No time for ‘raising the sociopath 101’ Golden thought.
Getting no answer, Egan continued. “Then the cats. Jesus H. Christ.” Egan pulled another cigarette out.
Golden stirred. “The cats?”
“He killed them. No matter what I did, he killed them. And when I didn’t bring another home, he lured them in.”
“How did he kill them?”
Egan shrugged. “Cut them. Smashed their skulls with a rock. Does it matter?”
“How many cats did he kill?”
“Six. Seven. Those are the ones I found. Christ knows how many I didn’t. One time he stole a little kitten and then when the mother came looking, killed both. A couple of times he cut them open in the bath-tub.”
Golden frowned. Blood had not seemed to be a motif in the killings so far except for the girl in Alabama whose throat had been sliced. And they didn’t think Forten had done that from the intelligence they had.
“How did you punish him?” Golden asked.
Egan’s eyes danced about. “You know.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Who do you work for?” Egan demanded.
“How did you punish him?”
Another cigarette, the flash of the lighter. “Spankings.”
“With your hand?” Golden didn’t buy her spanking a fifteen year old boy.
“Sometimes a belt.”
“What else?”
Egan laughed. “Fuck it. I’m in prison. I strung the little shit up.”
Golden blinked. “What?”
“I tied his hands behind his back, had the rope over a pulley in the basement and strung him up. There. Happy? Didn’t make no difference. He’d just hang there and scream and cry and beg and tell me he’d never do it again and then he’d go do it again.”
Severe trauma as punishment. All the pieces were there. But not much more of use. “Is there a place where he would hide?” Golden asked.
Egan shrugged. “The woods. He liked the woods. But he always came back.”
“Any special place in the woods?”
“How the hell would I know? It’s not like I followed him.”
Golden tried to think but she was so tired. She tried to remember the last good night of sleep she’d had. She thought of Emily Cranston and forced herself to focus. “Is there any place Lewis ever spoke of wanting to go to?”
“What, like Disneyland?” Egan snickered.
Golden kept her voice flat. “We need to find him, and the more help you give us, the more help we’ll give you.”
Egan’s forehead furrowed as she tried to think. “I don’t know. It’s been such a long time. No place I can remember. You know—“ she said suddenly—“there was something else he did. With a dog. He staked it out in the woods. Attached its leash to a tree. Left it there. I don’t know how long, but I knew something was wrong when I could smell the stink. Ain’t nothing like the smell of dead things. I went out there and found it. He swore it wasn’t him. But I know it was. Sick little fuck.”
Think like Gant. The thought came to Golden unbidden. What would he want to know? But beyond that thought, nothing came to her. Golden slid the other pack of cigarettes across to Egan and stood. “If I think of anything more, I’ll send the questions to you.”
Egan nodded. “Yeah, sure.”
Golden headed to the door but Egan’s question stopped her:
“I was right, wasn’t I?”
Golden turned. “About what?”
“The way I treated him. He deserved it. He was bad.”
Golden fought the desire to step up to Egan and slap that smug look off her face. She knew it was hopeless, that she could never get the other woman to see how backwards she had everything. She went out the door.
It was very hard for Emily to open her eyes. She lay curled in a tight ball, her arms looped around her knees, pulling them to her chest. She knew the sun was rising: she could feel the temperature slowly rising.
Three more trains had come by during the night. For the first one she’d yelled as loudly as she could but for the second and third, she just lay there having visions of people sitting in air-conditioned dining cars, sipping on glasses of sparkling, cool water.
There was no point in opening her eyes, Emily reasoned. Nothing would be different. And that vulture might still be there, waiting. One thing she had noted was not a single aircraft flying by overhead, not even the faint contrail of a jetliner at thirty-six thousand feet. Not that she had anything to signal an aircraft with. A signal mirror had not been among the necessary items for a night of bar-hopping with the girls. She imagined one of her friends would have had a compact, which would be quite useful right now, but other than her license, she’d had nothing.
Her head hurt. A constant throbbing pain, that she imagined had to be caused by dehydration. This was her fourth day without water. And she wasn’t sure she was going to make it through to sun-down.
Reluctantly, Emily unclasped her hands, then loosened her arms. She stretched her legs out and immediately cried out in pain as her left calf tightened into a ball of agony as the muscle cramped. Emily thrashed about out on the wooden floor, the chain attached to the shackle rattling un-noticed as she tried to un-cramp the muscle. She rolled, jamming the ball of her foot against the bolt and pressing, trying to relieve the pain and stretch the muscle back out. She wrapped both hands around the calf and it felt like a solid rock, so knotted were the muscle fibers.
“Please, please, please,” Emily hissed as she tried to work the cramp out. After a minute of exquisite pain, the muscle slowly began to loosen. Emily lay there panting, actually almost feeling good, basking in the relief from pain, her thirst and hunger pushed aside for the moment.
She happened to look up and blinked.
Then she smiled with pure joy for the first time in quite a while.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Gant looked up as Neeley and Golden walked into Mrs. Smith’s reception area. He had been cooling his heels for over a half-hour waiting for their arrival. The time could have been better spent taking a shower and getting some food, but Mrs. Smith had told him that he was to remain here until they arrived. As they came in, he stood and turned toward the Cellar’s secretary.
“Wait a second,” Golden said, catching him by surprise.
Gant was tired. He wore the same smoke-saturated black fatigues from his chase in the Maine woods. He had a two-day growth of stubble on his chin and he couldn’t recall the last time he’d had a meal. He slowly turned to face the two women and right away knew from the looks on their faces and their body language that they had allied.
“What?” Gant asked, making no effort to mask his irritation.
“We need to coordinate,” Golden said. “Before we talk to Masterson or Nero.”
“Coordinate what?” Gant asked.
“Our plan,” Golden said.
Gant raised his eyebrows. “The two of you have a plan? I’m all ears. I haven’t even heard what both of you found out, so I’m pretty much clueless about what to do next.”
Golden stood straighter. “I posted the summary of my interview with Forten’s foster mother.”
“I’m sure you did,” Gant said, “But I haven’t had time to read it.” He shifted his gaze to Neeley. “As I haven’t had time to read your report on the cache site. So if you want to talk, how about both cutting to chase and telling me what you think?”
Behind them, Mrs. Smith cleared her throat. “Mister Nero and Ms. Masterson are waiting.”
Gant laughed, so tired of it all. “I was waiting here for a while too.” He looked at Mrs. Smith. “How about ordering us a pizza or something?”
Mrs. Smith didn’t bat an eye. She picked up the phone and dialed the cafeteria up in the main building. Gant went over to one of the chairs aligned around the coffee table and slumped down in it. “What’s the plan?”