HOSTAGE (To Love A Killer) (14 page)

              Linden rolled his eyes.

              “We don’t need a confession. We need information. That’s how we need to look at this.”

              “No, Voss, we need to look at this from the standpoint that I’m retiring soon and my last case could bring on a world of glory. Think about it. It’s time to be a team player. We’re cracking open a serial murderer, and she has an accomplice. This is worthy of national news. Let’s get these motherfuckers.”

              “It’s my call,” said Sarah. “Wait here.”

              Linden sighed a deep exhale, shaking his head.  

              “I got Ringdings in the glove box,” said Sarah. “Have a snack.”

              “You’re an asshole, Voss,” he said, reluctant to back down.

              Sarah watched her partner gaze back and study Hunter for a long moment, narrowing his eyes, acting as though he could smell her guilt. But eventually he acquiesced and lowered himself back down into the passenger’s seat.

              Sarah turned away. The squad car caught her eye. The police officer was still behind the steering wheel, dealing with some kind of phone call. Good, she had time.

              The fact that she and Linden had discovered the dark sedan was nothing short of a miracle. After the motel, they had had little to go on in terms of what route north Hunter might have decided to take. There were more than four clear cut options if she wanted to stay on the back roads, and over a dozen if Hunter preferred to stay creative and wind her way to the farmhouse.

              Sarah had flipped on the police scanner and gotten lucky. She knew the cop that pulled them over wasn’t aware that Hunter was a person of interest in the Brooklyn murders. Rather, he was conducting a thorough investigation of the possibility that the vehicle had been stolen. Sarah and Linden had heard it all over the scanner. Which meant that Sarah had precious little time to forage a connection with Hunter Mann before they were either arrested for grand larceny or let go. In either event, Sarah’s time with Hunter would end, and since she had nothing to hold Hunter on regarding Brooklyn, she needed to use her time wisely.

              If worse came to worse, Sarah could make a phone call and ultimately get an arrest warrant and a US Marshall to apprehend Hunter, but that would risk getting into hot water with the department for having left the state. Sarah didn’t want that. She wanted to look Hunter Mann in the eye and get to know her. She wanted to see firsthand which way the gears in Hunter’s head were turning. Were they turning in the same direction as Sarah’s?

              Sarah walked over to the kids. She couldn’t take her eyes off Hunter. The messy mop of dark brown hair, its waves that were both disheveled and wildly seductive, reminded Sarah of how her hair could look if she left it unattended for days. Did Hunter resign herself to wearing ponytails every so often when the task of controlling her wild mane was becoming a nuisance?

              Hunter’s eyes were so round and large. It was as though her face were all eyes. The brown, rich chocolaty hue seemed endlessly deep when Sarah looked into them. They looked alive, fiery, and scared.

              It was getting uncomfortable the way this woman kept her eyes on Hunter without saying a word. Hunter glanced back at the squad car. The officer behind the wheel had taken no notice of the gray sedan, the odd older woman in her trench coat, nor the peculiar nature of how long all this was taking. If this woman had come here to arrest them, wouldn’t Hunter be in cuffs by now? Or at the very least, wouldn’t the lady cop have a few words with the uniform officer? It was almost as though one didn’t know the other.

              The lines on the woman’s face, her wrinkles, each fine and soft, was oddly beautiful. Hunter wouldn’t mind looking that way when she was in her forties or fifties. The woman’s eyes seemed huge. They dominated her face, large, round and brown. The rest of her features seemed small, dainty by comparison. Hunter could get lost in the mysteries behind those eyes. Most importantly, the mystery of why they had been pulled over. In her gut, Hunter felt she ought to trust this stranger, but she sensed from Ash that would be a bad idea.              

              “You look thin,” said the woman, suddenly breaking the silence, though the comment was more under her breath than out loud.

              “Jealous?” Hunter asked, her voice full of angst and a bad attitude.

              Ash nudged Hunter, silencing her.

              “Do you know who I am?” asked Sarah.

              Hunter pursed her lips, pressing them together, refusing to answer, then finally did. “No,” she said, her voice even, agreeable, flat. “Should I?”

              Sarah paused. She knew Hunter wouldn’t know who she was. If she did, she might hate her. But it was a place to start.

              “My name is Sarah Voss. I’m a detective with the NYPD. I work cases in Brooklyn,” she explained, being sure to keep her tone high, friendly, and calm. “I’ve been worried about you, Hunter,” she went on.

              Hunter’s heart skipped a beat. Her eyes grew wide, though she was trying to do everything within her power not to give away so much as a hint of fear. She had never been in a line of questioning like this, interrogation. She knew enough to know she had to keep on a poker face. To reveal any emotion would tip the detective off, in one way or another, towards her guilt.

              “If you think I’m going to ask you ‘why’, I’m not,” said Hunter, shifting her gaze from the woman detective to the expanding field behind her on the other side of the road. “I’m enjoying my vacation here. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

              Hunter could feel Ash sigh, collapsing slightly with a pang of remorse. She was being over the top and she knew he hated it.

              “Hunter, I was in your apartment very early this morning,” said Sarah, studying Hunter’s face, keenly anticipating her reactions. She knew Hunter had killed, she just didn’t know why specifically. What she wanted to find out was who the other killers were, and why did they need to kill.

              Hunter felt like she was breathing too rapidly, as though she couldn’t catch her breath. A wave of paranoia was seizing her. Her chest wasn’t heaving, thank God. From the outside she looked fine, she told herself. It was only inside that she was breaking down. She begged herself to keep it together. She pleaded with herself not to fall for this woman’s niceness, not to believe it, it was a trap.

              When Hunter said nothing in response, when she seemed unwilling to react in any way, Sarah went on, “There was a young girl, Hunter. A young girl in your bathtub. She was dead, Hunter.”

              Hunter sipped in a breath of air, drawing it in shallowly. The detective was referring to Molly. Hunter knew she had left Molly in the bathtub. It was her biggest regret.

              “Hunter,” said Sarah in full awareness that she was overusing Hunter’s name, but hoping it would help her get through to the young woman. “Molly wasn’t the only person found dead in your apartment. But she was the only one who had your name carved into her forehead.”

              Hunter’s mouth dropped open, gaping in disbelief of what she was hearing.

              Ash grabbed hold of Hunter’s hand and squeezed it, aiming to jar her. He needed Hunter to be anchored to reality, and not slip away, drifting on the surface of her shock. It would only carry her into dangerous and uncharted waters.

              Sarah leaned in closer to Hunter, “The other body was Travis Wilcox. Do you know who that is?”

              Hunter said nothing. She didn’t even breathe.

              “Travis Wilcox is a friend of your father’s. So is Dale Williams, a man I found dead in a back alley in the Gowanus.”

              Sarah let that hang in the air a moment so the information could register with Hunter and inspire fear. She needed Hunter to be extremely afraid in order for her to cooperate in the way that Sarah needed.

              “Some people deserve to die, Hunter,” said Sarah. “I’m more interested in your father. If you can tell me everything you know about him, then I’ll make your connection to all this go away.”

              Hunter shifted her gaze, meeting Sarah’s dead in the eye. Her breath quickened. But she didn’t know if this was a trick, a trap, a lure to get her to say what needed to be said in order to put Hunter behind bars.

              Ash’s grip on her hand tightened further. Hunter thought her hand might break. What if he snapped the bones? She had better not react, say a word.

              Hunter glanced down, saying nothing.

              Sarah slowly nodded to herself. Hunter was smart, cautious. Sarah had to respect that. But Sarah wasn’t trying to trick her. She had no intention of arresting Hunter. Sarah’s efforts in large part had been spent getting Linden to back off from pursuing the girl. What could Sarah possibly say to convince Hunter Mann that no harm would come to her if she talked?

              “Tell me about your mother,” said Sarah.

              “What?” Asked Hunter, forgetting to lay silent.

              “I’m just curious,” said Sarah. “What do you think of her?”

              “What the fuck does that have to do with anything?” asked Hunter, ignoring Ash’s bone crushing grip.

              Sarah gazed deeply into Hunter’s eyes before answering. “I didn’t have a mom,” she said. “People don’t understand what it’s like.”

              “How would you know I don’t have a mom?” asked Hunter, holding the tears back from welling up in her eyes. 

              The police officer approached them, breaking up the intensity of Hunter’s emotions. Hunter wished she could feel relief thanks to the interruption, but it only served to terrify her further. The cop would surely hand them their fate. Hunter prayed it wouldn’t turn into an arrest. She prayed she would be free to arrive at the farmhouse in time, find Blair, and put a stop to Grizzly’s madness once and for all.

              The officer handed Ash his license and the vehicle’s registration, nodding to the detective simultaneously.

              “Officer Mark Bradey,” he said, extending a hand to Sarah.

              “Detective Sarah Voss,” she said. “From New York. Coincidence only,” she added with a smile. “These are old friends.”

              The officer seemed not to care, as he shifted his attention back to Ash. “Watch your speed. You’re in a borrowed vehicle. I’m not going to write you a ticket this time. It wouldn’t be fair, it’d only fall on the owner’s shoulders, so be careful. Good day,” he concluded.

              Ash didn’t hesitate for a second. He quickly walked back to the dark sedan, and Twitch followed suit. In an instant, they were inside.

              Hunter couldn’t seem to move, as she stole glances at the lady detective. But when Ash leaned on the horn, startling her, Hunter walked briskly back to the car and hopped in.

              Through the windshield Hunter stared at Detective Sarah Voss.

              And Sarah continued to stare back, noting all the features they shared.

              How could Sarah possibly tell Hunter that she was her mother?

              Hunter cruised through the winding back roads of Belknap County heading north, as night twisted into pitch blackness, its darkness so thick it seemed to absorb the car’s headlights, sucking the beams into the abyss beyond.

              Ash rested in the passenger’s seat. His eyes were closed, his knees tucked up against the dashboard, but Hunter sensed he was awake.

              Twitch remained in the back, as always. There was something about him that had changed since they left New York. He seemed thinner somehow, paler. She wondered if she looked the same. She hadn’t looked at her face in a mirror since the motel. She had looked skinny then, but not empty. She had looked alive. She was drained now, behind the wheel, driving into the wee hours of the night. Hunter wondered if she still looked alive, or if the stress of nearly being caught by the police had robbed her of all liveliness.

              That lady detective had known about Hunter; what was her name? Sarah Voss. Sarah had known about everything that had happed at the apartment. She had traveled north evidently, making it all the way across the New Hampshire border to find Hunter. She had nearly succeeded at getting her, she had Hunter in her grasp. Why hadn’t she arrested Hunter, instilling fear, getting Hunter good and scared, and ultimately using that terror as a bargaining chip to get Hunter to spill everything she knew about her dad?

              It didn’t make sense. It had almost been as though Sarah wanted Hunter to
believe
that Sarah was on her side, really on her side, really not out to get her, really only interested in her father. But that had to be a trick.

              And the fact remained, the detective had let them all go. Why had she let them go? It put Hunter on edge. It disturbed her.

              Hunter slowed the car, removing her foot from the gas, and checked to see that they weren’t being followed by looking in the rearview mirror. Ash had warned her that they would be. Now that the detective had pinpointed their whereabouts, she wouldn’t need to follow a paper trail of debit card receipts. She could simply tail them directly. Hunter didn’t see headlights back there. Maybe the detective had backed down.