Page 17 of Undone (Will Trent 3)

Will asked, "You okay?"

"Shit," Charlie repeated, wiping his forehead with the back of his arm. "I can't believe . . . .Jesus, Will." He leaned over, bracing his hands on his knees. He was breathing hard, though he was a fit man and the climb was not a difficult one. "I don't know where to start."

Will understood the feeling.

"There were torture devices . . ." Charlie wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I've only seen that kind of thing on television."

"There was a second victim," Will said, raising up his voice at the end so that Charlie would take his words as an observation that needed confirming.

"I can't make sense of anything down there." Charlie squatted down, resting his head in his hands. "I've never seen anything like it."

Will knelt down alongside him. He picked up the evidence bag. "What's this?"

He shook his head. "I found them rolled up in a tin can by the chair."

Will spread the bag flat on his leg and used the penlight from Charlie's kit to study the contents. There were at least fifty sheets of notebook paper inside. Each page was covered front to back in cursive pencil. Will squinted at the words, trying to make sense out of them. He had never been able to read well. The letters always tended to mix up and turn around. Sometimes, they blurred so much that he felt motion sickness just trying to decipher their meaning.

Charlie didn't know about Will's problem. Will tried to draw out some information from him, asking, "What do you make of these notes?"

"It's crazy, right?" Charlie was rubbing his thumb and forefinger along his mustache, a nervous habit that only came out during dire circumstances. "I don't think I can go back down there." He paused, swallowing hard. "It just feels . . . evil, you know? Just plain damn evil."

Will heard leaves rustling, branches snapping. He turned to find Amanda Wagner making her way through the woods. She was an older woman, probably in her sixties. She favored monochromatic power suits with skirts that hit below her knee and stockings that showed off the definition of what Will had to admit were remarkably good calves for a woman he often thought of as the AntiChrist. Her high heels should have made it difficult for her to find her footing, but, as with most obstacles, Amanda conquered the terrain with steely determination.

Both men stood as she approached.

As usual, she didn't bother with pleasantries. "What's this?" She held out her hand for the evidence bag. Other than Faith, Amanda was the only person in the bureau who knew about Will's reading issues, something she both accepted and criticized at the same time. Will trained the penlight on the pages and she read aloud, " 'I will not deny myself. I will not deny myself.' " She shook the bag, checking the rest of the pages. "Front and back, all the same sentence. Cursive, probably a woman's handwriting." She handed the notes back to Will, giving him a pointed look of disapproval. "So, our bad guy's either an angry schoolteacher or a self-help guru."

She addressed Charlie. "What else have you found?"

"Pornography. Chains. Handcuffs. Sexual devices."

"That's evidence. I need clues."

Will took over for him. "I think the second victim was bolted underneath the bed. I found this in the rope." He took a small evidence bag from his jacket pocket. It contained part of a front tooth, some of the root still attached. He told Amanda, "That's an incisor. The victim at the hospital had all of her teeth intact."

She scrutinized Will more than the tooth. "You're sure about this?"

"I was right in her face trying to get information," he answered. "Her teeth were chattering together. They were making a clicking sound."

She seemed to accept this. "What makes you think the tooth was recently lost? And don't tell me gut instinct, Will, because I've got the entire Rockdale County police force out here in the wet and cold, ready to lynch you for sending them on a wild-goose chase in the middle of the night."

"The rope was cut from underneath the bed," he told her. "The first victim, Anna, was tied down to the top of the bed. The second victim was underneath. Anna couldn't have cut the rope herself."

Amanda asked Charlie, "Do you agree with this?"

Still shaken up, he took his time answering. "Half of the cut ends of the rope were still under the bed. It would make sense that they would fall that way if they were cut from underneath. Cut from the top, the ends would be on the floor or still on top of the bed, not underneath it."

Amanda was still dubious. She told Will, "Go on."

"There were more pieces of rope tied to the eyebolts under the bed. Someone cut themselves away. They would still have the rope around their ankles and at least one wrist. Anna didn't have any rope on her."

"The paramedics could've cut it off," Amanda pointed out. She asked Charlie, "DNA? Fluids?"

"All over the place. We should get them back in forty-eight hours. Unless this guy's on the database . . ." He glanced at Will. They all knew that DNA was a shot in the dark. Unless their abductor had committed a crime in the past that caused his DNA to be taken, then logged into the computer, there was no way he would come up as a match.

Amanda asked, "What about the waste situation?"

Initially, Charlie didn't seem to understand the question, but then he answered, "There aren't any empty jars or cans. I guess they were taken away. There's a covered bucket in the corner that was used as a toilet, but from what I can tell, the victim—or victims—were tied up most of the time and didn't have a choice but to go where they were. I couldn't tell you if any of this points to one or two captives. It depends on when they were taken, how dehydrated they were, that kind of thing."

She asked, "Was there anything fresh underneath the bed?"

"Yes," Charlie answered, as if surprised by the revelation. "Actually, there was an area that tested positive for urine. It would be in the right place for someone lying down on their back."

Amanda pressed, "Wouldn't it take longer for liquid to evaporate underground?"

"Not necessarily. The high acidity would have a chemical reaction with the pH in the soil. Depending on the mineral content and the—"

Amanda cut him off. "Don't educate me, Charlie, just give me facts that I can use."

He looked at Will apologetically. "I don't know if there were two hostages at the same time. Someone was definitely kept under the bed, but it could have been that the abductor moved the same victim from place to place. The body fluids could've also drained off from above." He told Will, "You were down there. You saw what this guy is capable of." The color had drained from his face again. "It's awful," he mumbled. "It's just awful."

Amanda was her usual sympathetic self. "Man up, Charlie. Get back down there and find me some evidence I can use to catch this bastard." She patted him on the back, more of a shove to get him moving, then told Will, "Walk with me. We've got to find that pygmy detective you pissed off and make nice with him so he doesn't go crying to Lyle Peterson." Peterson was Rockdale County's chief of police and no friend of Amanda's. By law, only a police chief, a mayor or a district attorney could ask the GBI to take over a case. Will wondered what strings Amanda had managed to pull and how furious Peterson was about it.

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