And There He Kept Her (Ben Packard #1)(90)

A tall lamp with no shade threw harsh light on horrifically pink walls streaked with stains and moisture-blistered paint. It looked like a jail cell for a mad dwarf or a little girl’s bedroom in hell.

Jenny Wheeler was on a thin cot with her arms stretched overhead, chained to the wall. One hand was wrapped in bloody bandages. She had tape over her mouth. An oversized red T-shirt was ripped up the middle and only held together at the collar. She thrashed at the sight of Thielen, tears running from her eyes.

Thielen holstered her gun and pulled the tape off the girl’s mouth. “Jenny, I’m Detective Thielen. You’re going to be okay. I’m going to get you out of here,” she said.

Jenny pushed the wad of what looked like part of her red T-shirt out of her mouth. “He forced me to swallow…pills so I overdose. I already feel…” She couldn’t finish the sentence.

“How long ago?”

“I don’t know. I can’t…”

The manacles were heavy, crude things closed with padlocks that would need a key or bolt cutters to remove. Thielen pulled a blanket from the floor to cover the girl’s nakedness. She spotted the copy of David Copperfield she’d brought up from Emmett’s car yesterday.

“Where’d Emmett go?”

“I don’t know. I tried to escape but he caught me,” she said, sobbing harder at the memory.

“You did great, Jenny. You’re alive. You survived. I need to call for backup—”

“Don’t leave.” Her eyes were getting heavier, her words slower.

“Jenny, stay with me. Don’t go to sleep. I’m just going far enough to get on the radio. You’ll hear my voice.”

“He’s got…gun,” Jenny warned.

“I know. I’ll be right back. Keep listening to my voice.”

Her radio was in the car and her cell phone had no bars in Emmett’s basement. She stepped outside to see if the reception was any better. It wasn’t. On the opposite side of the house she heard the growl of a small engine and knew right away what it was. Yesterday there’d been a Bobcat skid loader by the garage. It wasn’t there when she pulled up.

Thielen drew her weapon. She heard a crash just as she peeked around the corner of the house. Emmett was inside the Bobcat’s cage maneuvering the teeth of the bucket under the side of her vehicle. The car went up on two wheels as he raised the bucket and pushed in closer with the skid loader. Black smoke poured out of its exhaust.

Thielen scurried up the hill beside the house, keeping low. Emmett saw her coming, raised the gun in his lap, and fired it. Neither one of them had a good line on the other as the black car went higher between them, then rolled on its side with the sound of crunching aluminum.

Thielen retreated to the basement, kicking herself for not calling for backup sooner. The blood in Emmett’s car had made her assume he was the one who was hurt. Jenny needed Narcan if she was overdosing on opioids. Thielen carried it in her car but there was no getting it now.

She looked around Emmett’s basement for a solution. Her eyes went by the wall phone beside the door several times before she realized what she was looking at. She lifted the receiver in disbelief.

Dial tone.





Chapter Thirty


Packard was driving ninety with lights and sirens while Mac in dispatch described for him the layout of the property based on what he could see on Google Maps. “It’s the last lot on the southwest side of the bay. The road goes another hundred yards but nothing else is developed. Probably too swampy. There’s a garage near the road, and the house is set back beyond that, closer to the lake.”

On the long straightaway behind him, Packard saw lights and emergency vehicles forming a line half a mile back. Despite having requested backup before leaving Gary’s, Packard had beaten them all because Emmett’s house was closer to Carl’s than it was to Sandy Lake.

His phone rang with a number he didn’t recognize so he ignored it. He slowed as he made the left turn onto the gravel, then accelerated again, the sound of the tires different on the dirt. The truck bounced over the uneven surface.

Mac said Emmett’s was the fourth turn on his left.

Packard turned onto the property, looking everywhere for Thielen. He recognized Emmett’s Cadillac from the video at Gary’s. No sign of him. No obvious explanation for why Thielen’s car was on its side, spilling gas and other fluids onto the ground.

He pulled far enough away from Thielen’s car that they wouldn’t lose both if hers caught fire for any reason. Packard scanned the upper deck of Emmett’s dilapidated house and the trees surrounding the property. He felt exposed sitting in his vehicle.

On the radio, Mac said, “I’ve got Thielen on the phone. She calling from a landline inside Emmett’s.”

“Thielen, what the hell is going on?”

“I’m in Emmett’s basement with Jenny. I need the Narcan from your vehicle right away.” She told him about Emmett flipping her vehicle with the Bobcat and that he’d fired a handgun at her.

“I don’t see him out here anywhere,” said Packard. “There’s no Bobcat.”

Deputy Wilson pulled on to the property. Packard motioned him to go on the other side of the cars. Wilson put the nose of his car into a slight clearing just past the garage.