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He jotted notes on a pad, then looked up.
"A woman has gone missing in Chestnut Hill. It's just been called in."
"What are the details?" May said, feeling a flare of pure panic, because if it was the same perpetrator, then he was escalating. How many more was he going to take? And what would happen next? Was he really intending to seal the bunker so that these women might never be found? Or did he have darker and more violent intentions in mind?
"Her name is Hailey Booth. She's blonde, twenty years old. She was taking a bus to see her mother. She never arrived, and the mother confirmed with her housemate that she'd left. Her phone was found by the side of the road, smashed, between a park and an industrial area."
"Any cameras?" May asked.
"I'm checking. But it seems not."
"And what did Hailey do?" She wondered if this woman, too, had a skill that a survivalist would look for. Shooting, farming, and botany had been among the skills so far.
"She is a part-time assistant at a fashion store. And studying history of art."
May felt briefly puzzled by this. It didn't seem to fit in with the profiles of the other victims who had been taken. A store assistant? Why her? How could history of art possibly align with a survivalist's needs?
With a chill, she thought of another reason.
What if he'd grabbed her to use as an example to the others? She remembered what Chloe had said, and the threats he’d made about killing her. After Chloe escaped, he might be looking to make sure it didn’t happen again. In that case, he could be looking for someone expendable, whose only purpose would be to serve as a deterrent to anyone else planning the same thing.
That made May go cold with fear. She turned to Owen.
"Call me if you find anything on the backhoes and machinery," she said. "It might be more urgent than we think. This guy is escalating, and I’m worried he’s going to start killing. Because this woman seems to be someone he doesn't need. She has no survivalist skills. And that can mean there's only one reason why he's taken her."
She saw Owen's face turn to stone. Her deputy had realized exactly what she meant.
May didn't want to waste any more time. She felt sick inside. She needed to get back to the northern road, and question whoever she could find there, to pinpoint this bunker and save its occupants.
***
Just ten minutes later, May was on the north road heading into the woods. "Road" was pushing it, she decided. With the heavy fall rains they'd had recently, the road was little more than a sodden track. Her car slid and fishtailed along the deep, muddy ruts. She did her best to keep her eyes on the treacherous terrain, while also looking out for any sign of homes or dwellings nearby.
People living here would be their best witnesses, but May knew these people were off the grid, probably behind on the news, and definitely distrustful of the police.
There was the first home, ahead.
It was a small wooden cabin, about twenty yards off the road and almost concealed in the bushes.
May veered over, swerving through the thicker mud on the roadside, and climbed out.
She squelched up to the cabin. It was tiny, probably just a one-bedroom place, and all the windows looked to be closed. She thought this was probably just a hunter's stopover, but she knocked on the door in case.
Nobody answered. There was no response to her anxious hammering. And she felt the place was empty. This did not bode well. What if she couldn’t find anyone to help in this sparsely populated part of the woods?
At that moment, her phone rang. It was Owen.
"May, I've followed up on all the backhoe and machinery hire companies in the area. Nobody seems to know anything. There have been two I haven't gotten hold of yet. One guy did say that his firm delivered a huge steel girder to a location deep into the woods, but he didn’t know where, and I can’t get hold of the guy who made the delivery. What should I do?"
"Come out and start looking," she said. "The more eyes we have out there, the better."
Looking ahead, she saw another house about five hundred yards on, deep in the woods. May tramped through the undergrowth in its direction. As she walked, she realized with a shiver that any encounter from here on out might be with the actual perpetrator himself. She had no idea where he lived. What if she ended up knocking on his door?
He could be clever enough to fake ignorance and lie, even if for a brief moment. So, she had to keep a lookout for any bigmen, strong-looking and bearded, in their thirties. If such a man answered the door, she’d need to be very careful.
With that in mind, she headed up the narrow track to the house and knocked.
A minute later, it was opened just a crack.
