FATAL FORTY-EIGHT: A Kate Huntington Mystery (The Kate Huntington Mysteries Book 7) (5 page)

She swallowed the words that popped into her head.

What do you expect me to think, you bastard? You’ve drugged and kidnapped me.

He helped her walk clumsily to a bathroom doorway across the room, then let her go. Once she was inside the bathroom, he gently closed the door.

She managed to sit on the toilet so that her skirt scrunched up behind her. She quickly looked around the room, taking in details and storing them away for future potential use. The window was high on the wall above the sink. It was covered with rolled insulation. The brown paper was against the window, the pink fuzz out toward the room, the whole thing secured by two boards nailed horizontally across the window. Makeshift soundproofing, she realized.

A tap on the door. “Are you done, my dear?” The door opened tentatively.

“Yes, I’m done.”

The man stepped into the doorway. He was shorter than Sally had first thought, no more than an inch taller than she was–a slender little guy. Maybe she could overpower him, if she could get him to take off this damn straightjacket. But then again, he was strong enough to haul her from her office to wherever the hell she was now.

“Would you like me to…” He made a wiping gesture with his hand.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “That won’t be necessary.”

“As you wish, my dear, but you won’t be able to bathe, at least not before…”

“Before what?”

“Never mind. Come on out, please. I need to leave you for a while, I’m afraid.”

He helped her back to the bed and held the plastic straw of a water bottle to her mouth, letting her drink her fill.

Her stomach growled. She was shivering again. “My legs are cold.”

“Lay down and I’ll cover them with a blanket. I’ll bring you some food in a little while. You may move around the room as you wish, but don’t try to escape. I’ll be on guard outside.”

She saw the lie in his eyes. He wasn’t going to be on guard. She looked around the room but saw no door, other than the one to the bathroom.

“If there’s no hope of escape, can you let me out of this thing?” She tried her best to sound sweet and helpless, although no one who knew her would be likely to use either word to describe her. “It’s really getting uncomfortable.” She intentionally used that buzz word and squirmed a little in the straightjacket.

It didn’t work. For the first time, she saw a glint in his eyes, a hint of pleasure at her discomfort. “Behave now, my dear. I’ll be back shortly.”

He walked over to a bare, white wall and laid his palm against it. Something clicked inside the wall and a section of it slowly swung inward, whirring softly.

Sally caught a glimpse of a simply furnished living room, before the wall swung closed again behind him.

She waited for what she thought must be about ten minutes, then wiggled around until her legs were off the bed. Hobbling across the room, she almost lost her balance a couple times, but she managed to make it to the wall. She put her shoulder to the wall, at the spot where he had touched it, and shoved. Nothing happened.

Maybe she didn’t have the right spot. She moved over an inch and shoved again. The hard wall was unyielding. An inch in the other direction–two inches, three in both directions–nothing happened. Up some, down some, she pressed against every square inch of the area, until her shoulder was sore. Nothing.

She leaned her forehead against the smooth, cool surface of the wall and moaned softly.

~~~~~~~~

8:00 a.m. Saturday

Skip spotted Judith Anderson and SA Wallace a block away. He waved but they didn’t see him. He moved in their direction.

Wallace tugged her suit jacket across her chest.

Skip sucked in his breath. He recognized the gesture. She wasn’t cold. She was trying to hide her assets.

When a late growth spurt had turned the scrawny teenager he had once been into a hunk, he’d quickly learned that attractiveness was both a blessing and a curse. No doubt, Wallace’s voluptuous figure made her life tough at the FBI. He felt a pang of sympathy for the young woman.

He jogged up to her and Judith.

SA Wallace gave him an appraising look. “You’re not even breathing hard.” She somehow made it sound like a criticism.

“I try to stay in shape.” His tone was sharper than he’d intended, but he wasn’t about to apologize.

He turned to Judith. “I’ve got something. Woman who manages an apartment building down there.” He gestured behind him. “She also manages one about a half mile from here. Says our guy came to look at one of her apartments there. He acted funny. Walked around like he was pacing off the place, mumbling to himself, then told her the apartment wouldn’t suit him.”

“Hang on,” SA Wallace said. “Let me call my partner, then take us to her.”

~~~~~~~~

Kate was looking through Sally’s appointment book again. She had a niggling feeling that she’d missed something. She grabbed a pad and, flipping through the book’s pages, scribbled down dates and times.

“Hey, Tim, look at this.”

SSA Cornelius stood up and walked around the table to stand behind her chair. Kate pointed to her pad. “There are four intake interview appointments in the last two weeks, all four p.m. or later, that Sally marked as no-shows. And all their names are very generic. Jim Smith, John Jones, etc. And then yesterday, Joe Johnson, at five.”

“Not marked as a no-show,” Tim said. “Because this time, when he arrived, the rest of the staff had gone.”

A whiff of men’s cologne, something woodsy with a hint of citrus. Kate realized Tim was leaning over her shoulder. She shifted a little in her chair. “That’s what I’m thinking.”

He pulled out the chair next to her and sat down. “Let me see the book.”

He leafed through the pages, checking the dates she had written down. “Two different people’s handwriting in here.”

She took the book back and looked at the page he had opened it to. “The five o-clock appointment, and some of the other notations are Sally’s handwriting. The other person would be the center’s receptionist. She mostly wrote in times for meetings with the staff and such.” Kate skimmed back through the relevant dates. “All the late afternoon no-shows are in Sally’s handwriting.”

“Does that mean she made the appointments herself?”

“Not necessarily, but likely.” She closed the appointment book and put it down on the table.

“I’m surprised that she doesn’t have an electronic calendar for her appointments. I’d think all that would be computerized these days.”

“Sally doesn’t completely trust technology. She takes confidentiality issues very seriously. Computer records can be hacked.” She patted the book. “This is more proof, if we needed it, that Sally went unwillingly. She never would have left this sitting out on her desk.”

Tim nodded without making eye contact. He was staring at her left hand, resting on top of the appointment book.

“Uh…” He paused, still looking down at her hand. “When I was re-interviewing the retired receptionist earlier…”

“Pauline?” Kate said.

“Yeah, she said something about you leaving the center shortly after your husband was murdered. Are you sure you’re okay with all this? It could stir up those bad memories.”

Kate smiled at him. “That was quite awhile ago, and I’ve not been a stranger to murder since then. I seem to have an unnatural penchant for getting involved in messes like this.” Her face sobered. “If anything, Eddie’s murder makes me that much more determined to help you find Sally, before it’s too late.”

Tim patted her hand. His cell phone buzzed on the other side of the table. He stood and reached across for it, then put it to his ear. “Cornelius.” After a moment, he grabbed the pad and pencil and wrote something down. “Got it. I’ll meet you there.”

“What?” Kate said.

“They’ve got a possible lead. An apartment this guy looked at but didn’t rent.”

“I’m going with you.”

“No.”

“Why not? There’s nothing for me to do here, and the more trained eyes looking for something that’s off, the better.”

He hesitated another fraction of a second. “Okay, grab your jacket.”

~~~~~~~~

Sally stood by the insulation-covered window in the bedroom. Would anyone be able to hear her out on the street, if she screamed? This window had one solid piece of plywood over the insulation. There was only a small gap at the bottom, with pink fuzz peeking out below it.

She leaned down and put her ear to the gap. No noise, not even the sound of cars going by on the street. Of course, she had no idea if there was a street on the other side of the window. For all she knew, this guy had taken her out into the country somewhere.

Wait, was that the rumble of a vehicle, a big truck maybe? She shook her head. Could be wishful thinking.

A click and a whirring sound. Sally hobbled away from the window as fast as she could. She was halfway to the bed when her captor entered the room. The wall slid closed behind him.

He narrowed his eyes for a second, so brief she wondered if she’d imagine it. Then his expression became benign and he walked to the bed.

“Good to see you up and about, my dear. I brought you food.” He held up a white paper bag. “Here, you sit on the bed, and I’ll feed you.”

Her mind rebelled, wanted to refuse to obey. But her stomach growled loudly as the scent of bacon and eggs drifted over to her. Silently, she hobbled the rest of the way to the bed and sat down.

He lifted a carry-out container out of the bag and set it on the small wooden table next to the bed. “We’ve got scrambled eggs and grits, my dear. The bacon’s made from tofu. I’m a vegetarian. I can’t abide that we kill animals, when there are plenty of plants for us to eat.”

Sally clamped her teeth together.

You kill people, but not animals!
her mind screamed.
You’re an animal!

She could barely keep her expression neutral as he fed her forkfuls of eggs and grits, and the fake bacon that she dared not refuse for fear of pissing him off. She’d never liked tofu much. Now she knew she would hate it for the rest of her life.

With a shudder she realized that she might be eating it for the rest of her life, the very
short
rest of her life.

CHAPTER SIX

9:00 a.m. Saturday

The apartment manager–a blonde, heavy-set, fiftyish woman–turned her master key in the lock. “The folks who did rent the place won’t be here. They’ve got a restaurant and work weekends.” She pushed the door open and gestured for them to enter.

The small crowd of FBI agents, police detectives and concerned ‘civilians’ edged past her one at a time. They spread out in the apartment and looked around.

“Don’t move nothin’ if you can help it,” the manager said.

Kate gave her a smile. “Thank you for showing us the place. It could be a big help.”

Her husband caught her eye and flashed a quick grin. It was something he’d mentioned often, how a smile and a friendly
thank you
could do wonders to gain a witness’s cooperation.

Yes, sweetheart, I do listen when you talk about your work.

“You said the man paced up and down,” Tim Cornelius said. “Where was that?”

The woman walked to one side of the large living room. “Right about here.” She waved a thick arm back and forth. “Then he opened that closet door, stared into it for a minute, and then asked where the other bathroom was. I told him there weren’t but one full bath, off the hall to the bedrooms.”

She planted her feet and put her hands on her ample hips. “He got kinda mad then and says, ‘But you said on the phone it had one and a half baths.’ I pointed over there.” She swung her arm out toward the other side of the living room. “Powder room’s that little door next to the hallway entrance.”

“Then what did he do, ma’am?” SA Wallace asked.

“He muttered somethin’ like ‘That’ll never do,’ and acted all pissy like I’d misled him on the phone. Didn’t even thank me for showin’ him the place.”

Kate stepped back to the doorway and surveyed the entire living room. The area where their suspect had paced back and forth was to her left. There was no window on that wall, just the closet door, about four feet from the corner. She walked over and touched the wall next to the closet. “What’s on the other side of this?”

“Back of the closet of the apartment next door,” the manager answered.

Kate nodded once. She scanned the room again. Across from her was the hallway to the bedrooms down which Judith Anderson, Rose and Mac had disappeared. On the side of it closest to the entrance door was the powder room. Skip stood in that doorway, examining the tiny space. On the other side of the hallway was the open doorway into the kitchen. The current occupants were using that corner of the living room as a dining area.

“Do you have anything that shows the layout of the apartments?” Kate asked the manager.

“Sure do.” The woman swung a small backpack off her shoulder. She rummaged through it and pulled out a handful of glossy brochures.

Kate took one from her and opened it. Yup, that’s what she’d thought. “Hey Tim, come look at this.”

Skip glanced up. She gestured for him to come over too.

When the two men had joined her, she pointed to one of the layout diagrams. SA Wallace cleared her throat loudly, from behind Skip. A small smile twitched briefly across his face. He stepped aside to let her join the circle.

The layout Kate was pointing to was the mirror image of the apartment they were standing in. The small closet was to the right of the entrance door, rather than the left. The powder room and kitchen were also reversed, with the latter nearest the entrance and the powder room on the other side of the living room.

“So?” SA Wallace said.

“Did the man have one of these brochures?” Kate asked.

“Don’t remember for sure,” the manager said. “But them diagrams is on the owner’s website about the buildings he owns.”

“So?” Wallace repeated.

“I don’t know.” Kate stabbed the diagram with her index finger. “I’ve just got a gut feeling that this is the apartment he was hoping to rent.”