Chapter 32
Reynaldo got the message via the walkie-talkie feature on his smartphone.
“Base to box,” Titus said. “Come in.”
Reynaldo had been tossing a tennis ball with his Labrador retriever, Bo. Bo lived up to his breed, constantly wanting to play fetch, never ever tiring of the game, no matter how many times or how far Reynaldo threw the tennis ball.
“I’m here,” Reynaldo said into the phone, throwing the ball yet again. Bo ran-hobbled after it. Age. Bo was, according to a vet, eleven years old. He was still in good shape, but it made Reynaldo sad to see the sprint slowing to a lumber. Still, Bo wanted to play, always, almost stubbornly insisting on more throws when it was clear that his stamina and arthritis couldn’t really handle it. Sometimes Reynaldo tried to stop, for the sake of old Bo, but it was as though Bo could see what his master was trying to do and didn’t like it. Bo would whine and bark until Reynaldo picked up the ball and threw it yet again.
Eventually, Reynaldo would send Bo up the path so he could rest on the soft dog bed in the barn. Reynaldo had bought that bed after he found Bo wandering along the East River. The bed had held up well.
Bo looked up at him expectantly. Reynaldo rubbed behind Bo’s ear as Titus via the walkie-talkie said, “Escort Number Six up.”
“Roger that.”
They never used the phones or texts at the farm, just the walkie-talkie app. Untraceable. They never used names for obvious reasons, but Reynaldo didn’t know the names anyway. They were all numbers to him, corresponding with their location: Number Six, a blond woman who had arrived in a yellow sundress, was in Box Six.
Even Titus would admit that this sort of security was overkill, but it was always better to err on the side of too much caution. That was his creed.
When Reynaldo rose, Bo stared up at him, disappointed. “We’ll play again soon, boy. I promise.”
The dog gave a small whimper and nudged Reynaldo’s hand. Reynaldo smiled and petted Bo. The dog’s tail wagged slowly in appreciation. Reynaldo felt his eyes well up.
“Go get dinner, boy.”
Bo looked both disappointed and understanding. He hesitated for another moment and then started trotting up the path. The tail did not wag. Reynaldo waited until Bo was out of sight. For some reason, he didn’t want Bo to see inside the boxes. He could smell them, of course, knew what was inside, but when the targets saw Bo, when they sometimes even smiled at the friendly dog, it just . . . it just felt wrong to Reynaldo.
His key chain dangled from his belt. Reynaldo found the proper key, unlocked the padlock, and pulled up the door from the ground. The sudden light always made the targets blink or shield their eyes. Even at night. Even if there was just a sliver of moon. The box was complete and utter darkness. Any illumination, even the slightest from a distant star, hit them like an assault.
“Get out,” he said.
The woman groaned. Her lips were cracked. The lines on her face had darkened and deepened, as though the dirt had burrowed into every facial crevice. The stench of her body waste wafted up toward him. Reynaldo was used to that. Some of them tried to hold it in at first, but when you go days in the darkness, lying in what was essentially a coffin, the choice was taken away.
It took Number Six a full minute to sit up. She tried to lick her lips, but her tongue must have been like sandpaper. He tried to remember the last time he had given her a drink. Hours now. He had already dropped the cup of white rice down the mailbox-type slot in the door. That was how he fed them—through the slot in the door. Sometimes, the targets tried to stick their hands through the slot. He gave them one warning not to do that. If they tried it again, Reynaldo crushed the fingers with his boot.
Number Six began to cry.
“Hurry,” he said.
The blond woman tried to move faster, but her body was starting to betray her now. He had seen it before. His job was to keep them alive. That was all. Don’t let them die until Titus said, “It’s time.” At that stage, Reynaldo walked them out into the field. Sometimes, he made them dig their own graves. Most times not. He walked them out and then he put the muzzle of the gun against their heads and pulled the trigger. Sometimes, he experimented with the kill shot. He would press the muzzle against the neck and fire up or he’d press it against the crown of the skull and fire down. Sometimes, he put the muzzle against the temple, like you always see suicide victims do in the movies. Sometimes, the kill was quick. Sometimes, they lived until the second bullet. Once, when he had shot too low by the base of the spine, the victim, a man from Wilmington, Delaware, had survived but had been paralyzed.
Reynaldo buried him alive.
Number Six was a mess, defeated, broken. He had seen it often enough.
“Over there,” he said to her.
She managed to utter one word: “Water.”
“Over there. Change first.”
She tried to move fast, but her gait was more like the shuffle Reynaldo had seen on that zombie television show. That, he thought, was appropriate. Number Six was not dead yet, but she wasn’t really alive either.
Without prompting, the woman stripped out of her jumpsuit and stood before him naked. A few days ago, when she had first tearfully and reluctantly taken off that yellow sundress, asking him to turn away, trying to duck behind a tree or cover herself with her hands, she had been much more attractive. Today she didn’t worry about modesty or vanity. She stood before him like the primitive being she had become, her eyes pleading for water.
Reynaldo picked up the hose with the spray nozzle with the pistol grip. The water pressure was strong. The woman tried to bend down, tried to catch some of the flow in her mouth. He stopped the hose. She stood back up and let him water her down, her skin turning red from the harshness of the jet stream.
When he was finished, he tossed her another jumpsuit. She slipped into it. He gave her water in a plastic cup. She downed it greedily and handed it back to him, indicating that she would do pretty much anything for more. He worried that she would be too weak to make the trip up the path to the farmhouse, so he filled the cup again. She drank this one too fast, almost choking on it. He handed her a breakfast bar he had bought at a Giant food store. She almost ate the wrapper in her haste.
“The path,” he said.
The woman started up it, again walking with the shuffle. Reynaldo followed. He wondered how much more money there was to bleed from Number Six. He suspected she was wealthier than most. Surprisingly, Titus preferred male targets to females at a ratio of about three to one. The women were usually higher-profit prey. This one, when she arrived, had expensive jewelry and the certain swagger of the upper class.
Both were gone now.
She walked tentatively, glancing behind her every few steps. She was, he supposed, surprised that Reynaldo was coming with her. Reynaldo was a little surprised too. He was rarely told to escort the targets. Titus somehow liked the idea of making them walk to the farmhouse on their own.
He wondered, since this was her second visit of the day, if this was now her endgame—if Titus would tell him, “It’s time.”
When they reached the farmhouse, Titus was in his big chair. Dmitry sat by his computer. Reynaldo waited by the door. Number Six—again without prompting—took the hard wooden chair in front of Titus.
“We have a problem, Dana.”
Dana, Reynaldo thought. So that was her name.
Dana’s eyes fluttered. “Problem?”
“I had hoped to release you today,” Titus continued. His voice was always smooth, as if he was always trying to hypnotize you, but today Reynaldo thought he heard a little tension beneath the even tones. “But now it appears that there is a police officer who is investigating your disappearance.”
Dana looked dumbfounded.
“A New York City police detective named Katarina Donovan. Do you know her?”
“No.”
“She goes by Kat. She works in Manhattan.”
Dana stared off, seemingly unable to focus.
“Do you know her?” Titus asked again, a sharp edge in his voice.