Chapter Three
...
I sit through two hours of nothing but reports of a few petty crimes coming through the police scanner. It's sheer boredom playing the waiting game while I drink half a six-pack and chain smoke. Finally I hear a knock on the door and let Winchester in. I'm glad to see he doesn't do the holy water, cutting himself with the silver knife ritual every time he enters a room to prove it's really him.
"Well, Mrs. Ward says that Ms. Hayes was the best nanny she's ever had," Winchester briefs me. "She said Sheri loved her job and the kids and had a real connection with all of them. Mrs. Ward said her and her sisters had become like family, and Sheri's resignation took her completely by surprise. Says there was never any bad blood between them."
"Did she give any reason?" I ask, taking a swig from my beer bottle. "Hard to imagine Mrs. Ward would let someone that close to the family just quit without saying why."
"She had a family emergency, apparently," says Winchester wryly. "Said she had to go home to take care of her ailing mother."
"Do monsters even have mothers?" I ask, offering Winchester a beer. He shakes his head at the bottle. "What? You don't drink, either?" My eyes narrow. Seems like he's pretty clean-living for a hunter. "You're not some kinda Bible thumper, are you?"
It's unusual to see a hunter mixing with the Lord, but it does happen on occasion. Jim Murphy's a good example. I like Jim. Like hunting with him. As long as he doesn't try preaching to me or try to save my soul from eternal damnation, we get on just fine and dandy.
Winchester laughs. "I'm partial to a beer or two in the evening. But I don't typically drink when I'm closing in. The chase is crucial, and I can't afford to make mistakes and do anything that will diminish my senses and slow my reaction time."
"What—like eating?" I say.
"Just not breakfast," says Winchester. It's only now I realize he's got a greasy yellow fast food bag in his hand. He tosses it to me and I catch it. "I got you some lunch, too."
I grunt my thanks, digging into the bag and retrieving my burger. "You eat already?"
Winchester nods. "Lucky I didn't eat yours, too—I thought about it. Was hungry enough to."
"Whatever happened to 'digestion slows me down?'" I smirk.
"Unfortunately, hunting also takes energy," says Winchester, skimming the new folders in his hands, dividing them up into two piles. "Eat when you can, sleep when you can-enough to stay alive."
I nod. That's what I learned in war, too. "What're these?" I ask as Winchester hands me some papers.
"Names and numbers of kids who're absent from the preschool and elementary school today," says Winchester. "We need to account for the whereabouts of each one—confirm with a parent or guardian that they're at home sick or had a doctor's appointment like they claimed, and not stolen off a bus or something. Both the Ward kids were present and accounted for. Here—I've split up the numbers for the absentees. We'll keep listening to police radio for kids who mighta been nabbed elsewhere in the state."
"We've only got one phone in here and the payphone outside. Got enough quarters for that?" I ask. "I s'pose there's the phone in the manager's office..."
Winchester holds up a set of keys. "The manager didn't seem too crazy about me using her phone to make a dozen phone calls, so I paid upfront to rent the room next door for an hour. Didn't ask too many questions, but I could tell she was looking around for my 'company'. I guess it's just that kind of a place."
"Guess so," I agree, remembering how I've heard people coming and going in the rooms on either side of me, bedposts knocking, forced to listen to a near constant soundtrack of the nitty gritty through the paper thin walls.
Winchester goes next door. I keep one ear on the radio and pick up the phone, dialing the number at the top of the list and pretending to work for the school district or wherever it is the parent wants to hear I'm from. I find out that little Tommy really is out with chicken pox, Kaylee is home with a toothache, Neil is resting at home after having his tonsils removed, Carmen has a cold and is being watched by her grandma while Mom works. I get through the whole list, and everything checks out. Winchester comes back a few minutes after after I hang up with Marcus Walsh's mother. I hear more than I needed to know about her son's irritable bowel syndrome.
"Lots of sick kids, but all their parents answered their home phones and confirmed their whereabouts," Winchester says, shutting the door and throwing his ticked-off call list on the table. He sits down, rubs his hands over his face and looks at me. "Anything on the police scanner yet?"
"Nope. Just a theft at a convenience store and—" Winchester suddenly puts up his hand and hushes me, running across the room and grabbing the radio. I lean in and listen, too.
"...we have a sighting on that '84 Celica Supra, license plate number GAA-667, heading north east on I-70 towards Glenwood Springs..."
We've both heard enough for a lead. I gather up my duffel bag and my few meager possessions scattered around the room and head for the door, left wide open by Winchester. I find him in the manager's office, turning in the key to his room. I wait a wholly unsuspicious amount of time and pay for my room and hand in my key, too, and give the manager extra for a tow to haul what's left of Betsy out of her parking lot and to the scrapyard. I can barely stand the sight of my girl all barbequed in the parking lot. It wrenches my gut. But I don't have time to dwell on it right now with kiddy-snatching monsters on the loose. Mourning will have to wait till after the hunt.
Winchester moves aside some stuff in his trunk and helps me put my Jobox in; it's the only thing worth salvaging from Betsy. Even my dashboard hula girl has burnt up. As an afterthought, I take my screwdriver and rescue my license plate, too. The paint's burnt off in places and the metal's a bit warped, but at least I'll have something to remember her by.
Winchester takes North Avenue up to Highway 24, merges onto I-70 and follows the road we heard the the Lamia were on. We've still got the police scanner on, not saying a word to each other, listening for any updates. We've been driving aimlessly for a couple of hours in the direction the car was last seen, hoping we're not chasing a dead end.
"Wonder if they all took the same car," I say at last. "It'd be more convenient."
"For us or them?" Winchester mutters. "What if they decided to split up to confuse us?"
"I suppose it's possible," I frown, pressing my ear against the police scanner. A few minutes later, Winchester's suspicions prove to be right:
"3E45, I've got an update on that APB—just spotted the black '83 Mustang GT, license plate 1XL-316, heading southbound on Highway 50..."
Me and Winchester look at each other. So they have split up. Winchester looks in his rearview mirror, signals, pulls over hard onto the shoulder and brakes. "What're you d—"
"Why didn't they just ditch their old cars and steal new ones?" Winchester growls, reaching right over me to get to the glovebox. He pulls out a map of the U.S. Highway System and spreads it out, so big it almost covers the whole front bench seat. The East Coast is spread out across my lap as Winchester studies the Midwest.
"...still in pursuit of the the Celica Supra, now heading southbound on Highway 133..."
Winchester forces the map at me to me to fold up and waits for the nearest possible window to pull back into traffic without getting side-swiped. He changes lanes to get into the passing lane. Then, without any warning at all, Winchester crosses the median, cranks hard on the steering wheel and next thing I know, we're going back the way we came.
"What the HELL are you doing?" I shout at the maniac sitting beside me, committing some seriously illegal and downright dangerous traffic violations.
"There's only been two of the three cars accounted for," Winchester says, flooring it to get back up to speed.
"So?! The other one will probably be spotted soon. Seems in the past all we've had to do is wonder out loud where they are and another sighting is conveniently reported on the police scanner," I say. "Question is which one to chase."
"No," says Winchester firmly. "That's why they kept the same cars. We're doing exactly what they want us to do—get lost trying to follow three different cars going in three different directions. They're trying to confuse us."
"Clearly, it's working," I mutter. "So which car do we follow? Are you going back to follow the one on Highway 50 or 133? Which one do you think is the real deal?"
"Neither," Winchester says. "We're going back to Grand Junction. I think the Audi's still back there, along with Sheri Hayes. She's lying low and playing the waiting game."
"How do you know?" I demand, wanting to stay the course and wishing I knew what the course was.
"It's a hunch," Winchester admits. "But I think it's a good one. The Lamias know we're onto them, so they're trying to distract us from their real plan on by having two of them take off as divergences with staggered departures in different directions so we wouldn't know where to go. If it had been just one car, I might've fallen for it. But two? That was a mistake—a dead giveaway that they're trying to play us. One car is on Highway 50. Highway 133 turns into Highway 92 and connects to Highway 50. Alice and Pamela are probably meeting up around Delta and circling back around, while Sheri is perfectly poised to swoop in and nab the kids like they planned back in Grand Junction."
I consider Winchester's theory. Once I've got it all worked out in my head, I hate to admit it, but it makes a helluva lot of sense and he's probably right. And I'm pretty disappointed in myself for not figuring it out first.
"So now what?" I ask, too prideful to admit to Winchester that he seems to have become the ring leader in my case. Damn. I realize that's given him even more control, letting him call the next shot. I'm the Daddy of this operation. So I take back the wheel and say, "Let's go back and check on Laura."
"That's the plan," says Winchester, still two steps ahead of me, it seems. And the one with the literal wheel in his hands. "We've gotta warn her. Hopefully it's not too late..."
As much as we both want to keep on the road back to Grand Junction, we agree that we've got to get in contact with Laura Fleming as soon as possible, to let her know she's gotta be on her guard without freaking her out too much. Also, the Impala may be a beauty, but she's a gas guzzler and we've gotta stop to refuel, anyway.
Winchester's got Mrs. Ward's business card from earlier and says he'll call her at work and casually ask if she's heard any updates on her ex-nanny since they last spoke, following up by asking for her home number in case he has any further questions. Which we can then conveniently use to check up on Laura. I realize public relations aren't exactly Winchester's forte. From what I've seen, he lacks the finesse for such delicate operations. Comes on too strong, appears unsympathetic, and frankly, he scares people. One thing Winchester's still gotta learn is how and when to pull back the reins.
It's a delicate operation, but I let Winchester make the phone calls since he needs to go in to pay for the gas anyway, plus he's already spoken to Mrs. Ward in person, whereas she's never met me. I know a lot about her personal life, though. Which seems a bit creepy and stalkerish now I think about it, but I am trying to save her children's lives and it's all necessary information I've collected from her records. It's not like I know her social security number. Well, not by heart, anyway. Mighta seen it once or twice.
While Winchester uses the payphone to call Mrs. Ward, I stay in the car and listen to the police scanner.
All I can see is the back of Winchester's head, but it's about as easy to read as his face. The call to Mrs. Ward is about a minute and the second call to Sheri didn't last long at all—a bad sign, surely, if no one's home after we told Laura to wait by the phone. I suppose she could be watching her stories and ignoring the kids. But then again, I've learned that Winchester's a man of few words who communicates mostly in grunts and monosyllable words (if at all), so it's possible he had a whole conversation with the babysitter in that short time. I see him fumble with some change, dial again, and hang up again shortly after. Winchester's face is such a mask that I can't even tell if it's good news or bad news when he walks back over.
"Well?" I say soon as he gets in the car, still grumbling something about gas being $1.21 a gallon. Either Winchester's got his priorities out of whack and the price of gas is more important than a family's lives, or everything's peachy at the Ward's.
"Laura was home. Says everything's normal. Picked up the kids, no problem. They're all at home now. I could hear at least two of them screaming in the background," Winchester says. "I told her to line the doors with salt and rosemary. She wanted to know why, or if it was a prank, and well... I told her to just shut up and do what I say, that I didn't have time to explain...and she just hung up on me. Didn't answer when I called back."
"How rude of her," I say mildly, knowing she was probably only returning the sentiment, from what I've learned of Winchester's mannerisms. I can usually get a pretty good reading on people. Winchester's a no-nonsense kind of guy, and though he means well, seems he can come off as being pretty blunt and obtrusive.
"When she first answered and found out it was me, Laura asked if she could speak to you instead," Winchester says with a hint of amusement and no offense whatsoever as he starts up the car. "You must've left more of a favorable impression with her."
"Well, we did sorta play Good Cop/Bad Cop with her back there," I say. It's weird—I'm used to being Bad Cop, whether I'm working solo or double. "What'd you tell her?"
"I said you were indisposed—utilizing the latrine, so she had to talk to me whether she liked it or not," Winchester says. "She said I was making her miss Wheel of Fortune. I told her to turn off the damn TV and do her job."
"I'll bet she loved that," I say sarcastically. "You do know she thinks you're a complete nutcase, right?"
"I don't give a damn what she thinks of about me as long as she can be competent enough to keep those kids alive till we get there," says Winchester darkly. "Luckily Mrs. Ward says she plans on calling in sick for her shift at the diner. So the kids'll have someone with their head screwed on looking out for them, at least."
"At least," I agree. "Did you tell her we met with Laura?"
"Yeah," says Winchester. "She asked me what I thought of her as a childcare provider."
"And?"
"I told her to keep shopping," Winchester says.
I nod. "Good call."
We had been nearly up to Idaho Springs before Winchester performed his highly illegal U-turn, and it takes us four hours to drive back to Grand Rapids, having got stuck in rush-hour traffic. Sitting in a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam, Winchester looks so antsy and impatient that I half expect him to get out and walk the rest of the way there. Might be faster, too. But I know he'd never leave a car like this behind, 'specially with a guy who's in the market for a new one.
When we finally get back on on the street the Ward house is on, we see the red and blue flashing lights before we even see the house—we're too late. Winchester slams his fist into the steering wheel as I groan. We pull up across the street, away from the flashing squad cars—three of them. There's cops everywhere, and an ambulance, too. Some EMT's are pushing a body bag on a gurney out of the house as we get out of the car, already pulling out our FBI badges.
Our fake ID's prove unnecessary, as Chief Nash is there. He recognizes us, walks up to where we're standing near the curb, taking in the scene. "Agents," he says gravely, shaking both our hands. "Looks like you were right about those suspects, after all."
Usually I love to hear those words come out of a cop's mouth, as a lot of the time they seem to refuse to believe what's in front of their faces because the existence of ghosts and ghouls wasn't covered in Police Academy. Right now, the last thing I wanna be is right. I can tell by the look on Winchester's face he's thinking the same thing.
"What happened?" we ask at the same time.
The Chief explains as he marches us over to the aid car. "Neighbors reported hearing a woman screaming and called the police. They said they saw a car matching one of the vehicles with an APB pull up in the driveway not long before the screams started. Our units responded and found the body of Ms. Laura Fleming near the staircase, with her heart ripped clean out of her body. Apparently, it was her first day on the job," he says as we all stare down at the black body bag contained the young woman we had spoke to just that very morning.
"Can we see the body?" I ask, respectfully. The Chief nods to the EMT, and he zips back the black plastic sac. We can barely see Laura in the darkness, save for flashes of red and blue light strobing over her. Winchester borrows a flashlight and shines it at her pale, lifeless face. It's obvious from her colorless skin that her body's been drained of blood. There's a gaping, gory cavity in her chest where her heart should've been. It looks like a fist reached in and just ripped it right out. And me and Winchester know that's exactly what happened. The novelty shock of seeing a dead body has worn out for both us long ago, which is good, given the line of work we profess to be in and how unfazed we should be by death and crime scenes.
"And the children she nannied?" Winchester presses. Though we both already know the answer, we need it confirmed.
Chief Nash hangs his head. "Gone. All three of them. The witness said she saw a woman—identified as Sheri Hayes, the family's previous nanny- packing the kids up in her car and driving off. All the local news stations have been alerted and every available squad car in the country is out looking for them. We've put out a BOLO for the car across all the surrounding states, too. My daughter is friends with the girl who was taken, Megan. Anita is absolutely devastated...to lose Gerry and then have something like this happen..."
We look over to where he's staring, and see Mrs. Anita Ward. There's a blanket around her shoulders and she's shaking and sobbing and clutching a Kleenex to her face. Friends and neighbors have their arms around her to comfort her, and it's clear the Officer trying to question her isn't getting too much in the way of decipherable speech out of her.
The Police Chief looks hopelessly at us, shaking his head in disgust. "Kidnapping children, cutting out an innocent woman's heart...what sort of person is capable of doing something like this?"
"A monster," Winchester answers grimly, staring down at the body of Laura Fleming again as the EMT zips her back up.
"Thank you for your time, Officer," I say, walking away a few paces with Winchester. "So much for our plan for a pre-emptive strike. We've got to get to the nest now."
"I know," says Winchester. "Just give me one moment."
Winchester turns and strides over to Mrs. Ward. I follow. She recognizes Winchester, ignores the Officer's last question and reaches out to him. Must've left a better impression with her than Laura, I think. Winchester takes her hands in his in the warmest, most human act I've seen him do in the twelve or so hours I've known him. "Mrs. Ward, we are going to find your children. I promise."
Mrs. Ward lets out a sob, but I've gotta admit Winchester sounds reassuring and pretty damn confident, 'cos there's a note of hope under all that despair when she says, "Thank you," with a trembling voice.
Winchester releases Mrs. Ward's hands and turns to me. "Let's go."
"I really hope you didn't just make a promise that we can't keep," I say once we're out of earshot, on our way back to the car.
"We're finding those kids and killing those Lamia," said Winchester firmly. "It's our job. I can't just stand by and let these evil bitches destroy another family. I won't. That woman's already lost enough."
I hear something like compassion in Winchester's voice, and wonder if this case has somehow touched a nerve. But seeing as how I don't know him all that well and he keeps the surprises coming once I think I've figured him out, it's hard to say what that nerve is. I guess I can go back to my theory that he knows what it's like to have lost a spouse. Still, I know there's no time right now to figure out the enigma that is John Winchester.
"We got work to do," Winchester says to me as he starts up the car.
I couldn't agree more.
...
TBC