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Malcolm thumbed through a few more messages and found the thread with Sandra. Hannah knew what those said, too. She told Sandra she was going to Boston with Danny for the day and needed her to run interference with her mom. There were a few after that, but Malcolm didn’t need to read them all, the last was enough—
Got you covered!
His toothy grin widened when he got to it. A large fly hopped from the corner of his mouth to his chin and circled around to the back of his neck. Hannah barely saw him. Her gaze was locked on her phone, what Malcolm did next. He opened a new message to Hannah’s mom and typed—
Hey mom, when you suck cock do you think it’s better to spit or swallow?
His thumb hovered over the Send button but he didn’t press it. Instead, he pressed the Back button and deleted the text one character at a time. “If I have to, I can send messages to your mom, to Sandra, whoever. I already turned off your location services, did that before we started driving, so nobody can track you. You needto listen to me very carefully. What happens next is completely up to you.” He set her phone aside and reached for the tape on her mouth. “If I take this off, you promise not to scream?”
Hannah nodded.
“Nobody knows you’re here,” Malcolm repeated, slower this time, as he peeled away the tape.
“I won’t tell anyone!” Hannah managed when he pulled the rag out. “I’ll tell them I didn’t see who shot Danny. Drop me out on Route 112 somewhere. I’ll tell them I woke up out there and I don’t remember anything after banging my head. We can still fix this. We can—”
“Shhhh.” Malcolm pressed a grimy finger to her lips. “There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to put it out there. You’re number seven, Hannah. You’re the seventh girl I’ve brought out here. You haven’t heard of any of them for the same reason you haven’t read about me or seen me on TV … I’m very good at what I do. Each of those girls—”
A floorboard squeaked somewhere behind him, and Malcolm spun around, squeezing the handle of the screwdriver.
His movement stirred the dust, but there was nobody.
“Who’s there?” Malcolm called out.
There was no response.
Had he checked the house? Probably not. He’d opened the trunk right after they stopped moving. There were no other cars outside. The place was far too remote for someone to walk.
Several flies had perched on the wall behind Malcolm’s head, watching them.
Hannah let out a soft whimper.
“Shhh.” Malcolm growled. “Shut the hell up.”
At least a minute slipped by without another sound.
With all the windows boarded up, Hannah couldn’t see much. Thin streams of light shone through between the cracks, sliced up the dark. She caught glimpses of old rotten furniture,discarded cans and bottles, snippets of graffiti on the walls. No movement, though. That didn’t mean they were alone.
Still holding Hannah’s phone, Malcolm switched on the flashlight. He teased the light over the dilapidated interior, rolling over the walls and floor. When he played the light over the floor of the hallway leading deeper into the house, a breath caught in his throat.
41
Matt
WHEN MATT PASSED THEsign that saidLOWER FALLS, 1/2 MILE, he slowed his cruiser. A few moments later, he came upon the abandoned red Honda. Nose down in the ditch, ass up, doors open, tags stripped just as Ellie had said. He slowed further as he drove by the car, tried to get a glimpse inside, but the windows were smeared with mud. He took a few pictures with his phone. About fifty feet beyond the Honda, he came upon a dark blue Buick stripped of its tags, one he recognized as belonging to Lonnie Floyd. Lonnie owned the Gas ’n’ Go on the far side of town, near the high school, and usually manned the register on Sundays so his wife could attend church.
Matt passed three more abandoned cars on the left before they began appearing on the right side of the street, too. He photographed all of them. Most had flat tires—not just one flat, but all four—and that kind of thing didn’t happen by chance or accident. He slowed his cruiser to a crawl, carefully scanning the pavement ahead for boards with nails or some other kind of hazard. By thetime he came upon Ellie’s cruiser, he’d passed twelve other cars and had yet to see a single person.
Like most of the others, both front doors were open, and her tires were flat. The cruiser was angled in the breakdown lane, the tail end partially blocking the road. None of her lights were on, not even her flashers, and that was strange because if Ellie was a stickler for anything, it was protocol.
Matt parked behind her, switched off his motor, and took out his gun for the third time today, and that wasn’t lost on him, either. Until today, he’d only removed it from its holster twice in the line of duty over all his years in uniform, and now three times in a single day.
Stepping from the car, the air felt oddly still, like stepping out into a void. There was no breeze. He didn’t hear any birds or animals scurrying around in the woods on either side of him. All he heard was the gentle hum of Lower Falls about a quarter mile up the mountain to the east and the tick of his cooling engine. Considering all the abandoned cars, none of that made sense.
Where did the people go?
As he neared, Matt realized Ellie’s tires weren’t just flat, they’d been shredded. Nails hadn’t done this. He’d seen this kind of damage before. This was caused by a spike strip or something similar. He had one in his trunk. When deployed, it covered a distance of twenty-five feet and a width of ten inches. It had hundreds of triangular spikes designed to penetrate and tear rubber. He’d never had to use it, but he’d been trained on it in the academy. He had little doubt that’s what caused this, and probably the others, too.
Looking back out over the stretch of road, he saw no sign of a spike strip, but he did see fresh skid marks zigzagging the asphalt. They started about a quarter mile back and ended with the abandoned cars.
