Kaminsky gave the address.
Crane asked, “Uh, what excuse are we going to give for showing up at his house and peering closely at his teeth?”
“Can’t think of one,” Tony said cheerfully.
“He’s trying to sell a used motorcycle. I’ve got a copy of the ad right here.” Kaminsky looked up from her papers. “Crane, you could knock on his door and say you’re interested in buying it.”
“Why me?”
“Because Bartoli looks like a fed, Dr. Stone looks like she’s never ridden a motorcycle in her life, and I’m wearing a skirt,” Kaminsky snapped. “Lose the jacket, take off that hideous tie, and go with it.”
“Good plan,” Bartoli said approvingly, while Crane muttered, “My tie is not hideous.” A pause. “Is it?”
“Pretty hid—” Kaminsky began, only to break off as a fire truck came screaming up behind them, then swerved into the opposite lane to pass. A minute later, a volunteer fire department car, siren blaring, did the same thing. “Looks like somebody else is not having a good morning,” she said.
The road they were driving down was rural—two-lane blacktop, with piney woods on one side and farmland on the other. Only a few miles out of town, the houses were already starting to be widely spaced.
“Something’s burning,” Crane agreed.
Charlie could see the dense column of gray smoke rising ahead.
“Shit,” Tony said as they topped a rise and Charlie, along with the others, got a first glimpse of the fire. It was a house, small and off by itself … and totally engulfed in flames. “If I’m not mistaken, that’s our destination.”
“You’re right,” Kaminsky said.
Three fire trucks were parked in front of it. It was—or had been—a single-story white-frame house, Charlie saw as they got nearer. Orange flames now belched from it, reaching for the sky, spewing sparks like a fountain, while gray smoke poured into the air. The sulfurous burning smell penetrated even the closed windows of the SUV. Suited-up firefighters worked frantically in an attempt to save it, and as the SUV drew closer Charlie saw that they were pointing hoses at the worst of the flames. An ambulance, a couple of police cars, plus maybe a dozen other vehicles lined the road out front. Civilians whom Charlie took for neighbors stood in clumps near the edge of the action and in the field across the road, watching and talking among themselves.
“What are the chances of this guy’s house burning down today?” Having reached the lineup of cars, Tony was already looking for a place to park. His tone was savage.
“You think Hannah Beckett might be in there?” Kaminsky’s voice was sharp with alarm.
“I’m not a big believer in coincidence.” Tony pulled the SUV right onto the edge of the lawn, behind the first fire truck, shoved it into park, shut off the engine, and jumped out. “Come on, let’s go see if there’s any chance somebody could be in there and still be alive.”
They all piled out of the SUV. Tony, Kaminsky, and Crane ran toward the house, while Charlie hung back, not wanting to get in the way. The roar of the fire was truly terrible. Combined with the shouts of the firefighters, the hiss of the water shooting from the hoses, and the various clangs and pops and thuds coming from the collapsing structure, it was overwhelming.
Another fire truck arrived, siren blaring, and Charlie hurried to get out of the way. She was watching Tony, with a cop on one side and a firefighter on the other, gesture forcefully at what seemed to be the house’s basement when something flashing in her peripheral vision made her turn.
She wasn’t sure, but she thought she’d seen a blond teenage girl slide between two vehicles parked across the street.
Her first thought was that it was Hannah’s ghost, and she had just died in the fire. Heart in her throat, Charlie hurried across the street to check. Her second was that maybe it had been Hannah, alive, and she had somehow escaped the fire. Her third was that maybe it wasn’t Hannah at all.
Of course, the girl was gone when she got across the street.
Charlie hesitated, looking around. It was bright daylight, lots of people, all kinds of activity everywhere. But really there was no place that the girl could have disappeared to, so …
Eyes looking at her from behind the tinted window of the small van her left side was practically pressed against caught her attention, had her looking back. There was the girl she had seen, inside the van, turning away from the glass now.
Charlie’s heart started to pound.
“Hannah?” Charlie knocked sharply on the window, peering through the glass. The girl looked at her.
Charlie just had time to realize she wasn’t looking at Hannah at all, but at Bayley Evans, when she heard a footstep behind her and started to turn.
Then something that felt like a mule’s kick hit her in the side.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“Goddamn it, Doc, wake the hell up!”
The first thing Charlie heard as she regained consciousness was that roar. Even at top volume, which she figured it had to be close to, she would recognize that honey-dipped voice anywhere in the universe.
She smiled a little as her eyes blinked open. Garland was the first thing she saw. He was leaning over her, his big body seeming way too overwhelming for the enclosed space they were in. Then she got a good look at his face. It was flushed. His eyes were wild. His mouth was grim.
“You awake? You with me?” He bent closer, reaching for her, meaning to shake her or gather her close—or what, Charlie didn’t know. Of course his hands passed right through her body. An electric tingle was all she felt.
She smiled at him. His face contorted. “Damn it, Charlie. Are you hearing me?”
Even as she started to feel the first real niggles of alarm, she registered that she was lying on a narrow twin bed with her left arm up in the air. Her arm was in the air because, she saw as she looked at it, her wrist was handcuffed to a metal ring affixed to a wood-paneled wall. The bed was covered with a rough-textured blue blanket, and smelled of damp, of mildew. Then a whisper of movement redirected her attention, and even as her stomach started to churn she saw that Bayley Evans was present. The spirit of the pretty blond teen knelt practically at Garland’s feet, folded into the narrow space on the floor between the two beds. Bayley’s eyes were closed, and she seemed to be crying silently, tears that appeared shiny wet pouring down her cheeks. On the other bed, apparently unconscious, lay Hannah Beckett. Unlike Bayley, Hannah was, Charlie ascertained as she saw the girl’s chest rise and fall, alive.
Hannah was wearing a neon green sequined mini-dress, hiked high around her thighs, with black stilettos. Traces of what appeared to be bright red lipstick smeared the ratty white washcloth that had been used to gag her, and sparkly green eye shadow covered her lids. While Charlie’s only restraint seemed to be the handcuffs, Hannah’s ankles and knees were tightly bound with what looked like clothesline. Both wrists had been cuffed together before being secured by a second set of handcuffs to a ring in the wall identical to the one above Charlie’s bed.
“Oh, my God,” Charlie breathed as the true horror of the situation burst upon her. It was clear to her that the killer they’d been seeking had seen her looking into the back window of the RV she was now in, had assumed she had seen Hannah, and then somehow rendered her unconscious and snatched her away. Remembering his affinity for stun guns, she guessed that was what he had used on her. The fact that she was not gagged or otherwise secured except for the handcuffs told her that it had been a spur-of-the-moment thing.
Her mouth went dry. Her pulse started to pound.
“Be quiet. He’s right there. If he hears you, he’s liable to come back here sooner rather than later.” Garland’s face was tight with fear and frustration. For him to look afraid for her, Charlie realized that the situation must be dire. She could feel the van’s motion, and knew that they were en route somewhere, that they were no longer anywhere near Tony and the others. None of them, no one, knew where she was. A radio crackled, not with music, but with static and voices. She couldn’t make out the words, but she looked instinctively toward the sound. That took her gaze forward, toward the front of the van, through a narrow opening between what looked like a tiny kitchen counter and a closet. Water was dripping loudly in the sink. A handheld police scanner was propped against the dashboard, and she realized that the chatter over it was the other sound she was hearing and remembered Garland’s prediction that the killer would have one. She could see the gray bucket seat where the driver sat. She could see the back of his head, with its short, toast-brown hair. She could see his right leg. He was wearing black pants and black sneakers. She could see part of a black jacket lying across the passenger seat. He was young. A copycat, as she had thought, which, ridiculously, came as a relief. Why she should feel relieved she didn’t know, because that certainly didn’t make him any less of a threat. Even if this wasn’t the man who had killed Holly and her family, he was still a vicious killer who got his jollies slashing young girls and their families to death.