Charli Cross 01-Dark Purpose, page 25
part #1 of Charli Cross Series
Charli softened her voice. “We aren’t sure everything isn’t fine now, Mrs. Withers. Is it possible Jenny went to a friend’s house after work and forgot to call? Or maybe a boyfriend’s?”
Angela Withers’s ponytail swished from the force of her head shake. “No. Not Jenny. It’s been just the two of us for a while. We look out for each other. She’d never not come home without texting or calling me first. Plus, look at this.” She tapped on her phone before shoving it under Charli’s nose. “Her Find my iPhone app stopped between here and work. She’s never turned her location services off in the whole time she’s had that phone. There’s no way she’d start tonight, knowing so many girls have…are…”
She trailed off with a shudder, unwilling or unable to put her worst fears into words.
Determination poured through Charli, hardening her resolve. “I promise, we’re taking this very seriously and dedicating all our resources to finding your daughter. You did the right thing by calling. We have patrol officers out now, canvassing Jenny’s route home. They’ll be checking any surveillance footage from home security systems and video doorbells. We’re optimistic that given the narrow window, we’ll be able to find Jenny and bring her home.”
If Jenny truly had been snatched by the Marsh Killer, they needed to capitalize on this opportunity. All the other girls were long dead by the time they’d discovered their bodies, whereas Jenny had only been missing for two hours.
That gave them a real chance. Both to save Jenny and prevent the loss of other innocent lives.
“Did Jenny ever mention anyone bothering her at work? Fellow employees, customers?”
Angela Withers gave a helpless shrug. “Every once in a while, she complained about a customer making a mess or not leaving a tip, but other than that, no. She liked working there. She was saving up to buy a car.”
Her chin sagged to her chest, but not before Charli caught the gleam of tears. “What about Jenny’s dad? Any chance he picked her up?”
The woman’s mouth twisted. “And risk paying the child support he’s back-owed for the past ten years? No. Gus split when Jenny was six and never looked back. Last I heard, he was living down in Florida with some stripper.”
Charli jotted a note, even though she expected that avenue to be a dead end. “Did she mention being scared of anyone at all lately? At school, during extracurriculars, anywhere?”
Mrs. Withers shook her head. “No. Nothing. We talked about safety a little because of what’s been going on, but that’s it.” She rubbed her palms down her face and moaned. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
Sensing the other woman was close to a breakdown, Charli cycled through the remaining questions as quickly as possible. At the end, she tore a blank page from her notebook and pushed it in front of Jenny’s mom, along with a pen. “Here, why don’t you make a list for me, with the names of all of Jenny’s good friends, teachers, anyone she interacts with on a regular basis or has mentioned by name. Then, write down her activities over the past six months. Sports, club meetings, anything you can think of, along with the location and dates if you have them. While you’re doing that, I’d like to do a quick search through Jenny’s room, if that’s okay.”
“Y-yes, I can do that.” Angela Withers clutched the pen like it was the one thing tethering her to safety. “Jenny’s room is down the hall on the left.”
Charli exhaled a relieved breath. When people started to panic, the thing she often found the most helpful was assigning them a task. Hopefully, Jenny’s mom would be too busy coming up with a list to succumb to a full-blown panic attack. “Got it.”
As she headed for the hall, someone knocked on the front door. Angela Withers leapt to her feet, one hand pressed to her chest. “Jenny?”
The woman’s desperate hope fractured a tiny piece of Charli’s heart. “I’ll get it. That’s probably my colleague with the GBI.” Sure enough, when she opened the door, Preston Powell stood on the porch.
He followed her inside, where Charli made quick introductions while studiously avoiding eye contact with Angela Withers. She didn’t want to witness the bone-crushing disappointment she guessed was etched all over the frightened mother’s face.
“You’re just in time to help me search Jenny’s room. Mrs. Withers is going to work on a list for us.” Charli all but dragged the agent down the short, narrow hallway. Instead of the usual school portraits, the walls were lined with candid photos of Jenny and her mom over the years, most filled with laughing, smiling, hugging, or some combination of all of the above.
When Charli stopped outside Jenny’s room, there was a hard lump beneath her sternum.
“What was that all about?” Powell’s sandy eyebrows rose as he stared at where Charli’s fingers were still curled around his forearm.
Charli let go, her cheeks burning. Apparently, she’d been in such a big hurry to escape Angela Withers’s pain that she’d basically accosted the GBI agent. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
Powell leaned against the doorjamb. His lips quirked into a bemused smile. “I appreciate the apology, but it’s unnecessary. I’m mainly curious about what prompted it. Is something wrong with Mrs. Withers?”
She brushed by him to enter the small room. “No.” But something is clearly wrong with me. “She’s understandably distressed, though, so I’m trying to keep her busy while we get this done.”
“Smart.” He straightened. “Let’s get to work.”
Compared to Shana’s room, Jenny’s was much simpler and less expensively furnished. No two pieces matched, making Charli guess they’d been hand-me-downs or acquired as the funds became available to buy one piece at a time. The bed consisted of a mattress and box spring on a metal frame, with no headboard or footboard. A rumpled black comforter with an abstract design in white covered the top. A blond dresser listed to one side, and the drawers inside were all crooked. The desk was constructed of white particle board resting atop spindly, metal legs.
Their search of Jenny’s room progressed more quickly than Shana’s because Jenny had fewer than half the possessions. The only laptop was a Chromebook with a Chatham Public School sticker affixed to the outside. School issued, so Charli doubted they’d find anything of value on it. Districts usually restricted the websites that students were allowed to access.
A fist clenched around Charli’s stomach, harder and harder with each passing minute. No drawers in the desk, so no place to hide journals or notes. The closet was another dead end. They found no secret hiding spots, no drugs, no condoms, or unusual photos. As with the other girls, there was nothing they could ID as a smoking gun. Nothing that even elicited mild alarm. When they finished searching, the only items they walked out with were the Chromebook and a few photos.
She paused at the end of the hall and turned to Powell. “Can you ask Mrs. Withers if we can borrow these and start filling out the paperwork to activate a Levi’s Call? I need to call Sergeant Morris.”
“Will do.”
Charli watched Powell focus his easy smile on Jenny’s mom before pulling out her phone and stepping out onto the front porch.
Sergeant Morris skipped the niceties when she answered. “Any luck with Mrs. Withers?”
The fist in Charli’s stomach squeezed tighter. “Not yet. Nothing in Jenny’s room, either. Where are we on the canvassing?”
A disgruntled sigh. “Same. We’ve got ten patrol officers out there now going door-to-door.”
The grimness coming over the line matched Charli’s own mood. This was their big shot. If they failed to find the killer now…
She stamped down the thought. “While Agent Powell’s working on the Levi’s Call, I’m going to grab a list of names I had Mrs. Withers provide. I’ll shoot you a photo of it. Maybe someone will have a lead by the time I get back to the precinct.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice?”
Her boss’s tone didn’t hold much optimism, though. So far, digging into the other girls’ known acquaintances had resulted in diddly squat. There was no reason to believe Jenny would be any different.
Charli hung up and sagged against the front door. No leads yet. Here, or out on the street. Where the hell had Jenny disappeared to? She’d been walking home through a residential neighborhood. Surely someone had seen or heard something, or a video camera doorbell would have caught a glimpse of what happened to the girl. Unless their killer was a ghost, and Charli didn’t believe in those.
Not the literal kind, anyway.
After straightening her shoulders and injecting a confidence into her bearing she no longer felt, Charli headed back inside to check on the list.
29
Jenny huddled in a ball in the corner, eyes squeezed shut while she rocked back and forth and waited for the man’s footsteps to retreat.
This isn’t happening this isn’t happening this isn’t happening.
When she peeled open her eyes, she hadn’t magically transported back to her nice, safe room. Instead of reading fanfic in her bed or playing cards with her mom on their lumpy old couch in front of an episode of Schitt’s Creek, she was sitting in a cramped attic room with a weird triangular ceiling that was low on the sides and higher in the middle. Plastic zip ties dug into her wrists, binding them tightly together in front of her.
She swallowed hard and winced. Her throat was raw from all the screaming. The man had laughed when he’d visited her, telling her she could scream her head off all she wanted because the first thing he’d done when moving in was insulate the room to make it soundproof. Jenny wasn’t sure if he was lying or not, but she’d spent hours pounding on the walls and yelling for help, and no one had come.
Sweat dripped from her forehead. Lifting both hands as a single unit due to the zip ties, she wiped her skin with her forearm. Not that she should have bothered. It was so damn hot in here. All she was accomplishing was smearing the sweat around.
The room was stark and creepy. Apart from her, the only items were an uncovered mattress, a plastic cup and water pitcher, and a single light bulb that dangled from a fixture at the peak of the ceiling. She would have broken the glass and used one of the shards as a weapon, but there was nothing to use as a ladder. The mattress was no help, even if Jenny could have forced herself to touch it, with all those yellow mystery stains dotting its surface.
Her stomach heaved. No way in hell was she sleeping on that. She’d take her chances on the wooden floor.
You really think that mattress is there for sleeping?
Jenny’s gaze fell on the remains of her red work t-shirt, and a tremor wracked her body.
“Now, now, don’t pretend this isn’t exactly what you wanted all those times you paraded around in your tight shirts and short shorts, smiling at men with that pouty little mouth. You wanted people to look, so here I am. Looking.”
That was what the man had said when he’d visited her with a long, jagged knife gleaming in his hand. At first, she’d been terrified he was going to slit her throat open.
What he’d done instead was almost worse.
After backing her into a corner and pinning her arms to her stomach with his thigh, he’d grabbed a handful of her shirt.
“Don’t move or I might slip and slice your pretty skin.”
Jenny had gone still as a statue. Too afraid to breathe as, with a faraway smile, he’d sliced the material from sleeve to collar. First one side, followed by the other. By the time he’d backed up far enough to cut the front of the shirt in half, she’d been too shocked to move.
Hot shame poured over her. Like an idiot, she hadn’t tried to fight. Done nothing as the pieces of her shirt fell away, and she sat shivering and sweating in her pink bra.
With one finger, he’d traced the skin beside her bra strap. She’d frozen even more. Felt herself detached from her own body.
Instead of attacking her, he’d collected a sweat droplet on his fingertip and brought it to his nose. Sniffed.
“Almost time, but not quite yet. A little longer and then you’ll be ready.”
The man didn’t specify what she’d be ready for, but Jenny wasn’t stupid. The way his eyes crawled over her bare skin left little doubt as to what he had in store. It wasn’t a matter of if he’d return and finish what he’d started, but when.
Get up. Get up now.
Clumsily, she climbed to her feet, her bound hands all but useless as she stumbled across the floor to the tiny attached bathroom. Her brain was still a little fuzzy from the drugs he’d injected into her, and the sweltering heat of the room didn’t help.
The mirror over the ancient sink was one of those weird, metal kinds that distorted your face like a creepy Snapchat filter.
Ugh. Snapchat. If only she had her phone. As if through a hazy fog, Jenny had flickering memories of the man taking her phone from her when he threw her into his car. He’d shattered the device under his heel, and if she didn’t act, she’d be as dead as her phone.
Between the funhouse mirror effect and the single light bulb casting weird shadows, her reflection could have doubled for the poster from a horror movie. Her face was out of proportion. All wavy. Too long and thin. Her eyes were weird too, and her mouth was stretched impossibly wide and appeared disturbingly red.
She shivered. The lipstick. After cutting off her shirt, the man had pulled a black tube from his pocket. She’d regained control of her muscles by then, enough to try to yank her head away, but he’d grabbed her hair and pulled until tears sprang to her eyes.
“Don’t play games. You want the attention. Just like the others.”
He’d pressed the lipstick hard against her lips. When he was satisfied with his work, he’d kissed her with his gross, wet mouth. Stuck his tongue between her lips. She’d almost gagged, but he’d been excited. She could feel him pressing up against her, and part of her had wanted to die.
Awkward with her bound hands, she tore off a piece of toilet paper and rubbed her mouth until her skin burned. When she still felt dirty, she turned on the faucet and stuck her entire face under the running water, filling and spitting the lukewarm liquid from her mouth until it felt like her own again.
She hated the red lipstick. She hated this place. She hated that disgusting, perverted man.
“I need to leave for now, but don’t worry. I’ll be back soon,” he’d licked his lips, making her stomach heave, “and we’ll finish up. You’re filthy now, but that’s okay. They all were until I repurified them.”
Jenny switched off the faucet, shuddering while panic raked her with sharp claws. Repurified? She didn’t know what that meant.
What she did know was that those other girls had ended up dead.
Stark certainty crept along Jenny’s spine. If she didn’t escape, the man would kill her. After he forced her to do other things first.
A scream barreled up her throat. Jenny wanted to pound the walls again but knew that screaming and banging were pointless.
They won’t help. Do something useful. Anything.
There was no point in checking the door again. She’d heard all three locks click as he’d engaged them. She’d spent minutes earlier kicking the door with her feet, slamming the wood with her arm. All she had to show for it was a bruised, throbbing shoulder.
Jenny dropped her forehead against the makeshift mirror and gathered her racing thoughts.
She might not be able to escape, but if she could free her hands, she had a chance. Especially if she found a weapon of some kind.
Lifting her head, her gaze swept the bathroom. She’d watched a YouTube video on how to escape zip ties once with her friends but hadn’t paid that much attention. Something about putting pressure on the middle point, between her wrists.
The stupid yellow counter was rounded, so that was out. She’d already tried the edge of the metal mirror. Bolted down.
That left one last option.
With her hands zip-tied, even pulling the toilet paper off the bar was awkward. She ended up dropping the roll on the floor.
Her fingers curled around the metal hanger, and she yanked up and down, using momentum to help pry it off.
Sweat dripped down her back, her neck, into her eyes. Her wrists ached over the unnatural angle. She wanted to stop and take a break but was afraid if she did, she might give up completely.
The squeaking was rhythmic. She found herself singing the lyrics to that old kiddie song her mom used to sing to her in time to the beat. Over and over again.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star…
Her vision blurred. A knot clogged her throat. What if she never saw her mom again? Would she even know what had happened to Jenny? What if they never found her body?
“No no no, stop it.” Tears streamed down her face as she whispered the words. “Don’t give up.”
She pushed harder. The bar squeaked louder. Finally, when her wrists felt like they were close to snapping, the bar broke free. Jenny stumbled forward, laughing and sobbing at the same time.
The metal rod wasn’t very sharp, but she tucked it into her pocket anyway. If she got the chance, she’d shove one end into his eyeball…or his nuts.
She turned her attention to the base plate, and hope bubbled in her chest. That edge looked a little sharper. Or at least, not as dull.
Jenny positioned her wrists on either side of the plate, inhaled, and slammed down.
Pain rattled her joints and seared her skin where the plastic dug in, making her whimper. The zip ties held.
Jenny drew in another breath. Tried again. Same result.
After too many tries to count, her wrists were on fire. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Now what?
She studied the metal plate. If pounding didn’t work, maybe she could use the point as a saw.
