Black Daylight Read online

  The first thought that came to Widow’s head was that he was after a bone. Like that old saying, “a dog with a bone.”

  Widow came up behind him at slow speed because he still was having trouble seeing where he was stepping. As he got just behind the dog, he saw that the animal was pawing at a large, rolled-up rug. The dog pawed at it so hard it that if he had been a large wild cat or a bear, he’d be mauling it. There would be threads everywhere.

  What made him so determined to get inside the rug?

  Widow stepped up next to him, stopped, and knelt beside him. The dog was panting and wheezing. Suddenly, surprisingly, the dog stopped pawing for a moment and stared up at Widow, desperation in his eyes.

  “What‘s wrong, boy?”

  Widow reached out and patted the dog’s head and petted his fur. He was cold and damp. He sniffed Widow for a second, just a few snorts and stopped, as if his nose had downloaded all the information that he needed to determine if Widow was friend or foe. He must’ve determined friend or neutral because he didn’t bark or fidget or scurry or make any other sign of aggression or fear toward Widow. The dog went straight back to mauling the rug.

  Widow turned to the rug. He studied it. His eyes squinted and tried to focus in the dim starlight.

  He realized that the rug wasn’t rolled up in a perfect cylindrical pipe shape. It was odd and angular and humped in strange, unnatural places.

  It was rolled completely wrong.

  The rug appeared to be Oriental or some kind of knockoff. It was rolled up tight and thick. The length of the roll was about six feet.

  Widow stood back up and gazed over it. He paused, trying to see the whole thing, lengthwise.

  Getting a bird’s-eye view of it, he knew why the dog was pawing at it so fiercely. For a split second, he felt stupid that he hadn’t seen it before. At the very least, he thought his instincts would’ve set off the alarm bells in his head. But they hadn’t.

  He gasped at what he saw.

  There was an odd shape in the rug, like the bulging from the recent dinner in the belly of a huge snake. But giant snakes don’t just eat their dinner, not actually. They swallow their dinner. Often, they swallow their dinner while it’s still alive.

  The bulge in the rolled-up rug was human-shaped.

  Chapter 4

  S NOW FELL all around Widow in an eerie calm as he stared at the horror in front of him and thought about the snake. The snow landed in his hair and on the stubble on his face that had slowly been growing into a beard over the course of the last five days. He hadn’t shaved in that time—no desire to.

  He had stayed on a horizontal line across a flattened map of the United States, traveling from west to east. The line had been straight across the northern middle of the country. He had gone from Portland to Idaho, where he spent two nights with a girl who claimed to be a school teacher. She was nice. He would’ve stayed longer, but one day she was headed off to class and took him for a coffee first with a quick breakfast at a quaint roadside diner.

  Sometime after his third cup of coffee and before her second, but after they’d both finished their scrambled eggs and buttered toast, she laid it on him. The usual. She said she had a life there and she was sure he had a way of life that didn’t fit hers and so on and so forth—nothing that Widow hadn’t heard before at this stage of life. Even before he started his path of wandering around with no particular destination in mind, he had encountered the same excuses all over the world from local women who wanted to pick up a sailor, but didn’t want anything serious.

  He had no illusions about it. He held her or any of them no ill will. It is what it is. He smiled at her, let her give her speech without interruption. That was the best thing to do in that situation. An hour ago, he’d been in an embrace with a woman he hardly knew, having a good time. Feeling the usual, instinctual feelings of intimacy. He asked himself the usual questions. Not voluntarily, but all involuntarily.

  Does she want more with me than this? Is there a future here? Should I stick around and find a job?

  Widow’s mind posed these questions to him. It didn’t mean that he wanted those things, but it didn’t mean that he didn’t want them either. Maybe sticking around wasn’t so bad—for the right woman.

  The school teacher looked at a Mickey Mouse watch she wore on her wrist. It had a brown leather band that appeared worn as if she had had the watch since childhood.

  She looked back at him and told him she had to go. School started in a half hour. He nodded, thanked her, and said goodbye.

  No big deal.

  Widow stuck around for another hour after she had gone. Then he left and went on his way east, stopping again here and there.

  Now, he stood over what looked like a disposed of, dead body rolled up tight in a rug out in the middle of nowhere, South Dakota, and he had witnessed the disposers just taking off. He wasn’t sure if they had seen him in the rearview or not. He doubted it because of the low visibility in the mist and snow, but maybe the car he had seen was equipped with rear-facing cameras. Perhaps they had night-vision capabilities. Was that an option on today’s cars? He had no idea. Maybe. Anything was possible.

  Widow licked his lips, another involuntary action. He tasted slivers of icy snow.

  In the foreground, ahead of him, an owl hooted from high up in a tree. The hoots continued randomly with no discernable pattern.

  The wind blew and chilled his hands, which were now out of his pockets. He reached down and poked at the rug with medium pressure—no response. He switched to quick, hard jabs, not hard like punches, more like swift prods. He used enough force and pressure to wake up a sleeping Marine. Experience told him that was the way to do it.

  No response.

  Widow moved up the length of the rug bulge to where the midsection of a human rolled up in a rug would be. He pounded with one heavy fist like a judge’s gavel in a court that was out of order.

  Once. Twice. Three times. Nothing happened. No movement. No response.

  Widow called out at the same time.

  “Hello?”

  No answer.

  “Hello?”

  No response.

  “Hello?”

  Again, no reaction.

  “Hey?”

  No result. Nothing.

  Widow stopped pounding and scrambled to one end of the rug and reached in through the circular opening at the end. He felt around. Loose threads brushed his fingers. He strained to reach in until he found something that he knew.

  He continued to feel around, pinching it, poking it until he realized that it was the tip of something.

  It was cold and soft like soft paper. He pinched it again. There was something smooth and hard on it like the glass screen on a phone.

  Widow moved his hand farther to the other side. He felt around until he found something else. His fingers swiped across a texture that he knew well. Everyone does. It was something that he had felt recently, on a woman back in California. That was the last time he had felt it.

  It felt smooth and bony and cold. It was the skin on a heel of a foot. The smooth, harder surface that he had felt was a toenail.

  He jumped back and pressed his hand on the rolled-up rug. Quickly, he hoisted himself back on his feet.

  He called out again, instinctively, like a cop who was first to arrive on the scene of a car wreck, the driver an unconscious woman stuck inside.

  “Ma’am?”

  No answer.

  Widow scrambled back around the sniveling dog until he reached the opposite end of the rug, where the woman’s head should be. He dropped to his knees, let them crash into the snow and the dampness and the fog. This time he found the wet bottom of the ditch. Wetness slogged through the denim of his jeans. His knees were hit with wet coldness. Shivers shot up his legs and spine.

  “Ma’am?”

  He poked at the end of the rug.

  No answer.

  He reached in with one hand and felt around, traced the threads and texture
with his fingers. The threading was coarse and tightly knit, at first, until he found thinner, more loose threads.

  After a few seconds of tracing his fingers through them, Widow realized it wasn’t threads from the rug.

  It was human hair. It was long and soft and felt as though it had product in it, some kind of hairspray or gel. It was a woman’s hair, he figured.

  Carefully, he ran his fingers through the strands of human hair until he found the woman’s head. He looked for warmth, body heat, to see if she was still there—still alive, but his fingers were cold. He thought maybe he felt something, but he couldn’t be sure.

  The hair was long, curly, and damp, almost wet. It was wetter than the snow in the ditch. The wetness was thicker than water, more sticky.

  It was blood. He knew it. Being a former NCIS agent, he had investigated plenty of murders. That was how most investigations started. He had been introduced to a dead body, usually a fellow sailor or a Marine or sometimes a civilian. Then he had been briefed on the investigation, the mission. He had been given his orders. And he had been sent in undercover to investigate.

  Widow found the woman’s head and palmed it for a moment. He called out to her.

  “Ma’am?”

  No response.

  He sent his fingers down to her mouth and nose. He let them sit there for a long second, trying to feel her breath as if he was gauging wind speed.

  Widow paused and waited.

  Nothing.

  He pushed and tried to get down to her neck so he could feel for a pulse, but he couldn’t force his hand down that far. The rug was wrapped too tightly.

  Widow kept that hand where it was. Using the other, he felt around the top of the rug, searching for her outline, searching for the lip of the rug so he could try and loosen it. He patted the sides. He patted the top.

  After several attempts, he finally found it.

  On the very end toward him, about a foot down, the rug was rolled up and sealed with duct tape.

  He was about to start peeling the tape away when he felt something with the hand inside the rug’s opening. On the palm of his hand, over the woman’s mouth, he felt a wisp of air. It was faint and frail and ephemeral. But it was there.

  “Hold on!” he shouted.

  Widow pulled his hand out, fast, and felt around in the dark for as much of the duct tape as he could find. Once he got both hands on it, he started ripping and tearing and shredding. Violently, he ripped, jerking his arms back and forth like he was jerking the chain on a lawnmower in a competition to see who could start his mower the fastest.

  Stunned, the dog jumped back and then retreated for a few seconds. Then it moved alongside the rug and got next to Widow. It joined him. It pawed and ripped simultaneously as if it knew what he was doing as if it sensed that he was there to help.

  Widow cleaved and pulled and tore through the duct tape as if his own life depended on it.

  The duct tape was already dense, but it was layered as if someone had used half a roll, which he could only guess meant that the other half had been used on the other end.

  “Hold on!” he called out to the woman inside the rug.

  He continued to tear globs of duct tape off the rug. It unraveled and tore and came off one strand at a time.

  He heard a mumble from inside the rug. It was the woman breathing.

  Widow felt a surge of energy from hearing that sign of life. He tore and ripped faster. The duct tape came off in big globs. The tape had been wrapped around tightly and unplanned as if it had been a last-minute thought or done in a hurry.

  “Almost got it!” he said.

  Ten more seconds went by. He felt light snow drift onto his lips and nose and forehead.

  “Hang on,” he told her.

  After a long, arduous effort, the last shred of duct tape ripped into pieces, and he stopped.

  His arms burned from the exertion and the speed.

  No time to rest.

  Widow pulled and unfurled the top of the rug until he could manage to pull the woman’s head up and out. It felt like an eternity before he got results. Even without the duct tape, the rug was still thick and heavy.

  He managed to shift the weight and grabbed the woman’s head and shoulders and slid her head up and out. He stopped pulling and reversed course and peeled the rug down instead and finally got it all down to her shoulders.

  The woman in the rug was topless. Her breasts came out and were bare in night and mist.

  Widow turned and gently twisted her to try and pull her head up to an angle comfortable for her.

  He plopped himself back down on the heels of his boots, getting as comfortable as he could. Then he rested her head down on his lap and caressed her hair like a parent comforting a dying child.

  He touched her face, caressing in both hands. His hands were cold but probably felt like warm oven mitts on her freezing cheeks.

  Carefully, slowly, he turned her head from side to side, looking for wounds, making sure that her neck had not been broken or sprained. It seemed okay, so far.

  Widow sped up the twisting of her head, slightly. He tried shaking her face as well. He was trying to get a cough or a gasp or any sign of consciousness out of her.

  Nothing happened. Nothing from the woman, anyway, but the dog did something.

  At first, he stood behind Widow, staring over his forearm, but then he saw Widow shaking her face, and he scooted closer, got up on his hind legs, and pawed at Widow’s forearm.

  Widow stopped and looked at him.

  The dog scooted in closer, ears down, as if he wasn’t fully trusting of Widow. He climbed over the top of Widow’s arm and licked the woman’s face. It was out of recognition and concern and love.

  He was her dog.

  Widow needed to get the woman completely free. He needed to unravel her legs and the rest of her body, but he didn’t want to set her head down on the snow. The last thing he wanted to do was have her drown or catch cold, while he got busy trying to free her feet and the rest of her.

  Plus, it’s better to keep a person’s head up when unconscious.

  So, he reached up, fast, and took off his coat. He balled it up and lifted her head and set it down gently on the balled-up jacket.

  The chill South Dakota air struck him hard. It blasted him with quick, short gusts of snowy wind.

  After the woman’s head was safe, Widow moved down and out of the way. He reached his hand in and touched her neck, two fingers, and pressed down. He waited a beat, counting to himself, and registered her pulse. It was there, but it was weak, not as weak as her breathing, but not far off.

  She was fading away. She was dying.

  In the low moonlight, Widow could see what he thought was killing her. She had a vicious wound on the top, left side of her head, just above her ear. She had been hit hard with something blunt, or she had hit something in a fall.

  Blood was caked and wet and matted in her hair.

  Widow squinted to see the rest of her body that was exposed. He searched for any other signs of injury or struggle. Not looking for forensic evidence, but searching for any visible reasons why he shouldn’t lift her or move her.

  He didn’t get past her neck and collarbone when he found that the head wound might not have been what had almost killed her.

  She had been strangled, not to death, but nearly. There were bruises on her neck, big ones, brutal-looking. They were thin across the throat and the center of the neck, but thick on the sides, like the palms of two meaty hands.

  His guess was she had been ambushed. Probably attacked with a baseball bat or some other blunt object or she had been pushed down hard and hit her head. He was going with the blunt object theory just because that was a more effective way to knock someone out. Especially, if her attacker planned to strangler her.

  Hit once, from the looks of it; then her attacker strangled her two-handed while she lay on the ground, unconscious.

  Widow traced the bruises with his eyes, down her collar
bone, then over her chest.

  The bruises were purple and dark across her chest and on her breasts. The top of her abdomen, just under her solar plexus, followed suit with more purple and dark bruising.

  Widow studied the bruises for a brief moment. The best he could figure was they were made by a pair of knees.

  Her attacker had hit her with a bat and then hopped on top of her, straddled her. He used his weight to pin her to the ground while he strangled her, not that it would’ve been necessary. Widow saw patterns of effectiveness, and patterns of downright amateurs, like the attacker knew what he was doing, but had never killed anyone before. Or, maybe, he was stoned out of his mind.

  Why didn’t he kill her?

  That was all he could see of her body. The rest of her stomach and the lower half was still wrapped up in the rug.

  Widow hopped up to his feet and scrambled down the rest of her and stopped at the bottom of the rug where her feet should’ve been.

  He took one quick glance back up to her head.

  The dog stayed where he was. He continued to lick the woman’s face and neck. He stopped every few seconds and pawed at her shoulder, lightly with one paw.

  As the dog moved, this was the first time that Widow noticed another sound coming from him. It was a tag clinking back and forth on the dog’s collar.

  Widow dumped his knees down in the snow again and ripped and clawed and pulled at the duct tape securing her feet just as he had before, only this time he had a better idea of where the seams were.

  It took him about five minutes to get it all loose. That end had been pulled tighter than the top, as if her attacker had started at the top, where he was sloppy, and then gotten better once he got to her feet. Maybe he found his rhythm by the time he could no longer see her face. That was plausible.

  In Widow’s experience, most killers were sloppy. Most were first-timers. By definition, first-timers are virgins. And like all virgins, they’re inexperienced and scared and nervous and in a rush.