Level Five (12 page)

Anthony
had no intention of allowing the hoard to kill him. He began a new stack, placing the armful of papers on the floor next to one of the existing towers. 

Paper was a magical product.  It could be used to write on, to read, to wrap things in, to line shelves…so many uses for a single item.

              He never used the paper he brought in, but he knew if the time ever came that he did need it, he had it. Besides, it was his and nobody else could use or possess it.

             
He’d also found a beautiful oak picture frame missing one side.  He carried it upstairs to the room where he housed craft projects he would eventually get to.  He had trouble getting the door open, but finally managed to slide the frame just inside the room.              

It was almost noon by the time he’d found a place for everything he’d brought home the night before. Handling the items always gave him a certain amount of peace, as if for a moment the hole inside him had been comfortably filled. These were his things and nobody could take them away from him.  They comforted him, at least momentarily. But, he knew it wouldn’t be long before that aching, painful hunger would fill him once again.

              The day passed as most Sundays did.  He went out to the garage where his washer and dryer were located and did several loads of laundry then neatly hung the clothes on the racks in the detached building.

             
After that he mowed the lawn and made sure from the outside of the house nobody would ever suspect what existed within.  Once the yard work was complete he went out to the back garden where a concrete bench sat amid his growing collection of projects.

             
Above each body he’d planted a rose bush, a memorial to mark the project so he could come out here and think about his failures.  The first one had been named Samantha.  When he’d seen her at the Wal-Mart store three years before, he’d been certain that she’d be the one to stop the pain inside him. But, she hadn’t been. 

Others had come after her and none of them had been the panacea for the torment that pierced pain through him day and night.  Edie was the one.  He felt it in his gut. She was the one who would finally stop the unrelenting pain.  
             

It was after ten that night that he left his house and punched Edie Carpenter’s address into his GPS.  The magic machine would lead him right to her doorway.

He wasn’t ready to take her yet, didn’t know enough about her personal life, but he wanted to get the lay of the land, to see the structure she called home. He wanted to check how easy it would be to breach any security she might have.

A hum of pleasure buzzed in his head as he followed the directions to the far north of town.  As the crow flew he and Edie were practically neighbors, but it took him nearly twenty minutes to arrive at the entrance to her driveway.

He drove on past, seeking a place to park his car where it wouldn’t be noticed while he got closer to the property on foot. He found what he sought about two miles down the road, an overgrown entrance to a pasture.  He pulled in far enough that his car couldn’t be seen from the street and then got out.

His blood pounded in his temples as he jogged along the side of the street, trying to keep to the shadows of the trees that lined the pavement.

The night was hot but he scarcely noticed the heat or the bugs that buzzed around his head as he moved silently.

As a car approached in the distance, he stepped behind one of those trees, until the tail lights had disappeared in the opposite direction.

Isolated.  That was his first thought when he saw Edie’s ranch house.  Isolated and surrounded by plenty of trees.  A large plastic trash bin set at the end of her driveway.  Her trash pick-up was apparently on Monday mornings.  

Interesting that they’d both chosen secluded places to live and that definitely made it easier for him.  There was a part of him that wanted to call her outside, grab her by the shoulders and fling her into the trunk of his car.  But, there was also a piece of him that enjoyed the fact that he stood in her front yard without her awareness. He savored the fact that he knew what her future held and she didn’t.  She couldn’t even begin to
dream how the stars had aligned in the sky designating her destiny. 

His destiny.
  

He had no idea if the man he’d seen her with at the signing lived here with her or not. It didn’t matter.  He would find a way
in, find a way through the man to get to the woman who was his salvation, the panacea for the never-ending pain. 

He drew a deep breath of air. There was something so seductive about being in her space and he imagined he could smell the scent of her in the grass, hanging from the trees, wafting in the air.  It smelled like blood, like the sweet transference of pain from his body to hers.

He would have liked to peer through one of her back windows, but the yard was fenced. As he drew closer a dog began to bark frantically. 

He quickly backed away, not wanting to draw attention from the fucking yapping dog.  He hurried back to where he parked his car and got into the seat, pausing for a moment to catch his breath.

She was definitely going to be his biggest challenge.  She worked at home, she had a yappy dog and he still didn’t know if the man she’d been with at the book signing lived with her or not.

Not that it mattered. Sooner or later she’d be out alone.  Sooner or later she’d be vulnerable and she would be his.  He tightened his hands on the steering wheel. He wanted her now, but he’d have to be smart, be patient.

He started his car and as he drove by her driveway, he pulled to the side of the road once again. He got out of the car.  If he couldn’t have her tonight, he could at least have her garbage. 

Grabbing the large trash bin, he opened his trunk and dumped the contents inside, then placed the bin back where it had originally stood.

As he drove away he trembled as he thought of going through her garbage. It was intimate…almost like having sex with her.  He could gleam all kinds of personal information about her by examining the things she threw away. After tonight he would know her more personally than if they’d spent hours together talking about their life stories. 

After tonight, he’d have the keys to the best way to make her his, to get her into his paper room where he could ease his pain.

               
Chapter 13 

Monday morning Edie once again sat in Colette’s kitchen, sipping coffee as Colette shared more about her experience with her kidnapper.

They had been talking for more than two hours and Edie knew they had just about reached the limit as to how much Colette could take in one sitting.

“You want to hear something awful, something I’ve never told anyone?” she said to Edie.

Edie tensed.  What Colette had already shared with her about the time she’d been held captive had been awful.  She couldn’t imagine what could be worse than what she’d already shared.

“What’s that?” Edie asked.

Colette frowned, the gesture tugging her scars into an odd pattern.  “When he was taking me to the Wal-Mart to drop me off,
I kept wondering what I’d done wrong.  Why he didn’t want me anymore.  Isn’t that crazy?  For three years all I could think about was getting away from him. Then suddenly when it was actually going to happen, when I knew I was finally going to be free I was terrified at the idea.”

“Three years is a long time.  You’d learned how to exist in the state of his mind.  I’m sure it had to be frightening to wonder what would happen to you when you were free.”

Colette nodded. “My parents died when I was in college. Frank was really all I had at the time I was taken. I figured he would be married by the time I was released and once my face was cut that I’d be so scarred I’d have to live the rest of my life alone, with nobody to care what happened to me.”

“But, Frank didn’t get married.  You stayed in his heart and in his soul the whole time you were gone.  He’s a wonderful man and both Jake and I enjoyed dinner with you two on Saturday.”

“Jake seemed nice, too.  And we won’t even talk about his general hotness,” Colette teased.

A flush of warmth swept through Edie as she thought of Jake.  “He is pretty wonderful,” she agreed.

“And it’s obvious he adores you.  Why haven’t you two tied the knot yet?”

“Jake wants to get married, but I have some personal issues to work through,” Edie replied. A knot of tension formed in her stomach at the subject.  She definitely had some personal issues, like the fact that she had a drug-addicted alcoholic father who she’d initially told Jake was dead. She also lived each day with a crushing guilt that she never took out to examine. She was afraid that if she looked at it too closely it would consume her.

“Right now things are good between Jake and me. I’m not ready to make any big changes.”  She wasn’t sure she’d ever be ready to take the next step in her relationship with Jake. 

He’d told her that if she disappeared like Colette had he’d wait forever for her. How long was he willing to wait without her disappearance, without anything obvious standing in her way?

It was a thought that followed her home when she left Colette’s several hours later. She should probably be in some sort of therapy, trying to find the reason why she was so afraid to completely commit to Jake.

The thought of therapy scared her almost as much as the idea of marriage.  The last thing she wanted to do was dig through her past, discuss her sister’s murder, her parent’s divorce and all the drama that had been in her life.

She was in a good place now mentally, doing work she loved and satisfied with the three-day a week relationship with Jake. She was happy where she was in her life and she could only hope that Jake remained satisfied as well.

She parked her car in the driveway and then trudged back to the street to retrieve her trash can and store it back in the garage until the following Sunday night.

She frowned. The trash man had been a bit sloppy, dropping several fast food containers and miscellaneous shredded paper onto the driveway.  Must have been in a big hurry this morning. She picked up the trash, threw it back into the trash can and pulled it back up the driveway.

Reaching the house, it struck…that creepy feeling of being watched.  The hairs on the nape of her neck rose like a warning system that somebody was somehow invading her space.

Gazing around the yard she saw nothing amiss, no reason for the sensation.  Moving closer to the house, she heard Rufus barking from inside, but his barks sounded like the normal, happy, glad you’re home kind of noise.

Maybe she’d been working too closely with Colette, getting pulled too deep into her story.  There was no question that she was having problems maintaining any emotional distance with this particular project. 

The crimes against Colette horrified her, creeped her out to the max. It reminded her that the world was filled with evil people.  One of them had found her family once and one of them had found Colette.  She prayed that none of them found another of them again. 

Dismissing the odd feeling, she unlocked her door and walked in to Rufus’s excited greeting.  “Hey, baby.”  She bent down to scratch him behind his ears and then led him to the back door. 

Rufus exploded out of the door, having spied a rabbit in the yard that would be long gone by the time he got to it.  She left Rufus to run.  She had meant him to be an outdoor dog, but within two weeks of owning him she’d had the doggie door put in so he could come and go in and out of the house as he pleased.  Usually when she was gone from the house she made sure the doggie door was locked, not wanting any other wildlife like a raccoon or a stray cat to make its way inside.

She’d just settled in at her computer when her cell phone rang.  It was her father.  She should have known it was about time for him to need money and food.  “Dad,” she said into the phone. 

“Could you help me out, Edie?  I’m short of cash and out of food.  I showed up for some day work this morning, but all the jobs got filled before they got to me.”

“Don’t you go anywhere and I’ll be there within twenty minutes.”  She clicked off the phone, locked the back door and then grabbed her purse.

She kept her mind blank as she drove to the motel to see her father.  She knew any sort of professional would tell her she enabled her father in his unproductive, destructive lifestyle. The best thing she could do for him was step away and allow him to bottom out.

But, none of them understood that James Carpenter had hit bottom the day his eldest daughter, his precious Francine had been victimized and killed.

And for the next ten years he’d shoved the bottom away to care for Edie. Her mother had run out and there was nobody else to take care of the child that had survived.

James had fought against the bottom until he believed Edie didn’t need him anymore and then he’d succumbed.  He’d swallowed his grief until it couldn’t be swallowed any longer. Now he wallowed in it.