Chapter 1 #2
“And apparently,” Jackson said dryly, “he’s not put away anymore.
Pulled a trick that’s probably been played several times.
Either got someone to shiv him or did it to himself; got into the infirmary.
Had to have had some inside help, but he put an EMT and the ambulance driver into the hospital themselves, ditched the ambulance and probably stole something else, or has taken a hostage we don’t know about yet, so . . .”
“I understand we must find a young woman,” Trent said. “But shouldn’t this monster be everyone’s first priority?”
“No one has any idea of what direction to go in,” Jackson told him. “So, we’re moving forward with this while the tech folk search out everything, trying to find clues or even possible clues. First things first and—”
“A young woman missing and the monster on the prowl. Could coincide?” Trent asked.
“Long shot, but at this point, no one knows anything,” Angela said.
“And here is what worries me—unless Darrell Manderley has suddenly decided not to be a sociopath and complete power-hungry psychotic and is seeking a way to leave the country—everyone and anyone is in immediate danger from him because he won’t have the time or the place to get his cult going again. ”
“We’ll find the rotten devil!” Trent said firmly.
Angela glanced over at Jackson.
He knew they both hoped someone—anyone—got the man before he could start acting on his crazed kind of trip—as Satan in the flesh or just a man who loved to play the game of being the devil—and taking lives again.
Jackson’s phone was ringing. Headquarters. Bruce McFaddon was on the line.
“Got you on speaker, Bruce, Angela and me—and Trent.”
“Oh, hey, Trent, good you’re with those guys.
Anyway, our monster-man may not have gone far.
An older woman, Sadie McFarlane, eighty and still spry, lives with two other widows in their mid-seventies.
She headed down to buy a box of donuts; and while, of course, an adult can’t be considered a missing person, since she is in her eighties—”
“Silver alert is out,” Jackson said. “And where—”
“The odd or not odd thing. Her house is just a few blocks down from the coffee shop where you’re heading now.
I’ve got people out working on all angles; our new detective-turned-agent Liam Hardy is at the prison with our brilliant tech who became an agent as well and, naturally, Cindy has her tablet and cyber brain moving at all speeds while she’s on it as well.
They found the ambulance, abandoned off the road by some northern woods, but there are houses along the road, too.
We’re investigating three reports of cars being stolen in the area, so I’ll keep you abreast of any movement or discoveries.
Oh, and the coffee shop and Sadie McFarlane’s place are on a small business strip that then leads into the highway that passes through that northern forest area, so .
. . Our man may not have gone far,” Bruce finished.
“Thanks, Bruce. We’ll cover it all. Keep—” Jackson began.
“In touch. You got it. Bruce out.”
The call ended. Jackson glanced at Angela. “You suspected from the beginning that our case might be related. And it still seems . . .”
“What better place to disappear than into a forest that stretches through acres and acres, most of it national forest, some of it—near the roads, usually—privately owned,” Angela stated.
“What better place,” he agreed. “We’ll need to get rangers, police—”
“First things first. Let’s see what happened at the coffee shop. Watch the surveillance tape—”
“Police have watched it,” he reminded her.
“But we haven’t,” Angela said.
“We just move quickly!” Trent put in from the back seat of the car.
“And we’re here,” Jackson announced.
They had reached the little town area of Northern Virginia near the forest. He saw the local coffee shop and shook his head slightly.
Halloween. The sign announcing “Carlton Coffee and Cakes” had been decked out with all manner of Halloween apparel, from grinning pumpkins to ever popular spider webs and even large ornamental spiders themselves. A scarecrow adorned the front door, as if ready to open it for anyone who came by.
Trent slid on through.
Jackson opened the door for Angela.
The counter was equally decorated with little plastic ghosts and goblins and witches. A sign advertised “The best pumpkin pie this side of a pumpkin!”
And, of course, one could buy a special pumpkin latte.
There was a waitress at the cash register and several diners scattered over the ten or so tables that stretched across the front of the shop.
He and Angela quickly approached the counter.
Trent headed straight back to the kitchen and offices that appeared to stretch down a hall at the end of the counter.
The waitress at the cash register was young, maybe in her early twenties, tops. She smiled at them. “Something pumpkin?” she asked.
Jackson pulled out his badge. Her face paled.
“The police have already been in here,” she said quickly. “We . . . I mean, it’s not our fault no one saw her leave.”
“Surveillance cameras prove she didn’t come out the front of the shop,” Jackson told her. “And from what I understand, your inside cameras cover the cash register and little else.”
“Well, as you can see,” the girl told them, “our dining area is right there. The outside cameras see where people are—”
“Partially,” Angela said. “The area one can see ends at the end of the counter. So, if someone came in or out via that passageway, they wouldn’t be seen. I’m sure the police asked about that.”
“Yes, of course, but . . . well, we were busy. It was early, crack of dawn. And I thought that an adult had to be missing twenty-four hours before people went all crazy.” the waitress complained.
“People come here for their coffee and buns or croissants before going to work—it’s the busiest time of the day.
If someone was in that hall, I didn’t see them.
And, if she did go out that way and was ducking her husband, maybe he’s a jerk, maybe she didn’t want to go back to the car. ”
“There’s no alarm on the back door?” Jackson asked.
“Well, of course, but . . .”
“But?” Angela inquired.
“But we’re not a high crime zone, you know. When we come in each morning, we try to remember to lock it back up, but . . . and. It doesn’t matter. It’s not a coded lock—it’s a bolt You can’t get in that way, but if you want out, you unbolt it.”
Angela pulled out her phone; she already had the security tape on her phone. She started playing it, showing Arabella Watkins where she stood before the woman at the cash register, paid for her coffee—and moved down the counter and disappeared.
“You did see this woman,” Angela said.
“Of course! You see me behind the cash register.”
“Where did she go from there?” Jackson asked.
“How the hell do I know? You can see that the next customer is talking to me! I don’t have eyes in the side of my head,” the waitress protested.
“No, but you might have noticed a woman walking down the hallway,” Jackson noted.
He leaned forward, reading her badge. “Yes, Genie Appleby, I can see the police did interview you and I guess they were a little frustrated too by the fact that while you may not have eyes on the side of your head, you probably do have peripheral vision and might want to admit it if you saw someone take off. Especially if they weren’t alone! ”
Jackson realized the spirit of Trent Fielding had finished his search of the back and was standing just behind him.
“You need to see something,” he said.
“We’ll be back,” Jackson told the woman. “We’ll need to speak with your boss, too. But if he was in his office, I don’t expect he can see through doors.”
He gave Angela a nod. Trent led them to a door next to the hallway to the back. It was the one restroom with little visual signs that announced it was for men, women, and handicapped equipped.
“What?”
“Cops missed it, didn’t go through the garbage.
But then . . . well, this was just the last place she was seen; and when you can’t find a witness .
. . doubt if there would have been a just cause for them to get a search warrant.
Especially since we’re still only talking about her having been missing for so many hours.
And there were no reports of a heated argument, any form of fight or violence . . . anyway.”
Customers looked up as Jackson and Angela entered the bathroom together.
Jackson was ever more impressed with their very, very special spiritual agent, Trent Fielding. He winced as he slid into his pocket for gloves and then plowed his hand into the silver metal garbage bin attached to the wall. And in seconds, just under a layer of damp paper hand towels, he found it.
A syringe.
“We’ve got to get this to the lab right away,” he told Angela.
“We need to pull some other agents out here; grab a cop to get it in,” Angela said. “We need to find out what happened to Sadie McFarlane, see if we can find something like this from the area in front of her house—she was probably on her way here.”
“All right; I’ll give Bruce a call—he’ll get someone to help us. There are local guys here—they’ll be fastest.”
She was on the phone as he dug into his pockets for an evidence bag, secured the syringe, and then discarded his gloves.
And it worked just as he had hoped; a local cop was a block away. The syringe would be at their lab at headquarters within minutes.
And while they waited, he and Angela and Trent travelled the little hallway that led past the owner’s office to the back door where it was as the waitress had told them—just a push lock and a bolt.
You’d need a key to get in, but anyone could leave at any time without any kind of an alarm going off.
They knocked on the owner’s door and quickly received a “Come in, please.”