Page 3 of Now You See Me

“Wouldyouaccept a ride from a stranger, who just happened to come by after your vehicle died?” Kane removed the gloves and pulled on his thick padded ones.

Jenna considered the options. “If I was armed, yeah, but if not, out here? No way. I’d walk or jog to the motel. Maisy knew it was five miles or so down the highway. If she’s from Idaho, she understands winter temperatures and keeping moving would be better than freezing to death in the truck. Remember it wasn’t snowing when she left the bar. We have proof from the footprints.” She stared ahead. “This is going to take all day.”

“Not necessarily. We can assume she walked for maybe a mile. The snow would be getting heavier by then, and she would be cold. It would be a perfect time for a serial killer to become a knight in shining armor.” Kane smiled. “Get into the truck. We’ll drive a mile along the road and then check for footprints.”

Unconvinced, Jenna shrugged. “You’re surmising he planned an abduction. How could he when she only started work at the bar on Monday night? How would he even know her ride?”

“A six-hour shift.” Kane slid behind the wheel. “He might have seen her arrive and spoken to her during her shift. She was one of the bartenders. If he was a regular, he’d know the bartenders’ shifts are ten until six and six until twelve. I know and I don’t drink there. Only the roadhouse is open twenty-four seven.”

Jenna fastened her seatbelt and nodded. “Okay, we drive a mile and stop and check for tracks.”

To her astonishment, the small footprints were still showing under the snow a mile along the highway. They went on another fifty yards and stopped again. She looked at Kane. “You’re starting to think like a serial killer. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.”

“I don’t know, Jenna.” Kane grinned at her. “One minute you figure I’m a cyborg, the next a werewolf and now a serial killer. I’m just a man, is all.”

Shaking her head, and knowing it was Kane’s way of relieving the tension of having another serial killer in town, she met his gaze. “One thing for sure, you’ve never been ‘just a man’ and the jury is still out on the cyborg theory.” She searched through the snow, moving it to one side with her boot. “No footprints. We need to go back some and expand the search.”

Glad to see Rio’s sheriff’s department truck pulling up on the opposite side of the road, Jenna waved them over. Rio was carrying a janitor’s broom. The head was at least two feet wide with stiff bristles. “There are no footprints here. They started from the abandoned truck, so we came down here a ways and decided to walk back. We need to find where they stopped. Clear the snow along the edge of the road but be careful not to destroy evidence. If she climbed into a vehicle, the chances are the footprints will show she turned toward the road.”

“Rowley has another broom.” Rio’s attention moved up and down the road. “It would be easier to search in ten-yard sections. From the last sighting of the footprints. If you start there, we’ll work toward you.” He shrugged. “It’s more efficient.”

Jenna appreciated Rio’s unique abilities. He could mentally take in a complete crime scene in a few minutes, he recalled everything in perfect detail and he was able to see solutions at a remarkable speed. The day he showed for a position in her department as a deputy had been her lucky day. She nodded and took the broom from Rowley. “Okay, let’s get at it.”

It didn’t take too long before they found the end of the footprints. Jenna waited patiently as Rowley cleared the snow from them before they noted the difference. Rio took a ton of photographs because the footprints revealed more than they’d hoped for. “What do you make of them, Dave?”

“She started off walking at a good pace, but by here”—he pointed to a yellow flag—“she started to run, not fast, just a slow jog, but the pace changes, and here, she turned around, looked behind her and then continued to walk on.” He pointed to another marker. “I figure someone drove up behind her, maybe stopped to speak to her and to offer her a ride, and then they crawled alongside her as she walked. “Here she stopped and turned toward the road. She moved around some, maybe deciding if she should take a ride. The marks change direction. So, she walked maybe to the hood of his truck, and from the angle of the prints, she either crossed the highway or rounded the hood and climbed inside.” He looked at Jenna. “We should search the opposite side of the road in case she decided to take a stroll at midnight in the forest, but my bet is she took the ride.”

A shiver went through Jenna and it wasn’t from the bitter cold. Maisy Jones never made it back to the motel and had likely taken her last ride. “Okay and can you see any tire tracks alongside the footprints? Any blood—anything?”

“Nope.” Kane handed Rio the broom. “I was hoping we’d find some trace of the vehicle but looking at where she stopped and moved around. If we surmise that she was talking to someone through the window, and then walked around the hood, it’s too small for an eighteen-wheeler or too short for a van. We’re talking about a truck the size of the Beast.”

“Nothing over here.” Rowley waited for vehicles to roll by before he crossed the slippery blacktop. “I checked straight ahead and on different angles. There’s no sign of her. No smell of death in the forest and the snow hasn’t penetrated it yet. There’s a dusting at best on the trails.”

The cold had affected all of her team. Rowley’s nose was red and Rio’s lips had turned blue. No doubt Kane’s head was throbbing. It was bitterly cold out on the windy highway. Jenna nodded. “Okay, head to Aunt Betty’s Café and stay for a time. You both look frozen. We’ll go and check out her motel room and meet you there. I need coffee and my feet are frozen solid. Show Maisy’s picture to Susie Hartwig and her assistant manager, Wendy, and ask if they’ve seen her. It’s the first stop for most people, when they get into town.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Rowley banged the snow from the broom and tossed it into the back of Rio’s truck. “I called the Nampa Police Department before I left town and they’ll be calling back once they’ve located Maisy Jones’ family.”

Jenna pushed her freezing fingers into the pocket of her jacket. “Okay, thanks. Let me know when you have something.” She turned and followed Kane back to the Beast. She shook the snow from her boots and jacket and climbed inside. She rubbed Duke’s head but he was snuggled under his blanket fast asleep. She looked at Kane. “I have that terrible sinking feeling again.”

“Why?” Kane started the engine and headed back to town. “She might have gone back to his place. It happens, you know.”

Jenna rubbed her temples. “Yeah, I am aware of one-night stands, Dave, but if Maisy had met a guy and decided to stay at his place, she’d need clean clothes at least, especially after working a shift in a bar. Most normal men would at least take her back to the motel so she could get changed. When someone goes missing in our town, they’re rarely found alive. We have another killer in town, don’t we?” She waved a hand toward the thick coating of snow building up alongside the blacktop. “He could be hiding bodies all over and we’d never find them in the snow.”

THREE

Maisy came out of a foggy haze, struggling to open her eyes. Panic rocked her and she spun around looking for the man who’d drugged her. A wave of giddiness blurred her vision and bile filled her mouth. She gripped the side of the narrow bed and tried to calm her pounding heart. Cold seeped through her clothes and she shivered, teeth chattering. White steam surrounded her with each exhale of breath. Where was she and where was the hideous laughing man who’d kidnapped her? Disorientated, she turned her head more slowly this time to absorb her surroundings. The room was empty and only the sound of clocks ticking, drifted through an open door. The man had drugged her and the smell still lingered in her nose. She drew up her knees, clasping her arms around them. Dread gripped her and she looked down at herself, checking her clothing, but everything looked okay. He hadn’t hurt her, so why was she here? She took in the room more closely. The cold dim room resembled a bathroom without the fittings. Chipped white tiles covered the floors and walls. The room held no furniture, apart from the bed. She ran her hands over the metal sides. It was an old-style hospital gurney, rusty and caked with dust. A sink sat against one wall, yet the normal paraphernalia she’d usually see in a hospital room were missing. The tiled floor held the dirt from many years of neglect. Trembling with fear, she pulled the rough blanket around her and listened.

Nothing.

She searched her pockets and, finding them empty, stared at the tiny stream of water spilling from the tap into the sink. It was as if the liquid was calling to her and, moving her tongue over dry cracked lips, she edged off the gurney, swayed a little and then, using the freezing-cold wall for support, made her way to the basin. The water running slowly from the tap appeared to be clean, although a rust stain in the bottom of the stainless steel bowl made her wonder how long it had been left dripping. Desperate to take a drink but aware someone might be watching her, she looked all around. Nothing moved in the other dim room. Instinctively she looked up, searching for cameras. She’d read about a serial killer who’d kept women prisoner in caves so he could murder them when he had the urge, but she found nothing but dusty spider webs deserted long ago.

Reaching out, she turned on the faucet and stared at the stream of water rushing down the drain. Using both hands, she scooped up a handful, sniffed it and tested it with the tip of her tongue. It smelled and tasted like pure mountain water. She drank deeply and washed her face, drying it on the arms of her coat. Her head had cleared and she rested her back against the wall for a few more minutes, assessing her situation. There was an open door at the end of the room and, moving slowly, she stepped toward it and looked inside. It was a bathroom, with a toilet and shower but no windows. She had to find a way out, get to the cops and tell them about the man in the black truck with the bodies in the back seat.

Still a little unsteady on her feet, she headed for the door. With each of her steps, the air became tainted with a bad smell. Covering her face with her shirt, she peered out of the door and blinked into the half-light. The room was huge and at one end hospital gurneys lined up against the wall. They were old-style. The wheels had spokes and didn’t look quite right. She moved along the wall, searching for a door or window to escape. As she moved closer to the line of gurneys, the silver-colored tops came into view. She’d seen similar in TV shows: autopsy tables, but not new and glistening, old and decrepit.

Heart pounding, she moved past them, heading for the end of the room. Ahead, three gurneys sat close together and the sound of clocks ticking was louder. She searched the gloom but not a soul lurked in the corners. Her confidence grew and she walked straight down the middle of the hall. As she got closer, the bad smell increased and she gagged. Moving closer to examine the lumps on the gurneys, she froze unable to believe her eyes, and pressed a fist to her mouth to prevent the scream threatening to break through her lips. Three horrific bodies lay on separate gurneys, eyes fixed and staring into nothing, bodies blue and patchy. A machine sat beside each of them, hooking them up with tubes to both arms. On one side, a clear fluid was being pushed into the vein via a pump. She stared at the buckets beside each corpse. The ticking of clocks she’d heard wasn’t clocks at all. It was blood draining from the corpses and dripping into buckets. She turned, running blindly toward the end of the hall, searching ahead for a door. Double doors loomed out of the darkness and she hurled herself at them. Bouncing off the unforgiving locked metal, she fell hard to the floor. She couldn’t breathe and her heart pounded so hard she waited to die, gasping on the cold floor. There was no way out. No escape. The laughing man had trapped her in a room with rotting corpses.

FOUR

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