The Lonely Mile(54)
Then her cell phone rang. It was the duty officer at the FBI Field Office in Albany, telling her some farmer’s market proprietor in the local area had called with information regarding the search for the I-90 Killer and insisted on speaking to the agent in charge. By name. Special Agent Angela Canfield, he had asked for. He said it was important. It was about Bill Ferguson. She frowned and took the call.
“This is Special Agent Canfield. To whom am I speaking, please?” She listened for a moment and then said, “No, I haven’t heard from Mr. Ferguson in hours. Why?”
The man on the other end of the call spoke for a couple of minutes, and the frown on Agent Canfield’s face deepened into a scowl as she digested the information. “How long ago did he leave your store, Mr. Blanchard?” She looked at her watch. “Okay.”
“He said he was going to take the information directly to you.” Blanchard told her. He said he had sat in his office for a couple of minutes, picking up the phone and putting it down again, trying to decide whether to check up on Ferguson’s story, before finally calling in what might be the biggest break ever in the I-90 Killer case.
“All right,” Canfield said. “Thank you for your help. But time is absolutely critical. I need the name and address of the man you sold your truck to, and I need it now.” She glanced around at her team as she dug a small notepad and ballpoint pen out of her pocket. Everyone was engrossed in their work, and no one paid the slightest attention to her.
“Okay, go,” Canfield said, holding her pen over the paper. She scribbled the name and address on the top of the page, then thanked Ray Blanchard in a distracted voice before disconnecting the call.
Canfield hurried to her second-in-command, a young agent named Mike Miller. He was movie-star handsome, cool and collected, thorough—the perfect Hollywood vision of the ideal federal agent. When he got a little more experience under his belt, he was going to turn into a fine one, too, Angela thought. She pulled him aside. “I have a lead I need to follow up on. I won’t be gone long, but in the meantime, I’m leaving you in charge here. Keep working the scene, and let me know immediately if you find anything.”
Miller nodded. “Sure, boss. What have we got?”
“Probably nothing,” Canfield lied, shrugging and shaking her head, “but I can’t just assume that.”
“I understand. Who are you taking with you?”
“Nobody. I don’t want to pull another agent off this search.”
Miller looked at her dubiously. She should have been teaming up with another agent, but Canfield knew he wouldn’t push the matter, and he didn’t. “Okay,” he said reluctantly. She smiled reassuringly and clapped him on the shoulder before turning and hurrying away.
The moment she had her back to Miller, the smile vanished, and on the way to her bureau car, Canfield swore under her breath again. Things were already bad and had just gotten immeasurably worse. Bill Ferguson had no idea what he was getting into. And he had a head start on her.
CHAPTER 47
May 28, 3:50 p.m.
CARLI EASED HER GOOD eye open slowly, hesitantly, waiting for the sledgehammer of migraine pain to strike. She had no idea how long she had been asleep, but recalled vividly the intense headache that had threatened to overwhelm her earlier. Sleep had been fitful, an on-and-off dozing filled with bizarre and frightening dream sequences and the occasional hazy interludes of vague semi-consciousness.
In those moments, Carli was aware on some basic level that the pain of her headache continued to lurk around the fringes of her consciousness, poised to attack. Now, though, her entire body remained motionless except for her eyelids—or rather, her left eyelid, as the right remained crusted shut by dried blood. Her eye slid open as she cringed inwardly in fear of the crushing pain. Five seconds passed. Ten. Nothing happened. There was none of the dizziness or nausea that normally accompanied the onset of migraines that she had experienced, full-force, in the past.
There was pain, of course there was, but Carli felt confident now that it was a different sort of pain than before. What was currently banging around inside her head felt less like, “migraine,” and more like, “close call with a steak knife-wielding psychopath.”
The important thing was that, with just a normal headache, she might actually stand a chance against the creepy loser when he returned. Thank God the lunatic hadn’t come back and tried to rape her while she was feeling so sick. He probably would have finished her off just because she was so unresponsive.
Of course, the sicko had his own problems to worry about, she thought, smiling to herself grimly. The memory of last night’s frightening confrontation came flooding back—the feeling of the steak knife slicing the man’s arm down to the bone, the savage satisfaction she felt from hearing his cry of pain and seeing his blood fly. She had come so close to escaping. If he hadn’t been so quick on his feet, maybe she would be free right now instead of chained to this bed with a bloody head and pissed-in pants that stunk to high heaven.
She pulled her right hand, testing the handcuff, and wasn’t surprised to hear the clanking of the metal bracelet pulling against the heavy, iron bed frame. Immediately, the pain flared in her wrist. Now, not only did it hurt from pulling against the cuffs, but there was a fresh wave of agony from where her captor had squeezed her bones together so tightly, forcing her to drop the knife, which had led directly to her recapture.