Kiss the Girls

woman a few days before. Poor Anna Miller. Another law student.
    She couldn’t hear anything,
right now. White noise, that was all. The static of silence. The gentle hum of eternity. There was never even the sound of a car. Not a single backfire or a distant horn. Not even the boom of an airplane passing overhead.
    Naomi had decided they must be underground, at least a couple of levels down into the earth. Had he built this underground complex, this sinplex? Had he thought it all through, dreamed about it, and then done it in some burst of psychopathic fury and energy? She thought that he had indeed.
    She was getting herself ready to break the silence. She
had
to talk to Kristen, to Green Eyes. Her mouth was so dry. It felt like cotton wool. Naomi finally licked her lips.
    “I would kill for a Coke, I would kill
him
for a Coke,” she, whispered to herself. “I
could
kill him given the chance.”
    I could kill Casanova. I could commit a murder. I’m that far gone, aren’t I?
she thought and had to stifle a sob.
    Naomi finally called out in a loud, strong voice. “Kristen, can you hear me? Kristen? It’s Naomi Cross!”
    She was shivering, and warm tears streamed down her cheeks. She’d gone against him and his shitty, sacred rules.
    Green Eyes called back immediately. The other woman’s voice sounded so good. “I can hear you, Naomi! I think I’m only a few doors away from you. I hear you fine. Keep talking, I’m sure he’s not here, Naomi.”
    Naomi didn’t think anymore about what she was doing. Maybe he wasn’t there; maybe he was. It didn’t matter now.
    “He’s going to kill us,” she called back. “Something’s different about him! He’s going to kill us for sure. If we’re going to do anything, we have to do it the first chance we get.”
    “Naomi’s right!” Kristen’s voice was slightly muffled, as if she were talking from the bottom of a well. “Do you all hear Naomi? Of course you do!”
    “I have one idea for everyone to consider.” Naomi spoke even more loudly this time. She wanted to keep this communication going now. They all had to hear her, all the trapped women. “The next time he gets us together—we have to go for it. If we rush him all at once, he might hurt some of us. But he can’t stop all of us! What do you think?”
    Just then the heavy wooden door to Naomi’s room opened a crack. Light streamed in.
    Naomi watched in stark horror as the door swung open. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak a word.
    Her heart beat painfully in her chest,
pounding,
and she couldn’t get a breath. She felt as if she were about to die. He’d been there, waiting, listening all this time.
    The door opened all the way.
    “Hello, my name is Will Rudolph,” the tall, good-looking man in the doorway said in a pleasant voice. “I like your plan very much, but I don’t think it will work. Let me tell you why.”

Chapter 86

    I WAS AT Raleigh-Durham International Airport at a little before nine on Wednesday morning. The cavalry was arriving. Fresh troops were here. Team Sampson was back in town.
    In contrast to the creeping terror and paranoia that were present everywhere on the streets of Durham and Chapel Hill, the early-morning businesspeople at the airport seemed oblivious to harm in their dark, pressed suits, their floral print dresses from Neiman Marcus and Dillard. I liked that. Good for them. Denial is an approach.
    I finally saw Sampson loping through the USAir gate with long, determined strides. I waved my local newspaper at him. It was characteristic of me to wave and for Man Mountain not to. He gave me a city-cool head nod, though. Bad to the bone. Just what the doctor ordered.
    I brought Sampson up to speed while we drove from the airport to Chapel Hill.
    I needed to check out the Wykagil River area. It was just another hunch of mine, but it could lead to something… like the location of the “disappearing house.” I had enlisted the help of Dr. Louis Freed, a mentor and former teacher of Seth Samuel’s. Dr. Freed was a noted black historian on the Civil War, a period I was also interested in. Slaves and the Civil War in North Carolina…. In particular, the Underground Railroad that had been used for slaves escaping to the North.
    As we entered Chapel Hill, Sampson got to see for himself what the abductions and grisly murders had done to the once-peaceful college town. The nightmarish scene reminded me of a couple of my subway trips in New York City. It also