Carli let out an involuntary cry of fear and surprise. Then she realized that it was not dusk after all. She had not necessarily been unconscious for most of an entire day. It might be midday, or late-afternoon, or, heck, it might even be morning. The daylight struggling through the dirty basement window was so dim because a thunderstorm was approaching. And from the sound of the suddenly frenzied activity outside, it was going to be a doozy.
In addition to the tremendous crash of thunder, the wind had picked up, and Carli could hear it roaring through the branches of trees outside the house. It howled around the wooden structure, working its way through microscopic cracks and holes, the sound angry and relentless. It was almost as frightening as the thunder had been. Gust after gust rocked the house.
Another
crash!
shook the area again, and, incredibly, this one was even louder than the last. Carli wouldn’t have thought that possible. Lightning flashed through the windows, bathing the dusty basement in a light so bright it hurt Carli’s eyes. It was as if a million cars had been positioned just outside the house and they had all flashed on their headlights at once.
Instantly, the flash disappeared, and the afterimage superimposed itself on the retina of her one good eye. And Carli screamed, not from Mother Nature’s handiwork, but from what she had seen outlined in the quarter-second flash of intense light.
Standing stock-still, roughly six feet away, staring at her through eyes wide and unblinking, was her captor. He wasn’t upstairs lying dead in a pool of his own blood, after all. How long he had been in the basement watching her she could not guess, but he looked much more menacing than before, if that was possible. A dread formed of hopelessness and fear filled Carli Ferguson’s gut. Suddenly she knew: last night’s incident with the steak knife had changed everything. All that had happened to her up to this point was merely the introduction; the preview to her own personal horror movie.
The main event was about to start, and it was going to be bad.
It was going to be very bad.
CHAPTER 48
May 28, 3:52 p.m.
BILL’S VAN BOUNCED AND jolted over the rutted road leading, he hoped, to Martin Krall’s home. He had taken the address directly off Ray Blanchard’s bill of sale and punched it into the little GPS unit he kept in each of his delivery vans, being careful to transcribe the street name exactly, letter for letter. The last thing he wanted was to carelessly type in the wrong address and end up miles from where he needed to be—miles from where
Carli
was.
He was positive he had entered it correctly but now began to doubt himself as the van creaked and groaned over the desolate road. The GPS instructions had taken him on a route directly through downtown Mason, a misnomer if there ever was one. The “downtown” consisted of a drugstore, a movie theatre, and a boarded-up hotel that looked as though it had been empty since Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Where the police station was located, or if there even
was
a police station, Bill had no idea.
After passing straight through Mason proper, a distance of less than a half mile, Bill continued following the GPS directions, enunciated in a stuffy, British voice that Carli had programmed into the machine months ago. She found the prissy dialect hilarious, and Bill had never gotten around to changing it. Now every word it spoke to him broke his heart. He wondered what he would find when he finally arrived at Martin Krall’s house. Would she even be alive?
He shook his head furiously and stomped on the accelerator, angry with himself for even considering the possibility of a less-than-ideal outcome. Of course she was still alive, and he was going to save her. Damned right, he was.
She’s alive,
he repeated in his head, over and over.
She’s alive.
After passing through the town of Mason, Bill followed Route 37, a two-lane county highway that all other vehicles in the area seemed to have forgotten existed. The road wound through rolling hills, bordered on all sides by massive evergreens and the occasional two hundred-year-old oak or maple tree. Every so often, he would pass a small house or two off in the distance, set far back from the road, usually at the end of a long dirt or gravel driveway, but, for the most part, the area seemed deserted.
Finally the GPS squawked to life and ordered him to “Turn right ahead,” an instruction Bill found odd because he couldn’t see a road to turn onto. He slowed almost to a crawl and still nearly missed the exit; would have missed it, in fact, were it not for the GPS’s stuffy, British insistence that he turn.
There! Branching off Route 37 was the road Bill assumed he had to take. There was no street sign; nothing at all, in fact, to identify it as a public thoroughfare. Great, leafy maples towered over the narrow corner on both sides, and if he hadn’t been looking for it, he would have driven past, for sure. The Brit might be stuffy, but he knew what he was talking about.
Bill made the turn. The new road featured a cracked and rutted surface that had to have been laid down during the Nixon Administration and showed no signs of having been maintained in any meaningful way since. It was eerie, like being in a time machine, driving the road that time forgot through the town that time forgot. He accelerated slowly and crept along the narrow path, hoping not to meet a car traveling in the other direction. If that happened, someone was going to have to back up, because there was no way two vehicles could pass each other, at least not on this portion of the road.
But it seemed an unnecessary concern. This road was even more deserted than Route 37. No houses lined either side, no cars were parked along the edge of the road. No kids wandered aimlessly in the steamy afternoon. There was no evidence the road even led anywhere.
Bill moved on. The GPS insisted he was on the right track, and he was determined to follow through to the end.
The lowering sky matched his black mood, and it seemed as though the clouds would open up and drench the earth at any moment. They boiled overhead, black and ugly, building rapidly, preparing to unleash nature’s fury on the helpless world below. The wind whipped, catching the side of the van like a kite and pushing first to the right, then to the left, no rhyme or reason to it; the leaves on the trees flapping and upturned in a clear indication of the impending storm.
Bill moved on.
It was now so dark he considered flicking on the van’s headlights. If he encountered anyone traveling the opposite direction now, it might be the only thing that saved them, especially if they were moving too fast or not paying attention. Ultimately, though, Bill decided to risk it, leaving the lights off. He didn’t know how much longer it would take to get to Krall’s home. The GPS claimed he was nearly there, so, although Bill was becoming less and less confident in his stuffy, British companion the farther he went along this overgrown cow path, he didn’t want to advertise his presence to the man holding his daughter by shining two headlights through his living room window.
He had now traveled nearly a full mile along the road that was no more than a rumor. Bill thought about a conversation he had once had with Sandra back in the days when they were happy and getting along and could actually do things like talk without one or both of them stomping off in frustration.
In this particular conversation, Bill had expounded on his view of life: it was like a marathon road race. Every person had to slog through their own equivalent of 26.2 miles to experience a worthwhile existence.
A few people, though, Bill had theorized, aren’t finished with their race when they complete the 26.2 miles. Those people continue on, running past the finish line, slapping the pavement relentlessly. Those people run another mile. It’s a mile very few ever experience, and there are no cheering crowds rooting the runner on, no water bottles, no one watching at all. “It’s the lonely mile,” Bill had said, and Sandra had listened somberly, nodding in understanding when he finished, although he had the feeling at the time, later confirmed, that she had thought he was full of crap.
That’s what this is
, Bill thought to himself.
This is the lonely mile, both literally and figuratively. This mile, I travel alone, with no crowds cheering me on and no one to hand me a cup of water. This lonely mile will determine the quality of my life’s race.
And then he was there.
CHAPTER 49
May 28, 3:59 p.m.
THE RAMSHACKLE, TWO-STORY colonial-style home appeared almost out of nowhere, looming out of the densely packed trees like a cancerous growth. It was the only structure Bill had encountered along the entire stretch of desolate roadway. The wind had continued to pick up as he drove, and the skies, incredibly, had continued to darken until the house, although set back no more than a hundred feet from the road, was barely visible in the murky half-light of the approaching storm.
Bill stepped on the brake, hard, as soon as he spotted the building, then slammed the van into reverse and backed quickly out of sight. The GPS informed him he had reached his destination, and he hoped he hadn’t been seen by anyone who might be looking out a window. Once out of sight of the house, he pulled the van as far off the road as possible, not an easy task considering the thing was barely wider than a cart path, and the longer branches of the trees surrounding it had been scraping and clawing the side of the vehicle practically since he had made the turn off Route 37.
He considered his options for a moment—there weren’t many—and then shut down the engine. There was barely enough clearance for another vehicle to pass without leaving the road, but he had more pressing issues to worry about right now.
He picked his backpack off the passenger side floor and shrugged it on, then lifted his Browning Hi-Power off the seat next to him. He slapped a magazine into the handle, racked the slide, and carefully checked that the safety was engaged. Shooting himself wouldn’t accomplish anything other than give Martin Krall another victim and probably a good laugh, besides.
Bill took a deep breath and blew it out forcefully, then stepped out of the van. As soon as he opened the door, the shrieking wind tried to rip it from his hand and tear it off its hinges. The wind seemed to be coming from all directions at once, swirling and gusting. He put his full weight against the door to get it closed. At least no one would hear the noise. The house was about two hundred feet away, and with the violence of the still-building storm, he could have parked right next to it, under an open window, and no one would have been able to hear a thing.
The wind ruffled his hair, and the sleeves of his shirt flapped against his arms as Bill walked along the edge of the weed-choked road. He stopped when he reached the corner of Martin Krall’s front yard. The house appeared empty. Between the thick growth of trees in this area of the forest and the black clouds shifting and swirling in the sky overhead, the darkness was nearly complete, despite the fact that it was only mid-afternoon, and Bill could not see a single lamp burning through any of the windows.
He assumed this house still belonged to Martin Krall, but he had no real proof. It was definitely the address specified on Ray Blanchard’s bill of sale, the GPS had confirmed that, but there was no way of knowing for sure if the man had moved away in the four years since purchasing the truck.
It felt right, though. If Martin Krall was, in fact, the elusive I-90 Killer, this would be the perfect location in which to indulge his creepy and disgusting obsessions, in a house deep in the woods, far from any prying eyes and ears.
But the fact that it
felt
right didn’t mean it
was
right. There was no name on the mailbox; in fact, there was no mailbox. No street number adorned the front of the house. There was no identification of any kind to indicate the name of the person or people who lived here. But he had no time to lose. He had to find out fast if he was wasting his time, or if Martin Krall and Carli might be just a few dozen feet away, inside that bleak and dreary looking home.
Bill eased his way back into the reassuring cover of the forest and began making his way along the tree line toward the front of the house. He was careful to do everything possible to avoid detection despite the fact that every fiber of his body was screaming at him,
Go, get Carli!
If this really was the home of the I-90 Killer, he would have to proceed slowly and methodically, to take every precaution possible to avoid becoming another victim. And right now, that meant staying out of sight, even though the big house across the yard appeared empty and deserted.
Built next to the house at the end of the driveway was an attached one-car garage. It had clearly been added some time after the original construction of the home, so it had suffered fewer years of neglect and seemed in considerably better condition. A small, foreign car was parked in front of the big aluminum door—which was closed—and Bill wondered what, if any, vehicle might be parked inside. It would stand to reason that Krall wouldn’t park the truck he used to kidnap girls outside in plain sight, even in as remote an area as this. Therefore the garage was the perfect place to start his search.
He moved north through the woods, emerging from the reassuring cover of the trees about halfway along the length of the garage. Two windows on the side wall facing the woods provided some light for the interior of the structure.
He stood at the edge of the clearing and took a deep breath. From this vantage point, he was shielded from the view of virtually the entire main house, but once he stepped past the tree line and began crossing the side yard he would be totally exposed. If anyone walked out of the house or, even worse, if someone was currently inside the garage, he would have nowhere to hide and nowhere to run.
Wind roared through the trees, and the loud crash of a significant-sized branch falling somewhere in the forest behind him testified to the legitimacy of his concern about getting conked on the head. It occurred to Bill that he might not be a whole lot safer here than he would be crossing the yard, and he sprinted toward the garage.