Mike Omer - In the Darkness

How long had she been lying there? It must have been days. The memory of the thudding bass music seemed unclear. Perhaps she’d imagined it.

Almost as if conjuring the music with her mind, she began hearing it again. It sounded different now. Screechy, static, unpleasant. She shut her eyes. She couldn’t find the power to scream for help, and she was afraid she’d throw up again.

The music faded. Juliet was fading too.

“Every second it’s offline, we might be missing the sound of our patrol cars’ sirens,” Foster said broodingly.

The video had been offline for three and a half minutes already—the longest duration so far. If the killer decided to leave it offline, Juliet was probably doomed. And like Foster had pointed out, even if he did return it, there was a chance they’d missed a patrol car that had just gone by. Foster did his best to coordinate the search, telling the patrol cars to stop where they were whenever the feed froze, but by now they had fourteen patrol cars screaming through the streets, and it became cumbersome to control.

Even worse, dispatch was overwhelmed with phone calls. The San Angelo citizens were not happy with their Sunday morning peace and quiet being interrupted by patrol cars driving by playing noisy music at full volume. People were dialing 911 nonstop, and with dispatch answering those calls and the calls of distraught people stumbling onto Juliet’s video and managing the search, their reaction time was slowing down considerably. Lieutenant Jensen, who’d shown up in the station an hour before, was trying to handle that problem, but Zoe doubted he improved the situation.

“It’s back,” Zoe said, relieved, as the video of Juliet flickered onto the screen again. Her eyes were shut, but her chest was rising and falling—just barely.

“There’s some music,” Foster said. “Hear that?”

It was fading, but he was right. There was definitely the faint sound of bass, steady and slow.

“What song is that?” Tatum asked.

Zoe listened, ears straining, trying to match it to anything she knew. “It’s . . . is that rap?”

“Hang on,” Foster said. “I’ll ask dispatch for the list of songs the patrols are playing.”

“It’s ‘Swing My Door’!” Lyons shouted.

They all gawked at her.

“By Gucci.” She rolled her eyes at their confused stares. “Seriously? Do you all live under a rock?”

Foster grabbed the mic of the portable radio. “Dispatch, this is five-thirteen. Do we have anyone playing Gucci?”

A moment of silence. “Five-thirteen, dispatch. Affirmative. Search car nine-oh-two.”

“Copy. What’s his location?”

The radio crackled as another male voice answered, slight static accompanying his voice. “Five-thirteen, this is nine-oh-two. I’m on South Burma Road, arriving at Arden Road in about a minute.”

“Copy nine-oh-two. Stop where you are. Are you playing, uh . . . ‘Swing My Door’?”

“Five-thirteen, that’s affirmative.”

“Nine-oh-two, this is five-thirteen—I want you to turn around and drive back. I’ll tell you when to stop.”

“Copy five-thirteen, on my way.”

Foster let out a long breath. “Dispatch, this is five-thirteen.”

“Go ahead.”

“Send the GPR and the K-9 units to nine-oh-two’s location.”

“Five-thirteen, on it.”

Foster lowered the volume of the radio as dispatch talked to the K-9 units.

“Okay,” he said. “Where is he?”

“This is the road here.” Lyons pointed at the map. “And there’s a Tulia patch nearby. I’d say it’s a good candidate.”

“Excellent,” Foster said. “We’ll see where our guy is when we hear the music on the—”

“The feed stopped again,” Zoe said.

The screen was dark.

His heart beat wildly, staring at the offline toggle, his mind spinning with the sudden, horrible idea that had occurred to him.

The first time he’d heard the sound of the passing car’s music, he’d been mildly annoyed, realizing it was because of the shallow grave. If he had buried the girl deep enough, nothing would have disturbed the experiment, and the only sounds would have been the sounds of her crying.

The second time, the music was even louder, and a scratchiness in the sound set his teeth on edge. Someone was playing their music really loudly, and their sound system was terrible.

It had taken him five minutes before he realized what it reminded him of.

The sound of a patrol car’s sound system. Usually used to direct drivers to stop at the side of the road. It almost sounded as if someone was playing music through it. But why would they—

And then it dawned on him. They were using it to search for the girl. Trying to get a feedback on her location from his own damn video .

He killed the feed, trembling, trying to tell himself he was just imagining things. It was some teenager driving by with a shitty sound system and bad taste in music.

But he couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe it wasn’t.

He searched through his phone contacts for Officer Richard Russo. Dick Russo was a friend of his; they sometimes went out for a beer together. He dialed the man.

Dick answered the phone after three rings. An abysmal noise filled the background. Loud music.

“Dick!” he said. “How are you?”

“Hey, man,” Dick answered. “I’ll have to call you back—”

“Listen,” he interrupted Dick. “I have two steaks I bought yesterday and a six-pack. I wondered if you want to drop by for lunch.”

“I can’t.” Dick was almost shouting over the loud music. “I’m on duty. They called us all. That serial killer buried another one, and we’re looking for her.”

“Oh, crap, that’s terrible. What’s that music? Are you looking for her in a club?”

“Nah, man. Dispatch told us to play it. They’re hoping it’ll help the search somehow.”

“Oh.” He wanted to say something else, but his throat clenched, all words gone from his mind.

“I’ll take a rain check on that steak, okay, man?”

“Sure. Good luck, Dick.” He hung up.

He was totally screwed. They’d already heard one of the patrol car radios via the video. They’d find the location. He tried to recall the evening before. Had the girl seen his face? Maybe. Maybe not. He’d have to hope she hadn’t. She’d been distraught, and—

The laptop.

It was still at the crime scene, connected to the camera feed. They’d find nothing incriminating on the laptop itself—he only used it for the videos. But there could be fingerprints on the keys. And he knew damn well that any keyboard was an endless repository of skin cells, fingernails, half-eaten crumbs. All with his DNA on it.

His first instinct was to grab a bag and drive south. He’d reach the border in three hours, cross over to Mexico.

No. Don’t panic. Think it through. He had some time before the police found the girl. There was a delay in the video feed, it would take them time to pinpoint the exact location. He could get there before them. Yank out the laptop and take it with him.

He bolted for the door. Every minute counted. And if he was there, he might as well dig up the shallow grave and strangle the girl. By the time the police reached her, there’d be no evidence linked to him.

Every second that passed made Zoe’s heart sink a bit more. More than six hours since the video had started. And thirty-seven minutes since it had stopped. The two K-9 teams had reached the area and were searching with no luck so far. The hope that the feed would resume had dissipated completely. The killer had decided they’d seen enough, leaving Juliet both alive and dead in their minds.