Garage Sale Stalker (Garage Sale Mysteries) (22 page)

CHAPTER 49

I
lluminating the stretc
h between
the farm house and out-buildings, the motion-activated flood lights blinded Jennifer as she ran across the parking area toward the driveway. She hated the loud gravel crunch beneath her every footfall which broadcast her location to anyone listening, but the unforgiving tangle of prickly bushes on both sides of the driveway prevented any quieter choice.

Instead of barking or pinning her down, the dog surprised Jennifer by bounding along beside her, perhaps thinking this more of the game. Distancing themselves from the harsh, bright backyard light, they raced into the driveway’s shadows and toward the dark street at the end.

This part of Fairfax County actually prided itself on few, if any, street lights; a misguided attempt at preserving the one-time “country” atmosphere. If she reached the street on this moonless night, she might hide in the underbrush. Unused to sprinting, she felt a pain in her side grow with every pounding step. How long was this damnable driveway? Huffing vigorously now, at last she felt the gravel give way to firm asphalt underfoot.

She’d reached the road, but which way to turn? Uphill would double her physical exertion. She turned downhill and ran full out when she heard the man’s pickup truck roar to life back by the house, tires skidding in the gravel as he barreled the vehicle toward the driveway.

Why couldn’t she run faster? The pain in her side sharpened! Was she slowing down? Where was that legendary secondwind? Rushing onward as best she could on the dark, deserted road, she realized the dog kept pace beside her. Was this a desperate freedom run for them
bo
th?

Reaching the street, the truck’s headlights pierced the night at the foot of the driveway and hesitated. Jennifer flung herself deep into the thick bushes along the side of the road and burrowed in just before the vehicle also turned downhill.
“Come!”
she’d commanded the dog, her earlier gentle approach replaced with the raw urgency of a sharp order. If the dog failed to follow and instead stayed visible beside the road, he’d instantly compromise her location. To come this far only to be recaptured tore at her heart. So did her terror of the man’s unthinkable retaliation
after!

She felt amazement and relief as the dog eagerly followed her deep into the wild bushes, hunkering down, out of sight, right beside her. More game for him? Was his eagerness to play a welcome contrast from cruel treatment at the hands of his sadistic master, treatment reflected in the animal’s scars and hunger?

Panting, she held onto the dog—stunned that he allowed it and just as stunned she could do it—partly to quiet him and partly to share this hysterical experience with any companion, however unlikely. Lying against her, he seemed impervious to the brambles that scratched mercilessly at her exposed arms and face.

“Shhh! she whispered to him, as they pressed deeper into the underbrush-covered ditch alongside the road. Realizing that without this animal’s unexpected cooperation she could never have made it this far, Jennifer whispered “Good, good dog.” Putting her cheek against his fur, she meant every word.

The truck crept around the curve of the empty road. They watched transfixed as the pickup’s headlights rolled an illuminating arc across the trees. The vehicle moved toward them slowly and paused for a terrifying moment right in front of them. She held her breath. At last it passed by, moved down the road and around another curve.

Just before the truck disappeared at the bend, its headlights high-lighted an opening in the bushes that looked like a driveway about 40 feet further downhill and on the other side of the road. A place to get help? Would the owners even answer the door to a stranger after midnight? Did they have their own patrolling dogs to rip her and this animal to shreds?

The driveway appeared to angle up into the woods, but no house lights shone through the trees; maybe not a house there at all, but the road into an unimproved wooded lot. In those split seconds of truck-light illumination, had she seen a black mailbox or imagined one?

Headlights flickered again far down the road. A vehicle coming. Were these the man’s headlights or those of someone to help her? Nighttime headlights looked alike, bright and blinding. Unable to distinguish his beams from a rescuer’s, she couldn’t risk a mistake. The engine sounded like a truck, but she wasn’t sure.

Desperate for help from any stranger happening along this road, should she jump out to flag down this driver before her only chance disappeared? She hesitated, her heart pounding. Sensing her agitation, the dog shifted position. She held on to him, agonizing about what to do.

A pair of headlights rounded the turn as the vehicle slowed and shined a spotlight slowly along each side of the road. It was his truck! Thank god she stayed put.

“Shhhh,” she whispered again to the dog, her fingers pressing a warning against his side as they lay motionless deep in the bushes. The spotlight moved first along the other side of the road, then moved to their side of the road, inching along the edge of the bushes. Suddenly the light stopped. Moving only her eyes, she saw the glint of a metal soda can in the brambles only about ten feet away from where they huddled. The truck door opened as the man focused the spotlight there and stepped around the front of the truck for a closer look. The dog trembled but held.

Scanning the bushes left and right of the soda can, the man’s eyes seemed to linger directly on them but
finally
moved on. Shuffling back to the truck, he turned the spotlight ahead, shifted into drive and worked his spotlight search of the roadside on up the hill to the curve, then slowly around it and out of sight.

As the sound of the truck’s motor receded, she jerked herself out of the thorns, leaped from the ditch and raced downhill toward the new driveway. The dog followed, matching her stride.

Reaching the entrance illuminated minutes earlier by the truck’s lights, she realized she
had
seen a mailbox by the opening. She and the dog hurtled past it and up this new driveway in the dark. Unable to see more than a few feet in front of her and running fast, she barely avoided tripping over a large branch fallen across the asphalt. To her surprise, the dog took the lead up the long, winding stretch. She followed the sound of his jingling tags more than his scarcely visible shape.

The curling driveway ended in a clearing atop a hill, where a huge house rose majestically against the stars in the dark night sky. A light burned above the center of four garage doors, but no lights at all showed in the windows of the house. At midnight they’d be asleep!

Moving quickly from the driveway to the sidewalk, she struggled up the tiers of terraced stone steps to the front door, the dog bounding along beside her. She found the doorbell, rang it twice and pounded on the door. No response. Stepping back, she looked for lights to appear in the windows. None. More ringing, more pounding. The doorbell’s musical notes sounding in the foyer were audible outside, so she knew it worked. Oh please! She rang the bell again.

And then she heard something ominous.

CHAPTER 50

F
rom the distance c
ame
the now unmistakable rasp of the truck grinding back along the road. Unable to rouse anyone inside, Jennifer stood anxiously on the mansion’s front porch before reaching down to reassure the dog and herself as she struggled to think what to do next. Suddenly, the animal froze and stared fixedly toward the road, body alert, eyes focused. For the first time since their sojourn began, he whined. He took a step forward but stopped, turned and looked back at her. “Would you like to be my dog?” she asked softly. At her touch, his ears momentarily relaxed, he lifted his face and nuzzled her hand. But rather than pliant as he’d been earlier, the dog again acted edgy and distracted. “Good dog,” she soothed, crouching to give him a confidence-restoring hug.

He pressed against her in response but then, for no apparent reason, reverted again, standing stiffly, staring rigidly down the hill before whimpering in obvious distress. “Good dog,” she repeated, petting the top of his head to soothe his plaintive sounds. His ears pointed tensely forward, his muscles tight, his focus on the road as he emitted a low growl.

The man must be calling the dog, probably with a high-pitched whistle, because she heard nothing. How cruelly had he trained this animal for it to react this fearfully to that sound?

The dog looked up at her, then jumped off the porch, moved toward the driveway, ears forward, and whined again. It turned toward her one last time, as if apologizing for a decision made, and then rocketed away down the driveway toward the road.

Frantically, she rang the door bell again and again. No response. When the dog emerged from this driveway, the man would know her whereabouts. Maybe he knew this house was unoccupied. With the dog back under his spell, the man would command it to find her.

Fumbling in the dark, Jennifer picked up a small concrete flower pot from the front porch and pounded it against the etched oval of glass on the front door. The sound of shattering glass rent the still night, but after the tinkling shards cascaded onto the floor, an encompassing silence returned. Bashing out the remaining jagged shards for a safer entry, she jumped through the resulting hole in the door and ran inside the dark house, desperate to find a phone. Afraid to turn on lights to show the man coming up the driveway exactly where to find her, she stumbled into the kitchen where a tiny night light provided weak illumination.

Seeing a wall-mounted phone, she picked it up and with shaking hands dialed 9-1-1, lifted the receiver to her ear and waited impatiently. No sound! Clicking the hang-up bar, she listened again. No dial tone. Disconnected!

The wealthy owners must be on a long vacation.

The man and dog would reach the house any minute, where they’d barrel non-stop through the hole she bashed in the front door. She dropped the receiver, wondering where to hide. Desperate, she opened the kitchen door, hoping for some solution in the back yard, but the impenetrable darkness revealed no quick safe place and no lights visible through the trees from other houses where she might run to safety.

Where to hide? Under no circumstances the basement. She’d had enough underground horror for a lifetime.

Running back toward the entry, she tore up the wide, graceful staircase to the second floor, ran down the hall, jerked open a door at random, dashed inside and locked the door behind her. Only her jerky breathing sounded in the dark room. She looked around. Curtains drawn, the room very dark. In the gloom, she barely made out a bed and dresser.

Looking for a weapon, almost anything, she grabbed a lamp, jerked the cord out from the wall, ripped off the shade and held it upside down like a club. She flattened herself against the wall so he wouldn’t see her until the door swung wide and when he entered the room she would smash the lamp against his head again and again.

Listening for sound in the hall, she waited as endless, silent minutes passed. Her shoulders ached, her head throbbed, her back hurt, her energy drained. She couldn’t take much more. When would it end?

Worse,
how
would it end?

Then a sound: the whine of a dog. He’d led the man straight to her door! When that door opened, she’d have not only the man to fear but the dog, which appeared to relapse to its original training. Silence. The dog whined again. She watched the doorknob turn slowly, stopping when the man discovered it was locked. With trembling hands she lifted the lamp above her head. Dreading what she knew came next, her heart pounded so loudly she feared he could hear it.

With a deafening smash, the door crashed open, slamming against the wall where she would have been crushed if standing directly behind it. As he burst into the room, she realized to her horror that she’d dangerously miscalculated. He was so tall and she so short that the lamp only smashed ineffectively against his broad shoulder. Halted more by surprise than injury, he turned in a menacing rage to grab her.

Still holding the lamp in her right hand, she pulled the screwdriver out of her belt with her left hand and stabbed all four inches to the hilt into his lower torso. She twisted it left and right before letting go of the imbedded handle and ducked aside as his earlier momentum lurched him against the wall where she’d just stood. Startled, he staggered, clutching his stomach, and bent over, grunting. With a moan he stumbled to the floor.

The dog rushed into the room, sniffing at the slumped, moaning man before looking squarely at her. With the man no longer a threat to the dog, would its loyalty to him also end? In that poignant moment, the animal’s allegiance could shift either way—the man’s cruel beatings and starvation or her food and kindness?

She stared pleadingly into the animal’s eyes, fixed upon her. “You don’t have to be his dog. Be
my
dog! Please,
please
be my dog!” she begged.

As if reading her mind, the animal made its answering decision. Snarling ferociously, he leaped toward her, fangs bared.

The screwdriver gone, she lifted the broken lamp, forcing the twisted harp and bulb deep into the animal’s open jaws. The dog fell back in surprise, shaking out the obstruction jammed in his throat, while she dashed from the room. She saw the man rise onto one knee as she slammed the door behind her and ran for her life.

The dog couldn’t open the door, but the man could. If only he were too injured to do so!

Rushing headlong down the staircase toward the front door, she leaped across the shattered glass slivers strewn across the entryway floor, through the door’s yawning oval hole and into the dark night.

CHAPTER 51

L
egs pumping,
Jennifer reeled
off the porch, down
the tiers of stone steps to the
sidewalk, and rushed across the
top of the driveway towa
rd the man’s parked truck. She
prayed his keys were inside
as she jerked the door open and blinked at the
pickup’s automatic ceiling light that
illuminated her in the otherwise
black night. Her fingers
brushed an empty ignition.

Leaving the door ajar, she hopped into the driver’s seat. No keys on the seat, under the floor mats or behind the visors. If she stayed here, locked the doors and leaned on the horn, would someone nearby hear the noise and call police or investigate themselves? Not likely, with houses spread sparsely across these multi-acre lots. And honking the horn would tell him exactly where she was, to open the truck door with his own keys, grab her and...

If only she could disable the truck, but with no handy tool and none visible in the car she couldn’t slash his tires. Nor dared she take precious time to unscrew their valves to let out air. Sliding out, she closed the pickup’s door, spun away from the truck and ran as fast as she could into the darkness down the long, twisting driveway toward the street.

She couldn’t see well and hoped to avoid the fallen log she knew lay somewhere ahead. Nor dared she slow down to choose her way more carefully. Had her screwdriver jab crippled the man or only further enraged him? His size and strength boded granite resilience, making her too-short screwdriver wound likely superficial. If he could drag himself far enough to open the bedroom door, he’d release the dog. She knew she couldn’t risk pausing to grab a stick or find a rock, and with no weapon to fight off the dog, running became her only option.

***

“Aw,geez,” Jake g
rowled, hearing the computer
aided dispatch report “a residential
silent burglar alarm at 3509 Winding Trail
Drive.”

Adam grumbled his own a
nnoyance. Focused exclusi
vely on the
3508 address identified by
Jeremy Whitehead and verified by
the
dispatcher, Adam hated getting this
close to the possible rescue of
his quarry and instead being dive
rted to cover this alarm. Th
e new address might halt a crime
in progress, but at the
other address he might save some
one he knew. Grudgin
gly, he admitted the residential alarm identified
a known incident while the other was
still only a hunch. And
the call’s address was ver
y close. They had no choice.

“Just tell me where to turn,” Adam said with resignation to Jake, who searched for house numbers on mail boxes and brick columns along the dark street.

“3503, 3505 we’re getting close,” Jake chronicled the advancing street numbers. “Here’s 3507, must be the next left.”

***

Dashing down the driveway, Jennifer heard the dog’s faint bark back near the mansion. Then his tags jingling metallically, that sound growing closer. Simultaneously, Wrestler’s pick-up truck engine roared to life and its headlights flashed on. Swiftly circling the area in front of the garage to angle downhill, its lights would spotlight her in seconds.

Her lungs ready to explode, she glimpsed the main road another fifty feet ahead, though reaching it hardly meant safety. Directly behind her, she heard the dog’s heavy panting, his tags jangling loudly now. The animal was closing in, her gruesome nightmare hideously
real
this time! She couldn’t go on, couldn’t breathe or make her exhausted legs speed forward any longer. Suddenly she felt sharp pain as the dog’s teeth grabbed her arm. At the same moment, her foot caught on something in the darkness. The downed branch. She tripped and as the fall pitched her forward, it jerked her arm from the dog’s jaws. She plunged headlong and skidded forward, scraping her hands, arms and face on the driveway’s unforgiving asphalt surface and twisting her ankle. Triumphantly, the dog leaped for the kill.

In a sudden surrounding bath of ultra-bright illumination, she shuddered at the vivid view of the dog’s huge jaws, red mouth and gleaming teeth opening directly over her face, the last horrible sight she would ever see.

And then a firecracker! She lay on her back in the driveway, elbows and knees flailing in futile life-and-death desperation to fend away the mauling dog. But after fevered jerking without the searing pain of his fangs sinking into her flesh, she realized the dog was no longer there. Still terrified, she struggled to sit up, blinking into powerful lights blinding her from two directions: the man’s truck at the top of the driveway and more lights at the mouth of the driveway.

Immobile, open mouthed and uncomprehending, she saw two forms emerge from the lower set of lights. Her captor’s cronies? Would three men subdue and torture her now instead of one? She cringed, unable to see them until they were only a few feet from her. She tried desperately to scramble away from this new danger, but her spent body wouldn’t respond. A uniformed policeman and another man, both with guns drawn, hurried up the driveway in her direction. As comprehension took hold at the sight of police, so did mingled waves of relief and exhaustion. Before they spoke she cried out, “Help me, please! He’s trying to kill me! That man in the truck up there, he... ” Surprised at how loud her voice had sounded despite how weak she felt, she cradled her head in her hands and began to sob.

The man not in uniform pounded on up the driveway toward the man’s pickup truck while the uniformed cop called for backup.

Aware that a dark shape lay on the ground beside her in a widening pool of blood, she jerked back from the dog’s motionless body. The sound hadn’t been a firecracker at all, but a gunshot.

“Did you…? Is he...?”

“Dead, yeah,” Jake confirmed. The first man out of the police car, he witnessed the dog’s attack and fired immediately. “Hated to do it but he was going in for the kill, Ma’am. You or him; couldn’t be both. Even if you are a suspect, we need you in one piece,” he added, referring to the silent residential alarm and identifying this scruffy female derelict as the probable person-of-interest.

“A suspect, but...?”

As he checked out the pickup, Adam shouted from too far up the driveway for her to recognize his voice. “Nobody here… but blood on the seat. I’m turning off the truck’s headlights to cut the glare,” he added, using a Kleenex to preserve existing fingerprints.

“I called for
backup,” Jake shouted back. T
urning his full
attention to Jennifer, he said, “Now tell me… who are you and what’s going on here?” Confused and dismayed to be labeled a suspect after what she’d been through, she tried quieting her sobs to answer the uniform’s questions when Adam’s face appeared inches from hers.

“Oh, my god, it’s Mrs. Shannon. Quick, get her into the cruiser. Here, Ma’am, let me help you. Are you okay?” he asked in an anxious voice.

“Yes. Except for this ankle… but mostly just… just tired and scared.” Supported by his arm, she limped on her tender ankle to the police vehicle and crawled gratefully into the protective walls of the cruiser’s back seat. The policemen got into the front seat, locked the car’s doors for protection and both turned to Jennifer.

“Can you tell us what happened?” Adam asked.

Calmed by the secure surroundings, she did. When she finished, a side of Adam she barely recognized transformed him from the pleasantly charming young man who dated Hannah into a trained police professional. All business, he spoke into his cell phone, “Located missing female, Jennifer Shannon, while responding to residential silent alarm at 3509 Winding Trail Road. She is alive with apparent minor injuries. Besides backup already requested, we need Rescue to stabilize her. We need K-9 assist ASAP for suspected abductor still in vicinity. We need a cruiser to secure the broken front door at this location. Copy?” He waited for the acknowledgement before continuing.

“Suspected abductor’s domicile is across the street at 3508 Winding Trail Road. That is a crime scene. We need cruisers to apprehend the suspect if there. No sight or sound. If not there, he can’t be far, so let’s flush this guy out tonight. We also need an Animal Warden to remove a dog we shot and a rabies screening, since he bit the victim.” He then described the essence of the crime information Jennifer gave him.

While he finished his transmission, Jennifer dried her tears on a tissue the uniformed cop handed her. “Thank you a billion times for finding me. But... but how did you know where to look?”

Jake explained the silent residential burglar alarm. “Broken windows and opened doors set off the signal. We always investigate, especially in these neighborhoods with the big houses. Turned out, we were almost on top of this driveway when the call came in. When we saw the dog mid-attack, we had to cap him. As I said up there, burglar or not, we wanted you alive. We’ve had several recent incidents of dogs running loose in this area. I covered an attack on a young girl two days ago, less than a mile down the road. She was hurt pretty bad. Some of these mutts are worth a bundle and their owners scream if we harm them, although they admit their animals sometimes get loose and roam out of control. For us, protecting human life always comes first.”

She nodded numbly. “W
hat does that mean, ‘no sight or sound’?”

“No blinking cruiser lights or sirens,” Adam explained.

Safe at last and unaware how mentally overwhelmed and physically taxed her ordeal had left her, she relaxed into a fear-free stupor for the first time in nearly two days. Leaning her head back, she closed her eyes.