“Be my guest.” Allen gestured to the couch and lowered himself to the recliner. “Would you like something to eat or drink? Water? Wine? I have last night’s hors d’oeuvres in the fridge, too.”
Seated on the couch, Anna crossed her legs and smiled shyly to herself. “It’s a little early for wine.”
When Allen didn’t reply, Anna looked him in the eyes. “I’ll have a little if you do...”
“Um, sure. I should’ve asked you that before we got comfortable,” Allen joked awkwardly and pushed himself to his feet. He passed into the kitchen, leaving the door open.
“What is this visit about?” the man asked as a cupboard opened.
Anna slid across the cushion to get a better look at him through the doorway. “I’m following up a lead in the Rines case. I’m sure you’ve heard about it on the news.”
“Ah, that,” the man replied and sighed angrily. “What a mess.”
Glasses and cups lined the shelves of the cupboard. The top row had sinus medication. Hands full, he closed it with his elbow and carefully placed two bulbous wine glasses on the granite countertop before opening the refrigerator.
“Long story short, we have reason to believe that the lead suspect hasn’t fled the area.” Anna said, observing the stranger and the surrounding room. It was a serene place with no family photos, but there were small nail holes on the wall were something once hung. The speakers played a soft, ambient piano ballad.
“How would you know that?” The wine cork popped and the rich red gushed from the bottle and cascaded down the bend of the first glass.
“A strong lead revealed to me several potential neighborhoods in which our suspect shares past real estate ties. As a consultant with local law enforcement, my job is to go door-to-door and inquire about any changes in the neighborhood over the last five to seven days.”
“Sounds kinda boring,” Allen started on the second glass.
“Sometimes it takes a little boredom to keep everyone safe.” Anna looked down the hallway and chewed at her lip.
“What sort of real estate ties did this guy have here?” Allen set the wine bottle on the counter and lifted each glass, half filled with sloshing crimson.
Anna returned to her starting position on the couch and crossed her legs. “We are led to believe he owned this property at one point and might return.”
“That’s a haunting thought.” Allen stepped into the living room, careful not to spill.
With a smile, Anna accepted the glass. “Humans are creatures of habit. When we’re scared, we run to familiar places to find security.”
“Yeah, but going from house-to-house seems a little long winded.” Allen back stepped to the recliner. “This can’t be the only lead you have.”
“It’s not,” Anna lied casually and brought the glass up to her lips but did not touch it
“I’ve had the place for a while.” Allen sat at the edge of the chair and whisked the wine with his wrist. “Ask away.”
When Anna opened her mouth, her glass tilted and dribbled red down the front of her purple button up. She cursed and held her arms away from her, making sure not to remake the same mistake.
Allen set his glass to the side and stood up. “Wait there. I’ll--” He hiked his thumb back.
“Thank you,” Anna hovered over the couch with her arms out, still holding the wine glass.
Allen made a hasty return with a fist full of damp paper towels. He bustled around the coffee table. “Let me--”
“I got it,” Anna jolted out of her seat right as Allen came into range and purposely stumbled into him, sloshing the wine down the front of his polo. He staggered back and turned his eyes down to the red stain that started at his chest and ran to the lip of his jeans.
Anna gasped. “I am so sorry. I--this is embarrassing. You might still be able to save it.”
Allen looked at her like he was about to get his teeth pulled.
“Wash it off in the bathroom. Hurry. Before it settles.”
Looking over his shoulder, Allen headed to the bathroom and shut the door. Anna waited for a moment. The sound of a faucet running started. Heart racing, she put aside her glass and slipped into the hallway, taking extra caution as she walked past the bathroom. As quietly as she could, she opened the door to the master bedroom. She recalled all the photos on the sideboard. Reflective snowboarding goggles covered the man’s face in the photos. He had the same rich hair. The tell was the jaw. In the photograph, it was square, not triangular shaped like Allen’s.
The room was tidy with a made bed, dusted shelves, and a dresser. A bible on the bed stand opened to a highlighted section. Genesis 4:3-5. A stack of other philosophical and religious texts were piled at the foot of the stand. A library code was taped on the binding. She turned back from the dresser and noticed the glasses case. Inside were thick square glasses similar to the photo of Wesley Jenkins. Still not enough.
She opened the drawer and sifted through the clothes, her ear trained on the running water rumbling in the piping of the walls. She pushed aside shirts and boxers before moving to the next drawer filled with neatly folded pants and shorts. Finally, she yanked open the final drawer and brushed aside oversized clothes, revealing the mops of different-colored hair.
Anna’s eyes widened at the sight of the thick silver wig knotted into a ponytail. The color, the length, it matched the strand she found on the tracks behind King’s Opera House on her first day on the job. Heart raging, she pulled out her cell phone, took a picture, and texted it to Rennard. Found him, she typed, put in the address, and hit the green button. At the corner of the screen, an animated mail envelope wiggled beside an arrow. Send faster! She groaned and swiftly fixed the clothes to cover the wig.
The faucet ran. She had time to fix the clothes in the upper drawer, but she wasn’t going to chance it. Her hand found her gun and drew it from her holster. It wasn’t legal to point a firearm at an unarmed citizen in his home, but right now Anna did not care about the law. She cared about getting Cain and finding Keisha Rines. The weapon felt heavy in her hand. Taking deep breaths, she fortified herself in the same way she had during the final hours of the Dade County Human Trafficking case. She remembered the warm red stickiness running down her shirt and soaking into her skin, and the frail fourteen-year-old girl in her arms at the end of that investigation.
Anna’s forehead glistened and a cold chill awakened the hairs on her arms and neck. Her back slid against the wall as she neared the bedroom doorway. With a full lung, she peeked her head into the hallway. The bathroom remained sealed along with the adjacent closet door. Far beyond was the living room and a whole section of the house she hadn’t explored: the basement.
Over the sound of rushing water, a calming piano ballad drifted through the house. The ballad grew louder as Anna stepped into the hall, the barrel of her gun bouncing from closed door to closed door. With quiet steps, she approached the bathroom. She’d shut the bedroom door behind her. Anna waited beside the bathroom door. It would open inward. Once Allen--Cain--stepped out of the bathroom, she would pin him in the hall.
A bead of sweat trickled down Anna’s brow. Through the speaker, the pianist played passionately. The keys danced with sophistication. The tempo increased. Faster and faster! The ballad neared its finale. Anna watched the door, unblinking. The faucet poured on. A door opened behind her.
She twisted back, realizing what was happening, but Cain’s right arm slipped under her own and pulled her back against his chest. A cloth was shoved into Anna’s mouth, gagging her with an overpowering chemical taste.
With a loud bang!, the pistol discharged into the ceiling, raining white flakes down into the hallway. Anna set her elbow into Cain’s gut. He grunted. His leg wrapped around Anna’s as she tried to push away, causing her to punch the ground with her jaw. The butt of the handgun hit the floor and fired into the living room. Cain was on top of her. His knee pressed into her spine.
The cloth slithered down Anna’s throat. Her tongu
e and gums burned uncontrollably, forcing tears from her eyes. She couldn’t breathe. She tried to vomit out the rag, but Cain’s smooth and strong left palm held it in place. With her free left hand, Anna dug her fingernails into Cain’s left wrist and pulled. Her heels hammered Cain’s back. The man’s grip would not let up.
“Go to sleep now, Anna,” he said with a smile as his right arm pinned Anna’s gun hand to the wooden floor.
She thrashed violently underneath him and squeezed off more rounds. You will not have me! The rag and its stench suffocated her. The hallway twisted. The musical notes distorted. Darkness enclosed around her peripherals, eating away at her vision. Her limbs turned to jelly. Her fingers were pried away from the gun.
Dad! she cried.
And the music died away.
9
Furioso
Anna was drowning.
In the deep blue sea around her, familiar seven-through-twelve-year-old girls drifted slowly to the abyss below with suspended arms, ghostly flesh and lifeless eyes speckled with bubbles.
Cain’s victims.
Panicked, Anna reached for the faint light casting its rays through the glassy surface far above her, but her arms did not obey her, and when she kicked her feet, they ignored the request. She was falling lifelessly like the rest. The dark mouth of the sea was swallowing her up. No one could save her. Anna’s lungs burst and a swarm of bubbles escaped her mouth. I’m going to die, she realized, and the peace that she imagined she would have in her final moments was far away. Dread, fear, and regret gnawed her mind like famished parasites.
In the distance, Keisha Rines tossed and turned as she sank. Thick rope bound her skinny arms and legs. Her eyelids were clenched tightly and the sea muted her scream. Anna felt her legs pop as she forced them to kick. Sharp pain shot up her arms as she moved them. As bubbles escaped the creases between her teeth, Anna swam through the jungle of small lifeless bodies. Her being resisted every motion and the pain that hit him made death seem like a kindness. Still, she went on, avoiding the sinking corpses that coasted by her face. Keisha’s struggle persisted as the gaping abyss neared. Like white snakes, her bandages slipped away from the raw stubs on her knuckles and revealed her mutilated hands.
Give up, a voice told Anna as she swam hard toward the girl. You can’t save her. Anna knocked shoulders with a dead body, losing sight of sight of Keisha in the cold, fleshy debris. You don’t owe her anything. Escaping the cascading cadavers, Anna used all her strength to extend her arm. There was still a twenty-foot gap between her and the dark-skinned pianist. Remember: she’s nothing to you. Anna kicked her legs fiercely. She screamed bubbles and remembered Strife’s basement, the way he hogtied her, what he did to her and how Cain watched from just out of sight.
“I have to save her!” But Anna’s voice was muted by the water.
She touched the child pianist’s icy flesh. Keisha’s body stopped thrashing. The child’s drifted open eyes, looking nowhere. No more bubbles escaped her lungs.
It was hotter than blazes. The world shifted and shook like a kayak on rushing water. Every muscle ached and Anna’s head throbbed. A sharp chemical stench assaulted her nostrils. Her jaw was tight, dry, and stinging. She opened her eyes to the black box containing her.
Her sweaty face rested on a fuzzy carpet next to a wet puddle of drool. Dock line, wrapped three times around her mouth, pried her jaw open and forcefully pushed back her cheeks into a nasty grimace. The words she spoke were muffled by the painfully tight gag. Her body was drenched in perspiration and curled up in the rumbling casket. More dock line constricted her wrists and ankles, chafing her tan skin raw and pink. She fidgeted. With her fingernails burrowing into her palms, she pulled her wrists apart. The binds tightened. Her arms trembled as she resisted. The binding didn’t snap.
The box hit a bump and Anna’s skull knocked against the floor. Tiny blinking stars filled her vision and brought pause to her escape attempt. Her feet found a bulge in the back of the box. Wheelwell. She listened to the rumbling. Road sound. The lightless casket suddenly made sense. I’m in his trunk.
The place was too constricting for her to move any significant distance or roll over. Still, she wiggled farther back in the trunk until the nape of her neck cracked against the walling. Ankles tied, her feet dragged along to where she assumed the mouth of the trunk was. Everything inside wanted to scream or kick open the trunk’s mouth, but that would be too loud and her survival hinged on subtlety, lest Cain pull over his ‘80s Mercury and put a bullet in her brain.
The tips of her shoes found where she thought the taillight resided, and Anna pushed with all her might. She winced and strained her curved neck against the truck’s back wall. At her feet, plastic moaned and popped out of the place. A jet of wind tunneled into the trunk. Anna closed her eyes and prayed that a cop would come soon.
Her casket rumbled and hit more bumps. Anna didn’t know if she was dreaming or wide-eyed or what time of day it was when the siren blipped in the distance. Cain’s car rumbled to a stop. Time to act. Anna slammed her feet against the back and screamed through the crude gag.
She heard a muffled voice and kicked with every ounce of strength left her body.
The voice grew louder and more aggressive.
Cain’s driver side door opened. A calm voice replied.
Anna thrashed her body around, shaking the trunk as much as she could.
The voices got into an argument.
Bam!
Quiet.
Anna stopped moving. Please. Please.
Footsteps neared.
The trunk flung open
A blanket of black clouds covered the night sky. A figure loomed over Anna. He wore square glasses that reflected Anna’s terror. His hands clenched a baton and Anna’s smoking gun.
“You really know how to piss me off,” said Cain.
Anna called him the nastiest names she could imagine. The dock line gag turned her words to gibberish.
The baton swipe cut the wind and slammed into the side of Anna’s head.
Blood.
Blurred vision.
Blackness.
Rain raged against the tin roof with the might of Zeus. Wind screamed and snapped Anna awake with its frigid hand. Goose skinned and shaking, she gasped life into her body, though rope bindings still constricted her mouth and further numbed her cheeks. She could feel blood hardening to the side of her aching head and gluing to the top of her right ear. Blinking away the dizziness, the world revealed itself. The room before her stretched far with various khaki wood support beams evenly spaced below a peaked roof. There was an active light bulb on each beam enclosed in a metal basket. Large glass windows and tall shelving that supported stacks of wood sheeting butted against the room’s sides. Chilling gusts entered through the twelve-inch gaps at the bottom of the walls in a place where the cement flooring mixed with the outer world's swirling wet dirt.
Anna struggled against the white dock line that trapped her wrists to the chair’s arms. The seat itself was far too small for her, and its sturdy wooden body dug into her hips until they tingled uncomfortably. Bolts locked the chair into the cement floor through special washers mounted against the chair’s legs where Anna’s ankles were tied. She glanced down at her wrinkled purple button up, unsure which stains were wine and which were blood. Her slacks were dusty and one of her running shoes was untied.
The downpour cascaded down the large windows. Outside, walls of lumber towered twenty feet high nearby drenched forklifts. Taken unaware by the storm, the drivers had abandoned them to the rain. A lumberyard, Anna quickly concluded, which meant that she was in the middle of the woods. Workers may be back in the morning. But Anna was unsure if she’d last that long.
“Hey. You awake?” a child whispered.
Anna looked around the room before realizing the unfamiliar voice originated from behind her. Craning her neck back, Anna barely made out the person whose chair touched the back of her own. The child’s hands and feet were
bound the same way as Anna’s: wrists to chair arms and ankles to chair legs. She had a small body with dark skin and bandages around her palms.
“My parents sent you,” the little girl said. “I thought they’d forgotten.”
Keisha? Anna asked through the bindings.
“Are they safe? Did he… did he hurt them, too?”
They’re safe. Anna’s words were lost in the gag.
“He’s always moving me around,” Keisha explained. “Before, he’d put me to sleep. Now, he’s not afraid to let me see him or the places we’ve been.”
A sliding door opened at the end of the lumber house. Footsteps clacked down the hall.
“That’s him,” Keisha said dreadfully with her tiny voice. “Pretend you’re asleep and he may not hurt you.”
Too late. From the other side of the room, Cain locked his eyes on Anna. He walked with a swagger, wearing a saddle-colored field coat over the wine-stained polo that made it look like he’d been shot in the chest cavity. His rich brown hair was soaked and leaked tears of rain down his forehead and square framed glasses. The cosmetic makeup was gone, revealing hidden wrinkles and moles on his emotionless face. Mud caked around the ankle of his jeans and clung to the top of his penny loafers.
He clenched a wet cloth in his hand that folded over an object.
Anna struggled to break free of the binds. She knew it wouldn’t work, but couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t try.
“You gave me a run for my money,” Cain said nonchalantly. “I mean, you were this close.” He pinched his fingers really tightly together and look down at Anna, eyeing her as if solving a riddle. “The piggy squealed, didn’t she?” he finally asked.
Anna glared at him from the chair, making herself as fierce as she could be.
“I thought as much,” Cain sighed. “I worked extra hard to keep Stacy out of sight and out of mind, but in the end, look where that got me?” He gestured to the empty lumber store room.
Secrets Boxset: A Riveting Kidnapping Mystery Collection Page 64
