Gone (42 page)

He drummed his knuckles on the desktop, then went to find Jonathan. The administrative assistant was finishing a call and replaced the phone in its cradle when Jake reached him.

“Jonathan, see what you can do about tracing the label on the outfit Sara McCowan was buried in,” Jake said. “We need to find out where that outfit was bought.”

Jonathan scratched a note onto a pad of paper by the phone. “By the pictures, it looks like some specialty fetish place. I’ll get right on it. Jake we’re getting more calls from reporters wanting to know about the arrest in the Sara McCowan case.”

Jake gave Jonathan the same response he’d given him before. “Tell them the investigation is ongoing. We have no comment at this time.” Jake glanced at his watch. “I’ll be at the sheriff’s office if you need me.”

* * * * *

When Clare regained consciousness, Lowney was hoisting her out of the trunk of his car. He set her on her feet. He hadn’t tied her hands or feet. Clearly, he didn’t think she posed any threat. She would have loved to prove him wrong, but she couldn’t find balance. Didn’t know what side was up, and the pain in her head was extreme, undermining her ability to think.

She didn’t have the use of her crutch and as soon as Lowney removed his hands from her, she crumpled to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut. He’d stomped on her ankle earlier and while the cast had cushioned some of the blow, it hadn’t protected her fully. From the level of pain, she feared he’d caused another break. Bile tickled the back of her throat and she fought off the urge to vomit.

“Come on, Miss FBI agent,” Lowney said, his eyes twinkling. “You got to have more in you than this.”

Clare didn’t respond. On her hands and knees, her head bowed, she inhaled the fresh air, and tried to orient herself. She was on Edgar Road, she realized, as she heard the train whistle blow. At the boarded-up entrance to the mine.

He hauled her up by the upper arm, then released her. She wobbled on her feet, but managed to stay on them. She needed to get away from him, but even if she could manage it, at the moment her own escape was farthest from her mind. It was Earl Lowney who’d abducted and killed Sara McCowan. Clare had to play this out with him. She needed to find out if Lowney had Beth.

Without her crutch, she dragged her lame ankle. She fought off the urge to lie down and forced herself to keep moving.

He pulled her across the dry and pitted ground. Scraggly weeds and grass sprouted in patches, some large, some small. Old gnarled trees grew in others. She couldn’t imagine where he was taking her. Everywhere she looked was only more wild growth.

They hadn’t been walking long when he came to an abrupt stop and released her. Unprepared, Clare stumbled, fell against a tree, then went down. Breathing hard, she kept herself still, trying to stop the world from spinning.

Lowney paid her no attention. He crouched over a grassy area and grabbed hold of something. From her vantage point, Clare only saw grass. She was no more than three feet from Lowney and yet she wasn’t seeing what he was seeing.

Lowney bent and pushed something, then walked back to Clare. He latched onto her arm and dragged her to her feet, then back to where he’d been standing. A four-foot square made of wood lay on the ground. It was hidden by the thick grass and sturdy weeds and if she hadn’t been standing above it, and knew where to look, she would have never seen it.

The square was a cover, a lid, she realized, and when Lowney pushed it aside, it bared a hole.

“The old mine shaft,” Clare whispered.

Lowney nodded and smiled. “It’s been my secret place for years.”

For years.
Clare swallowed hard at the implication.

Lowney’s grip bit into her elbow, squeezing hard. Clare suppressed a cry, not wanting to give Lowney the satisfaction of acknowledging that he was hurting her.

He pushed her toward the hole. “Go on down now.”

A wooden ladder leaned against the dirt wall of the shaft.

“How am I supposed to climb with the use of only one leg?” Clare said.

“You won’t like the way I get you down there.” He sneered.

Lowney shoved her to the ground. Clare heaved herself up onto her elbows. When she looked up, her vision distorted, she saw two Lowneys. Now that she knew his hiding place, she needed to take him down and get help, but the strength went out of her arms and she crumpled to the ground.

Lowney hoisted her roughly over his shoulder and stepped into the shaft onto the top rung of the ladder. Grunting a bit, he shifted her weight on his back then began the descent to a bottom that was at least twenty feet down.

Clare had never suffered from claustrophobia, but as the narrow dirt walls extended above her head, it was as if she were being buried alive, and she had to fight to keep a feeling of being smothered from overcoming her.

As she was on Lowney’s shoulder, she saw that the narrow shaft they were descending opened and widened at the bottom. The sunlight lessened the farther down they went, and she couldn’t make out all of the shapes in the dimness. By the time Lowney stepped off the ladder, Clare was squinting in an effort to make out her surroundings.

Lowney removed a flashlight from his pocket. The small beam of light cut through the darkness as he walked on, taking them deeper into the mine shaft.

When he reached his destination, he plopped her onto the hard earth. The ground was cool and felt slightly damp beneath her cheek. Stones jutted into her stomach. Clare couldn’t lift her head, and brushed her cheek across the dirt and pebbles to turn and bring Lowney and the surroundings into her line of vision.

He went to a small wooden table, where a lantern stood. Lowney lit it, then held the lantern aloft. A DVD recorder was on a tripod. A digital camera sat on a small footstool. Both were directed at a section of the mine shaft where someone huddled against the stone, someone who drew into a tighter ball when the light struck them. It was a woman by the shape of her. Her wrists and ankles were shackled to a post dug into the ground.

Clare’s heart pounded. Could this woman be Beth? Clare forced her head up, as much as she was able, a mere inch or two, striving for a better look. The woman’s face was hidden both by her posture and by a curtain of tangled and matted brown hair that fell to her shoulders. She was garbed in a variation of the outfit Sara McCowan had been buried in. A leather halter top bared more than it covered. A triangle of the same material held in place by strings tied at the hips formed a panty of sorts. Open-toed black stilettos covered her feet. And, like Sara in the photos taken during her captivity, welts, bruises, and burns mixed with dirt and blood marked the woman everywhere that Clare could see.

Lowney bared his teeth in a chilling smile. He closed the short distance between himself and the woman, and grabbed a fistful of her hair. The woman whimpered.

“Bet you can’t wait to find out just who I’ve got down here with you, can you Clare?” Lowney paused, drawing out the moment, then he jerked the woman’s head back so her face was now visible. The woman’s eyes were squeezed shut. Makeup on the lids, cheeks and lips had caked and smeared but despite the cosmetics, there was no mistaking her resemblance. Clare’s breath caught.

“The moment you’ve been waiting for, Clare,” Lowney said. “Say hello to Beth.”

Chapter Twenty Three
 

Jake called the Bureau office. When Jonathan answered, Jake asked, “Has Clare been there?”

“No, Jake.”

“Did she call?”

“No. Is everything all right?”

Jake was in the small lobby of the Sheriff’s Office. One of Petty’s deputies turned up the radio and Jake moved away from the sound. “She didn’t show up for the meeting with Dannon.”

“Oh,” Jonathan said.

“If she does call, let her know Dannon’s lawyer has a family situation and we’ve postponed until two o’clock.”

“Will do. Jake, I traced the label on the outfit. The manufacturer supplied a list of his retailers. Many of them have online websites. I found the exact outfit that Sara McCowan was wearing for sale on a lot of these retailer’s sites.”

“Okay,” Jake said. “We need a warrant for the customer lists of each retailer, Jonathan. I want to know which one sold that outfit to someone in Farley.”

“Rich Dannon, you mean?”

“Maybe not.”

* * * * *

“Beth?” Clare’s voice came out on a shaky breath.

Lowney laughed as he released Beth. Beth’s eyes dropped from Clare’s and she hunched her body, assuming the same position she’d held when Clare had first entered the shaft.

“I wish I could stay and watch y’all get acquainted,” Lowney said. “but I got a business to run.”

Clare’s thoughts were reeling from being with Beth. With some effort, she focused on Lowney. “How long do you think it will take before I’m missed?”

He snagged Clare’s wrist. He flicked his finger across the cracked crystal of her watch then twisted off the silver band, and jammed the watch into his pocket.

“Not too long, I imagine,” Lowney said. “But then, I won’t be keeping you long.”

Clare wondered what Lowney meant by that. “After I spoke with you on the phone, I called Jake and let him know that I was meeting you and where. He’s going to be all over that rental house. All over you.”

Lowney brought his fist down on her temple. Clare hit the dirt face first. Her teeth cut into the inside of her lip and blood filled her mouth.

“Don’t play that game with me,” Lowney said. “You’re out of your league.”

He yanked her arm, pulling hard enough that it threatened to pop from the socket. Clare stifled a cry. He bent her arm at an awkward angle to shackle her wrist to a post cemented in the ground beside her. The chain was short and when he released her, her arm hung in the air.

Lowney flicked the switch on his flashlight then doused the flame in the lantern. He left the shaft, taking all of the light with him. Though she couldn’t see him, Clare imagined him sliding the cover slowly over the hole. She went up onto her knees, as if by doing so she could stop him from entombing them in the shaft.

Sweat soaked Clare’s skin and her breathing was instantly rapid and ragged. She yanked at the shackle in a futile attempt to free herself. All she managed to do was spend the little energy she had. Even if she had managed to free herself, she needed to climb the ladder to get out, and if she accomplished that, in her present condition, she didn’t know if she would be able to move the cover from atop the hole.