He’s on foot. It’s him! I know that walk. The gait and the swing of the arms. I know the slouch in his shoulders and the way his knees fold inward.
One. Two. Three. I look back to the entrance and watch a couple with rolling suitcases walk to their car. Back to the screen.
A sharp pain passes through my heart, which is not expecting the surge of excitement. But I can’t control it. He’s there! On the recording. He walks into the hotel and disappears. The camera doesn’t film above the first floor so I don’t bother watching for a light to come on in a room.
One. Two. Three. I force my eyes again to look at the hotel. No one comes or goes. Back to the screen.
I double the playback now to get through the hours between his arrival and the end of the recording. It takes several minutes. Count to three. Back to the hotel. Again to the playback. One. Two. Three. I force a breath all the way in, slow and steady. It struggles against what I so desperately want to do. Run out the door and across the parking lot and into that hotel where this man is holed up, plotting against everyone I love and, I have to assume, capable of anything now.
I get to the end of the recording. He hasn’t left. He’s still in there. I look again to the entrance, longer this time because the sky has turned blue. Morning is here. I think that Mitch will be up by now. That he’s seen my note and started packing the girls and finding a way to tell them that sounds exciting. He’ll have to deal with work and the school, but he’ll figure it out. He’s the boss. He hasn’t called or texted, which means he’s angry with me or indifferent or something in between. But I can’t be distracted.
I go back to the image of Wade entering the building last night. I watch backward to see where he comes from. It’s not the parking lot of the hotel. He comes from down the street, from the other direction, which means he’s parked somewhere else. And that’s where he’ll go when he leaves again. To whatever vehicle he’s driving.
The waitress returns. “You all set here?” she asks me.
“Yeah, just the check.” I throw down some cash and pack the laptop into my bag.
And then I walk quickly out of the diner and across the street. I walk until I’m past the hotel, my eyes never leaving the entrance, then I cross back over and look for places Wade might park. Again, I remain disciplined, returning my eyes to the hotel every three seconds. I keep counting them in my head as I walk in the direction Wade came from and observe.
Next to the hotel on the right side is an office building. There’s no parking in the back and the front lot is empty. Beside that is a car wash and then a strip mall. And just like the grocery store where I left my car, the strip mall will have parking behind it. Now comes the choice.
The camera is recording the entrance. It’s barely seven, and the hotel is still quiet. I take a chance that Wade won’t make a move yet. He chose the hotel closest to town, which means there’s a greater chance someone will have seen the alerts from our department. It doesn’t matter how hard he tries to mask his face. Every alert that we’ve released describes him as a tall man, six foot five—the one thing he can’t hide.
I decide that he’s still in his room, maybe watching the street from a window. Looking for me.
So I leave the camera and my view of the entrance and walk quickly past the office building and the car wash and finally to the strip mall. I go to the end before crossing over the front lot. I clear the side of the building and turn the corner and see it. It’s unmistakable. The blue truck.
Okay. Okay...I force myself to breathe. This is harder than I imagined.
I check my surroundings. There are a few cars around it. None of these stores will open before nine or ten, so I don’t expect much activity for at least another hour. The truck is in the very back row, which abuts a patch of trees and a small stream.
I walk quickly now,light-headed. It feels like years that this torment has been happening. It feels like a lifetime.
I reach the truck and stop. I see now what he’s done. The plates are bright orange with dark blue letters. New York State. He’s swapped out the originals because we’ve been looking for Connecticut blue and white or a sticker plate taped to the window like he had before. The orange plates stand out. Anyone looking for the blue truck with Connecticut plates would immediately dismiss it. They wouldn’t bother to check the driver or anything else about it the way they might if the plates were more similar to Connecticut’s.
And he’s done something else—added a logo to the side, just like the one he used on the white van that was parked outside my house. He’s found a place to have them made. This one says Anytime Repair. There’s a website address and a phone number with a New York prefix. Everything ties together.
He’s here. I’ve found him. It’s happening, and I don’t know if I’m ready.
I step closer and look inside the window.This truck.I think about how I leaned against it on that back road. Telling him just enough of my secrets. Giving him just enough to infiltrate my life. Laughing and crying and letting him in after I’d pushed away the others who tried to be there. Rowan. Mitch. Even my girls, though it kills me to remember. But seeing it now, everything rushes back relentlessly, until I drown in the memory of how it felt to be there with him. How I needed it.
Fuck, Elise. This is not thetime.
I think through my plan and convince myself I can see it through. And then—
I sense someone behind me. I don’t turn around.
An arm is around my chest. A hand pressed to my face, a cloth covering my mouth and nose. I know the smell that comes from it. Rowan and I had a case years ago. A woman was abducted in a parking lot. All that was left next to her car was a rag soaked in chloroform.
I try not to breathe, but of course this is impossible.
I try to move from his hold, but like before he overpowers me.
Did I even tell him about that case—with the missing woman and the rag? We found her eventually. Buried in the woods behind the killer’s house. When he was arrested five years later for assault on another woman, his house was sold and the new owners wanted to put in a pool.
I remember the smell as I take a breath. The smell from the rag in the evidence box. The smell from the cloth pressed to my face.
Chloroform takes at least five minutes to render a person unconscious. In the case of our missing woman, the car was completely isolated. The killer had time. Wade won’t take that chance.
