Opening Moves

Just knowing that he was there alone with Colleen was, admittedly, exhilarating. There was no longer any urgency to move on her.

Joshua had decided to wait and watch her and take her at nine.

His day job called for him to have a police scanner, so last night after he had Colleen, he’d used it to listen to the chatter regarding the chase for Vincent. Amidst the confusion, an officer had reported that he had the suspect in custody, but not long after that he announced that he was still at large.

So then, when Joshua’s portable phone rang, he hadn’t been sure if the person on the other end who was assuring him that he’d left a black man in the alley was Vincent or not. With all the sirens and all the chatter on the dispatch radio, he’d suspected it might be a cop.

Today he wasn’t going to take any chances. He was going to get started on Adele before five, before Carl was scheduled to make the call.

He lifted her, still unconscious, from the trunk, then nudged the hatch closed with his elbow.

Last night, Colleen Hayes.

Tonight, Adele Westin.

And it was going to be even better than it had been with Colleen.

Trudging across the gravel, he carried his captive toward the boxcar.

29

We were almost to HQ when we heard from Corsica that Bruce Hendrich worked a couple days a week as a security guard in the abandoned train yards just off I-94 near the Domes.

I thought of the location of the yards. I’d driven past them dozens of times, but they were encircled with razor wire fence and I’d never entered them. The surrounding neighborhoods were infested with gangs, drug dealers, and junkies. You’d have to be either pretty bold or pretty stupid to work a part-time security job in that part of town.

Unless you just wanted a place where you could take people in the dark and not arouse suspicion.

I mentally reviewed the most likely travel routes from the Hayes residence to the yards. Unless the kidnapper took an unusually circuitous route, he would have had to pass by Miller Brewery to get there, which could explain the yeast smell that Colleen remembered.

My thoughts slipped back to the account of the tree house I’d given to Ralph earlier: If someone knew the area, he would know where to take a girl. A place he could be alone with her.

Different killers, same need: seclusion. The tree house made sense and so did the train yards.

There weren’t any trains running through there these days, so it made sense that Colleen wouldn’t have heard one pass by. The location was isolated enough so that, if her abductor had taken her to one of the freight cars or boxcars, no one would’ve heard her scream. Colleen had mentioned that it was cold, as though he might have taken her to a garage or something. A boxcar fit that too.

If he took her to the train yards, he would have plenty of privacy to do just about anything he wanted with her. And even if, by some chance, someone did happen to hear her scream, the yards weren’t in a part of town where people were particularly inclined to call the authorities.

Before she ended the transmission, Corsica mentioned that Hendrich hadn’t been home when Lyrie arrived to speak with him and it’d taken him a while to find out from a neighbor where Hendrich worked. Apparently, he was new to the area and wasn’t that well-known by his neighbors. She mentioned that the team was looking more carefully into his background.

I resaddled the radio. “Ralph, let’s stop by the train yards. Have a look around before it gets dark.”

“Now you’re talking my language.”

To cover our bases, we called in to have Lyrie remain parked at Hendrich’s house in case he returned home, then I turned our car around.

Sundown was almost here and I felt as if I were stepping into the zone again, the thing I live for, and I admit I didn’t quite observe the speed limit as I drove toward the train yards.

Joshua slid the unconscious woman into the boxcar, then promptly clicked on the battery-operated light, shut the door, and locked it from the inside.

He tied Adele to the chair.

Blond hair, a sea green sweater, black jeans. He decided to leave her clothes on while he worked on her. That way, when they found her without her hands or feet, the blood-drenched clothes would add to the dramatic effect. Increase the shock value.

Or maybe not. Maybe leaving her nude would shock them more.

Well, that was certainly something to consider.

Earlier he’d propped ten mattresses against the walls of the boxcar to absorb the sounds. Now, every time he took a step, there was only a tiny muffled echo from the wooden floorboards, an echo that was quickly devoured by the improvised baffling.

Adele was beginning to stir, but it would still take her a few minutes to wake up.

Next order of business, his clothes.

He knew it would be shockingly cold if he were to stand here naked himself, but he’d found out last night with Colleen Hayes that, even with the plastic ties around her wrists, there was still a lot of blood. Tonight he didn’t want any of it getting on his clothes, so after one more moment of mental preparation, he removed his shoes, stripped off his clothes and placed them in one of the plastic bags, then tucked the bag in the corner of the boxcar.

Actually, he thought the chilled air might add to the excitement of what he was doing. Sharpen his awareness. Heighten the experience.

Adele was blindfolded and that was important to Joshua. No woman other than his wife had ever seen him naked and he didn’t want that to change tonight.

Barefoot now, and unclothed, he walked to the mattress he’d left the amputation saw on top of yesterday. Caught up in his thoughts, he absentmindedly stroked the blade for a moment. Yes, he was anxious to get started, but he wanted Adele to be fully awake and aware, like Colleen had been last night, before he cut off any of her extremities.

At last, leaving the saw there for the moment, he faced Adele, and naked, apart from the latex gloves he wore on his hands, he watched her as she slowly began to awaken.

30

I parked beside the train yard.

Somewhere nearby there was supposed to be an access road to the yard’s parking lot, but I wasn’t familiar with the labyrinthine roads in this neighborhood, nor was I in the mood to drive around trying to figure out where to go. I decided Ralph and I could find a quicker way past the fence.

Looking at the rusted condition of most of the train cars, I was struck by a thought: this wasn’t just a train yard, it was a train graveyard.

I put that thought out of my mind: “graveyard” was not a term I wanted bouncing around inside my head at the moment.

The sun had dipped to the skyline, leaving the whole yard draped in one long sweeping shadow. Though the snow had stopped, the wind was picking up and scraped at my face as we exited the undercover car. I zipped up my leather jacket.

Ralph stood beside me, scrutinizing the area. The wind caught hold of his jacket and pressed it against his hulking chest, making it look like a dark, rippling second skin.

“How do you want to do this?” he asked me.