“We have to get in there right now.” Rachel’s instincts and training told her that time was of the essence.
Using the end of his flashlight, Dean broke the glass in a lower pane, carefully stuck his hand inside, and released the interior lock. “It was locked from the inside,” he said, “which means someone came through this way and locked it.”
When Kristen and Ross followed Dean and Rachel, Dean turned to them and said, “Wait here. And call Rachel if you see or hear anything unusual.”
The couple simultaneously nodded agreement.
“Where do we go from here?” Dean asked Rachel. “Up or down or forward?”
“You check the up stairs and I’ll check the down,” she said. “If we don’t find anything, we’ll move forward into the building.”
“I’ll contact Officer Williams while I’m checking out the stairs,” Dean said.
Rachel opened the door that led into the basement, shined her flashlight on the wooden staircase, and took several steps downward. There lying on the fifth step was what looked like a credit card. Rachel stooped to pick it up, took a good look at it, and hurried back up the stairs. After closing the door, she called out to Dean, who rushed down from the top of the upper staircase.
“Take a look. It’s Lindsay’s driver’s license.”
With her back against the wall and her foot and leg bleeding, Lindsay tried to think rationally. But how was that possible? She was in the clutches of a crazy person, someone who had already killed three other women.
“Bella, you don’t have to do this. You aren’t yourself,” Lindsay said. “You need help.”
Bella’s serene smile unnerved Lindsay.
“I needed help twenty years ago,” Bella said. “If someone had stopped Jake…if they had kept him from hurting me…”
“How did Jake hurt you?” Keep talking. Buy time. Pray that someone finds you before it’s too late.
“Patrick knew. He cared when no one else did.”
“Who was Patrick?”
Bella’s smile widened. Her eyes glazed over. “Patrick loved me. When I told him about Jake…I should have told Patrick first when I found out, not Jake. Patrick wouldn’t have made me do it. He would have let me keep my baby.”
“Baby? You were pregnant? You had a child by this man named Patrick?”
“I wanted my baby, but Jake said I couldn’t have it. He made me have an abortion. Patrick said that was wrong. That’s why he killed…no, that’s not right. Patrick wanted to kill Jake for what he did to me. But I wanted to kill Jake myself. I remember touching the bow, watching the arrow fly through the air. Jake couldn’t believe what I’d done. He just stared at me.”
“Bella, you didn’t kill Jake. You couldn’t have.”
Bella shook her head. “You’re wrong. Don’t try to confuse me.”
“You might have wanted to kill Jake, but you didn’t.”
“I did! I killed him!” Clutching the gun in both hands, Bella walked toward Lindsay, stopping less than three feet from her. “I killed Jake. And I killed Haylie and Aurora and Mandy. And I’m going to kill you.”
Lindsay’s legs shook so badly that she could barely stand. Sweat peppered her face and seeped through her bra and panties.
I don’t want to die.
I’m not going to die!
Dean called in the patrol officers and gave them instructions, then he and Rachel went down into the basement. They followed a trail of items, scattered ten to fifteen feet apart. Another tissue, then the empty tissue pack. A credit card, and then dollar bills.
Good girl, Lindsay. You didn’t panic. You used your head and left us clues.
When the final clue ended near a solid block wall, Rachel clenched her teeth. “This doesn’t make any sense. It’s as if they disappeared into nowhere.”
Dean waved his flashlight all around the area, searching for an opening of any kind. He nudged Rachel when the light fell on the top of what appeared to be a door half hidden behind a stack of mildewed wooden crates.
While Dean kept the door spotlighted, Rachel inspected it, then pressed her ear against it. “Listen.”
Dean leaned against the door. “It’s music.”
“Do you know what song that is? It’s Lindsay and Jake’s song.”
“Son of a bitch!”
Dean handed Rachel the flashlight, then tried the door, which opened without any trouble whatsoever, without him exerting an ounce of extra pressure. And the old door didn’t creak, made hardly a sound.
“Someone has been using this door fairly often,” Dean said quietly, then motioned to Rachel as he pulled his regulation Glock from his shoulder holster. “Stay behind me.”
They moved slowly, cautiously, into another room of the basement, the area illuminated by a dozen lanterns placed in a row in front of a line of old lockers. My God, those are our lockers from senior high, Rachel thought. How is that possible?
A portable CD player lay on the floor, the popular tune from the mid 1980s filling the air with sweet music and words of love.
Standing at the far end of the long, narrow room was Lindsay, her trembling body outlined by a huge red heart painted on the block wall directly behind her. Bella stood a couple of feet in front of Lindsay, her back to Dean and Rachel, a pistol pointed directly at Lindsay.
“Jake didn’t love you,” Bella said. “He didn’t love any of you.”
“You’re right,” Lindsay said, her voice quivering. “He-he didn’t love any of us.”
“He loved me,” Bella shouted. “But he made me kill my baby and he didn’t make you kill your baby. Tell me why! It wasn’t fair!”
“Why-why did Jake make you kill your baby?” Lindsay asked.
“Because he knew it might be his.”
Lindsay gasped.
“We’d been lovers since I was twelve years old. I didn’t want to do it with him, not at first. It hurt. But he forced me. He told me he loved me. He promised me…But he lied. He kept making me do it. Over and over again. And then he made me kill my baby. He took me to some quack doctor who cut my baby out of me and ruined me forever.”
Dean crept closer and closer to the madwoman with the gun, one slow, nerve-wracking step after another. Rachel held her breath when she realized that Lindsay saw Dean.
“That’s why I had to kill him,” Bella said. “He had to be punished for what he did to me. Patrick said that he was going to kill Jake, but I told him that I wanted to do it, that it was my right to kill him.”
Don’t let on that you see Dean, Rachel thought. Please, Lindsay, don’t give him away. Your life depends on it. She’s insane. She’ll kill you, just as she killed Haylie and Aurora and Mandy.
“I didn’t realize that you knew how to use a crossbow,” Lindsay said, her gaze fixed on the gun less than twenty-four inches from her heart.
That’s it, Linds, keep her talking, keep her distracted until Dean can get closer. Just a few more feet.
“I didn’t know anything about crossbows,” Bella admitted. “Patrick was an expert bowman. He knew how to kill Jake.”
“I thought you said you killed Jake.”
“I did. I hated Jake.”
“How did you kill him?”
“You know how. With a bow and arrow. I was there, hidden in the hedges, waiting and watching. Jake was leaning against the old oak tree, smoking a cigarette. We caught him by surprise. Patrick had his crossbow and…No, that’s not right. I had the crossbow. I killed Jake.” She shook her head. “But Patrick cocked the bow. I watched him. I was hiding, and when Patrick aimed and fired at Dean, I did it with him. No, that’s not right. I was watching when the arrow hit Jake in the heart. But I killed him.” She screamed the final words as she grasped the gun with both hands. “And I’m going to kill you. All of you.”
“Bella!” Dean called her name.
She whirled around and fired. The bullet zoomed past Dean and cracked a chunk out of the wall behind him. Bella Marcott snapped back around and aimed the gun at Lindsay.