by S. B. Caves
‘Or what? Or what, Francine?’
‘Or this book signing will get a whole lot more interesting, that’s what.’
He shook his head in disgust. ‘Have it your way.’
‘I didn’t want things to have to come to this.’
‘I don’t even care. Will you do me the courtesy of staying out of sight for the next couple of hours, so I can at least pretend to be happy while I sign?’
‘I’ll be like a ghost,’ she said.
12
They found a dingy bar about five miles away from Barnes & Noble and sat in a booth. Will ordered a whiskey and Francine asked for soda water.
Will removed his sweater and undid the first three buttons on his shirt before massaging his neck. He hadn’t made eye contact with her since sliding into the booth.
‘So where’s your creepy little friend?’ he asked when the drinks arrived. He held the glass to his forehead like an ice pack.
She waited until the barman was out of earshot before replying. ‘She jumped off a bridge.’
‘I see.’
‘That’s not a joke, by the way. She literally jumped off a bridge.’
‘I don’t care. Why am I here, Francine?’
‘Because I thought you might want to know some of the revelations I’ve learned about our daughter’s kidnapping.’
‘Revelations … Jesus Christ on a crutch,’ he muttered and sipped the whiskey. ‘Don’t tell me – you went back to a palm reader and she gave you the location where Autumn is buried. Is that it?’
‘How can you talk like that? How could you even make a joke so crass?’
‘It wasn’t a joke,’ he shrugged, rattling the ice around the glass. ‘I’m simply saying that it wouldn’t surprise me if one of these nutcases you’ve been cavorting with told you that Autumn was buried in the Grand Canyon. Same way it wouldn’t surprise me if you went there and tried to look for her.’
‘She’s still alive, Will. And she’s less than a hundred miles from where we’re sitting right now.’
‘Only a hundred miles, huh?’
‘Do you want to hear what I’ve got to say or not?’
‘Why are you even bothering to tell me, Francine? It’s obviously some cockamamie theory that doesn’t mean anything to anyone.’
‘Not this time,’ Francine said. ‘This is the real deal.’
‘Real deal. Got it.’
‘What I’m about to tell you is going to sound strange. I still find it hard to believe, but I don’t doubt for one second that it’s true.’
‘Why would you?’ he muttered.
‘So here goes. One of the men who is directly involved in our daughter’s kidnapping – who still has contact with her – is …’ she paused, swallowed a lump, ‘Glenn Schilling.’
Will froze mid-sip. ‘Glenn Schilling?’
‘There’s a whole bunch of them, not just him, but he’s the most high-profile, I think. They have these parties in the woods and at his house, and they take the girls there. And they do things with them …’
‘Glenn Schilling? From TV? That’s who you mean, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re wrong. You’re so wrong it’s scary.’
‘I’m not wrong.’
‘Goddam it, you are,’ he said, exasperated. ‘You can’t just spout that kind of thing, Francine. The man’s an icon.’
‘So?’
‘So? He’s probably raised more money for children’s hospitals than anyone in this country.’
‘That doesn’t mean a fucking thing.’
‘Doesn’t it?’ He cocked his head, his eyes filling with contempt. ‘He was kind enough to come to a few of the benefits I threw for Autumn a few years back. I’ve spoken to the man. He hasn’t got a bad bone in his body. He’d give you the shirt off his back if you asked for it. Every time I met him, he’d write me a cheque for ten grand right then and there.’
‘Well, there you go,’ she snorted, the blood rushing to her face. ‘He did that to gloat at you – at us. Ten grand, he probably loses more than that in his pockets when he gets his suits dry-cleaned.’ She shook her head, her fingers digging into the tabletop. ‘Schilling is in touch with the people that have Autumn, Will. You have to believe me.’
‘How do you know this all of a sudden? Who offered you this little pearl of wisdom? Not your cock-eyed loony pal, I hope. For God’s sake, this is worse than I thought.’ He palmed his head in despair. ‘Francine … you can’t believe this, can you? I mean, deep down.’
*If you’re tired, little girl … *
‘She might’ve been mixed up, but I think there was something there, Will. I know it; I can feel it.’
‘The same nut-job that freaked out when I said you should take her to the police, and then jumped off a bridge? Well shit, her words must be worth their weight in gold. What else did she tell you? I hope you got this week’s lottery numbers out of her.’
‘She said Glenn Schilling is in on this whole thing. He is the key to finding our daughter.’
‘Fine. He’s the key. Then go and tell all of this to the police if that’s what you really believe. Let them look into it.’
She shook her head. ‘Can’t do that. Lena said the police already know about Glenn. She said they already know about these parties. If I go running to the cops, all that will happen is they’ll move Autumn, maybe out of the state. Don’t you get it? If they catch wind that I know, then we’ll never find her. We’ve got to go in on this thing alone.’
‘We, Francine?’
‘Yes, we. You, me, her parents. We are going to find her together and bring her home. We should look into this, Will. What’s the harm in that? Just think about it. I mean, there is something off with Glenn Schilling, isn’t there? And the things Lena was saying … look at it like this, if she really was as crazy as we thought, how did she piece this whole story about Autumn together? Right now, Glenn Schilling is the one link we have. We need to follow it up.’
‘I can’t …’ he closed his eyes, ‘I can’t listen to any more of this insanity. I just can’t. I’m leaving.’
He began to slide out of the booth. Francine leaned across the table and clutched his arm. ‘What the hell has happened to you, Will? She’s our little girl. Don’t you care about her any more? You don’t love her, is that it? Your own flesh and blood!’
‘Take your hand off me, Francine.’ He spoke slowly. ‘Let me go.’
She released him and leaned back. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just sometimes it feels like given the choice, you’d be happy to never see Autumn again. And I wonder why, and the only thing I can come up with is that you think her coming back might in some way change what you have now. After all, you weren’t a millionaire before she went missing.’
His eyes became black coals. The muscles on either side of his jaw pulsed. ‘How fucking dare you?’ he hissed, so venomously that Francine thought he was going to reach over and strike her. He’d never been violent with her in the past, never shown so much as an inclination that he might get physical, even during their most tumultuous arguments. But now he was quietly furious, and as he sat there simmering, Francine knew he hated her; she could feel the loathing rolling off him in waves. ‘You really are just a horrible, horrible witch. I feel sorry for you, Francine. I honestly do. I hope you get the help you need.’
‘It’s true, though, isn’t it? You’ve made a whole career off our daughter’s disappearance. You make a hell of a lot more money now than you ever did in PR.’
The corners of his lips curled into a mirthless smile. ‘So this is what we’re really doing, is it? We’re going to lay everything out on the table? You know what, I never thought we were going to have this conversation – in fact I really hoped we wouldn’t. But if you want to come here with your guilt trips and your accusations, then I think it’s about time you heard some home truths. Are you ready?’
She crossed her arms. ‘Go ahead.’
‘You are the one who let Autumn go off on her o
wn that day. Not me. I’ve never put the blame on you for that because I knew it wasn’t your fault. She should’ve been under your supervision and she wasn’t. That’s point number one.’ He marked it off on his index finger. ‘Point number two, I did everything I could to raise awareness for our daughter. I was the one going on all the TV shows while you were feeling sorry for yourself, too drunk to even show your face. I was the one rallying around the neighbourhood, putting the flyers up, doing everything in my power to get her back. And what did you do? Drink vodka all day then piss our money away on your fucking psychics and TV evangelists. And I still didn’t say anything, because I knew you were in hell, I knew you blamed yourself, and you know something, Francine, you should have. Because you failed our daughter that day. That’s the black and white of it. But it could just as easily have been me that told her to go and get a snack while I looked at shoes.
‘In this equation we have you acting like a fucking psychotic, drinking until you blacked out or sobbing into a pillow, being absolutely no help to anyone. And then we have me – someone who tried to raise awareness for our daughter, someone who kept it together so he could talk to the press, the police or any neighbours who wanted to come by and offer a helping hand. Did you ever think that maybe all I wanted to do was get drunk too and just make this whole thing go away? Did you not think that maybe I was in pain?’ His voice quavered and he chewed on his bottom lip, his eyes suddenly glistening. ‘No, of course you didn’t. You probably don’t remember any of this anyway. I didn’t get any help from you. If there was ever a time when Autumn needed you, it was then, when everything happened, when we could’ve worked as a team to get her back. It’s no good coming to me now, Francine.’
He slammed the rest of his whiskey away then wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘So let’s move on to point number three.’
‘You’ve said enough,’ Francine said, staring at the grooves in the table, tears rolling down her cheeks, nostrils leaking.
‘No I haven’t. Not by a long shot. Point number three, you are bitter towards me because I managed to channel my pain into something positive. Whether you want to believe it or not, my books have helped people out there, Francine. They could even help you if you bothered to read them. Just look at the signing today. All those people were there to meet me because I’d been a positive influence in their life. You know how many women come up to me who have been abused? You know how many men tell me that my book helped them move on with their lives after their wife left them? And yes, I make a living off it. But you might recall that I had to quit my regular job because I spent the first year doing everything I could to find Autumn. You don’t just go back into an office job after something like that. And you begrudge me helping other people, Francine?’
‘I … I don’t begrudge you anything,’ she said petulantly, sniffing up snot.
‘Oh yes you do. Come on, we’re getting everything out on the table, aren’t we? And while we’re at it, let’s talk about Sheila. You hate the fact that I’ve moved on because you want everyone to be as miserable as you are. Well, she’s my wife now and we’re having a baby.’
‘I don’t want to hear this.’ She attempted to exit the booth, but this time it was Will that stopped her.
‘Oh no you don’t. You don’t get to leave yet. You stay right where you are. You’re going to hear this once, and never again. You have done nothing over these last ten years except feel sorry for yourself, grasping at straws, putting your faith in nonsense. None of this has anything to do with getting Autumn back, it’s always been about you trying to shed the guilt. You don’t need a witch doctor or a psychic or some carnival gypsy. You need a therapist. I’m not saying that to make you feel inferior. I’m saying it because I’ve been in therapy this last decade and it’s probably the only thing that stopped me from driving my car into a wall.’
He fell silent and the two of them sat there without speaking for a long time.
‘I don’t want to have this conversation ever again,’ Will said softly. ‘I hope you will respect that. And I hope you will take on board what I’ve said.’ He reached into his pocket, peeled off some notes and left them under his empty glass. Then he left.
He had just gotten into his car and put the key in the ignition when Francine emerged from the bar and called to him. ‘What is it?’ he asked as the window rolled down.
She approached the car and rested one hand on the roof for support. ‘I’m sorry, Will. I don’t know if I ever said that.’
‘You don’t have to apologise to me, Francine.’
‘You hate me, don’t you?’
‘No, of course I don’t.’
‘It’s just … sometimes I feel so alone.’
He nodded. ‘Sometimes I do too. I think about her every day. And nothing will ever replace her in my heart.’
‘Good,’ Francine said. ‘Then I was wondering if you might want to do me a favour.’
She saw his chest rise and fall. ‘What is it?’
‘You know some celebrities, right? I mean, I saw your book at the store and there were a lot of big names giving you praise.’
‘I don’t know them personally. My agent gets the book to them.’
‘Do you think your agent might know how I could find Glenn Schilling’s address?’
Will shook his head. The window rolled back up. The car drove away.
Francine stood there and watched it leave.
Part Two
13
The darkness was absolute, so black that it was disorientating. A heavy crown of pain sat on her head, and this bothered her far more than the very real iron ring around her neck. The ring, secured to a bolt in the wall, had about an inch of space so that she didn’t choke. She was well accustomed to it, knew how to sit so that she could at least find some semblance of comfort and snatch a few measly hours of sleep. But the headache reacted to the slightest movement, sending sparks shooting down her spine.
She sat with her back to the moist stone wall and made a game of feeling the links in the chain, following the curves with her fingers, wondering if there was any weakness in it. Her fingers came to the ring around her neck and she felt the grooves and outline of the screws. Even if she had a saw it would do no good; the teeth would be blunt well before she made so much as a meaningful scratch on the iron.
There was a dripping sound somewhere in the basement but she couldn’t work out where it was coming from exactly. Sometimes it sounded loud and sometimes it sounded faint. And sometimes the steady, almost reliable rhythm of the dripping would change – speeding up or slowing down or double-tapping – and she could not quite understand why. She had reached out her hand to the darkness in an effort to capture the droplets in her palm, but even straining against the chain did no good. So instead she licked the wall, her dry, rough tongue running over the bumpy surface. She was thankful of the brackish moisture that sweated on the stone surface, thankful even though it didn’t amount to so much as a sip of water. It didn’t quench her thirst but it helped to lubricate her mouth, which was as small a mercy as she could ever hope for.
She thought about trying to urinate into her hands for something to drink, but this was not her first time in the basement and it would not likely be her last. She knew that succumbing to filth would land her in far worse trouble when this punishment ended –it would end at some point, though she was not sure when. It was the longest amount of time she’d spent confined here, but how long that was exactly she couldn’t say. Over a week probably. Maybe two. All she knew was that there was darkness and it went on forever.
She couldn’t measure the days by how often the guard came. His visits were sporadic and brief, and he was always silent, manoeuvring through the basement with a flashlight as his guide, casting the beam over their eyes.
On their first night here, Mia had spoken out. She was new, a year or so into her stay, and it was her first trip to the basement. She’d had enough sense to whisper, to ask the others what was going on and
why they were being punished, but when only silence answered her, she began raising her voice, outraged at their lack of acknowledgement, and when her angry words still received no response, she started to scream. Soon enough the basement door swung open, and a silhouette appeared in the yellow rectangle of light, and then there was the awful sound of Mia being silenced. They hadn’t killed her, but that fact only became apparent much later when she started to weep through her broken jaw.
They lived with the sound of each other’s chains rattling, the occasional cough and sneeze, and the dry slap of weight being adjusted on the bare floor. Sometimes the ceiling would creak, and if she strained long enough, she thought she could make out the muffled sound of talking above them. But this could very well be her imagination, an auditory hallucination. Driven mad by thirst and sleep deprivation, she had come to almost enjoy these delusions. On one such occasion she had seen the basement light up to reveal that she was not in a basement at all but a park. It was a beautiful sunny day, the sky was a brilliant blue and there were people laughing and smiling all around her. She could even smell the freshly cut grass and marvel at a pair of white butterflies fluttering around one another, the sunlight streaming through their translucent wings. And there was someone over there on the hill, a woman …
Then the darkness slammed down and the mirage shattered, all those lovely details scattering to the farthest corners of her mind.
They all heard the footsteps from outside the basement door, though, and the chains began rattling as the girls sat to attention. They heard the key scratching around the lock, then voices – two men speaking. There was a click, a hum, and a blinding white flash as the sodium lights flickered on. A muted chorus of groans reverberated around the basement as they all clawed at their eyes. Someone jerked against their ring and started coughing.
‘Rise and shine, ladies, rise and shine.’ It was Joseph’s voice, high and jolly.
