Tears welled up in his eyes. "I can't," he choked.
"Of course you can."
"No. No, I can't. Don't ask me that."
"The world is a cruel place. You said so yourself."
"I'm afraid."
"There's nothing to be afraid of."
"Yes. Yes, there is!"
"Shhh."
The sound came from several people seated nearby. They were staring at him with cross faces and fingers pressed to their lips.
The scene changed, and suddenly he was sitting at the back of the church. The service had begun. Beautiful songs were sung, but when it came time for everyone to follow the closed coffin outside, he couldn't make himself get up.
"I'm afraid," he whispered shamefully to himself.
He couldn't make himself go to the cemetery. Couldn't make himself follow her on the last leg of her journey. He didn't like cemeteries. He tried to stay away from cemeteries.
Good-bye, Charlotte.
He opened his eyes and stood up, the chair legs scraping against the floor. Exhausted, he walked to the wall of photos and pulled down his favorite, the soft close-up of Charlotte's face.
Why had she asked him to come with her? He was ashamed because he was such a coward. There had been many times in his life when he'd thought of killing himself. He believed in God, and he knew the next world had to be better than this one. He wanted to die, wanted to join her, but he'd been told that killing himself would be a sin. A mortal sin that could send him plummeting to hell.
But maybe this was hell.
Words came to him and he spoke them aloud: "The errors that are whispered to me, enchantments, false perfumes, childish melodies."
Who had written that? Somebody's favorite author. Rimbaud. Yes. Arthur Rimbaud had written those words.
He bent his head and kissed Charlotte, sweet, sweet Charlotte, on the lips.
He put the photo aside and left the darkroom to change out of his suit so he could return to work.
He thought about the other girls. Their annoying imperfections.
Sluts.
Bitches.
Undeserving of life.
He reached into the deep front pocket of his pants, feeling for the six round objects he kept there. They were dry and much smaller now, but he loved the way they felt. He rolled them against his fingertips, around and around. Like worry stones, they brought him comfort, comfort he sorely needed in a time like this when his quest for a mate had to start all over again.
The bartender kicked them out at 1 A.M.
There was a lot of noise as the five friends shuffled out the door of the rural Minnesota tavern.
"Comin' over, Todd?" Jerry asked as he searched through his keys. "I rented a coupla movies. Adam Sandler. You still like Adam Sandler?"
"Who doesn't?" Todd asked, not wanting to make Jerry feel bad even though he'd outgrown Sandler a while back. "I don't know. I'm a little tired."
"Come on."
"Yeah, come on. We're all going," chimed in two of the other guys.
The routine was familiar. Usually Todd dragged his feet, saying he was tired, but eventually Jerry and company convinced him to come to Jerry's place, where they would sit around drinking beer and watching movies until early morning. It had been fun when they were in high school, but they'd been out for four years now, and Todd was finding it increasingly depressing.
"I think I'll just go on home," Todd said, even though he knew once he got there he would lie in bed and stare at the ceiling and stew about his life until the sun came up. He was going through what was now being termed "quarter-life crisis," and he wasn't enjoying it.
"Sure?" Jerry asked, standing with his car door open.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure."
They broke up, and Todd fumbled for his keys. Now that he was standing upright, he realized he was drunker than he'd thought. He'd just drive slow and take a back road. His truck was a piece of shit with over a hundred thousand miles on it, but it always got him home.
"Shoulda stayed in college," he said to himself as he turned onto a narrow, unmarked road that wound between a mixture of towering pines and deciduous trees. He'd gotten into a fender bender last winter, and one headlight didn't point straight anymore. Instead, it veered to the right, illuminating the trees as he passed.
The night was cold with patches of fog. Condensation settled on the windshield. The wipers were going, but they didn't help much. Todd craned his neck trying to find a clear area, the fog just dense enough to be disorienting as he tried to spot something that looked familiar, that would take him in the direction of his trailer. Why had he gone this way? Why hadn't he taken a road he was more familiar with? Had he missed the turn?
He continued on for ten minutes.
Too far.
He braked, coming to a stop in the middle of the dark, deserted road. He was about to swing the truck around using the ol' three-point turn when he caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye.
His scalp prickled.
Ever since he could remember, he'd heard stories about this road, about a ghost that had been seen by a lot of people. He'd never seen a ghost. Once, when he was twelve and sitting alone in his room, he thought he felt the pressure of a hand on his shoulder. But it never happened again, so as the years passed he figured he'd just imagined it.
He clicked on his brights.
Oh, shit.
Standing on the side of the road was a blurry shape.
His first instinct was to turn the truck around and haul ass out of there. He fumbled with the gearshift, intending to put it in drive. But he'd already been in drive, and he accidentally slammed it into park instead.
He looked up, the sound of his heart thundering in his head. His eyes watered in fear.
The apparition turned to face him.
A girl.
He'd expected to see a skull for a face, or at least something withered and ugly, but it was a girl. A girl with blond hair. Wearing nothing but a red T-shirt, panties, and jogging shoes. She stood at the edge of the road, staring into the bright lights.
His fear dissolved. This was somebody real. This was somebody in trouble.
He pulled out the parking brake and stepped from the truck. "Are you okay?" he shouted to her.
She stared as if afraid of him—or as if trying to gauge whether he was friend or foe.
He began to move slowly toward her, the soles of his boots echoing hollowly and sounding unnatural on the deserted road.
"Stop!" She held up a hand, palm out.
He stopped.
"Don't come any closer!"
"Okay, okay. I won't. Look, I stopped. I'm just standing here. But I think you should get in my truck so I can take you—"
"Truck? You're driving a truck?"
"Yeah." He stepped into the headlight beam, his body cutting off the light, throwing her into darkness. "Now can you see it?"
"M-maybe." She raised her arm higher, like a person blocking the sun. "I'm not sure."
He stepped to the side so the light once again illuminated her. She was younger than he'd thought. Fifteen, sixteen, maybe. Her face was dirty and scratched, and there were tear tracks down her cheeks.
Something bad had happened to her. Something really bad.
He began blabbering, trying to gain her trust. "My name's Todd. I live around here." He scratched his head—a nervous gesture of his. "I should be going to college, but ... I don't know, I thought it was a drag and quit. Now I wish I hadn't. It's not like it's too late, I guess. But it doesn't seem the same going when you're twenty-two." He paused, trying to pull together more of his biography. That was about it. Sad, really. "Let me help you."
He began to move again, slowly because he was afraid she might bolt.
She didn't, and soon he was close enough to touch her arm. It was like cold marble.
She spoke, and when she did her words came out a harsh, broken whisper through a throat that sounded raw. "Some guy. Some creepy, awful, creepy guy. He k-kidnapped me and p-put me in the trunk of his car. It smelled awful in there! Awful!"
"Oh, man!"
"I started gagging and couldn't breathe." She pressed madly trembling fingers to her mouth. Her eyes began to tear. "B-but t-that gave me the idea to play dead . . . and I got away."
Fuuuckkk! The hairs on the back of his neck shifted. He'd read about some crazy asshole who was kidnapping and killing girls. The people on the news had started calling him the Lucia Killer because the guy kept their eyes. Their fucking eyes! What kind of person did that? Nervously Todd checked up and down the road. Empty except for the fog. At least it looked empty.
He'd seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre over twenty times, and he half expected Leatherface to come crashing out of the trees, chainsaw in his hand.
"Come on! Let's get the hell out of here!" He grabbed the girl. Stumbling, they ran for the truck.
Chapter 16
The police station where Todd took Holly Lindstrom was located on the main drag in the small town of Hiawatha Springs. As soon as the officers on duty heard what had happened to her, they put in a frantic call to the country sheriff, the BCA, and the FBI. Now, in the predawn hours, Holly sat in a cramped room with two high, tiny windows and a row of buzzing fluorescent lights overhead while waiting to be interviewed by an FBI agent being sent down from the Cities.
She just wanted to go home. Go home and take a shower to wash the stink from her body, then crawl into bed and never get up. Sleep. She wanted to sleep forever.
But when she got home, would she be able to sleep? And if she did, what if he came back? What if he was lurking outside her house, outside her bedroom window, waiting for the lights to go out?
The FBI agent introduced herself as Mary something. Holly was having a hard time concentrating, and she'd never been good with names. Mary something had short dark hair and was wearing black pants, a black jacket, and white blouse. The clothes were too grown-up and businessy for Holly's taste, but there was something cool about the woman. Holly suddenly felt safer just having her in the room.
"Do you mind if I record this?" the agent asked, sitting across from her at a narrow table and pulling a small tape recorder from a brown leather briefcase.
Holly shook her head. "Somebody already explained how interviews have to be recorded." She shrugged. "And I don't care anyway."
"I know you've already answered a lot of questions." The woman flipped open a notebook and retrieved a pen. "But I specialize in abduction cases. I might ask you things the police aren't trained to ask." She looked at her and smiled in a sad, understanding way that made Holly feel better. "How about if we start with your name, age, and address?" She clicked on the recorder, entering a date, time, and location.
"Holly Lindstrom. Age seventeen." That was followed by her south Minneapolis address.
"What were you doing just before you were kidnapped?"
"I heard about the Lucia Killer—that's what everybody's calling him now. That's all people are talking about. We even had an assembly at school. They passed out flyers. Told us to be careful. Always walk with other kids. Adults, if possible. All that stuff, but it didn't seem real. I mean, we've had assemblies about other things. Drinking and driving. Drugs. AIDS. I never felt like any of them had anything to do with me. I mean, I heard that one of the girls who was killed was a runaway, and another was kind of a whore."
Her mother had warned her. Her father had warned her. "When you get off work, have the manager walk you to your car," they'd instructed. She'd promised, but only to lessen her parents' worry. She'd never had any intention of asking her boss to go with her. How uncool.
"I was at work," she explained to the FBI agent. "I work at a convenience store. Come and Get It. Stupid name, I know. My friends always tease me about it. They're always asking if I work at a pet store. Sorry." She looked down at her hands. Her knuckles were white. "I have a bad habit of getting off the subject. What did you say your name was?"
"Cantrell. Agent Mary Cantrell."
"Oh. Yeah. Sorry."
"That's okay. Take your time. We aren't in any hurry."
Holly took a deep breath and continued. "When I get off work it's usually dark. For some reason, I felt kind of creeped out and I actually thought about asking my boss to walk me to my car, but he was busy. A customer had . . . like . . . run into one of the gas pumps, and it was all crazy. It was late and I wanted to get home. I have a test tomorrow—well, today— and needed to study. My car was just a block away, around the corner. It, was no big deal. Or I didn't think so, anyway."
She tugged a chunk of straight blond hair across her cheek and pulled it into her mouth. She gnawed on ends that were already wet, then let go. She was addicted to hair chewing. Also to eyebrow plucking. Not with tweezers—with her fingers.
"When I unlocked the car," she continued, "somebody grabbed me from behind. I thought it was one of my friends playing a trick on me. I yelled, mad. And then . . . the guy—he stuck a gun in my side and told me he'd kill me if I didn't shut up. After that I didn't say anything else. He, like ... got in the backseat and told me to, like . . . drive away."