“You did say wives, right?” Mike says.
“Plural. It’s a mess. Some kind of redneck doomsday cult going on out here with Carr as their high muckety-muck prophet. Turns out that old shit had himself a fine petty kingdom, until today.”
“Is he dead?” Mike asks.
“Haven’t found him yet, but this is a goddamn bloodbath. Far as we can tell, the men in the SUVs were hired guns, and they’re all dead too. They all shot each other to pieces. No idea who’s missing.” He eyes the two of us. “You got any info?”
“The men from the SUVs are probably the original kidnappers,” I tell him. “The crew that took Ellie White, maybe some extras they hired on for this job. They intended to get her back.”
“Maybe they did. We haven’t found any trace of her yet.”
“Have you talked to the wives?” I ask him.
“They don’t say anything. They just stand there, hands together. It’s damn unsettling.”
“So why would you bring us here?” I ask.
The sheriff sighs. “I hoped you’d have some ideas where to go from here. Nothing?”
“Nope,” I say. Mike shakes his head. “What about Chief Weldon?”
“In custody,” he says. “Weldon claims he left everything to Carr; he doesn’t know where the girl is being kept.” He heaves a sigh. “Well. FBI’s flying in on helicopters, they can take this with the TBI from here, I guess. It’s a real shame we got this close and couldn’t find that kid.”
It is.
And then I remember something. “Vee Crockett,” I say. “Vee Crockett told us her mother said the wrecks were buried. What if they buried the girl with them?”
“You mean old-school kidnapper-style, with an air pipe?” Mike considers that. “What’s the last place you’d look?”
“C’mon, Mike, look around. Everywhere?”
“That’s not how these guys think; they like to have their eyes on it all the time. Control freaks. They hide this stuff, but they also watch it. Under houses. Under heavy equipment. Under—” He pauses. “They got any heavy equipment?”
“Yeah,” the sheriff says, and points. “A backhoe, right over there, next to the trash heap.” Every rural property has its own trash heap.
I lean forward. “Open this door!”
The sheriff hits the “Unlock” button, and I hit the ground running. I’m aware this is a crime scene, and I’m not wearing either a uniform or tech gear, but all I’m thinking at that moment is that minutes are passing, and there’s a little girl who’s already been kept for far, far too long.
The trash heap is massive. It’s more of a trash mountain range; that peak on the left is made of white garbage bags. The one in the center is fat tied stacks of decaying cardboard.
On the end, a tangle of rusting junk. Scrap metal, scavenged parts, the bare skeleton of a fifties sedan with no engine.
I look at the backhoe. It’s dirty, but that’s to be expected. There’s nothing remarkable about it.
No. There is. It’s sitting in a weird place, too close to the towering pile of garbage bags that might tumble down over it. There’s lots of space for the backhoe. Why put it there?
Because it’s blocking something.
Mike’s limping out to join me. The sheriff’s helping him. I reach the backhoe and climb into it. No keys, but they’re stuck under the floor mat. I start the engine and roll it straight back.
As I do, I see there’s a short length of PVC pipe coming out of the ground beneath it. Grace of God I didn’t turn the wheel as I backed up. It only protrudes maybe two inches, and it’s been painted to match the dirt around it.
The sheriff grabs a long piece of rebar from the scrap heap and starts stabbing it into the ground. Four inches down, it hits something hollow. He tries again. Another hollow sound.
“That’s wood,” Mike says. “It’s a trapdoor.”
We start kicking away the loose ground and finding the edges. There are two doors, and they are heavy wood. From the fading paint it seems like a set of barn doors that have been scavenged from somewhere else. Either that or this was once a root cellar or tornado shelter.
There’s a heavy chain and a new lock on them. The sheriff shouts for bolt cutters, and someone comes running with a set. He cuts the lock and sets it aside, careful not to touch it with bare fingers.
“Prints,” I tell Mike. He nods, and we wait until the sheriff hands us blue gloves to put on. Then we each grab a side of the doors, and haul. They’re damn heavy. Impossible for a small child to push open, even without the lock and chain. I feel my cracked ribs shift, and bite down on the pain. Pain’s good right now. Pain is productive.
It’s dark as an inkwell down there. The sheriff has a heavy halogen flashlight, and he shines it in, revealing a set of old wooden steps bowed in the middle, a dirt floor, a pile of empty plastic water bottles and shredded snack-food packages.
Ellie White is curled in the corner. She’s filthy, her once-pretty pink dress now streaked with mud and torn at the hem; she’s not moving. I can’t even tell if she’s breathing. She looks thin and fragile, like a bundle of sticks.
It’s Mike who plunges down those steps, injured or not, and scoops her up. She’s tiny in his big arms, and her head rests against his chest. Her hair’s out of one of its braids and fluffs into tight spirals that catch and move in the wind. Her arms and legs swing loose.
“Is she alive?” the sheriff asks. I can hear the horror in the question. Mike’s about to lay the child down when I see her finally move.
She puts her arms around Mike’s neck.
He leans against the backhoe and shuts his eyes. “It’s okay, honey,” he tells her. “We got you. We got you.”
“God almighty,” the sheriff says. “That’s a miracle. We got us a miracle.”
Nobody tries to take her away from Mike until the paramedics come racing up with a gurney. Once she’s loaded in and off to the hospital with a racing phalanx of county cruisers, I look at the sheriff. “He goes next,” I say. The sheriff nods. “You promised me. Now we get my family.”
He sighs and adjust his Stetson to a more comfortable angle. “All right. You’ve earned that. Let’s go.”
19
GWEN
When I click the remote to open the bookcase and ease it away from the secret opening, I use it as a shield; I don’t know if Mrs. Pall is still in the office with her shotgun. It might blast a hole through the books and the case, but it’s the best defense I’ve got right now.
She’s not in the room. I shut it, and hear it click as the lock engages.
It’s only then that I look at the red-leather collection that occupies the shelves. It’s nothing out of the ordinary, just law books like you’d find in any lawyer’s office. Specifically, Criminal Practice and Procedures, volumes one through eleven, followed by Tennessee Rules of Court, volumes one through three.
All of them are dated in gold leaf in the year 1982. Like everything else Hector Sparks has in this house, it’s a sham. Nothing but a museum to his father’s former glory; surely a real lawyer would have more recent law books. Not Hector. No wonder he needed my help with Vee.
I can’t imagine the kinds of twisted things that have gone on here to create the monster we’ve locked in his own dungeon, or the woman who’s been helping him. Serving him. Celeste. Mrs. Pall. I don’t really know who she is at all, or why she’d be part of this. I can’t even imagine the damage that’s brought her to this.
Because she’s what Miranda Tidewell has always imagined me to be: a full and willing participant in a man’s crimes against women.
And that makes her very, very dangerous.
I hear Mrs. Pall’s footsteps once I open the office door. Sharp little taps of sensible heels on hardwood floors. Everything neat, tidy, clean, perfect. All this outward perfection is nothing but another mask, another shell covering the rot.
I ease out of the office into the hallway. I can’t remember if the wood creaks. I need to remember
, but nothing’s clear suddenly. I have my gun out and down at my side; I realize it’s not a magic shield, that if Mrs. Pall steps around that corner with her shotgun, it’s a matter of who’s got the best reaction time, and even if I do, she can still obliterate me with one random, spasmodic trigger pull as she dies.
The floor doesn’t creak. It’s silent as I carefully move forward. I check the parlor. It’s empty. No one is on the stairs leading up to the second floor.
Mrs. Pall’s footsteps are coming from the other side of the house. I’m all that stands between my children and this woman, that man in the basement cage. If I go down, they’ll disappear. Connor . . . he’ll kill my son. He’s got no use for him. But he’ll kill my daughter in an entirely different way. He’ll devastate and destroy her, twist her into the shape he finds most enticing. She’ll live and die down there. And Vee, who’s now my responsibility, too, just as fragile and vulnerable. And the two anguished women we just set free.
I can’t lose. I can’t.
Mrs. Pall is humming quietly under her breath as I move through the dining room with a table big enough for a dozen people; the wood gleams, the china in the cabinets looks spotless and in perfect order. The centerpiece is a bowl of fresh flowers that seem to have been cut from the garden this morning, and the heavy smell of gardenia hangs in the air, tickling at my nose. The carpet in here is soft and muffles every step.
She’s in the kitchen. I don’t like that. Kitchens are deadly places full of weapons. She’s got something boiling on the stove that could be thrown on me. A knife block full of options. Blunt objects like heavy pans hanging on a rack that crouches above the freestanding center counter.
The room smells like freshly chopped garlic and baking meat. Same smell as earlier, but stronger now.
Her back is to me. She looks the very picture of the perfect 1950s housekeeper, down to the coiffed hair, the glint of pearls at the back of her neck, the perfect bow on the back of her apron.
I ease into the room.
The floor creaks.
She freezes. I can’t see her hands. What I do see is that the shotgun is leaning in the corner ten feet from her. I aim my gun at her back. “It’s over,” I tell her. “The women are out.”
“Where is my brother?” Mrs. Pall asks.
Her brother. Of course. I wonder if she was ever really married, or if she was, how long her husband got to live after the wedding.
“You don’t have to be like this,” I tell her. “I changed. You can change. Whatever happened to you, you can change.”
“You have no idea what happened to me.” Celeste’s shoulders move back, and I can imagine her chin coming up. She turns, slowly enough so that I don’t shoot her. Her right hand is up, and she turns in that direction.
She throws the knife with her left. I fire, but I’m also trying to duck; she has the speed and skill of someone who’s practiced this move. It’s not panicked. It’s precise, and even as I move, she adjusts.
The knife buries itself in the skin of my upper right arm, and I feel it hit bone and stick. The shock is the impact, not the pain, but she’s managed to fuck up my ability to shoot. I try anyway. I miss, and the agony that races up my arm makes my fingers spasm.
I drop my gun.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I don’t let that slow me down as I dive for the shotgun. She’s almost as fast, but her shoes slip on the highly polished floor. Mine don’t. I reach for it. I instinctively grab with my right, and my fingers go hot and cold with pulses of agony. The shotgun tips over with a heavy thud as my whole hand spasms.
She gets hold. I throw myself on it, weighting it down, and drag her with it as her shoes scramble for purchase. She falls to her hands and knees and lets out a shriek that chills me to the core, like some banshee released from a tomb, and she comes at me with sharp fingernails and grasping hands.
I punch her in the face with my left.
She falls backward, and I kick the shotgun away and pile on top of her. She’s wiry and strong, but I have more muscle. I get in two more hits before she finally bucks me off, rolls, and scrambles to her feet.
I expect her to go for the shotgun, but she doesn’t. She runs toward the door where I entered and scoops up my fallen handgun instead; she doesn’t stop to fire at me. She keeps running. I pick up the shotgun and check it. Two barrels, ready to go. The question of how the hell I intend to fire it is another matter. I know I shouldn’t pull the knife out of my arm in case it’s nicked major blood vessels; the pressure of the blade is holding anything like that mostly shut. But there’s no damn way I can hold the shotgun one-handed and fire with any kind of accuracy with a knife in my arm.
I put the gun on the counter. I grab the knife, take a breath, and yank straight out. I feel the blade come free of the bone with a brisk snap so intense it almost takes out my knees; I manage to stay up, and drop the knife into the sink. Blood sheets down my arm in warm pulses. Fuck. If I don’t bind that, I’m dead, but I have to catch Mrs. Pall. If she goes down to the cellar . . .
I grab a dishrag and stuff it into the wound. Another haze comes over me, but only for a second before adrenaline comes roaring back to erase it. I start to grab the shotgun, but then I realize that I can hear her just reaching the wood of the hallway, heading for her brother’s office.
I don’t need to catch her. I just need to stop her.
I pull the remote control out and hit the button to power-lock the office door. As I put it back and take the shotgun, I hear her impotent scream of frustration. I try my right hand. My fingers respond—not perfectly, they’re shaking and weak, but they’ll do. They have to.
I go after her.
I’m not fast enough; by the time I make it through the dining room, Mrs. Pall is at the top of the stairs and running hard to the left side of the house. I follow. If I can get a clear shot, I will take it. I need to bring her down. I will.
When I get to the top of the stairs, she’s already gone. It’s a long, narrow hallway with doors on either side. Dangerous. I take a step. The floor creaks.
She’s going to hear me.
I take a breath and run, making it past two of the closed doors.
She shoots through the one on the left, leaving three jagged holes in the wood and flinging splinters onto the floor. I stop, put my weight as close to the wall as I can, and ease back. Then I crouch low and fire a shotgun blast through the doorknob to knock it open. God, the recoil nearly sends me sprawling, and the haze comes back in thick, red pulses.
The kitchen rag is soaked through now. Blood is drizzling from the matted fringe on the end of it. I stuff it in harder, and rise up.
I see the blur of a bright pink-and-orange bedroom, the kind a teen girl of twelve might love. Aging Madonna posters on the walls. Stuffed toys. I aim the shotgun around the room, but I don’t see her. She’s not here.
Closet. Or under the bed. Or behind the door.
I check the door and get nothing. She’ll shoot for my legs if she’s under the bed; I lunge forward and shove hard, and the whole bed slides. Nothing underneath, not even a dust bunny.
Has to be the closet.
I don’t want to do this, I don’t, but I have to. I’m all there is. For all I know, she’s trying to get to another shotgun, or she has another remote she can use to unlock that office and get to my kids. I need to stop this woman. She was once a kid who loved Madonna and fluffy stuffed bears, but that doesn’t matter anymore. It can’t.
I breathe for a second, building strength I know is ebbing away, and I fling open the door.
It isn’t a closet. It’s a pass-through to the next room. A boy’s room, just as frozen in time as this one. The door’s hanging open to the hall; she drew me in here and then she ran for it, and I’ve missed her.
What I don’t miss are the shackles at the corners of the boy’s twin bed. They’re hanging down, swinging slightly, and they’re stained with old blood. I turn and look at the pretty little bed behind me.
; There are shackles there, too, hanging from the bedposts.
What happened here? I don’t know. I can’t imagine.
I check under the boy’s bed too. Nothing.
There’s a closet full of children’s clothing. The girl’s stuff is kept on one side, the boy’s on another. It’s all old and dates back at least thirty years . . . but there’s another section. Newer clothing, carefully draped on hangers. A pair of blue jeans. A tank top. A flannel shirt. Another pair of khaki shorts.
The clothing of abducted women. That’s where Mrs. Pall got Vee’s new clothes. A joke. A dark one.
She almost gets me as I exit the closet. I see a flash of movement and duck; her bullet punches the wood over my head. I want to fire back, but I know I’d be wasting the shot; she was already on the move when she pressed the trigger. I hear her shoes hitting the wood of the hallway. Then muffled thumps.
She’s going down the carpeted stairs.
I follow, because if she’s going downstairs, she must have a way into the cellar.
By the time I get halfway down, I can see her turning toward the office door, and I aim and fire.
I miss.
The recoil throws me back, jars loose the kitchen rag I’m using as a plug in the wound, and this time the haze descends and buries me in fog. I struggle up again. This isn’t a pump shotgun; I have no more shells. I drop it and stumble down the rest of the steps, turn the corner, and see that she’s got the office door open.
She’s at the bookcase. She has a remote in her hand.
I grab the letter opener from Hector Sparks’s desk, and I bury it in her back. It punches all the way through and emerges from the other side, filmed with blood. She screams, drops the remote, and turns the gun on me. I have no choice; I grab for it. We struggle. I hear the bookcase click open, and I think, No, no, but she has her way to her brother now, and if I don’t get this gun away from her, my kids will stand no chance at all. The fog is thick. My body feels heavy and slow, my brain oddly weightless. But the image of my daughter in shackles on that little girl bed digs one last ounce of strength out of my failing muscles, and I bend Mrs. Pall’s arm sharply up and in . . . just as she fires.
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