Unstable, page 5
It had been deeply ironic that she'd been trying to escape a trucker who'd clearly been up to no good. Even she, even this lowlife woman, had been too afraid to go with the man that he had briefly seen, the man with the big blue eighteen-wheeler and the meaty hands and the shifty expression on his fleshy face.
"You made your choice, and you made the wrong choice. You made it long before you met me. All I am is your retribution," Nightshade whispered. “Are you ready to repent?”
He waited patiently, listening to the woman's screams until they died down into whimpers. It was always the same; at first they begged for help, for someone to rescue them. But after a while, they realized there was no escape. They were truly alone.
Stepping out of the house, he checked the sound levels. This house was on a large piece of ground. It was a small farm. And the basement was well soundproofed, but even so, it was important to take care. If the screams became too loud, then steps would need to be taken.
Satisfied, he nodded. Though faintly audible, the noise was not carrying far, and if it didn't carry far now, after dark, with the ambient noise levels of the area much lower, then it wouldn't be heard at all in the day. Certainly, it wasn't loud enough to alert anyone. Even someone passing by on the road outside wouldn't hear it, and nobody walked the road after dark. They only drove it, passing by in big farm trucks and SUVs, swishing along the blacktop through this attractive part of rural Ohio, with its red barns, dense forests, and its picturesque fields.
He strolled back toward the basement window, which was double glazed to ensure better soundproofing for the occupants. Perhaps, on a less tangible level, the good insulation also held in the women’s terror more effectively. It was good to think of the fear, the uncertainty, being stifled in that small room with no escape route.
They needed to marinate in their emotions, to fully understand what objects of hatred they were.
On this quiet, fine, cold evening, Nightshade decided it was time to send this one to the next phase of her miserable existence. After all, it would soon be time to hunt again. Two could stay in there together, but not for long, because there was always the chance they might collaborate and find a way out. It was better to keep one at a time.
Nightshade whispered in a low voice, lips up against the window glass.
"This is your punishment and you deserve it. You made your own choices; you created your own fate."
It was good to whisper those words. It felt good. Perhaps the woman inside hadn't heard them, even though she was silent now. But then again, perhaps she had. It would be nice if she'd heard.
Now, the silence was still and terrified, as if the woman didn't dare to open her mouth again.
"It's not you, you see," he continued, feeling conversational now. "It's who you are. It's who you became. You chose evil. I’m simply showing you the consequences of the choice."
There was a silence.
And then, cracked and broken, husky and trembling, her voice came back.
"But I can't help who I was. I just – I just drifted into it and I was looking to change."
His lips curved into a smile. This conversation, if you could call it that, was weirdly fulfilling.
"Looking to change? That means nothing. You were who you were. You can’t undo or unmake yourself. What you were, inside, is who you'll always be. You were trash, nothing more than trash. Cheap, vulgar, available to all."
Silence again.
"No! You don't understand. I was - I was forced into this, by my boyfriend. He made me sell myself. He said the pimp guy was his friend, and he owed him money, and this was the only way he could repay him. That was how it started, and then there were more excuses. Different ones. And the only reason I got into your car was that I didn't want to go back to him! I thought you could help me start again."
Her voice was like a breath now. "Maybe you can? Maybe you can help me?"
Nightshade considered, finding the idea strangely tempting. There was something about this woman that was different than the others.
Perhaps another day of this purgatory would be well earned. Perhaps there was no need to send her on, not yet. Not after that strangely satisfying conversation.
"I might give you more time. You need to repent.”
But that time would have a limit, because Nightshade could feel something stirring inside. Something dark and dangerous. A hunger that could only be satisfied by the pain of others. A hunger that would never be sated.
“I don’t understand why you’re saying that. Is it a trick?”
"Perhaps it is. We'll talk tomorrow."
"Please! Please, you can let me go. I don't even know where I am. I'll just run away, I won't ever try to come back. All I want is the chance to try again, the chance to do things differently."
Silently, Nightshade left the basement window and returned to the house, feeling warm and satisfied, having fed off the terror of the girl.
Tomorrow, sending her on would be all the more fun after today.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Gabriel Finch glanced at Cora as they drove, feeling troubled, his mind racing with questions. She was looking ahead, intent on where she was going, her hands gripping the wheel. That was Cora. She was always one to look forward. She never looked back.
That was a shame, because right now, the past felt relevant, and there was something specific he wanted to ask her but didn't dare.
Had she seen his father? What had happened to him? What had she done to him?
His stomach churned as he thought about it.
Could he ask her? Had something happened?
Most likely, it had. And more probably, Gabe told himself, he didn't want to know. His father hadn't been a good guy; his father had been one of the bad guys. The worst guys.
Maybe he'd always known that, because it wasn't like his father had ever been a stellar role model. His mother had been the family's rock. His mother had held things together despite his father, not because of him.
She was a strong woman. Like the one next to him, gripping the wheel in silence as the car raced into the night.
He lowered his head, looking at his phone again. The moment had passed. He wasn't going to ask.
Perhaps he never would. For now, though, he could tell her more about the articles he’d found on his phone. To Gabe, they seemed to indicate that these disappearances had been happening for at least a month.
"There's an article here from a month ago, saying that Sandi Craig's family is looking for her. She was last seen 'near Findlay.’ That's not very specific, I know."
"What does it say about Sandi? Is she the same type of person? A prostitute, I mean?" Cora asked.
"It looks like it," Gabe said. "They're carefully not saying what she does here. Just that friends and family are extremely worried and that she was well liked."
Gabe saw Cora glance to the side. Looking directly at him for a moment. That gaze, those eyes, like a stormy ocean, with a hundred different lights and moods. He didn't know exactly when her gaze started to give him that jolt in the pit of his stomach, that feeling of losing himself, that he hadn't had for ages.
It was the same feeling he'd had for Rose. In a way it was weird that he was now feeling the same for Cora, but he didn't think he could help it. He'd experimented with fighting it. It went okay, sometimes. Usually, until he stared at her and they looked eye to eye.
Then, he was drowning in that sea again.
So to speak. He wasn't a poetic man. Normally, anyway.
He looked down and scrolled through the news, moving the phone in his big, callused hands, bringing up the next piece.
"Here’s more information on one of the names your friend gave you. It says the missing woman is a pole dancer and hostess. 'Beautiful Chrissie Evans has disappeared, after leaving her home, and was last seen heading north.' They don't say why, but here, they say her car was found along the Interstate at a truck stop close to Lima. That's not far from Findlay," he said.
"If it’s close, then that’s pointing the way to the hunting ground," Cora agreed. Gabe nodded. He was getting a sense of how this criminal was working. The net he - or she - was closing.
"Anything else?" Cora asked.
"I'm looking at the police missing person notices, which I’ve found on their website. The three women that your friend mentioned are all here, including Louella. And there are a couple more."
"No bodies found?"
"No bodies."
Gabe was silent for a while. What was this killer doing with the victims? Were they dead? He guessed so. Or were they being held somewhere?
Thinking about the possibilities gave him a creepy feeling all over again, because of his dad. He had to put that feeling, and those uneasy thoughts, to the back of his mind. This wasn't about his dad. This was about other women, who he now had to focus on. He couldn't do anything about what his dad had done, except try his best to be a different person, which wasn't difficult.
And try not to ask questions about what had happened, which was much harder.
At least the miles were scrolling by. They were well into Ohio now. And clearly, Cora had a plan, and a place to go, because she was checking something on her phone now, glancing down at it as she looked at the road signs ahead.
"I think we turn off here." One more glance down. "Yes. Here."
"Where are we going?" he asked.
"Daytona messaged me that she knew about a motel that a couple of the women used regularly. She sent me the address. I think what they did in this motel was set a couple of rooms aside to be rented by the hour. The other rooms, they ran like a normal motel setup. One of the rooms they used for the hourly rentals is number twelve. I’m wondering if there’s anything in there to point the way? Maybe they all used the same boss, the same pimp, the same agency? Daytona didn’t know that information, but she told me they might have. She said Chrissie used it, for sure."
"Wouldn't they clean out the rooms?" he asked. Then he took a look at the motel ahead. "Okay, I get you," he said. "Maybe they wouldn't clean out the rooms so much."
It was a dilapidated looking place, with a flickering sign, and a few cars parked outside. At the gate, a muscular man with an aggressive demeanor stood guard, watching them enter. Security was on site.
The brick building was stark and bare. Some graffiti near the bottom corner had been there so long it had started to fade. It was set back from the road, behind a wall that Gabe guessed offered some privacy to the hourly guests who didn't want anyone to see them in there. There were a few cars parked around the side. Cora parked at the end of the line. They got out, and Gabe breathed in the night air, surprisingly chilly. There was music coming from somewhere on the main street, and he could smell the faint, charred scent of grilled meat from one of the diners.
Cora pushed open the door, and the sound of an old-fashioned bell jingled inside. They found themselves in a dimly lit reception area that looked like it hadn't been renovated in years. A middle-aged woman was at the desk, busying herself with a large bag of popcorn. The place smelled of fake cheese. Behind her, a row of old fashioned keys hung on the wall.
"You want a room?" she asked in a bored way.
"I'm an investigator," Cora said, approaching the desk. Gabe stayed back, figuring it was better to let her do the talking here.
"So what?" The woman licked her fingers one by one.
"We're following up on a missing person case. Been asked to by a friend of a missing woman," she said.
"What you want? We don't give information out here," the woman said.
"We want to see inside one of the rooms," Cora said. Gabe was impressed by how she was holding her temper.
"Which one?"
"Number twelve."
She shook her head. "Number twelve is in use."
"In use? Now? There’s no car outside. We won’t be long." Cora sounded angry now. So did the woman; Gabe could hear it in her voice. She didn’t like that Cora wasn’t taking no for an answer.
"I'm not letting you in it. I'm sorry, we don't allow police and investigators here. We don't really have a liking for that side of things or for those people," she explained confidentially, and now Gabe's blood started to boil.
"You're not letting us in?" Cora repeated.
"I'm sorry. Private property. Come back with a warrant. If you keep pressuring me, I’m going to call the guard to remove you," she said, in a tone that told Gabe she knew they couldn't get a warrant. And he hadn’t liked the look of that muscle bound thug at the gate, a troublemaker if there ever was one.
Cora paused. Let out a frustrated sigh.
"Okay, then. We'd like to book room twelve. What's your rate?"
The woman's eyes flew wide. As wide as they could get, at any rate, in her pudgy face.
"Hundred dollars for the night."
"You got an hourly rate? I believe you do?”
"Not available to you," the woman sneered. “I’m calling the guard now.”
Cora tightened her lips. She turned and walked out. Gabe hesitated, wondering if he should try to push it further, but doubting he’d make any headway.
He turned and followed her out, guessing now that her sudden departure meant she’d had another idea, a new plan, one which didn’t involve being fleeced by the unpleasant manager.
As soon as she was out, she whispered to him. "Damned if I'm paying that amount of money to have a look around. There must be another way to get in. Let's find it, without alerting that hired muscle man outside."
CHAPTER EIGHT
Another way in. Cora knew there had to be one into the motel room. If necessary, she'd kick the door down.
Since the manager was watching, she didn’t do that. Yet. Didn’t mean she wasn’t considering it as a further option. But for the time being, she climbed into the car, waited for Gabe to get in, backed out of the parking space, and drove away with a scrunch of gravel.
As soon as she had rounded the corner, she stopped the car.
“Now, let’s see what we can find,” she told Gabe, who nodded.
They got out, and walked around the back of the motel, sneaking in between the blocks, which consisted of four rooms each, with gaps between them a couple of yards wide, to look at room twelve, which was on the corner of the third block.
It was closed up tight. Trying the door, which was out of sight of the motel office, she wasn't surprised to find it locked. There was a small window in the front wall that she guessed opened into the bathroom, as it had frosted glass and was also shut tight.
How about the back window? That represented a better possibility.
She walked down the alleyway that led between the second and the third block of rooms. As she passed a neighboring room, number ten, she heard gasps and giggles and grunts of pleasure filtering through the glass. Someone was in there getting his money's worth, and she wondered if it was being done by the hour, too. They were up to more than they admitted to in this motel. But since room twelve had been specifically mentioned, that was where they needed to go.
She and Gabe walked past, and she turned her attention to the window, now ahead, and looked for a way in.
The window was above head height, and she didn't think it looked securely fastened. Not that securely, at any rate.
"I'm going to take a look," she muttered.
“I’ll watch for anyone coming this way,” Gabe said, moving back to the corner of the building so he could watch for anyone coming down the passageway.
Cora put her foot on the drainpipe to give herself a leg up, and grabbed the underside of the sill.
The space between the window and the frame was tight, but it wasn’t actually fastened. Most likely, she figured, it was one of those old, stubborn windows with a rusty catch that nobody could close properly, so nobody did.
If she could get her fingers under it, she might be able to pull it open.
Cora knew this was a mission for her alone. Even if the drainpipe survived her linebacker-sized partner, the narrowness of the window would trap him. She was small and agile and going solo on this one.
Drawing a deep breath, she pushed herself higher, trying to get what purchase she could while bracing against the smooth wall. Clenching her jaw with concentration, she managed to get her fingers under the window itself. Tugging hard, she tried to pry it open. It gave a little, and she squeezed her hand in further. She felt one of her nails bend back against the steel frame, but she gritted her teeth harder and ignored it.
She pushed and rattled it, feeling the rusty, unwilling hinges slowly start to open. Inch by inch, she worked at the frame. She hoped it would open enough. She wasn't big, but she'd need some space to get through.
At least now she could get the heel of her hand underneath. It made it easier to push. She had some leverage and wasn't just clawing at it with her nine available fingertips.
Now, she could give it a hard shove upward.
She did just that. Hinges screamed. And with abrupt suddenness, the window opened a good foot away from the frame.
That was enough for her. She could get in now.
But at that moment Gabe, who was watching at the corner of the building, hissed to her.
"The guard’s coming this way! I’m going to have to hide. Get inside!"
Cora swore under her breath. Then, she put all her energy into pulling herself up through the narrow gap. Her muscles screamed. The edge of the frame dug into her forearms, then grazed her chest, then sharply poked into her stomach. With a final flailing of legs, she was through.
Inside, tumbling head-first into the room, it was totally dark. Sticking out her hands to save herself from crashing into the floor, Cora felt a surge of relief when she plummeted down onto the bed below.
The springs let out a groaning squeak. The bed was made, but even so, Cora thought she could pick up the faint odor of sweat and sex. She wrinkled her nose but pushed past the disgust. Now was not the time to worry about that. Now was the time to stay very, very still. Whoever was outside needed to pass by without knowing she was there.
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