Unstable, page 16
"Do you have footage of this man?" she asked.
"Footage? No. Our footage isn't kept too long, and it's a while since I saw him near here. He goes where I’m not, I think. But I have my own photos. I took a shot of his truck when it left and I tried to warn Chrissie what he looked like, but she accused me of harassing her and she blocked me."
Cora leaned forward, her interest piqued. "Can I see the photo? And the message?"
A warning message like that would not fully clear him, but it would persuade her that there were other factors in play here. And there was no way of fully clearing him on a timeline, because they had no concrete time that any of the women had been taken.
Again, she acknowledged they were stabbing in the dark. And perhaps this strange, defensive man could shine a shaft of light.
Ivan hesitated, but eventually reached for his phone, propped his shotgun against the office wall, and scrolled through his pictures until he found the one he was looking for. He passed the phone to Cora, who studied the image closely. It was a little blurry, but she could just make out the logo on the side of the truck.
It was for a handyman company. “Find & Fix.”
Then, she looked through Ivan’s messages.
She was surprised to see that he’d sent reams of warning messages to about four different women, including Chrissie, over the past few weeks.
He hadn’t just focused on this truck driver. Other warnings had been included. He’d veered from reality into territory that seemed little more than make believe, and then back again. He’d warned them to be careful, to get out of the game, that they risked assault if they tried to attract clients after dark. That they shouldn’t wear red because it was unlucky.
And, sandwiched in between this stream of information, he’d warned them about specific people. The blue truck, the handyman in the green jacket, in between all the other crazy torrents of text.
No wonder the women had accused him of harassing them, and blocked him. But what was the tone of these messages? That would be a deciding factor.
Reading through, Cora decided the messages were not directly threatening. Not at all. She thought, in his own clumsy way, that he was trying to help them. But he had no social skills, no filter, poor grammar, sent far too many messages, didn’t listen when they told him to go to hell, and with all of that combined, they were clearly perceived as harassment. She’d have thought the same.
Right now, she was gambling on her instinct, and her instinct was telling her to check out this handyman guy.
"Green jacket?" she asked.
"Green jacket," he replied. "Tall guy, and he's been hanging around a lot. You need to find that guy. I'm sure he takes them; I'm damned sure of it. I've been warning them." His voice dropped, becoming nothing more than a mutter. "I've been trying to warn them all."
CHAPTER THIRTY
Cora's gut wrenched with tension.
It was decision time. Did she stay here, keep the pressure on the unstable Ivan Wincroft, and see if he turned out to be the killer? Or was he a genuinely innocent, though unbalanced, man, who saw the goings-on at the truck stops and tried to warn the women what was happening?
She returned the phone to Ivan and took a deep breath, considering her next move carefully. Gabe watched her closely, his expression unreadable.
Those messages had been attempts at warning, but what if he was warning people about himself? A psychotic murderer might do that.
She needed to use the evidence she had and the resources she could get, to make a call on this.
The one thing she wasn’t going to do was let Ivan get away.
In an explosion of action, she made her move. She leaned down, grabbed the gun, spun it away, and then grabbed Ivan’s arms, wrenching them behind his back. He began to struggle and yell, but Gabe, looking flustered, weighed in to help, and in a moment, Cora had the cuffs on him.
She fastened them to a water pipe nearby, a strong, steel pipe that looked as if it would withstand his struggles.
“What the hell! What the hell are you doing?” he screamed at her, the words battering her face with their volume. Spittle sprayed in her eyes and she stepped back, blinking it out.
“I’m making sure you can’t get away. You’re staying here until I’ve found out more about this handyman.
“I’m innocent! I swear it! Let me go. I want to get home!”
“You can, as soon as I’ve decided it’s safe,” she said.
She couldn’t leave him on his own.
"Stay with him?” she asked Gabe. “I’m going to find this handyman.”
“I’ll just wait here! It’s fine!” Gabe yelled back, and she picked up a note of annoyance.
“You need to!” Cora retorted. “Someone could come along at any time and call the cops or get him free. It’s important!”
She turned away and strode off, ignoring the barrage of shouts, feeling sorry for Gabe that he had to stay with such a loud, vociferous guy. But right now, every lead counted.
She headed to her car, looking up Find & Fix. It was a one-person, mobile handyman business and there was a cell number for it, which she guessed belonged to Mr. Green Jacket, whose name was Quentin Brightman.
Where was he? That was now what she needed to know.
Checking the time, Cora quickly called Knowles again. Twice might be too much, and this was a bigger favor, but it was getting late and Quentin Brightman could be anywhere.
This time, the phone rang for even longer, and she was starting to despair. Then, as she thought it was too late, he picked up.
"Yeah?" he asked.
"You still in the office?"
"I'm heading out as we speak," Knowles said.
"It's urgent. I need GPS tracking on a phone. Possible?"
"I'll make it possible, for a couple of minutes" he said.
Feeling thankful beyond words, Cora read the truck's plate out.
“I’d appreciate any other information on him. Home address might be important,” she said.
“That’s a different database,” he argued. “My meeting won’t wait.”
“If you can’t, you can’t,” she accepted.
“I’ll try. Let me get onto the triangulation.”
She listened to his breathing, regular. Unhurried. That was the only sound apart from the tapping of keys. He wasn't getting upset. Wasn't stressing. Just calmly finding her what she needed.
"The car's going west along the 75 highway," he said. "Just past Watertown."
Quickly, Cora checked the map. That was twenty miles from where she was now. And it was more than ten miles from the stop that had been used before, the one where most of the women had disappeared from. They were bang on the money in terms of the highway.
Perhaps he was changing things up, choosing another stop.
Or maybe he already had a victim and was speeding home?
"How long can you keep tracking this car?" she asked her SEAL contact.
"Maybe five minutes," he said. "Ten, at a push."
That was all the time she was going to get. She started up, and got on the road, tires screaming as she sped out of the truck stop.
"You there?" she asked.
"I'm here," he said.
"Where's the car?" She smashed her foot on the gas, speeding along, trying to make up the miles to get to the handyman with his green jacket, the man who might have been responsible for all these women vanishing.
"Still heading west," Knowles told her.
She needed to get there faster. She needed to close up this distance. Where was he heading?
Gritting her teeth, Cora tried to push the car faster, engine screaming, tires wailing as she dodged to the side, weaving her way through a net of slower moving traffic.
"You're gaining," Knowles said calmly. "But I only have five minutes left."
Five minutes? She couldn't catch him in that time. All she could do was make more headway, get closer, and from then it would be up to her.
Cora drove furiously down the highway, knowing she only had a few precious minutes of tracking left. She could feel the seconds ticking away, each one bringing her closer and closer to the green-jacketed man's trail.
"He's turning off," her contact told her. "Looks like he's going into a rest stop ahead. You're about five miles from him now. You should see the signage for it?"
"I do. It's signposted. Thanks," she said.
He hung up, having clearly spent the last possible moment speaking to her. And Cora sped on, knowing now Quentin Brightman was at the rest stop ahead, but not why.
He might be an innocent driver getting gas on the way to a late job. Or he might be there for different reasons.
Hands tight on the wheel, she stared ahead through the darkness, as the rest stop lights came into view, far ahead.
Cora pulled into the rest stop, her heart pounding in her chest as she scanned the area for the green-jacketed handyman's vehicle. She couldn't see it anywhere. It wasn't at the pumps; it wasn't by the restaurant. He might have come and gone.
But as she looked, she saw something that chilled her blood. Two women, clearly prostitutes, huddled together under the overhang at the end of the convenience store.
Waiting for clients. This was a stop they used. And that told Cora not to give up, not yet. Look harder first, she told herself.
She parked by the convenience store, climbed out, and began running. Where would he be, if he was here? He wouldn't take a woman in plain view, but there were back parking lots and utility corridors and delivery bays. Around the back.
She pounded down the pathway in between the gas pumps and the convenience store.
And there, she saw him.
There was the vehicle, parked out of sight in the darkness of the back parking lot. And there he was, his jacket a dark green, a black baseball cap pulled low.
Cora inhaled sharply. She'd thought at first he was picking up a delivery. But now, she saw he was dragging a woman into the back of the truck. A woman in a short skirt and high boots and fishnet stockings. She was struggling and trying to scream, but he had a hand clamped over her mouth.
"Hey!" Cora rushed toward him, drawing her gun, but the man was shielded by the girl. She couldn't shoot.
Quentin’s head jerked toward her as the truck’s back door slammed.
“You won’t get her. I’m going to get away. She’s going to join the other one I have. And the other one will die! I’ve buried her alive! She’ll die!” His voice rose to a triumphant screech.
And then, he was racing for the front, jumping in. She had to try and stop him! Cora sprinted for the front of the truck. High headlights blazed. He was going now, getting on the road.
She squeezed off two shots. Both shattered through the windshield, but they didn't hit him, and the truck's cab was looming, its engine screaming.
Cora dove out of the way, the blacktop scraping her arms, rolling on the hard surface. The back wheel scraped against her foot as the truck sped past.
He had taken another woman. And worse still, the woman he had was buried. Buried. And about to die.
There was no time left now. No time at all.
Somehow, she had to stop him.
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
Cora sprinted back to her car and jumped inside, screaming out of the truck stop. Ahead of her, an eighteen wheeler veered into the narrow exit lane and her blood pressure spiked.
"Come on, come on," she shouted at the slow, unwieldy truck as it inched its way toward the main road. This was giving Quentin a lead that could see him escape. His handyman's truck wasn't large, or unwieldy, and it looked powerful.
Finally, the truck cleared the exit and Cora slammed her foot on the accelerator, racing to catch up to the green-jacketed man who was steadily pulling away from her. She could see the silhouette of the truck ahead, its taillights taunting her as it sped along the highway.
Gritting her teeth, Cora pressed down on the gas pedal, her car roaring as she raced after the truck. Her eyes were fixed on the road ahead, but her mind was racing. She needed to stop him, before he got away, and without damaging her own car. If she put herself out of action then he'd be able to escape and it might be too late for this woman he’d taken. And for Louella.
As soon as there was a break in traffic, Cora gunned it, swerving around a few slower cars, and barely missing the guardrail as she merged onto the highway. Now, she could see the green-jacketed man's handyman truck in the distance, the taillights glowing in the darkness.
She hit the gas, racing after him. The speedometer climbed, passing ninety, a hundred, one-twenty miles per hour.
She was gaining. He was flooring it, but the weight of his truck was counting against him. She could get level. But she couldn't shoot. Not at this speed. The chances of a crash were too high. She didn't want him to crash now, with a woman in the back who'd be badly injured.
She had to force him to slow down.
Gritting her teeth, she edged her car closer, drawing level with him, knowing she'd need to use every trick in the book to get him to hit the brakes, because his truck was bigger and more solid. In a collision it would come off better, unless she could use the speed and momentum against him.
A nudge. That was what she needed to do. A nudge would send him veering off course, and it would scare him.
Jaw clenched, she aimed her car at the side of the truck and spun the wheel hard right. Tires shrilled, and the side of her car made brief, screaming contact with the truck's back right wall, near the tire. She hit the brakes as it veered from side to side, ricocheting across the road, and for a heart stopping moment, Cora thought it was going to roll.
As soon as she'd seen it was steady, she smashed her foot down again. Now, while he was unnerved, unbalanced from the near miss, was when she had to act.
She powered ahead of him and this time, directly in front of him, hit the brakes hard. She knew how he'd been feeling now. Jolted, rattled, frightened by almost having rolled, and his instinct would be self-preservation, rather than smashing into her car. Especially since he already had bad visibility with two bullet holes in the windshield.
Slow, she told herself. Slow down. Do it!
The grille loomed in her vision. He wasn't going to slow down. He was going to crash into her.
Horns blared from behind. The chances of causing a multi-car pile-up were high. If the wrong driver was in the wrong place and unaware, this could all end in disaster.
And then, with a wailing of brakes, his nerve cracked and he slowed.
Cora took a deep breath, relief flooding through her as the truck slowed further. She snapped off her seatbelt. She’d cornered him, and now he was going to stop; he was going to give up on this crazy ride and she would be able to rescue this woman at least. And hopefully, Louella too.
But then she realized she was wrong.
He wasn't giving up. He was reversing fast, getting some space to turn again; he was going to pull out and speed off, and this whole chase would start over, and there would be more danger, with less chance of success because she'd had the element of surprise and she'd lost it.
And then, she realized something even worse. He was going to make sure she couldn't follow.
The truck's engine screamed, and he floored the pedal, sending it careening into her car, angling it between the truck's cab and the steel barricade by the roadside, his face tautened into a snarl as he destroyed her car.
Cora flung herself away from the impact zone, diving into the passenger seat as the driver's side buckled, the door caving in, the front of the hood tearing away. Metal screeched and the car shuddered and slowed. Steam billowed from the ruined engine. The windshield was half gone, the glass lying in pieces.
No way, no way was her car going to be drivable now. He'd be gone. Long gone, before she could make a plan. She’d blown the only opportunity she’d had.
But then, briefly, for one glimpsed moment, she saw her chance.
There was a momentary line of sight. Straight and true, from her hand to his face. She'd only get one chance at this. Only one chance, a minuscule one, before he was gone.
Drawing her gun, aiming through the gap in the windshield where the night breeze was blustering in, she fired.
The truck screamed ahead into the darkness and she knew, with a sense of hopelessness, that she'd missed. She'd missed her only chance, just as she'd failed Johnny, Perez, and all of them. Now, she was failing Daytona and Louella and the prisoner in the back.
But then, she saw, the truck was slowing. It was veering toward the crash barrier, its speed bleeding off, its trajectory floundering. It coasted to a stop and stalled.
She'd done it! She'd hit him.
More blaring of horns as people passed. Nobody, yet, was stopping to help. Perhaps, after that high-speed chase, hearing the gunshot, seeing the shattered windshield, they were being cautious. Those thoughts flooded her mind as she raced to the back of the truck. She unbolted the door and wrenched it open.
There, inside, was the woman, sheet-white and terrified, a graze on her arm, wedging herself into a corner as best she could.
"You okay?" Cora shouted. She raced forward, grabbed her arm, and helped her out. "Did he say anything? Did he tell you where he was taking you? I need to know! He’s got someone there."
Sobbing, she shook her head. "Not where. But he said he was going to make me repent, and lock me underground. Put me in a cellar and suffocate me, like the others. He was mad. He sounded so mad, but scary. He meant it, I could tell."
"You're okay now. You'll be okay. But I need you to stay here," she said, because every second counted, and now, her only available transport had a bleeding corpse in it, or at any rate, a severely injured and dying man. She couldn't ask this woman to come along for that hell ride, so she'd have to stay here and wait for help.
"Get on the other side of the barrier. Keep safe. Wait for the cops," she told her.
Cora leaned into her car and grabbed her phone. Then, she raced to the truck and climbed up, pulled open the door, and clambered inside.
The seat was soaked with blood. The green-jacketed man was sprawled across it, immobile. Her shot had gotten him square in the temple. A lucky shot, the one time she'd needed, desperately, for her aim to be true.
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