The Night Shift, page 7
Chris orders another as he scans his phone, looking for any new posts from the traveler.
“Is that Mr. Nirvana?” the bartender asks, obviously spying on him.
Chris is surprised, but he shouldn’t be, he supposes. The vlogger has a big following. He nods.
“Any new posts? He’s been hinting that he’s going to reveal his identity soon,” she says.
“He posted something earlier today, but nothing new tonight.”
The waitress gives a fleeting smile. “What I wouldn’t give…” She doesn’t have to finish the sentence. Freedom. Adventure. No M&A assholes.
Chris glances over to Clare and her friends. “You and me both,” he says.
CHAPTER 16
ELLA
Ella sits in a booth at Corky’s Tavern, studying her gin and tonic and making a conscious effort at resting bitch face. She’s wearing the only casual clothes she had at the office, jeans and a sweatshirt that is hardly form-fitting. Even so, she’s already had to fend off the parade of men asking to buy her a drink. It’s a strange blend of suitors. The regulars include men with callused hands and their names embroidered on their work shirts, overgroomed hipsters, and (more) Scotch-drinking businessmen.
There’s a loud moan from the bar. The patrons reacting to something on the TV. Sports. Ella never understood the fascination. A professor explained that it’s the human need to belong to something. A tribe. Ella’s never felt that need.
She nurses her drink, waiting for the FBI woman, Agent Keller. Ella and Keller—it sounds like a 90s hip-hop group. Or bad cop drama. It reminds her of Candy and Mandy.
Glancing about the bar again, she feels a surge of melancholy as she recalls Candy telling her that Stevie had been a pathetic regular here. That girls led him on to get free drinks and he never scored. She remembers Candy’s gravelly laugh.
“The poor dweeb. Hey, Mandy, maybe you should take pity and give him a hand-job in the break room.”
“Gross!”
“Ella?”
The voice jolts her back to the bar. At her booth stands a woman. A very pregnant woman. Before Ella replies, the woman wedges herself into the booth.
“Agent Keller? Oh my god. If I knew you were … I wouldn’t have suggested getting a drink. We can go somewhere else if you’d—”
“No worries,” the FBI agent says. “This will be the wildest night out I’ve had in eight months.”
The agent smiles. She has a kind smile. Though Keller’s belly is enormous, the agent still has an athletic demeanor. Healthy. Someone comfortable in her own skin. What that must feel like.
“Thanks for meeting with me,” Keller says. “After hours, I mean.”
“No problem.”
“I understand you were the only one able to get through to the survivor.”
Ella takes a drink. “I’m uniquely qualified.” The agent obviously knows her background, so Ella sees no harm in referencing the elephant in the room.
“It must be difficult for you as well.”
They lock eyes. Ella tries to appear casual. She clears her throat. Changing the subject, Ella says, “I understand you have some questions for me?”
The agent explains that she’s tasked with seeing if there’s a connection between Blockbuster and the ice cream store killings. She says it’s doubtful, but they need to cover all the bases.
“You actually think that it might be Him?” Ella refuses to say his name. Always has, always will.
“Vince Whitaker?” Keller shrugs. “Like I said, we’ve got to cover everything.”
“I guess you have to look into it, especially given what the killer said to Jesse Duvall.”
“What do you mean? What who said to Jessica Duvall?”
Ella watches the agent for a long beat. “They didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?” Keller looks bewildered. The agent shifts in the booth to prevent the ledge of the table from pressing against her belly.
Ella tells her. What He whispered in her ear: Good night, pretty girl. The same words murmured in Jesse’s ear. She tries not to picture the bloody bodies that surrounded both of them.
The agent has perked up. “You told the detectives about this today?”
“Yeah, this morning. I told the lead guy. The one with the mustache.”
Keller’s jaw clenches. She’s angry, but Ella sees that she’s trying to hide it.
“The file … I don’t think it mentions the perp saying anything to you. Did you tell anyone back then?”
Ella shakes her head. “I don’t think so. I only started remembering after. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if it was real.” She doesn’t mention the night terrors, the panic attacks, the blue pills.
Keller thinks for a moment. “I’m so glad you mentioned this. Before today, did you ever tell anyone what he said? The police? A therapist? A family member? Anyone?”
The implication is obvious. There are only three possible explanations for the killer whispering those words in Jesse’s ear.
One, it’s a coincidence, however implausible.
Two, a copycat, someone re-creating the crime.
Three, and this option sends a chill up Ella’s back, it’s Him.
“I never told anyone. Not until today, anyway, when I told the detective.”
Keller reaches across the table and grasps Ella’s hand. If this is meant to build rapport in order to get a better interview, the agent’s a master at it. Ella herself uses the technique with trauma victims to elicit the same thing. But Agent Keller seems entirely sincere.
“Any idea what it means?” Keller asks. “What he said to you?”
“Not a clue,” Ella says. “Not a damn clue.”
CHAPTER 17
The jukebox in Corky’s Tavern blares loudly, and Ella remains in the booth. She needs to shake off talking about Him with the FBI agent. Agent Keller left an hour ago. Ella should’ve headed out too, but instead she downs another gin and tonic.
One more? She shouldn’t.
A man in a concert T-shirt approaches. He’s rugged, handsome, in that works-with-his-hands way. The type who will take her to the restroom, turn her around in the stall, push himself into her as she palms the grimy tiles. Or take her out to the parking lot, lay her on the front seat of his truck while he stands outside, her legs in the air, her—
“Haven’t seen you around lately,” the guy says.
She gives him a long stare. “You’ve been looking?”
He reddens a trace. These types don’t prattle on about Scotch, but they also aren’t skilled at banter.
“I’m Mike.”
“I’m Amanda, but my friends call me Mandy.” The lie feels worse than usual.
“Get you a drink, Mandy?”
She shouldn’t. She peruses the bar for any familiar faces. She’s no longer an engaged woman, so why not? She edges over in the booth, signaling he can sit.
He turns and gestures to the waitress and slips in next to her.
One drink, then she’ll go. But where? To Mom’s house, she supposes, though she hasn’t had the energy to tell Phyllis about the breakup. Maybe she’ll get a hotel room. Or maybe Mike will be more persuasive than she anticipates.
The drinks arrive. Just one becomes two more. He’s sitting closer now. She keeps touching him as they talk about nothing, encouraging him. His hand is on her thigh now.
“Hey, want to get out of here? Get a drink at my place?” he says.
She feels the trickle of desire. She’s about to suggest the bathroom instead, but her phone snaps her out of it.
She doesn’t recognize the number but her clients sometimes call from unfamiliar lines. “Hello,” she answers, trying to sound sober.
Mike’s leering now, his eyes wolfish.
“Ella? It’s Jesse.”
Right. She remembers giving Jesse her business card.
“Hey.” It’s late to be calling. Ella inches away from the guy.
“I’m in some trouble, and I need someone to come.”
Ella pushes Mike to slide out of the booth. He does so quickly, as if assuming they’ll be leaving together. But Ella shoves past him and marches out of the tavern, speaking into her phone:
“I’m on my way.”
*
Ella fast-walks into the Target in a shopping plaza off Edgar Road. Why in the hell there’s a twenty-four-hour Target in Union County, she can’t understand. She scoops up a tin of Altoids from a stand near a register, opens the can, and pops a mint. She sobered up considerably on the Uber ride over, but she probably still reeks of Corky’s. She’ll have to leave her car in the Corky’s lot tonight, but that’s all right. It won’t be the first time.
Finding the door at the back of the bed-and-bath section, Ella breathes in a whiff of the soap-scented air and knocks timidly.
“Come on in,” a voice calls out.
Ella turns the knob and goes inside. She’d expected some type of sophisticated command center—walls of monitors and surveillance equipment—but finds a small room with a bald man wearing a short-sleeved button-up shirt behind a desk. He looks more like a high school guidance counselor than head of security at a major corporation’s store. Across from him, Jesse sits, arms crossed tightly.
“Mr. Bowling?” Ella says.
The man stands, walks around the desk, and shakes her hand. He’s all-business, but has kind eyes.
“You’re Ms. Duvall’s guardian?” he asks, skepticism in his voice.
Ella hesitates. “Jesse’s in foster care. I’m a therapist. I work with her.”
Mr. Bowling bunches his lips like he’s debating whether to be a stickler and say he can speak only to a legal guardian. Ella turns to Jesse, gives her a look, then turns back to Bowling. “What’s going on?”
“It seems Jessica decided to redeem what we call the ‘five finger discount.’” He gestures to a pile of items on his desk. Two bags of Skittles, some Bubblicious gum, a Red Bull, and a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.
“I didn’t fucking steal anything,” Jesse protests. “I just didn’t have a shopping cart so I put them in my bag.”
Mr. Bowling blows out a breath. He pecks on a battered laptop on his desk, then twirls it around so the screen faces Ella and Jesse.
It shows Jesse looking around nervously in the aisle. She snatches a shirt from a rack and proceeds to the snack section, then tucks the items inside the shirt so you can’t see them. The screen jumps to what looks like a dressing room. Jesse peers out the door and then takes the items from the shirt and shoves them in her backpack.
“You were spying on me in the dressing room?” Jesse says, indignant. “That’s against the law. You’re ogling teenage girls in the fucking dressing room. I have a lawyer. I’m gonna sue!” She’s building steam now. Teenage Diversion 101.
Mr. Bowling ignores her and looks at Ella. “Our policy is normally to deal with first offenses informally, but I told her if she keeps cursing at me, we’re gonna have to call the police.”
Ella nods at Bowling. He’s had a long day, probably doesn’t want the paperwork. But if Jesse doesn’t cool it, she’ll find herself arrested.
“Mr. Bowling, can you and I have a word?” Ella asks. “In private?”
Bowling makes another audible sigh. “Sure. Ms. Duvall, if you could wait outside for a moment.”
Jesse opens her mouth but is cut short by a hard look from Ella. She stalks out of the room, closing the door too hard behind her.
Bowling waits for Ella to speak.
“I’m sorry about that.”
He waits.
“She’s been through a lot. Have you seen the news about the ice cream store murders?”
Bowling perks up now. “Yeah, those kids. Devastating.”
“There was one survivor…” Ella says pointedly.
Bowling blinks a few times. “You mean…” He doesn’t finish the sentence. “Sweet Jesus.” He slumps back in his chair. He thinks for a moment, then does two things. First, he lifts a sheet of paper, the incident report, and tears it in half. Second, he gathers the items Jesse had stolen, puts them in a plastic Target bag, and hands the bag to Ella.
“Talk to her about this,” Mr. Bowling says. “She can’t be—you know. Just talk to her.”
“I will,” Ella says. She holds up the bag. “I’m happy to pay.”
Bowling shakes his head. “It’s on me.”
CHAPTER 18
KELLER
Keller lies in bed, mind churning. Even before she was pregnant, she had trouble leaving work at the office. Tonight, her thoughts swirl with the photos of four teenage girls pinned to Atticus Singh’s crime wall; Rusty Whitaker sucking on chicken wings at a dreary strip club; and the three pools of dried blood staining the carpet of the Dairy Creamery.
Bob rolls onto his side, facing her.
“Go back to sleep, sweetie,” Keller says.
He stares at her in that way he does. He knows her so well. “I’ll go back to sleep if you do.”
She frowns.
“If you’re gonna work through something, it will be faster if you have help.”
He often stays up with her during her bouts of insomnia from the pregnancy, usually watching old movies or bingeing on Netflix.
“Where are you going?” Keller asks as Bob lumbers out of bed and shuffles to the hallway.
“We need every G-man’s secret weapon for investigations.”
“What’s that?”
“Ben and Jerry’s.”
Twenty minutes later, in the twilight glow of the muted television, Keller and her husband sit on their bed, empty bowls with smears of Cherry Garcia gracing the nightstand.
Keller starts by explaining the eerily similar crimes. Night shift employees attacked with a knife, in each case, a lone survivor. “And then the weirdest thing happened…”
Bob looks at her, eager. The goon loves weird.
“The killer whispered the same thing to both surviving girls.”
“Wait, what?”
“Yeah, he said, ‘Good night, pretty girl.’”
“Then it’s gotta be the same guy, right?”
“Yes, unless that’s what the killer wants us to think. Vince Whitaker has dropped off the face of the earth for fifteen years. We’re checking but it’s hard to imagine he had anything to do with the ice cream store killings.”
“So, a copycat?”
“Well, that’s the problem. The survivor from Blockbuster, she swears she never told anyone what the killer said. She said it came back to her later and she wasn’t clear whether it was real or a false memory. She says she never told anyone … until the new survivor told her what the killer said.”
Bob scratches his chin. “It had to be crazy traumatic, is she sure?”
“She’s a therapist now. I believe her.”
“So it’s either the same killer, or she told someone she doesn’t remember telling, or it’s a weird coincidence.”
Before Keller responds, Bob asks, “There’s no DNA or video or cell phone pings or—?”
“For Blockbuster, no. It was 1999. People were starting to carry cell phones then—remember those Nokias?—but it’s not like today. The file is pretty thin. They got a customer who reported seeing someone arguing with a Blockbuster employee in the parking lot earlier that night, but they didn’t get a good look at the guy. An anonymous caller reported seeing Vince Whitaker’s car in the lot at closing around the time of the murders. And police found his print on the break room door. After he fled, they found the murder weapon in his locker at the school.”
“Sounds like enough.”
Keller nods. “For the ice cream store, we’re checking cell records. The perp took all the phones. They’re trying to find any businesses or ATMs nearby that might have footage, but they’ve got nothing so far. Maybe the crime scene unit will find something, but it’s not like TV.”
Bob thinks for a moment. “Let’s say the first survivor—”
“Ella,” Keller says.
“Let’s say Ella told someone what the killer said to her but she doesn’t remember. Who would she have likely told?”
The same question has floated around in Keller’s head all night, but she’s avoided facing it. Now, it dawns on her.
“The investigators,” Keller tells her husband. “She would’ve told a cop.”
CHAPTER 19
ELLA
In the Target parking lot, a concrete field speckled with lamplight, Ella faces Jesse Duvall.
The teenager’s scowl has turned to a gaze of admiration. As if Jesse’s thinking that Ella not only got her out of the jam, but also got her the merch.
“Want to talk about it?” Ella says.
“No.”
Ella wants to tell the girl that she’s lucky, that she could get in real trouble. That she’s being reckless. That she needs to get help. But a lecture won’t help. And, really, who is she to give advice about sensible, safe behavior? And the truth: she likes the admiration in those eyes.
“Need a ride home?”
Jesse takes an exaggerated look around the empty lot, like she’s looking for Ella’s car.
Ella holds up her phone. “Uber.”
“No, thanks. I’m gonna walk.”
Ella feels her eyebrows creasing. “Won’t your foster mom be—” She stops. She’s not this girl’s mother. But she’s also not keen on letting a teenager walk home by herself from an isolated Target surrounded by woodland.
“Walk?” Ella gestures around the same empty lot.
“What time is it?” Jesse asks.
Ella looks at her phone. “Eleven-fifteen.”
“Good, there’s still time. If we’re fast, we’ll make it. Follow me.”
*
Soon, Ella is traipsing through the forest on the outskirts of the parking lot. She’s breathing heavily, trying to keep up with Jesse, who negotiates the trail like a skilled hiker. The kid’s obviously done this before. The woods hum with insects and the wind rustles the treetops.
Lights wink ahead. Ella stops at the edge of the forest, finally catching up with Jesse. They’re at a gravel road. A tall, chain-link fence spans the distance on either side of them. On the other side of the fence, railroad tracks. A platform, a gray concrete slab, borders the tracks. It’s not for passengers, a storage or work area for rail employees. Ella hears a train in the distance.
