Level Five (20 page)

            
       Chapter 20

              Darkness had fallen, shrouding Edie’s house and Jake’s heart.  Dr. Barrows had called earlier to let him know that Rufus was in critical condition.

And there had been no word, no sighting of Edie anywhere.

              A three-man team had been assigned the case of the poisoned dog, a luxury Jake knew had been afforded because of his position in the department. Officially they couldn’t bring a missing persons case with Edie only missing a few hours.  Normally the police wouldn’t be interested in hearing about a woman who’d been gone not even a full day, but Rufus’s poisoning definitely indicated some sort of foul play had taken place.

There was no question in Jake’s mind that somehow, someway Edie was in trouble. Unofficially Jake and the other Detectives were treating it as a crime scene.

              Teddy had returned after taking Rufus to the vet’s and together the men had searched the house looking for something, anything that might indicate what had happened to Edie.

             
Jake suddenly found himself in the position of voyeur into the life of the woman he loved.  Her purse had been on the top of her dresser in her bedroom, but they hadn’t been able to find her cell phone.

             
Guilt had eaten at Jake as he got onto her computer and had checked her browsing history and her emails. Edie had always been so private. Now he felt as if he were betraying her by delving into her life in a way he never had before.

             
Her computer held no answers.  She didn’t do much emailing and her browsing history contained mostly links to crimes and obvious resources for her writing.

             
He now sat at the kitchen table, Teddy and another detective, Art Conrad seated with him. Detective Larry Kincaid was still walking around the house, looking for anything they might have missed. 

“Are you sure she didn’t just go off with a friend?” Art asked.

“That’s the first thing I thought of,” Jake replied.  “I called her friends.  They hadn’t spoken to her or seen her today.”  It had been a shocking revelation to Jake that the only two people he knew to call to see if Edie was with them were Colette and Lisa.  It seemed sad to realize the only people he knew who were in her life was the subject of her latest book and his partner’s wife.

Where were the girlfriends most women Edie’s age had?  She was a thirty-two year old woman. Who did she lunch with?  Who did she gossip to?  The fact that she was so self-contained would work against them.  They had no leads to follow, nobody to follow-up with. 

“How long before we hear something from the cell phone people?” he asked.  He’d called her cell phone a dozen times and left messages until her message queue had been filled and no more could be left.

“We should be hearing something anytime,” Art replied.  He’d pulled some strings and managed to get somebody at tech support to gain access to her phone records.

“If she has the phone with her, the tower pings will give us a general area.”  Teddy’s eyes held a compassion Jake didn’t want to see. It was as if he’d already made up his mind that Edie was gone forever.

“When we get the search area located we’ll tear it apart,” Art said.

Jake looked out the window. Darkness had deepened into night.  Where was she?  What had happened here?  Was Rufus’s poisoning and Edie’s vanishing two separate issues?  Pissed off over his phone conversation with her, had she left with a friend Jake didn’t know about?  After she left had Rufus gotten into something he shouldn’t have?

“You said her mother lives in Florida.  Is it possible she went there?” Teddy asked.

Jake shook his head.  “She wouldn’t go there. And in any case, she couldn’t have flown without her identification.  That’s all in her purse in the bedroom.”

He wanted to take back the phone call. He wanted to change the day, but he knew that was impossible.  The only thing he could hope was that she had friends he wasn’t aware of, that after his call she’d been upset and one of those friends had come and picked her up.

The only thing he could pray for was that at any time she’d walk through the door, still pissed off at him but very much alive and well.

What he didn’t want to think about was the investigations he and Teddy had been involved in the last couple of months…the investigations of dark-haired blue-eyed women who had seemingly vanished off the face of the earth.

The investigation couldn’t move forward much because of the fact that Edie was an adult. She’d been missing less than twenty-four hours. There was no way to know what exactly had made Rufus sick.

If she didn’t show up all night, Jake intended to press the brass for an all-out investigation, including checking her bank records for any withdrawals, her credit cards for any charges and enough men to form a task force. 

Somehow, someway he had to get her back.

Deep in his gut he knew she was in trouble. He wouldn’t rest until he found her…hopefully alive.

“Come on, Francine, I wanna go home.”  Edie heard the whine in her voice, but she was tired of waiting for her sister to leave her friends.

“Shut up, little baby.  I’ll be ready in a minute.”  Francine’s eyes flashed with anger.

Edie sighed.  She adored her big sister, but when she was with her friends Francine turned into a mean girl.  At home the two of them spent lots of time playing together. 

Edie’s favorite game was when they played teacher.  Francine always let Edie be the teacher and Francine would pretend to be a stupid, bad-behaving student.  Usually the two would dissolve into giggles as the make-believe game went on.

Today Edie didn’t like Francine very much.  She was in major mean girl mode and every time she said something snotty to Edie, the other girls cackled like little witches.

Edie wanted to tell them all to go to hell, but she knew Francine would tattle on her for saying a bad word. Then she’d be grounded for the rest of her life.

              As she glared at her sister, Francine began to fade.  The royal blue of her blouse became lighter, turning to a robin’s egg blue as her skin began to take on a transparency. 

             
Francine’s face took on a look of horror and then she was gone.

              Edie came to with a gasp, her head pounding with an intensity that made her believe if she opened her eyes, if she moved in any way she’d throw up.

             
She heard the sound of water running.  Maybe Jake was taking a shower?  Was it morning? No, that wasn’t right.  That couldn’t be right.  Jake had said he didn’t want to see her anymore.

             
For a moment her heart ached as much as her head. As the fog that had encased her brain began to lift and the sound of the running water stopped. She became aware of the smell. 

             
It was like nothing she’d ever smelled before, an odor of filth, of decay and of death.

Her eyes snapped open and in the first snapshot of the room she thought she’d lost her mind. 

              A bare light bulb hung from the high ceiling illuminating paper.  Towers of papers precariously stacked rose all around her. Like a movie fast-forwarded, she remembered Rufus lying in the yard, rushing to his side and then something covering her mouth and nose. 

And then nothing.

             
Her heart thundered a thousand miles an hour as she saw the chain attached to the ring around her ankle.  She was in trouble.  She was in bad trouble.

             
Don’t panic.  And yet it was difficult to hold onto that thought. She realized the papers were moving, subtly shifting. A faint clicking noise could be heard.  The towers were infested with bugs and gave an optical illusion of the towers closing in around her.  Her throat felt as if it was closing off as well.

             
The floor beneath her smelled faintly of bleach and an underlying odor that was definitely unpleasant.  As she pulled herself to a sitting position, a wave of dizziness let her know that whatever had been used to drug her hadn’t left her body completely.

             
Don’t panic.  The words thundered in her head, but could find no purchase against the terror that grabbed her by the throat.

             
Where was she?  Who had brought her here and why?  The questions flew fast and furious through her woozy head. She fought against the horror and the fog to find some semblance of sanity.

             
She had no idea if it was day or night.  She couldn’t begin to guess how long she’d been drugged. The worst part was she knew it might be days before anyone realized she was missing from her home.

             
She’d told Colette she wouldn’t be seeing her this week.  Jake had called and said he needed time away from her to figure things out.  She was appalled to realize there was nobody else in her life who might care if she disappeared.

             
Tears stung her eyes but she willed them away.  The first thing she had to do was figure out where she was and how she could escape.  She shook her head several times in an attempt at clarity and then began to crawl.

             
It didn’t take her long to find the paper-filled bathroom, where only the stool and the sink were accessible.  She pulled herself up to the sink and turned on the water.  Sluicing water over her face she tried to think of what she had done, how this had happened?

             
Who had made these mountains of paper?  It had to have taken years. She’d watched enough television to know what kind of people collected items like this, to know that the stink that filled the air meant she was in the middle of a hoard.  But, whose hoard?

             
The chain allowed her to get only partway to the second door in the paper room and by that time she had exhausted herself.  She moved back to the bare floor in the center, where she felt as if she were on stage and the mounds of paper was an audience for whatever show was about to begin.

             
Once again panic swelled up inside her, pressing painfully tight against her chest, surging up the back of her throat.  Eventually somebody was going to walk through the door that she couldn’t reach.  Would she recognize him?  What were his plans for her?

             
The fuzz of the drugs made thinking difficult. She felt as if she was in some kind of strange dream and yet she knew she was awake.

             
She frowned as she saw something on the floor near her, something small and white.  It looked like a slightly irregular-shaped little pearl.  What would a pearl be doing here? She picked it up, frowning as she studied it.

             
She turned it over in her palm and froze as she realized what it was.  A tooth.  A human tooth.  With a cry she flung it away, where it disappeared into the paper stacks nearby.

              Shaking uncontrollably she curled into a ball and squeezed her eyes tightly closed.  “My name is Edie Carpenter and I love Jake Warner,” she whispered and only then did she allow her tears to fall.

                        Chapter 21

              Anthony must have looked at his watch a hundred times throughout the day, willing five o’clock to come so that he could go home to Edie.

             
Edie.  Her name sang through his veins as he anticipated going home to her.  He checked his watch.  Fifteen more minutes and he could walk out his office door.

             
She’d been the first thing he’d checked on when he’d rolled out of bed that morning.  Before he’d showered he’d peeked into the paper room and seen her curled up on the floor.  He didn’t know if she was awake or not.  She might have been playing possum, but he hadn’t wanted to begin working with her then anyway. 

             
She’d tantalized his thoughts all day, making concentration on anything else not only difficult but irritating.  He checked his watch again.  Five more minutes. 

             
He watched those minutes tick off, then shut down his computer and got out of his chair.  His entire body trembled with the need to get out of the building, into his car and home to her…to Edie.

             
At exactly five o’clock he stepped out of his office cubicle and bumped into Susan. His first thought was that she’d been lurking there on purpose with the specific objective of seeing him. 

             
“Susan.” He forced a light pleasantness to his voice.

             
“Hi, Anthony.  I just wanted to stop by and say hello to you before you left for the day.  We’ve hardly seen each other all week and I was wondering if everything was okay?”  A line of worry creased her forehead. She smelled of her spicy perfume and more than a hint of desperation.

             
There was no question that this last week, Susan had been the last person on his mind.  Edie had consumed him.

As he gazed into Susan’s desperate eyes he realized it was still important for him to keep up the charade with her.

              “You’ve been on my mind all week, I’ve just been so busy with projects at the house and work here, the week has gotten away from me.  I was just going to find you and ask if you wanted to have dinner with me tomorrow night.” 

             
The pleasure that washed over her features was pathetic.  He was aware that anytime he spent with Susan was time he wouldn’t be spending with Edie, but he had to be smart. He had to stay in control of the world that he had built. Like it or not Susan was an important part of his world.

             
“You know I always love spending time with you,” she replied, her face beaming with happiness. “I’d love to have dinner with you.”

             
“Great!”  He felt as if a thousand fire ants had invaded his body, his need to escape from her, from this place was so great.  “We’ll go right after work,” he said as he backed away , deciding he’d use the rear exit from the building to leave. “I know a great little place not far from here.  We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

             
Without waiting for her reply he turned and half-ran toward the exit.  The fire ants of anticipation were eating him from the inside out.  He’d waited all day. His grasp on his

control
was slipping away.

             
It wasn’t until he got into his car and headed toward his house that he felt like he’d regained his control once again.  He turned the radio to a soft listening jazz station and drew deep cleansing breaths. 

             
He couldn’t let his need dictate to him.  He had to be the master of it.  If he lost control then he wouldn’t be able to get what he needed from Edie.  He knew what happened when he lost control. When he regained it he had to dig another grave.

             
By the time he reached his house he was in the zone.  He parked in the driveway and went into the garage and carefully hung his business suit on the rack that held his other business clothes.  Naked he left the garage and went into the house and directly to his bedroom.

             
He pulled on a pair of stained jeans and a T-shirt that had been used for several of his projects and then headed for the kitchen to fix something to eat. It was important to maintain his routine.  He’d eat a microwave dinner and then begin his work on his new project.

             
He chose a fried chicken dinner with the mashed potatoes and a side of corn.  He ate methodically, fighting the temptation to forget the food and go into the paper room where Edie awaited.  He tasted nothing but his own desire, his own need.  The food was utterly tasteless but he finished every bite.

             
When there was nothing else to eat he washed the carton container in the sink and placed it on top of a stack of similar containers.

             
He faced the closed door that led into the paper room, his blood pounding at his temples.  It was time to begin.

              Edie felt the whoosh of displaced air and then heard the sounds of footsteps and knew somebody was in the house or whatever the place was that she was being held.

             
She stared at the door, her heart beating so hard her chest hurt as she waited to see who would come through the door.  Nothing happened.

             
As she continued to wait she heard a faint ding that she recognized as the sound of a microwave that had finished cooking. 

Was it breakfast being made? 
Dinner?  It was impossible to track time in a room where no window was visible behind the massive paper stacks. The only light in the room was the bulb that had burned since the moment she’d become conscious. She’d spent most of the last couple of hours dozing off and on, as if sleeping off a hangover. She’d also spent part of that time screaming for help that didn’t come.

Now she was painfully alert, awaiting a monster. Only a monster would have her chained in this hell hole.  In the time that she’d been awake, she’d explored the area as much as the chain around her ankle would allow, afraid of what else she might find, but also afraid she might overlook something that could help her.

There was only one thing she was certain of…there was no way out except for the door she couldn’t reach.  She had no idea what lay beyond the door. At the moment it didn’t matter.