Fancy Gap (33 page)

One of his favorite spots was under a large oak tree that sat across the road from the abandoned barn. He was sitting there when the van slowly drove off of 608 and into the back of the barn. Sam thought that was very strange. The Park Service owned that property. He watched as a man got out the van and quickly rearranged the branches and leaves he had disturbed when he drove in. The man took one final look around and quickly walked away down 608 and up into the woods.

Sam waited until the man had left before he went over to look at the van. The doors were locked, and the license plates had been removed.
That’s strange,
he thought. He headed back to his tree, sat down, and wondered about the van.

Sam knew the routines of the park personnel who were charged with maintaining and policing the land. He sat for more than an hour until he saw what he was expecting. The unmarked, white park police SUV cruised down the Parkway. He jumped up, ran into the middle of the Parkway, and started waving his arms up and down.

The park police officer immediately recognized him. He pulled off the road and parked. Sam ran toward him. He had never seen Sam do anything but wave at him.

“Officer Frank, I need to report something to you. I think it’s very important, and I think you should know.”

“Slow down, Sam, and tell me what you want me to know,” the officer said, smiling.

“Well, you know just over that grassy knoll where the abandoned barn is? Well, a man drove a van into it and left it there.”

Officer Frank sat up straight and started to pay closer attention to Sam. “What color is it, Sam?”

“It’s brown and it’s a Dodge Ram. I’m pretty sure of that.”

“Climb in and show me exactly where that van is.”

Sam suggested that they go up the Parkway to the dirt turnaround and swing back onto 608. They arrived at the barn in two minutes. The officer got out of his SUV, walked toward the barn, and saw the van. He squeezed into the barn and shone his flashlight into the driver’s seat. His beam caught the corner of a white bag on the passenger side floor. He went around the van and saw the rest of the bag. It was from Toys“R”Us.

“Oh, shit!” he exclaimed as he wiggled out of the garage and ran to his SUV. He grabbed the radio and called the Carroll county dispatcher.

“What’s up, Officer Frank? Are you finally on duty?” she asked.

“Sheryl, I think I just found the van that was used in the abduction! Get the sheriff out here and whoever else is on duty, and make it fast!” He told her exactly where he was and signed off.

He then hustled back to the van with only one thought in his mind:
What if the little girl is in the back of that van right now?
All the doors were locked, and there were no windows. He looked at Sam and said, “Start pounding on the side of the van and making some noise.”

Sam thought that was a strange request, but he did as he was asked. A minute later, Officer Frank asked him to stop and put his ear to the side of the van. He didn’t seem to hear a thing. What he did hear was the sound of multiple sirens screaming down 608 and the Parkway. Officer Frank thought about yanking the back door open to see if the girl was in back. But he stopped in his tracks:
The door might be booby-trapped.

He decided to wait for the sheriff, who arrived momentarily with Louisa. A Virginia State Police officer was close behind. Officer Frank stepped out of the barn and walked back to his SUV. Louisa and the sheriff joined him. He explained what had happened. Louisa glanced at the gentle-looking man sitting under the large tree.

“Sheriff, I didn’t yank the door open ’cause I thought, well, it might be booby-trapped,” he said sheepishly.

“Good thinking. You can never be too careful,” replied the sheriff. He called the dispatcher on his cell phone and asked her to call the state police bomb squad to the scene.

* * *

He heard the police sirens approaching. He bolted out of his chair and grabbed his pistol and binoculars from the table. He ran through the woods to a spot from which he could see the barn. He peeked above the knoll and lifted his binoculars to survey the scene. He saw the sheriff, Louisa Hawke, and many more deputies and state police officers.
How on earth did they find the van so fast?
he wondered, his mind spinning. He slithered back down the knoll and ran back to his hideout.

He locked the door behind him and sat down to catch his breath. Katie was sound asleep on her little bed. The sedative he had given her had worked well. He knew their time together would soon end. The thought grieved him.

She was truly his little girl
, he thought.

* * *

The sheriff watched Louisa as she walked over to the van. She looked it over from top to bottom. She then went to the front of the van and disappeared. He walked around and didn’t see her until he looked down and realized she had crawled underneath. She crawled back out and stood up.

“Sheriff, the van hasn’t been here long. The oil pan is still is still warm. So we might be looking at two options. The first is that he parked it here and had an accomplice drive him off to another place. The second is that he parked it and walked out to go somewhere else that might be close by. Do you think we might be able to get a state police helicopter with thermal imaging capabilities?”

“First of all you are the best and smartest investigator I have ever met. Do you think that one of these officers might have thought of getting down on their hands and knees to check the engine? Well the simple answer is no.

So back to your request for a helicopter. I think we might have a better chance of getting one from the North Carolina folks, who have one in Raleigh. Do you know anyone there we can call to pull some strings?”

Louisa took her cell phone out and stepped away as she punched in a number. The sheriff dialed Leroy’s number on his phone.

“Sheriff, we’re getting closer. Are you at your office?” Leroy asked.

The sheriff explained what had transpired and where he was on the Parkway. “We’ll be there in five minutes,” Leroy said.

“We’ll have a chopper here in forty-five minutes. It’s equipped with the thermal imaging system,” said Louisa, rejoining the sheriff.

“Quinn and Leroy will be here in five minutes. So what do you think, Louisa? Is he still close by?”

“I can feel him,” she replied, “and he’s very close. He probably heard the thundering noise as we arrived and knows we’re onto him.”

Quinn and Leroy pulled in within minutes. Louisa and the sheriff briefed them on what they knew.

“So how close do you think he is?” Quinn asked.

“My bet is that he’s within a mile of us right now. And I’ll bet he’s been watching us. But he won’t be for long. He’ll eventually spook and move as we tighten the noose,” Louisa responded.

Leroy looked at Quinn. “I’ve got a hunch. I’ll be back in a bit.” He ran to his car and drove away. Quinn looked at Louisa and shrugged his shoulders.

The sheriff hung up his phone and informed them, “The helicopter has lifted off and should be here in thirty minutes.”

* * *

He was getting fidgety in the house. The call from Tami in Richmond had upset him. Katie was still sleeping, and he had time to think. His options became more limited the longer he took to make his next move. He understood that he had to save his own skin as he had in the past… on several occasions. He had lived a lifetime of holding his demons at bay until the battle was useless.

With Katie, it was different. She now loved him as a daddy, and he felt her tenderness and virginity. She was an angel on earth. She was
his
angel on earth. Nothing should take that away from him now, certainly not Quinn McSpain or Louisa Hawke.

He cringed at the thought of the day those two entered his life. He should have killed them when he had the chance.
Fuck them both
, he thought.

He suddenly knew what he had to do. He was wasting his time as he sat in the house. He had enough anesthetic to keep Katie out awhile. He put his pistol in the holster on his belt and put extra rounds in his pocket. He gently took her into his arms and went out the back door.

* * *

Leroy finished what he had set out to do and quickly headed back to the Parkway. He had no way of knowing whether what he had set up would work until he used it. He had used it once before, and it had worked perfectly. But that was practice. This was different. A little girl’s life was on the line.

Leroy arrived back at the barn as Quinn and Louisa were discussing their options. They could have every officer in the area converge on their location, or they could search within a square mile radius of where the van was abandoned. They expected the helicopter to be there within fifteen minutes to help in the search. Quinn and Louisa were visibly frustrated. They knew that every minute they waited was another minute wasted.

* * *

His incredible strength allowed him to hold Katie in his arms and jog on the path he had cleared through the woods. He had prepared for this day meticulously, with several contingency plans to deal with all they could throw at him. He expected the last place they would look for him would be the church.

He was right.

He paused at the edge of the clearing to see if anyone was there. He didn’t see or hear a thing. The Buick was parked exactly where he had left it. He took the keys out of his pocket and opened the trunk. He gently set Katie’s head on a pillow and covered her with a blanket. He kissed her on the forehead before he closed the trunk lid.

He unlocked the door to the house and went directly to the cellar. He picked up the box he had prepared, headed back upstairs, and walked toward the car. He put the box in the back seat. He checked to see if his white waist rope was in it…it was.

He closed the door and looked at the church. Then he went to the storage shed and picked up the ten-gallon can of gasoline. He walked toward the church, unlocked the back door, and went inside.

He started to dump gas all over the pews, working his way toward the altar. He covered the drapes and cabinets as he emptied the can. Then he slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of matches. He lit one solitary match and flicked it onto a pew.

“Our Father, who art in hell, hallowed be thy flames!” he shouted as he turned and ran out of the church. He paused by his car. The intensity of the flames made him step back as he opened the door to the Buick. He paused for a moment as the entire church became engulfed in flames. He beamed with satisfaction as he started the engine and headed toward Hillsville.

The stained glass windows blew out.

* * *

Levi was a little late to the party.

He pulled off of 608 and parked near the other vehicles. He got out of his car and waved at Leroy as he tried to blend in without being noticed. Leroy smiled as he watched the sheriff watch Levi try to slither into the group of deputies.

Quinn waved Levi over. Levi was happy to see a smiling face and trotted toward Quinn, who whispered in his ear a sixty-second synopsis of what had gone down during the last two hours.

Suddenly, the dispatcher’s voice boomed over all of the frequencies. “Attention, all fire and police units, we have unconfirmed reports that the Catholic Church on the Parkway is engulfed in flames. Proceed with caution to that location.”

The sheriff shouted to his deputies, “Go! Go!”

The Virginia State Police officers and several of the Carroll County deputies ran to their cruisers and took off toward the church.

Leroy went to his car and shouted to the sheriff, “The Buick is moving! The Buick is moving!”

Louisa, Quinn, and the sheriff ran to Leroy’s car. He was sitting behind the wheel, watching a red dot pulsate across his GPS screen.

“When did you set that up, Leroy?” asked the sheriff.

“I went over to the church a bit ago to set it up. It was just a hunch that he might use his car since the van was out of service.”

The sheriff shouted instructions to the deputies who were still there. The Park Service officer and one deputy would stay with the van. The sheriff and Levi would follow Leroy, Louisa and Quinn as they tracked the Buick. The rest of the officers would go to the church fire.

* * *

He knew the fire would get their attention and he could now finish what he had started. He originally planned to park near the Beaver Dam Trail and take Katie to the water storage shed at the bottom of the trail. He had hiked past the shed on several occasions. It was part of the old water transport system for Hillsville. He liked it because it had a metal door with cross-iron bars that he could tie little Katie to for all to see.

He initially planned to park in the sheriff ’s parking lot and take Katie down the path from there. He changed his mind at the last minute and decided to drive down to the bottom of the trail near the Carroll Wellness Center instead. He parked at the far end of the parking lot and looked around. He slowly got out and walked back to the trunk.

He stopped cold in his tracks when he heard sirens in the distance. They sounded like they were coming his way. He ran back to the driver’s door, got in, and started the engine. His thoughts immediately went to the third and last place where he might hide.

* * *

Leroy looked at the screen. The dot had stopped moving. It almost looked like the Buick was parked in the sheriff ’s department parking lot. They were getting close to the intersection of Highways 52 and 58 when the dot began to move again.

“Where’s he going now?” Quinn asked.

Leroy hit the brakes, circled around the Government Center parking lot, and headed back to the intersection of 52 and 58.

“He’s heading back south on Highway 52, and he’s hauling ass,” Leroy said as he accelerated through the intersection. The sheriff was right behind him. Leroy looked at the speedometer and realized he was approaching one hundred miles an hour. The red dot was getting closer as he gained ground.

About a half mile after the Ayres vegetable stand, the dot took a hard left off of 52 onto Greenberry Road. Leroy knew this road was hilly and curvy and would be tough to maneuver going fast. Within two miles, the dot turned right onto Horton Road. As Leroy accelerated from the turn, he could see the Buick up ahead. It almost appeared as though it was heading back to the Parkway.