More Twisted

dropped twenty feet to the floor of the tunnel. He’d climbed down to her, made sure she was unconscious, shut off her cell phone and threw it down a drainpipe (he’d been troubled to learn from helpful Chief Knoblock that cell phones still have a signal when they’re off; he’d have to remember that in the future).
    Leaving her in the tunnel, he’d returned to the surface to seal up the open grate with plywood. But as he was hammering the grate back into place he must’ve hit a weakened beam. It collapsed and, as he’d scrabbled to safety, half the building came down. There was no way to get back inside from there. Worse, one of the sub-basement walls had collapsed too, exposing the tunnel where the girl lay.
    Tonya was still unconscious and wouldn’t know what Ron had done, nor could she identify him. But rescueworkers would undoubtedly find the workroom off the adjacent tunnel where he had his knives and ropes and video camera, all of which bore his fingerprints. There was also a videotape in the camera that he sure as hell didn’t want the police to see. He’d tried to climb back down to get his things but the building was far too unstable. He was looking for another route down when the first fire trucks arrived—somebody must have heard the collapse and called 9-1-1—and Ron had fled.
    He’d returned back home, desperately trying to figure out how to return for the damning evidence. While Sandra slept, he’d stayed transfixed to the TV all night, watching the coverage about Tunnel Girl, praying that they wouldn’t get into the tunnel before he had a chance, somehow, to beat them to it. Praying too that she wouldn’t die—his only hope to get to the workroom was to pretend he was trying to rescue her himself.
    Then, after a tortured, sleepless night, the police arrived at his doorstep (his alarm at seeing Detective Perillo had nothing to do with the possibility of a fire-damaged office, of course).
    Despite this scare, though, it worked out for the best that they’d asked for his help; it was through Knoblock and the city engineers that he learned that there might be another way to get back into the tunnel and collect what he’d left behind last night. After working his way through the drain and knocking Langley out, he’d managed to get all his gear, obliterate his foot- and fingerprints and slip out of the tunnel without Tonya’s hearing him. On the way back down the sluice he’d disposed of the weapons, ropes and camera by pitching themdown fissures in the drain and filling in the spaces with dirt and mud. (He did, of course, keep the videotape of the student he’d last killed; it was one of his better ones.)
    Oh, he was a bit sorry he couldn’t be the one to rescue the girl and collect the reward. But, if he had, the press might’ve looked into his life and learned a few interesting things—for instance, the fact that he’d always chosen to live or work near colleges from which coeds had disappeared over the years.
    Besides, he’d been honest with Sandra regarding one other thing: That he had values other than making money. The reward meant little. There was indeed, as she’d observed, another side to him, a more important side.
    I need to follow my creative spirit. I have to be true to myself.  . . .
    Of course, that creative spirit didn’t involve graphic design; it centered around ropes and knives and beautiful college girls.
    “I’ve got to say,” Sandra said, “I’m still not convinced that everything was the way it seemed to be.”
    Ron eyed his wife cautiously. “No?” He hoped she wasn’t on to him; he loved her, and he’d prefer not to kill her.
    “It was just odd, Langley calling right after the accident. You know, I actually wondered if maybe he was behind the whole thing.”
    “No kidding?”
    “Yeah, maybe he travels around and booby-traps buildings and oil rigs, then after somebody’s trappedhe calls and gets a reward or a fee to rescue the victims.” She gave a soft giggle. “And you know what else I thought?”
    “What’s that?”
    “That maybe Tonya and Langley were in on it together.”
    “Together?” Seeing that his wife’s suspicions were headed in a harmless direction, he could laugh.
    “I mean, she and her father were having problems—he wouldn’t pay to fix her car, remember? She might’ve wanted to get even with him. Oh, and did you see that she was a hiking guide on the Appalachian Trail? Maybe she met Langley when he was