Somewhere beyond the yard, the engine of a piece of heavy machinery had fired up with a throaty growl. My luck someone had come back to the construction site down the road and was about to bulldoze my car.
The backyard was dim with shadows, but the sky above the treetops was still an intense blue. The racket was not coming from the direction of the new houses down the road, but from beyond those trees, beyond Paris Montgomery's backyard, to the west.
A large motor grumbled constantly, the intermittent crunching and chewing of materials being fed through some big machine. A mulch grinder, I guessed, and I almost turned away. Then I paused.
Landry had said there was a sound of heavy machinery in the background of the video showing Erin being beaten by her captors. A sound Erin hadn't been able to remember when he'd asked her about the place where she was held.
I walked toward the back of the property. Dense with young trees and wild bamboo, vines knitting all of it together, the back border of the yard was a jungle that would have eventually swallowed up the yard and the house if allowed.
The thump and grind of the machine grew louder. A truck engine revved and the beep-beep-beep of warning sounded as it backed up.
Trying to see through the curtain of greenery to the property on the other side, I almost missed it. The thing sat in the tangled growth like an ancient ruin. Gray and rusted, once an alien thing that had become almost an organic part of the landscape over the course of time. A trailer. What might have been a construction boss's office once, with a window on the end of it that was coated with dirt on the inside. Someone had scratched through the filth with their fingertip, writing a single word: HELP.
51
Life can change in a heartbeat.
I had nearly missed it. I had been a heartbeat from turning and walking away. Then, there it was: the real reason Paris Montgomery had taken this shitty house too far from the show grounds. I had thought she had come here to be away from prying eyes, and I was right. But her affair with Trey Hughes was not the only thing she had wanted to hide.
The trailer squatted in the overgrowth like something from a bad dream. The sight of it evoked memories I wished I didn't have.
Adrenaline runs through my bloodstream like rocket fuel. My heart pounds like a piston. I'm ready to launch.
I pulled my gun and moved in close along the side of the trailer. Only when I was right on top of it could I see the path where someone had walked around the end to get to the twisted, rusted metal stairs that hung off the back side of the trailer.
Despite the fact that the sun hadn't touched this yard in an hour or more, and the temperature was in fact cool, I was perspiring. I thought I could hear myself breathing.
I've been told to stay put, to wait, but I know that's not the right decision… wasting precious time… It's my case. I know what I'm doing…
I felt the same push now. My case. My discovery. But a hesitation, also. Apprehension. Fear. The last time I had made that decision, I had been wrong. Dead wrong.
I leaned back against the side of the trailer, willing my pulse to slow, trying to slow my thought process, trying to shut out the emotions that had more to do with post-traumatic stress than with the present.
Paris would have rented this property months ago, I reasoned. If this place had been chosen because of the privacy, because of the trailer, that extended the period of premeditation to before the season had begun. I wondered if Erin had been chosen for her job because of her potential as a groom or as a victim.
My hand was shaking as I pulled out my phone with my left hand. I dialed Landry's pager number, left my number and 911. I called his voice mail, left Paris Montgomery's address, and told him to get here ASAP.
And now what? I thought as I closed the phone and stuck it in my pocket. Wait? Wait for Paris to come home and find me in her backyard? Let opportunity and daylight pass, waiting for Landry to call me back?
It's my case. I know what I'm doing…
I knew what Landry would say. He would tell me to wait for him. Go sit in my car like a good girl.
I've never been a good girl.
It's my case. I know what I'm doing…
The last time I had thought that, I had been very wrong.
I wanted to be right.
Slowly, I went up the metal stairs that over time had sunken into the sandy earth and settled away from the trailer, leaving a gap of several inches between the two. Standing to the side of the door, I knocked twice, and called out "Police."
Nothing happened. I couldn't hear any movement within the trailer. No shotgun blasts came through the door. It occurred to me Van Zandt might be inside, hiding out until he could catch his plane to Brussels. He might have been Paris Montgomery's partner in it all, helping her to oust Jade and secure her place in Trey Hughes' life, while Van Zandt indulged himself in his hobby of dominating young girls. Perhaps the ransom was to have been his fee for helping to ruin Don Jade.
And Erin's role in the game? I wasn't sure now, in light of what Landry had told me about the videotapes of her being raped and beaten. The tape of her abduction, which I had watched a dozen times, made me question whether Erin was truly a victim. Perhaps Paris had lured her into the plot with the opportunity to punish her parents, and once the plan was in motion had given her over to Van Zandt. The idea sickened me.
Standing to one side, I held my breath as I opened the door a crack with my left hand.
Billy Golam jerks open the door, wild-eyed, high on his own home cooking-crystal meth. He's breathing hard. He's got a gun in his hand.
A bead of sweat ran down between my eyebrows and skittered off my nose.
Leading with the Glock, I ducked into the trailer and swept the barrel of the gun from left to right. There was no one in the first room. I took in only the swiftest impression of the furnishings: an old steel desk, a pole lamp, a chair. All of it covered in dust and cobwebs. Piles of old newspapers. Discarded paint cans. The stale, musty smells of dust and cigarettes and mildew growing beneath the old linoleum floor assaulted my nose. The sounds of the machinery outside seemed to resonate and amplify inside the tin can trailer.
Cautiously, I moved toward the second room, still leading with the gun.
I hadn't seen the video of Erin's beating, but I knew from Landry's description this was where it had taken place. A bed with a metal-framed headboard sat against the back wall. A filthy, stained mattress with no sheets. Bloodstains.
I pictured Erin there as Landry had described her: naked, bruised, chained by one arm to the headboard, screaming as her assailant beat her with a whip. I pictured her as a victim.
A few feet from the foot of the bed stood a tripod with a video camera perched atop it. Behind the tripod a table littered with empty soda cans, half-empty water bottles, opened bags of chips, and an ashtray full of butts. There were a couple of lawn chairs, one with a copy of In Style magazine left on the seat, the other with clothes tossed carelessly over the arm and back and dropped on the floor beside it.
A movie set. The stage for a twisted drama with a final act yet to be played out.
The roar of the machines outside had ceased. I felt the silence like a presence that had just come through the door. The skin on my arms and the back of my neck prickled with awareness.
I moved to stand beside the wall next to the doorway into the first room, the Glock raised and ready.
I could hear, but not see the exterior door open. I waited.
Movement in the front room. The sound of shoes scuffing and thumping on the old linoleum. The rattle of the old paint cans knocking together. The smell of paint thinner.