Page 147 of Evil Bones
“Already you’ve forgotten our little talk about phobias?” Delivered with a malevolent snicker.
My mind flashed to a recent underground conversation.
Dear God!
Was my captor now targeting Katy? Using my daughter to get at me?
Seeing Slidell’s Trailblazer pull onto the drive, I tiptoed across the room to open the door. As he approached, I silently mouthed the words “abductor” and “Katy.” Then, fearing a switch to speakermight alert the caller, I angled the phone so Skinny could hear the conversation.
“Tell me what it is you want,” I said as Slidell punched a number, then whispered into his cell.
“Acknowledgment that I’ve won.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Pure evil.”
“You’ll have to explain that.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Help me out.”
Slidell’s mobile buzzed. Looking embarrassed, he strode off a few yards and answered.
“Who’s that?” the robotic voice demanded
“Someone is calling my cell,” I lied.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Dead air.
We’ve all watched the scene on TV—investigators trying to keep the bad guy on the phone long enough to trace a call. Good for suspense, but hardly accurate. Since the eighties, as soon as a landline connection is made, the phone company can immediately locate the origin.
Due to requirements that cellphone networks feature location-tracking technology, like GPS chips, to assist 911 services, the same holds true for mobile devices. An IT cop once explained the tracing process, saying that pinpointing a call’s origin was based on triangulating which cell towers were pinged to allow the phone to pick up signal and transmit data.
Thanks to those FCC regs and that technology, thirty minutes later Slidell and I were racing, lights blazing, toward an address in the Marlwood neighborhood in east Charlotte. Just past an outfit called Tim the Tile Man, Slidell hung a tire-squealing right, then another onto a modest residential street.
Quick take.
Every home was one story, with a long, narrow lawn hosting acurbside mailbox and a gravel driveway hosting a gaggle of cars. Most gaggles included at least one pickup, some appearing reasonably new, others looking like they’d last been driven in the eighties.
The usual chaos had already engulfed the block. Squad cars with their light bars flashing and radios spitting. Fire trucks with their hoses gushing and their engines rumbling. Onlookers with their cell phones raised above their adrenaline-pumped faces.
This time the focal point of the action was a brick ranch-style house with dingy white shutters and a dark-shingled roof. A sun-fried vegetable garden separated the home’s narrow front lawn from the street on the left. An old crepe myrtle was trying its best on the right.
Slidell screamed to a stop amid the hodgepodge of vehicles parked willy-nilly along the curb, jamming the brakes so hard I wondered if I’d broken ribs slamming forward into my belt.
We both flew out of the SUV, leaving the doors winging wide.
I smelled it before I saw it.
Not trusting my voice, I pointed.
A dark cloud was spiraling upward into the sky, a tiny smoke twister rising from the back of the house.
