Exposure (17 page)

The back of Kaycee’s neck crawled as she pulled into a parking spot in front of Studio Creations on Main. She stared at the darkened, bagged photo on the passenger seat floor. After Mark’s phone call she cringed at the thought of touching it. She didn’t want to think what she was thinking. Never would she forgive herself for this.

Leaning over, she picked it up with thumb and forefinger and slid it into her purse.

She got out and locked her car — something she rarely did on Main Street. But then most of the time, at least in warm months, she walked the two blocks here.

Her eyes pulled toward the railroad tracks and the continuation of East Main beyond. Some distance down that way Hannah had last been seen.

“A young man called,” Mark had told Kaycee on the phone. “He was coming up Main toward the tracks last night around ten. Said he saw a girl on the sidewalk, pulling a suitcase.”

“And he didn’t
stop
? He didn’t ask her what she doing out by herself?”

“He’s twenty-one years old, Kaycee. He didn’t really think much about it. Just figured she was going somewhere close to spend the night or something.”

Right, at ten o’clock on a school night.

But that young man wasn’t to blame for this. Kaycee Raye was. Hannah
had
been headed toward her house. And what had she found when she got there? Emptiness. Darkness. Courageous Kaycee had run off to her girlfriend’s.

Did Hannah think she’d simply refused to open the door? The thought turned Kaycee’s insides. She was always home at night, Hannah knew that. She imagined Hannah ringing the bell again and again, crying and begging for Kaycee’s help after she’d made it all that way in the dark. How rejected she must have felt — on top of the rejection she’d already endured.

But what if Hannah never made it at all? A young girl alone at night, walking a main road through town. She could so easily have been picked up and snatched away. A right turn at the next stoplight, and the abductor would be on Highway 29 headed toward Lexington. From there, the interstate.

Hannah could be anywhere.

Or what if she
had
made it to Kaycee’s — and
they
were there?

Shuddering, Kaycee slung the handle of her purse over her shoulder.

She felt the watcher’s eyes drill into her as she turned to walk across the street. She cast a penetrating look up Main. At a long diagonal across the road, a car was turning out of the gravel parking lot for Scotts Station, the white wood B&B facing the intersection of South Maple. The car headed in the opposite direction, passing the Front Room next to the B&B. The owner of the Front Room sold gifts and small antique items in the front area of the house, while she and her husband lived in the rest. Every time Kaycee had gone inside she’d found sweet tea waiting for customers, plus some kind of homemade dessert bars.

In front of a yellow wood apartment building on the other side of the Scotts Station parking lot, two elderly men sat on one of the matching benches lining the sidewalk. One of them raised his hand in a greeting. Kaycee waved back.

Her gaze raked past them, down the familiar storefronts. AdOne Media; White Casting, the jewelers; a doctor’s office. Next to that stretched the green awning of the drugstore, which housed Tastebuds, the old-fashioned soda fountain she frequented three or four times a week. Tastebuds also made the best pizza Kaycee had ever eaten, with some of the most creative ingredients. And those vanilla sodas. Something about them made her smile, even on the worst of days.

Kaycee’s stomach rumbled. She’d had nothing but coffee today, and that wasn’t good. Fear and lack of sleep already made her weak enough. But the mere thought of eating now — even a Tastebuds pizza — turned her stomach.

Past the drugstore lay Clay’s Barbershop, Union Station Texas-style Barbeque, and Jody’s Beauty Salon, followed by the white stone building that hosted City Hall and the police station. Kaycee jaywalked at an angle across the street and headed for the building.

“Don’t leave before I get there,” she’d told Mark. “I need to talk to you.”

She pulled open the glass door and stepped into the small entry area housing the Pepsi and Ale – 8-One machines. The police department ran the machines, using the proceeds for such thank-you events as a dinner for officers and their spouses at Christmas, an outing on the lake in summer. Ale – 8-One — A Late One — made in Winchester, Kentucky, had become Kaycee’s favorite soft drink since she moved to Wilmore. Before ordering a Tastebuds pizza, she’d stop by here to buy a bottle. It tasted like ginger ale, only deeper, better.

Bitterness rose in her chest as she knocked on the door to the station. This downtown block, once so comforting with its sights and smells and tastes, now loomed with horrifying unseen threats.

Emma Wooley let Kaycee inside. The administrative secretary hurried back to her desk to answer the phone. Emma was a large woman in her late fifties with a quick smile and sparkling brown eyes. After raising six kids and now grandmother to seven, she often declared nothing that happened on her job could surprise her.

Three stacks of colored flyers sat on Emma’s desk. Kaycee slid one from the top. Hannah smiled up from her most recent school photo. She was wearing her favorite pink shirt. Even then she looked unhappy. The smile didn’t reach her eyes.

Kaycee’s throat squeezed. She touched Hannah’s forehead, then pressed the flyer to her heart.

“Kaycee.” Mark Burnett stood up from the back area crammed with five desks and waved her over. One hand pressed a phone receiver against his chest. He looked worn, with circles under his deep-set eyes. This was supposed to be his time to sleep. At a nearby desk Officer Rich Hurlton, a salt-and-pepper haired man with a lined face, who reminded Kaycee of Harrison Ford, focused intently on a computer monitor.

Kaycee stuck a hand in her hair. Unwashed this morning, its kinky curls were even puffier than usual. And she wore no makeup. She had to look like something the cat dragged in.

Carrying the flyer, she walked toward Mark, passing the chief’s empty office on her right. Although his door was closed she could picture his steel gray desk topped with wood laminate, the white paint and blue-green wallpaper. At the rear of the office sat six screens, running live video from cameras placed around Wilmore. Four times in the past year Kaycee had faced the chief across his desk, nervously claiming she’d seen someone in her backyard, or watching her from the street. Each time he’d taken her back to have a look around.

Video.

“Okay, thanks,” Mark said into his phone. He replaced the receiver. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

They surveyed each other. Kaycee felt the lingering bittersweet of his thoughtless words at the chief’s party, followed by his apology last night. As for the camera in her kitchen, Mark hadn’t believed she’d really seen it. Maybe now he would.

She glanced at Rich. “He’s looking at video?”

“Yeah. We can type in the date and time for any camera in Wilmore. We got way more cameras than what’s on the six screens in Chief’s office. If Hannah walked up this street last night, we’ll know.”

If
.

“Where are the other officers?”

“Chief’s at the elementary school, talking to everyone who knows Hannah. I’ll call him if we find something on the video. The others are still going door-to-door at the Parksleys’ neighborhood and searching the area. There’s that eighteen acres out there with the gutted house. Weeds as tall as I am. Plus Bohicket Road runs into the lane that goes down by the campground. Got gulch area and lots of brush not far from that road.”

Kaycee licked her lips. “But we know Hannah made it out of her neighborhood. And she didn’t go toward the campground.”

Mark winced. “We don’t know what happened after that.”

His tone said so much more. That he wanted to tell her everything would be okay, they’d find Hannah safe. But he could no longer promise it.

Kaycee sank down in the chair opposite Mark’s desk. Flecks of steel dredged through her veins. She couldn’t think about this. Hannah was alive and well out there somewhere. Kaycee looked away from Mark, her focus landing on the door that led to the back entrance and down to the lower level. The basement. She’d ventured down those bare wooden steps once, clutching the matching handrail and feeling the stutter of her heart. Chief Davis had taken her down to see the DARE car, a 1968 Ford Galaxy 500, like the last vehicle on
Mayberry RFD
. But she could hardly admire the car. With no windows, that basement terrified her. The floor was concrete, wooden posts rising up to attach to long, low ceiling beams like scaffolding in a deep, dark mine. Leaning up against one wall were the disassembled steel framework pieces of the old holding cell used years ago, called the “lion’s cage.” To the right of the DARE car the alarmed and locked evidence room held boxes of items from criminal cases. Another windowless room on the left side of the car, also locked, held supplies. At the walk-out rear of the basement were long double doors that opened up for the DARE car to drive through. Kaycee had vowed she’d never go down there again, not as long as she fought claustrophobia. Just think how dark and horrifying that place would be at night.

What if Hannah was in some place like that?

Heat flushed through Kaycee. Mandy’s worst fear had come true, now so had her own. What if the worst had happened to Hannah too?

Kaycee’s lungs swelled until they ballooned against her ribs.

“You okay?” Mark’s voice sounded far away.

Kaycee tried to nod. Panic bloomed through her stomach. She could barely breathe. Her fingers curled around the edge of her chair.
Jesus
,
Jesus
,
Jesus
. It was the only word she could pray.

Mark laid a hand on her arm.

Kaycee’s gaze roved to his face. He was bent over her, concern etching lines in his forehead. She raked in air. Slowly the panic receded.

“You okay?” He pulled his hand away and straightened.

“I . . . yeah.” She blinked hard.

Rich was eyeing her. The video on his screen stood frozen.

Kaycee’s cheeks flushed. “I’m sorry. I’m okay. Really. Just . . . Hannah and everything.”

“I know.” Mark’s voice sounded the most empathetic she’d ever heard it. Kaycee looked up at him, and their eyes locked.

He moved first. “Want some water?”

“Yes, thanks.”

She leaned back in the chair, eyes averted from Rich. His chair squeaked, followed by the sound of clicking as he resumed watching the video.

Mark returned with a plastic cup of water. Kaycee drank it down and placed the cup on the desk. “Thanks. I’m really sorry.”

“No problem.” He walked around his desk and sat down. “So. You said you had something to tell me.”

Great. After that little display this would not be the best timing.

Kaycee straightened her back. “This morning on my computer I saw that dead man again. He blipped on in place of my desktop for a couple seconds, then disappeared. On the bottom of that picture was written one word. Exposure.”

Mark surveyed her. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”

At least he wasn’t insisting she’d gone off the deep end. “You were looking for Hannah. That was more important.”

He shook his head. “Exposure. What does that mean?”

“One of my recent columns was titled that. I’m wondering if this is the work of some crazy ‘Who’s There?’ readers.” She didn’t want to tell Mark about her dream and how details from it had played out in the second photo. If Tricia hadn’t believed her, neither would he.

Kaycee picked up her purse and pulled out the bagged photo — her one piece of evidence, what was left of it. “Then when I got in my car to come down here, I found this stuck in the visor.” She held it out to him, face up. “It’s the same photo — the dead man, with a bullet hole in his jaw and one in his head. But this one has blood on it.”

“
Blood?
”

“Then minutes after I found it, the picture faded to this black.”

She flicked a look at Rich. He had stopped clicking through a tape to listen. Mark followed her eyes. Rich shifted in his chair and resumed his task.

Mark took the bagged photo from her hand and stared at it.

He flipped the picture to see the back, then turned it right side up. Lines etched in his forehead. Slowly he raised darkened eyes to hers. “This was a picture of that dead man?” Mark’s words resonated, a doubting Thomas now facing evidence. “The third you’ve seen.”

Kaycee nodded. “It’s why I . . . almost lost it there for a minute.”

He held her eyes, speechless. Kaycee bit her lip. “The thing is, Mark, Hannah’s gone. And they — whoever’s doing this to me — are here. For real. Lurking, hiding. They obviously were around my house last night. I didn’t imagine that camera. And the minute I left to come here, they got back into my kitchen to whisk it away. If Hannah made it to my house, and I wasn’t there, but
they
were . . .”

Kaycee couldn’t bring herself to say the rest. Mark inhaled a long, silent breath. At the same time their eyes lowered to the blood on the photo.

“There she is.”