Брайан Фриман - Alter Ego

But whoever took Aimee had expected him to come here. There was a fallen beam from the roof immediately inside the cabin, and someone had spray-painted a message in red across the timber.

It was the same message that had come with each dead body.

Serena arrived at Lori Fulkerson’s house while Lori was turning her Yaris off the gravel road into her yard. Both women got out into the cascading snow. Serena met Lori at the sagging wooden steps that led up to the storm door. Inside the house, her Yorkshire terrier jumped and pawed at the glass.

“Ms. Fulkerson, do you have a minute?” Serena asked.

“I have all day,” she replied. “The store closed because of the storm.”

Lori opened the door and scooped her dog off the floor. Serena followed the woman into the tiny, cluttered living room and had to sit on top of newspapers again. Lori sank into her recliner with the dog in her lap. The house was cold. Snow plastered over the windows made the interior dark and gloomy.

“What’s going on?” Lori asked.

“I don’t know if you’ve seen the news reports, but Aimee Bowe is missing.”

“Missing? What do you mean?”

“Her disappearance seems to be a replay of what happened to Art’s victims.”

“Art’s dead,” Lori said. “How could that be?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. I was wondering if you’d noticed any unusual activity around your house or in the neighborhood.”

“Do you think I’m in danger?” Lori asked.

“I don’t know. I hope not, but we’re not taking any chances. You’re one of only a handful of people with a direct connection to what happened back then. I’m going to ask a police officer to stay on the road outside and keep an eye on your house while we’re investigating. There’s probably no danger to you, but until we understand the threat, I’d rather be safe.”

“I have a dog,” Lori said.

Serena smiled. The Yorkie in Lori’s lap wasn’t two feet long from nose to tail. “And he does look ferocious, but I’d still like to have an officer close by.”

Lori shrugged. “Okay.”

“I know this is difficult, and I’m sure you went through it many times eleven years ago, but I was hoping you could tell me a little more about what you remember from your experience.”

“Inside the box? I already told Aimee more than I’ve ever told anyone else.”

“I meant the abduction itself. Were you conscious? Did you see or hear anything?”

“No. I was sleeping when he hit me in the head. I woke up in the box.”

“So you never actually saw Art Leipold?”

Lori’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “What are you saying?”

“It’s just a question.”

“No, I didn’t see him,” she replied.

“When you made the audiotape, how did you know what to say?” Serena asked.

“There was a voice. He said if I wanted to be rescued, I had to beg for it. I had to ask to be saved. He told me the name I had to use. Jonathan Stride. He said he was the only man who could rescue me.”

“Did you recognize the voice? Did it sound familiar? Art was on television. His voice must have been pretty distinctive.”

“The voice was disguised,” Lori said. “Muffled. Whiny. He didn’t want me to recognize it.”

“Did you have some kind of connection with Art? The three earlier victims had all intersected with him at one point or another. I was wondering if that was true of you, too.”

Lori nodded. “I helped him on special orders for parts. He was a car collector. He was in the store a lot.”

“Did he pay any special attention to you?”

“I didn’t think so at the time, but I guess I was wrong. I’d only been back in town for a few months at that point. He used to ask me a lot of questions about growing up here and what it was like to move away and come back. I just figured he was making small talk.”

“What about Art’s son, Chris? Did you ever meet him?”

Lori looked at her strangely. “You mean before the movie?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah, he came into the store with Art once. I only remember because they were having a big argument.”

“Do you remember what the argument was about?”

“No. Why do you care?”

“I wasn’t in Duluth during that investigation,” Serena said. “I’m just trying to understand whether anything from the past could be connected to Aimee’s disappearance.”

“I don’t see how,” Lori said.

“Have you talked to Aimee recently?”

“I went to her house the other night. I saw you there. That’s all.”

Serena stood up. “Well, thank you for your time, Ms. Fulkerson. You should see a squad car outside your house very soon. Regardless, if you see anything unusual, please call me right away.”

Lori nodded but didn’t say anything.

“I do have one more question,” Serena said, “and I know this will sound strange.”

“What is it?”

“When I talked to you at Aimee’s house, you said you felt connected to her. Like she was inside your head.”

“So?”

Serena took a breath. This wasn’t the kind of question she’d ever imagined herself asking. “So I was wondering if you still felt that way.”

Lori stroked the head of her dog and didn’t look up at Serena. “I do feel something. Until you showed up, I thought I was crazy. I figured the movie was getting into my head. You know, seeing Aimee pretend to be me.”

“What do you feel? What do you think happened to her?”

“She’s in the box,” Lori said.

Maggie drove toward the campus of the College of St. Scholastica. Her windshield wipers struggled against the snow, and the lanes in the street were no more than ruts tamped down by the other cars. Her route down the street was a serpentine path as her tires slipped and skidded. Ahead of them, the twin gray towers of the administration building loomed atop the campus hill.

It was already late afternoon. They weren’t any closer to tying Jungle Jack and John Doe together.

“Maybe we were wrong about the second phone call,” Cab suggested. “If Jack realized that he used the burner phone to make the first call, he might have freaked out and not wanted to leave a trail. So instead of ordering a pizza, he went out and got a Big Mac or something.”

“True.”

“Even if we find a driver who remembers him, it will be tough proving he made the first call,” Cab added.

“Also true,” Maggie said.

Even so, she wasn’t ready to give up. They had two more delivery drivers to track down from the Hermantown Sammy’s. One was a St. Scholastica freshman named Ginny Hoeppner. Maggie drove onto the college campus and wound around to the parking lot near Tower Hall. The two of them got out, but neither bothered putting on a coat despite the snow. Maggie wore furry calf-high boots, but Cab was in a suit with leather dress shoes. He walked gingerly on the icy pavement.

The receptionist in the housing office directed them to Somers Hall to find Ginny Hoeppner. One wing of the residence hall butted up to the same parking lot, so they didn’t have to go far. Inside, they found themselves surrounded by fresh-faced young college students, and Maggie noticed that most of the girls took long looks at Cab as they made their way down the hall. When they found the room they were looking for, Cab drummed his fingers on the door as if he were playing the piano.

A slim raven-haired girl answered the door. She wore an untucked flannel shirt over tattered jeans. As with the other students they’d met, her eyes immediately went to Cab’s face.

“Ginny Hoeppner?” Maggie asked.

“Yeah, that’s me.”