He hung up and called 4-1-1 for a number for Ada Levinson. As he listened to its empty ringing, his fear mounted. He disconnected and called the police department. Fred Marshall, the senior dispatcher, answered on the second ring.
“Fred, this is Will Anderson. Is Jen there?”
“Oh, hello, Will. No, she’s not. She left with Williams close to an hour ago. Her kid’s looking for her, too, and for you.”
“Brandon? What do you mean?”
“He called about ten minutes ago. Said something about Vic Hensley calling him and telling him to meet you and Jen at the Oxbow. I guess he’d been there for some time and was starting to get worried when you two didn’t show up. I told him neither of you were here, and Vic wasn’t even working.”
“Give me Al’s home number.” He pulled to the side of the road, scribbled the number down on the back of his hand, and made a decision. There was no sense taking any chances.
“I’m going to call Al. I’m on my way back, but it will probably take me an hour and a half. Have a marked unit head over to Jen’s apartment, and have one go by the Oxbow and pick up Brandon Dillon. Take him to the building.”
He took a deep breath.
“Tell the officers you send to Jen’s to use caution.”
“What’s going on? The officers will want to know.”
“I’m not sure. I got a call that my little girl had been hurt, but she’s fine. I just left my ex-wife’s house, and her phone line had been cut. Now you tell me Brandon got a call to meet his mother and me at a restaurant, but we never planned any such thing. Somebody wanted me and Brandon out of the picture.”
He swallowed heavily and voiced what he was afraid was true.
“I think our killer has made his move.”
He heard Marshall swear on the other end as he hung up. He punched in Al’s number and pulled back onto the road. A brief conversation confirmed his fears. Al had dropped Jen off in front of her apartment building over half an hour ago. He’d last seen her walking toward the front door.
CHAPTER 52
Jen opened her eyes and stared groggily into blackness, relieved that it was still dark. She was so sleepy. Darkness meant she still had a few hours to sleep before it would be time to get up for work. Closing her eyes again, she wondered why the washer was running at this hour of the night. She hadn’t put any clothes in, and Brandon never did laundry.
She opened her eyes again and listened. Something was wrong, the world was out of kilter, and she felt very confused. The washer didn’t sound right. The bedroom smelled funny, too, like gasoline and oil, and the bed was too hard. Her mouth was incredibly dry, and her head hurt.
She tried to reach up to feel her head and felt a moment of panic. She was paralyzed. Her arms wouldn’t move! Then she became aware of something on her wrists, and memory flooded back, shooting pain through her head and fear through her heart. Panic overwhelming her, she tried to scream before realizing she was gagged as well as tied. Whoever had attacked her had done a good job of incapacitating her. She lay still in the darkness, fighting the fear and trying to slow her breathing.
As the panic subsided, she realized she was in the trunk of a moving car. She tried to wiggle her arms and legs. Her hands were bound from behind with what felt like handcuffs, very likely her own. Her legs were bound together with what felt like rope, and something with the consistency of a sponge was stuffed in her mouth and held in place by a cloth tied around her head.
Suddenly the memory of Ada lying still on the bedroom floor flooded into her mind. The old lady must have surprised whoever was hiding in the apartment. Jen remembered the groans she had heard and prayed Ada would be all right.
Brandon! Panic threatened to overwhelm her again. Had he been in one of the other rooms, lying still like Ada, his head bloody? She felt the tears coming and fought them back. She had to be “fire,” as Brandon would have said, using his generation’s word for “cool.” Maybe he was all right, or maybe the monster behind the wheel of the car had him. She had to be fire, and she had to get loose.
She flexed her legs. The rope seemed a little loose, and she sawed her legs up and down, gaining more freedom of motion with each try. The rope slid over her pants legs; as she continued her sawing motion, she felt the rope pull on her knee-high stockings and begin to abrade the skin of her ankles. Working her toes around, she forced first one pump off, then the other, and continued moving her legs up and down.
Finally, with a tremendous strain, she was able to force the rope over her left heel. Using the toes of her right foot, she moved the rope down a fraction of an inch on the front of her left foot, then moved it a little farther over her heel, then again on the front of her foot. After what seemed an eternity, the left foot of her knee-highs ripped, and the rope slid off with the stocking. She shook it off her right foot and rested.
***
Al’s and Lonnie’s timing couldn’t have been better if they had synchronized their watches. Their respective cars pulled into Jen’s lot at precisely the same moment, and they both bailed out, already in a half run for the door. A marked unit was only seconds behind
