The chair he had tied her to was against the wall, next to the window, and facing the bed. There was something about the room that was familiar. With growing horror and the sense of being in the midst of a nightmare, Jean strained to hear Laura’s muffled outpourings. She mumbled almost constantly and seemed to be slipping in and out of consciousness as she tried to talk through the gag that gave her voice an eerie, throaty tone. The result was a sound that was almost a growl.
She never used his name. “The Owl” was how she referred to him. Sometimes she would recite his line from that second-grade play: “I am an owl, and I live in a tree.” Then she would suddenly lapse into a disquieting silence, and only an occasional shuddering sigh told Jean that Laura was still breathing.
Lily. Laura had said that he was going to kill Lily. But she was safe. Surely she was. Craig Michaelson had promised her that Lily was safe. Was Laura delusional? She must have been here since at least Saturday night. She keeps saying that she’s hungry. Hasn’t he fed her? She must have had something to eat.
Oh, my God, Jean thought as she remembered Duke, the counterman at the deli–coffee shop at the bottom of the hill. He had told her about a man from the reunion who stopped in regularly to pick up food—Duke was talking about him!
She twisted her hands in an effort to see if she could pull the cords apart, but they were too tight. Was it possible that he had killed Karen Sommers in this same room? Was it possible that he had deliberately run over Reed at West Point? Had he killed Catherine and Cindy and Debra and Gloria and Alison, as well as those two women in this area who were murdered this week? I saw him drive into the hotel parking lot early Saturday morning, Jean thought, with his headlights turned off. Maybe if I had told Sam about that, he would have investigated him, stopped him.
My cell phone is in his car, Jean thought. If he finds it, he’ll throw it away. But if he doesn’t find it, and if Sam tries to locate it the same way he did the phone Laura used to call me, maybe we have a chance. Please, God, before he hurts Lily, let Sam try to trace my phone.
Laura’s breathing became gasping gulps, then formed into barely coherent words: “Cleaner’s bags . . . cleaner’s bags . . .no . . .no . . .no.”
Even with the dark shades over the windows, a little light managed to seep into the room. Jean could see the outline of plastic bags suspended by hangers that had been hooked over the arm of the lamp by the bed. She could see writing across the front of the one directly facing her. What was it? Was it a name? Was it . . . ? She couldn’t quite make it out.
Her shoulder was touching the edge of the heavy shade. She threw her weight to one side, then to the other, until the chair moved a few inches, and the shade caught on her shoulder and was tilted away from the window frame.
The added light made the thick black marker pen writing on the plastic bag clear enough to be read: LILY/MEREDITH.