“Jolene is in one of the interview rooms. She’s given me some very interesting information. She says she’s been here two months and is very worried about some of the things they’ve been doing. She actually told me she sent an anonymous tip-off to Emily, asking her to investigate the hotel, because she thought there was underhanded business going on. But every time she asks questions, she’s threatened with being fired and being sued. So she’s kept quiet until now.”

  “That’s interesting,” May said. Now the pieces were starting to fit together. It also meant Jolene was honest, and would try to give them reliable information.

  “I’ve taken her phone away. She’ll remain in the police station for the duration of the evening and she’s happy to give evidence. I’ll go in again and ask her about this.”

  May waited, shifting from foot to foot. How could this be happening? How could she be the weakest link?

  Perhaps Jolene would know. May held her breath as she waited for Owen’s reply.

  He came back sounding disappointed.

  “Unfortunately she says she has no idea. He always went there and would usually return to the hotel at about six-thirty p.m. I don’t know what else to suggest, May. Maybe they’ll pick up Lewis in one of the raids.”

  May thought frantically. If Lewis had suddenly disappeared, then it meant he was already on the run. But maybe he was still somewhere in the area, especially if this was his confirmed location.

  “Did Jolene ever go to the warehouse herself?” She wanted to know if the manager had a picture of the warehouse in her mind.

  After a pause, Owen replied.

  “She says no.”

  So she had no idea of the location or the layout. All she had was an address at which the stock was stored.

  With May’s brain now steaming, as she stared in despair at the scattering of vehicles outside, she came up with another question.

  “What car does Lewis drive?”

  Another pause.

  “It’s a red Honda hatchback. She doesn’t know more than that.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  May had spied a red Honda among the parked cars. So his vehicle was here. She felt a sense of relief that at least he hadn’t left. Had he been taken? she wondered with a chill. Had someone grabbed him and run?

  But then another idea occurred to her.

  Perhaps there was more than one warehouse belonging to the hotel in this row. After all, the warehouse was unlocked. That should have told her something. Nobody had locked up and gone home, and that might be because they were still here.

  Perhaps there was another warehouse that housed the delivery trucks. They had to be somewhere, didn’t they?

  Eager to explore her theory, May walked out of the warehouse and turned to the right.

  She saw a paved path leading to the next warehouse, and an open door beyond. That gave her a flare of hope.

  Was this it? Was this where Lewis had gone?

  May went to the door and tiptoed into the warehouse. Immediately, she gasped.

  From at the back, she could hear shouts and screams, bangs and crashes. Something was happening. There was a big fight, a struggle ensuing.

  Knowing now that she must absolutely be on the right track, May rushed inside.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  Inside the second warehouse was chaos. Instantly, the shouts and clangs grew louder. Glass was smashed on the floor and the sharp reek of spirits cut the air. Boxes lay on their sides. Barrels were upended. Cans were everywhere.

  She had entered between two rows of shelves. But the main part of the warehouse was huge and this was where the bulk of the noise seemed to be coming from.

  May rushed through. The noise definitely seemed to be coming from the back. It sounded like there was a fight going on.

  One of the shelves had totally collapsed. Boxes were strewn in her path. As she carefully stepped over the spilled alcohol, May wondered what was happening.

  She hurried forward, following the loud yelling she could hear.

  The floor in this area was a pool of wine. Fragments of glass slipped and crunched under her boots. May drew her gun as she walked. She did not want to be overpowered by the killer, who she was certain must be here.

  But, even though she could hear shouting, she couldn’t see anyone, she realized. Where was the noise and banging coming from?

  In front of her, a row of shelves had been pulled down, leading to the collapse of the other shelving. A couple were jammed together, blocking the path.

  Quickly, she detoured around, seeing that she was almost at the end of the shelves. Beyond was a row of neatly parked trucks.

  The banging and crashing were coming from the truck in the center. With her heart pounding in time with the metallic thumps, May tiptoed forward. It wasn’t a fight, she realized. She’d been wrong about what she’d heard. Instead, someone was locked in the back. A man, from the shouts and screams.

  “Help! Help me!” he was yelling.

  May looked around cautiously. She couldn’t see anyone else around. She paced toward the truck, making sure to watch her back.

  “Who’s there?” she called in a low voice, tapping on the van’s steel back door.

  There was silence.

  Then a breathless, terrified voice answered.

  “Lewis. I’m Lewis Brooks. And I fled here when some demented murderer tried to kill me in my office. Some crazed person wearing a big Joker mask attacked me.”

  “Is that so?”

  May looked around, her hands feeling cold. Where was this Joker killer now?

  From inside the truck, Lewis continued. “I was hit over the head. I almost passed out, but I managed to run. Then this person chased me. We ran through the warehouse and things got completely out of hand. They cut off my escape route so I took cover in here. I’ve locked myself in but I can’t get out. It only opens from the outside. And I dropped my phone somewhere. I have no idea where it is!” He paused. “Who are you, anyway?”

  “I’m going to get you out!” she explained, as she heard the heavy thudding of boots against the door. She had so much to do! She desperately needed to get this key witness into custody. And then she would have to rush straight back here and resume her hunt for the killer.

  She tried the handle, but it didn’t open.

  Looking more closely, May saw it would need a key to be unlocked. That meant she now had to find the key, urgently.

  “You’re a brave woman. A very brave woman,” Lewis replied.

  May wasn’t going to answer that. Not right now. Not when Lewis was headed straight for jail.

  Despite the dangers that still loomed, her key witness was at least inside the truck. May felt a thread of relief that she had him at last. Let the FBI and other officers do their part in the raids and arrests. But she didn’t need to wait for that. She had found her man.

  For now, though, May had to figure out how to get him out. Once she had the key in her possession, she could unlock the back of the truck, draw her gun, make the arrest, and handcuff him. She could then march him to her vehicle, lock him in the back with his handcuffs secured, and she knew that she would be able to get him to the police department without any risk of having him escape along the way.

  But finding the keys was a critical part of the operation.

  She stepped away from the truck and looked around. Where would they be?

  May took another look around, this time feeling panicked. She knew she had to work fast, because she had no idea where the killer had gone. With Lewis locked away and making such a terrible noise there was a chance that the killer had panicked and fled, but May acknowledged that this killer seemed to be an ice-cool operator. He or she had probably gone to look for more equipment to use against Lewis, seeing he had put up such a fight.

  Or maybe the killer was looking for the keys, just like she was.

  There were two large warehouses to be searched and limited time left to do it in.

  Would the keys be kept in an office? Was there such a thing here?

  May looked around. She didn’t see anything nearby. No convenient shelf or ring or room where they could be stored. She walked toward the wall of the main warehouse, at one side of the rows of cars and trucks. If the keys were kept anywhere, surely it would be nearby?

  There was a small office and when she looked inside, she saw no keys, only a laptop open on the desk. That must be where Lewis had been working. May felt sure they would need that laptop. It might be a treasure trove of information. She unplugged it and took it out to her car, checking around her carefully before locking it away in her trunk.

  There was still nobody around. Was anyone watching her? Feeling spooked, May returned to the warehouse and continued looking for the keys.

  In front of her, the shelving was stacked with boxes. To the left, she saw an open area with a couple of loose crates, but not much else. May decided to look in the crates.

  As she reached them, she heard a noise from behind her. She spun around, looking into the shadows made by the high, stacked shelves. Her heart was hammering.

  Nothing there.

  And no sign of any office or key storage.

  “Help me!” Lewis began yelling again. “Where have you gone?”

  May looked around, feeling frantic. If her plan wouldn’t work, then the only other solution would be to call for help and get someone in here to force the truck open. She really didn’t want to do that as it would waste a lot of time and there was a killer on the loose, but there seemed to be no choice.

  Then a last-minute idea occurred to her. Perhaps in this warehouse, which was locked overnight, it could be that the keys were in an obvious place.

  She went back to the truck. It was the only place she hadn’t looked.

  May tried the driver’s door. It opened smoothly.

  Her first glance was at the ignition. That was where she’d hoped the keys would be but they weren’t there. The ignition slot was empty.

  The truck’s cab was clean and neat. The leather seat looked pristine. There was a clipboard on the driver’s seat which was presumably for deliveries.

  May picked the keyboard up. And as she did so, she heard a jingle of metal and her heart leaped.

  There were the keys. Neatly stowed in a clear plastic bag under the clipboard.

  She had the keys. Now all she needed to do was open the truck, arrest her suspect, and get him back to the police department.

  This was going to work out perfectly and May felt a surge of hope. She picked up the keys and started to turn. And then, her adrenaline spiked, as behind her, she sensed a figure looming.

  May had the barest glimpse of a Joker’s mask, its mouth set in a horrible, blood-red grin.

  “No!” But she never had time to utter the word that flared in her mind.

  Metal flashed as the figure lifted something high in the air. And then it crashed down on May’s head, and the world sputtered into darkness.

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  May was being tossed around, lashed from side to side, with an engine roaring in the background.

  She tried to reach out a hand to save herself but she couldn’t. She felt sick and dizzy and completely disoriented.

  She opened her eyes. Her head was throbbing. Where was she? What was happening?

  To her utter confusion, she found she was half-sprawled in the passenger seat of a truck. Her hands were tied behind her back with nylon rope. The truck’s seatbelt was the only thing preventing her from going through the windshield or onto the floor in this crazy, rocketing drive.

  May glanced to her left and, to her horror, saw the killer gripping the wheel.

  The Joker mask looked garish and cruel in the dim, evening light. The truck’s headlights cut the gathering gloom as they rushed along on a speedy, swaying ride that May feared was not going to end well.

  From the back of the truck, she heard bangs and screams. Lewis was still locked inside. But the noise he was making wouldn’t help, because the truck was flying along the back roads, taking quiet routes, jolting over rutted, seldom-used tracks.

  May managed to get her legs working and wedged herself into a more stable position.

  What should she do?

  She guessed she could find out if the killer really was Sam. She was so close to this person that if her arms hadn’t been tied, she could have reached out and touched that leering mask.

  “Where are you taking us?” she asked, her voice hoarse and trembling.

  The killer shot her a glance. The mask’s eyes were cold and empty looking.

  “To the lake.”

  The words shocked May to her core. She gasped in astonishment.

  It was a woman speaking.

  Her voice was strongly tinged with the flavor of Eastern Europe.

  May felt utterly stunned to have learned this fact about the killer’s identity, and as her mind raced back over the information she’d gathered, she made a guess.

  “Are you Zinaida?” she asked.

  Perhaps the woman hadn’t died after all. Perhaps she really had disappeared and because they couldn’t find her, the guards had been told to say she’d died, to scare the other workers.

  The truck swerved sharply to the right as May spoke. The woman—the killer—turned to stare at her again. May guessed she was surprised. The mask gave nothing away.

  “I am,” she said.

  “Zinaida, why are you going to the lake?”

  “I could not drown that man in the beer vat. He got away from me and locked himself in the truck. So I am going to drive it into the lake. He will die there. We will all die. It is a fitting end.”

  Her voice sounded calm and resolute, as if she’d already accepted her fate.

  May’s heart accelerated.

  “Wait, Zinaida! You don’t have to do that.”

  “I do,” she replied. Her hands were tight on the wheel. The truck hurtled around another sharp bend, tires skidding on the dusty ground.

  “No. You don’t have to do that. I’m a police officer. I’m going to arrest him. We need him. He’s got important information.”

  “Being arrested is too good for that scum. He needs to die,” she insisted through gritted teeth. “As for the police, how will they help? How did they help? You cared nothing for us! We were alone!”

  May was starting to fit the puzzle pieces together, even though the picture they were creating was a terrible one. There must be a reason for this woman’s intense anger, and for her to have done what she did.

  “Did you know Laima? One of the other women told me she died a couple of years ago. Is this why you’re doing it? Is it something to do with her?”

  Zinaida stared at her again. May couldn’t read the expression behind that grinning mask but she guessed the woman must be surprised.

  But she was wrong.

  When she spoke again, her voice was hoarse, tearful.

  “She was my sister,” she replied. She was sobbing now. “She was my sister, and she died a prisoner, abused, killed by one of the men they forced her to sleep with.”

  May felt filled with horror.

  “Zinaida, I’m so sorry.”

  “She was beaten up, and then the man drowned her in the bathtub. That is how she died.”

  Now May understood why Zinaida was committing the murders this way. It was justice on her own terms, killing her targets the same way, beaten over the head and then drowned.

  Despite her own dangerous situation, she felt tears prickling her own eyes. Losing a sister was the most shocking tragedy. She knew that only too well.

  She deeply disapproved of Zinaida’s actions, but in a tiny part of her mind, May could understand why this woman, traumatized and bereaved, had felt the need to get revenge.

  She must have waited, planned, hidden. She’d been surviving for years. Perhaps she had a fake identity set up by now. Who knew?

  But one thing May did know was that if she couldn’t stop this woman from going ahead with her plans, they were all going to die. Horror filled her at the thought. What if she could not derail this woman from her murderous agenda?

  She now recognized the road they were on, and it led down to one of the deeper parts of the lake. The road ended in a cul-de-sac just a few yards away from a steeply sloping bank and a fishing jetty. May’s stomach twisted with terror at the thought of going over that steep bank and plunging down into the dark, cold, and deep waters of the lake.

  She tried to imagine how long it would take them to drown. Would they suffer in the process, as they fought to get to the surface, or would it happen quickly?

  She swallowed against a rising tide of panic and despair. How was she going to get out of this situation?

  Perhaps the most important thing was to try and loosen her wrists.

  The truck’s cab was dark now as the sun had dropped below the horizon.

  With all her strength, but trying not to let Zinaida see, May wrestled with the ties, doing her utmost to loosen them.

  She wriggled as hard as she could, trying to undo the seatbelt and turn around to work at the knots holding her hands behind her back. She had to stop this woman before it was too late.

  “Zinaida, please,” she begged. “Please. Listen to me. I know you’re hurt. I know you’re angry. But you don’t have to hurt anyone else. I know it’s not what you want. You wanted to kill one man, not many people. You didn’t want to hurt anyone else.”

  “You are wrong,” Zinaida said. Her voice was shaking, but she sounded angry now. “You have no idea what you are talking about. I want to kill everyone I can get to.”

  May guessed she hadn’t been able to get through Reed’s security cohorts. Zinaida had picked her battles.

  “I know, but you can’t kill this man,” she pleaded. “The police need him to get to the people who did this. To make sure everyone is punished. Even Reed,” she added persuasively.

  The woman hesitated for a moment, but then shook her head.

  “I do not trust the police. You can be bribed. Juries are not predictable. This man deserves to die. He will suffer in the lake. He will drown. They will find him, and they will know what happened.”

 

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