Part 1 (2/2)
Another negligible shrug prompted a second wince of pain. ”If I did, I don't remember doing it. I think I just looked away.”
For several more seconds she didn't speak. She was remembering. The horror of that night danced across her face as easy to read as the breaking news scroll on a cable channel.
”I put my laundry bag in the backseat and closed the door, that's when I noticed the tire was flat.” She clamped her lips together and still they trembled.
”You drive a 1971 Toyota Corolla?” Jess knew the answer, but she needed to nudge Melaney past the shame she'd snagged on. For the rest of her life, she would question her every move from that night. Had she done this or that things might have turned out differently.
What Melaney Lands didn't grasp was that she had been chosen. Her hair color was the one he preferred. She had the right figure. She fit the profile of the women the Player selected. Nothing she did or didn't do would have made a difference.
”Yes.”
”The flat tire was on the...?” Jess held her pencil poised to take down the answer. It was the mundane that most often prodded forth the notable.
”The driver's side. Rear tire. I said s.h.i.+t or something like that. When I looked up, he was standing right beside me. I jumped, and he apologized for scaring me. He offered to help. There wasn't anybody else around so I said okay.” Tears slipped down her cheeks. ”I did what anybody else would have done... I didn't-”
”If you had said no,” Jess stopped her, ”he would have taken a different approach, but the end result would've been the same.” She held her gaze a moment more before moving on. ”He fixed your tire and then what happened?”
”d.a.m.ned thing wouldn't start.” She knotted her fingers in the sheet, her eyes bright with the fresh tears br.i.m.m.i.n.g there. ”It was running fine... before. I guess I must've been so upset I didn't lock the doors when I got in the car. Another stupid mistake. Then suddenly he was in the pa.s.senger seat next to me.” Her lips trembled. ”He used a hypodermic needle to inject a drug into my shoulder.” She drew her right shoulder into her body. ”When I woke up I was in a cage. There were two others... we were all in cages.”
The ketamine, Spears's drug of choice, worked fast. There would have been little time or strength for a struggle. The story from both women was basically the same except for the setting. Claudia Brown, a graduate student at A&M College, lived in Somerville. She was taken by a different man from the alley behind her apartment. Her cat hadn't come in for dinner. At bedtime, Claudia had gone outside to look for the missing pet that, as it turned out, was alive and well ten-blocks away.
The woman Spears had kept, Rory Stinnett, was from Orange Beach. She was a student at the same university as Melaney, but the two hadn't known each other until they ended up in those cages in a white room with glaring fluorescent lights. They had described the cages as being made of heavy gauge metal wire, similar to the ones used to crate large dogs. The cages allowed the women to see one another and to communicate.
Some memory Jess couldn't quite grasp nudged her. Something to do with cages.
”Once you were in the cage,” Jess asked, moving on, ”you never saw anyone other than the masked man?” According to their statements, a man wearing a ski mask had checked on them daily.
Melaney shook her head, corroborating the answer Claudia had given. After viewing catalogs of mug shots, including photos of Spears, both women had confirmed what everyone else suspected: Spears was not one of the abductors and he wasn't the masked man. There was a strong possibility that he hadn't been anywhere near these women.
His presence was irrelevant, in Jess's opinion. This was his doing whether he was at the scene of the crime or not.
He had started a new game, and Jess was way behind the curve.
She blinked away the distraction. Stay on the facts. You already know his motive.
The women were dehydrated, bruised, and emotionally wounded but that was the extent of their injuries. During those ten long days of captivity, the man wearing a mask had dropped a bottle of water and a container of nuts and dried fruits into their cages daily. Not once had he attempted to touch the women or even to speak to them. But then torturing or murdering anyone at this stage in the game wasn't the goal-wasn't even on the agenda.
Spears had other plans.
”Since he didn't speak,” Jess ventured, ”how can you be certain the person wearing the mask was a man?” There were numerous reasons to make the a.s.sumption but she wanted to hear each woman's rationale for coming to that conclusion. The smallest new insight might make a difference.
”His hands.” Melaney's brow furrowed as if she were concentrating hard on the question. ”He had big hands with thick fingers.”
”He didn't wear gloves?”
Another shake of her head confirmed he had not. Just went to show the level of confidence the man had in the hiding place used for holding the women. Claudia had mentioned his broad shoulders and muscled arms, as well as his hands. She'd also said he had dark eyes. Jess suspected Melaney had kept her gaze lowered whenever their keeper entered the room. Claudia, on the other hand, had studied his height, six feet at least, and his build-a little on the stocky side.
According to the descriptions provided by Melaney and Claudia, different men had abducted them at approximately the same time on the same night. Both insisted Rory had described yet a third man. All three women had received a phone call about winning a weekend getaway. That ruse had served a simple purpose, ensuring no one who knew the women grew suspicious when they disappeared. The abductions were a carefully ch.o.r.eographed series of untraceable steps in various locations for achieving the singular goal of a madman. The organized operation confirmed the Bureau's theory that Spears had built a network of followers ready to do his bidding.
”What happened when you were finally moved from the cages?”
”He drugged us again.” Melaney looked around the room as if searching for a safe place to rest her gaze. ”When we came to, we were on the side of the road. Naked and all tied up so we couldn't go for help.” Her lips trembled. ”But we were alive.”
She fell silent for a time. No doubt reliving the horrors and the relief.
”We started yelling for help. We kept screaming and crying, hoping someone would hear us. I don't know how much later-hours I guess-a trucker stopped. The guy was headed into the woods to pee when we managed to get his attention.” She exhaled a shuddering breath. ”Our voices were so weak by then it was a miracle he heard us.”
Jess had interviewed the truck driver who discovered the women on that Tennessee mountain road. Otis Berry was short, bone thin, and sixty-eight years old. He had a bad knee that caused him to hobble and a bad back that kept him stooped over, making him easy to rule out as a suspect.
”Can you tell me anything else about Rory?” Rory Stinnett was the third woman, the one Spears had chosen to keep. Victim number one. Jess worked at calming another bout of churning in her stomach.
Something awful was coming. Spears had some twisted finale planned. She could feel it. And, dammit, she couldn't seem to do anything to stop it.
”We cried and talked a lot. Tried to figure out ways to escape but none of them worked.” Melaney scrubbed at her tears with the backs of her hands. ”We didn't know whether he was going to kill us or what. He never told us anything. Until Claudia and I were with the police we had no idea what was going on.”
”I'm sure you'd seen the headlines about Eric Spears, the serial killer called the Player, before your abduction?” Just saying his name out loud changed the rhythm of Jess's heart. She tightened her grip on her pencil.
”I'm a nursing student. I don't have time for the news or anything else. But Claudia had heard of him and all those women he killed.” Melaney's voice quaked on the last.
Not just women. Jess didn't bother correcting her. Eric Spears had murdered a federal agent who'd graduated from the Bureau's training academy with her. The truth was there were likely far more victims than they suspected. They might never know just how many lives Eric Spears had taken... or would take before he was stopped.
Just let me close to him one more time.
”A few more questions, Miss Lands.” Jess resigned herself to the fact that she'd gotten all she was going to at this time. ”Do you remember how the place where you were held smelled? If there were any windows? Any other furniture? Could you hear any noises from the outside?”
Melaney shook her head in answer to each question.
Okay, go back to the beginning. ”Do you recall anything different or strange that happened in school or at home in the week or so before you were abducted? Besides the phone call about the weekend getaway you'd supposedly won?” Jess qualified.
The young woman stared at Jess as if she were completely overwhelmed and totally lost. Finally, she shook her head yet again, more tears s.h.i.+ning in her eyes as renewed defeat clouded her face.
Enough. Jess stood and moved to the side of her bed. She placed a business card on the tray table. She wasn't usually the touchy-feely type but she gave Melaney's hand a gentle squeeze just the same. ”Anything you remember or need, no matter when it is-day or night, tomorrow or weeks from now-you call me. Don't hesitate.”
A jerky nod was her answer.
”Thank you, Melaney.”
Jess turned and started for the door. She was thankful these two women were safe and unharmed for the most part. As grateful as she was, she wished something-anything-one or the other remembered could help them find Rory Stinnett.
<script>