Vonnie didn’t sugarcoat it. “Yeah.”
“I don’t remember seeing anyone out of place,” Taylor insisted. “Nobody I wouldn’t expect to see leaving the school at that time of night.”
“What can I say? Neither did I. Didn’t know a thing was wrong until he took me. Never felt like anybody was watching me, had no warning whatsoever.”
Neither had she and Jenny. Not a single goose bump, despite what happened in books or movies. The man who had done this had not given them even a faint psychological hint of what he intended to do.
The man who’d done this.
Who was he? Who could be so vicious?
The voice might have sounded vaguely familiar, even though he’d disguised it. But trying to connect that voice to someone she knew who was capable of doing what this man had done was simply impossible. Her mind wasn’t wired to spot something so utterly evil. And Jenny’s definitely hadn’t been.
She fell silent, lost in her thoughts. So did her cellmate. Until finally, after a long moment, Taylor asked the question that was probably most on both of their minds.
“Vonnie, how are we gonna get out of here?”
Chapter Fourteen
Sunday, 5:05 p.m.
As the chief had predicted, when they arrived at Lexie’s office, they found Bob Underwood. He sat in Walter’s office, going through his files and his paperwork. The fact that the man whose desk he was rifling through had lost a child last night didn’t seem to matter much.
She wanted to slap him. Instead, she’d been forced to hover outside in the hall, lurking and listening, just like Stan had the other day. This time, though, the door was slightly open; Dunston had left it that way so she and Aidan could hear what was happening.
At first, Underwood tried to bluster his way out of it, until the chief had slapped down a copy of the tax record and told the man he’d followed them the previous night.
“Look, Jack, there’s nothin’ mysterious about it. We got a financial club,” Underwood said. “Me and some of the other boys get together and pool our money in the stock market. That’s all there is to it.”
Even from out here, she heard the lie in his shaky, weak voice. She suspected members of the Hellfire Club had come up with that story and any one of them would repeat it if pressed.
“Okay, then, if that’s all there is to it, you won’t mind giving me a list of the names of the club members. Every one of them. I know not all of them were around last night. Some months there’s as many as twenty men.”
“Have you been spying on us?” Underwood sounded indignant.
“The list,” Dunston said, not distracted.
“I can’t. Don’t you understand?” The man’s voice went softer, as if he was afraid. “They’re not all like you’n me, Jack. Some of them are dangerous.”
“I’m nothing like you,” Dunston snapped. “Now, the names. I already know Mayor Lawton’s involved.”
“Yes,” the man said, sounding weary.
“And Wilhelm, that teacher from the high school. Vice Principal Young, too. Is Principal Ziegler part of it?”
“No.”
The chief rattled off a few more names, most of which shocked Lexie. She shook her head in disgust, thinking of how proudly those men wore their piety and touted their wholesome family values. God, to think high school teachers and vice principals were involved—abusing girls they were supposed to be educating, protecting. It made her want to puke.
Beside her, Aidan suddenly stiffened. He pulled his phone out of his pocket. It had apparently been vibrating. Mouthing, “I’ll be right back,” he headed down the hall so he could answer the call out of earshot of the other two men.
When he returned a few minutes later, tension rolled off him. Beckoning her over, he whispered, “We need to get Dunston out here. I’ve got a name to feed him.”
“From?”
“Derek.” He sighed. “He found the spot where Jessie Leonard was killed.”
“Oh God.”
“He also knows something about the man who killed her. I think Dunston could use that information to work on Underwood.”
She considered, knowing they couldn’t do anything to arouse Underwood’s suspicions. “We should have gotten his cell phone number. Maybe I could. . . .” Her words trailed off, however, when she saw a shape move across the inset glass panel on a door that led to another set of offices. The figure wore a ball cap and was bent over, as if pushing something. Like a mop.
“Wait here,” she whispered, suddenly having an idea. Not wasting time to explain, she tiptoed over, slipped into the other area, and called to the man, who was mopping his way down the corridor. “Hi, Kenny.”
The scarred maintenance man spun around, startled, his mop handle clutched tightly against his chest. “Miz Alexa?”
“I’m sorry I startled you,” she said, holding her hands out in supplication. “I was just wondering if you could do me a favor.”
“I came in to work. Didn’t have anywhere else to go and wanted to be here, in case Mr. Walter needed anything.” Tears formed in the man’s eyes. “Did you hear about his girls?”
She nodded and stepped closer. “Yes, I did. I’m trying to help find out who did this awful thing to them.”
“They’re beautiful girls,” he said, as if not hearing her. “So pretty and nice. Not mean like some of them at the high school. They always said hello to me, even if they was with a bunch of their friends, always had time to stop and say hello just ’cause that’s how nice they were. And because Mr. Walter’s been so good to me, I always kept an eye out for ’em. Looked after those girls without them ever knowing it.”
She reached for Kenny’s arm, needing him to focus, and needing to do the same, too. “Kenny, there’s still a chance to help Taylor come home.”
“Really?”
“That’s why I’m here. Now I need to ask you a favor. Could you please go into Walter’s office and tell Chief Dunston he has a phone call and needs to come out here?”
Kenny’s eyes rounded. “The chief’s in there? With Mr. Underwood?”
“Yes, exactly! And I don’t want Mr. Underwood to know my friend and I are out here waiting. So will you please do as I asked?”
“Yes, ma’am, I will.”
Without another word, he leaned his mop against a wall and went back through to the other offices. He hesitated for a second when he spotted Aidan, offered him a brief nod, and went right to Walter’s door. Knocking once, he pushed inside.
Lexie beckoned for Aidan to join her, and he did, the two of them waiting at the other end of the hall while Kenny coaxed the chief out. While they stood there, Lexie noticed Aidan had lost some of his color. Leaning a shoulder against the wall, he swallowed visibly a couple of times. Then he looked around, sniffed, and wrinkled his nose as if he had noticed a bad odor.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered.
“I don’t know. Smells like sour milk or something.”
She sniffed, but didn’t notice anything. Before she could say so, Dunston emerged, heading straight toward them. “What’s going on?”
Aidan explained he’d gotten a tip from a friend, adding, “Do you know anyone named White? First name is short and begins with a J—maybe James or Jim?”
Dunston considered, then asked, “You mean Jed White? The old football coach?”
Lexie recognized the name, too. “He died three years ago.”
“Exactly three years ago?” Aidan asked.
“This month,” Dunston said. “They were going to dedicate the game to him the other night. He died in a single-car crash out on . . .”
“Old Terrytown Road,” Lexie whispered. The pieces continued to click together in her mind. “Jessie disappeared right around Halloween, a few weeks earlier than the coach. Aidan, are you saying White had something to do with Jessie’s death?”
He nodded once. “I’m saying he caused it. He was a member of the club, and apparently he liked things especially rough. He killed
Jessie that night and the others helped cover it up. She’s buried in the ruins of an old barn on the property. Well, most of her is. I think some animal got in there, which is how those fragments were found up the road.”
“Son of a bitch,” Dunston muttered. “How do you know all that?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Aidan replied, “and it doesn’t really matter now. The only thing that matters is using that information to startle Underwood into talking.”
Dunston hesitated. This was so far out of the straightforward lawman’s realm, she actually couldn’t believe he’d gone along with them this far. A voice inside him had to be telling him to get out now before they got him completely wrapped up in their insanity.
But another one, the voice of the decent man who she had so recently discovered lurking beneath his brusque exterior, wouldn’t allow him to. Not if there was a chance to find out what had been going on here in Granville. He was like a big bear who’d been awakened from a long winter’s nap and now found himself having to clean out the forest that had been overrun with vermin while he hibernated.
“All right,” he said, growling the words like that newly awakened grizzly. “Let me go see what I can get out of that scumbag.”
Sunday, 5:40 p.m.
Aidan wanted to stick around while Dunston finished his interview, but he suddenly felt the need to get outside. The air in the building had become not only stale and stifling, but a little rank. At least, that’s what he’d thought at first. But when he realized Lexie hadn’t noticed a thing wrong while he’d been inhaling sour milk for the past several minutes, he figured something else was going on. Something powerful.
Making an excuse, he quickly left the building. He needed privacy, and he needed to sit down, so he went to his SUV and got in the driver’s seat. Though he lowered the window to keep the air moving, he didn’t put the key in the ignition, or buckle up. Instead, taking slow, even breaths, he cleared his mind and invited it in. Invited the connection.
It wasn’t gingerbread this time, yet he felt sure what was happening now was related to what had happened Thursday morning. He was just conscious and aware now, could control it, either protect himself from it, or strengthen it.
He closed his eyes, dropped his head back. Felt the pressure, felt the weight. Then no longer felt either one as he had the sensation of being lifted high in the air.
Vonnie. Where are you?
Floating, spinning, flying. The same snippets of conversation—the entire town talking about the tragedy that had befallen that nice Kirby family. Who could have done it? Who could be next? What if the police find out about our meetings?
That last one distracted him momentarily, but he shoved it aside, needing to focus now only on finding her, not on the thoughts of any sadistic member of Underwood’s club.
We can do this, Taylor. We’ll make it out of here.
Found her! Oh God, had he actually found them? Together? Alive?
And if he’d heard them a few hours ago—heard Vonnie call Taylor by name—might he have saved Olivia the torment of having to live through Jenny’s final minutes?
He threw off that thought, knowing he couldn’t let himself be distracted. Focusing harder, he pictured Vonnie’s face, imagined her voice as the only sound in an entire universe of nothingness and forced himself to drift closer to it.
That’s it. I’m almost free. Just peel away the last layer.
His hands clenched, flexed. Then a tearing sensation, like tape being pulled off skin. It stung, burned, and his fingers tingled with a pins-and-needles sensation.
It wasn’t enough. He needed more. Needed to see where she was.
He pushed on, flew farther, feeling like he was flying into the sun, like the character from that ancient Greek myth. Too close and his wings would burn up and he’d tumble down to earth. But he needed more, needed to find out anything he could.
Vonnie.
Something appeared in his mind. A chipped wall. A filthy cot. He caught that rancid smell again, only now it seemed to be all over him, his head, his face.
Then he heard her voice again, clear as a bell.
He’s going to be back soon.
“Who?” he whispered, needing a name, some clue to the identity of their kidnapper.
But he didn’t get it, and when he tried to picture the face of the man, he could see nothing except a hard, plastic-looking smile.
You’re going to have to hit him as soon as he turns his back on you. Then get the keys off his belt. Hit him hard, take him down. If he stays up, we’re both dead.
They had a plan.
Those incredibly brave girls . . . He wanted to help them, to be there with them, wanted to pick them up and fly them away. But he pushed too hard, got too near the heat and like that old myth, his wings melted and he felt himself free-falling. Down, down, seeing his own hands trying to grab them, take them with him, but grasping at nothing but air.
He hit his own body, jerked in the seat. Back where he’d started.
But he was no longer alone.
Lexie stood right outside the car, watching him through the open window. She’d apparently been watching him for quite some time. There were tears in her eyes, and he imaged it wasn’t easy for her, seeing him like that. So lost. Just the shell of his body here, while his psyche, everything that made him who he was, had been somewhere . . . else.
“Are you all right?” she whispered, her first concern being for him, rather than what he might have seen.
He reached for her hand. “I saw them.”
“Them?”
“Both of them. And I don’t think this was in the past, Lexie, it was now. Vonnie and Taylor, together, making their plan to escape.”
Though her first reaction, like his, was joy at knowing they were alive, her mouth fell open on a gasp as the same instinctive fear hit her. Two weak, abused teenage girls going up against a monster who had killed more than a dozen others?
“God help them,” she whispered. “Where? Do you know?”
“They’re locked in a basement somewhere.”
“So they’re probably not east of here—the closer you get to the coast, the less likely you are to see real basements.”
“I never had one in Savannah,” he admitted, again noting how quickly her mind worked.
“What else?” she asked.
“When he comes back, Taylor’s going to hit him and take his keys so they can get away.”
That was all he had, all he’d gotten. But the joy in her face in just knowing that they weren’t too late, and the missing girls still lived, said it was enough for this moment, anyway.
He reached for the door handle, opened the door, and stepped out into the evening air, breathing deeply of it, needing to clear his head and fill his lungs, which had seemed to inhale nothing but mildew and filth.
That’s what they’re breathing.
He forced the thought away. “What happened in there?”
“Underwood cracked,” she told him, her pretty face grimacing with distaste under the overhead streetlight. “When Dunston confronted him about Coach White, he completely broke down, admitted the man was a little crazy, had an awful violent streak, and killed one of the girls before they could stop him. They knew they’d all be blamed, so they helped him cover it up.”
Aidan had a suspicion about what had happened next. “Then they got rid of White.”
One brow shot up. “Seriously? You really believe they killed him?”
He definitely thought so. “Pretty big coincidence, don’t you think? Their biggest liability dies in a single-car accident right after they help him hide his mess?”
“Maybe.”
“I doubt all twenty or so men in that club were in on it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of them—the ones Underwood sounded afraid of, who he called ‘dangerous’—took it upon themselves to make sure something like that didn’t happen again.”
“Not to protect the girls, I’m sure,” sh
e said in disgust, “but to protect their precious club.”
Crossing his arms, he leaned his back against his SUV. “The question is, if White killed Jessie, and then White died, who started killing the other girls six months later?”
“That’s what Underwood wants to know,” she told him, leaning beside him. “He gave Chief Dunston the list of members, and said they’ve been living in fear ever since they read my articles last month and realized how the girls were connected.” She sighed heavily, shaking her head. “And the bastard admitted there have been some strange things going on at their club for a while. Items left onsite, between their regular get-togethers—underclothes, a backpack with one of the girls’ names in it. Things like that.”
He wanted to go find Underwood and throttle the man. “So they knew. They’ve known for a long time these murders were connected to what they’ve been doing and they didn’t do a damn thing to stop it.”
“Not only that, they still went out there intending to have one of their parties last night,” she said, sounding as anxious to hurt someone as he felt.
“And it all comes back to White. He’s the link.”
“Exactly,” she said. She wrapped her arms around herself as the evening air grew chilly. “Underwood thinks somebody found out about him and decided to play some mind games.”
“Which essentially confirms that they killed him.”
She thought about it, then slowly nodded. “Yeah. I guess it probably does.”
If that was what they were dealing with here, the killer had to be someone close to White, someone who had taken his death personally. Someone with a dark enough soul to take his revenge by committing atrocities against innocent girls, just to make his enemies squirm.
“But who would it be?” she asked. “From what Dunston just told me, White was a bachelor, never married, no kids, no siblings, parents both dead. He lived alone in an old farmhouse just east of town, the same house where he grew up. He was born and raised here, but he didn’t seem to have many friends. So who would commit murder to avenge him?”
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