Paint it Black: 4 (The Black Knight Chronicles) (20 page)

“It checks out, Jimmy. I’ve got a Lisa Nester and a Jenny Grant among the list of missing persons taken in 1991. There were sixteen abducted between South Meck High School and SouthPark Mall.”

“Pretty swanky part of town for kids to go missing,” I mused. “Why don’t I remember anything about it on the news?”

“Jimmy, we were seniors in high school. All we were thinking about was graduating, moving out, going to Myrtle Beach that summer—”

“And all the parties we’d be going to at Clemson that fall. Yeah, that makes sense. All right, Nester, you can come along. But I hope to hell you brought a change of clothes. We are not riding around town with Deputy Dawg in the backseat.”

“I figured. I’ll get changed.” He ran up the stairs, and I heard the front door slam. A few seconds later he was back, clumping toward the bathroom to get changed.

“So . . . are we good?” I asked.

Greg didn’t turn around. He didn’t say anything for a long time, but finally he sighed and said, “Yeah, we’re good. It’s just been a lot, you know? Seeing my sister again after all these years, getting pieces of myself chewed on by goblins, drinking faeries to heal, watching you and Sabrina do whatever it is you’re doing, Abby . . .”

“You know I’d take it back if I could, right?”

“Yeah, I know. It’s just . . .”

“A lot. Yeah, I know.” I walked over to where Greg’s enormous monitor hung on the wall. He had a map of Charlotte displayed there with dots of different colors blinking all over the town. “Okay, Boy Wonder, feel free to explain how we’re going to narrow our search from the entire Charlotte metro area and find this jerkoff before he takes someone else.”

“Or kills someone he’s already taken,” Greg added. “I’ve done a geographic profile of his victims. You can look at the map and see that they were all taken from high-traffic areas in a couple of sections of town. It seems like his preferred hunting grounds are the SouthPark and Cotswold areas. He’s taken several victims from the parking deck at SouthPark, but never more than one set per abduction period.”

“And since that’s where he took the Carmichaels from, he probably won’t go back there this soon.”

“Exactly. If I add the sequence in which he hit each area into the profile, you’ll find that he took his first victim near the Cotswold shopping center, then the next pair in the SouthPark garage, then his third and final set each time came from a movie theatre.”

“But they closed the movie theatre at SouthPark.”

“Yes, but they opened the new one at Phillips Place,” Greg replied.

“Which is less than a mile from SouthPark Mall,” I said.

“Still well within the kidnapper’s comfort zone.”

“Do you think that he’ll be more nervous since he’s taking someone from a new place?” Officer Nester asked from the stairs.

Greg swiveled around in his chair to face the young cop. “I don’t know if he’ll be more nervous, but I definitely think he’ll have spent some time scouting the area. We should show the sketch to the kids at the ticket window, and ask them if they’ve seen a white van with no windows cruising the parking lot recently.”

“Yeah, because there aren’t a lot of blue-collar types hanging out at Phillips Place,” I agreed. “Let’s roll, kids.”

IT TOOK US BETTER than half an hour to get across town from our place in the university area north of town to Phillips Place, down by SouthPark. Phillips Place is one of those sparkling new “mixed-use” developments, which means that when they get home from their soul-sucking job at the bank, the yuppies don’t have to leave the neighborhood to do anything they want. Condos are sprinkled around high-end retail shops, and shiny grocery stores offer the latest organic whatever in the windows. The limited parking is heavily populated with Mercedes and Beamers, and in the middle of the day you could sit for hours and watch the trophy wives walk by with their trophy dogs in tow.

Fortunately for Greg and I, it wasn’t the middle of the day, but the sun had just set and the place was jam-packed with people. We stood out a little in our work clothes of long coats, ass-kicking boots, and sunglasses, but I was used to getting weird looks from people. Officer Nester didn’t seem bothered by it either, but then I remembered that he was used to getting stared at because of his badge. We took a couple laps around the parking lot looking for both a place to put Greg’s newest acquisition—a candy-apple red 1973 El Camino SS with a 454 V8 and Hydra-Matic tranny. The damn thing sounded like a thunderstorm on wheels, but it would move like a bat out of hell. Of course, fitting three dudes in the front seat of an El Camino took almost all the cool out of the car, but I made Nester ride bitch, so we survived.

We didn’t spot a white panel van in the parking deck, so we took copies of the sketch and split up to check out the different businesses. If anyone had been loitering around looking anything but rich and snobby, someone would have noticed. Greg checked out the movie theatre, while I headed to Dean & DeLuca. The upscale market and coffee shop had a wine bar attached, so I started there. I flagged down a cocktail waitress with a nametag that read “Cindy” and showed her the sketch.

“Cindy, I’m a private investigator working with the police on a string of kidnappings. We think this man might be looking for his next victims in this area. Have you seen him?”

She took a step or two back and shook her head. “No, I haven’t seen him. What does he drive, maybe I’ve seen his car?”

“He drives a white van with no windows and a ladder rack on top. Have you seen anything like that?”

“I’m sorry, but they’ve been doing construction over at the hotel, so there are a lot of those kinds of vans driving through here lately. Wish I could help!” She backed away hurriedly and dashed back inside. I went back to the car in time to see Greg leaving the theatre.

“Anything?” I asked.

“Nothing. One—the quality of movie theatre employee has gone to shit since I ran the candy counter.”

“You mean two decades ago?”

“Yes, but that’s beside the point. Two—these little morons couldn’t be pried away from texting, Facebooking, or Angry Birds long enough to know if they’d sold a ticket to Freddy, Jason,
and
the thing from
Predator
!”

“Well, then I guess it’s good you brought me along, isn’t it?” Nester asked, walking up with a huge grin.

“Spill it, Little Boy Blue,” I growled.

He didn’t stop grinning. “After you guys took the good spots, I looked around and saw the women at the salon standing out front having a smoke break and gabbing. I walked up to them and asked if they’d been busy lately. After listening to them bitch about having no business for the past week, I showed them the sketch.”

“And?” Greg asked.

“Nothing. But when I asked about a van, they remembered seeing one parked right in front of Via Veneto for three days this week. One girl thought it was strange, because they never let service vehicles park out front, so she wrote down the plate number.”

“Tell me you got it,” I said, barely letting myself hope he’d actually pulled it off.

“Not only did I get it, but I’ve already called in, run a check on it, and gotten the address. It’s on Red Fox Lane, off Sharon Amity.”

“Right between here and Cotswold Mall,” Greg added.

“We can be there in less than ten minutes,” Nester said, but I already had the door open for him to slide into the car. “Come on, I found the address. I still gotta ride in the middle?”

“Until you’ve been dead at least a decade, you’re still low man on the totem pole,” I replied, bowing to the door. “Your chariot awaits.”

RED FOX LANE was a quiet city street. Nice houses, clean lawns, moderately expensive cars, but nothing too flashy floating around. There was nothing about the neighborhood that screamed, “Serial Kidnapper Living Here.” Which was probably what made the place appealing to a serial kidnapper. We found the house quickly enough, then parked the El Camino a couple blocks away. My ride had serious badass capacity, but the car was for shit on stealthy approaches. Some things you just can’t do with a 454 Big Block, and sneak up on somebody was one of those things.

I took point, with Nester behind me and Greg as rear guard. The problem wasn’t that I trusted Nester less; I put Greg at the back of the pack so that when the inevitable happened and he tripped over something, no one would trip over him. I just hoped that he got the whole falling down thing out of the way quickly, before we were close enough for the suspect to hear us swearing.

Nester filled us in on the suspect on the way over. Richard Asa was a retired electrician, which explained the van. He was an oddity in Charlotte these days, a native Charlottean. Never married, no relatives that Nester could find a record of, no church affiliation, no social groups, nothing. Basically, he was a hermit these days. His house was a standard ranch three-bedroom affair, but we were more interested in the shed he’d built back in the late eighties. Set almost a hundred yards back from the house in a neighborhood where most of the lots aren’t anywhere near that long, tax records showed an outbuilding of six hundred square feet. If he had anybody tucked away, that’s where they’d be. Or at least where they’d been.

Starting our search with the shed had the added bonus of avoiding our little threshold problem. Storage buildings weren’t an issue for us, but we had to be invited into homes or permanent dwellings. If Asa was in the house, either Nester was going to have to take him down alone or we’d have to wrangle an invitation. And with us in full tactical gear, I didn’t see an invitation forthcoming.

So we split up, sending Nester to cover the entrance to the shed while Greg and I made a quick scout of the perimeter of the house with our vamp-senses and regrouped at the back door. “You hear or see anything?” I asked Greg.

“Nada. You?”

“Zip.”

Nester stood on the back porch, his gun trained on the shed’s front door. “There was movement in the shed a second ago, but I can’t see any details.”

I put a hand on his shoulder. “Good deal. Now put your gun away, and pull out your Taser.” He did as I asked. “Remember not to shoot me or Greg. Because he’ll be upset if you shoot him.”

“And you won’t?”

“No, I’ll just very calmly rip your arms off. I believe in consequences as life lessons.”

He pointed the Taser at the ground.

“Good boy,” I added, patting him on the head.

I waved Greg over, then continued. “Here’s the plan. Greg’s going in first, because he’s the strongest. He’ll take down the door, and I’ll go in over him.”

“Over him?” Nester asked.

“Don’t interrupt unless it has to do with what you’re supposed to do. You don’t have to understand what we do. You just have to do your part and NOT shoot me in the ass with a Taser. Clear?”

“Crystal.” He didn’t look very happy at being talked to like a four-year-old, but I didn’t have time to worry about his feelings.

“You will stay outside securing our perimeter until you get the all clear from our sweep of the shed. Then you will come into the shed and take up a position opposite Greg, who will make sure that no one gets out of that room without my approval. If this guy somehow manages to overpower Greg and I, you call for backup and pursue. Do not engage this man. If he can take down two vampires, you have about as much hope bringing him down as a snowball in a microwave. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir.”

That’s what I love about working with trained professionals. Once you lay the whole plan out for them, they do what they’re told. Even if some of it is completely batshit crazy, they’ll go for it.

We crept to the door of the shed, and I looked back to see that Nester was in position. He nodded to me, and I tapped Greg on the shoulder. He and I stood up at the same time, and he charged the door. He hit that shed door like a fanged rhinoceros, and it exploded inward in a shriek of mangled aluminum and a cloud of splinters. Greg dropped flat as soon as he was past the doorway, and I dove in over him, tucking into a forward roll that carried me into the center of the room. I rolled to my feet and spun around, gaze finding and locking onto Asa almost as soon as my roll was complete.

He stood against a wall, ten feet away, unarmed. He was a big man, run slightly to fat as he aged. A shock of white hair swept back from his brow, and thick grey eyebrows stuck out wildly. He wore jeans and a tattered work shirt spattered with blood and grease. I hoped the blood didn’t belong to the two bodies hanging from the wall.

They were alive; I could smell that from where I stood. I couldn’t tell much about them except that they were female. Asa had black pillowcases over their heads, and judging by the noises coming from under the makeshift hoods, he had taped their mouths shut. They dangled from handcuffs which were attached to chains hanging from the rafters. Their feet could touch the ground, but just barely. Having recently been tied to something and forced into one position for a long time, I felt a burning in my own arms and legs in sympathy.

As much as I wanted to pull them down, I had to deal with Asa before I freed the women. I turned my attention back to him, and was amazed to see him striding toward me, holding his hand out for me to shake.

“You must be the Dream King’s Honor Guard. At last! You’re here to bring me over to the Other Side for all my years of loyal service. I am so pleased to finally meet you. I’m Richard, Richard Asa, and I have been the King’s supplier of dreams for this Market location for forty of our years.” I shook his hand, mostly because I didn’t have any idea what else to do. Then I punched him in the side of the face and knocked his ass out cold.