jumped aboard, Stump would have ridden out of sight before she’d even reached her car. Nicole and Emily would have been abandoned to certain torture and death.
Darger couldn’t live with that. No way.
Emily’s sad Twitter picture flashed in her head. Please let her still be alive.
She pressed her eyes closed, willing herself to stay calm and to keep her wits about her. One step at a time.
Her nose filled with the industrial smell of rust and exhaust as she took stock of her surroundings. Bumping against her hip was a 5-gallon gas can, one of the heavy-duty metal deals in army green.
On her other side, pressed against her back, there was a large Rubbermaid tub filled with tools and strapped in place beneath the tarp. It was taller than the sides of the bed, so it gave the tarp a gentle curve, like a tent.
She gazed down toward her feet, which pointed at the open end of the truck bed. She could see the ball head of the hitch from here. Was that how he did it? He towed the cars to an isolated place, perhaps with the girls already secured in the trunk, and then when he found a nice, desolate stretch of asphalt, he stopped, unhitched the car, and doused it with gasoline?
Overhead, the tarp flapped in the wind, creating a shuddering sound that drowned out almost everything but the chugging of the engine.
Despite the noise, Darger was glad for the tarp. Aside from the fact that it was the only thing concealing her from view, it also offered some protection from the cold. Night had fallen and brought with it icy fingers that prickled over her bare skin.
A shiver ran through her then, and she wondered if the tarp was truly keeping her all that warm. It shielded her from the wind, at least. That was something. But whereve
r her body pressed against the cold steel of the truck bed, she could feel the body heat leaching out.
She rolled from her side onto her belly, wriggling a little closer to the cab to risk a peek up front. Through the sliver of window visible from her position, she could see the black outline of Stump’s form. Just a shadow of a man.
Her fingers felt for the rectangular outline of her phone where it nestled in her pocket. She couldn’t stop checking for it — reassuring herself it was still there — even though she couldn’t use it. Now that they were out in the desert, there were no streetlights around. No illumination aside from the occasional passing car. In this dark, even the small amount of illumination from the screen could be enough to get Stump’s attention in the rearview mirror. The tarp would make things worse, she thought, acting like a huge diffuser.
No, she had to wait. They’d come to a stop eventually, and she’d find a safe place to make the call. After that, she’d have to play it by ear. Loshak would tell her to stay put, to wait for backup. But if Stump went after the girls, if he tried to hurt them, Darger wouldn’t be able to wait.
She took a breath. Better to not look too far ahead. Better to take it slow, take it step by step.
All of the rest would come in time. For now her only job was to wait and try to keep from freezing to death.
A car passed going the opposite direction, and by the time she felt the whoosh of air as it went by, the taillights were already disappearing around the last bend in the road. The brief, red-tinted glimpse of the surrounding landscape told her nothing. All she could really tell was that they were on one of the curving mountain roads.
The truck swayed and shimmied through the many twists and turns. It struck her suddenly that it felt more like she was in a boat than a vehicle. Above her, the tarp flapped like a sail as the vehicle hurtled on through the darkness. Darger huddled in her hiding place, a weaponless stowaway. Lost at sea, set adrift with no say in her destination. Left to the whims of the shark at the helm.
Thoughts of sharks reminded her of that last conversation with Owen. She’d never responded to his messages or texts after that, like a bratty, pouting child.
