Split Second
She started to sit up, and immediately her muscles protested. The room began to spin. Her head throbbed and nausea washed over her so sudden and so strong, she lay back. She was used to hangovers, but this was much worse. Something had been injected into her bloodstream. Then she remembered the dark-haired man and the needle. Dear God, where the hell had he taken her? And where was he?
Her eyes darted around the small space. The nausea forced her to keep her head on the pillow as she twisted and turned her neck to examine her accommodations. She was inside some sort of wooden shack. Rotted wood allowed faint light to seep in between the slats. That was the only light. From what Tess could tell, it was cloudy or else too early or late for sunshine. Either way, she’d only be able to guess. There were no windows, or at least not anymore. One wall had boards nailed over a small area that may have been a window at one time. Other than the cot, there was nothing else except a tall plastic bucket in the corner.
Tess’s eyes searched and found what looked like a door. It was difficult to tell. The wood blended in with the rest of the shack. Only a couple of rusted hinges and a keyhole gave it away. Of course, it would be locked, maybe even bolted from the outside, but she needed to make an attempt.
She sat up slowly and waited. Again, the nausea sent her head to the pillow.
“Damn it!” she shouted, and immediately regretted it. What if he was watching, listening?
She needed to concentrate. She could do this. After all, how many hangovers had she survived? But her surroundings only added to her vulnerability. Why was he doing this? What did he want from her? Had he mistaken her for someone else? A fresh panic began to crawl in her stomach. She couldn’t think about his intentions now or about him. She couldn’t think about how she got here. She wouldn’t think about any of it or it would immobilize her exactly like the contents of that syringe.
She rolled onto her side to assuage the nausea. A sharp pain pierced her side, and for a brief moment she thought she had rolled onto a spike. But there was nothing there, only the hard, lumpy mattress. She moved her fingers up under her blouse, noticing the hem had already been pulled out from her trouser’s waistband. A button was missing and the rest were off a buttonhole.
“No, stop it,” she scolded herself in a whispered rush.
She had to focus. She couldn’t think about what he may have done while she had been unconscious. She needed to check and see if she was okay.
Her fingers found no open wound, no sticky blood, but she was almost certain one of her ribs had been broken or badly bruised. Unfortunately, her past afforded her the knowledge of what broken ribs felt like. Carefully, her fingers probed the area under her breasts while she bit down on her lower lip. Despite the stabbing pain, she guessed bruised, not broken. That was good. She could function just fine with bruised ribs. Broken could sometimes puncture a lung. Another piece of trivia she wished she didn’t know firsthand.
She slipped a foot out from under the covers and dangled it close to the floor. She was barefoot. What had he done with her shoes and stockings? Again, she glanced around the room. Her eyes had adjusted to the dim light, though her vision remained a bit off focus and her contact lenses felt gritty. It didn’t matter. There was nothing more to see in the shack.
She let her toes and the ball of her foot touch the floor. It was colder than she expected, but she kept the foot there, forcing her body to grow accustomed to the change in temperature before she tried to stand up. The air in the shack felt damp and chilly.
Then she heard the beginning tap-tap-tap, soft against the roof. The sound of rain had usually been a comfort to her. Now she frantically wondered how badly the rotted roof leaked and felt a new chill. She knew the bucket in the corner hadn’t been placed there for leaks. Instead, it was meant to accommodate her. He obviously intended to keep her here for a while. The thought reawakened the fear.
She pushed herself out of the cot and stood with both feet flat on the cold floorboards while she bent at the waist and held on to the bed. Again, she bit her lip, ignoring the taste of blood, fighting the urge to vomit and waiting for the room to stop spinning.
Her pulse quickened. The sound inside her head hummed like wind in a tunnel. She tried to concentrate on the tap-tap-tapping of the rain. Maybe she could find some level of comfort, some level of sanity, in the rain’s natural and familiar rhythm. A sudden rumble of thunder startled her like a gunshot, and she spun around to the door as though expecting to see him there. When her heart settled back in her chest, she almost burst out laughing. It was only thunder. A little bit of thunder. That’s all.
Slowly she tested her feet, coaxing her stomach to behave, trying to ignore the pain in her side and the panic from strangling her. Only now did she realize that her breathing came in gasps. A lump obstructed her throat, and it threatened to come out screaming. It took a conscious effort to prevent it from doing so.
Her body began shivering. She grabbed the wool blanket, wrapped it around her shoulders and tied two ends together in a knot at her neck, keeping her hands free. She checked under the cot, hoping to find something, anything to aid in her escape, or at least her shoes. There was nothing, not even furballs or dust. Which meant he had prepared this place for her, and recently. If only he hadn’t taken her shoes and stockings. Then she remembered she had worn panty hose under her trousers.
Oh God! He had undressed her, after all. She mustn’t think about it. She had to concentrate on other things. Stop remembering. Stop feeling aches and bruises in places that might remind her of what he had done. No, she couldn’t, she wouldn’t remember. Not now. She needed to focus all her energies on getting out of here.
Again she listened to the rain. Again she waited for its rhythm to calm her, to regulate her raspy breathing.
When she could walk without the threat of nausea crippling her, she carefully made her way to the door. The handle was nothing more than a rusted latch. One more time, she looked around to see if she had missed anything that could be used to help pry open the door. Even the corners had been swept clean. Then she saw a rusted nail swept into a groove in the floor. She pried it out with her fingernails and began examining the keyhole. The door was indeed locked, but was it bolted as well?
She steadied her fingers and inserted the nail into the keyhole, slipping it in and out, jingling and twisting it expertly. Another talent acquired in her not so illustrious past. But it had been years, and she was out of practice. The lock groaned in rusted protest. Oh, dear God, if only—something gave way with a metallic click.
Tess grabbed the latch and gave it a yank. The door swung open freely, almost knocking her over in her surprise. No force had been necessary. It hadn’t been bolted. She waited, staring at the open doorway. This was too easy. Was it a blessing or another trap?
CHAPTER 40
Friday, April 3
Tully drove with one hand on the steering wheel and the other fumbling with the plastic lid of his coffee container. Why did fast-food places have to make the contraptions like child-protective caps? His finger punched at the uncooperative triangular perforation, cracking the plastic and splashing hot coffee onto his lap.
“Damn it!” he yelled as he swerved to the side of the road and screeched on the brakes, splattering more coffee onto the fabric of his car seat. He grabbed napkins to sop it up, but already the brown stain spread deep into the cream color. As an afterthought, he checked the rearview mirror, relieved no one was behind him.
He shoved the car’s gearshift into park and released his foot from the brake pedal, only now realizing how tense and rigid his body had become in response to the stress. He sat back and rubbed a hand over his jaw, immediately feeling the nicks he had inflicted earlier with his razor. It had been one day and already Agent O’Dell had him feeling as if he was on the rim of her personal cliff, and he was straddling the ledge while pieces of rock crumbled at his feet.
Maybe it had been a mistake asking Assistant Director Cunningham to let O’Dell help on the
Stucky case. Last night may have been proof that she simply couldn’t handle the pressure. But then her phone message this morning telling him to meet her back at the Archer Drive house made Tully realize that he was in for an even more difficult task.
They had found nothing at the house to warrant a further search. Yet O’Dell had told him she had written permission from Ms. Hes-ton and the owners to do so. Now he wondered if she had gotten them out of bed. How else had she been able to obtain written permission between last night and early this morning? And how the hell would he make her see that she was being irrational and paranoid and possibly wasting precious time?
After last night, Tully knew O’Dell was wound so tight, that controlling her could be impossible, and trying to restrain her could make matters worse. But he wouldn’t talk to Cunningham. He couldn’t. Not yet. He needed to handle this. He needed to settle O’Dell down so they could move forward.
He sipped what coffee was left and glanced at his watch. Today the damn thing was slow, according to the car’s digital clock. It wasn’t even seven o’clock. O’Dell had left the message on his machine at about six while he was in the shower. He wondered if she had gone to bed at all last night.
He put the coffee container safely into a cup holder, massaged the tension in his neck and then shifted into drive. He had only three blocks to go. When he turned onto the street, his tension turned to anger. Parked in the driveway were O’Dell’s red Toyota and a navy blue panel van, the kind the forensic lab used. She hadn’t wasted any time nor bothered to wait for his okay. What was the use of being lead in an investigation if no one paid any goddamn attention? He needed to put a stop to this now.
As he walked toward the front door, lampposts along the driveway blinked, trying to decide whether to stay on or shut off. They needed rain. Each time it looked like spring showers, the rains dumped on the shoreline or just offshore before rolling inland. But this morning thick clouds smudged out the sunrise. A low rumble could be heard in the distance. It suited Tully’s mood, and he caught himself making fists as he got closer to the door. He hated confrontation. If he couldn’t get his own daughter to obey him, then how the hell did he expect to get Agent O’Dell to?
The front door was unlocked, the security system silent. He followed the voices upstairs to the master bedroom. Keith Ganza wore a short white lab coat, and Tully wondered if the man even owned an ordinary sports jacket.
“Agent Tully,” O’Dell said, coming from the master bathroom, wearing latex gloves and carrying jugs of liquid. “We’re almost ready. We just finished mixing the luminol.”
She set the jugs on the floor in the corner where Ganza had set up shop.
“You two know each other, right?” O’Dell asked as though she thought that was the reason for Tully’s frown.
“Yes,” he answered, trying to restrain his anger and maintain his professionalism.
Ganza simply nodded at Tully and continued loading and preparing a video camera. A Will comm camera on a tripod stood in the center of the room, already assembled. Several duffel bags, more jugs and four or five spray bottles were carefully set on the floor. A black case leaned against the wall. Tully recognized it as the Lumi-Light. Each of the windows were covered with some kind of black film taped to the frames so that light couldn’t filter in from the outside. Even now the room required the ceiling light. The bathroom lights were on too, and Tully wondered what, if anything, they had used to block out the skylight. This was ridiculous.
Agent O’Dell began filling spray bottles with the luminol, using a funnel and steady hands. There seemed to be no sign of the jumpy, nervous, frazzled woman he had seen last night.
“Agent O’Dell. We need to talk.”
“Of course, go ahead.” Except she didn’t look up at him and continued to pour.
Ganza appeared oblivious to Tully’s anger, and he wanted to keep it that way.
“We need to talk in private.”
Both O’Dell and Ganza looked up at him. Yet neither stopped what they were doing. O’Dell screwed the spray top onto the bottle she had filled. Tully expected her to see his anger. He expected her to be concerned or at least somewhat apologetic.
“Once we have the luminol mixed, we need to use it immediately,” she explained, and began filling another spray bottle.
“I realize that,” Tully said through clenched teeth.
“I have written permission,” she continued without interrupting her pouring. “The luminol is odorless, and it leaves little residue. Nothing more than a sprinkle of white power when it dries. Hardly noticeable.”
“I know that, too,” Tully snapped at her, though her tone was not at all condescending. This time O’Dell and Ganza stopped and stared at him. How had he suddenly become the hysterical one, the irrational one?
“Then what seems to be the problem, Agent Tully?” She stood to face him, but again there was nothing challenging in her manner, which only made it worse.
Even the expression on Ganza’s lined and haggard face was one of impatience. They continued to stare at him, waiting as though he was holding up the process unreasonably.
“I thought we decided last night that there was nothing here.”
“No, we decided there was nothing more we could do last night. Although it would have been much better to do this last night. Hopefully, it’ll be dark enough. We lucked out with it being so cloudy.”
Ganza nodded. They both waited. Suddenly all of Tully’s objections—which seemed completely logical minutes ago—now sounded immature and arrogant. There was nothing here. It was a ridiculous waste of time and effort. But rather than telling O’Dell that, perhaps it was better for her to see for herself. Maybe only then would she be satisfied.
“Let’s get this over with,” he finally said. “What do you want me to do?”
“Close the door and stay there next to the light switch.” Ganza motioned to him while he picked up the video camera. “I’ll let you know when to flip it off and on again. Maggie, grab a couple of spray bottles. You spritz. I’ll be right beside you filming.”
Tully got into position, no longer bothering to hide his reluctance or his impatience. However, he could see that anything he did would be wasted on O’Dell and Ganza. They were so involved in the task at hand, they barely noticed him except as a utility.
He watched O’Dell load both her hands with spray bottles, holding them like revolvers, her index fingers ready on the triggers.
“Let’s start at the wall closest to the door and move toward the bathroom,” Ganza instructed in his monotone. He reminded Tully of Icabod Crane. The man’s voice never showed emotion—a perfect match for his tall, slumped appearance and deliberate and precise movements.
“Maggie, you remember the drill. Start on the walls, top to bottom. Then the floor, wall to center,” Ganza went on. “Let’s keep a steady spray going all the way to the bathroom. We’ll stop at the bathroom door. You’ll probably need to reload with luminol by then.”
“Gotcha.”
Tully just then realized that O’Dell and Ganza had done this as a team before. They seemed comfortable with each other, knowing each other’s roles. And O’Dell had managed to get Ganza here at the break of dawn, despite the man’s overloaded schedule.
Tully manned his post, waiting with arms crossed over his chest and his shoulder leaning against the closed door. He caught himself tapping his foot, an unconscious nervous habit that Emma accused him of when he was being “close-minded.” Where the hell did she come up with stuff like that? Nevertheless, he stopped his foot from tapping.
“We’re ready, Agent Tully. Go ahead and hit the lights,” Ganza told him.
Tully flipped the switch and immediately felt swallowed by the pitch black. Not a hint of light squeezed in past the film on the windows. In fact, Tully could no longer tell where the windows were.
“This is excellent,” he heard Ganza say.
Then Tully heard a faint electronic whine and a tiny red dot appeared where h
e imagined the video camera was in Ganza’s hands.
“Ready when you are, Maggie,” Ganza said as the red dot bobbed up.
Tully heard the spritz of liquid, steady and insistent. It sounded as if she was dousing the entire wall. Tully wondered how many bottles, how many jugs of luminol it would take for her to realize that there was nothing here. Suddenly the wall began to glow. Tully stood up straight, and so did the hairs on the back of his neck and arms.
“Jesus Christ,” he gasped, staring in disbelief at the streaks, the smudges and handprints that smeared the entire wall and now glowed like fluorescent paint.
CHAPTER 41
Maggie stepped back, giving Keith room. It was worse than she expected. The smears stretched, reached, clawed and swiped with the undeniable motion of someone desperate and terrified. The handprints were small, almost child-size. She remembered Jessica Beckwith’s delicate hands holding out the pizza box for her.
“Jesus, I can’t believe this.”
She heard Tully’s voice again come out of the black. She knew he had believed they wouldn’t find a thing, that nothing had taken place here. There was no victory in proving him wrong. Instead, she found herself light-headed and nauseated. Suddenly it was too hot in the room. What the hell was the matter with her? She hadn’t been sick at crime scenes since the early days, those first years of initiation. Now for a second time in less than a week, her stomach attempted to revolt against her.
“Keith, what are the chances of this being a cleaning solution? The house is for sale. It still smells like someone has given it a recent scrubbing.”
“Oh, it’s been scrubbed all right. Someone was trying to get rid of this.”
“But luminol can be sensitive to bleach,” she continued. “Maybe a residential-cleaning company scrubbed down everything including the walls.” After a fitful, sleepless night of anticipating, of knowing what they’d discover, why did she not want to believe it? Why did she find herself wanting to believe the streaks and swipes in front of her were simply an overzealous maid?