Disembodied Bones (56 page)

“Did this corporation do anything else in the
area?” Scott asked.

“Looked at a few properties,” Sue said. “Then
settled on Lily’s house.”

Scott came and stood behind Gideon looking
down at the computer screen. Gideon was not so idly tapping at the
keys, desperately searching his mind for something else he could do
online, something that would have results that would mean
something. Scott saw the yellow note pad and the phone number
written at the bottom in inch large letters and circled three times
with exclamation marks at the end. He pointed at the number.
“What’s that?”

“John Martinez came up with a phone number,”
Sue replied. “But according to the records, it’s fake, too.”

Scott’s eyebrows came together in an ugly
scowl. He reached for his breast pocket and pulled out a sheath of
messages. Quickly he searched through the mass, disregarding notes
of paper and letting them fall away like snowflakes in Minnesota.
“If I hadn’t just used it yesterday,” he mumbled. “I wouldn’t have
thought about it. But that number,” he jabbed at the yellow legal
pad, “looks awfully familiar.”

More paper was shed. Scott frowned more. Sue
said, “Didn’t your mother ever tell you that if you made faces like
that it might stay that way, forever?”

“Shut up, Sue,” Scott said. “Here we go.” He
held the number out to Gideon. A name was jotted down next to the
number. “If the number is the same, then what does that mean?”

“
Elan Carter
has Leonie,” Gideon said
incredulously. “But I checked him out. He doesn’t have a criminal
record. He doesn’t have a speeding ticket. No ex-wives. No
bankruptcy courts. Not even a warrant for his arrest in Rio for
streaking at Carnival. He contracts for some big defense industry
plant in Grand Prairie. How in hell could I have missed that?”

Scott said, “You checked him out?”

“He was dating Leonie,” Gideon said. “Someone
was targeting her. I checked out all her friends, employees, even
her neighbors. Elan used dating to get close to her.”

“Another fake name?” Sue suggested.

“Maybe it’s a real name,” Gideon said slowly.
“But a borrowed one, like a cloned cellular phone.”

“So there’s a real Elan Carter in Grand
Prairie doing defense contracting stuff?”

“Yeah, then his record would check out. It’s
not like I checked driver’s license photos to see if he really was
Elan Carter.” Gideon suddenly groaned at his lack of
perception.

“What other properties did the corporation
look at?” Scott asked suddenly. “Did any of those sell
quickly?”

Sue snapped her gum. “The Henderson spread
did. Not to the corporation, of course. No, I think it was a couple
from Iowa who wanted to start a bed and breakfast. Then about a
month later there was that big section of land near Bard that went
to some developer. We didn’t really care because there’s nothing of
historical value there. The barn only dates from the forties and
the house burned down five years ago from a lightning strike. Let’s
see, it was a funny name. Something Egyptian. That’s why I remember
it. Cause it was a funny name.”

Gideon turned his head to stare at Sue.
“Egyptian?”

“Yeah. Sphinks Developers. Except they didn’t
spell it like you would if you were looking at the statue.
S-P-H-I-N-K-S.,” she spelled. Then added, “I assumed it was
Egyptian.”

“What?” she said, realizing that Gideon and
Scott were both staring at her.

“The riddle of the sphinx,” Scott said. “He’s
not exactly subtle, is he?”

“Another riddle?” Sue said.

“A reference to an infamous riddle,” Gideon
interjected. “Where is this place?”

“Near Bard. It’s about fifty miles south of
here.”

“Still in Pegram County?”

“Yeah.”

“Scott,” Gideon said. “It might not be the
place, but we have to go there. If I get closer to her, then maybe
I can tell what’s happening to her and where she’s at.”

Scott studied Gideon and nodded. “Handcuffs
stay on for now. You coming, Sue?”

“God, yes,” Sue agreed fervently. “This is
better than a soap opera.” She hesitated. “What about your phone
call from your deputy chief of police in Shreveport?”

“He’s already got the number for Scott’s
cellular,” Gideon said wryly.

•

There was darkness and only Elan’s flashlight
showing weakly around a corner. Any movement abruptly stopped as he
realized what she’d done. There was dreadful silence and Leonie
took the hesitation to feel around for one of the boards. She
wrapped a bloody hand around the 1X6 board, grasping it clumsily
with one hand and waited. More dirt spilled in from above and she
almost moved anyway, fearing that the earth would cave in on
her.

Elan didn’t move. She thought she could hear
his breathing intensify as she stood there, hoping that darkness
would conceal her from the revenge driven psychopath. True, he had
a flashlight, but he no longer had her. He no longer had Keefe, and
he didn’t have the means to find them quickly. Leonie hoped that
enough time would pass and she would be able to communicate once
more with Gideon. Once that occurred, he might be able to convince
Scott of her need, even if he had to lie to do it.

Leonie trembled as she waited. She wondered
what Elan was thinking. Was he calculating where she was or was he
thinking about slowly dismembering her while she was still alive?
Either way, she was on the losing side and it didn’t feel good.

“You have no idea what you’ve done, Leonie,”
Elan said finally. His voice was hoarse and threatening all at the
same time. He sounded as if he were shocked. “You shorted out the
electricity. You’ve killed the power. You damn little fool. Now
we’re both trapped.”

Leonie swallowed. She wanted to ask the
question. But Elan knew she was close, so he answered regardless of
her silence. “The doors are electric. They’re designed to shut down
with the power. Steel doors in steel frames, mounted to concrete
blocks. No little metal keys. No exit at all. It’ll take a fucking
pile driver to get through those doors and I’m not even sure if
that’s possible.” He laughed bitterly. “Someone would have to know
we’re down here. Someone who cares enough to move heaven and
earth.”

More silence followed. Leonie’s hand holding
the board began to shake. There was the earth above her threatening
to fall in on her and there was Elan who threatened her, period.
Behind her was a water filled pit that she could never hope to pull
herself out of if she fell in. Worse was that she suspected she
couldn’t really hit Elan hard enough with the 1X6 to do any damage
to slow him down. She couldn’t hold it very well with her damaged
hands.

Elan said, “No point in playing this game
anymore. We might as well end it right now.”

She heard a footstep. Then there was another
one. Elan was about to turn the corner and even with a narrow
flashlight beam he would see her. Leonie shut her eyes and prayed,
just as she had prayed when she was thirteen years old.

Leonie?

The headache came but it wasn’t as furious as
it had been. She opened her eyes and ignored Gideon with all of her
might, resisting the crushing impulse to cry out to him. She wanted
to scream out for him to help her. She was trapped in a dark place
with a monster just as bad as Monroe Whitechapel. His intention had
been to torture her, but now he merely wanted her dead, so he could
work on his own escape…again.

Then Elan stepped around the corner and
Leonie hit him with the board. The board smashed across his arm and
shoulder and snapped in two. The flashlight dropped to the ground
and rolled against the wall, softly illuminating both of them. Elan
snarled at her and stood in place, glaring at her as he rubbed his
shoulder. Leonie kept her eyes on Elan as she reached down for
another board, but all she could find was dirt. She straightened up
and inched back as much as she could.

“What are you going to do, Leonie?” Elan
taunted her. “Not a unicorn’s horn in sight. Just me. Just you.
I’ll find where you’ve put the child. I’ll make it quick for him.
Then I’ll get out. Just like I did before. But you won’t. No,
you’re staying down here. Forever and more.”

“What kind of stupid idiot makes a trap just
like the one he was in before?” Leonie said right back. “What kind
of demented fool makes the same mistake?”

Elan’s response was a low growl. In the muted
light he appeared demonic. His brown eyes were the color of pitch;
his hair was brushed back from his head, showing the hard slanting
lines of his face. He seemed just as insane as she thought him to
be.

Leonie swallowed her fear and said, “This
must be your worst nightmare, next to jail. Trapped in a pit,
without sunlight, without hope, and no one to know. You must feel
like you’re coming home.”

Elan launched himself at Leonie and with all
the strength in her arm she threw the dirt into his face. His body
collided into hers and knocked her back. She looked frantically
over her shoulder at the water filled pit and one foot teetered in
mid-air. Her arm cart wheeled crazily, trying to shift her balance
so that she wouldn’t fall in. Elan was scrubbing at his eyes,
teetering himself. He blinked madly and started to reach toward
her, clearly intending on pushing her in.

Leonie found a hidden source of energy and
she twisted away from the edge. She lowered her head and aimed her
shoulder into his stomach and charged. She crashed heavily into
him. Elan was thrust back into the wall with the embedded razors.
He issued forth a terrible scream that made her bones ache. She
turned and fled.

•

The road unfurled before Scott, Gideon, and
Sue. The county car ate up the tarmac like it was a long-awaited
lunch. Gideon reached up with both hands, still handcuffed, to
scratch his ear. He was sitting in back behind a grated barrier.
Sue and Scott were largely silent.

“What about a warrant, Scott?” Sue asked.

“We’re just looking around, Sue,” Scott said.
“If we happen to see some evidence, just lying around, well, then
there’s our probable cause. Judge Harvey will back me up. If we
don’t see anything at all, that’s another story.”

Gideon closed his eyes and laid his head
back. For a moment he was in a dark place and he was full of fear
and desperation. His feet bit into a hard cold floor and his hands
were broken and bleeding; the throbbing could be felt like a child
clashing cymbals together.
Leonie?

She was tempted for a scant second, but
something else was there. Gideon could feel the temptation like a
fever in his blood. Something was frightening her so badly that she
didn’t dare let her attention be on anything else. She blocked him
out of her mind and fled into the stuff of which nightmares are
made.

“Hurry,” Gideon said. Scott eyes met his in
the rearview mirror and he nodded once. Sue didn’t say anything.
Her eyes got large and round.

•

Trapped with Elan in a black hell with a man
who wanted her to suffer the indignities he had suffered, right
from the moment he was left to rot in cement cavity. Leonie felt
along the sides of the walls until she found the doorway back to
the room she’d woken in. Not taking the flashlight was a gamble.
Elan clearly still feared the darkness as he’d brought a flashlight
into his maze of horrors even though the dim blue lights lined the
ceilings all the way through. Perhaps it would give her enough
time. There was a sense of something coming and she wasn’t sure if
her innate abilities were telling her about the danger that Elan
presented or that something else was about to happen.

She heard the gurgling of water and knew that
she had the right place. The water from the broken pipe was still
filling the pit. But Leonie wasn’t interested in that at all. She
slowly walked into the room and felt her way to where she needed to
be. Elan was injured now and more mad than he’d ever been before.
The playing field was level, but he still had advantages. Leonie
knew that it was only a matter of time before he came after
her.

-

What force and strength cannot get through,

I with a gentle touch can do.

And many in the street would stand,

Were I not a friend at hand.

What am I?

I am a key.

Monday, July 29th

What has two eyes and cannot see?

Scott’s phone rang shortly after they left
the sheriff’s department. He handed it to Sue and concentrated on
the road. Traffic on the country road was heavier than normal due
to construction. He was passing cars, tractors, and road equipment.
He had already used the lights and sirens twice to get around packs
of slow moving vehicles.

Sue answered the phone and determined it was
Roosevelt Hemstreet, patched through the station to Scott’s
cellular phone. Then she looked crossly back at Gideon. The grill
was in the way and she couldn’t pass the phone to him. “You’ll have
to talk through me,” she said finally.

“What did he find?” Gideon said.

“What did you find?” Sue said obediently.

Roosevelt said, “What, have you got him
hogtied?”

“He’s in the back of the county car and we
can’t stop.”

“Why?”

“We think we have a handle on where the woman
and the child are,” Sue said back. Scott shot her a glance. “We
don’t know for sure,” she added.

Roosevelt thought about it for a moment.
“Gideon was right. It was a long shot that the child was born in
Shreveport, but the office of vital statistics has their records
computerized from 1945 and it includes all Louisiana parishes. You
can ask it all kinds of stuff, especially if you’re nice to the
clerks. They liked my badge a lot.”

“Peachy,” Sue said out of the side of her
mouth. “Says you were right, Gideon.”