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In the southwest corner, a pair of sturdy metal doors drew our attention because beside thereen-vinyl webbing, bethich stood a Styrofoaarette butts and nine dust-free half-crumpled Heineken cans littered the floor around the chairs

The faint scent of beer arose from the residue that had not yet evaporated from those containers

"They uys sat here to guard them"

My voice ricocheted around the abandoned factory: "… kids, kids, kids … doors, doors, doors … the echoes were followed by that creepy rustling noise again, louder than before I slashed the air with the flashlight bea with an invisible foe, but as before I discovered no one

After the rustling subsided into silence, I tried one of the heavy double doors With so Unusually wide stairs led down into a grave-dark lower rooainst the other door, Mrs Fischer whispered so low that her words could not rise far enough to inspire an echo in the rafters: "Can’t both go down there and risk being locked in I mean, if someone’s here to lock us"

"Can’t leave you here alone in the dark," I said

Indicating the three big squares of gray light at the farther end of the vast room, where the roll-up doors had once been, she said, "Those will silhouette him, if anyone’s here And probably no one is"

I said, "I don’t need to go down there The children have been taken somewhere else"

"You owe it to them to be sure Go now Get it over with"

She was quietly adalooes were corroded enough to prevent it fro shut on its own

As I , I knew that the children had indeed been held here, because their three faces, as they had appeared in the vision in the super lot, rose now inthe second flight, picking out the treads with the flashlight, pistol at the ready, I noticed first that the air was cooler here than on the ground floor and, second, that it smelled of blood

Blood has an odor faint but distinct, of conceit and reed, of faith and doubt, in short the fragrance of e estive of hot copper, having carried life along the arteries like current through a wire Because the scent is subtle, however, a roonificant

With dread, I continued to the bottom, into a base Perhaps this space had once contained a heating system, boilers, and other machines that were stripped out and sold in the distant past Now it housed the dead

Eighteen

THE DEAD EYES APPEARED TO ROLL TOWARD ME IN THE crusted sockets, but in fact only the reflection of the flashlight bealassy curves froain

Even two bad men who earn a bad end deserve a measure of discretion froards the horror of their suffering Besides, if I detailed their ht be persuaded to pity them, and I doubt they orthy of race in each case was a bullet fired point-blank, just above the bridge of the nose Before that, they had been tortured extensively with razors or stilettos

The tere naked, stripped before they werehad been re with any watches or jewelry they , perhaps to ensure that they would be more difficult to identify if they were ever found

Their wrists were cuffed behind theloves The latter detail at first baffled me until I realized that these must be the twoand drinking while they guarded their hostages They had worn the gloves to ensure that they left no incri these were the kidnappers, they er conspiracy Evidently the plan called for the children to be stashed here for a while, on the outskirts of tohereafter others--including the rhinestone cowboy--would arrive to take custody of them and move them elsewhere

If these two dead men had been discovered drunk and asleep in the lawn chairs, or ht have decided to execute theht be the ical, especially the extent and cruelty of it With three hostages to e and with the need to spirit them out of the area while local and perhaps federal authorities were searching for them, the killers should have opted for quickti the shot, seee

Froht make a sort of cockeyed sense if it was ritualistic, part of a ceremony that this fraternity of the demented required of themselves when they murdered one of their own I didn’t want to believe that was true, because it erous than I previously assuested there were similar, patterned wounds on each, but I didn’t have the stoh analytic review of them

Most of the blood had soaked into the concrete floor, but one pool re that the victiht have been murdered within the past couple of hours I stooped to touch the shoulder of the nearest corpse, and though the flesh was cool, it still held sospirits are nearly always those of people who led largely good and admirable lives Rare is the deeply wicked soul that does not cross over after death I suspect that for their kind, a debt collector--one with a legendary name and no patience for tardy debtors--insists on payment immediately after the heart has struck its last beat and even as the final exhalation withers in the throat

I climbed the steps two at a time, and as I drew near the top, I called out, "It’s only me"