A Profiler's Case for Seduction(79)

She became aware of an ache in her arms, an unnatural position of her legs and a general heaviness in her body. What had happened? What was wrong with her?

She tried to open her mouth, to ask for help, and it was only when she realized she couldn’t open her mouth that full consciousness claimed her, along with a sense of panic that nearly stopped her heart.

Ben. She now remembered Ben coming to her door and the cloth that had been pressed against her nose and mouth and the plunge into darkness.

She needed to run. She had to escape, and yet she couldn’t move. Her eyes finally flickered open and she couldn’t make sense of anything.

Her brain felt wrapped in cotton, unclear and foggy. It was an effort to keep her half-slitted eyes open. She remembered this horrible feeling from the days when she’d drunk herself into a stupor.

Was that what she had done? No, it had been Ben. He’d done something to her. He’d drugged her and slapped duct tape over her mouth so she couldn’t scream for help.

She hovered above a crowd of people, her brain trying to make sense of things. Was this was it was like to die? Was she having an out-of-body experience and watching the people left behind as her soul ascended to heaven?

That didn’t make sense. She was certain that when a soul left the world, it didn’t go with duct tape across the mouth. Her head felt heavy and she suddenly realized there was something on it, a helmet.

She lowered her gaze and saw that she wore a blue football jersey and long blue pants. Who had dressed her like this? And why? She fought against the drowsiness that threatened to pull her into darkness.

As the layer of cotton that wrapped her brain parted a little bit, horror shot an arctic wind through her and she frantically tried to move. But Ben had done a good job. Her arms were outstretched to either side, tied in several places along the pole that made a cross, and whatever drug he’d given her made it difficult for her to even attempt to get free.

She was lashed to a tall pole by her arms, around her chest and waist, at her knees and feet. Below her the crowd awaited the traditional lighting of the bonfire. The noise was so loud that even if she could scream for help nobody would be able to discern her cry for help among the revelers.

She was in the center of the bonfire pit.

Oh, God, as all the pieces finally fell into place she screamed beneath the duct tape.

They were going to light the fire to burn the effigy of the opposing team player.

She was the effigy.

* * *

The crowd was huge. People jostled against Mark, drunken alumni and students falling into him, clapping him on the back in good-old-boy fashion as he tried to find Ben or Melinda in the throng of people.

Too many people, he thought frantically. He weaved his way around a table where several kegs of beer were set up to be sold by the glassful along with hot dogs and marshmallows.

The effigy was already in place above the crowd and it wouldn’t be long before the fire would be set. So, where were Ben and Melinda? They had to be here someplace. And where on earth was Dora?

Mark wanted to weep in despair. He wanted to run to the bench where he’d first encountered Dora after class and sit there and wait for her to emerge from the building, safe and sound and so achingly beautiful to him.

He needed to have her in his arms right now, her heart beating against the frantic beat of his own. Melinda might have deemed her sister a failure, but Mark knew the strength that flowed through Dora’s veins, the determination that would see her through the rest of her life. She wasn’t a failure and he had to find her now.

In the distance he saw the flash of an FBI windbreaker and Joseph Garcia’s dark hair. He worked his way toward the fellow agent and when he reached him he saw that Joseph’s eyes were as dark as Mark felt his heart had become.

“No sighting of either suspect yet,” Joseph said. “I’ve had a kid vomit on my feet, a hot dog shoved in my face and an inebriated woman flash her boobs at me, but I haven’t been able to find anyone who knows where Ben or Melinda might be.”

Mark knew the only way to find Dora was to find the two murderers. Otherwise, he had no idea where to search, where she might be stashed...or already buried.

“Some of the deputies checked out the area where the other three murder victims were found,” Joseph continued, “and there were no signs that anything had been disturbed or a new grave had been added.”

Mark found little relief in the information. “There’s no way Ben and Melinda can know we’re on to them. There’s no way for them to know about the evidence found in the box at Amanda’s apartment. So, they should be in business-as-usual mode.”