The Dark (A Detective Alice Madison Novel)(120)

Nathan Quinn’s call from the alarm company had ended unexpectedly: he noticed the front door open and heard car doors slam shut and the screech of tires on asphalt. He was already dialing 911 when he reached the gate and saw the Taser gun on the ground in a pool of blood—more blood than he thought a human being could even contain. Quinn spoke to dispatch as clearly and calmly as he could. His second call, moments later, was to Detective Alice Madison.





Chapter 58





John Cameron awoke in the half-light of the back of the van. He gave himself a couple of seconds for his awareness to come back fully and then took stock of his body. He was blindfolded with a strip of fabric. His hands were cuffed—plastic cuffs—behind his back. Some kind of larger cuff had been locked just below his knees and a third above his ankles. He couldn’t move his feet apart, but by lifting them an inch off the floor, he could tell that the holster where his snub-nosed Glock had been was empty. There was bunched-up rough fabric under his cheek, and they had placed him on his side, which would made it less likely for him to choke on his own vomit if he reacted to the drugs they’d given him. All in all, an efficient and professional job.

The men had laid a thin cotton sheet over him: if someone took a look inside the van, and he was still sedated, they’d see a lump of white wedged between the usual debris of a workingman’s van.

Cameron felt the tiny bumps and shudders from the van floor, and he knew they were traveling fast on an asphalt road. He listened for voices, but no one was talking in the cabin.

He relaxed his muscles as much as he could to counteract the odd spasms of the Taser hit and because being tense would bring nothing useful to the situation. He wasn’t physically hurt, he wasn’t bleeding, and the fact that they’d used a Taser gun meant that, at least for the moment, they wanted him alive and intact. A burning ache radiated from the spot on his side where the darts had hit, but that was all. On the other hand, he had seen their faces, and that meant that at some point he wouldn’t stay alive and intact.

And what had they done with the body of their dead colleague? Cameron shifted a little and felt a shape next to him on the floor. Just then the van turned into what must have been a dirt track, and the vibrations became harder.

After a few minutes he heard voices whispering in the cabin, the engine slowed down, and the brakes came on. They had stopped.

Cameron couldn’t see under his blindfold and couldn’t move, and wisdom told him to stay still and let them think he was still sedated. He was curious about these people who had managed what many others hadn’t, and he would learn a lot more about them if they thought he was unconscious.

The door slid open with a rush of cold air. The van creaked as the two men climbed into the back. Grunting, each apparently took hold of one end of the dead body, and they climbed back out.

Cameron listened hard: no traffic, and the men’s footsteps were pushing their way through undergrowth and bushes.

“Here,” one said, and a heavy burden thudded onto the ground.

Steps walked back to the van, and someone picked up something off the floor. Fluid sloshed inside a container. The man stopped where he was, and Cameron felt his eyes crawling over him. He kept his breathing regular under the sheet and let his chest rise and fall and rise and fall. After a beat the man moved away.

“Awake?” one asked.

“Don’t think so,” the other replied.

The smell of lighting fluid was unmistakable: Cameron heard the match and the first flames lapping the body of the dead man. It didn’t take long for the sweet and acrid smell to hit; soon the remains would be consumed beyond recognition.

A few minutes later the men came back; one of them lifted the sheet and felt the pulse in Cameron’s carotid with two fingers. Cameron didn’t move. His heartbeat kept its slow, steady rhythm. The man measured one minute and then left; the door slid shut, and the engine came back to life. They were traveling again.


John Cameron lost track of time. The only thing he knew for sure was that by that point his kidnappers had spent a lot more time with him than they had with either Warren Lee or Ronald Gray. If they wanted from him the same kind of information they had asked of the others, there were plenty of places that didn’t require traveling and would do just fine.

The van stopped, and this time he couldn’t fake unconsciousness, or they’d know. The voices were whispering, and John prepared himself to meet his abductors. Someone lifted the sheet.

“I can see you’re awake.” The voice was East Coast, not a mile south of Jersey. “We’re going to stretcher you out of the van, and if you try to move, try to speak, try for anything but complete immobility, I will Taser you again, and this time it will be much worse. Do you understand? You stay calm, and we stay calm.”