The Last Widow (Will Trent 9)

Amanda asked, “What about blood typing? Are we sure that no one else was bleeding?”

“I can’t say with absolute certainty, but it seems probable that the majority of the blood came from Carter. Latent fingerprints are going to give us the quickest snapshot. Sara’s are on file. So are Michelle Spivey’s. I need the laptop from the other bus to start running comparisons. Half of my equipment is being repaired. The only reason I started without the team is because of Sara. I wanted to see if something jumped out at me.”

“Nothing jumped out?”

He shook his head, but said, “There are some bloody shoeprints on the bathroom floor. Looks like a man’s size seven, maybe a woman’s nine, which would match Sara.” He motioned for them to follow him. He stood outside the cramped bathroom. “The toilet’s not flushed, but the seat is down. It’s weird. These guys don’t strike me as the type who sit down to take a piss.”

Weird.

Will ducked his head under the door frame and looked around. The first thing he smelled was urine. The first thing he saw was bloody footprints pacing out almost every part of the laminate floor. The walls were clad in the same laminate. The drop-ceiling hung half a foot lower than the ceiling in the room, probably to hide a roof leak. Plastic sink with a cabinet base. Blood in the basin where someone had washed their hands. Toilet crammed against the shower/tub combination. Grab bar bolted to the wall through a piece of plywood.

He felt Sara in here the same way he’d felt her outside in the parking lot.

Amanda asked, “Did you check above the ceiling?”

Charlie said, “All I found were spider webs and rat droppings. There’s no access to the room next door. It’s a decorating choice, I guess?”

Amanda said, “Will, finish up here and meet me outside. We need to regroup.”

Will did not immediately follow her. He couldn’t shake the sense that he was missing something. He took one last look around the tiny bathroom. He ducked his head under the door frame, but then—

Maybe it was the grab bar or maybe it was because he’d just said the word rape eighty times to Sara’s parents, but Will looked up at the ceiling.

Sara had been attacked in a public restroom. The rapist had crawled through the drop-ceiling in the adjacent men’s room and jumped down into her stall. Before Sara could manage more than a gasped no, the attacker had handcuffed her to the grab bars on either side of the toilet.

Will asked Charlie, “Where’s your black light?”

“It’s on the other bus. Why?”

“Did Sara show you that trick?”

Charlie grinned. He went to his duffel bag outside the door. He returned with two colored Sharpies and a roll of clear tape. Then he took out his cell phone.

Will said, “You have to layer it,” even though Charlie knew what he was doing. He knew because of Sara. Her nerdiness ran deep. The only thing she loved more than helping people was regaling them with the magic of science.

Charlie stuck a clear piece of tape over the light on his phone. He used the Sharpie to color a blue circle over the light. He fixed the ink with another piece of tape. Then he colored a purple circle over the blue one and fixed that with more tape.

Will turned off the lights. He closed the door. The curtains were already pulled. The room was dark.

Charlie tapped the flashlight app on his phone. The blood slashing around the room started to glow, because that was the point of a black light: the ultraviolet wave turned bodily fluids luminescent.

Fluids like urine.

Will said, “Point it up at the bathroom ceiling.”

Charlie stood outside the door. He shined the light upward.

Will blinked at the glowing greenish-yellow letters that Sara had written on the drop-ceiling. Four tiles across, three tiles deep, all but one had either a single word or a number.

Charlie read, “Beau. Bar. Dash. Thinks. Hurley’s. Dead. Spivey. Me. OK. 4. Now.”

Will heard the words, but at the moment, he didn’t care. All he could see was the crude little heart that Sara had drawn for him in the corner.

Part Two

Monday, August 5, 2019

9

Monday, August 5, 5:45 a.m.

Sara was pulled awake by her own sweat dripping into her eyes. She squinted at her watch, but found only her bare wrist. She turned to see if Will was in bed, but there was no Will and there was no bed. Sara had fallen asleep with her back wedged into the corner.

The Camp.

At least Sara assumed she was in the Camp. Last night, a black van had picked them up at the motel. Sara was loaded into the back, blindfolded and gagged, handcuffed to Michelle. The woman was unconscious through most of the journey. Even after she’d finally stirred from her drugged stupor, Michelle had not uttered a word. The only noise out of her mouth was a grief-filled cry when the door to the van had opened and she’d realized where they were.

But where was that, exactly?

Sara pushed herself up against the corner. Her legs were stiff. Sweat rolled off her body. Her clothes were so filthy they scratched her skin. She had only seen the rustic, one-room cabin by lamplight. Twelve paces wide. Twelve paces deep. Ceiling pitched higher than she could reach. No windows. A tin roof. Rough-hewn walls and floor. Surrounded by trees.

The bucket by the door served as a toilet. Another bucket in the opposite corner held water and a ladle. There was a straw mattress on a crude wooden frame. The makeshift box spring was a long length of rope tied into a series of knots, forming a net. Sara had chosen to sleep in the corner nearest the backswing of the door. She wanted as much time as possible to prepare if a stranger came in.

She tried the doorknob. The padlock bumped against the frame. She paced the room. The walls were unpainted wood. There was no insulation between the studs. No electricity, but sunlight streaked through the gaps in the boards. She peered between the slats. Green leaves, dark tree trunks. The sound of water burbling. A stream, maybe, or a river that she could follow downstream if she found the chance.

She walked to the other side of the room. Same view of dense forest. She pressed her hand against the board. The nails were rusting. If she pushed hard enough, she might be able to force off the bottom slats and crawl out.

A key slid into the padlock.

Sara stepped back, fists clenched.

Dash smiled at her. His arm was still in a sling, but he had changed into jeans and a button-down shirt. “Good morning, Dr. Earnshaw. I thought you might enjoy taking your breakfast with us after you meet your patients.”

The idea of food made her stomach turn, but she would need to keep up her strength in case the opportunity presented itself to run.

Dash said, “I can handcuff you again, but I think you’ve already figured out how remote we are from civilization.”

Sara had figured no such thing, but she nodded.

“Good girl.” He stepped aside so she could go ahead of him.

Sara tried not to let the girl grate, as if she was a child or a horse. One of the sentries from the motel stood outside the door. AR-15, black tactical gear.

Sara stepped down onto a log that served as a stair. She tried to orient herself. The forest was thick, but there was a cleared path beyond the cabin. She squinted at the sun peeking over the horizon. Five thirty or six in the morning. They were in the foothills of the Appalachian mountain chain, though that didn’t narrow things down. If she assumed the motel had been in the western part of Georgia, they could be in Tennessee or Alabama. Or she could be completely wrong, and they were in the North Georgia Mountains near the Carolinas.

Sara started down the cleared path. She picked her way over a fallen tree. She could feel Dash reaching out to help her. She moved away from him, away from his feigned chivalry.

He said, “I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what you find here.”

Sara bit her lip. Unless she found a car at the end of this path that was going to drive her home, there was nothing pleasant about her surroundings. “I am a hostage. I am here against my will.”

“You had a choice.” His tone had an overly familiar teasing element. He was trying to establish an easiness between them, as if the gun on his hip and his armed sentry didn’t give him all of the power.

Sara pushed a branch away from her face. Her skin was furred with grime, blood and sweat. She had furtively washed herself with tepid water from the bucket, but had no choice but to put back on her dirty clothes. The shorts were rigid with blood. Her shirt reeked of her own body odor. Her bra and underwear had turned into sandpaper. There was no shortage of forensic evidence on her now. She wondered if there was something she should do—cut herself on a bramble, leave a blood trail, mark the path in some way so that Charlie Reed or Will would know that she had been here.

Will.

At the motel, Sara had drawn the heart on the ceiling first. She had been taking a risk leaving the message, but the most important thing she wanted to convey was that she knew that he was looking for her.