Edge of Midnight (14 page)

You’ve got no idea what it feels like to have someone taken from you.

The pain-filled declaration—the sheer irony of it—had stuck with him, competing with Pauline Berger’s muffled screams inside his head. With a sigh, Eric divested himself of his gun, wallet and shield, laying them on the coffee table beside his cell phone before wandering into the kitchen. He wasn’t hungry, so instead he extracted a beer from the refrigerator and opened it. Taking a long sip, he stared out between the vertical blinds on sliding glass doors that led to a rear deck. Flimsy light from a streetlamp slanted across its bleached wood planks.

Anna Lynn was still out there somewhere, still alive. She would stay that way until The Collector took another woman. He wanted to find her more than he wanted his next breath, but he also knew they were running out of time.

He drank from the bottle again, letting in the memories he’d managed to stave off until now. Victor Gomez’s anguish—his grief—had summoned them, taking him back to a cold February morning. The sky iron-gray and spitting snow, it had been his own day of reckoning.

You don’t want to see her, Eric.

Bobby Crowchild, Eric’s partner at the VCU, had attempted to hold him back from the shallow grave on the undeveloped lakeside property. He’d grabbed Eric by his coat, trying to talk some sense into him. Bobby’s breath fogged in the icy air, his face lined with sympathy.

Listen to me. Don’t. You don’t want to remember her like this.

He hadn’t taken any heed. Throwing off Bobby’s grip, Eric had pushed through the overgrowth, frozen grass and leaves crunching under his feet. A sea of grim-faced Bethesda police officers and federal agents parted for him. No one but Bobby dared block him.

Rebecca lay in a ditch. Refuse had been brushed partially away from her corpse by the recovery team. The decomposition was limited due to the winter’s consistently frigid temperatures, but the stomach-turning odor of death still hung in the air.

Twigs and leaves were tangled in the blond hair that spread out on the ground.

She’d been mutilated and strangled.

Eric had literally dropped to his knees, the sight knocking his legs out from under him. On the ground beside her, he’d choked on his grief and guilt, tears flowing from his eyes. As much as he’d tried to prepare himself following her abduction, he hadn’t been ready. The pain had been so intense that for several seconds he considered taking out his gun and putting a bullet in his brain before anyone could stop him. Vaguely, he recalled Bobby’s hand on his shoulder. Bobby guiding him, half carrying him out of the woods and putting him in back of a Bureau car.

Victor Gomez was wrong about him. Eric was no stranger to grief. He knew exactly what pain felt like.

He pulled himself from the reverie before he drowned in it. Returning to the living room, Eric picked up his cell phone. He stared at its screen for several long seconds before hitting its auto dial, then closed his eyes as he heard the call going through.

“Eric?” Mia asked after the second ring. She must’ve seen his name on her caller ID.

“I…wanted to check in,” he said, voice raspy and uncertain. He hadn’t seen or talked to her since Saturday night, since his rather hasty departure after Grayson Miller had shown up at her home. “To see how things went on your first day back at work.”

She sounded genuinely happy he’d called. He listened, drinking in the animation in her voice as she told him about the media frenzy surrounding D’Angelo Roberts’s arraignment that morning. She also relayed Miller’s continued refusal to put her back on the abduction stories. He was grateful for that, at least. She was already in this far too deep.

“Eric, are you all right?”

He heard her concern through the airwaves and realized she’d picked up on his melancholy. He rubbed his forehead. “I’m fine.”

“Did something happen in the investigation?”

An image of a sobbing Victor Gomez being ushered from the lobby appeared in his mind. “No. There’s nothing new. It’s just been a long day.”

“You should go to the beach,” she suggested. “You’re staying a few blocks over, right?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“At the risk of sounding New Agey, the ocean at night can do wonders. Sneak some beers and sit in the cool sand, watch the crashing waves for a while. It can give you a whole new perspective.”

“Do you ever do that?”

“Not lately—not at night, I mean. But before my life went crazy, I used to.”

He smiled faintly at the thought of a federal agent being hauled in by the local police for drinking on a public beach. However, the image of Mia at the shore, the rough winds blowing her dark hair, enticed him.

They talked awhile longer, mostly about the therapy session scheduled with Dr. Wilhelm at the Naval Air Station for the following afternoon. Eric remained hopeful she might remember something that could be a turning point in the investigation.

“Are you dreading it?” he asked.

“It helps to have you there with me.”

He swallowed, feeling bad for what he was putting her through. A few moments later they wished one another good-night. Eric disconnected the phone, and listened to the clatter of wind chimes outside the bungalow.

14

P
ain brought her to a ragged consciousness, radiating up from her fingers in hot, pulsating waves. Dr. Wilhelm’s voice, faint and far off in her head, reminded her of her mission.

“Mia, can you hear me?”

“I’m here,” she whispered, fighting back fear. “I’m in the room again.”

Something restrained her movement. She looked down, tugging in reaction. Her wrists were bound with thin rope to a metal hook in the table. Two raw, bloody wounds throbbed on her left hand where her nails should have been. An icy chill slid up her spine as panic set in. She was in her underwear—her stomach was bleeding, too. Mia bit back the scream on her lips. She had to stay focused.

“Are you alone?” Dr. Wilhelm asked.

Her eyes darted around the room. “I—I think so. But I’m so dizzy.”

“Try to take in your surroundings. Look for something that might indicate where you are. I’m right here with you…”

But was he? He was becoming increasingly harder to hear, as if he were on shore and Mia was adrift on a raft being pulled rapidly out to sea. Soon his voice became lost in the roar of blood in her ears and the sound of her own tattered breathing.

A pair of pliers lay on the table in front of her. Small, pale discs she recognized as her own fingernails were next to it. Her stomach turned.
Oh, God.
Forcing herself to look away from the grotesque sight, she scanned her prison. The walls were comprised of gray cinder block, and plastic sheeting hung up around the frigid room. She worked to gain control of her sluggish vision, aware of something on the floor, mostly hidden behind one of the sheets.

Someone lying facedown.

“H-hello? Can you hear me?” There was no response, no movement. Mia knew in her gut that it was Cissy Cox. Desperate to free herself, she twisted against her binds until her wrists began to bleed. Tears of frustration and terror filled her eyes. She had to get to Cissy and help her.
Damn it, Mia! Think.

She couldn’t loosen the ropes holding her, but could she move the table? She focused on the clawlike tongs protruding from the peg board on the nearby wall, holding various tools. If she could push herself to it—if she could get hold of the hedge shears or a pointed spade—she could possibly use it to fray her binds. Mia stood shakily and began shoving the heavy table the few feet to the wall. Muscles straining, she prayed no one could hear its legs screeching against the slab floor as she inched it slowly closer.

Finally reaching the peg board, she rammed the table against it, cursing under her breath as the hanging tools swayed and bumped but didn’t fall. She repeated the process, banging it repeatedly. A tool dropped, bouncing off the table and crashing uselessly to the floor. A minute later another fell, a blunt hand shovel that wouldn’t slice butter. Mia’s hip bones bruised as she continued rocking and pushing.

At last a pair of small pruning shears fell. She stilled, incredulous as it landed only an inch from her fingers. Stretching for it, the ropes tightened painfully around her wrists until the shears were within reach. Her breath coming in cramped waves, she turned the tool awkwardly and worked its blade between her skin and the tethering rope, using it to saw at her restraints.

What seemed like an eternity later, she let out a sob as her binds gave way.

Without the table to steady her, Mia realized the full extent of her light-headedness. Stumbling toward the human form, she slipped and fell, striking her jaw on the edge of a workbench. Black spots danced in front of her eyes. Trying to get up, she slipped again, unable to gain traction on the wet concrete. A cloying metallic odor hung in the air. Blood. She was crawling in it. It was coming from the body behind the sheeting, leaking slowly toward a grate in the room’s center.

Dread nearly closing her throat, she continued on hands and knees to the motionless form. Cissy lay on her stomach, limbs sprawled like a rag doll. More blood pooled underneath her and matted her red hair. Mia gagged as the room spun.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
When she’d last seen Cissy, she had been bound and frightened but very much alive.

With trembling fingers, she felt the lifeless wrist for a pulse. She rolled the woman over, emitting a horrified cry as she came face-to-face with her open but unseeing eyes. Her throat had been cut. It gaped open, grinning at Mia like a second mouth. Heart seizing, she scrambled backward in the gore until she reached a patch of dry concrete. She screamed for Dr. Wilhelm, begging him to pull her back.

Her voice echoed off the cinder-block walls. There was no response.

Adrenaline pumped through her veins. She had to get out of here—had to find a way out or she would be next.

Managing to stand, Mia went to the door and twisted its handle. Locked. The noisy hum of the box air-conditioning unit caught her attention. It filled the room’s only window…the only other possible exit. Staggering over, she shoved repeatedly at the appliance and the plywood boarding that kept it wedged inside the window frame. Sweat dried on her skin as she worked in its icy blast, applying all of her weight and weeping with relief when the boards finally dislodged. The heavy unit fell to the ground with an electrical crackle from the outlet.
Freedom!
The rain outside the window created a blanket of white noise. Mia hoisted her shaking body up and out, landing on dank, wet moss beside the air conditioner. Her energy exhausted, she lay there for several seconds, panting and trying to gain her equilibrium enough to run.

Go, Mia. Now.

Tall pine trees surrounded her, soaring into the black night. Forcing herself up, she took a wavering path through the rain toward the front of the building. As she reached it, an angry shout came from somewhere in the distance. The sound of heavy feet traveling in her direction sent her into flight.
Run…run!
She fell on the slick earth before getting back up and taking off toward a shadowed car parked on a gravel path. To her acute surprise, the car wasn’t locked.

Mia dove inside and slammed the door, locking it behind her. She wiped her hands, slick with rain and blood, on the passenger seat. Shaking, nearly hyperventilating, her fingers searched clumsily over the ignition switch. There were no keys. Her heart dropped into her stomach. She felt frantically under the dashboard and found several wires already dangling, their copper insides exposed.

A fist slammed onto the windshield in front of her, making her scream. A man’s face, contorted with rage, loomed inches from hers. His lips curled back in a snarl as he cursed and pounded on the glass with such force Mia feared it would break. Her trembling fingers twisted the wires hanging from the dashboard’s underbelly. He bellowed as the engine rumbled to life.

Mia lurched the vehicle forward, its tires slipping and flinging up pebbles from the makeshift road. Rain beat on the car’s roof and distorted the windshield. Shrouded car skeletons whipped past as she skidded and veered drunkenly up the path. Dizzy, her field of vision narrowing, she worried she might pass out. But she pressed her foot on the accelerator, finding the possibility of dying inside warped metal preferable to her fate in the cinder-block cell she’d left behind.

“Mia? Mia!”

She came awake with a strangled cry, gasping for air and her heart pumping like a trapped animal’s. Dr. Wilhelm sat on the edge of the couch beside her. His hand was on her shoulder, keeping her down. The blood pressure cuff was back on her arm, and her clothing was damp with perspiration. He shook his head worriedly at the reading.

“Too high.” He looked at Eric, who stood nearby, his face drained of color, his eyes fixed on Mia.

She felt a wave of vertigo so strong she thought she might be sick.

“We couldn’t get you back,” he said hoarsely.

A drop of crimson fell onto her khakis. Her bandaged fingers were bleeding.

“I don’t understand how I managed to escape,” Mia said in quiet disbelief. She rubbed her hands over her upper arms, causing Eric to turn the air-conditioning down in the car as he drove. “I was drugged, dizzy…”

“People do extraordinary things to survive.” He studied her profile as she stared out through the windshield, aware of the shock her memories had caused. They’d remained at Dr. Wilhelm’s office for over an hour, waiting for Mia’s blood pressure to drop and her light-headedness to ease. “What you did
today
was pretty remarkable, too.”

It had also scared the hell out of him. Mia had somehow lost contact with Dr. Wilhelm. She’d writhed and sobbed as she lay on the couch, ignoring his urgings to retreat from whatever was happening to her. It had been all Eric could do not to take her into his arms and shake her awake. But instead, he’d stood helplessly by, watching as she relived a nightmare she would be better off never remembering.

Mia had relayed the things she’d seen. The cinder-block building hidden in the pines, the stripped cars along a gravel road—it gave them something to look for. Even more important, she had briefly seen the unsub’s face through the car window. Eric had already contacted Detective Boyet, asking to have a sketch artist meet them at Mia’s home. He didn’t think she was up to traveling into one of the stations.

“He just looked so average.” She shook her head at the recollection. “I wish there was something about him that was specific—like a big nose, or a scar or mole.”

Eric agreed some distinguishing characteristic would be helpful, but it wasn’t uncommon for a serial killer to be an everyman, someone who didn’t raise a potential victim’s suspicion until it was too late. More of them came closer to looking like Ted Bundy than Charles Manson. It was also problematic that the rain had blurred his image. Still, even a vague description was better than nothing.

They traveled on the bridge toward Mia’s home. The Tuesday afternoon was fading, turning the St. Johns into a golden, glinting sea as the sun lowered on the horizon. Glass-windowed, downtown high-rises glimmered at the water’s edge as sailboats and speedboats darted along. Mia seemed lost in the scene, but Eric suspected the wheels in her mind were turning.

“You were right,” she admitted softly. “Cissy Cox
is
dead.”

Eric said nothing.

“The first time I saw her during the therapy session on Saturday, she was in the room with me, alive.” Mia looked at him, her eyes haunted and confused. “But this time…”

“I believe you witnessed her murder, Mia. It’s part of your missing memory.” His fingers tightened on the steering wheel as he spoke, filling her in on the grim theory about The Collector ritualistically forcing his newer abductee to watch as he murdered the woman he had taken before. He also told her about the digital recordings evidencing the practice, each one delivered to him by mail. “Your memory today skipped to
after
she was already dead.”

“I hope I never remember seeing her be killed,” she whispered. Her face had paled.

Eric hoped the same thing. But there was always the chance of it since beyond Dr. Wilhelm’s initial suggestion, Mia’s mind could roam anywhere during the hypnotic session. The next time, the plan was to try to take her back to the point of escape in the car, with the anticipation she might see a street sign or highway marker that could narrow down the location where she’d been held prisoner.

If there
was
a next time. Dr. Wilhelm had confessed the drug dosage was one of the highest he’d ever given, but it had gotten Eric the results he needed. Whether the psychiatrist would agree to administer a similar amount again—and whether Eric would even want him to—was uncertain. He didn’t want to put Mia in danger, and her blood pressure elevation during the therapy was worrisome. But Anna Lynn Gomez was still out there, and so was a killer who would hunt again. At the least, they would have to wait several days to allow the drug to pass through Mia’s system before attempting another session.