Level Five (24 page)

             
After doing what exercises her battered body would allow, she sat on the floor and stared around her, her thoughts racing in a hundred directions.

             
She had no idea if anyone knew she was missing, if anyone was searching for her.  She also knew that if she had any hope of surviving this ordeal she had to rely on herself alone.  And so far no magical escape route had come to mind.

             
She thought of the man who was her captor and went over what she’d managed to learn about him so far.  He’d been raised by a hoarder. It was evident from this room that he had become one himself.  He also suffered a severe case of obsessive/compulsive disorder, as did most hoarders. And he hated it…and he blamed his mother for not loving him, for making him what he’d become.

             
His rages were unpredictable and that made him extremely dangerous.  She had a feeling that the ones who had come before her had died in the midst of one of his fits of rage.  She didn’t want to end up like the others, but as she shifted positions and felt the pain in her ribs from his kicks the night before, she realized that would be her fate unless she could outwit him somehow.

             
She’d tested the strength of the chain a thousand times and knew there was no way she could get out of it.  Her ankle was already red and swollen and bruised from her attempts.

             
The only way she might have half a chance was if she could talk him into unchaining her.  She certainly couldn’t escape out a window and he kept the door to the room locked.

             
A frantic laugh escaped her as she recognized her odds of his removing the chain was minimal. Even if she did there was no way out. 

She stared upward, noting the fly paper that hung in strips from the ceiling.  The flies in the room had been an irritant and let her know that beyond the door he kept locked was probably more filth and garbage than she’d find at a dump.

              At least in this room and the bathroom all she had to contend with was paper and bugs.  She had yet to see a rat, but was sure they had to be in the house, along with all kinds of other vermin.

             
He’d apparently left the house less than an hour ago, which meant she had hours to pass before he returned.  She shivered and held her bruised rib as she thought of the night to come. And then there was tomorrow…Saturday.  Did he work on the weekends?  God, she prayed he did, but she had a feeling that tomorrow he’d have the whole day to spend with her. 

             
There were moments when panic threatened to consume her, when she wanted to scream with terror until her throat ached and she could scream no more.

             
But in the hours she’d contemplated her situation it had been her work with Colette that had kept her sane so far.  Edie knew that panic was her enemy, that giving into her fear could result in her death.  Colette had survived a mad man for three long years. Edie was determined to do the same, no matter how long she was held. 

She had to survive. She believed that Colette’s spirit and the wisdom Edie had gained from her would somehow see her through this nightmare.

              One of the things Colette had tried to do was glean as many clues about her captor as possible. If and when she finally got away, the police would have something to work with to capture the man.

             
The only thing Edie knew at the moment was that her captor’s name was Anthony.  She didn’t know his last name. She had no idea where he worked or what he did.

             
Although his features were indelibly burned into her brain for the rest of her life, she had seen no distinguishing features and knew that if he didn’t have a police record and wasn’t in the mug book, the odds weren’t good that anyone would be able to find him.

             
She needed to learn more about him and with this thought in mind she walked over to one of the stacks of paper. Somewhere in the mass of papers and magazines, she’d seen a mailing label.

             
Unfortunately she saw tons of mailing labels. None of them were addressed to anyone named Anthony.  He must dumpster dive or pick through other people’s trash.

             
A new horror swept through her as she found a small pile of things she knew were from her own trash can. That meant Monday night he’d taken her trash.  She remembered the way Rufus had barked at the back fence.  Had he been out there then?  Watching her?  Stalking her?

             
She’d felt uneasy for the rest of the night and she remembered what Colette had said about women’s intuition, that it shouldn’t be dismissed. 

             
She returned to the center of the bare space and sat, staring at the mounds that surrounded her. Why paper?  Edie was the first to admit that she suffered more than a little bit of obsessive compulsive disorder, but there was no way she could crawl into the mind of the man who had created the world in this room.

             
You’d better crawl into his mind, a little voice whispered inside her head.  The voice belonged to Colette, reminding her that it was imperative that Edie get inside Anthony’s mind.  In order to somehow beat him, she had to understand him.

             
She had to figure out what drove him, what he wanted, what he needed.  What frightened her was that even if she figured that out, his wants and needs would come with a price tag. She had a horrid feeling that price would be her death.

              Another endless night had passed.  Teddy had shown up at dawn and by seven the two other detectives assigned to the case were also there.

             
It was Saturday, the day that he and Edie should be spending together. Once again the search began for the missing cell phone.  Jake was just about to go back out to the woods after noon when Frank and Colette Merriweather arrived at the house.

             
“No word?” Colette asked.

             
Jake shook his head. The sight of the scarred woman and her bear of a husband threatened to break him.  “Nothing,” he finally managed to say.

             
“What can we do to help?” Frank asked.

             
Jake gestured toward the back yard.  “We suspect that someplace out there in the woods is Edie’s cell phone.  If we can find it, then I’m hoping we can see if maybe she got a call that could lead us to her whereabouts.”

             
“I have a copy of her publicity picture.  Should I make up flyers and get them distributed?” Colette asked.

             
Flyers made it so official.  Going public meant they had no clues and were depending on the average Joe on the street to find her.  Maggie’s Black’s mother had slapped up posters on every light pole and street sign in the area.

             
Jake frowned at thoughts of the missing teenager.  And before her there had been Kelly Paulson.  Both of them had possessed long dark hair and bright blue eyes. 

Like Edie. 

So much like Edie. 

To date no trace of the two missing young women had been found.  To the cops investigating the cases although no official determination had been made, the unofficial opinion was that the two were dead.

But it was too soon to presume that about Edie, he thought fiercely.  She had to be still alive.  Any other outcome was intolerable.

“Jake?” Colette’s voice pulled him from his thoughts.  “Posters?” she asked again.

He was reluctant to tell her yes, afraid to tell her no. He was frozen with indecision when Teddy walked up next to him.  Teddy’s presence reminded Jake that he wasn’t in a position to make any decisions. He wasn’t assigned to the case but rather was on personal leave. He felt almost grateful not to be the one making the decisions.

As Teddy spoke with Colette and Frank, Jake walked to the kitchen window and looked out beyond the fence where he knew Detectives Art Conrad and Larry Kincaid, along with a couple of neighbors still searched for Edie’s phone.

He needed to get out there, but before he could move from his position, a light touch fell on his back.  He turned and forced a smile at Colette. She didn’t return his empty gesture.

“She’s strong, Jake.  If there’s a way to come back to you she will.  She’s like me, a survivor. We don’t go down easily.”  She cleared her throat, as if she, too, had emotion that needed to be swallowed.  “I’m off to make posters.  Frank is going to stay here and help the search.  I’m going to make sure the posters are all over the area.  We’re going to find her, Jake.  Somehow, someway, she’ll make her way back home.”

He nodded, a hollowness creeping through him, the hollowness of a loss so incredible it threatened to undo him. He shoved it away, refusing to embrace it, refusing to give up.

After Colette had left and Frank stepped outside, Jake looked at Teddy.  “She looks like Maggie Black.”

Teddy nodded.  “We’re already looking for connections between all of the missing women who resemble Edie.”

“You won’t find any connections between the victims,” Jake replied.  “He picks them strictly because they fit a particular physical profile, not because they go to the same hair salon or hang out at the same bars.”

“Probably true, but you know the way to catch a serial killer is sometimes by sifting through the minutia of the victims’ lives.”  Teddy waved his hands impatiently.  “Besides, we’re getting ahead of ourselves here.  I’m still hopeful that Edie just went off someplace after the spat you two had and she’ll turn up any time.”

“Yeah, right.
  She left without her purse, without making any arrangements for Rufus and just happened to toss her cell phone someplace on the property before she took off without her car.”  Jake’s frustration spilled out. 

“This isn’t a case of a pissed off girlfriend just walking away.  This is a crime scene.  Somebody has taken her and we
don’t have a clue where to even begin to look for her.  We need more men.  We need a fucking task force.”  He felt as if he were shattering from the inside out.

Teddy laid his big hands on Jake’s shoulders.  “Pull it together, partner.  We’re doing everything we can. Late last night I talked to Chief Decker about our concerns that there might be a serial kidnapper working the area.  He promised to look at our files on Maggie and Paula and assess the situation.”

The tension that had ridden Jake’s shoulders ebbed slightly as Teddy dropped his arms back to his sides. “You know as well as I do that there’s no way to hurry things, no spells or chants that we can do that will make her magically appear.  It’s procedure and grunt work, it’s phone calls and false leads.  And by the way, I got a call a little while ago.  So far nobody has accessed any of Edie’s accounts.  No new charges have appeared on any of her credit cards.  Is it possible she had a wad of cash stashed somewhere here in the house?”

Jake frowned and sank down at one of the kitchen chairs.  “I suppose anything is possible.”  Once again he was struck by how little he’d known about the woman he loved.  “I was only here for three nights a week.  I don’t know what she did the other four days.  I had a couple of shirts and pants hanging in her bedroom closet and used her bathroom.  I have no idea what
cash she might have had on hand.  Hell, for all I know she had set up identification under another name.”

A surge of unexpected anger rose inside him. He’d always suspected that Edie had secrets, secrets she wasn’t willing to share with him.  Did she have a lover he’d never known about?  Had she called the person the minute she’d hung up from Jake? Had the mystery man come to pick her up?

As painful as it was to consider such a thing, it wasn’t as painful as thinking of her in the hands of a man who had already kidnapped two women who had never been seen again.

As Teddy went back outside, Jake rubbed at his red, gritty eyes.  Sleep had been impossible the night before.  He’d drifted off once and had suffered such horrendous nightmares of Edie when he’d jerked himself awake he had gotten up, refusing to allow himself to sleep any more.

How had Frank Merriweather managed to survive three long years?  It had only been three days for Jake. Already he felt on the verge of a breakdown. 

Wearily he rose from the table.  He needed action, knew that sitting here thinking too much wasn’t good for him.  He went out the back door, the mid-afternoon sunshine hot on his shoulders.

In the time since they’d discovered that Edie’s phone was within a mile radius of the house, they’d checked the back yard, the side yards and along the road in both directions from her house. 

In Jake’s gut he felt that the phone was in the woods. The area was overgrown with underbrush and new spring weeds beneath the gnarled tree trunks.  It was a
primordial place that was home to all kinds of wildlife. It had seen little human presence.

It was easy to see the area that had already been searched, the brush had been tamped down and the tall weeds broken or cut by a scythe Art Conrad carried at his side.