Counter attack, p.24
Counter Attack, page 24
“Great dinner,” he said.
“Kayla seemed to enjoy it too. I hope Gramps didn’t offend her.”
“He was just being Sheriff Stone.”
“I’ll have to let her know he wasn’t singling her out,” she said with a laugh as Nathan opened her door. She was getting used to his chivalry.
He turned to her as they pulled out of the drive. “Your office first?”
She nodded. “I want to check for a response on the dark web but not from home. And I was thinking about playing more of the video game, see if there are more photos of the victims.”
“Good thinking.”
Alex spoke to the night dispatcher as they entered the building. It was quiet and she hoped it stayed that way. It didn’t take long to boot up the dark web, and not only was there no message in the chat room, but the website with the video game was gone. Alex leaned back in her chair and blew out a breath.
“Phame has gone to ground.”
At least Nathan didn’t point out the obvious—it was her fault. “But probably not for long—he was making too much money on the game. He’ll surface again.” He stood. “Why don’t we check out the field house, and then I’ll take you home? You need a good night’s rest.”
“I won’t argue with you there.”
An hour later, Nathan pulled behind her grandparents’ house. “I didn’t figure anyone would be there tonight. You could’ve stayed home.”
She ignored his comment. “Have you gotten any hits on the photos you took Monday night of those men in the Escalade?”
“Haven’t heard from the Drug Enforcement Agency. The Hamilton County sheriff’s department says they’re not in their database, and I’m still waiting on the Chatt PD. Whoever they are, evidently they’ve been keeping a low profile.”
She yawned and unbuckled her seat belt. “It’s been a long day.”
“Hold up a minute so I can clear your bedroom.”
Alex half saluted. “Yes, sir. Be sure to enter the code for the alarm or one of your officers will end up on our doorstep.”
“The code is your birthday, right?”
She nodded, surprised he’d remembered.
A minute later, he came back to the truck and opened her door and ushered her into the house. “All good—except I need to talk to Carson—the alarm wasn’t set.”
“You’re kidding.” She thought a minute. “Maybe because they knew we weren’t going to be gone long.”
“Do they always set it?”
“Not during the day—it’s too much trouble for Gram since she’s in and out the back door all the time.”
He nodded. “She left a note in your room saying there’s a cup of hot cocoa in the microwave for you to reheat.”
“Gram only makes me cocoa when she thinks I’m really tired. I must have looked awful earlier.”
“You never look awful,” he teased. “But you do have raccoon eyes.”
“Thanks. You’re about as subtle as my grandfather.”
He laughed. “Your grandfather isn’t subtle.”
“Bingo. He was terrible when I was a teenager.”
“True, he did always vet your friends.”
“I don’t remember him ever treating you that way.”
“That’s because we’ve been friends since fifth grade. I was too young for him to put under the bright light.”
Alex looked up at him. “We have been friends a long time, haven’t we?” Then she yawned again.
“And I’m going. You’re dead on your feet. See you in the morning? Maybe grab a cup of coffee after briefing our officers?”
“Sounds good. I’d like to go over some of what we learned yesterday.”
“Be sure to set the alarm.”
After Nathan left she did as he’d said as thoughts of the video and photos of the victims tensed her body again. Alex flipped on the shower, turning the handle as hot as she could stand, and let the hot streams from the jets pound her neck and shoulders.
Ten minutes later, she slipped on her leggings and pajama top and climbed into bed, almost knocking over the mug and Bible that hadn’t been there earlier. Alex smiled. Gram must have warmed the cocoa and brought it to her bedroom while she was in the shower. And obviously placed the Bible there too as a hint.
She didn’t need the warm drink to go to sleep, but her grandmother had gone to the trouble of making it—she’d be disappointed if Alex didn’t drink it. And if she didn’t read at least a chapter in the Bible . . .
She sat up in bed and sipped the hot liquid as she made out a schedule for the morning. Alex frowned. Her grandmother must’ve changed cocoa brands. It wasn’t bad, but it certainly wasn’t up to Gram’s usual hot chocolate. She drank half of it and set the cup aside. In the morning Alex needed to tell Gram if she’d changed brands, to change back. Then she picked up the Bible and opened it where her grandmother had placed the bookmark.
Fifteen minutes later, Alex’s eyes blurred, and she reached to turn off the lamp, fumbling with the button, when the floor outside her door creaked. Her grandmother? Maybe something was wrong with Gramps.
Alex threw back the covers and stumbled as she climbed out of bed. What was wrong with her? Fog filled her mind. She turned as her hall door opened. “Gram?”
54
A jackhammer pounded in Alex’s head. Moldy air clogged her nose.
Where was she? Somewhere so dark she could feel the blackness. And the damp. The smell was vaguely familiar, like she’d smelled it before but a long time ago.
A memory broke through the mush in her brain. A cave. She was deep in the ground. Why? If only her head didn’t feel like it was going to explode, she could pull it all together. Alex moved only to have something hard poke her back, and she squirmed away from it, immediately wishing she hadn’t moved her head.
“Ah, you’re awake. Good. I was afraid I’d have to leave without saying goodbye.”
She peered into the darkness, searching for movement as her muddled brain processed the distorted words. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“Think about it.”
Again the delay in figuring out the words. She’d heard speech like that before. A Halloween party. The DJ used a voice changer, and his voice sounded the same way. She took a deep breath, and her head settled down a little.
Phame. It couldn’t be anyone else.
“You really shouldn’t poke the bear.”
Poke the bear. She’d heard someone say that recently . . . Her breath caught in her chest. Nathan. In her office. He’d warned her not to antagonize the serial killer. She hadn’t listened. Now she was in this mess because of her pride. She’d just had to let Phame know she’d found the website.
Alex tried to sit up only to realize her hands were tied behind her back. Her heart thrashed in her chest.
“I have to leave now.”
No! Being with a serial killer was better than being all alone in a cave with her hands tied. “At least give me a fighting chance. Untie my hands.”
“If you’re half as smart as you think you are, you can get out with your hands tied behind you. And if you’re not, then you die here.” Even through the voice changer, the words were matter of fact.
“Why are you doing this?”
“To let you know you’ll never catch me. And to make you pay.”
“Why? And pay for what?”
“Think about it.”
The bomber. “Phillip Denton was a murderer.” So stupid, taunting a serial killer.
“Just think—people died because of you. And someone you love is going to die.”
Alex was still processing the words when light filled the cavern, blinding her. The pain in her head went off the charts. By the time her eyes refocused, her captor was gone, and so was the light.
Seconds later, the sound of someone scrambling over rocks faded, and quiet wrapped around her like a straitjacket. Even if she got her hands free, she had no light. She would be crawling blind. Alex had been in caves before, but never without a light. What if she got turned around and went deeper into the cave? Or went over a sheer drop-off into a pool of water thirty feet below? Or a drop-off with no water . . . Either way was a sure death.
A sense of loss filled her thoughts. She had so many regrets.
Nathan. Why hadn’t she told him she loved him? Even worse, why had she told him she didn’t have time to fall in love?
He loved her, had even said the words—not that he had to, she saw it in his eyes. Had he ever seen Alex’s love for him in her eyes?
Pretty sure not—she was too careful to not show her feelings. And how stupid was that? He’d been her hero since he’d tackled the boy bullying her the first day she attended Pearl Springs Elementary.
And her grandparents. If she died, what would it do to them? What if Gramps had another heart attack?
Resolve filled her. Dying wasn’t an option. Alex wiggled and kicked her feet, trying to get on her side. It wasn’t working, and she fell back against the stony cave floor.
Angry, she kicked again, sending rocks skittering. In the dead silence that followed, the faint plop of the rocks hitting water below echoed in the cave.
Alex stilled. She was at the edge of a drop-off, maybe only inches away. Her heartbeat filled her chest, beating so fast she couldn’t count it. And her breathing tried to match it until she was panting. A cold wind moaned through the cave, chilling Alex, or maybe it was fear making her cold. Shaking started in her legs and spread to her chest and arms.
“Stop it!” The scream echoed on and on, startling her out of the panic attack. She said it again. “Just stop it!”
She was not a quitter. Alex forced herself to breathe slower and deeper until her body calmed. Take it one step at a time. How many times had she heard her grandmother say that? Alex needed to organize her thoughts. If only her head didn’t hurt so much. She pushed past the pain.
First, she had to get her hands loose. They were so numb, she couldn’t tell what the kidnapper used for binding. If it was rope, maybe she could use the sharp limestone rock that’d poked her in the back to cut it. Being careful to not move one way or the other, she found the rock, but it was useless against her restraints.
She didn’t think her wrists were bound with wire, but maybe plastic . . . like a zip tie? She’d done exercises to get out of zip tie restraints, but to execute the move would require her to stand. Which at the present moment seemed impossible to do.
Was she going to die here? For once, had she met a problem she couldn’t solve? Lord, help me.
Shame burned in her chest. Praying should’ve been the first thing she thought of, not the last. Why did she have to come to the end of herself to realize she wasn’t God? Her plans might sound good, but right now they were futile.
Rest.
Alex stilled. She didn’t want to rest. She wanted out of this cave. Besides, the thought could have come from anywhere. Like her tired body. Her mouth was so dry . . . Maybe she would rest just a minute.
Alex jerked awake. There’d been a noise. She strained in the quiet to hear, but only the deafening silence surrounded her. She didn’t know how long she’d slept, but her head felt better. Maybe she could get into a sitting position.
With a grunt, she rolled over on her side and used her elbow to push herself up. Why hadn’t she been able to do that earlier? Didn’t matter. She was sitting now. “Thank you, Lord.”
But could she stand? Once upon a time, Alex could stand from a sitting position. But it’d been at least twenty years since those days.
She thanked God that her kidnapper hadn’t tied her feet together and managed to get cross-legged. Then she rocked her body forward until her weight was over her feet. Sweat ran down the side of her face as she used the strength in her legs to slowly rise to a standing position.
Her legs trembled, and she feared they wouldn’t hold her up. Alex took deep breaths and flexed her calves, sending blood to her lower extremities. She could do it. Alex kept telling herself that. After a few minutes, her legs grew stronger. Now to break the zip ties—if it was indeed the plastic binding.
If only she could see. This must be how it felt to be blind. Alex was afraid to move one way or the other—the drop-off could be inches away. Focus on getting the ties off.
At the police academy, they’d practiced breaking the zip ties during after-hours. At the time it’d been fun. Not at all today. Alex mentally rehearsed the move, and rehearsed it again. Then she bent over and took a breath and raised her arms as high as she could before she brought her wrists down against her hip.
Nothing except pain in her wrists. She forced her arms higher and then slammed her wrists against her body again. This time the restraints broke loose. She dropped to her knees on the cave floor, and pain shot all the way to her hip. When that pain eased, she was left with a throbbing wrist.
Alex curled her left hand, and pain shot up her arm. No doubt about it, she’d broken her wrist. Too late to worry about it now. Gingerly she felt the cave floor with her good hand, first to the right side, then the left where her fingers touched air. Alex jerked her hand back. She’d been right—the edge was mere inches away.
A strand of hair tickled her nose, and she tried to blow it away. When that didn’t work, she found it and tucked it behind her ear and then carefully explored the ground in front of her. Solid. Alex slowly crawled, feeling her way with each move.
What if it was the wrong direction? The thought froze her. Earlier there’d been wind, and it should come from the mouth of the cave. But which direction had it come from? Maybe if she raised up . . . She did, and pain rocked her head when it collided with rock.
Don’t give up. Alex repeated the words and imagined other caves she’d been in. Often they’d crawled in through a narrow opening that sometimes opened into a cavern. Had to be what happened this time. If it was, how did Phame get her in here? He couldn’t have carried her—not enough room.
Somehow, Alex had willingly come to the cave with him.
55
Nathan’s phone broke into his deep sleep. He rolled over and glanced at the alarm clock. Six? He’d overslept. Still groggy, he grabbed the ringing phone. “Landry,” he growled.
“Nathan, it’s Carson Stone. I, uh, don’t know how to ask this, but is Alex there?”
“What?” Nathan raked his fingers through his hair. Carson wasn’t making sense. “Why would she be here?”
“She isn’t home and she’s not at the office. If she’s not there . . .”
“I’m on my way.” Nathan hopped out of bed and splashed cold water on his face. Where could Alexis be? After he pulled on khakis and a white shirt, he grabbed his phone and checked the app he’d put on her cell. It showed she was at her grandparents’.
Alex would not have willingly gone anywhere without her phone.
Ten minutes later he pulled into the Stones’ drive, expecting to see deputies’ vehicles, but the drive was empty. He pulled to the back of the house, and Carson met him at the back door using the fancy walker to lean on. Judith stood behind him.
The former sheriff’s gray color worried Nathan. “Have you heard from her?”
Carson shook his head. “And I’m worried.”
Nathan could see that. “Mind if I search her bedroom? I put an app on her phone and it shows it’s here at the house.”
“Look all you want.”
The Stones followed him down the hallway to Alexis’s suite. “Wait out here. Just in case this becomes a crime scene—you don’t want to contaminate it.”
Carson gave him a solemn nod. “How could anyone get in?”
“Was the alarm set?”
Judith pressed her hand to her neck. “I-I’m not sure I set it after Kayla left . . .”
“It wasn’t set when we returned.”
“All of this is my fault,” she said with a moan.
He didn’t want to scare them by saying a security system probably wouldn’t stop Phame. He turned to Judith. “There was a note by her bed, saying you had a mug of hot cocoa in the microwave . . .”
Judith nodded. “I put the note there. I knew she’d be tired when she came in.”
“Did she get the cocoa?”
“The mug wasn’t in the microwave this morning, so I guess she did.”
“I’ll check and see if it’s in her room.”
“It’s her favorite—she picked it up at a pottery shop in the Smokies—cobalt blue on the bottom with white at the top.”
Nathan pulled on a pair of nitrile gloves and a set of shoe booties he’d grabbed from his truck.
The bedroom looked exactly as it had last night, except her bed had been turned down. It didn’t look as though she’d slept in it. A blue wheel-thrown mug sat on the bedside table. He carefully picked it up by the edge of the handle. Empty with no ring in the bottom. Like it’d been rinsed out.
He took out his phone and dialed her number. A phone rang near the head of the bed, right beside her pillow. His heart stuttered. Beside it was a White chess pawn and a note.
Nathan backtracked to the hallway and faced Carson. “I need my kit. And get Dylan and Taylor over here.”
He double-timed it to his truck, grabbed his evidence kit, and returned to the bedroom. Nathan would normally wait for the CSIs to get there, but time was ticking. He used his phone to snap a photo, then using a pair of tweezers, he picked up the folded note and used another pair of tweezers to open it. It was a picture of a chessboard.
Nathan studied the layout of the board. With almost all the pawns and other pieces still in play, it was early in the game, but the Black queen had the White king in check. Why would Black give up his queen? Seemed like a foolhardy move to Nathan. If he were playing White, all he had to do was capture Black’s queen with his king. End of the threat.
There was a note and signature at the bottom of the page.
Check. Do you know where your queen is?
You poked the bear and now you reap its wrath even as the wind stirs the flame. If you’re smart enough, you’ll find where the bear took her. If not, she’ll die and it’ll be your fault.
