37. Luke
CHAPTER 37
Luke
After the longest night of my life, the sun had finally shown its face over the mountain peaks in the east. And Melanie was still missing.
My brothers and I—along with Anton, Nathan, and the Baileys—had spent most of the night searching. We’d checked the area around the high school, my place, hers, my parents’, her parents’, my shop, the streets downtown. Nothing. No sign of her except that syringe cap.
We’d talked to as many people at the game as possible, but no one remembered seeing anything suspicious. No one hanging around the restrooms or driving out of the parking lot too fast. Certainly no one carrying an unconscious woman and putting her in the trunk of a car.
He’d taken the other victims without a trace, too. The guy was a fucking ghost.
Garrett was at the sheriff’s office, doing his job. Which was exactly where I wanted him. He had access to resources I didn’t. And I knew my brother. If there was something I needed to know—whether or not he was supposed to tell me—he’d call .
But I also knew law enforcement might not be able to move fast enough.
Sometime in the middle of the night, most people had gone home to catch a few hours of sleep. Feeling angry and helpless, I’d gone to Melanie’s parents’ place and crashed on their couch. We had no new leads, and there wasn’t much we could do in the dark.
Anton, Krista, and I had been up before the sun and come to Home Slice to start organizing the search. People had started showing up soon after, including my brothers and a growing group of SPS members.
I stood next to the table where Anton had a map of the area spread out with broken crayons to mark the search teams. He looked like an old-school general preparing for war. He’d sent my dad and Josiah to search the area around the high school again. Zachary and a few other guys, including some of the Baileys, were heading toward Echo Creek, while another search party had already been sent east of town.
“Once we have a few more people, we’ll get a group searching the north end,” Anton said, placing a blue crayon on his map.
I nodded my assent, but it was hard to stand still. He kept insisting we had strength in numbers—that if we covered a large enough area, we’d find her. I wanted to share his confidence, but every minute that ticked by increased my dread.
She’d already been gone for hours.
But I didn’t have a better plan.
“What about here?” Krista pointed at the map. She’d been strangely calm since Melanie had gone missing. All business.
“There’s nothing out there,” Anton answered. “Not even any roads.”
“No cabins or anything?” she asked.
“The terrain is too rough.” He pointed at another area, closer to Echo Creek. “Here, though. We probably need a second group here.”
“What about in town?” she asked. “Why assume he’s been taking his victims somewhere isolated?”
“That’s the problem,” I said. “We don’t know. The other victims remember being chained to a wall, but all that tells us is that he has a place to take them. Even if every SPS member shows up to help, we can’t check every house in town. Not to mention Echo Creek and Pinecrest.”
“Isolated makes the most sense,” Anton said. “Otherwise, neighbors would hear.”
I was glad he didn’t finish his thought out loud—what the neighbors would hear. We knew what he meant.
A few more SPS members showed up. I wandered away from the table while they conferred with Anton. She was my woman, but she was also his daughter. For now, I was letting him take the lead—at least when it came to organizing volunteers.
I paced around the restaurant and checked my phone. I kept hoping Garrett would call with a new lead, a clue, a rumor—anything that would give us some direction. I understood Anton’s need to do something, and sending out search teams was certainly better than nothing. But we weren’t going to find her that way. Even if the whole town turned out to help look for her, they weren’t going to find her if The Whisper had her chained to a wall in some basement.
Theo came in, so I went over to talk to him.
“Any word from Garrett?” he asked.
“Nothing yet.”
“Fire department got called out to help with the wildfire. So we lost some guys.”
“Fuck,” I muttered.
“They weren’t happy about it, but I guess the wind picked up or something. It’s not threatening Tilikum, but it’s getting close to Echo Creek. They might have to evacuate. ”
“It doesn’t even matter.” I kept my voice low so the others wouldn’t hear me. “I appreciate what everyone’s trying to do, and we can’t sit around doing nothing. But how did this guy not leave a single clue? How did no one see anything? Hundreds of people were at the game last night.”
“It’s dark on that side of the parking lot.”
“Yeah, and everyone was busy watching Owen kill it on the field.”
Anger and fear churned in the pit of my stomach. We’d been through the possibilities at the scene. Whoever he was, he’d taken a big risk. As far as we knew, his other victims had been taken from more isolated places. This had been different. Why?
“Why?” I repeated the thought aloud.
“Why, what?”
“Why did he take her there? Why take anyone right then, when there were people around? Why not grab another jogger or a hiker on a trail or someone coming out of another bar at night?”
“Maybe because we were ready for those things.” He paused, his brow furrowing. “Or maybe he’s escalating. Isn’t that what Garrett said? First victims were at night. Then the others were during the day. Maybe taking a woman from a crowded place was his way of upping the ante.”
“Some kind of sick challenge.”
The door opened and my heart almost stopped dead in my chest. For a split second, I thought it was Mel. But it wasn’t. The woman who walked in had long dark hair and a similar build, but it wasn’t Melanie.
Except… I did recognize her. She was Bella Lewis, The Whisper’s second victim. There were still signs of bruising on one side of her face and her arm was in a sling.
One of the SPS members rushed to the front to intercept her. Roy Lewis, if I remembered correctly. “Bella, what are you doing here? ”
“I want to help, Uncle Roy.” Her expression was determined. “There has to be something I can do for her.”
I had an almost irresistible urge to hug her. She’d survived the unthinkable, and there she was, full of defiance and strength.
She was also a link to him. The last thing I wanted to do was traumatize her by asking questions. She’d already talked to law enforcement, but if she knew something—anything—that could help us find Melanie…
“You should go back home,” Roy said to her.
“No,” she said. “Let me help.”
“Wait.” I put my hand up and walked over to them. “You’re one of the survivors, aren’t you?”
She nodded.
“He has my girlfriend.”
Concern flashed across her features. “You’ve got to let me help.”
“Bella—” her uncle said.
“No. I’m not going home. I can’t sit around while this happens to another woman.” Her expression darkened. “Someone needs to catch this asshole.”
I led her to the first open table, just a few steps behind me, and we both sat. Theo and Roy took the remaining chairs.
“I know you already talked to the police, and I don’t want to make you relive it,” I said. “But we’ve got hordes of people out there searching aimlessly.”
“It’s okay, I can talk about it,” she said, her voice clear and strong. “I did talk to the police, and I don’t know if there’s anything else I can tell you. But I’ll try.”
“Do you have any sense of where he might have taken you?”
“Not really. I don’t remember a lot after he grabbed me.”
“Is it okay if I ask about him?”
“Yes, but I didn’t see his face. He had a ski mask on the whole time. He didn’t seem very big. Kind of skinny, actually. I was surprised he could carry me as easily as he did.”
“You remember being carried inside?”
She nodded. “I was groggy, but awake. My wrists and ankles were bound and there was tape over my mouth. He picked me up out of the trunk and put me over his shoulder. We went inside a building, but I couldn’t see much. There were stairs, though, I’m sure of that. Once we were inside, he carried me down a flight of stairs.”
“What about the car? Did you get a look at it?”
“I keep trying to remember something about the car that might help, but I was so out of it. I saw it for a second when he put me over his shoulder, but I’m not even sure what color it was.”
“And I assume you didn’t see anything when he brought you out again.”
“No, he drugged me before he even unfastened me from the wall. I don’t remember anything. I woke up in the woods.”
“The sheriff’s department has been searching the areas where the victims were found,” Theo said.
“I know, but they’re all random. He left them in different places.” I rubbed my forehead and raked my fingers through my hair. “Melanie could be anywhere.”
“Melanie?” Bella asked. “Is that her name?”
I nodded. “Melanie Andolini.
“That’s so weird,” she said, her tone taking on a tinge of fear.
“What’s weird?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it again with a slight shake of her head. Roy put a reassuring hand on her back.
“Sorry, I didn’t remember it until you said that name,” she said. “But he was calling me Melanie. He wanted me to answer to it. It made him angry when I didn’t do it right.”
“He called you Melanie?” I asked .
“I think so. I could be remembering wrong. So much happened and I was so scared.”
I looked past her, my eyes unfocused. “It is him.”
“It’s who?” Roy asked.
I stood, my brain spinning, trying to piece things together. “Anton, I think it’s him. I think it’s the same guy who took her in LA.”
Anton looked up from his map. “Why?”
I walked over to his table. “That’s Bella Lewis. She was one of the victims. He called her Melanie and tried to get her to answer to it.” Leaning closer, I lowered my voice. “And she looks like Mel. A little bit, don’t you think?”
His eyes flicked to Bella. “Similar.”
“Even if you’re right, what does that tell us?” Krista asked.
“It tells us she was the target all along.” I started pacing again while I thought it through. “And it tells us he’s not a local. He followed her here.”
“How?” Krista asked. “And why now? It was eleven years ago.”
“I don’t know. Right now, there’s no way to know what he’s been doing for the last eleven years. But I think he came here to finish what he started.” I kept moving, walking back and forth between Bella’s table and Anton’s. “Melanie moved back in June, and the abductions started after that. But that doesn’t help much. Tilikum is crawling with tourists all summer. One more new face wouldn’t stand out.”
“If he’s an out-of-towner and he followed her here, where’s he staying?” Theo asked. “Rentals book up for the summer at least six months in advance. Just ask Josiah. How did he get a place?”
“Good question. It would have to be something off the beaten path. Not in town.” I stopped and looked at Bella. “You said you woke up when you were still in the car?”
She nodded .
“Any idea how long you were in there?”
“No, I don’t know how long I was unconscious.”
“Do you remember anything else about being in the trunk?” I asked. “Was it big or were you cramped?”
“Cramped.” She paused, her forehead creasing. “I think I woke up because I was bouncing around so much. But that stopped, and the road got smoother again. Not smooth like a highway. But better than the bumpy part.”
“Gravel road, probably,” Theo said.
“I’m not sure if it was.” Bella paused again, her eyes on the table like she was trying hard to remember. “Gravel roads can be bumpy, but this was different. We kept going up and down, up and down, like he was driving over something. It was rhythmic, not random like potholes or driving off-road.”
For a moment, I stared at her, and my ribs ached with remembered pain. “Did it feel like driving over railroad ties? Like following the actual tracks?”
“Yeah, that’s exactly it,” she said. “The bumps were regular, in a pattern like a railroad track.”
“I think I know where that is,” I said, not sure who I was really talking to. My mind was racing, trying to remember exactly where that had been.
“Where?” Theo and Anton asked at the same time.
“There’s a railroad bridge near the old racetrack. Has to be out of service. I don’t think it connects to anything. The guy who drove me to the hospital took us over it, said it was a shortcut to Echo Creek. I thought it was going to kill me.”
“Where is it?” Anton asked.
I hurried over to his map and pointed. “The racetrack is roughly here. There are a couple of old dirt roads that lead to it from the highway, but obviously they’re not on here.”
Tilting my head and gazing at the map, I tried to make sense of the hazy memories from the night of the crash. Which way had we gone?
“It’s gotta be around here.” I pointed at a thin blue line that snaked across the terrain outside Echo Creek. “It was dark, so I couldn’t see much, but the bridge crossed over a ravine. There could be a creek at the bottom. Over on this side, it’s pretty flat. There could easily be a hunting cabin or something in this area.”
“Maybe even something abandoned,” Anton said.
“Luke,” Theo said, and the alarm in his voice caught my attention.
“What?”
“That’s where the fire’s headed.”
He handed me his phone, open to a map of active wildfires. The main burn was east of there, but if it was moving toward Echo Creek, that bridge—and any dwellings in the area—were right in its path.
Without a word, I tossed Theo his phone and ran for the door.
Questions were shouted at my back, but I didn’t have time to answer. In seconds, I was in my car, tires peeling out in the parking lot.
I didn’t know if I was right. Maybe the bridge was a dead end. I’d have to trust Garrett and his crew—and everyone else who was looking for her—to act if they discovered better information. If the trail led somewhere else, they’d follow it.
But that psycho had her, and if I was right, the fire was headed straight for them.