Gregg Olsen - Fear Collector

“Did you see Oliver today?”

An uneasy look came over Sylvia’s face. She shook her head. “No, I didn’t. No one did. He called in and used one of his floating holidays.”

“Was that unexpected?”

“Totally. If I’d gotten the call directly I would have told him no, but he called in the store’s voice mail and left a message before opening.”

Grace knew that approach. She’d done it a time or two herself. So had Paul. Always call in to the sergeant when you know he’s not at his desk.

Just then, another Starbucks worker made his way through from the back room. He was a thin, gawky teenager, with a faint black moustache struggling to survive on his upper lip. The goatee he’d tried cultivating was even less successful. He was carrying a small black purse.

“Talking about Emma?” he asked.

“Yes,” Grace said, looking at the teen with the purse.

“Lost and Found brought this over earlier today,” he said. “Emma’s purse. Said the maintenance crew turned it in and the guy at Lost and Found knew her name and picture ID so he brought it over here.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Sylvia asked the young man, whose tag identified him as Tony G.

Grace took the purse. “Did they say where they found it?”

“Yeah. She must have dropped it by the bus stop. Found it over there,” he said, indicating a place outside the front of the coffee shop. “Want me to show you where it is?” He looked at Sylvia for permission and she reluctantly nodded.

Sylvia let out a quivering sigh. She was, apparently, all business. “We’re very, very short-staffed, Tony.”

“It’s all right. We’ll only keep him a minute. Then he can get back to his important work here.” Paul’s tone was condescending, more than it really needed to be. Sylvia had pretty thick skin, but she got the gist of what he was saying without words.

“Fine,” she said. She turned her attention to Grace. “Emma’s a sweet girl. I hope you find her soon.”

There was a slight chill in the air as the trio walked over to a section of the parking lot, in front of which sat a Plexiglas-enclosed bus shelter. With the exception of an elderly woman laden with shopping bags from several mall stores, the enclosure was empty.

“Here’s where she caught the bus,” Tony said.

“Thanks,” Paul said.

Grace nodded as she scanned the area. The Starbucks was in full view, not more than thirty yards away.

“You need anything else?” Tony asked. “Gotta get back.”

Grace smiled and nodded, and the young man backed away, his green apron disappearing around a swarm of parked cars.

“What are you so happy about?” Paul asked.

“Not happy,” Grace said. “Just glad.”

“Glad about what? And what’s the difference, by the way?”

Grace’s eyes traveled up a parking lot light standard. “We might have a witness.”

“Huh?” Paul squinted, but he needed his glasses to really see anything at any distance. “Some birds?”

Grace resisted the desire to roll her eyes. He would notice that for sure. “The video camera,” she said, extending her index finger in the direction of a small surveillance camera pivoted toward the bus stop. “Let’s see who monitors the feed.”

Where am I? Emma Rose looked around. She could barely move. Every inch of her body ached. She remembered that she’d been kidnapped, by some pervert no doubt. She tried to lift her head, but it was heavy like a bowling ball. Her eyes moved around the darkened room. In the corner she saw the shadowy figure of a man. He was just out of the beam of the reading lamp.

“What are you going to do?” she asked, almost editing her words to ask, What have you done to me?

Emma waited for an answer. Instead, she saw him flip the switch that powered the gooseneck reading lamp. The room was now completely black. She felt the air move around her and the door open and shut. Next, the sound of the dead bolt as it fell into place.

She reached down and touched herself. Her clothes were on. She wasn’t a virgin and she knew what it felt like after sex. She hadn’t been violated when she was unconscious.

A moment later, she fell asleep.

When she woke up, it was to the sound of the hatch and tray being opened. She went over to the tray. Lying on it were a brush and mirror. She went back to the light and looked at herself. Her hair had been washed and detangled. The bruising of her eyes had faded from a dark purple to an almost imperceptible yellow hue.

Her long hair. Shiny. Clean.

Her thoughts raced in a circle.

What was he doing to her? Why was he holding her? Why didn’t he speak to her? Who was he? Was it a stranger or one of those Starbucks customer creeps? The ones who always winked at her when she handed over their drinks?

Grace drove past the First Methodist Church every week on her way to visit her cousin, Vonnie Joanna, or Vo-Jo as the family called her, in that part of Tacoma. The church was a little out of her way, not enough to make her think that her obsession was out of control, but enough to make her dismiss the route if she was in a hurry to VJ’s little house. Nine times out of ten on those drive-bys, it would enter Grace’s mind that the church had likely been the starting point of all the hurt that was to come. It was the axis of the evil. It was there that Johnnie Bundy had met Ted’s mother, Louise, at a church gathering for singles, mostly older ones, some with kids.

There were a lot of what-if games that Grace played when it came to her sister’s murder. This was one of the weaker ones. She wondered, if not for that meeting between Louise and Johnnie that day in 1951 would Louise have maybe left town? Ted would have gone with her. To California or Nevada. Somewhere far, far away. If Louise had not stayed in Tacoma, would things have been different enough in Ted’s life to stop him from doing all that he did? Or had any of the places or people that had made up the trajectory of his life mattered at all? Maybe he’d been evil at birth. Maybe there’d been no stopping him.

Grace looked over at the pretty, but plain, church as it filled the frame of her rearview mirror. She wondered almost out loud, If not for Louise meeting Johnnie Bundy, would I have ever been born at all?

With his parents upstairs rearranging the furniture for what had to be the fiftieth time that year, Oliver Angstrom set aside his latest video game and channel surfed in the basement rec room of the family’s home just south of Lakewood. His interest perked up a little when he landed on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It wasn’t a comic or graphic novel come to life-those had been pretty lame lately anyway-but there were elements of the horror classic that stoked his imagination.

Oliver had cracked open the little basement window and smoked a little pot. He was feeling something right then, but he wasn’t sure if it was anger or anxiety. He’d asked Emma out the evening before. Finally. He hadn’t asked a girl out for more than two years, though he’d nearly stalked a few as he tried to find a way to overcome his nerdy nervousness. He’d read self-help books. He role-played in front of a mirror. He worked out. He shaved his chest. He did whatever he thought he could do to make himself more attractive. The one thing he couldn’t fix, however, was his essential geekiness. Being a comic fanboy, a computer nerd, or anything along those lines was fine if a guy wanted to attract the female equivalent. But that’s not what Oliver was after. He’d wanted to date Emma Rose from the first day she walked into Starbucks looking for a job. She had only wanted part-time work because her mother had been sick and she didn’t want to be away from her very long. He’d overheard Emma tell Devon that her mom loved Starbucks and that she wanted her to work there as a way to get out of the house a few hours a day.