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The outside of the theater was charred in an uneven pattern. Faith could see exactly where the flames had traveled, scorching parts of the structure and leaving others relatively untouched. One of the untouched portions of the façade proudly announced ALLOWAY, all that remained of the building’s name.
She jogged to the entrance, but it was completely blocked. The exterior of the building seemed mostly intact, but inside, much of the structure had collapsed. The front doors were blocked by piles of burnt wood, shattered drywall and twisted metal.
She jogged around the side of the building, gun drawn. Turk followed, his nose to the ground, but he didn’t smell anything yet. Or, like Faith, all he could smell was the acrid, acidic tang of ash and charcoal.
One side of the building dead ended in another pile of rubble. Faith felt panic creeping to the edges of her mind. She’d been outside of the building for fifteen minutes already. The killer could have finished and be on his way out of here. Her only hope was that he had been as stymied as she was.
But he was already inside. He might have been stymied, but he was already inside. Damn it, she was going to be too late.
“No!” she snapped, loudly enough that Turk’s head whirled her direction. She sighed and said, “Never mind. Come with me.”
She ran to the other side of the building, moving at a dead sprint. Turk followed at what for him was an easy jog. The other side wasn’t blocked, but there were no entrances for the fifty yards that stretched from the entrance to the rear of the theater.
The back of the theater consisted of a dirt lot with piles of what Faith guessed used to be props and stage equipment. Now, they just looked like haphazard piles of indiscriminate rubble.
More importantly, Faith still couldn’t find a damned way in. The back door only opened a few inches when she pushed it. Behind those few inches was more rubble.
Had the killer blocked the way in? Had he tried to keep Faith out because he knew someone was coming for him? He might have realized he was on camera and decided to take precautions.
She pushed hard, but the door didn’t budge anymore.
“Damn it!” she hissed.
She looked around and found an open window on the second floor. It didn’t seem possible that the killer could have gotten in through there.
But it didn’t matter. Faith needed to get inside.
An even more horrible thought occurred to her. What if this was all a waste of time? What if the van was abandoned, too? What if there was no one here, and Faith was putting all of this effort to scout an empty building?
She had been here for twenty minutes now. Surely most of the other locations nearby were being patrolled as well. If they had found anyone, they would have told her. Could they have been wrong? Could the killer have gone somewhere else entirely? Could this kidnapping be unrelated to their murder, and now two killers were getting away with their crimes while Faith and her colleagues were chasing their tails?
Turk barked, and Faith blinked and looked at him. He looked at the second-floor window pointedly, then looked back at her.
She smiled grimly at him. “You’re right, Turk. Enough second-guessing. Time to catch a bad guy.”
She looked at the window. It was about ten feet off the ground, not especially high. If she stacked some debris, maybe two feet tall, she could jump and reach it and pull herself in. Then Turk could jump into her arms, and she could help him in too.
She ran to the nearest pile. This looked like old prop furniture. It also appeared recently disturbed. A couple of the couches rested on their legs in front of the pile. It seemedunlikely that it could have just been left there. Maybe the killer had moved it to get himself and his victim into the building.
She dragged the couch underneath the window and tested her weight. It splintered almost immediately, the right legs snapping cleanly through the middle. She nearly fell, only just catching herself to keep from falling.
Well, if the killer had used that one, he had used every last bit of its structural integrity. She dragged the other couch to the window.
This couch wasn’t very steady, but it would hold well enough. She crouched low and jumped up. Her hands caught the edge of the window, and she quickly lifted herself up and through, grimacing against the fatigue in her upper body.
When she was inside, she turned around and called Turk. Turk hesitated for a second, then jumped up. She caught him and carefully pulled him in through the window.
“Good boy,” she said. “Let’s go get him.”
They were in a narrow hallway with doors on either side. Faith drew her weapon again and looked through the rooms. They were all empty.
The second floor was in somewhat better shape than the first floor appeared to be, though. That seemed odd to Faith, but she wasn’t going to waste time wondering what kind of fire would have done that.
The hallway ended at another hallway. Behind her were restrooms, and ahead was a door marked MEZZANINE. She checked the restrooms and found more fire damage. The stalls were all twisted, the plastic bubbled and cracked and the metal bent. The porcelain was blackened, and there were holes in the ceiling through which Faith could see the stars. The moisture those holes had allowed in had left spreading growths of black mold on the ground. The smell assaulted Faith, and her nostrils flared.
But Turk reacted oddly. He stiffened and turned back the other way. His face wore the same expression it had when he was investigating the crime scenes.
Faith’s heart leapt. “Do you smell something, boy?”
