House of Steel (7 page)

“Are you waiting for Joe?” she asked.

“Not really,” he replied.

“The weather’s pretty horrible out there.
Did you get stranded?” she asked, the words flooded from her mouth.
Not really?

“No, he’s just fixing my other car. I need
something out of it,” he replied, his face stoic and unmoving as he
watched her. Delaney’s ears tried to discern his thick, heavy
accent. It was definitely European. He studied her as if he was
calculating something, if there was anything in his brain that
allowed him to process information. “I didn’t know you were here,”
he added.

“I’m sorry. Do I know you?” she asked,
flinching at his words. Her gut wretched inside as her mind
calculated the improbable possibility.

“No,” he grunted again as his eyes lit up to
the movement of her body. “I didn’t know that
anyone
was
here.”

“I’m just waiting for my brother to pick me
up. He’ll be here any minute,” she lied. It would be at least an
hour before Mark got there, if not longer.

“Oh?” he said, his voice piquing interest as
he laced his thick fingers together in his lap. He hadn’t planned
on staying, but since she was here, he felt compelled to stay. To
watch.

The wind whistled against the thin walls of
the shop. Delaney turned her ears at the sound of a muffled banging
noise. Her eyebrows creased at the sound, but she didn’t really
want to know what it was. “Is that Joe?” she asked, walking to his
office to look out the window. She knew the answer, but played it
anyway.

“No,” he answered from the other room
without looking. He stood up and walked to the back door with the
blackened glass. He slid a key into the lock and disappeared
through the door; the sound of a click was followed by a dim haze
glowing through the window. She craned her neck forward despite the
nagging voice that told her to stop. Run. She lurched forward
anyway, glancing through the door to see a small overhead lamp near
a workbench that illuminated outlines of painted aluminum. The rest
of the shop was dark. Another muffled bang carried through the
wind, sending another shot of fear through her body.
The
phone.

Delaney sprinted into Joe’s office, taking a
glance at the car parked outside, before picking up the phone. The
dial tone echoed in her ear as her index finger shook
uncontrollably over the ‘9’. There was no possible way that the
police would get here in time to stop Gunnar, but at least they
would know. Someone would know to look for her if something did
happen. Her head throbbed as she pressed the ‘9,’ but she hesitated
too long to press the next numbers. Her eyes shut to the sound of
the warehouse door opening. She set the phone down and rushed into
the doorway of the office just in time to see Gunnar lock the door
behind him. With the shop on the other side completely black, he
turned around to see Delaney leaning against the frame of the
door.

“You know it’s not safe for you to be here
by yourself,” his voice rasped in the same low, monotone grunt.

Delaney forced the hardness down her throat,
swallowing before she opened her mouth to reply. But her voice
eluded her, the words refusing to leave her lips. She cleared her
throat. “My brother will be here any minute. Did you get what you
needed?” Her voice barely filled the air.

“Yes.” He hit the chest of his jacket as he
moved through the waiting room, closer to Delaney. Her feet fumbled
underneath her as she staggered back against the wall - a prime
victim, defenseless against his pursuing body.

She gripped her bag, ready to swing at his
head when the heavy smell of cigar permeated just inches from her
nostrils. The nauseating smells of singed hair and menthol came
swirling in. It was going to happen again. She would be raped here,
but this time, Gunnar would finish the job. He would stab her to
death and cut her into a million little pieces. She held her breath
as he paused with inaudible thought to give her one last stare. The
same contorted look appeared on his face before he walked past her.
Delaney’s chest burned as she held the oxygen tight in her body,
her lungs calling to exhale. As she released, the black leather
stopped. The boots rotated to face her.

Despite the fact that Gunnar wanted nothing
else than to stay and watch her squirm under his careful eye, he
had a discrepancy in the form of the man he had tied up in the
trunk. The hunting knife that he had just picked up would help
alleviate that issue. He had always saved the knife for his most
enduring victims. He would take pleasure in ending the life of the
man in the trunk. As he envisioned the knife sinking into the man’s
chest, he stared into Delaney’s blue eyes, wondering how she might
feel about watching him. He reconsidered his plan.

“I need your help before I go,” he said.

“Oh?” Delaney replied. Her hand
instinctively reached up to her empty pocket. She knew it wasn’t
there. The pepper spray was in her car, but she longed for the
comfort of the long cylinder so she shoved her hand into her
pocket, trying to look unaffected.

“I just need a quick push to get out of the
snow. Joe didn’t plow much in front of the shop. I’ve got a car,”
he finished, trying to coax her to come out on her own. He knew his
employer wouldn’t approve of hurting her to get her to come
outside. Not yet anyway.

“Sure.” Delaney despised the word as it
spilled from her mouth. She wouldn’t be a victim, not again. If she
could get him outside first, she could quickly shut the door of the
warehouse and lock it. She knew it wasn’t an infallible plan, but
she had nothing else.

“Good,” Gunnar grunted, turning back to open
the door. The gusts swirled again into the waiting room as his
boots stood transfixed, holding the door for Delaney. She wanted
nothing more than to knock him down with a blow to his groin, but
there was no way she could get off the kick. She walked through the
door, ducking her head as the snow pelted her.

“Delaney, do you happen to know this man?”
he grunted behind her as the trunk to his car opened. She stopped,
her body mesmerized as she looked down at the bound man in the
trunk. He screamed, but there was no sound. The duct tape over his
mouth left a muted nothingness that disappeared with the wind. His
arms and legs were tied beneath him with plastic restraints.
Delaney turned away as terror surged through her body. She wouldn’t
let Gunnar take her like this. She tried to sprint away from the
car. Two steps. His hands grabbed her arms, yanking her back to the
trunk.

“Look, Delaney,” Gunnar said as he dragged
her back to the car. Her feet kicked in the air as he held her head
toward the trunk, forcing her to look. The agony in the man’s face
tortured her. Delaney’s eyes traveled down to his neck where she
read the tattoo inked into his neck,
1 John 1:9
. Her body
went limp.
Mr. Rowan. Richard Rowan. St. Luke’s Church.
He
had aged; his hair was now gray and the fullness sucked from his
deeply scarred and pitted face. A face she would never forget. A
face that had haunted her for fourteen years.

“He was released from prison a few weeks
ago,” Gunnar began. Delaney could feel his hot, stale breath on her
neck. “I didn’t get a chance to kill him before the police got him.
Right after he raped you.” The fear in Mr. Rowan’s eyes pierced
Delaney as she felt Gunnar release her. They pleaded for help –
disgusting plea for mercy. Her feet sunk several inches into the
snow as Gunnar moved closer to the trunk. He perched his legs and
reached inside his jacket to retrieve a knife. He raised it high
above his head, pausing before he grunted his well-rehearsed chant.
The man began violently twisting along the plastic that lined the
trunk beneath him while Delaney silently begged for it to stop.

“Your sins will never be forgiven.” Gunnar
thrust the knife down, sinking it deep into his chest. Delaney’s
scream vanished as she watched Mr. Rowan’s body go lifeless in the
trunk. Blood pooled beneath his body and onto the plastic sheet.
Her legs failed her, buried deep in the snow. Her feet somehow
chained to the ground, she stood next to the experienced killer,
her body pulsating as it threatened to verge into convulsions. He
pulled a white cloth from his jacket and inched it across the
blade, wiping his knife clean. He turned it over in his hand,
examining the point, before he tucked it into a sheath near his
chest. Leaning forward, he swept his hand over Mr. Rowan’s empty
eyes, closing his lids. Gunnar rolled the ends of the plastic
toward his body before shutting the trunk.

“He got what he deserved. You should feel
redeemed, but you should be more careful next time. With that
student, I mean. Errors in judgment lead to devastation. Consider
yourself,” he waited as his throat released a grotesque noise,
“notified. I don’t want to see you again.”

Delaney sputtered, unable to formulate
anything comprehensible. Instead, she stepped back, watching him
get into his black Buick. The sedan’s wheels spun as snow flew into
the air. The red taillights vanished into the white as she stood,
empty, listening to the wind thrashing against the warehouse.

10

DAY 2: Friday, December 19 – 1:00 p.m.

V swung open the back door that led into the
kitchen and slipped through, closing the door tight behind her. All
the residents of Appleton, with the exception of her, were holed up
in their houses, waiting out the storm. To her, this just meant
more time. V rubbed her white boots on the rug stamped with
“Welcome” eradicating what wetness she could. Contemplating
unlacing them, she reconsidered, just in case. She stepped forward,
hearing the slightest squeak against the wood as she moved through
the kitchen. Delaney’s living room was just a few feet ahead.

Swinging the white backpack around, V placed
it on the floor and unzipped it, revealing the small silver case.
She flicked open the clasps of the case, lifting the lid up to
expose the two circular lenses. Sliding off her white gloves, she
picked the first one up with her index finger and thumb, carefully
cradling it in her fingers before scanning the room. There was
barely anything in it. A couch. Coffee table. Mounted TV. Boxes of
unpacked belongings. Her eyes turned toward the charred fireplace
adorned with an old, wooden mantel. A built-in bookshelf to the
left of the brick had books along the first row. She would be able
to set it on a book without Delaney noticing. It wasn’t perfect,
but it would work. She slid her hand into her pocket to retrieve
her phone, sliding through the interface with ease. An image of her
body appeared on the screen. A small wave of her hand mirrored on
the display. V’s eyes scanned back to the blackened fireplace. By
the looks of it, Delaney hadn’t touched the fireplace since she
moved in. She would have to do something about that. It was the
perfect spot to dispose of unwanted items, whatever that was.

Running her finger along the edge of the
thick spine of a book, V placed the first camera on the top of it.
The World According to Garp
. She had never read it; she
wasn’t much of a literary study anymore, not since she was a
teenager. The inconspicuous camera blended into the dark space.
Satisfied, she picked up the silver case and moved down into the
hallway to Delaney’s bedroom. She stepped onto the cracked floor,
skimming the room for the drop before narrowing in on the desk
tucked against the wall. It had a direct view to her bed. She crept
forward, placing the silver case onto the surface.

Her eyes scanned the contents of the desk.
She picked up a frame with a picture of smiling people sitting
close together as if they actually enjoyed each other’s presence.
Their happy faces looking back at her, one by one. Taunting her.
The girl had taken after her mother - blue eyes and long, wavy
hair. Yet, the two boys didn’t look like the parents. Both had
light hair, contrasting to the dark strands of the parents. They
had rounder faces and their deep eyes were wider, set further into
their skulls. The two boys weren’t theirs. They couldn’t be. She
set the frame back down, slipping out the second camera from the
case. Placing a piece of tape on the back of the camera, she
adhered it to the frame before bending down to see the angle it
would capture. Flawless.

V turned her attention to the bright green
filing cabinet next to the desk. She pulled it open, exposing a
handful of files that she shuffled through. There had to be more.
As she dug further, she felt a fistful of lace and silk. She
sighed, digging the bras and underwear out of the drawer and into
her bag. 1:28 p.m. There was more than enough time. She turned back
to the living room to begin the process of cleaning the
fireplace.

11

DAY 2:Friday, December 19 – 3:15 p.m.

Delaney squinted as she looked out the
passenger window into the blinding glare of the sun’s reflection.
She turned to look at Mark’s profile in the driver’s seat. His eyes
were covered in sunglasses, the lenses staring ahead at the road.
She had waited two hours for Mark to pick her up, huddled in a
fetal position on the carpet of Joe’s office for the first hour,
willing Gunnar’s face out of her head. But she couldn’t remove his
face, his eyes. They plagued her just as Mr. Rowan had. Her body
had finally released, allowing her to crawl to the vending machine
to almost empty its contents. She had stared at the grease soaked
cat while eating far too many bags of junk food that exceeded their
“fresh by” dates. She blamed the uneasiness in her stomach to the
stale pretzels and chocolate melted and solidified several times
over. That made sense to her.

She had been unable to dial 911, although
she had tried several times. Her finger convulsed over the last
digit, but she had nothing to say. No details to give about Gunnar.
The license plate was a blur. His accent, imperceptible. His
knowledge about Mr. Rowan, unfathomable.