All For One, page 5
She made a noise in response, her resolve coming back to life. She attempted to kick his seat, but she was so tied up that he barely felt it.
Her squirming didn't deter him from his happy whistling, though.
"I'm glad you're coming around," he told her. "I'm so glad you're starting to understand what's happening. I know it's hard to understand at first... but everything really does make sense. At least, I hope it does--I want you to like it here. I want you to be happy..."
She just grunted, her frustration clear.
"That's good," he said, satisfied. "We can talk about it once we get there. I think you'll like it, once you've had a chance to see the place."
He glanced in the mirror and saw that she was just staring at him. He smiled at her reassuringly. "You'll like it there. I promise. When you're ready to talk about it, please don't hesitate to let me know. It really is important to me that you understand."
He smiled, then reached back and stroked her hair, soothing her.
"Easy, easy..." he told her. "You're gonna make it, sweetheart. We're going to have a lot of fun together, you and I."
She made another noise, but it was much softer now--much less combative.
"That's it... relax. The show will start soon, my dear, and you're my star. You're so lucky to be my star."
He looked over his shoulder and smiled at her again. "I can't wait until you know what I know... can't wait until you understand." He chuckled. "I promise you'll like it. I promise you'll be happy." He reached over and patted her on the head. "Everything will be wonderful, my dear. I'll take care of you..."
He drove on for a few minutes, then he turned to her and smiled. "We're almost there, my dear," he told her. "If you want to watch, you can look out the windows... but I'm going to cover your eyes. I don't want you to be scared."
"I'm not gonna hurt you, you know," he told her gently. "I just want to give you a good life. Everything will make sense eventually, I promise..."
She made another noise, but he was already reaching for the blindfold. "This won't hurt a bit... I promise..."
He put it around her head, covering her eyes.
"There, now..." he said, satisfied. "I'll take good care of you, sweetheart. I promise. You'll be safe with me."
She made another noise--a noise that was somewhere between a grunt and a moan.
"That's good," he said. "I'm glad you understand."
It wouldn't be long now. They were almost to the theater--almost to his show. Soon, she would see what he meant. Soon, she would understand.
He just hoped she wouldn't disappoint him...
"I just want you to be happy..." he told her. "That's all I want."
CHAPTER EIGHT
Nicky sat in the parking lot of the beach with Ken at her side. Through the windshield, another play was starting, but they'd been sitting here for some time, trying to figure out their next move.
Nicky didn't want to believe they'd come here for nothing. But it was looking like that was the case. It seemed likely Amanda Smith had never been seen on Vitaly Beach at all. She could be anywhere in the world, for all they knew. She could be dead.
"I knew we couldn't trust that woman," Ken muttered, notes open on his lap in the passenger seat. Nicky glanced at him.
"I know," Nicky breathed out in defeat. "I know, Ken. She was clearly high on something. Maybe..." She sighed, facing the window. "Maybe Amanda really never was here."
It was entirely possible. And if that were true, then chances were that there were no leads on the Amanda Smith case, and they had literally nothing to go from.
Nicky opened up her own files on the case and spread them on her lap, reading over details on Amanda's life. Was there something they'd missed?
Something Amanda had kept hidden?
It seemed unlikely. Amanda's friends would have known if she'd had a boyfriend, or there would be some trace of him somewhere. It didn't look like a runaway at all. It looked like exactly what it was: a young woman was taken against her will from a festival and had been missing for six months. Someone took her.
Could she really be alive?
With so many things unanswered, Nicky wasn't ready to give up on Amanda Smith. Ken didn't look like he was either. So far in their career working together, they'd never been ones to give up. Even if they couldn't save everyone, they had to stop these vile kidnappers and murderers from ever claiming more victims.
"Where can we even begin?" Nicky said. "I can't accept that we came here for nothing, Ken."
Their eyes met, and Ken gave her a half-smile. "I don't know, Nik. We could head back to HQ and try to start fresh on Amanda, see if there's anything we can dig up, any other potential sightings of her across the country."
He shrugged, looking back through the windshield. "It's worth a shot."
Nicky nodded, sighing. "I suppose we have to try."
"I know," Ken murmured to himself, glancing down at his notes. "I know."
Nicky knew it too. They had to at least try, regardless of the situation.
"But if she was seen here, then we can't leave it like this," Nicky said. "Not when she's out there, somewhere. We have to find her."
Ken frowned. "Do you think she could be dead?"
Nicky didn't want to say it.
She couldn't look at Ken.
It was possible Amanda Smith had never been here at all. It was possible she'd never be heard from again.
It was possible Amanda Smith was dead already.
Nicky stared out the windshield of the car at the ocean. Her eyes were drawn to a few people sitting near the water's edge, away from the festival, talking and laughing. She squinted, trying to make out if any of them were familiar.
She bit her lip.
"We can't give up," she said. "Not yet."
"I'm not giving up," Ken said. "But maybe Vitaly Beach isn't the place."
"Maybe not," Nicky muttered. She rested her head back and took a moment to breathe. Ken was still watching the stage, and whenever he spotted actors in costumes, he still wore that disturbed expression.
"What's with you and the costumes, anyway?" Nicky asked. "Why are you so disturbed by them?"
Ken let out a laugh, then met Nicky's eyes. "I don't want you to have that on me, Lyons. I'll be the joke of the FBI."
Nicky's curiosity was piqued, but she also couldn't help but feel slightly hurt that Ken would think she'd gossip about him. "You really think I'd tell people or make fun of you?"
"Sorry," he said. "Just a joke. No, I don't, but..." He took in a breath, then laughed at himself. "If you gotta know, I have a bit of an irrational fear of clowns and costumes and all that. I hate Halloween."
"Damn," Nicky said. "How come? Did something happen?"
"When I was a kid, I went to a haunted house attraction with my older brother."
"Wait--you have an older brother?" Nicky paused. She realized at that moment that she barely knew anything about Ken's family. She knew about the girl he'd dated in high school who ended up being murdered, which encouraged him to become an agent. But his family? He never talked about them.
"Yeah," he said, nodding. "He was the older one, I was the younger. He was really into Halloween, even then. When I was little, he was a teenager. He wanted to take me to the haunted house because I was too scared to go by myself. And he wanted to go as a scary clown or whatever."
"Oh, God," Nicky breathed, heart racing.
Ken sat up a little straighter in his seat. "It was stupid, I know, but I was seven years old, I didn't know any better. I was excited about going. I just had to deal with a clown costume. I was a stubborn kid, I guess. So, we get to the attraction," he said, "and the guy hands my brother his costume, and I get my costume. And I'm looking at this thing... It doesn't look like anything special. It's a white mask, nothing scary. But when I put it on my head, it really blocked out my vision. I hated it, but I was too scared to take it off because my brother would get mad at me. Anyway, we went through the haunted house, and everything was freaking me out. At some point, I lost my brother, and..."
Ken looked away.
"I got left there," Ken muttered. "That mask was stuck to my head, and I couldn't get it off. That was when I realized my brother had tightened it way too tight, likely on purpose. I was left in there, alone and terrified, for several hours before my parents came looking for me."
He let out a laugh. "I'm sure it was a real nightmare, but I don't remember that part."
Nicky listened intently.
"What I do remember, though," Ken said, "is when they pulled that mask off me. I remember how... how suffocating it felt. I remember how much I was crying, how scared I was. I was a little boy, alone in the dark, terrified."
Nicky reached out and touched his hand. "I'm sorry, Ken."
Ken looked at her and smiled, but it was a weak one.
"I know it's stupid," he said. "I know it's irrational. But I can't help it. I've just always been that way. I've always had a fear of those things. It's not just clowns, though. I get freaked out by costumes, by masks. They don't scare me, but... I just don't like them. Brings back bad memories."
"Why would your brother leave you like that?" Nicky asked. It sounded horrible.
"He thought it would be funny," Ken muttered. "He was sixteen, and he thought it was funny to scare the shit out of me. It wasn't funny, though. It was terrible. That haunted house was the last time I wore a mask."
Nicky was quiet. She knew Ken was a good guy, but she never suspected this sort of trauma from his past. He'd always been a tough guy, a little gruff. She couldn't imagine him as a scared seven-year-old boy. She couldn't imagine him being scared of anything. But childhood trauma like that can stick with a person.
A memory snuck up on Nicky, and she couldn't help but smile. "My sister, Rosie, was afraid of clowns too," Nicky said. "She hated them."
"Really?" Ken asked.
"Yeah," Nicky said. "Horror movies, Halloween, all that stuff--Rosie hated it all."
Nicky's heart pulled. In the end, Rosie had ended up trapped in her own horror movie. The thought made Nicky's blood burn.
Like Ken's brother, Nicky had left Rosie behind. She hadn't done it intentionally, or to hurt her sister... but she'd been so blind, blinded by self-preservation. All these years later, she still had no idea how she could ever make it right.
Find Rosie, she reminded herself. If she could find her, she could fix all of this. And to do that, she had to talk to Felix Anderson. The sooner she solved the Amanda Smith case, the sooner she could continue on her own path.
Suddenly, from the main stage area of the festival, there were screams. Everyone on stage was frozen, and there were gasps and shouts from across the crowd.
Something had happened.
The moment settled, and more people screamed, and festival goers began to run out. Nicky's heart jumped, and she and Ken were on the exact same page--they hurried out of the car. They needed to get to that stage, but there was a sea of bodies in their way.
Ken and Nicky raced through the crowd, trying to get to the stage. All around them, people were trying to get away from it. They pushed and elbowed past anyone who got in their way.
Nicky and Ken managed to get closer and closer to the stage, but it was hard to make out what was going on. It was chaos; the whole festival area was in panic. The crowd was racing, blindly trying to get away from the stage.
In the midst of it all, Nicky saw a figure on top of the stage. It was hard to make out in the thick of the crowd, but it almost looked like a girl... a girl inside of a coffin. What the hell?
Nicky shimmied past someone, and another, and then--
There.
Some of the actors were still standing there, watching in shock, but Nicky could see it clearly now.
It really was a coffin. A coffin prop, more like.
But inside of it was what looked like a body. It had to be a prop, Nicky rationalized. But then, why were people screaming?
Why were they running? Why was there so much panic?
As Nicky watched, a man in a black suit walked up to the coffin. He wore a black hat. He unlatched the coffin, and it toppled to the stage.
And then, the crowd erupted. People were screaming, shouting. The body in the coffin was real. Now, several actors were on stage, trying to get the crowd to calm down. But the crowd, the festival goers, were in full panic. They all raced for the exits, and Nicky and Ken were swept along with them.
Nicky and Ken were carried through the crowd as the festival went up in chaos. The noise was deafening. Nicky couldn't tell if it was screams or shouts. Were people panicked, or were they excited?
Nicky's heart raced as she tried to get a better look. There were bodies all around her, pushing, shoving. Her arms ached as she tried to push through.
"Ken!" she shouted. She couldn't see him. "Ken!"
The crowd moved and shifted, and Nicky was pushed along with it. She was barely able to keep her feet under her. There were hands on her, people pushing, some of them gasping. But she had to get through.
Nicky made progress, running up to the stage.
Ken was ahead of her, pushing forward. Nicky was close behind him, her heart racing.
The closer they got to the stage, the clearer it became.
The figure in the coffin wasn't a prop.
She was a dead human being. It was a real human, a dead girl, lying with her hands crossed over her chest.
"Shit," Nicky said. She didn't have time to process who that might be. They needed to clear the area and get all of these people out of here.
Nicky pulled out her whistle and blew into it hard, then yelled, "FBI! I need everyone to evacuate the beach immediately!"
There was a lot more panic, but more people were starting to calm down, realizing the danger. The remaining people around them began to spread. Some of them didn't understand, some of them were frozen in shock, others were still processing what they were seeing and were just as horrified as Nicky was herself.
Nicky and Ken managed to make it to the stage, where the actors were beside themselves. "Clear the stage, now!" Nicky shouted at them, but they looked at her like deer in headlights.
"We need to get everyone out of here," she said, trying to make sure they knew what was going on. "There's a dead body here, and we have to get everyone out of the area immediately."
That seemed to get through to the actors. They looked at each other, nodding and muttering, and they began to clear off the stage.
Nicky looked down at the coffin, trying to take in the scene. There had been a girl inside, and she was clearly dead. No one was around. Whoever killed her was likely gone, or still here.
Heart in her throat, Nicky made her way closer to the body. Her breaths came out slow, and recognition began to settle into her mind.
The dead girl had pale skin and long, dark hair--as well as a large, defined nose.
Nicky didn't want to believe it, but she knew it was true.
It was Amanda Smith.
CHAPTER NINE
Nicky’s mind battled to accept what she was seeing. Amanda Smith was dead, and she was lying in a coffin on the stage of the Swamp Arts Festival.
"Nicky," Ken said, clearly as shocked as she was. "What in the hell?"
She ignored him. She had to. There was too much to process. She didn't have time to deal with Ken's questions just yet.
There was a dead body on the stage. A dead body that matched the description of Amanda Smith. This was the girl she'd been looking for, the girl she'd wanted to find this whole time.
Her heart raced, and she found herself struggling to breathe.
She tried to keep herself from panicking. It was possible that this wasn't Amanda. Maybe it was someone else, someone who just looked like Amanda. Or maybe the death was a coincidence; maybe the girl had died naturally and this was just a coincidence. Maybe it was nothing at all.
But Nicky didn't believe that.
She knew it was Amanda, but she couldn't make herself believe it. She didn't know what to think, what to say. Ken was standing beside her, looking down at the dead girl. He couldn't help her any more than she could help herself. This was surreal.
They’d failed at finding Amanda alive. Their task force was dedicated to saving missing women, but they were supposed to find them alive. Not like this. A strong sense of failure coursed through Nicky.
"We need to get these people out of here," Nicky said, still shocked. She looked back at the crowd, trying to collect herself.
"We'll get everyone out," Ken said. He was trying to be strong, but they both knew what they were seeing. It was Amanda Smith, and she was dead.
But that wasn't all. Now that the shock was settling in, Nicky could take in the sight. Amanda was wearing a white dress, and there was something in the coffin with her. Nicky slowly approached. Lying on top of Amanda's dress was a note. Getting closer, she could see there was writing on it--in red. Maybe blood?
The words said: I'VE TAKEN ANOTHER.
"Shit," Ken said from beside her. "What does this mean?"
"I don't know," Nicky muttered. "Did he take someone else?" She faced Ken, her mind racing. "We need to get forensics down here and every single cop this town has available."
"We don't even know if this is the killer," Ken said, looking around. "Maybe we should clear the area."
The thought of that made Nicky's heart leap into her throat. "No," she said. "We don't know what happened. We don't know if it was the killer or not. We need every last person to stay here--we need to keep them here and interview them in case they saw anything."
Ken nodded, and Nicky was relieved. She didn't have time to handle any more complications right now. She needed to be focused.
"We clear?" she asked, and Ken nodded.
"I'll make some calls and get the cops in here now," he said.
Nicky made her way to the stage and grabbed hold of the mic.
"Attention, attention," she said. "This is the FBI. I need everyone to stay on the beach. I repeat, everyone stay on the beach, immediately. The police are on their way, so please, do not leave."
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