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“Do I close my eyes?” Dierdre asked Colleen.
They were in Angela’s office.
Angela had suggested it. She had the customary desk with two chairs in front of it, but she also had a love seat and a plush chair since small meetings were often held in her office while larger meetings took place in one of the conference rooms.
Colleen had taken the chair.
“It’s kind of like being with a shrink, huh?” Dierdre had asked, happy enough to take the love seat and lie back.
“Well, I’m not a shrink. We’re experienced in this, because it’s really pretty basic. The mind is fascinating and it can be helped along with simple questions,” Colleen assured her. “Are you comfortable?”
“I am. This is a good love seat!”
“Great. Lie back, relax, close your eyes.” Dierdre did as instructed and Colleen continued with, “So, you’re still taking college courses, correct?”
“I’m working on my master’s degree. My classes are often hard but fun. I was a theater major, but my parents and I figured that a fine arts degree wasn’t as useful as a business degree. Anyway, I love my college and I’ve loved my classes. I’m not back in until the fall, though. But I work part-time as a student assistant in the finance office. And I’m surprisingly good at business. I found out I’ve done excellently on exams that had to do with taxes. It was not easy, I assure you. I am not going to work for the IRS, but I’m glad I aced the tests. And work is fun. I like the people I work with, and I’ve been putting in a few hours every week during the summer.”
“Did you work that day?”
“I did. Three hours in the morning.”
“And you met Gary for dinner?”
“Yes, I love that place! It’s great.”
“I know—I’ve been. What did you have to eat?”
“I had fish and he had steak.”
“Nice.”
“I wasn’t thinking I could be in any danger at all when I left. The night was beautiful. The moon was just a sliver, but there were stars out.”
“And I think our temperature has been moderate.”
“A little hot, but the air in my car works fine. But there wasn’t much moonlight. I remember it being very dark, which is probably why the stars looked so pretty.”
“And you thought you hit a man?”
“I—I knew I hit something. There was a big bump. And then I saw a man crawling on the ground. And I thought, Oh, my God, I’ve hit a human being! So, of course, I stopped.”
“But it was very dark where you were.”
“Yes. At rush hour, you can still drive that road easily. When I was going home, there were no other cars. I left my lights on, of course. But I jumped out of the car and ran over to him and...”
She stopped talking.
“Then nothing. I don’t know how he did it. They say I wasn’t struck with a Taser, but I walked up to him and put my arm on his shoulder and...”
“Okay, the night was dark. There were a few stars. Were there any strange smells in the air?”
“The woods I suppose, but...”
“But?”
“There was something else. I just... I can’t pinpoint what it is! Now, that’s going to drive me crazy.”
“Don’t let it drive you crazy. Let it come to you and it will at some point. But remember, you can think with all five senses. There’s a small point that’s driving you crazy. You saw a man, down on the ground, but you couldn’t see his face; he was wearing a hoodie. Did you hear anything?”
“Just the breeze moving through the forests around the road.”
“What did the hoodie feel like? You touched his shoulder, right?”
“Soft,” she said dryly. “My kidnapper does his laundry well.”
“Did you hear anything?”
“Nothing. Not even... I never even screamed, it was so fast.”
“So, what next?”
“I was in a box. It took me a minute to realize I was in the ground. I was in a box in the ground, and the earth was... Dirt was coming through the seams of the box. It was covering me and I screamed and screamed, and it kept coming and I couldn’t breathe.”
Her eyes were closed, but her expression was pained.
“At first, there were just snatches of things. I knew I was on a stretcher, and I knew there was a dog there.”
“Red,” Colleen said.
“Yes, Red, you, and Special Agent Gallagher.”
“Okay, from the guy’s point of view...he meant to kidnap someone.”
“I guess. Yeah. But it was weird he was on that road. Or maybe not. Maybe I was a victim of circumstance. Maybe he wanted anyone who came along.”
She frowned.
“But maybe not. I mean...now, I’m pretty sure he put something in the road. Something I drove over, which I thought had been him. And if he did that, he had to think it was a woman alone. My lights were on of course, but the night was dark, and he couldn’t have known who was in the car—”
“Unless he knew,” Colleen said.
“He followed me from the restaurant maybe. I don’t drive fast. Anyone could have passed me while we were still in the city. Yes,” Dierdre said softly, “there was a guy watching me—”
“Gary told us. We interviewed the guy. He was still at work when we found you—dozens of witnesses verify that, but there could have been someone else, someone else neither of you noticed. Let’s back up. You hit the bump.”
“Yeah. And it felt like I’d gone over a body. Or a log. I mean, obviously, it could have been a log in the road. But then I saw the man hunched over on the ground, and I thought of what a horrible person I was and what a horrible thing I had done.”
“And you went to the man. And you don’t remember anything else.”
“I touched his shoulder,” Dierdre said, and paused. “I felt the softness of the hoodie, and he whirled around, but his face was black...like a ski mask, I guess. But I only saw it for a second. He moved so fast. He had his arms around me, like one arm crooked around my neck, and I couldn’t breathe and that was all...until the box and the earth.”
He’d halfway suffocated her to knock her out to get her into the box, Colleen thought. But he didn’t kill her.
He’d wanted her to breathe in the dirt and die that way, like The Embracer’s victims.
