The Burning (8 page)

After another sip of his coffee, Elmore eased the toenail between his front teeth and began the long task of diligently rolling the nail between all of his teeth over and over. He could never get bored with a good nail in his mouth. The simple pleasure of moving the nail around the tongue and between the teeth brought back wonderful memories of girls now dead and buried on his property. Girls who had performed beyond their years and given him hundreds upon hundreds of photos for his panty business at no charge. Actually, they paid him with their feminine gifts.

He examined the sales increases on his computer screen and smiled, the nail stuck near his molars. He scratched another piece of the scab off his head, tossing it in the trash after careful examination.

The sun shone through the window behind him, bright and warm on his back. In that moment, he decided: Jackie needed to go. He would get a new girl this week, he was sure of it. The scab on his head felt great. Sales were up. Life was good, and Elmore needed to kill again. The urge was too intense to ignore.

Maybe one day he could get the girl he had always dreamed of. Women like Jackie were kind, gentle. Elmore felt he needed a challenge. Girls like Sarah Roberts, now that would be fun. He wondered how she’d react to being photographed in a pair of panties. He wondered how she’d take the drugged sex and violence he enjoyed.

On the opposite wall sat a large cork board that Elmore had purchased at a store that catered to teachers. On the cork board sat every picture he could ever find of Sarah Roberts. The newspapers had reported on her exploits at a Mormon compound. Elmore had been able to locate old editorials on people Sarah had saved from kidnappings, burning buildings and car accidents. It was amazing and awe-inspiring. Not many women had those kinds of talents and those kinds of looks. Sarah Roberts was model-stunning gorgeous. There was no doubt about it.

“One day, Sarah Roberts,” Elmore said, staring at the pictures across the room on his wall. “I will get you and the two of us will have many months to get to know each other better. I’m sure you taste as good as you look.”

He lifted his coffee, toasted her, and took a large sip. Before he could stop it, the coffee washed the toenail down his throat as he swallowed.

“Shit.”

He grabbed the black container and pulled out another long, thick one, placed it near his wisdom teeth and shoved it down in between. His tongue found the nail and began to coax it around.

He had studied Sarah ever since she was rumored to have saved a news anchorwoman from a car accident on the St. Elizabeth Bridge almost five years ago. He knew she had recently been in Hungary and she would want to come back to North America soon.

“Knowledge is power, and Elmore is knowledge,” he said to the empty room.

Sarah was everything he desired. The only small problem, which he felt he could get over, was her age. She was at least seven years older than he would normally look for in a hostage. At twenty-four, she had been used up too much, but Elmore was willing to let that go, if only for a year of her time. One year in the cage, her food drugged, blacked out most of the time, she’d become dependent on him and learn to love him. Then, when completely docile, she would bore him, and he’d give her a proper burial out back. She deserved it after all the people she’d saved. If only he could tell where she’d be next.

“Where will you turn up next, Sarah?” he asked out loud.

A few of the newspapers he’d read suggested that Sarah had died in the Danube River outside Esztergom, Hungary, but he knew that to be false. Sarah was too tough, too strong. She’d turn up again, and when she did, he would be waiting.

Elmore picked up the black container and spit the nail back in. He replaced the container in his desk and stood.

“Sorry, Jackie, but you have to go. Sarah’s coming. I’m sure of it, and I want to be ready. Gotta make room for her. She’s on her way and wherever she lands, I will find a way there and find her. Then I will bring her back here. I will own Sarah Roberts. She will be my little pet.”

Elmore walked away from his desk and headed for the basement, a crooked smile on his face. Maybe he should have Jackie one more time before he killed her. Or, maybe one more time
after
he killed her. He’d decide when she showed him how much she loved him.

He opened the basement door and started down the stairs, becoming aroused with each step.

Chapter 3

The pain never seemed to stop. Sarah woke slowly, sprawled out on the hard floor of a small, dank room. Any sort of movement caused her headache to flare. It felt like a brain-eating cockroach worked on her insides and the little light in the room caused it to scurry through her frontal lobe searching for a hiding spot, but finding none.

With both hands on her temples, massaging in slow circles, Sarah tried to roll over and get to her feet, but she did this act of bravery as slow as her fingers moved.

A single bulb hung suspended from the ceiling, lighting what looked like an interrogation room. She had been in many over her short life. This one was no different other than the wet, musty smell.

A wooden table and chair sat to her right. She crawled over and got on the chair with great effort. She eased her head down to the table and rested it, forehead to wood, until the pain rescinded.

Her right hand felt around the back of her head and then her neck, pushing the muscles in that area to loosen them up. Something flicked across her fingers. She shouted out in pain.

“What the fuck?”

She touched the back of her neck again, this time more careful to not push or cause further damage. Stitches were sewn into her skin behind her ear, just under the hairline.

Did that guy hit me with the baton so hard it split my skin? No wonder I’m in so much pain.

She raised her head high enough to look at the two-way glass.

“Assholes, get me some fucking Advil. And get me Rod Howley. Tell him I want to talk. But not until I have a conversation with Mr. Advil. We have business to attend to first.”

She lowered her head slowly and rested it on the wooden table, her fingers at work on her temples again.

She wondered why Vivian hadn’t warned her about Rod. Or maybe told her to take a different flight. Was this one of those,
let Sarah walk into a trap, only to break her out and in doing so, catch the bad guys as that was the only way to nail them
? If that’s the way it’s supposed to be, that sucked. She hated having to figure shit out as it happened. People got hurt that way.
Sarah
got hurt that way.

She knew Rod was powerful. His government gave him more control over others than he should have. They had an agenda and it was to be achieved at all costs. She wondered what their real agenda was and why the urgency. If they really believed Sarah had some kind of psychic powers, which evidently they did, then Rod had shown her he could do anything to detain her. If she was
really
psychic, couldn’t she have seen him coming? Would she ever get out, or were they that powerful? Could Rod and his group make her disappear?

She understood that her situation grew increasingly dire each and every day. The longer she stayed locked up, her chances of escape worsened. But if she showed them what they wanted, Sarah felt she’d never get out. Their appetite would never be sated.

The door to the room cracked open and something got tossed in. She looked down at a small bottle of Advil as it settled a few feet from her chair. Moving her head ever so slowly, she scanned more of the floor but couldn’t find any water.

Fuck it. I’ll chew the little bastards.

She lowered herself off the chair and slumped to the floor. The pain stayed constant, but didn’t spike as she took care to move slow and calculated. The Advil bottle held six tablets. She popped all six in her mouth, chewed and swallowed them as fast as she could, then lay back and stared at the ceiling.

Ten minutes, maybe fifteen, and I’ll feel this knife lift out of my skull.

The door opened again. Someone stepped in and closed it behind them. Sarah didn’t bother to look. She knew whoever it was would present themselves soon enough. Her visitor walked the few steps to the table and slammed something on the top hard enough to flare her head.

“Fucking asshole. I asked for Advil because I have a headache the size of Texas. Don’t slam things around or I’ll get pissed off. Right now, I’d prefer to not have any fun, so stay quiet.”

“I’m afraid I can’t stay quiet,” Rod Howley said. “We have business.”

She opened her eyes and toward him. “
We
don’t have any business. Unless that business is you opening that door over there and escorting me outside to wave goodbye with that funny hat you wear on your head. By the way, how long have I been here? What day is it?”

She closed her eyes again and heard him walk closer. When she opened them, his face took the place of a ceiling tile. It really bothered her to see him every time she turned around in Europe, and now here he was again. She had tried to evade him. Almost died in the Danube, only to be pulled out by Parkman. They had been flown by helicopter to Romania and escorted to a private airport after most of her wounds had healed. Parkman had taken an earlier flight and was supposed to be in Toronto waiting for her. Rod had somehow seen through all that and here he was again.

He nudged her with his foot. “Get up. It’s Wednesday morning. You’ve been here for two days. Now, get up, I have pictures to show you.”

Two days? Wednesday? Drake is going to be shot Wednesday afternoon. Could there still be time?

“You talk first. Let the Advil get a grip on my headache. Hey, by the way, why the hell did your guy have to hit me hard enough to cause stitches? What was that for? I was handcuffed and shackled, for fuck sakes.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. That was excessive. I ordered everyone to think of you as an enemy combatant who had infiltrated our rank to kill all of us. By the time we had you cuffed, my men were pretty pissed at you. I didn’t think it would go that far.”

“Thanks, dick fuck. Now I’ve got a nice-sized migraine and you’re still a dick. Help me up and we’ll walk out of here together and forget this whole misunderstanding.”

Sarah raised both her arms and waited.

“Forget it, Sarah. I won’t be touching you. I’m still healing from Hungary too. I won’t risk my life tangling with you right now. Get up on your own, or I’ll have the men standing behind that mirror come in and put you in that chair. You don’t want that, so get up.”

Sarah lowered her arms and rolled onto her side. Doing her best to avoid any sudden movements, she got up and sat in the chair. The pain in her head showed signs of receding already.

Oh Advil, blessed Advil, oh how I love thee.

“Sarah, I need you to show me how you do your automatic writing. Work with me and I will make your stay with us much more comfortable than this. Trust me. The ones who comply get whatever they want. Your life would be so much better and less dangerous than it currently is.”

Sarah raised a hand for him to stop. “What are you talking about? What’s automatic writing?”

“Don’t bullshit me, Sarah. Before I came to Europe I talked to Esmerelda, Dolan, and many others. I know what you are and how accurate you can be. Your talents have to be clinically tested. We have to show it working and have proof.”

“You lie,” Sarah said, her head clearing even more. She blinked slowly and then watched Rod for every facial movement, every nuance in an attempt to figure out what he was up to.

“About what?”

“There’s no way Esmerelda or Dolan would have betrayed my confidence. They would have never talked freely with someone like you. Not about me, anyway.”

“Ahh, but they did,” Rod said, holding up his right index finger. “What they didn’t know was who I am. They thought I was a writer who had been saved from that burning building a few years back. They thought I already knew about your abilities. Neither one thought what they told me was news to me.”

“Let me get this straight. You just knocked on their door and chatted about me? That’s it? Is that how it happened?”

“Not exactly. I posed as a cab driver for Dolan. We chatted for an hour in New York traffic. I told him that you and I talked once in a while and that I missed you. Esmerelda and I talked it up when a bouquet of flowers were mistakenly sent to her home address. I delivered the flowers and told her I recognized her name. Wasn’t she the friend of Sarah Roberts, who was also my friend? Boy, can that woman talk. She was so appreciative of what you did for her daughter.”

Sarah stared at him. If she had a weapon of any kind at that moment, she would have used it and screw the consequences. Rod had gone too far.

“I refuse to be your guinea pig.”

“Look, Sarah, you tracked Armond Stuart around the world with no resources but your own wits and your sister, Vivian. Do you expect me to believe you’re just lucky? That you’re an average twenty-four-year-old girl? How do you manage a task like that without help? Some of our best FBI agents can’t do what you’ve done. Give me something to go on.”

Sarah moved her head back and forth slowly.

“What?” Rod asked. “What’s that? Your answer?”