Obsession (13 page)

“I could go to my brother’s in Moundville,” she offered, her voice trembling. “As long as my boss’ll let me off work and my Beetle holds out.”

“Trust me. Your boss won’t give you any trouble.”

~*~

Dan waited on the porch right outside the door. The somber face, despite the designer sunglasses shielding his eyes, warned that he was either annoyed that she hadn’t gotten him a pass inside or something else had happened.

“Kelli,” Jess said to the wary girl hovering in the doorway, “you get whatever you need for a few days.”

When the girl had gone to get her things, Jess gave him the condensed version of what she’d learned before he could ask. He inspected the note, which had probably been too contaminated to hope for any prints or trace evidence left behind by this Tim person. They hadn’t gotten any evidence at all from any place else. She doubted they would suddenly get lucky.

“We’re about to have company.” He tucked his sunglasses back into place. “Patterson is on his way here and he’s mad as hell.”

“Good.” Jess tucked the note and the cross necklace into her bag. “He can make sure Kelli gets to her brother’s house in Moundville. I don’t want her staying here alone.”

As promised, Patterson arrived post haste. Kelli waited in Dan’s Mercedes. At Jess’s prompting Dan had shown her how to operate the music system. Jess hoped she wouldn’t overhear whatever Patterson said when he exploded.

Dan pulled the Tuscaloosa chief of police to the side and brought him up to speed. Jess tried to focus on anything else but she kept drifting back to the way Dan handled the situation. He was very good at negotiating problems. Both Patterson and Griggs appeared to respect him even though they had a decade or more on him in police work. Try as she might, she had to, yet again, admire the cut of his suit and the strong, confident bearing that was so much more mature than even ten years ago. Forty-something looked damned good on him.

She, unfortunately, had not held up so well. The glasses had become a requirement last year. Surrendering to the use of moisturizers and fastidious use of sunblock was now the bane of her existence for fear more lines would appear around her eyes. She’d tried joining a gym to stay in shape but with her work schedule that had been impossible.

Her work schedule was no longer a problem.

And
he
knew.

Her stomach roiled with a big dash of humiliation and a faint signal of hunger. She hadn’t bothered with breakfast this morning. She’d even done without coffee until she arrived at Dan’s office. Knowing Katherine Burnett, she would recognize if her high tech coffeemaker had been touched. Jess wouldn’t put it past her to count the coffee beans in that fancy crystal container gracing the marble countertop in the
butler’s
pantry.

Jess snapped to attention as Dan and Patterson headed for the small porch where she waited. She braced to have her head bitten off. It wouldn’t be the first time and as long as she kept breathing it wouldn’t be the last.

“You think Reanne ran off with this Tim.”

Jess couldn’t ascertain whether he was asking or accusing. “No. Absolutely not.”

Something like relief lit in the man’s eyes. “Why is that?”

“That girl is Reanne’s friend.” Jess nodded to the Mercedes where Kelli waited. “She doesn’t believe Reanne ran anywhere. She believes she was taken. That’s the only proof I need.” 

Patterson nodded, whether in acknowledgement or approval, she hadn’t a clue. 

“She needs a ride to her brother’s house,” Jess told him. “Can you see that she gets there safely?”

Patterson nodded again. 

What was wrong with him? Where was all that piss and vinegar he usually sloshed around?

“I owe you an apology, Agent Harris.”

It took a second or two for his words to penetrate the denial that was her brain’s first response.

“Lorraine admitted that she thought Reanne had run away. She didn’t tell me because she was afraid we’d stop looking for her since she’s old enough to leave if she wants. She’s so convinced her daughter ran away that she’s already decided she’s dead to her.” He shook his head. “It’s the shock. First Reanne, then her husband.” He heaved a big breath. “Anyway, there is no excuse for my behavior.”

“You’re a friend of the family,” Jess offered. “You wanted to believe your friends. As for Mrs. Parsons, I imagine any mother would have done the same in a desperate situation like this.”

Dan stepped away to take a call.

Patterson glanced at the girl waiting in the SUV. “I have a bad feeling about this. Reanne may not be connected to the other girls.” He shook his head. “God only knows if she’s still alive.”

Dan ended the call and tucked his cell away. The look on his face had the bottom dropping out of Jess’s stomach. He climbed the steps to rejoin them on the porch. One look at his eyes confirmed her assessment. Bad news.

“That was Wells. We have another girl missing.”

That sinking sensation went through her again. “Where?”

“Warrior. Wells and Harper are headed there now.”

“Just like the others?”

Jess held her breath as she waited for Dan to answer Patterson’s question.

“Pretty much. No history of trouble of any kind. College student. Left for a friend’s house last night and never made it. When she wasn’t home by noon today, her mother called the friend who said she hadn’t shown. They found her car parked in front of a flower shop.”

Damn. If a fifth girl disappearing didn’t draw out the Bureau’s resources then something was wrong with the law.

“We may have gotten a break this time,” Dan went on. “A witness saw the girl get into a vehicle. We don’t have a license plate but we’ve got color and make and the exact time of the abduction.”

That was a start.

Chapter Ten

Andrea leaned forward and tried to snag the tape covering her mouth with her thumb. She grunted. Frustrated. She’d been trying to get loose all day and nothing worked. 

If she hadn’t screamed she might be out of here now. For two girls half out of their heads on drugs, Callie and Macy had saved her ass. They’d quickly reburied the toolbox and dragged Andrea back to the bunk beds. When that crazy bitch and her husband and had stormed into the room, flashlight blinding them all, they’d found Andrea on the floor with her scattered oatmeal. The other two pretended to be asleep. 

Grabbing her by the hair, the bitch had stuck her face in Andrea’s and warned that she would not tolerate disobedience. She then stood over Andrea until she scraped up every drop of the oatmeal she’d spilled and ate it. What she didn’t know was that Andrea had been eating dirt for days. What was a little more? After that the man had duct taped her hands, securing her to the metal leg of the bunk bed. For added punishment he plastered tape over her mouth so she couldn’t scream any more. 

Andrea was glad it hadn’t been worse. She squirmed around to get in a better position. If she could just get the tape off her mouth, she could chew her hands loose. Callie and Macy were out. They’d had their pills and apparently both had forgotten what Andrea told them about spitting the pills out. She hadn’t been given one. That was probably part of her punishment. Those creeps wanted her wide-awake while she was bound to the bed like this.

A-holes.

She closed her eyes and braced her forehead against the cold metal. Since it was dark, she couldn’t say for sure that those were bones in the toolbox, but she had a bad feeling. She just didn’t want to believe it. She shuddered. No use pretending. Definitely bones. Little ones. Like a baby.

Bile surged in her throat and she struggled to swallow it back or risk choking. Why would anyone kill a baby? Maybe it had been born dead. But why bury it in the basement like this? In a damned toolbox or whatever?

Okay. No giving up. Andrea refocused her efforts on getting her thumb under the tape over her mouth. Her fingers and wrists were mostly covered, but her right thumb stuck out. She dug at her face some more, her skin around the tape was raw from her thumb nail raking over it again and again. If one of the others would wake up they could help her. She couldn’t call out to them, and all the grunting and groaning she’d done at first hadn’t gotten through their drug-induced sleep.

Thank God the rats hadn’t come back. Maybe since she’d excavated their tunnel they had decided to stay clear for a while.

One corner of the tape lifted. Hope thrilled through her. She caught that corner between her thumb and her bound hand and pulled her head back slowly. The burn had her holding her breath as she slowly dragged the tape away from her mouth. She gasped for air and then coughed.

Thank God
.

A minute to recover from the burn and to relax her muscles, then she’d tear loose the rest of the stupid tape. She moistened her raw lips and started chewing at the sticky band around her wrists. It would take a while but she was determined. If she got lose she could start digging again. Her fingertips were sore from clawing at the dirt but she wasn’t going to let a little pain slow her down. 

She hadn’t heard anymore screaming from overhead. Was Reanne okay? They hadn’t killed Macy or Callie. Maybe they wouldn’t kill Reanne either. Maybe they weren’t going to kill any of them.

Maybe…Andrea slowed in her efforts to get free. In the movies the hostages were kept alive until the bad guys were finished with them. She figured they wanted money. If they got what they wanted, would they let them go home? If she and the other girls didn’t give the crazy man and woman any trouble, why would they hurt them?

Because they had seen their faces.

Andrea chewed harder at the nasty tasting tape. She wanted out of here. Dan and the cops might not find them in time. Waiting to be rescued would be stupid. A big strip of tape pulled free of her wrists, giving her hope. Tugging harder with her teeth, another loosened. Psyched now, she kept at it. Another and another tore loose. Yes! A little more and she would be able to twist her hands free.

Last one! She did it. Her hands fell to her lap. She squeezed her fists, released and squeezed again. She shook her arms and hands to get the feeling back, both had gone numb hanging like that.

She scrambled back to the door and listened for a few seconds before moving to the hole and digging. Thank God those awful people hadn’t noticed the loose dirt. This time she carefully piled the loosened dirt to one side so she could shove it back in if necessary.

A shudder rocked her when she grabbed hold of the handle on the metal box. She lifted it out of the hole and set it aside and started digging under the wall. The hole seemed wide enough on this side of the obstacle that stood between her and freedom. Now she needed to get underneath and out the other side. 

It took a while, her fingers were sore, to clear a tunnel wide and deep enough under the wall. As she had hoped, the wood wall just sat on the dirt floor. Had to be attached overhead because it didn’t feel as if it was attached to the ground with cement or anything. Her fingers scratched a rocky chunk.

Damn. Maybe it was cemented in the ground. She felt around the hole, dug a little more. Now she understood. There was concrete on either end of the hole she’d started. Chunks maybe two feet apart. Andrea had watched the guys build the big arbor in the back yard for her mother’s climbing roses. They had concreted posts into holes in the ground before attaching all the other wood to those posts.

She sat back on her heels. This wall must have been built like that. Lucky for her it felt as if there was space enough between the cement chunks holding the posts to continue digging toward the other side. Anticipation allowing her to ignore the pain in her fingers, she kept going.

The space behind the wood on this side of the wall was hollow. She reached deeper. There was more wood on the other side. She needed to dig maybe six more inches to get beyond the wall and then hope she could reach far enough and dig fast enough to get out the other side before those awful people came down here for some reason. Lunch had passed. They had brought the other girls sandwiches. Andrea’s stomach rumbled. Not for her. She was being punished.

Bastards
. She focused her anger on the hole. 

~*~

She didn’t know how long she’d been scratching at the dirt, but Andrea sat back to evaluate the situation. Could she squeeze through that space? It felt wide and deep enough, but she had to bend her body far enough to wiggle under the wall. 

Only one way to find out. She tried to stick her upper body down and under the wall. She jerked back. Wouldn’t work.

Wait. She needed to go under with her back to the ground.

She lay on her back and started to scoot her head and shoulders into the hole.

“What’re you doing?”

Andrea jumped. Hit her head on the wall. She lay still long enough for her heart to stop jumping. “Callie, you scared the hell out of me.”

“They’ll hurt you if you go out there.”

“I don’t care. I have to try.”

“But…what will you do? Do you think you can get out?”

“I don’t know.” Andrea pushed, wiggled, turned her head to one side and dug her heels into the dirt to push harder.

Her head and shoulders squeezed through, but her boobs were stuck. She tried to arch, pressing her back harder into the ground. Another inch or so.
Keep pushing!
The wall burrowed into her boobs. She bit her lips together to prevent crying. She pushed hard with her legs.

She scraped through to her waist. Hope blasted through her. Andrea relaxed. Took a breath and listened for trouble.

All quiet.

Okay. She got one arm and then the other out. Using the heels of her hands she braced against the dirt floor and wiggled and tugged until her hips were free. Giddiness made her lightheaded.

She was out!

“What’s out there?” 

Andrea blinked, ordered her eyes to adjust to the eerie glow of dim light.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m gonna look around.”

She got up, staggered a little. Beyond the stretch of wood wall, brick steps led upward. Andrea shivered. That was where the bad people were. Maybe they were gone somewhere. Her body shaking, she eased toward the steps. Up one step, then another. She stalled.