Agent Canfield rose from the table and glided out the door without a look back. Bill watched her through the big, plate glass window as she got into a plain Chevy Caprice sedan and drove away.
He sipped the last of his coffee. He wanted to scream, to hit somebody or something. He didn’t feel the information he had just given Agent Canfield was huge unless it led directly to the capture of the I-90 Killer. Bill knew in his heart that the kidnapper of his child was no longer driving around the east coast in that ratty old box truck; he couldn’t possibly be stupid enough to continue using it after Bill had seen him in it. The guy had successfully kidnapped thirteen girls before making his first and, so far, only mistake. He was much too smart to keep using the vehicle a witness had seen him driving.
And as far as using the available evidence to convict the I-90 Killer after his capture, Bill couldn’t care less about that. Fingerprints, DNA evidence, the lettering on the bastard’s truck, none of it mattered to Bill, at least not in terms of using it to attain a conviction in a court of law. Bill didn’t care about a winning a trial or incarcerating the lunatic or anything else.
Beyond finding Carli alive and rescuing her, what he wanted more than anything else in the world was the I-90 Killer, dead and buried. It was a visceral need, almost like the intense thirst of a man lost in the desert. He had missed his chance to put the man in the ground once; he wouldn’t make that mistake again if he ever got another crack at him. He drained his cup, threw down some money, and stalked out of the coffee shop.
CHAPTER 43
CARLI’S HEAD POUNDED RELENTLESSLY. It felt like the USC Marching Band had taken up residence inside her skull and was practicing for their next halftime show. She had suffered on and off from migraines ever since young childhood, so Carli Ferguson knew headaches, and this one was off the charts.
She kept her eyes closed and began turning over in her bed, ever so slowly, moving onto her left side. Sometimes, curling up in the fetal position with her arm covering her eyes helped block out the light, and with this massive headache attacking her, she was ready to try anything. But as she pulled her right arm to place it over her head, she realized she was unable to move it. Her arm was stuck.
She pulled harder, but something was grabbing it. She could hear a clanking, like the creepy noise of the chains poor Marley was forced to tote around in A Christmas Carol, except not as loud. What would chains be doing in her bedroom? Carli tried to open her eyes, and the reality of her situation finally penetrated her consciousness. She groaned, partly out of fear and frustration and partly from the pain pounding through her head.
She was here, wherever “here” was, in the basement of the lunatic’s house. She had grabbed the grimy knife off the kitchen table in a desperate attempt to slice open the kidnapper and escape and had actually, for just a moment, thought she might manage it. She had even sliced open his arm. Then he overpowered her and grabbed the knife and—what? Did he cut her with it? In the head?
She didn’t think she would still be alive if he had used the business end of the steak knife on her head, or anywhere else for that matter. Plus, the almost unbearable pain thundering through her head led her to believe she was, in fact, still alive. Either that or Hell was a real drag.
Whatever Martin had done to her was definitely effective, she had to give him that. She reached her left hand, the one not handcuffed to the bed frame, tentatively up to the right side of her head and gasped in pain when her fingertips touched the open wound.
The skin on her skull was torn and raw, and blood oozed sluggishly from the gash. The blood had seeped into her hair, making it messy and sticky. Then it had dried, clumping great tufts of hair together until it felt matted and disgusting. One eye was sealed shut. She touched it with her fingers and felt dried blood crusted all over it. She lifted her head and peered around her with her usable eye. The pillow and threadbare sheet were stained with both dried and newer blood. It seemed like a lot of blood; a frightening amount of blood to have all come out of her head. Fortunately, the flow of it seemed mostly to have stopped, at least for now.
What would happen when she tried to get up was anybody’s guess, but with her head pounding and throbbing the way it was, she knew she was more helpless than before. If that was even possible.
Then she realized that she had peed herself sometime during the night. Half-dried, sticky wetness covered her butt and the insides of both thighs. And the worst part was that she needed to go again. Note to self, she thought groggily: Wait until after your kidnapper allows you to go to the bathroom to attack him with a dirty steak knife. This sort of information is invaluable, she thought to herself, and will really come in handy the next time you’re kidnapped at gunpoint off the school bus by a stark raving mad lunatic.
Carli eased her good eye closed again, grateful for the resulting darkness as the pounding in her head seemed to lessen slightly. She wondered what time it was, how long she had been unconscious, and most importantly, where the crazy pervert with the knife had gone and when he would be coming back.
Weak, watery daylight struggled through the dirty basement window, so she knew she had been lying unconscious on the bed for quite some time. It had been the middle of the night when she tried to play ninja with her kidnapper, and now it was daytime.
Without fully realizing it, Carli drifted back into an uneasy half-slumber.
*