Hilltop, AK—Tuesday, 10:40 p.m. AKDT
There was video! That came as a shock to Amarok. “When did you put in a surveillance system?” he asked Garrett as Makita lay by the door so he wouldn’t have to venture too far from the cool air outside.
The owner of Quigley’s Quick Stop stood behind the counter wearing his usual flannel shirt with jeans and suspenders, slightly stooped, his gray beard hanging down to the middle of his chest. “Few months ago,” he replied.
“Why didn’t you say anything about it?” Since Amarok was in charge of keeping their small town secure, he would’ve expected Garrett to mention such a change.
He shrugged. “Wasn’t a big deal. Only cost me four hundred dollars, cameras and all.”
Maybe Amarok shouldn’t have been surprised. Garrett was never unprepared. Like many of his generation, he wasn’t well educated in technology, but technology had become so easy almost anyone could use it. “You never used to have any security.…”
“Never needed anything except this.” He lifted the sawed-off shotgun he kept behind the counter. “But with the trouble we’ve had since Hanover House came to town, I decided it was time. Nothing against you,” he quickly added. “You do all you can to keep this community safe.”
So that was why Garrett hadn’t told him. He’d been trying not to offend Amarok. Not only was Amarok the only police officer in town, he also was marrying the woman most local people blamed for the trouble they’d had in recent years. “Better safe than sorry,” he said. “I just wonder how I missed the cameras.”
“I haven’t had ’em long. And there are only two. That one right there.” He pointed at one corner of the ceiling. “And another tucked up under the eaves outside.”
“Does that mean you have a visual record of every customer you served today?”
“Since the weather has improved, I have a visual record of every customer I’ve served for the past week. As long as the Internet doesn’t go out, like it does so often in the winter, the new system works great.”
A clock was ticking in Amarok’s mind—one that felt like a time bomb. “Finally some good news. How can I view it?”
“My laptop’s almost out of battery. I just plugged it in, so you’ll have to come around.” With one gnarled hand, he motioned for Amarok to join him behind the counter. During hunting season, Garrett sometimes stayed open until midnight to make up for the slow winter months. And since it wasn’t yet dark, he usually had customers.
Tonight, however, it was quiet. He’d been counting out the till when Amarok arrived.
He put the piles of money back in the drawer as he made room for Amarok and pulled up the security files on his computer. “I take this computer upstairs with me when I close for the night. That way, I can see what’s happening in the parking lot and down here in the store. I get an alert whenever there’s motion. That’s the only time the cameras turn on. Course, it’s usually just a skunk or possum or something, but having some sort of security in place has given me more peace of mind.”
Amarok could relate. He’d felt better since putting a similar system in his own house. He couldn’t look at a smartphone to check his front door like those who had cell service, but he could use his computer at the trooper station. Providing Evelyn had her laptop, she could do the same.
Too bad she hadn’t made it far enough to trigger the motion detector when she was abducted. Whoever nabbed her must’ve taken into account the prevalence of such devices these days, which was why he struck in the driveway, out of range.
Or maybe that was simply where the perpetrator felt he could grab her the quickest. Maybe the perpetrator knew about Makita and feared the dog would be home.
“You just click on the date,” Garrett explained. “And see this? This link makes it possible to go to a specific time.”
Amarok already understood how it worked. “Go to noon and show me everything you’ve got moving forward.”
“Oh, you’re looking for the guy with the scar on his face, right? I should’ve known.”
Amarok looked up from the computer. “He stood out to you, too?”
“Looked a bit rough. But then … we get a lot of rough-looking characters come through here during hunting season. A few days in the wild and they all look like serial killers.”
“To the animals they encounter, I imagine they are,” Amarok muttered, but he didn’t bother to laugh. He was too focused on looking through the clips.
It didn’t take long to find the one he wanted.
Anchorage, AK—Tuesday, 10:45 p.m. AKDT
She’d done it! She’d removed one of the metal springs from her cot. Her thumbs were paying the price. They were so tender she could barely use them, and they were bleeding again, so she was taking a much-needed break. But she felt a small sense of victory at the accomplishment.
Evelyn put a hand to her abdomen as she lay on her cot. Her baby was active. She’d been worried that the terror of her situation alone would harm the child, but if her little girl was moving, she was obviously alive.
That was comforting, but Evelyn also found the reminder that she had a child to protect incredibly daunting. If she couldn’t save herself, she wouldn’t be able to save the baby growing inside her.
She closed her eyes and tried to picture Amarok. What was happening at home? He was the best man she’d ever known and a damn good cop, but she had no idea if her captor had left enough evidence behind for even the most experienced detective to be able to find her. It could be that she was completely on her own—that whether she survived depended on convincing the man who’d been bringing her food to have mercy on her, which didn’t seem likely. Her captor seemed to be inoculating himself against any kind of entreaty by limiting his contact with her.
She imagined how upset Amarok must be and couldn’t help wincing. He didn’t deserve the problems she’d brought into his life. He’d asked her, many times, to change her profession and do something safer, like going into private practice or teaching. But he, of all people, had to understand that in order to keep society safe, dangerous jobs had to be done. Being a firefighter was dangerous. Flying a rescue helicopter was dangerous. Being a soldier was dangerous. Heck, being a cop was dangerous, too, but she’d never asked him to quit his job. Fighting psychopathy was her life’s calling. How could she walk away from it? There were people who did despicable things, with absolutely no remorse, and it was vitally important someone figure out how to treat them. She couldn’t give up, not unless she reached some sort of breakthrough. Until then, the innocent would never be safe.
However, if she had quit as Amarok asked, maybe she wouldn’t be in this situation. And her child would be safe, too.
Closing her eyes, she pretended that Amarok was lying beside her, imagined him pulling her into the cradle of his big, warm body and felt tears well up. She’d finally let herself love again, trust again—which was the harder of the two, given her past—only to be ripped away from the security he provided.
Gathering her fortitude, she got off the bed. She couldn’t fall into despair. She had to think of some way to save herself. Besides what she was doing to create a shiv, knowledge was the only other weapon she possessed. So what information had she gleaned about her captor?
He was an ex-con, but she no longer believed he was or ever had been one of her patients. She didn’t know him, doubted she’d ever met him before. She could also say he wasn’t some middle-aged, frumpy or overweight opponent. He was strong and physically fit. She couldn’t expect to overcome him physically, not without an equalizer. No matter how badly her fingers hurt, now that she’d removed that wire from her cot she needed to sharpen it.
Fortunately, the concrete floor made the sharpening part fairly easy. That would’ve been impossible if she were being held in a room with carpet or linoleum, especially because the walls weren’t made of cinder block, like those in so many prisons. But a wire could puncture even without sharpening, so maybe that wasn’t a great deal to be grateful for.
What else could she put in her favor? If she were consulting on a case and evaluating the man who’d grabbed her, only by what he’d revealed about himself so far, what would she make of it?
A couple of his comments led her to believe he wasn’t in this alone. Even if he hadn’t said what he’d said about his “watch” and while he was here, she would’ve guessed someone else was involved. If that weren’t true, they wouldn’t be in this holding pattern. He would’ve done something to her by now. Raped her. Beaten her. Demanded a ransom. Were he like so many of the men she’d studied, he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself. She was completely defenseless; there would never be a better opportunity.
That made her feel somewhat safe—for now. But the possibility of someone else arriving, someone who might be more dangerous, made her blood run cold. It indicated that, although this terrible waiting would come to an end, things wouldn’t get any better. Chances were they’d get exponentially worse.…
Drawing a deep breath, she pulled the mattress off her bed to provide a cushion as she sat on the floor and went back to work on her homemade weapon. She didn’t know how long she’d have to create it or when she might have to use it, so she needed to get it done as soon as possible.
“You’ve got this,” she coaxed, trying to keep going even after her arms and hands began to ache. She was so close to having it finished.
When she finally stopped, the end was razor sharp. She watched a large drop of blood ooze out when she pricked her thumb and found the sight gratifying. She’d equipped herself with some small defense. But she was still trying to work out other possibilities, ones that might not include violence, since her captor didn’t seem to have a thirst for it himself. He didn’t even want to look at her, hadn’t so much as bent down to peek through the slot.
A psychopath, at least one who’d taken her for sadistic pleasure, would’ve been eager to see the terror in her eyes, to enjoy her pain and discomfort and fear. This man had given her an extra bottle of water when she’d told him she needed it for the sake of the baby, and he’d washed the blood off her hands so they wouldn’t get infected. Those actions, small though they were, indicated he had some level of humanity.
Given all of that, why had he kidnapped her?
The most obvious answer was money.
Maybe she could buy him off by promising to pay more for her freedom than he’d get for holding her captive, talk him into letting her go before whoever he worked for arrived.
In order to have the chance, however, she’d need him to come to the door. And she wasn’t sure he was listening—or that he could hear her when she banged and called out for him.
She’d try to negotiate with him the next time he brought her some food, she decided. And if that didn’t work? She’d hide her shiv close to her body, pretend she was going into labor and, the second he opened the door to see if it was real, stab him and make a run for it.
Hilltop, AK—Tuesday, 11:00 p.m. AKDT
Amarok watched the video of the van guy with the scar very closely. The man was tall and muscle-bound—he had to spend a great deal of time pumping iron to maintain that kind of bulk—and he looked hardened, mean in a junkyard dog sort of way. He walked into the store, his legs slightly bowed from the thickness of his thighs, glanced around and spotted Kaylene, whom he seemed to like. But when he noticed Garrett watching him, he pulled his gaze away from her and walked down the aisles. He lifted this or that as if he was considering purchasing it, but Amarok got the impression he was just wasting time.
After several minutes, during which he paused at the magazine rack, he put back the latest issue of Sports Illustrated and sauntered over to the register to request a pack of cigarettes. His voice sounded normal, as Kaylene had said, no accent. But he had a mark or bruise or something on the web of his hand between his fingers and thumb.
Amarok had Garret stop the playback. “What’s that?”
“A tattoo. But there wasn’t much to it, just some dots. Pretty stupid, if you ask me.”
Now that he could see it close up, he knew what it was. “It’s a prison tattoo.”
Garrett stroked his beard thoughtfully. “How do you know?”
“They’re common enough. It signifies that he’s served time. The four dots on the outside represent the walls of the prison and the dot inside represents the prisoner.” Impatient to get on with it, he gestured for Garrett to hit Play and watched as the van guy handed Garrett the money for the cigarettes, put the change in the small dish near the register and walked out. The date stamp on that video segment read 1:05 p.m. “Didn’t you say you have an outdoor camera in the eaves?”
“I do.”
“Can you switch to that?”
“Sure. Just a sec.” After a few keystrokes and some time spent searching for the appropriate segment, Amarok was looking at the carpet-cleaning van Kaylene had described. The unknown man climbed inside, took out a cigarette and sat in the driver’s seat to smoke it. When he was done, he tossed the butt onto the pavement and backed out.
Amarok grabbed Garrett’s arm, which caused Makita, ever watchful that it might be time to work, to come to his feet. “Freeze it there.”
“What do you see?” he asked.
“The license plate.”
“But isn’t it too small to read?”
It was. Amarok couldn’t make out a single letter or digit. “Can’t you zoom in?”
“I haven’t used this program enough to know how to do much more than click on it if I get an alert. But there’s got to be a way.”
Amarok certainly hoped so. He could use a break. Problem was … blowing up the freeze-frame could make it too pixelated to read even after he spent the time to make it happen.
But what else could he do? Without this, he had nothing.
Anchorage, AK—Wednesday, 12:15 a.m. AKDT
The television droned in the background as Emmett Virtanen did fifty push-ups, then a hundred burpees, in sets of twenty-five since those were so grueling, and fifty squats. He was stronger than ever. He’d relapsed when it came to smoking, but he wasn’t going to be too hard on himself over that. He’d only picked up cigarettes again since accepting this shitty job. Regardless of the damage the nicotine did to his lungs, it helped take the edge off his nerves and, without that, he didn’t think he could get through the interminable wait.
It wasn’t that he minded breaking the law. But harming a defenseless woman? Especially a pregnant woman? That was beneath him. That fell under the slimy bastard category of pedophiles, wife-beaters and rapists—the kind of men he’d targeted in prison. He’d actually killed a dude who’d fondled and raped the young boys he coached, and he was proud of it. As far as he was concerned, he’d done the world a favor.
But this … He never should have let Terry tempt him into getting involved. He wouldn’t have, except he needed the money. And he’d justified it by convincing himself that he wouldn’t be responsible for whatever happened to Evelyn Talbot. If he didn’t nab her, for that kind of money someone else would. It was the guy footing the bill who was to blame.
If he’d been told she was pregnant, however, if he’d seen it mentioned in any of the things he’d read about her online, he wouldn’t have done it, especially if he’d known she was so far along.
Shit! What kind of man had his former cellmate and brother-in-law gotten him involved with? And what did he have in store for the woman who was now locked in the old cooler? Emmett hadn’t heard of Dr. Talbot until Terry had given him her name, but he’d learned quite a bit about her since—everything except that she was about to have a baby.
He tried telling himself that she’d wind up dead at some point, regardless. She was surrounded by men as evil as Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy, for God’s sake. Considering her choice of profession, she was asking for it.
That calmed him down a bit—until the feeling of her rounded stomach pressing into his arms as he grabbed her flashed through his mind again. What would his grandmother say if he was ever charged with the death of a pregnant woman? His “nana” was the one person in this world he loved. Lord knew she was the only one who’d ever stuck by him.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead and squinted at the clock, which still hung on the wall from when this building had been used to clean and process eggs. He needed to get some glasses, but, with effort, he could make out the time. He’d guarded Evelyn for only ten or eleven hours, but they were the longest ten or eleven hours of his life, and that included prison. He’d been worried the whole time that the stress of her situation—and the memories it had to evoke given what he’d read about her background—would put her into labor. He didn’t want her baby to come while he was in the picture.
What would he do if the baby did? He couldn’t call for help, not without giving himself away. Maybe there’d be no time to get help, anyway. And he didn’t know the first thing about childbirth, except that his mother had lost her life giving birth to him, which told him how dangerous it could be.
Stupid ass Terry! He should never have introduced his old cellmate to his sister.
Emmett pushed the tattered couch he’d bought from the local Goodwill store, along with a rickety old table he used for his laptop, farther out of the way and grunted as he forced himself to do another fifty push-ups. When could he get out of this place? What had happened to the phone call he’d been expecting?
He grabbed his cell and held it up only to realize that he’d missed the call he’d been waiting for. What the hell? His phone hadn’t even rung! The cell service in this old plant sucked. Cell service in Alaska sucked in general. He hadn’t been able to use his phone at all when he was in Hilltop. Even now that he was in Anchorage, there were spots where thick stands of trees or mountains blocked the signal.
He stared at the cracked linoleum while waiting for Terry to answer, which happened on the second ring.
“There you are!”
“Don’t know how I missed your call. I’ve been here the whole time.”
“You scared the hell out of me. I thought you’d split, man.”
“I’m about to. This place stinks.”
“I thought it was empty, that it had been vacated. Isn’t that what you told me when you rented it?”
“It is empty. The husband of the old woman who owns it died, the business failed and she’s been trying to sell it for over six months, with no luck. She was excited to make the five hundred dollars for two weeks I offered her, even turned the electricity back on when I told her I was going to make one of the buildings that used to house hens into a temporary dog shelter.”
“You don’t think she’ll check, do you?”
“I stuck some stray dogs in there to bolster my cover, just in case. I should be fine if she comes snooping around, as long as she doesn’t get too nosey.”
“That was smart.”
“I am going to start a shelter one day.”
“I’ll help you with that.”
Emmett wasn’t sure Terry would be around to help. Bridget wanted out of the marriage, and that could prove the end of their friendship. “Sounds good. You haven’t said a word to my sister about this job we’re doing, though, have you? Because I told you from the beginning that you’d better not. She’ll be mad as hell if she learns we’re involved in something that could land us both back in prison.”
“Of course not. I’m not that stupid.”
“Good thing, because I guarantee she would leave you and refuse to talk to me.” Emmett wrinkled his nose. “Damn, it stinks in here.”
“What from?”
“I think it’s the candling machine in the next room.”
“The what?”
“That’s what the owner called it. Apparently, it’s the machine that was used to wash the chicken shit off the eggs and separate them into sizes so they could be packed.”
“Can’t you just throw that junk outside?”
“No, it’s huge! And it’s fastened to the wall.”
“Then base out of a different room while you’re there.”
“I am! I’m camping out in the staff area, but it’s tiny, and this part of the building is no picnic, either. I guess after losing her husband and her business, the owner wasn’t very excited to come in here and clean, the lazy bitch. Anyway, when’s your boss going to relieve me?”
“My boss? You mean our boss? Last I heard, you were making as much as me.”
“But I’m the one doing all the work. I came to Alaska and scouted out this place, put in a toilet and a bed and nabbed her. What have you done?”
“I’m the one who figured out how to get her to leave the prison alone so you could nab her. I’ve also fronted the money for everything until we can get paid, and now I’m tapped out and your sister is nagging the hell out of me because we can’t make our house payment.”
“Yeah, well, Bridget has never been easy to deal with. I warned you about that when I introduced you.”
“I was in prison! When you’re doing time, a great set of tits trumps a bad temper any day of the week. Anyway, we’ll both be better off when this is all over.”
“I hope so, because I’m telling you, if the doc in the box goes into labor, I won’t have a clue what to do. And I’m not going to be responsible for the death of a baby. So your man just better get his ass up here and fast.”
“You know he can’t come right now!”
“Why not?”
“I told you in the beginning it would be a week or longer.”
“But you didn’t tell me I was kidnapping a pregnant woman! That changes things.”
“Look, he’s going to pay you extra. He’s sorry for not mentioning the pregnancy, but he didn’t know himself.”
Somehow that mollified Emmett, made him feel less set up. “How much extra?”
“Two grand. That’s a lot of money.”
“It is, but he should’ve done his homework. Then he wouldn’t have had to sweeten the pot.”
“She’s nearly forty, and she’s never had kids. How was he supposed to know she’d start now?”
“Okay, fine.” He toed off a piece of linoleum, making the hole that was already there that much bigger. “So when can he get here? How much longer do I have to sweat this out?”
“It’ll be a few days.”
“Why doesn’t he jump on the first flight?”
“Because he’s tied up! You’ll be fine until he gets there.”
He rubbed his forehead with his middle fingers, trying to decide if he should bail out. He wasn’t an expert on pregnancy, but he did know that a woman didn’t have to be due in order to go into labor. His mother had delivered him early, hadn’t she?
And she hadn’t survived the experience.…
Still, he’d come this far. If the lack of intel was truly an honest mistake, he figured he might as well see it through. “I’ll give him until Friday. That’s two days. If he’s not here by midnight, I’m turning her loose and taking off.”
“Whoa, whoa! Wait a minute. Don’t do that. Just sit tight. You can’t screw this up. If you do, neither one of us will get paid and Bridget will leave me.”
“You heard me. Friday. What does your guy want with her, anyway?” He’d been reluctant to ask, but now that a baby was involved he had to know.
“He wants to convince her that she was wrong about him.”
“That’s bullshit! He had her kidnapped. You don’t kidnap a woman just to talk.”
“You do if you can’t get her to listen any other way. He needs her help getting his sister back. It’s legit, man. I promise. I know this dude.”
“He’s not going to hurt her.…” Emmett couldn’t help being skeptical.
Terry busted out laughing. “I doubt he could even if he tried. A strong child could kick his ass. That’s why he hired us—because he’s useless himself. He just needs her to sign a few papers so he can regain custody of his sister. That’s all.”
“Why can’t his parents raise the sister?”
“He doesn’t have parents anymore. Never had a dad to begin with, and his mother abandoned him and his sister when he was sixteen. At least that’s what he told me. Anyway, his sister is only six years younger than he is, but she’s retarded or something. In a facility.”
Someone who was willing to take care of his retarded adult sister couldn’t be all bad. Who’d volunteer for a tough job like that? “Okay,” Emmett said. “I’ll give him through Saturday. But stay in touch. I’m nervous as hell that this will turn into something we never expected.”
“I’m only a phone call away, but I’d better get back to work. I swear my boss hates me. She stares daggers at me every time she sees me.”
“Because you’re a lazy ass.” Emmett spoke as though he was joking, but he knew it was true. That was his sister’s greatest complaint about Terry.
“Fuck you,” he said, joking back. “I gotta go.”
With a sigh, Emmett disconnected. At least he hadn’t snatched a pregnant woman for the use of some sadistic monster. He could hold out through Saturday. It wasn’t as if he had to worry about being found. He’d rented this place via a recommendation from someone else he’d called after seeing a listing on the Internet, when their place was already taken, and there weren’t any neighbors close by.
So far, so good. Come Saturday he’d return to Minneapolis and never look back.