“Oh — Debra. Hello there. Sorry, I’ve been an awful host. Let me introduce myself.”
Debra’s gaze darted left and right, up and down. She could not make out where the voice was coming from. And then a face appeared, lit from below with a flashlight.
It made her startle.
“Who are you?” she managed to say. It was formed as words in her mind but sounded like gibberish when it escaped her mouth.
“I’m Harrison.” He clenched his jaw, then forced a smile. “Good to meet you.”
She responded with a garbled, “Why are you doing this to me?”
That was apparently too difficult for him to guess at, so he leaned closer and pulled out a knife. The polished stainless blade glinted in the light.
Debra moaned — more like a freaked-out scream, though it didn’t come out as intended — and he pushed the blunt end against her cheek and pulled. The cotton parted like a shaft of asparagus and she felt instant relief in her jaw. She spit out the cloth fragments and repeated her question.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Harrison laughed. “Because I can. Because I want to.”
“Those aren’t reasons.”
Harrison studied her face. “Absolutely they are. Just not what you wanted to hear.”
“I want to go home.”
“I understand. We’ll head back in two hours. Okay? Can you wait that long?”
She nodded, studying his eyes, which were mirror-black with deep brown, cocoa colored swirls. Was he telling her the truth?
He looked at his watch.
“Then why are we here? Why’d you kidnap me?”
“I need help with something. Didn’t think you’d do it unless I, well, forced you. Will you? Help me?”
She nodded animatedly. “Yes, yes. Whatever. Just take me home.”
“Of course,” Harrison said.
And then the flashlight went off. She was left in darkness.
Bledsoe squinted at his iPhone screen and replayed the SmartLots video... for the sixth time.
He watched the cars driving into and out of their spots. He moved the device away from his face to get some perspective.
It ended and he played it a seventh time. He used his finger to speed up the recording and then slow it down. “There.”
“There what?” X-ray asked over their headsets.
“Sorry,” Bledsoe said. “Wasn’t talking to you.” He used his fingers to zoom in and found what he was looking for — off to the right and only half visible.
An old, white Chevy van.
He watched as the vehicle sat there in the lot. Finally, it rocked from side to side and the side door appeared to open. Because of the angle of the camera, he could not make anything out, but the top of the Chevy noticeably shifted — probably indicating something heavy moving within. “Damnit,” he said under his breath.
He kept with that camera until, fifteen point three seconds later, the van pulled from its spot. He had no view of the driver as it turned right, out of the frame.
“Where’s the angle that shows me the exit?”
“Not talking to me again, are you?” X-ray said.
“Nope. Sorry.”
Bledsoe opened another file Kearney had sent. “Hmm. The exit closest to where that van was.” He slowed the playback speed again, zoomed, and moved it around. This distorted the image, making it less clear and more pixelated in the fading light.
“C’mon, you bastard. Where are you?”
He saw something at the right bottom edge of the screen. He dragged the image left and found the van, then followed it another few seconds.
“Crap. We lose it on Jefferson.”
He pulled out his phone and texted Kearney.
i need all available footage
include traffic cams
for jefferson and mansen
covering all exits of smartlots center
headed east looking for a 1970s
white chevy panel van
Kearney replied immediately.
you think thats the killers ride
old white chevy van
Bledsoe told him that’s exactly what he thought, then related what he had seen on the traffic footage.
and tell lenny to get the dmv
registration history for sr vaughn
see if he owned a chevy van
and who owns it now
Kearney didn’t waste any time:
so you think i was right
vaughns involved
Bledsoe groaned — eliciting a glance from X-ray.
told you
aint vaughn
now hurry and get that info
“Detective,” X-ray said over his headset, “we’ll be landing in six minutes.”
“Ten-four.” Bledsoe checked his watch and began viewing the video footage yet again.
With sixty seconds to go before touchdown, Bledsoe felt his phone vibrate. He swiped away from the video and read the text from Kearney:
case reports say multiple witnesses
saw a 77 chevy van but
no dmv record of vaughn ownership
disposition unknown
whereabouts unknown
Bledsoe texted Vail, then called Kearney, despite the difficulty of speaking over the rotor noise.
“So looks like our kidnapper — and Vaughn — used a 70s era white van.”
“Coincidence?” Kearney asked.
“Definitely not. Get the Phelps visitor logs for Vaughn. Go back a couple of years. Email it to me and Agent Vail. Vaughn could’ve passed a message to someone.”
“Even if that happened, the visitor may not even know who it was that they passed the location to.”
“Worry about that later. Right now, get us the logs.”
“Copy that.”
Bledsoe felt the rapid descent of the bird and then saw the approaching prison yard lights.
Phelps Correctional Center
Vail did not win any points with the corrections staff, showing up in the eleventh hour to meet with a man due to be put to death.
She read their faces but decided to rise above their dirty looks. She owed them no explanations and expected them to do as the warden instructed.
Six minutes later — three of which she figured were unnecessary other than making them feel good because they had made her job more difficult — she was led to Stephen Raye Vaughn’s cell.
He was haggard, a great deal thinner than when she had last seen him. Perhaps depression finally got to him... the stress of waiting, trying to remain hopeful during a hopeless time.
Or perhaps she was reading into it.
The officer opened the door. She gave Vaughn a terse nod but was not interested in exchanging pleasantries. Besides, what could she possibly say? How’ve you been, Steve? Looking forward to Christmas? How ’bout them Nats?
Vaughn was not a pleasant guy, and Vail certainly was not in a pleasant mood. She wanted to get right to business. Time was short.
For her. For Debra Mead. And, obviously, for Vaughn.
She cut right to the heart of the matter: the one thing that likely connected him to the unknown subject who had taken Debra Mead.
Vaughn was not biting. He denied knowing what she was talking about.
Internally, the seconds were ticking by in her head... an annoying metronome reminding her of the most valuable commodity humans could own, the one thing that money could not buy.
“Stephen. Think about what the news reports would be like if the cops find that van. Your van.”
Vaughn snickered. “So what?”
Vail leaned forward and harrumphed, a mocking laugh that said, “You dimwit. You’re smarter than that.” She waited, but he did not bite. “Think about what would happen to it.”