Mike Omer - In the Darkness

She drove toward the police station, the window cranked open to let her cigarette smoke out. Since the phone call, she’d chain-smoked almost two boxes. The cigarette was held between the fingers of her right hand, which she used to shift gears as well, ash scattering everywhere.

Her phone blipped in her pocket. Another reporter, probably. They’d been nagging her. She had no idea how they’d even found out about the call. Had someone in the police told them? Frank said it was good—they needed the public interest. So far they had the public eye for sure. The San Angelo Standard-Times had an article on Maribel on page three. The bare facts were there—the phone call, the missing girl, an image of Maribel smiling, looking pure and beautiful. The press pointed accusing fingers at the police, who hadn’t reacted when the girl had first gone missing.

How long before they started wondering why Maribel had left home at eighteen? How long before the accusing fingers would shift from the police to the parents?

She inhaled the smoke as she thought grimly of what she’d say when she got to the station. She had to make them see she’d never leave before they took her seriously. It was time to get Maribel back.

The detective division was frantic. The video of Maribel Howe played on multiple computers and phones, her shrieks emitting from everywhere, creating a chilling cacophony of distress. Tatum stood in the division’s entrance, momentarily paralyzed, as Zoe brushed past him to Foster’s cubicle. Tatum hurried after her, trying to ignore the guttural screams of the girl calling for her mother, begging to be let out.

Foster was on the phone shouting at someone, the video running on his computer. He hung up as they reached him.

“When did this video go live?” Zoe demanded.

He glanced at her. “Twenty-five minutes ago. People began getting the link by email soon after. He’s sending it to a lot more people than before. Dispatch is swamped by phone calls.”

“Did you talk to Shelton?” Tatum asked. “Is he trying to trace the source of the video?”

“Lyons is on the phone with him right now,” Foster said. “We also sent three patrol cars to search the vicinity of Nicole Medina’s grave site in case he decided to bury Maribel nearby. And I just managed to get us permission to get a helicopter up in the air. Maybe we’ll catch sight of the bastard still shoveling dirt on top of her.”

“He didn’t video himself this time.” Zoe frowned. “Maybe the burial site is easily recognizable, and he didn’t want to give it away.”

“We can probably figure out areas that could be easier to spot,” Foster said. “Any familiar landmark would be a dead giveaway, right? I’ll get someone on that right away.” He picked up the phone.

“Foster!” Lyons shouted from her seat and launched from her chair. “He’s using one of the phones from earlier!” Her voice was almost drowned completely by Maribel’s screams.

“What?”

“The phones he used—”

Tatum raised his hand to stop her and then shouted at the top of his lungs, “Everyone, mute your goddamn videos. Now!”

For a second, it seemed that no one had paid attention to him. But then, one by one, the screams stopped, until the room became reasonably quiet. Tatum shut his eyes in relief, unclenching his fists.

“I just talked to Shelton.” Lyons’s eyes were bright. “The killer is using the same phone as last time to stream this video. We have an approximate location. It’s close to Route 67, just north of the Twin Buttes Reservoir. Near the trailer park they have there.” She bent over his keyboard and tapped, getting a map on his screen.

“Holy shit, we got him,” Foster spat, punching digits on his phone. “Dispatch, I need patrol cars on Route 67. And we need two . . . no, three roadblocks. One by the turn to Willeke Pit Road. One by the turn to South Jameson Road, and the third on that road that leads to the Twin Buttes Reservoir, just off 67 . . . yeah, that’s the one. Don’t let any car through until I give you further instructions, got that? Not even the police chief. The entire area is sealed.”

He hung up, his forehead furrowed. “How dangerous would he be when cornered?” he asked Tatum. “Should we be worried?”

“He might try to run when cornered,” Tatum said. “But not if it means risking his life. It’s more likely he’ll try to bullshit his way out, claim he doesn’t have anything to do with it, that sort of thing.”

He glanced at Zoe for affirmation. She gave him a distracted nod, her attention elsewhere. “Everything we saw so far matches a killer that preys on the weak. He used a knife to intimidate Nicole Medina, which makes me think he doesn’t even have a gun.”

Lyons’s desk phone rang, and she went over to pick it up.

“I’m going over to monitor the search,” Foster said. “I’d appreciate it if one of you would accompany me.”

“I’ll go,” Tatum said. “We can—”

Lyons slammed down the phone, her eyes wide. “Delia Howe is at the front desk.”

“Delia Howe?” Zoe asked. “Does she know about the video?”

“Doesn’t sound like it. I think she just wants to talk.”

Tatum looked around him, at the screens showing the girl struggling in the darkness, the detectives all working frantically to find her. “She can’t get in here.”

Zoe and Lyons managed to get Delia Howe to an unused meeting room without her noticing the frantic activity in the station.

They went over the details of the phone call that Delia had received from Maribel the day before. Zoe had difficulties picturing the exact situation, and she kept hoping for a random detail to shed some light on that phone call. As the interview went on, frustration grew inside her. Nothing here felt right.

Lyons wrote down everything Delia said in a notebook. Delia seemed to get agitated as they went over the same details.

“I told you that already,” she suddenly snapped. “I don’t know why she hung up. Maybe she heard someone coming. Maybe someone took the phone from her. What are you people going to do about it? Are you even looking for her now?”

Zoe’s and Lyons’s eyes met for a fragment of a second, but Delia seemed to catch the exchange, tensing up.

“Mrs. Howe, we are doing our best to find your daughter,” Lyons said.

“I don’t believe you! I want to talk to someone else. I want to talk to the man in charge.” She massaged her wrist, and Zoe glanced at it. A new burn mark marred Delia’s skin, larger than last time. But no bruises around the wrist. No one had forced Delia’s hand onto the flame. As Lyons tried to calm the woman down, Zoe attempted to put the sequence of events in order again. Six weeks before, on July 29, Maribel Howe had disappeared, presumably taken by the unsub. Then, on September 8, Maribel managed to get to a phone and call her mother. One day later, the unsub buried her alive and published the video. Had he kept her imprisoned all that time?

“I want to talk to someone else right now!” Delia Howe shrieked, banging the table.

A sliver of truth floated just beyond her reach. She had to concentrate and couldn’t do it in there. “Excuse me.” She got up, leaving the room, shutting the door behind her. She leaned against the hallway’s wall, deep in thought.

Suppose he’d held the girl captive for more than a month. And then she’d managed to escape, calling her mother. As retribution, he’d buried her alive. It was a good explanation, but it didn’t fit. Why did he keep Maribel imprisoned while Nicole Medina was buried immediately after being taken?

Maybe Maribel hadn’t been kidnapped. Maybe she’d really left home, and then the killer had kidnapped her recently from wherever she’d been staying. But that seemed far fetched. Why had she disappeared so suddenly, leaving everything she owned behind her?