No alarm. But now the real test: He removed the slim jim and opened the door. The courtesy lights came on, but again, no alarm.
Great.
He leaned inside and pawed through the papers piled at the center of the bench. Mostly toll receipts and maps. He picked up a Pennsylvania map and noticed that someone had crisscrossed it with red lines. A place where three of those lines intersected, out past Harrisburg and Camp Hill, was circled. A piece of plain white paper was clipped to an upper corner of the map. Jack scanned the typewritten note and realized it was a set of directions from the Turnpike to "the farm."
He wondered how much these two drivers knew. Were they just doing a job, just making a delivery? Or did they know what lay inside that hunk of concrete? Their lack of furtiveness led Jack to suspect they knew nothing, but the only way to be sure was to ask.
He refolded the map and slipped out of the cab, relocking the door as he went.
Still a fair number of miles ahead of them. Jack would definitely need a full gas tank. He'd also need a little food and drink before he set out again.
Looked like it was going to be a long night. He wanted to see this "farm" and find out what they planned for Jamie's remains.
And then he'd get answers to his questions.
7
Richie Cordova looked down at Sister Maggie where she sat tied to a nice, sturdy oak chair, looked into her eyes and saw the fear and confusion there.
He reveled in the moment. Hard to believe that less than an hour ago he'd been terrified, ready to call the whole thing off.
All well and good to work up a plan to snatch a nun off the street, but getting down to the job of doing it… that's a whole other story. He'd smeared mud on his plates so no one could report the number, he'd had the sap ready, he'd juiced himself with fury, but when he'd spotted her walking and pulled into that curb… man, he'd switched from being pissed to almost pissing his pants.
But he'd made himself do it. It was pretty dark, no one around with a clear line of sight—now or never. And he had to do it right. If he blew it, he'd never get another chance.
He'd pulled it off, clubbing her unconscious and then speeding away with her slumped and huddled on the passenger side floor. But even then he hadn't been able to relax. What if someone had seen? What if some nosy old bitch had been watching out her window and reported it? Not that it was likely or would even matter. He was driving a nondescript Jeep—had to be a million of them in the city—with unreadable plates.
Still… you never could tell. Driving along he'd spent so much time looking into the rearview mirror he almost ran down a pedestrian.
But no one gave him a second look on his way to this urban wasteland west of Northern Boulevard in Flushing. And now he was here, hidden away in a rundown warehouse he'd sniffed out yesterday, where no one would interrupt him.
And now that he had her here, securely trussed up like a prelibato salami, his fear was gone, evaporated, replaced by a strange elation. He'd always got a kick out of how the blackmail game let him call the shots and generally mess up people's lives. But that had always been a long-distance involvement, with contact limited to phone calls and mail.
But this… he'd never experienced anything like this. Sister Margaret Mary was his to do with as he pleased. He wasn't just pulling her strings, he owned her.
God, it was like sex.
And he hadn't laid a finger on her. Yet.
He was learning things about himself, things he'd never imagined. This was turning out to be more that just payback, it was a voyage of self-discovery.
But maybe he shouldn't go all that deep about it, seeing as what today's Gemini horoscope had to say.
You may feel compelled to overanalyze things at work, but resist. A colleague becomes more expressive when you talk first. In time, you'll see that problems at work were a godsend.
He was kind of awed by that last part. His problems at "work" were already becoming a sort of "godsend." And when he thought about it, Sister Maggie was a colleague in a way. At least they'd worked together. Sort of. For sure she was going to become more expressive, and he was definitely going to talk first.
"Do you know who I am?" he said, moving closer and standing over her. "Do you have any idea the trouble vou've caused me."
She shook her head and made begging sounds through her gag.
Even though no one would hear her even if she screamed at the top of her voice, Richie decided to leave the gag in place. He didn't want to listen to no bullshit. It was his place to do the talking, and hers to listen.
"I'm the guy who took those pretty pictures of you and Metcalf."
The way her eyes went wide, showing white all around, shot a bolt of ecstasy toward his groin.
"That's right. Me. But guess what happened? Someone came around and messed up all my files… destroyed them. Ain't that a pity? I don't know who that someone was, but I think—no, I'm sure I know who sent him. And you're going to tell me all about him."
He savored for a moment the tears that filled her eyes and ran down her cheeks to the gag, then he rummaged through the toolbox he'd brought along. He wanted the straight dope when he asked a question. That might require a little softening up. Or it might not. He wouldn't know until he removed the gag, and he didn't plan to do that for a while.
A boy's gotta have his fun, right?
He found the ice pick and held it up where she could see it.
"But first, a little truth serum."
8
Jack wasn't sure how to play this.
Here he was, following the Blagden truck down this bumpy country road in the dark. The very dark. The moon hadn't risen, not a street lamp in sight, and he and the truck were the only vehicles on the road.
They'd turned off the Turnpike miles ago, then wound into these low hills. No way they couldn't know someone was coasting along behind them. But did they care?
That was the question. If they knew they'd been hauling a murdered woman's body across state lines, they'd be more than a little paranoid and watching their rearview mirrors. They might even pull over to let a following car pass.
But if they believed they were hauling a weird chunk of concrete and nothing more, they wouldn't care who was behind them.
Although the truck had made no evasive maneuvers, Jack decided to play it safe and proceed on the assumption that the drivers knew the score.
So when he saw the truck slow and make a cautious turn onto an even narrower road, Jack drove on by. He spotted two sets of headlights sitting atop a rise. Through his rearview he watched the truck climb to the top of the rise and stop by the headlights.
Jack killed his own lights and pulled over. He stepped out of the car and found himself facing what looked like an open field, overgrown and bordered by a rickety wire fence. He checked the sky. Broken cloud cover blocked most of the starshine. He looked around for signs that the moon might be rising but found no telltale glow. Good. The less light the better.
He hopped over the wire and made his way in a crouch through the tall grass toward the lights.
He dropped lower as he neared the top of the rise, then stopped and squatted just out of reach of the headlights.
The flatbed and two pickups sat angled around a pit that looked maybe seven or eight feet wide. From the size of the mound of excavated dirt piled to the side, Jack guessed it was a pretty deep hole.
Deep enough to swallow Jamie's concrete sarcophagus.
Four men with shovels, plus one of the drivers, stood around the rim showing not a hint of furtiveness. That persuaded Jack that they probably wouldn't be able to add anything to what he already knew. He'd made the trip for nothing.
No… not for nothing. He'd learned where they were burying Jamie Grant.