Edge of Midnight (30 page)

“So the crime tradition continues.”

A media van pulled up across the street, at a respectable enough distance that it wouldn’t likely be chased away by the deputies on guard. The agents watched as a cameraman got out of the van’s side door and began setting up. A blonde female in a fuchsia suit, probably a reporter, accompanied him.

“Even if Ms. Hale isn’t staying here, the unsub won’t know that. We need to set up a watch,” Cameron mentioned. “What about last night? Did anyone survey the bystanders?”

“We circulated the most recent sketch to law enforcement on the scene.” Still, the place had been chaos, with cars passing by on the street and neighbors gathered in groups on the adjacent lawns. Eric had even gone into the crowd himself, searching for someone matching the unsub’s description.

A member of the cleanup crew went past, wearing earplugs attached to an iPod as he hummed along with his music. Carrying a trash bag, he was picking up refuse left behind by the emergency responders—foam coffee cups, cigarette butts and wrappers from medical supplies. Eric noticed the back of the man’s blue jumpsuit was emblazoned with a business logo and the name Bio-Clean, Inc.

“A civilian group?” he asked.

“It’s an outsource firm contracted by local law enforcement for crime scene cleanup. We use them—so do the JSO and local arms of the DEA and ATF, on occasion. It’s cheaper than keeping a crew on payroll and paying benefits. Of course, you big-timers at the VCU probably have your own people.”

Eric failed to respond to Cameron’s lighthearted dig. Instead, he was thinking of the Bargain-Mart where Anna Lynn Gomez had been abducted two weeks ago. Security cameras had caught her image in the store’s vestibule as she left with her purchase, but not outside the building. The store had admitted to a camera blind spot of approximately fifty feet to the left of the entrance—something some of its employees and technicians from the company that installed the CCTV system knew about. However, all of them had turned up clean.

“The Bargain-Mart,” Eric recounted. “When you ran background checks on employees at the company that put in the cameras, did you ask about outsourcers?”

“No,” Cameron said. “They knew it was an abduction investigation. They would’ve mentioned it if they used outside support.”

Still, he dug into his pocket for his cell phone. It was a long shot, Eric realized, but cable carriers and phone companies sometimes used service contractors to augment their full-time employees. What if the security company did, too?

A short time later, Cameron snapped the phone closed. “I got their answering service. Someone from management’s supposed to call me back.”

Another news van pulled up, this one daring to park against the curb directly in front of the building.

“I’ve got this,” Cam said. He walked away, shouting orders to the driver. Eric turned and went up the stairs. Once inside the apartment, he sent the female deputy back down. He found Mia in her office. She wasn’t packing, but instead stood staring out through the large window that overlooked the pool and patio below. Nearby, the outstretched branches of a live oak, heavy with Spanish moss, shaded the lawn.

“What’re you thinking about?” he asked, coming to stand behind her. He gently clasped her upper arms.

“Will and Justin had an oyster roast at the pool, just last month. They strung up paper lanterns and little white lights everywhere. They even hired an acoustic guitarist…” Mia shook her head, her tone reflective. “Penney was there. She brought a date. So much has changed since then.”

“We’re going to catch him, Mia. It’s only a matter of time.”

She turned to face him, her brown eyes haunted. “How many more women have to die before then? I’d like to try the memory-retrieval therapy again, Eric. Maybe I’ll remember something key. You said yourself you thought we were close. Let me do it for Penney—”

“You can’t. It’s gotten too dangerous.”

Her chin tilted up a fraction. “I’m willing to take the risk.”

He ran his fingers through her hair, his voice low. “I’m not. I’ll find another way.”

They held each other’s gaze until Mia’s cell phone rang inside the purse she’d laid on the desk, its ring tone a popular Maroon 5 melody. She went over to check it, frowning as she peered at the screen.

“It’s Grayson,” she said. “I need to take this.”

Eric left the room, giving her privacy to talk. He went into her bedroom, noticing that she’d at least put her laptop in its case and had her suitcase open on the bed’s goose down comforter. Like the rest of the apartment, her bedroom had a vintage style, with distressed wood furniture and a rustic, bronze chandelier hanging over the bed. The closet door was open, and he smiled faintly at the disarray of clothing, shoes and storage boxes inside. A night-light—a stained-glass butterfly in hues of soft purple and blue—was plugged into an electrical socket nearby. Thinking about what Mia had revealed to him last night after they’d made love, he took it from the wall. Carefully wrapping it in one of her T-shirts, he placed it in the suitcase’s side pocket.

“Everything okay?” he asked as she entered the room.

“Grayson overslept. He just now heard about what happened.”

She appeared anxious and sad. Swallowing a sigh, Eric tucked his hands inside his pockets. He hated that he was asking her to leave her home, but his gut told him it was necessary. She needed to be somewhere the unsub didn’t know about, out of his reach.

“If I stayed here, he might come back. You could have men outside, watching—”

“We will,” Eric stated. “But I still want you somewhere else.”

Although the front door of the apartment had been left open, someone rang the doorbell. Figuring it was Cameron, Eric said, “Go ahead and get packed, all right? If you forget something, I can send someone back for it.”

He went down the hallway and motioned the other agent inside.

“The general manager for the security company just called,” Cameron told him as he walked from the foyer. “He says they use only their own staff to install the systems. They’re thoroughly background-checked, as we already knew. But they
have
used freelance repairmen in the past when they were backlogged. Most of them came through a temp agency downtown. He apologized for not mentioning it earlier—he said it slipped his mind since it’s been well over a year since they needed any additional help. Business is down with the economy.”

The blind spot in the camera range at the Bargain-Mart niggled at him. It could have been just sheer luck, but there was a chance Anna Lynn Gomez’s abductor had known about it because he’d worked on the system at some point. “We’ll need to get the paperwork on whoever the agency sent out.”

“I’ll get on it,” Cameron said. He looked around the apartment. “She’s got good taste.”

Eric couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened here last night and how close Mia had come to being in the bastard’s grip once again. How much time had passed between his departure and her arrival home? He estimated no more than a half-hour and possibly much less.

Considering their shared past, he felt certain The Collector would take extra care in harming her.

If he got another chance.

30

“T
here isn’t enough mayonnaise on this,” Gladys complained, pushing the plate away. Petulant, she added, “And I don’t like dill pickles. I like sweet gherkins.”

“We’re out of the gherkins, Mother. I’ll go to the store later.” With forced patience, Allan took the turkey and rye and spread another thick layer of mayonnaise onto the sandwich. He sat the plate back in front of her on the table with a testy clank.

Peering suspiciously between the slices of bread, she frowned. “There’s no cheese, either.”

He went to the fridge and pulled out a wrapped slice of American. It was processed—not even real food—but it fit Gladys’s childlike palate. He tossed it onto her plate. “I’m in a mood today. You’d be wise not to push me.”

She snorted, unimpressed, as she unwrapped the cheese with bony fingers. “What’re you going to do? Go hide in that little building of yours?”

Dismissively, she turned up the volume on the small television, shifting her attention to a Sunday afternoon worship program. A minister with a silver pompadour and pinstriped suit bellowed from the pulpit, ranting about demons and dark temptations. Allan wasn’t hungry, so he put the turkey and mayo back into the fridge, the rye into the bread box. As he carefully swept crumbs from the counter, his mind returned to the catastrophic events of the previous night. He’d planned so carefully, conducted surveillance on the apartment building for days before making his move. All of it wasted, now. The woman on the top floor wasn’t even supposed to be home at that hour. He recalled the repeated, dull thud of her head on the concrete. Her price for intervening with fate.

His anger still simmered, however.

“It wouldn’t hurt
you
to go to church,” Gladys noted once the pipe organ had started up on the television, accompanying a robed choir. “You might meet a good woman and do something with your life.”

Shutting her out, Allan closed his eyes, envisioning Mia at his mercy. It was meant for him to have her. There was simply no other reason for her to have come back into his life. He imagined hurting her, tasting her fear. But the fantasy didn’t last long. Gladys broke into a coughing fit, rocking in her chair as she choked on a bite of sandwich. Little bits of turkey and bread flew from her wrinkled mouth. Patting her back, Allan handed her the glass of milk he’d poured for her earlier.

“Drink this, Mother.”

Finally the coughing spasms subsided. Irritable, she shooed him away and went back to watching the strutting minister as she ate. Her jaw clicked with each mastication, and he noticed a glob of mayonnaise on the front of her housedress. There was another gelatinous drip oozing down the tubing of her oxygen cannula. The Chihuahua stood by her chair, begging in his high-pitched whine. Allan seethed. She was a thankless old woman. He’d moved three states away—lived here for almost three years now—caring for her. Gladys should
worship
him, not treat him like some kind of impotent failure. He thought again of what he’d done to the curly haired bitch. Was that the work of a weak man?

He didn’t think so.

Allan returned to the sink, tamping down his annoyance as he prepared to marinate chicken for the evening’s dinner. Ritualistically soaping his hands under the faucet’s scalding stream, he looked up as something outside the window caught his attention. Lupita, their so-called housekeeper, was skulking through the backyard, her ample hips jiggling in her stretch pants.

She headed into the pines toward his workshop.

Allan quickly dried his hands on a paper towel and stomped out through the kitchen door, its screen banging.

“I need my pills,” Gladys called after him.

Eyebrows clamped down over his eyes, he marched across the lawn in Lupita’s wake. It was one of her days off—she wasn’t even supposed to be here. The backyard ended at the thicket of trees, which ran parallel to the makeshift gravel road. He traveled into the woods, taking the same beaten-down trail as the housekeeper. A few hundred yards out, the dull gray of cinder blocks and the body of a stripped car peeked out through the foliage. As he approached, he could see Lupita, knocking on the door.

“Meester Levi?”
she called in her thick, peasant accent. “You in there?”

He slowed, staying just outside the clearing. The woman knocked again, then twisted the door handle. Allan felt himself vibrate with anger, his hands balling into fists at his sides. She had been clearly instructed never to come down here.

Wait. See what she’s up to.

He took a step farther back into the woods as she looked carefully around. Then she slunk to the side of the building, to the lone window that held the air-conditioning unit. The top pane was covered from the inside with heavy butcher paper, so she bent over, attempting to peek through the half-inch space between the unit and wooden planks used to keep it wedged into the window frame. Fury exploded in Allan’s head, the hard thrum of his pulse propelling him forward. He grasped the housekeeper by one flabby arm and spun her around as she gasped loudly.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he roared.

Her eyes went wide, her mouth gaping open in surprise. “
Meester
Levi! I—I was just looking for you!”

“You were snooping!”

“No, I—”

“Why didn’t you come to the house?”

“If Miss Gladys sees me, she expects me to stay. You’re always down here. I thought—”

As Allan crowded her she took a step back, her thick shoulders meeting the building’s exterior wall. He was breathing hard, his fingers still biting into her upper arm. “You were told never to come down here! This is my private sanctuary! What are you looking for?”

She cowered, her face growing as white as the laundry hanging on the line in the backyard. “I—I came to get paid! You owe me for two weeks—my son, he needs the money, today!”

Allan stared at her, every nerve in his body crackling with vehement hatred. He thought of pounding Lupita’s thick skull against the ground, too, watching it split open like a ripe melon. He came to the very edge of doing it. But he knew her son would come looking for her. Instead, he punched a hard finger into the center of her chest. Her heavy bosom bounced.

“You
never
come down here again, you hear me?
No aquí!
”

She shook her head. Tears filled her eyes. “No, sir, I understand. Please…”

Lupita cried out as he blocked her attempt to creep away. Allan placed one hand on the cinder-block wall above her head, not through terrorizing her. His breath fanned her face. “If I ever catch you down here again, I’ll hang you and skin you alive.”

She whimpered. He reached into his back pocket. Extracting his wallet, he pulled out several bills, cash he had from a recent repair job. He threw them on the ground, watching as she bent, sobbing, to pick them up. Doing so, she rose and scrambled away, bumping her plump hip against the front of the partially disassembled car he had up on blocks. When she believed she’d reached a safe enough distance, she spat on the ground and screamed, “You’re crazy! I quit!”

Allan watched her go. His rage was a living thing now, a snake coiled up inside his belly. Lupita was like kindling on a fire that had been building since his failure last night. He
had
returned to the crime scene briefly, and he’d witnessed something that struck a chord. Mia running into Eric Macfarlane’s arms. He’d held her like a lover.

If they were together, taking her would be doubly sweet.

She was his missing number eight. The little girl who’d witnessed his maiden voyage.

She belonged to him.

He drew in several deep breaths, trying to bring his spiraling thoughts back under control. As long as he was down here, he might as well be productive.

Going to his van parked on the gravel, he opened its back doors and felt a blast of hot air from its interior meet his face. Then taking out the keys to his workshop, he let himself inside, leaving the entrance open. A short time later he exited again, a mass wrapped in plastic sheeting over one shoulder. He dumped it into the van’s back with a heavy thump, then slammed the doors closed again.

Allan relocked the building. Wiping perspiration from his face with the back of his forearm, he felt a sense of loss that no one had been around to witness his power. He’d wanted Mia tied up and watching. Knowing she would be next. But he’d needed the release too badly last night.

He didn’t have much time until the body began to stink.

Allan walked back up the wooded trail so he could give Gladys her pills and marinate the chicken. After dinner, under the velvet blanket of darkness, he would head out to dispose of the remains and prowl the night.