Sully nodded, and this time it was he who led the way. Except for the scuttling and occasional hiss of a rat, it was silent. Sully and Groves were both tall and neither could traverse the tunnel standing up straight. Charley and her captor could do so. Picturing Charley being dragged through this nightmarish dungeon at the hands of a psychotic serial killer was almost more than Sully could deal with and keep his cool. He and Groves had gone several yards when the tunnel split in two.
“Damn,” Sully grumbled, wishing he knew which one would take him to Charley. “I’ll keep to the right.”
“Okay, I’ll go left,” Groves said. “Be careful, Sully.”
“If he’s got Charley, he’s a dead man.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”
CHAPTER FORTY
“You’re hurting me, Leon,” Charley snapped and jerked her arm. “Let go!”
He held on tight. It had never occurred to Charley to take her gun with her to pick up Owen or to meet with Margo at her office. But oh, how she wished she had that weapon now. Not that she could actually shoot someone, but she was certain she could have used it as a means to threaten and escape Leon Lerfeld.
“Keep moving!” Leon sneered, shining a flashlight in her face.
The tunnel was cold, damp, and grim. Pitch black, except in whatever direction Leon shined a small flashlight, Charley mostly just felt the rats at her feet. She’d cringed as she had stepped on at least two. After Leon had grabbed her in front of her shop, he’d been the one to brandish a weapon. He’d forced her into the old car with a knife, driven her to a dilapidated house, and dragged her inside.
“Whose house was that back there?” Charley asked, stumbling along behind him.
“My uncle’s. He was hateful and violent, instead of appreciative. I had to siphon off his social security checksbecause I deserved to be paid for my care.” Over his shoulder, Leon bared his teeth and gritted out, “When I bought my scooter with his money, he had a moment of lucidity and threatened to tell them where I was. I silenced him.” Snickering to himself, he said, “Did the same to his crazy wife and that stupid dog.”
“Tell who?” Charley asked as calmly as possible. “Who’s looking for you, Leon?”
“Stop calling me Leon! That old geezer in the house was Leon Lerfeld. My name is Dorian Fester! Those jerks at the psych facility, where I was held against my will for twelve long years, are probably looking for me. I had to pretend I was catatonic when I first got there.” Halting suddenly, he turned to her, rolled his eyes up in his head, opened his mouth, and stuck out his tongue as if he were in a stupor before saying, “I deserved to be released. I shouldn’t have had to escape.” Then, with the familiar deadness returning to his face and dulling his eyes, he said in a chilling monotone, “Iwasreleased. Iamno longer a threat to myself or society.”
Charley winced in pain as he suddenly yanked her forward again. “Why were you there?”
“Evaluation for competency to stand trial.”
“For what crime?”
“Murder,” he snickered.
“Who did you murder, Le—Dorian?”
“I was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the state of Colorado’s criminal court.”
“Who did you murder?” Charley repeated.
“My streetwalking whore of a mother. She was always telling me to leave, but I had nowhere to go,” he said as though Charley would understand. In the next breath, he spat, “She was as useless as all the females who have rejected me. You’re just like the others, you know that, Charley?” He turned to glare at her. “Igave you a chance, but you rejected me too. Over and over and over and?—”
“Let me go!” Charley’s brain had been whispering that Leon, or Dorian Fester, was the Cave Killer. Now, she was convinced he had brutally murdered six women. When he didn’t comply with releasing her, she was forced to follow along behind him. “Where are we going?”
“Shut up. I need to think.”
Although there were no holes in the floors leading to tunnels beneath the property which she’d just sold, Charley and Sully, along with a lot of people, had since learned of the numerous hidden passageways crisscrossing under Old Colorado City. If the pioneers could escape danger using the tunnels, why couldn’t she? Charley formed a plan as she was dragged behind Dorian Fester a few more yards. The dim view illuminated by his flashlight soon indicated a wider, open section in the cave with tunnels branching off in three different directions. When rats hissed again, Charley purposely pretended to trip over them.
“Oww!” she cried. Falling to the ground broke Fester’s hold on her. Pulling her left foot close to her chest, Charley wrapped her left hand around her uninjured ankle and rubbed it.
“Get up!” Fester ordered.
“No! Let me go!”
The second Fester reached down to grab her again, Charley used her right hand to yank the flashlight from him. With all her strength, she slammed him in the head with the flashlight. Then, instantly shining the harsh glare in his eyes, she scrambled to her feet in relative obscurity.
“You bitch! After I strangle you, I’m gonna cut you into tiny pieces and let the rats feast on your dead body.”
