by Stacy Green
“He got cocky,” Todd said. “I have to admit, seeing him like that gave me a lot of satisfaction.”
I closed my eyes. “Me too. I just hope we aren’t too late.”
38
I hated industrial areas. They were never as shiny and futuristic as movies portrayed. Instead most were gray and worn, with big smoke stacks polluting the area and parking lots with giant cracks from the abusive weather. Add in the element of darkness, and an industrial area could pass for a post-apocalyptic refuge.
“You need to do something to stabilize that arm.” Todd unbuckled his belt and slid it out of the loops. “We can use this.”
Arguing only wasted time, so I allowed him to secure the belt around my neck and carefully place my arm in the loop. He grimaced at his handiwork. “Better than nothing.”
I climbed out of the car and was immediately struck by the fishy smell of the river. Even at a distance, I could tell the current was faster tonight. The water sounded like an out of control waterfall hell-bent on destruction.
Heavy cloud cover made the night sultry black. Flashlights danced in the empty apartment building and the power plant as Todd’s officers continued their vain search for Kelly. I shut the door and started for the vaults. “Who’s searching the remaining graves?”
“Agent Williams,” Todd said as he caught up with me. “The only places left are the vaults, and the ones not completely destroyed are locked up. We’ve also got a K9 searching, but the elements are messing the dog up. There’s a lot of human decay and debris around here, even if the water has buried it. Those dogs can smell it.”
We crossed the long-forgotten parking lot into the thatch of land that led to the small remaining section of the cemetery. I forged ahead, my shoes sinking into the wet earth. “They’re looking for a live human being. Do they have Kelly’s scent?”
“Yes.” He took my good hand and laced his fingers through mine. “You need to be careful before you break something else. And the vaults are on the southeast side.”
His hand provided a small comfort, but I couldn’t focus on anything but Kelly. “I remember seeing them yesterday. What about the other side of the river? Did the cemetery go that far?”
“Not according to the historical map,” he said. “We’ll know more once we catch up with Agent Williams.”
Waterlogged weeds clung to my bare legs as we raced along the slick riverbank. My ribs hurt, the humidity making every breath a chore. Despite the belt, my arm still jarred with each step. The river bent sharply left, and the vaults loomed in the hillside ahead. Broad and fairly level, the small hill was a logical spot to put a burial vault–if the river wasn’t so close.
“It’s not the river we need to worry about with these crypts,” Todd said. “It’s the groundwater seeping in over the years, combined with all this rain. Especially in crypts.”
I refused to think about what that might mean for Kelly.
Moonlight seeped through a crack in the clouds and provided me with my first look at the vaults. There were four in all. No two were alike, and all of them were in various states of decay, with the far left reduced to a mound of rubble. How many people had stood where I was and walked the path to the vaults to bury their loved ones? Gray and ghostly, the vaults seemed aware of their power over me, their energy suppressing my courage.
Agent Williams jogged toward us, bolt cutters in hand. Her businesslike tone rose over the noise of the river. “I made some calls and finally got ahold of the former city planner.” She wiped the sweat off her face. “Long story short, vault number three belonged to a family named Kent.”
“Chris’s family.” I had no doubt it was true. His mother and grandfather had probably regaled him with family history. And he’d catalogued it all for future use.
“Follow me.” Agent Williams led the way to the smallest vault. Weathered dark gray and covered with moss and dirt, the vault was built into the hillside with the pentagon-shaped entrance framed by four rows of rotting bricks. A modern padlock protected the iron gate.
Todd grabbed the bolt cutters from Agent Williams and quickly snapped the padlock. As lightning flashed in the west, Todd pushed the gate open. My heart dropped.
39
As Todd predicted, water pooled at the bottom of the steps. I didn’t wait for permission and scrambled down the slippery stone. Seven steps later, my feet were wet and freezing. I pushed ahead, shuffling through the water toward the vault’s inner door.
My left hand brushed against the walls, feeling the rough stone and centuries of deterioration. I needed to breathe and not worry about what I might find. I needed to get to Kelly first.
“What’s the door made of?” Todd stood behind me, with Agent Williams and her big flashlight at the top of the stone stairs. “If it’s stone, we might need help.”
I touched the door, feeling the cold grain. “Wood. Give me one of your flashlights.”
Todd handed me the flashlight, and I searched for some kind of latch. Closer inspection showed age had warped the door, preventing it from shutting properly. I reached for the gap between the door and the tomb and then realized my right arm was useless. “You go.”
Todd and I squirmed in the narrow passage, his chest brushing up against my back. He stuck his flashlight in his mouth and grabbed the door and started to pull. It didn’t give. “Something must be blocking it.”
He cautiously moved his leg, testing the depths of the water. “There’s something here.” Todd reached down and pulled, his face twisting into a grimace. “It’s heavy. Back up.”
I gave him as much space as possible. Using both hands and most of his weight, Todd slid the heavy object away from the door. “It feels like a big piece of concrete. Probably broken off the vault somewhere.”
My gaze landed on the etching above the door. A leaf, lined with what appeared to be silver.
“Get inside, please.”
The door opened this time, albeit barely wide enough for one person to fit through. I moved to get past Todd, but he blocked my path. “Lucy, you should prepare yourself. He may have killed her right away. And if there’s more water–”
“I know. Please, let me by.”
He nodded and stepped aside.
My ears rang. My vision blurred. I felt overheated despite the cold sweat. I couldn’t swallow.
Just get it over with.
I entered the tomb.
My eyes took a moment to adjust, even with the help of the flashlight. The putrid water was deeper inside, most likely flowing into a crack in the vault’s foundation. I eased forward, water quickly going to my knees. I shined the light over the walls in search of the shelves that would hold the coffins. We’d entered an antechamber. Roughly 6’ x 6’, the internal entryway may have been meant as a mourning area or for storage of personal objects.
A second hallway lay directly across the main entrance, and from the looks of the water, I assumed another set of stairs.
So dark and dirty.
If our flashlights fell into the water…
“What do you see?” Todd asked.
Hell.
That single thought made me seize up with my old fear. This is where I would end up one day. Not this vault or even one like it. I might be cremated. It didn’t matter–the end result was the same.
I would end up as nothing tangible, just evaporated energy. Like a star that finally died out, with no visible trace of its former existence.
Simply ending.
I lurched against the wall, my lungs refusing to work. My life was suddenly being squeezed out of me as if I were shrinking into some abnormal copy of Lucy Kendall. I wanted to escape my body and run far away from this place.
Todd’s hands closed over my shoulders. “It’s okay, just close your eyes and breathe. I don’t like tight spaces, either.”
It’s not that, I wanted to scream.
It’s death. The finality, the meaningless of our lives. The fact that with just one blink, we’re gone. That I will end
up just like the bodies in this crypt, and no one will ever know who I really was. That I hated myself and never got over my sister’s death, or that my mother ruined our lives. That I did terrible things but still kept going. No one will know I was here!
This is where Chris would have put me.
I collapsed against the chamber’s filthy wall. My fingernails raked against the stone in my effort to stay steady. The ancient, jagged surface snagged my index fingernail. It ripped off and remained stuck in the rock.
“That’s all you’re getting of me, Chris.” My voice fell flat in the tomb. “I beat you. And I won’t quit.”
“Lucy,” Todd spoke louder, “I think the water’s rising. It rained again tonight while you were with Chris. The ground’s overloaded. We need to keep moving.”
“Right.” I stepped through the water, trying not to think of the chemicals that might be in it–or what could go floating by. By the time I crossed the small chamber, my thighs were wet.
I’d never been in such a dark place. My hand trembled and so did the beam of light.
“Be careful,” Todd said. “You’re going to hit the stairs with no warning. I should go first.”
“No. I need to find her.” I inched forward, trying to feel the floor through my shoes. My left foot slipped over the edge of the stairs. I pitched against Todd.
“Easy,” he whispered. “Use the wall for support.”
I did as he said, pressing my left side up against the ragged wall. Four steps made this descent shorter. But much steeper. The steps were so narrow the toes of my shoes hung off the edge. I stumbled off the last step and water splashed onto my face.
We’d reached the crypt.
Disintegrating bricks made an arch over our heads. At least two feet larger than the antechamber, the crypt had shelving centered in the wall on each side of us.
“They’re probably stacked on top of each other,” Todd said.
Water eclipsed the bottom shelves.
Todd nudged me. “I’ll go left–looks like there’s still a coffin in that one–or what’s left of it. You check the right.”
Cold leached into my very bone marrow as I made my way to the shelf. I prayed I would see Kelly alive and breathing inside. I raised my left hand and shined the light into the cylinder-like shelf.
And it was empty.
I almost sank into the water as my hopes evaporated. But I couldn’t stop. I braced against the wall and used my foot to feel for the drowned shelf. I kicked blindly and connected with nothing. Did that mean she was curled up farther in the shelf, or had someone’s bones long rotted away?
Cold, stinking water splashed onto my neck. I jumped and pitched forward. More water struck my chin; my feet fought for purchase below the flood. My flashlight glowed against the murky, green water. A misshapen piece of wood floated by.
“She’s here,” Todd screamed. “Chris blocked off the end with that piece of wood. Her feet are cold.”
“Kelly!” I flailed through the water. It pushed against me–Chris’s final effort to steal Kelly away.
“Kelly, I’m here.”
Todd shouted again. “Hold the light up so I can pull her out.”
I stuck the flashlight in the air as high as possible. Todd’s back muscles strained against his damp dress shirt as he tried to ease Kelly out of the opening.
What am I seeing? What’s he done?
I saw her ankles first, and it hit me.
I drank her in with hungry eyes, cataloging every visible injury. Bites and lesions covered her bare legs. Her fingernails were shorn to bloody nubs. Layers of filth covered her clothes, and she had a nasty cut on her arm.
Duct tape covered her eyes.
But her mouth was open, gasping for air.
Kelly’s alive.
40
A paramedic tried to tell me I couldn’t ride in the ambulance with Kelly. I told him to go to hell and climbed in while Todd pled my case.
A second medic carefully applied rubbing alcohol to the duct tape and then gently pulled off the adhesive. Kelly’s eyes fluttered open and then closed. The skin that had been protected by the tape remained clean, a stark contrast to the rest of her body.
“Kel, can you hear me?”
As Todd brought her out of the vault, she dropped in and out of consciousness, her words making little sense, save for one: Chris. She kept saying it over and over, as though she somehow knew she’d been rescued and needed to make sure the name of her tormenter was known. She screamed blindly when Todd cut the ropes, her limbs jerking unnaturally, like she’d forgotten how to stretch them.
I smoothed back her grimy hair. In the harsh light of the ambulance, the bruises looked even more horrific. Chris had beaten her more than once, and the repulsive purple marks around her neck made it clear he’d strangled her.
What if she had brain damage or couldn’t talk?
I took her cool hand in mine, careful not to disturb the IV. Her destroyed fingernails bothered me more than anything. I couldn’t imagine the fear she felt trapped inside that tiny space, unable to move.
I would have absolutely lost my mind.
“You can ride with her.” Todd stood at the ambulance’s back doors. “But you need to stay out of Rick’s way.” He nodded to the paramedic attending to Kelly. “And you need to step aside at the hospital. Your arm needs to be X-rayed, anyway.”
“Did you call Lennox?”
He nodded. “I let him know we found her.”
Todd waited. The question sat on the tip of my tongue. Did I really want to hear the answer?
“We need to get going,” Rick the paramedic said. “Her vitals are decent, but I want to get her to the hospital.”
“Go ahead.” Todd stepped away and started to shut the door.
I mustered up the closest thing to a smile I could. “Thank you.”
“Always.”
Rick stayed busy on the drive, watching Kelly’s pulse and checking her breathing.
“Do you think she’s brain damaged?” The idea ate away at me until I had to ask.
“It’s really hard to tell.” His gloved hands grazed her bruised neck. “They’ll have to run tests.”
“But you said her pulse is strong, right? And her breath sounds are good.”
“That’s true,” he said. “But when the brain is deprived of oxygen even for a few minutes, a lot of bad things can happen. You’ll just have to try to be patient.”
Just like Mac.
I kept nagging poor Rick, even though I knew he didn’t have the answer. “She said his name–the man who did this to her. That’s a good sign, right?”
Rick sighed, obviously frustrated with my questioning. “It just depends.”
I looked down at her again. Oxygen flowed through the mask, and her color appeared to have improved. Chris would have wanted her brain to work. He’d want her front and center while he annihilated me.
Feeling Rick’s eyes on me, I glanced up to find the paramedic staring. “What?”
“Is it true what they’re saying? That Chris Hale is a serial killer, and he kidnapped both of you?”
I nodded and braced myself for a barrage of disbelief: Chris was a nice guy, he was from a good family, a great paramedic.
But Rick only shook his head, a grim expression darkening his face. “He always gave me the creeps, anyway.”
“How so?”
He tugged the back of his hair, revealing a Celtic tattoo on his forearm. “This is going to sound kind of stupid, but it was his eyes. They just looked right through me.”
“It doesn’t sound stupid at all.” As though it had burned me, I remembered the coin in my pocket. I took it out and stared at Lady Liberty standing tall. Looking at the iconic symbol of freedom made me feel as if I’d been trapped in the vault all over again.
Kelly’s fingers flexed in mine, a low moan escaping through her mask. Her eyes fluttered beneath the lids.
“Kelly.” I shoved the coin back into my pocket. “You’re sa
fe. It’s over. Chris is dead.”
I decided she must have heard me because she immediately calmed down. I patted her shoulder and told myself Kelly would be just fine.
“I guess you haven’t heard.” Rick checked Kelly’s breathing again and then made an adjustment to her oxygen.
My heart dropped. “Heard what?”
“Chris Hale’s expected to live. You saved his life.”
41
The orthopedic surgeon set my wrist. I was lucky, because the break hadn’t really started to heal. But the process still hurt like hell. I stayed at the hospital overnight for observation. Doctors assured a worried Todd the ketamine shouldn’t have any long-term effects.
And just like Rick the paramedic said, Chris Hale was expected to live. His aunt and uncle were already rallying around him. Lennox kept his room under guard. I didn’t visit.
Kelly had no internal damage, and her brain scans were good. Her condition was the result of dehydration and lack of food. Her attending physician medicated her to allow her body time to rest before she had to be reintroduced to the shock of the situation.
I waited all night and well into the next day before her eyes finally opened. The moment they focused on me, I knew she’d been aware all along.
“Don’t try to talk yet.” I grabbed the water cup and carefully put the straw to her badly chapped lips. “They’ve been giving you fluids, so you can drink some of this.”
She sucked the water down eagerly, her bright eyes taking everything in. When she finished, she breathed hard. I planned to let her rest, but she had other ideas.
“How did you find me?” Her rasping voice was a shadow of its normal self, but the sound was still beautiful.
“Chris told me.”
“What?”
I smiled. “He thought he could outsmart me. And I guess he did for a long time. But he underestimated what I would do for you.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “I knew you’d figure it out.”
“I didn’t, really. I ran around in circles. First I thought Robert Tesla Jr. had something to do with it, because he was a suspect in the sex trafficking case.”
