by S. B. Caves
‘On the count of three, I’m going to pull this trigger unless I get a straight answer out of you. One …’
‘I swear he n-never told me he used this place.’ Cindy tilted her head back and sobbed grotesquely. With the amount of Botox she’d had, her forehead didn’t even crinkle.
‘Does Glenn get to call these people up and order the girls like some kind of takeaway service? How does it work?’
‘Member …’
‘Speak up.’
‘He’s a gold member. I can’t …’
‘He pays these people money, yes?’
Cindy nodded.
‘So they must have a location near here if he’s getting them delivered. There’s miles of forest out there. The house is somewhere in the forest, yes?’
‘I think … yes.’
Francine felt her heart leap in her chest, almost painfully. ‘Is there any way we can get them to deliver my daughter here without involving Glenn?’
Cindy shook her head, her sopping hair sticking to her milky cheeks. ‘He knows their number. I don’t speak to them directly. Only him.’
Francine stood up and paced the room pensively. It was only a matter of miles now. The only thing that stood between their reunion was a bunch of trees. And what else?
‘You’ve been to the big house? The one in the woods?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s the layout? How many girls do they keep there and what kind of security do they have?’
Cindy didn’t speak for a beat. Then she groaned again and said, ‘Lots of girls and lots of guards.’
‘How many guards? Come on, roughly, it doesn’t have to be an exact number.’
‘I don’t—’
‘Take a fucking guess, Cindy.’
‘Fifteen? Twenty. Something like that.’
‘Armed?’
‘Of course they’re fucking armed.’ She mewled like a cat. ‘They’ll kill you … just fucking … kill you …’
‘Does Glenn ever call these people up when there isn’t a gathering? Let’s say he came down here and ordered a specific girl, would they bring her?’
‘I don’t know. Probably.’ Francine removed her phone.
‘You better hope they do.’
22
The cell phone’s jagged ringtone pierced the silence. Through the steam of his coffee, Glenn watched it vibrate across the countertop. He did not immediately answer, but rather sat there, hands clasped around his cup, waiting for it to become inanimate again. One of the cleaners, Rosa, popped her head into the kitchen.
‘Your phone is ringing, Mr Schilling.’
Without looking away from it he replied, ‘Yes, I know.’
‘Would you like perhaps for me to answer?’ she asked, confused as to why he was letting the phone rattle away. Before he could speak, the phone went silent. ‘Never mind. I’m sorry to bother you, Mr Schilling.’
‘No bother,’ he said, still watching the phone. A couple of seconds later, it rang again. This time it managed to shake its way over to the edge of the counter. He thought about letting it fall and smash on the floor. Before it could, he put on his reading glasses and reached out to grab it. Holding the screen a few inches away from his face, he swiped the screen to answer it.
‘Glenn? Glenn, can you hear me?’
‘I can hear you,’ he said slowly.
‘Good. What … um …’ She coughed. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m having breakfast,’ he said drily.
‘Oh, right. What are you having?’
‘I’m having coffee,’ he sighed. She hadn’t picked up on the fact that it had gone four in the afternoon. ‘I’m not particularly hungry today for some reason. Can you guess why that might be?’
There was a pause. Her breath came through the speaker in a raspy crackle, as though she were holding her handset too close to her mouth. ‘Because I left last night?’
He sipped his coffee. ‘That could be it.’
‘Yeah …’ Another pause. Another cough. ‘I had to go suddenly.’
‘Yes, I noticed. You sent George on a wild goose chase as well. I’m guessing you have some sort of explanation to offer?’
‘I do. I’m at the house in Little Peace.’
Glenn carefully placed the cup down on the counter and gripped the phone tighter. ‘What are you doing there?’
‘I needed to get away.’
‘Did you now?’
‘Yeah. I just … I got frightened. I took some pills and I got spooked.’
‘Spooked?’
‘Yeah. I was thinking about—’
‘Don’t say anything stupid on the phone, Cindy.’ The first note of anger crept into his voice.
‘Sorry.’ She wheezed, coughed, groaned.
‘What’s the matter with you? You sound like a sick dog.’
‘Too much wine last night.’
‘Mmm. I noticed you didn’t take any of the cars. So who are you with?’
A pause. ‘I’m alone.’
‘No you’re not.’
‘I am,’ she croaked before clearing her throat. ‘I got a cab.’
‘A cab for almost two hundred miles?’
‘Yeah. So?’
He stroked his chin where the first dots of stubble were starting to sprout. He took a moment before speaking again.
‘Shall I tell Juanita to make dinner for you tonight?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘I see. Well, let me know when you’re coming home and I’ll have one of them make you something. Goodbye, Cindy.’
‘Wait … Glenn, wait. You still there?’
‘I’m here.’
‘I was thinking you could come down here. To the house.’
‘Why would I do that?’
‘It might be nice. We could go for a hike, walk along the beach …’
Glenn stood up from the stool. ‘Am I on speakerphone right now, Cindy?’
A pause. ‘Yes.’
‘Why am I on speakerphone?’
‘I’m not feeling well. I’m lying on the couch. Glenn? You still there?’
Ignoring her, he said, ‘Who are you with, Cindy?’
‘Nobody,’ she replied flatly.
‘Hmm. So you mean to tell me that there is nobody in that house with you right now?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Then I’m going to send George up to come and get you. I want you back here. If you want to walk on a beach, I’ll take you to California.’
‘No. I really think you should come here. Please don’t let me down, honey cake.’
The line went dead at her end. Glenn held the phone for a moment longer, fidgeting with anger and uncertainty, tapping his finger rhythmically on the screen, thinking.
Honey cake. Joseph’s wife made it at every gathering and it tasted godawful, but over the years Glenn and Cindy had used the term as their codeword: ‘Keep Friday clear in your diary, we’re going to get honey cake.’ But what did it mean in this context? Were they holding her for some reason? Were they mad at her for something – or more importantly, were they mad at him? If they were, then there was no need to be this cryptic. If they wanted him, they would scoop him right off the stage of his show on live TV if they had to.
He stood up and walked over to the back door that led to the garden as he considered the phone call. It was quite possible that all the strangeness was nothing more than her drug-induced paranoia. God only knew how many irrational episodes of hers he’d had to tolerate. Sometimes she would believe that there were people on the lawn spying on them with binoculars, or that members of the Group were driving by the house with listening devices to pick up on their conversations. Her latest concern was that there were men entering the house at night and creeping around inspecting things, an idea that obviously stemmed from the way the old place creaked and groaned at night.
The fear had been one element of his wife’s life that Glenn couldn’t fully control. It had grown worse the more she dabbled with t
hose wretched pills, until it had warped her mind completely. When she was awake she was unsure of reality, and when she was passed out she was dead to the world. In all instances she was a liability, but a necessary accessory to his life. It was her simple-mindedness that had caught his attention in the first place and made her a suitable candidate for the role of his wife. Her willingness to detach her feelings and her complete lack of a moral code – accompanied by what had once been a stunningly beautiful face – had made her a worthy asset. But he’d always known the day would come when she would trip him up. When her drug use increased and rendered her housebound, he had thought it would work to his advantage. She was easier to control this way, less opinionated, less prone to show him up in public. The opiates massaged all her stubbornness away until she was nothing more than flesh on a stick.
But now this.
‘What to do, what to do, what to do …’ Glenn muttered as he watched a crow swoop down to the poolside and dip its beak in the water.
As he saw it, one of three possible things might’ve happened. The first was that Cindy was telling the truth and had gone overboard with the pills, had a psychotic episode and fled the house. Getting a cab to drive all the way to Little Peace was indeed excessive, but it fitted the scenario. The second possibility was that she’d been summoned to Little Peace by someone from the Group, though Glenn couldn’t understand why. If they wanted to hurt her, they would do it here; there was no need to play a game of cat-and-mouse. He knew he was powerless against them, so this whole ambiguous charade didn’t quite fit. The only other thing that he could think might have happened was that Cindy was luring him into some kind of trap. Did she have a lover? Was she attempting to overthrow him, maybe set him up to take a fall and make it look like an accident? She wouldn’t be that stupid, though, would she? She might just be.
Glenn thought about calling Joseph, had even located his number in the phone book, but finally decided against it. If this was nothing to do with the Group, his call would raise suspicions and then they would surely investigate. They kept tabs on all their members, of course, but this line of action would warrant further scrutiny, and frankly, he didn’t need that kind of pressure, not at his age.
He remained calm as he strolled through the house to the studio and punched in the code to unlock the door. That calmness rippled inside him when he noticed that the monitors were all switched off. They were never switched off. He turned them back on, logged into the Mac and attempted to locate the footage from the last twenty-four hours. He couldn’t. He phoned Steve, the computer guy.
‘Hi, Steve, it’s Glenn. How are you?’
‘Oh hi, Glenn, I’m good, thanks. You?’
‘Smashing, smashing. Listen – would you happen to know why the security monitors were all turned off in the studio? I’m assuming you haven’t been here in the last week or so?’
‘Uh, no, but Cindy called me late last night talking about the cameras, so it might’ve been her. Did you check with her?’
‘No, not yet. What did she call you about?’ Glenn attempted to avoid making the question sound accusatory, but was unable to fully dilute the concern in his voice.
‘She, um … she asked me how to wipe the cameras. So I talked her through it.’
‘Did she say why?’
‘No, I don’t think she did.’
Glenn nodded. ‘All right, that’s great.’
‘Is everything okay?’
‘Everything is dandy, thanks, Steve. Give my best to your wife, won’t you?’
‘Sure will, Glenn. You need me to come round and fix it all up?’
‘No, that won’t be necessary, Steve. You have a nice day.’
Glenn ended the call and strode through the house, passing the various cleaning staff tending to their duties. His chest felt like a clenched fist as he picked up the pace, breaking into a jog. He burst through the door of the master bedroom and continued down the glass tunnel until he reached the study. By this time he was wheezing, and his heart was thumping like a temperamental drum.
As he walked over to the bookcase, the ripple of worry became a rough tide. He slid the door aside and ventured up the narrow stairs. Everything looked just the way he’d left it, yet something niggled at him. There was definitely something amiss, he just couldn’t place it right away. Was it the smell? No, he didn’t think so. Had Cindy been up here and disturbed something? God, just the thought of her coming into his private place made him want to smash her skull to pieces. He bent down and pressed the eject button on the DVD player.
There was no disc inside.
He began to cough involuntarily. His head swam with confusion. It was then that he noticed that his collection of DVDs looked smaller, though he couldn’t be sure if he was imagining it. Damn it, he knew he should have taken better care of them. It would hardly have taken an effort to buy cases and organise them in some sort of coherent order.
He went back downstairs and slid the bookcase closed, then called Cindy. She didn’t answer. When it went through to voicemail he said, ‘I would like you to call me back as soon as humanly possible, please. Thank you.’
He stood there in the study watching the phone in his palm, waiting for it to flash to life. After five minutes or so, he tried again. This time it went straight to voicemail.
He began to laugh. This was by far the most interesting thing she’d ever done in all the years she’d been married to him. It was also the angriest he’d ever been with her, and that too was new. He never really managed to get beyond disinterested annoyance, and now he was seething. All he knew for certain at that moment was that if she didn’t have a good explanation for this foolery, he would kill her.
23
The distant sound of voices roused her. Autumn peered out from her hiding place beneath the knot of tree roots. The space was just large enough to keep her concealed from view and had sheltered her from the rain during the night. She hadn’t expected to sleep. She had run through the forest aimlessly, tripping and sliding on wet bark, scraping her skin on foliage, stubbing her toes on mossy rocks, and had almost broken her ankle half a dozen times. It was only when her body began to rebel and each exhalation felt like her lungs would burst that she slowed to a walk. She was limping through the darkness, feeling her way blindly with only the full moon to offer light. In the pale glow, she spotted the bolthole, wandered over and crawled inside. Her body began to recognise the cold again, and she shivered, rubbing her arms for warmth. She scooped leaves over herself to form some damp insulation, which kept the chill at bay until sleep took her.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d been out for. She lay there rigid, eyes peeled. She knew the search party couldn’t have brought the Jeeps this deep into the forest. One thing she had remembered to do was deviate from the natural path that led to the main road, choosing to clamber over hills and along trenches instead, navigating felled logs that would prevent a car’s progress. It was the only way she could put herself on some sort of even ground with them, making sure they would have to track her on foot. She’d had maybe an hour’s head start, and she’d used the time well.
One of the many problems she’d woken up with, she now knew, was that she’d strayed too far from the path and was unsure of which direction she’d come. The only indication was the sound of the guards, but even that was difficult to determine, the way their voices bounced off the trees and ricocheted around her. They had the dogs with them too, and each time one of them bayed, Autumn flinched.
She waited and listened, never taking her eyes off the arrangement of trees directly in her line of sight. She noticed her breath escaping her mouth in little clouds, and to prevent it, she began breathing through her nose instead. Her teeth chattered, but she couldn’t seem to do anything about that.
The voices became louder, and she was soon able to identify words and decipher snippets of dialogue. The barking seemed sporadic enough, which she supposed was a good thing. The guards certainly didn’t seem alarmed at how vocal the
dogs were; in fact quite the opposite. She heard one of them tell a dog to shut the fuck up; the dog barked back by way of reply and laughter followed.
‘I feel like we’re close now, boys,’ one man said, as their bodies carved out silhouettes in the mist. Five of them were combing the area, coming directly towards her. Autumn began to pee involuntarily, and the warm urine was soothing against her cold legs.
They stopped at the foot of an incline that would lead them directly to her. Each one held a rifle. Suddenly the dog began bucking against its leash.
‘I said shut your noise, you stupid fucking mutt!’ the guard yelled, and his words travelled all the way up to Autumn. He sounded tired and bored.
When the dog didn’t obey the command, one of the other guards said, ‘She might’ve picked something up.’
‘Yeah, probably another fucking woodchuck.’
Autumn could see the dog’s eyes staring up at her as though it could see her, yet the men surrounding the animal did not follow its gaze.
‘You wanna let her off the leash just in case?’
‘I’m not going after her if she decides she don’t wanna come back when I call her.’
‘Hector, don’t be a fuckin’ asshole. The dog might’ve picked up the scent.’
‘Fine, I’ll let her go. But look here: all around where we’ve been walking there are twigs and branches and shit covering up holes like a bunch of sand traps. If she falls into one and fucks her leg up, I’m putting a bullet through her head and one of you motherfuckers can explain to Joseph why we came back short one dog.’
The other guards laughed. Hector removed his cap, wiped his brow, then spat on the floor. ‘She’s seen a woodchuck. I’m not in the mood for it.’
The dog tugged against the leash, desperate to hunt.
‘That’s why we brought the dogs, idiot. I’d rather come back short one dog and with the girl,’ one of the men said. ‘Y’all keep laughing and joking, but it’s our fucking asses if we don’t find this little bitch.’
‘She ain’t this way, I’m telling you,’ said another; Autumn thought he was called Danny. He turned and pointed east. ‘If she’s anywhere, she’s by the road. Ain’t no way she made it this deep through the night. Too fucking dark. If she’s clever, she’ll have stuck to the road. Only thing likely to happen if we keep on this direction is we’ll get ourselves lost, and that will be a whole lot fuckin’ worse than a dead dog. We already look like a bunch of assholes as it is.’
