Tell Me You're Sorry (31 page)

Mark couldn't fathom how callous he was. “Good God, what's wrong with you people?”

“Listen to me,” Dick said, grabbing his arm and pulling him toward the shore. “We could all end up in jail for this. Going to the cops is not an option. Even if, by some miracle, they don't think we raped her, this is going to be news. This is the kind of shit that will follow us around the rest of our lives . . .”

Mark kept shaking his head. It wasn't right. They couldn't shrug off responsibility for this. Talk about the rest of their lives. This thing would be hanging over their heads forever. How could they expect to live with themselves knowing they didn't do anything?

He and Dick staggered ashore. Scott handed Dick his clothes. “Why'd she go nuts like that?” he asked.

“She was having a good time until Metcalf started pounding away at her,” Brent said.

Mark suddenly lost all control. He flew into a rage. “You asshole!” he screamed, lunging at Brent.

Dick grabbed him from behind before he could get a punch in. Still, Brent fell down on his ass. “Stupid son of a bitch,” Brent bellowed, kicking sand at him. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Everyone started yelling and talking over one another. Mark had tears in his eyes. He wanted so much to punch Brent's face in. Dick was still holding him back.

“Shut up, all of you!” Dick hissed finally. “You're making so much noise, we won't have to call the cops. Somebody's gonna call them for us. Now, chill out. Brent, take Scott back to my place, will ya?” He turned to his friend from Wisconsin. “You got the house key, right?”

Scott had the key. He picked up Dick's clothes, and handed them to him again. He asked about the bottles of booze and Selena's things.

“We'll take care of it,” Dick said, finally letting go of Mark. “You guys get out of here, and keep your mouths shut. Don't let anyone see you leaving. Keep your headlights off while you're going down the block. Wait until you hit Sheridan Road to turn them on. Scott, if anyone's awake at home, and they ask where I am, I'm dropping off Mark. And we all went to Eden's theater and saw
The Untouchables
tonight. Got that?”

Once Brent and Scott had ducked into the thicket and started up the trail, Dick got dressed. He gathered up Mark's clothes and handed them to him. “C'mon, snap out of it. You look like a goddamn zombie. We need to get out of here . . .”

While Mark put on his clothes, he kept looking out at the lake for some sign of Selena. He didn't want to leave until they found her.

Dick went to work collecting the Jack Daniel's and Annie Green Springs bottles. He said they should leave Selena's sandals where she left them. They would leave her dress, bra, and panties there on the pier, too. Once her body was discovered, they'd find the clothes nearby and maybe assume it was an accidental drowning. None of the clothes were torn. It would look like she'd undressed herself. And after all, she had.

Dick was already talking about how they needed to make sure their asses were covered. He said Selena had sworn to him she hadn't told a soul about their date. And while they'd cruised around the neighborhoods, no one would have been able to identify Selena as the blond in the car with them. They could say it was some bimbo they'd picked up hitchhiking. No one had seen them in the church lot or the deserted park. And no one had seen them coming down here.

Mark was impressed at how Dick had taken control of things earlier. He seemed to be so sharp in his thinking, too. But it was all self-preservation. There didn't seem to be a single thought about the poor, simple, lovesick girl who had just wanted to go on a date with him.

Mark tried once again to convince him that calling the police was the right thing to do—even if it got them into deeper trouble.

“No way, man,” Dick said, clutching the booze bottles to his chest. “Ever stop to think that from the look of it, what Brent said is true? You're the one she freaked out on. I'm not saying you did anything. I know you couldn't have. But that's how it happened. And that's what all three of us will have to tell the cops.”

“She freaked out on you, too,” Mark muttered. “Remember? In fact, your forehead's still bleeding.”

Dick winced as he touched his temple along the hairline, where Selena had thrown the rock at him. “Listen,” he sighed. “There's still a chance—a decent chance—she swam to the shore without any of us noticing and she's hiding in those woods somewhere right now, just waiting for us to go. Let's face it, she's a strange girl. I wouldn't put it past her. That's another reason not to call the police. If she's hiding there somewhere, do you think she wants that? With that crazy old man of hers, do you know what kind of trouble you could get her into if the cops were in on this?”

Mark wanted to believe him. He wanted to think that tomorrow he'd see Selena punching the time clock at the club, and she'd be so embarrassed. She'd show him the bruise on her elbow from when she'd hit the concrete shelf that jutted out from the pier. And she'd say how drunk she must have been to act that crazy.

“C'mon, let's get out of here,” Dick said, nodding toward the path in the woods.

Mark took one last look at the small beach. “Selena!” he called.

Dick shushed him. “Goddamn it, Mark,” he whispered.

He waited and listened for an answer. But all he heard was the waves gently lapping on the shore. In the distance, he noticed some movement on the pier. But it was just Selena's blue dress, fluttering slightly in the breeze.

They hardly said a word to each other in the car. He and Dick rode with the top up. On the floor of the passenger side, he found a little coin purse that belonged to Selena. Dick said he would get rid of it.

Dick dropped him off at the club. Mark didn't go home. Instead, he pedaled seven miles north, back to that private beach in Glencoe. He made his way down the dark, wooded trail to the lake. He didn't know what he'd expected to find.

What he didn't find were Selena's sandals. There was no sign of her dress, bra, or panties, either. He searched all along the shore—in case the wind had blown them into the water. Someone or something had taken her things away. He prayed Dick was right. Maybe she'd been hiding from them all along.

He never fell asleep that night. At work the next day, he was dead tired and slightly hung over. The only thing that kept him going was the hope he'd see Selena there. But she never showed up for work. Two days later, the police interviewed some people at the club about her disappearance. They didn't talk to Mark.

They didn't talk to Dick, either. He'd phoned Mark that Saturday to tell him he hadn't heard anything and no one had asked him anything. “So please, keep your mouth shut, okay?”

“Did you go back to the beach that night?” Mark asked him, thinking he might have made off with Selena's things.

“No. Why? Did you?”

“No,” Mark lied.

That was the last time Dick ever called him. Mark didn't see him again, except in passing at the club. Then they just nodded politely at each other—and after a while, not even that. He never saw Brent or Scott again. The club's brat pack had dissolved.

There was an article in the
Chicago Tribune
about Selena's disappearance, and some talk at the club that she'd run away. Her body was never found. The sad, strange thing was that Brent had been right with his callous remark.

No one really seemed to miss her.

Mark saw his own reflection as he gazed out his living room window. The sun was setting over Puget Sound. He had to leave for the station in about an hour.

With the remote, Danny put
Captain America
on pause. “Hey, Dad,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at him. “Could I have one of those doughnuts now?”

Working up a smile, he moved back to the sofa and sat down next to him. He mussed his son's hair. “Better not push your luck, kiddo,” he said. “You could still have a little bit of that stomach bug. Wait until morning, okay?”

Danny sighed, and then squinted at him. “That lady who bought us the doughnuts, is she your girlfriend?”

“No, she's just a very nice lady,” Mark said.

Danny pressed the remote, and the DVD started again.

Mark couldn't focus on the movie. He was still thinking about Dick Ingalls, Brent Farrell, and Scott Hamner—and that night on the beach twenty-seven years ago. He was the only one left alive from that night. But then he thought of Selena, and wondered.

Maybe he wasn't the only one still alive after all.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-TWO

 

P
arked across the street from Stephanie Coburn's hotel, he sat at the wheel and dined on a Whopper, fries, and a Coke. The lady pilot had thought she'd given him the slip this afternoon. But he'd stayed on her tail—all the way to the Airport Executive Inn. He even knew what room she was in: 149. Right now, she had the curtains closed, but he could still see a sliver of light between them.

He really wasn't paying too much attention to the hotel right now. His iPhone was propped up on the rental car's console. It had a live feed from the cameras in the bunker. He was watching his captive in her quarters buried beneath the earth, nineteen hundred miles away.

Though the picture quality wasn't worth shit, he still got a little thrill whenever she changed her clothes or took a shower. Right now, she was sitting on the sofa, watching TV. But in about ten minutes, it would be lights-out, and she'd be getting ready for bed. She'd dropped some of her initial shyness, and often seemed to forget about the cameras. He'd seen her peel down to nothing for her shower or to change into her flannel nightgown. But once in a while she'd seem to remember she was being watched. Then she'd grab something to cover herself, and flip him the bird. He always got a kick out of that.

He had a feeling he was going to miss this one when her time was up. Scarface was a feisty little bitch—smart, too. She seemed to know she was all alone there. She'd faked a seizure a while back, and he'd almost fallen for it. Had he been at the Cedar Rapids house at the time—and not here in Portland—he might have gone down to the bunker to investigate. She was quite the little actress.

He wasn't worried about her escaping. There was no escape. Only one of the five women imprisoned down there had gotten out ahead of schedule. She was the first. Her name was Karla, a very hot-looking redhead. It was hard not taking advantage of that, which he did several times. She'd been in the bunker for five weeks while the new Karla prepared to meet her future husband.

They had a camera in the bunker's bathroom, but the steam from the shower always made it pretty useless after a couple of minutes. One day after he'd gone down into the bunker, knocked her out, and did what he wanted, Karla killed herself. She'd gone into the restroom to take a shower. He wasn't watching when a wet, naked Karla managed to unscrew the light above the shower stall and stick her finger in the socket.

His partner had been furious. They had to start all over again, and find another girl to take Karla's place. That was Vanessa, the one they killed in the Lake Geneva house fire.

He nibbled on a fry and watched his current prisoner, who was still curled up on the sofa. He imagined she missed having her cat in her lap while she watched TV. That lousy cat had the run of the Cedar Rapids house right now. It had enough food and water to last for several days. He'd grown fond of the little stinker—an orange tabby with a thick red plastic collar, probably for fleas or something.

When it came time for Jenny to die, he would tell his partner he wanted to keep the cat. If they were torching the family house this time, did they really need a charred cat in there with all the other bodies?

It was about a minute before lights-out in the bunker. He watched as Jenny finally climbed off the couch. She pulled her long-sleeve T-shirt over her head.

He stopped eating his Whopper for a moment to watch her.

The phone rang.

“Damn it,” he muttered. Grabbing the iPhone, he switched modes. “Yeah, what's going on?” he said.

“I'm calling to ask you the same thing,” she replied. “How's our lady pilot doing? Still breathing?”

“Not for long,” he said. He reached for another French fry and ate it. “I'm taking care of her tonight. I stole the key card from one of the maids this afternoon. So breaking in should be a cinch, unless she's got the dead bolt on the door. She'll go just like her sister. They'll find her in the tub. I even got the pack of razor blade cartridges from her closet at home. I just need to crack it open and get the blade out.”

“And what if she has the dead bolt on the door?”

“Then it's Plan B. I got her Lexus wired to blow when she starts it. The house is set up the same way. I hid all the charges this afternoon when she was out picking up the car. I went back two hours ago and set the motion detectors by the doors and front French windows. The next person to walk through one of those doors will trigger it. So if she goes home, she
goes
.” He chuckled. “Of course, I'm banking on Plan A. It's more the hands-on type of work I like. If I pull it off, it'll only take about five minutes to unwire the car—and maybe twenty to unwire the house. All that stuff's expensive, and I know how you hate to waste good equipment. So—we're covered.”

“Fine,” she said. “Once she's out of the way, I need you to head back to Cedar Rapids and get our package ready for extraditing. Things will be reaching their conclusion within the next few days. I'm moving into the house tomorrow night.”

“That's fast work. Don't you usually marry them first?”

“Not this time. Something's come up. We have to accelerate things. How soon do you think you can get her to Seattle?”

“I need to make sure the Winnebago's up for the trip. Can you give me three days?”

“Yeah, that'll work,” she said. “Just take care of our pilot friend tonight, once and for all, okay? Then you can fly back to Iowa in the morning.”

“Consider it done.”

“Talk to you tomorrow,” she said. Then she hung up.

He clicked off, and then switched over to the live feed from the bunker in Cedar Rapids. It had changed over to the infrareds, so he could still see her in the dark. The image was in heavy gray-green hues and slightly blurred. She was already in bed—damn it.

He finished up his Whopper and fries and shoved the wrappers back in the Burger King bag. With the straw, he sipped the last of his Coke—until it started to make that rattling vacuum noise with the ice. He tossed the debris out his window, giving it a good arc so it went out toward the middle of the road. Then he reached for a lidded ice bucket on the floor in front of the passenger seat. He'd stolen it from the housecleaning room when he'd lifted the key card. Inside the ice bucket were several mini-bottles of booze, the kind airlines use. There was also a container of over-the-counter sleeping pills.

From beneath his seat, he took out a gun. He tucked it inside the waist of his jeans and pulled his shirttail down to cover it.

Stepping out of the car, he carried the ice bucket across the street and cut through the Airport Executive Inn's parking lot. He used a side door into the hotel.

He had it all planned. He would let himself into her room and pull the gun on her before she had a chance to do anything. He'd force her to take the sedatives, swallowing them down with the booze. Once she was sufficiently out of it, he'd undress her, carry her to the tub, and slash open her wrists. Or maybe he'd just go for the throat—like he did with her sister. It was quicker. He'd decide later, depending on how sedated she was and how long he felt like sticking around.

He passed a large, gray-haired woman—obviously a hotel guest—in the corridor. He smiled and nodded at her. With the bucket tucked under his arm, he looked like he was just stepping out of his room for some ice.

The hallway was dimly lit, with a beige and hunter-green carpet. Heading toward room 149, he fished the key card out of his pocket. Just then, a man in sweatpants and a T-shirt stepped out of room 152. He had an ice bucket, too. “Hey, which way is it?”

“Thataway,” he muttered, using his thumb to point down the hallway.

“Thanks,” the man said, heading in that direction.

He kept moving, passing room 149 and ducking around a corner toward a stairwell. He waited a few minutes. The guy from 152 finally returned with his ice, stepped inside his room, and shut the door.

He listened to the lock click. Then he crept back toward room 149. He was banking on it being too early for her to have gone to bed. So chances were good she hadn't set the extra security lock yet.

He glanced up and down the hallway, and then slid the card into the lock. The little green light went on above the lever. He quietly opened the door, stashed the card back in his pocket, and reached for his gun. He didn't hear a sound in the room. The lights were on. Over on the bed, a pillow had been placed against the headboard—as if someone had been sitting there. A pizza box was on top of the wastebasket and a Diet Coke can sat on the desk. The room had been occupied, but no one was here now. There wasn't even any luggage. The bathroom door was open, and it was dark in there. He switched on the light, and checked behind the shower curtain—just to be sure.

He couldn't believe it. The bitch had given him the slip.

Tucking the gun back inside his pants, he skulked out the door, and then hurried down the hallway to the side exit. Her Lexus was still in the parking lot. Hell, he would have heard the blast if she'd tried to drive off in it.

Baffled, he shoved open the door and stepped outside. Had she snuck out and caught a taxi down the road a piece? Or had she simply switched rooms?

He stood in the hotel parking lot with the ice bucket under his arm. He remembered one of the last things his partner had said to him before hanging up the phone several minutes ago: “Just take care of our pilot friend tonight, once and for all.”

He was determined as hell not to let her down.

And there was always Plan B.

 

 

The hotel desk clerk was very apologetic when Stephanie called to report that she'd spotted a bedbug under her pillow. She'd insisted on switching to a room on the other side of the hotel. He'd been very accommodating. When she came by the desk to pick up the key card for her new room, she saw that the clerk was a handsome, thirtysomething black man with a thin mustache. He suggested that rather than lug her bags to the opposite end of the hotel, she load up her car and drive around to the entrance on the north side.

Stephanie thanked him for the advice. But she really had no intention of moving her car. In case someone was watching the hotel, she didn't want to let on that she'd switched rooms. She'd decided while eating her pizza that after all her narrow escapes, maybe an unscheduled room switch would be a wise precaution.

She didn't tell any of this to the desk clerk. But she asked if he was working the front desk for the rest of the evening.

“Yes, ma'am,” he nodded.

“Could you do me a favor? Please don't tell anyone I switched rooms.” She took a twenty-dollar bill from her purse and set it on the counter. “If someone phones and asks for me, go ahead and put it through. But I won't be picking up. So—let it ring or offer to take a message, whatever you usually do. Just, please don't let on that I switched rooms.” She slid the twenty toward him. “Okay?”

He smiled at her and pushed the bill back at her. “No problem, Ms. Coburn. I'll be happy to do that for you.”

“Thank you,” she said, stashing the twenty back in her purse. “Listen, if someone does call or they come in and ask for me, could you call my room, let it ring once, and then hang up?”

He nodded. “One ring . . . kind of a signal, right?”

“Exactly, then I'll know to call you back.”

“Can I ask you something?”

Stephanie hesitated. She figured he was going to ask if someone was chasing her. “Sure,” she said finally.

“Is the bedbug story really true?”

She sighed and shook her head. “I'm sorry. I just really needed to get out of that room.”

He nodded and smiled. “I'm glad we don't have bedbugs. You can leave your key card in the old room when you leave.”

In her new quarters, she unpacked a few things, but still didn't feel settled in. She doubted she could feel settled anywhere until all of this was over with.

She phoned Ryan, and told him about her frustrating discussion with Mark Metcalf. “He says he barely knew Dick Ingalls from the country club, and doesn't remember posing in that picture with him, your father, and my brother-in-law. As for knowing Selena Jayne, he claims he didn't mix with the waitstaff. And he was adamant that his wife's death was an accident.”

“Yeah, she accidentally parked her car in the garage, shut the door, and left the motor running,” Ryan said. “Right.”

“He hung up on me,” Stephanie said. “I called the station back a couple of times and got the royal brush-off from whoever's answering the phone. He's putting up walls. I think I'll fly to Seattle in the morning. Maybe I can get through to him if I can talk to him in person . . .”

“Yeah, after all, it worked like a charm on me.” Ryan said.

“Wiseass,” Stephanie said, cracking a smile, her first of the day. “So—did you talk to Mr. Jayne?”

“You told me not to.”

“Yeah, but something tells me you went looking for him anyway. Am I right?”

“Okay, yeah, I talked to him,” Ryan sighed. “He's a grumpy old fart, but kind of sad, too. I didn't get anything from the guy. I gave him my phone number and asked him to pass it along to Selena's sister.”

“So—now he knows your name?” she asked, pacing around the hotel room.

“I told him I was Mark Metcalf, Junior. Anyway, I'm hoping the sister can tell me something.”

“Nicole?”