With Carli missing, Bill had expected the night terrors to return, but it was frustrating suffering through them repeatedly without gaining any insight into their significance. Bill felt certain they contained the secret to rescuing Carli, if only he could read the clues his subconscious mind was trying to feed him.
There he was, watching himself aim in slow motion at the back of the I-90 Killer as the man attempted to spirit away the young girl, knowing he should just shoot the kidnapper but instead issuing the shouted warning to stop, the warning he now regretted with his entire being.
There he was, reaching for the girl’s shoulder to pull her to safety behind his own body, knowing the I-90 Killer was going to shove the girl at him and make his escape, but unable to change the sequence of events.
There he was, in stifling heat more appropriate to August than May, leaping down the four steps to the rest area parking lot, desperate to catch up to the I-90 Killer, knowing he would not, but trying anyway.
There he was, watching helplessly as the man motored past him toward the safety of the interstate in his shabby box truck, at least a decade old, carelessly repainted, and belching blue smoke, and—there!
Bill sat up in bed, ramrod stiff, not sweating and frightened this time but sweating and excited. Hopeful. Insanely, unreasonably hopeful. He forced every detail of this latest snippet of the encounter with the I-90 Killer into his memory banks, knowing he was hanging halfway between wakefulness and sleep, determined not to lose what he had just seen in his dream to the fading half-light of burgeoning consciousness.
Electricity coursed through his now wide-awake body. What he had just seen might hold the key to saving Carli.
CHAPTER 38
CARLI KNEW HER FATHER would come for her, so she did what she had to do. She smiled and pretended to accept her captor’s advances. She tried to convince him that the thought of his disgusting hands all over her body was anything other than repulsive. She tried to convince herself that the thought of having sex with a stranger—and a sociopathic serial kidnapper/killer at that—who was at least twice her age was anything other than sick.
So she smiled at him and told him she wanted to clean up first.
And that much, at least, was true. She really, really wanted to wash up. She had sweated rivers, first from the unseasonable May heat, and then from terror. Her clothes felt damp and filthy, and although there wasn’t much she could do about that, the idea of running a washcloth over her face and maybe under her arms felt like heaven. Plus, if he agreed to allow her to freshen up first, it would delay the inevitable moment when he would place his nasty, disgusting rapist hands on her and do the things to her that she could not bear to think about.
And every second she delayed was one second closer to the moment when she would look up from her dirty, disgusting bed and see her dad. That’s what she told herself because that’s what she knew to be true.
She was marginally surprised when her captor actually agreed to her request. She had been certain he would snicker and tear her clothes off, doing the things he wanted to do without regard for her desires. After all, he had kidnapped her in order to do these things, why would he suddenly consider her comfort?
But he had agreed. He actually seemed to believe this elaborate fantasy he had constructed where the two of them were some bizarre, modern-day Romeo and Juliet, holding hands, partnered together against the rest of the world. That was fine with Carli. Maybe she could continue to use his insane fantasy against him.
He had unlocked the cuff from the bedpost and led her to the basement stairs, supporting her by the elbow like some twisted suitor, like some undead freak straight out of a Roger Corman movie.
She tried to pretend not to mind. She tried to pretend the feel of his hand on her body didn’t make her skin crawl, that it was not the worst, most horrifying thing she had ever experienced. She needed to focus on the positive: Her diversion was working. It was working! He was bringing her to the bathroom to clean up, which meant he was not raping her. Yet.
And every minute that passed where he wasn’t raping her brought her one minute closer to being rescued by her dad. She believed it. She had to believe it.
They reached the partly closed wooden door at the top of the stairs, and the I-90 Killer nudged it open with the toe of his shoe. “So, you said your name is Martin?” she asked, hopefully in a voice that sounded calm and sincere, trying to keep him occupied, trying to show an interest and feed into his crazy, romantic fantasy.
“That’s right,” he said. She hoped by making a connection with him she would somehow humanize herself to him, maybe make herself a little less disposable. She knew it was unlikely. Carli had seen plenty of news reports over the last three-and-a-half years about the I-90 Killer. He had kidnapped, raped and, the authorities believed, murdered over a dozen girls, and those were just the ones they knew about. How do you humanize yourself to an inhuman monster?
She allowed herself the illusion of hope, that, perhaps, he had made up a name and not used his real one. Because if he had told her his real name, it could mean only one thing—he would never release her, never allow her to describe him to the police or tell them his name or in any way implicate him. He would use her, and then, when his bizarre fantasy began to bore him, he would send her off to her “final destination,” as he had put it. Undoubtedly, that meant killing her and dumping her body into a shallow grave as he had presumably done so many times in the past.