The big man slumps over and slides his hands over the table, cleaning up an invisible spill.
“I ain’t never hurt these girls, and I sure as hell never met no Sandy Young. But maybe someone else did.”
Tipton slaps the folder shut and tilts his head at the notepad. Reinhold slides him the paper and pen.
“Start talking.”
“There’s this guy. He comes into the chat room now and then, but he don’t say much. And before you ask, no, I don’t know his name. He might have asked me to talk him up, make the girls think he was the real deal.”
“Meaning?”
“A lot of them girls thought we were putting them on about being teenagers, but I vouched for this guy. Said he was a college student, but he was shy, not comfortable meeting girls.”
Tipton grips what little hair he still has in his fist and lets it go.
“So you lied to teenage girls and convinced them your friend was their age. You’re a real upstanding citizen, Mr. Waggoner. What happened next?”
Waggoner rubs his temples.
“I may have set up S-Cat04 to meet this guy.”
The table shifts and screeches over the floor when Tipton leans forward.
“So you’re saying you told Sandy Young to meet an adult posing as a teenager at Cass Park,” Tipton says, scribbling the pseudo-confession on the notepad.
“No way. I only suggested Sandy give the guy a chance. Nobody told me where they met. Their conversation went dark.”
“Dark?”
“Private.”
“They messaged in private?”
“Yeah. I mean, I guess so.”
Tipton’s temple pulses. Realizing the sheriff borders on an explosion, Reinhold tries to wrestle control of the interview away from Tipton.
“But you didn’t suggest Sandy Young give an adult male a chance,” she says. “You tricked her into believing he was a teenager.”
Tipton tilts his hat down his forehead.
“Gil Waggoner, you’re under arrest for conspiracy to kidnap Sandy Young.”
The interview erupts with Waggoner’s protests. On the other side of the glass, Darcy falls back in her chair, fingers tingling with anxious energy.
“Find out who the second man in the chat room is,” Darcy says, turning to Hensel. “That’s how we’ll find Jennifer and Sandy.”
“The BAU is tracing his activity. Whoever this guy is, he covers himself better than Waggoner, using multiple servers. But we’ll nail him. Hopefully, in the next twenty-four hours.”
“The girls don’t have twenty-four hours, Eric.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A groan in the floor pulls Jennifer’s head up from slumber. Her lips stick together, dried and caked with a white paste. Parting her lips tears the flesh and spills blood as she battles up to her knees. Two days after the abduction, she can’t recall the last time she ate a full meal. Besides the madman forcing water and food scraps past her lips, she hasn’t eaten. The ache in her bones and congestion tell her she’s sick, no surprise given the lack of sleep and the constant chill bleeding through the uninsulated wall. She shivers, pulls her knees to her chest, and eases her back against a radiator which hasn’t pumped heat during her captivity.
Sandy’s lungs gurgle when she breathes, the girl’s deterioration accelerating. Jennifer wonders if the teen contracted pneumonia. Worry creases Jennifer’s face. She might have the same sickness Sandy caught. In fact, the chances are high considering their abductor locked them together for almost forty-eight hours.
Multiple attempts over the last two days taught Jennifer she can’t reach Sandy unless the girl rolls toward the center of the room. Jennifer lifts her arms to try, but the weight of the chains and the lingering illness drag them down. Jennifer blinks and studies the door. Something about the ribbon of black beneath the door unsettles her. It’s almost indecent, like a tongue protruding from an open mouth. She knows he’s there. Listening. Footsteps quietly pad away and confirm her suspicion, and she releases a held breath.
When she’s certain he’s too deep into the house to hear, she clears the phlegm from her throat and swipes her nose with her shirtsleeve.
“I’m worried about Hunter,” Jennifer says, though she knows Sandy is too sick to comprehend and hasn’t met her family. “He’ll go to North Carolina and do something stupid, and Mom won’t be able to stop him because she’s too busy trying to find us.”
Sandy shifts onto her side and trembles, a sound close to a death rattle.
“I used to say Hunter was the responsible one between us, but I don’t know anymore. I mean, I can’t blame him for being angry. What those boys did to Bethany…I shouldn’t tell you this stuff, but we’re kinda like sisters now, and I know you’ll keep it a secret. I try to put myself in Hunter’s shoes, but I don’t know what I would do if two people hurt someone close to me. How far would I go? It’s easy to say I’d let the police handle it, but I’m not sure. I mean…if someone gave me a gun, would I…”
Jennifer wills Sandy to awaken. In her fantasy, Sandy’s eyes pop open, and the girls form a silent bond to protect each other until they escape. Then Sandy will spot the obvious escape route Jennifer keeps missing, and the girls will be free. The sick girl mumbles, and Jennifer bolts to her feet, the chains stretched taut. But it’s only ramblings inside a dream. Jennifer hopes it’s a happy dream, even if the thoughts result from pneumonia-induced delirium.
She sits down and knocks her head against the radiator, searching for a way out of this room. Then she remembers the older girl, the one who could have released Jennifer. By now, Sandy should be under a doctor’s care while the kidnapper sits in a jail cell. Jennifer’s fingers close over the links and squeeze. The strange girl is just as guilty as the man who abducted them. If she gets the chance, she’ll hurt the girl. Make her pay for serving a psychopath.
When Sandy mutters again, Jennifer loses herself in the fantasy conversation.
“There’s no reason to act like we’re alone when we have each other, Sandy. So if you feel scared, I want you to tell me. I have your back. That’s what a good sister does.” But Jennifer remains furious over the older girl’s unwillingness to help and bites down on her tongue, drawing blood. “And Mom will find us, Sandy. She profiled killers for the FBI. A few years ago, she shot the creep this guy works for. I guess that’s why he wants to hurt me, but I suppose psychos don’t need a reason. Anyhow, I know you’re scared. I’m scared too. But we don’t need to be. The FBI is in Georgia, and they’ll find us if we hold out a little longer.”
Jennifer gasps when the door slides open. How long had the man listened from the hallway?
Like a shadowed wraith, he glides across the floor of the darkened room and stands over Sandy. Jennifer’s spine stiffens.
“Get away from her, creep.”
“Looking out for your sister?” Jennifer can’t see the grin spread across the man’s face, but she hears the amusement in his voice. “I’d very much like your mother to find us, little one. That would save me the trouble of going after her again. And how I’d love for you to watch when I slit her throat.”
Jennifer tugs at the chains. The kidnapper chuckles, a dry, ugly sound like rats crawling over old newspaper.
“I hope you’ve given a thought to my proposal,” he says, pacing toward the corner where he stands with his hands clasped at his waist. She notes one of his arms hangs gingerly as if he nurses a shoulder injury. “There’s no need for this ugliness between us. We’re perfect partners. I can give you a good life.”
“If you want to give me a good life, start by letting me go.”
“Of course, we can’t stay here,” he says as though she hadn’t spoken. “He’ll find us if we stay here. But nobody finds me unless I want them to. Yes, we must leave and not tell a soul. Find another quiet place where nobody will bother us. We can leave immediately, if it pleases you.”
“Why would I run away with you?”
“Because you were made for me. You’re young yet, but I trust your mother taught you about love.”
“My parents fell in love and had children. It had nothing to do with a sicko who hides in the woods and kidnaps young girls.”
His back straightens, and suddenly he seems very tall. When he closes the door, the darkness thickens and turns suffocating. He crosses the room to Jennifer. The open palm slap stings her cheek. Her eyes adjust to the deeper darkness, and she stares into his crazed eyes.
“You’re undisciplined. It’s time you learn about consequences and loss.”
As she clutches the welt rising on her face, he swivels and marches toward Sandy’s prone body. If the girl senses his presence, she doesn’t react to him looming over her.
“What are you doing?”
“Your sister, as you call her, cannot come with us. She’ll never survive the journey.”
“Then let her go.”
His head tilts back at Jennifer.
“Why would I do such a thing? Even if I unchain her, she’ll curl into a ball and lie here until she rots. Don’t you see, Jennifer? There’s nothing left to do.”
“She has a bad cold and needs a doctor.”
The kidnapper shakes his head.
“No doctor can bring her back. Listen to her, little one. Do you hear that? That’s the sound of death. Better I leave Sandy here and remember her as she was when we first met.”
Jennifer’s head drops between her knees.
“No, I’m not going with you, and I’ll never leave Sandy alone.”
“You act as though you have a choice. We leave tonight, just the two of us, but not before you learn what happens when you disobey me.”
From his pocket, the kidnapper removes a key. While Jennifer watches in stunned silence, he unlocks the two padlocks and pulls the chains off Sandy’s arms and legs.
Wake up, Jennifer wills the sick girl. The man is nonchalant as he drags the chains to the corner, leaving Sandy alone in the center of the room. Jennifer prays the girl plays possum. If Sandy springs to her feet and runs for the door, he won‘t catch her. The girl’s legs twitch, and Jennifer’s heart leaps with hope.
But Sandy doesn’t move. Only trembles on the cold, wooden floor as the madman strolls back to the center of the room. His head turns toward Jennifer.
“One day you’ll forgive yourself for what you did to Sandy.”
Panic shoots through Jennifer when she realizes what he intends. The chains yank her back toward the radiator as the man kneels atop Sandy and grips her by the throat. The attack shocks Sandy awake. Her eyes go wide as the maniac’s hands encircle her neck and squeeze.
“Oh, God, don’t do this! Stop!”
Jennifer’s pleas spur the madman to squeeze harder. Sandy coughs, her legs bridged against the floor as she tries to buck him off her hips. Pulling up on Sandy’s neck, he grips her head before smashing it against the floor.
Sandy’s legs scramble with frantic desperation as he grins down at the teenager. Turning her head, she clamps her teeth down on his wrist, eyes clenched shut. He forms a fist with his free hand and pummels the side of her face. She bites harder, drawing little rivers of blood that flow off his hand and slick his skin.
Jennifer rips at the links and throws herself toward the fight. The chains chew crevices into her flesh and trip her up. Her vision goes black when she slams against the floor. Sharp agony in her shoulder tells Jennifer she popped it out of socket, but she ignores the pain and drags herself toward the dying teenager.
She’s down on the grimy floor, breathing in the dust as tears flow off her cheeks and puddle on the hardwood. To her horror, Jennifer realizes Sandy is still three steps away. Sandy’s face turns toward hers. Desperation pours out of the girl’s eyes. Desperation and acceptance.
Sandy’s hand slaps the floor. Her sneakers beat uselessly against the wood, a last ditch signal for someone to intervene. No one hears or helps. Her legs flail ever slower. When Sandy’s eyes lock on Jennifer’s, her body goes limp.
“No, you can’t die!”
Jennifer begs the girl to fight back.
Sandy stops breathing.