Scream (33 page)

"Did she tell you their names? These other women?"

"Yes." Mark picked the scrap paper up and read the names.
"Amber Mann and Virginia Grisham."

This time there was a long pause.

"Deputy Foreman?"

"Mr. Stone, can you come over to our headquarters?"

"Sure."

"Do you know where we're located? Furnace Street in
Cumberland?"

"Yeah, I think I know where it is."

"Good. Come right away." Her voice sounded urgent.

"Are you gonna help?"

"We'll do what we can."

"I'll be there in thirty minutes."

The sun was well into its downward afternoon arc when Amber
pulled Cheryl into the far corner of the barn, out of Ginny's
hearing. She couldn't believe the turn of events. To think that
Cheryl got drugged in her own home, dragged here by judge,
locked up in this giant crate like some animal, only to have her
cell phone with her the whole time, but the damaged phone
could only receive calls and was sorely low on battery life.

Immediately following the call all three of the women
were quiet and solemn. Ginny had slipped back into shell, her
semi-catatonic state, and Cheryl was even showing signs of
depression. She stood, clutching the phone to her chest, cheeks
wet with tears, with a faraway look in her eyes. A look that
screamed defeat.

Their lives were now in the hands of Cheryl's husband ... estranged husband... cheating husband. Would he call when
Cheryl didn't call him in an hour? Of course he would. And
he'd have the cops already looking for them. But really, what
were the chances of the cops actually finding them? Sure, they
couldn't be more than two hours away from Frostburg, but two
hours covered a lot of land, a lot of farmland. And none of
them knew how much time they had left. She had to try to
convince Cheryl that they still needed to formulate a backup
escape plan. Just in case. Which is what led to this secret
meeting in the far corner of the barn. Ginny didn't need to
hear any of this. She'd only fret more. And fretting more was
not something they needed her doing right now. She was better
off in the dark. They'd bring her into the light when the time
came. And not a minute sooner.

"What is it?" Cheryl asked. Her eyes were wide, but no life
was in them. Her lips were stretched thin over white teeth. She
held the phone in both hands, pressed against her chest.

Amber took a gulp of water, swished it around in her mouth,
and swallowed hard. She drew a hand over her forehead,
mopping up the sweat that was now ever-present. The fever
had started two days ago, low grade but enough to keep her
up at night shivering. Her chest burned now with each breath,
and coughing was like dragging razor blades up and down her
throat. She forced herself to swallow again and kept her voice
low. "I think we still need to talk about an escape plan. Just in
case things don't... you know."

Cheryl blinked three times, and Amber thought she saw a
spark of awareness in her eyes. "OK. Do you have anythingwait a minute." She snapped her fingers. Her eyes came alive.
Thank God. "I had an idea before the phone rang." She thought
for a moment, staring at her feet, bouncing her left hand on her thigh. "Yes. Your belt, from your skirt. The one you were
wearing the night you got here."

Amber leaned in. This better be good. "What about it?"

"The dogs. They're the ones keeping us here, not this rotted
old barn. We get rid of the dogs, and we're out of here."

"OK. So what about the belt?"

Cheryl held a fist to her chin. "If we can loop it through one
of the gaps between the planks and lure one of the dogs in, we
can use the belt to strangle it. Wrap it around the dog's neck
and pull until ... well, until-"

"Yeah, I get it," Amber said. The poor woman couldn't even
bring herself to say it. Until it snuffed the life out of the mangy
mutt. Amber thought about that for a moment, visualizing it
in her head. It might just work. 'Course, they'd have to get the
dog to come to a specific spot along the wall and hold still long
enough to loop the belt around its neck without losing a hand
in the process. Then, with it pinned against the wall, they'd pull
with everything they had until the little beasty went limp. "It's
a long shot, but there's a chance. Might be our only chance."

"We'll wait until five. See what happens with the phone.
Then decide when."

"OK," Amber said. "And listen, don't say anything to Ginny
until we're ready to do it. She's ... you know."

Cheryl stole a glance at Ginny, and Amber did the same. Still
doing the dead-man's stare. "Yeah. I know."

HEN MARK ENTERED THE ALLEGHENY COUNTY
Sheriff's Department headquarters, Deputy Foreman was
waiting for him.

"Mr. Stone," she said, extending a hand and shaking his. She
wasn't wearing her broad-brimmed hat, and her russet hair was
pulled back in a ponytail. "Come this way."

Mark followed her back to a small room with two metal
desks facing each other, each with a computer and monitor.
Along one wall was a long table with papers and files spread
out on it, orderly, like someone was in the process of organizing
them. At one of the desks, a large man with a full face, short,
thinning brown hair, and a large belly was wedged between the
desk and chair playing with the computer's mouse. He wasn't
wearing a police uniform, just khakis and a brown oxford that
appeared two sizes too small.

Foreman entered the room first and motioned toward the
bulky man. "This is Brinkley, our tech guy."

Brinkley looked up and squinted at Mark with clear green
eyes that were entirely too small for his large head. He nodded,
no smile, then went back to the monitor.

"Brinkley's going to help us find your wife and the others."

"Triangulation?" Mark had heard of cops and rescue
personnel locating people using their cell phone signals by triangulating their position between three phone towers, but he
had no idea how it worked. Regardless, a spark of hope ignited
in his heart. Cheryl's phone could save their lives after all. Just
stay alive, baby. Just stay alive.

Foreman bit off a piece of her fingernail and nodded. "Yeah.
You know how it works?"

"I've heard of it but ... no."

Foreman turned toward Brinkley. "You got a piece of paper
and a pen?"

"Yup," Brinkley said. He took his hand off the mouse, pulled
a pen from his shirt pocket, and reached across the desk for a
small piece of paper. "Ready."

Foreman turned back to Mark. "We need your wife's full
name, cell phone number, and network provider."

Mark gave them the information: name, number, provider.

"Got it," Brinkley said. He turned his attention back to the
computer monitor, and his thick hand swallowed the mouse
again.

"Good, Brink will work on that," Foreman said. "Now, triangulation. Cell phone towers are usually arranged across the
country in a honeycomb pattern. In a rural setting, they're
spaced maybe ten, twelve miles apart. When a phone is
switched on, it sends out a check signal every so often to make
sure everything is working as it should. All the towers within
range will receive the signal, usually at least three. All we have
to do is contact the provider, find out which tower is receiving
the strongest signal, and triangulate it with two other towers.
We should be able to pinpoint her location to within a few
hundred yards. It's the same principle GPS uses except it uses
satellites, not phone towers." She smiled a reassuring smile. "It's
not so hard to find the needle in the haystack when the needle
is screaming, Here I am. The only tricky part is that in rural areas, the towers usually follow roads, so they're arranged in
straight lines instead of the honeycomb patter. Makes it harder
to triangulate when the towers are in a line."

"Will it work if her phone is turned off?" Mark asked.

Foreman snapped her head toward Brinkley, who was already
looking at Mark, lips slightly parted, eyebrows raised. "Her
phone is off?" he said.

"She said the battery was low, so she was turning off the
phone. She's going to call me at five."

Brinkley lifted his hand off the mouse in dramatic fashion
and pursed his large lips. "Nope. No power, no signal. We need
a signal to triangulate."

Mark looked at his watch. Four thirty. Half an hour. An eternity when your wife's life hangs in the balance. Maybe she'd call
sooner. Maybe. Probably not. Cheryl was on time with everything, the most punctual person Mark had ever met. If she said
she'd call in an hour, and an hour was five o'clock, then she'd
call at five on the dot, not a minute sooner or later.

Foreman turned to Brinkley again. "I'll call Hickock and let
him know. He told me to keep him updated."

"Where is the big guy?" Brinkley asked, a spark of humor
flashing in his eyes.

"A domestic over in Keifers. Some woman threatening to
take her husband's head off with a shotgun."

Brinkley snorted out a laugh, sounding like a hog rummaging
for food. "Keifers? That's out in the boonies, isn't it?"

"Over by Green Ridge."

Brinkley shook his head. His full cheeks jostled back and
forth with the same consistency as Jell-O. "Crazy rednecks."

"Well," Foreman said, turning to Mark, hands palm up. "We'll
have to wait until five. Can you hang around until then?"

Mark felt anger-or maybe just frustration-rise in his chest and spread heat up the back of his neck. "Hang around? Just sit
on our duffs and not do anything while my wife is out there in
some barn being held captive by a wacko? There's nothing you
can do? Get the National Guard out there, for crying out loud,
helicopters, troops, whatever. Comb the area."

Foreman's face softened. "What area? Mr. Stone, I know
you're upset, really, I do. But we have no idea where that barn
is. If we draw a circle around Allegheny County that spreads
out what eighty, a hundred, and who knows how many more
miles, we're covering most of Maryland, most of West Virginia,
the whole southwestern corner of Pennsylvania, and some of
Ohio. And Virginia all the way to the DC suburbs. That's a lot
of land to cover and a lot of farmland. Do you realize how many
unsuspecting barns we'd come across?"