“Dirt.”
“No basement?”
“No, sir. Just the slab cement foundation you’re looking at and then more dirt.”
“What about Bobby Frick? How has his behavior been lately?”
Nall shrugged one broad shoulder. “Who knows? He hasn’t been here all week. Called in sick Monday and then we heard nothing since then. I told my guys, he’d better be in the hospital or something if he wants back to work after this. I never imagined he was mixed up in a kidnapping.”
“Does he have a locker or a desk of some sort?”
“A locker, yes. This way.”
Ellery rejoined them as they went past the break room with its vending machines and cheap plastic chairs. “I don’t see any sign of her,” she said to Reed.
Nall opened the locker and Reed stepped forward to examine the meager contents. He found a plaid shirt on a hook, a half-empty water bottle, a few toiletries, and a nature photograph tacked to the inside door. “Nothing of note here,” he reported with dismay.
“He’s keeping her somewhere that has a fieldstone foundation,” Ellery said, grabbing the photograph for study. “Maybe an off-site job?”
“We provide materials for construction,” Nall said. “Fieldstone foundations are not common anymore, but sometimes the older ones need repairs.”
“Can you check your work logs?” Ellery asked as she put the photo back in the locker. “See if you have any recent jobs that involve fieldstone?”
“Yes, of course. I just need to boot up the computer.” They followed him to his office and waited while he logged in and searched their records. “Nothing in the past two months,” he told them with regret. “Our last completed job was repair of a fieldstone wall at an estate in Marblehead, Massachusetts. Before that, we did a new wall for one of the city parks.”
“What about the unfinished jobs?” Reed asked.
“They would be ongoing,” Nall explained. “Lots of people in and out. Except…” He stroked his chin, considering. He sat forward again and hit a few more keys. “We had a contract fall through in May. The buyer failed to make payments and the bank seized the property with construction half-finished. Nobody’s been paid yet, so as far as I know, there’s just half a house sitting there.”
“Did Bobby Frick work on that job?” Ellery asked with renewed interest.
Nall turned the monitor around so they could read the address and crew list. “Yes, he did.”
Ellery was in motion the moment the words left Nall’s mouth, and Reed scrambled to keep up. “You want backup?” Osborne called from behind them.
“Yes, please!” Reed yelled back. The dirt kicked up under his feet as he ran.
Ellery started the car just as he reached it and clambered inside, her eyes bright on his. “This is it,” she said. “I can feel it.”
Reed sensed it, too, in the tightening of his gut and the zinging of adrenaline in his veins. “You need to prepare yourself for a potentially bad outcome.” He said it for her benefit and for his own. He began every chase hoping to find the child alive but knowing the odds were not in his favor. The worst part of his job was showing up to meet parents with ashen faces streaked with tears, begging for the return of children Reed knew were already dead. You have to keep hope, he’d tell them, while mentally prepping himself for the opposite. No matter how many times he made this journey, he hadn’t worked out how to harden himself enough. The end crushed him every time.
“She’s alive,” Ellery said with certainty.
He didn’t argue with her. He couldn’t. Sixteen years ago, he’d used a crowbar to open a closet he’d been sure would be a coffin. Every other girl Coben took had been dead by then. “It’s a left up here,” he said.
Ellery turned off the highway onto a more rural road that was framed by tall trees and dangling branches on either side. It reminded him of Woodbury and how quickly civilization could disappear in the rearview mirror. Occasional mailboxes popped up along the sidelines, indicating there were houses set far back behind the woods, hidden in the dark by long, winding driveways and the thick brush of the forest. Ellery turned on the high beams. “I can barely see a thing.”
Movement triggered alarm in his peripheral vision. “Look out!” he hollered just as a deer darted out across the road in front of them. Ellery hit the brakes and swerved to the side, running the right-hand wheels into a ditch. They both breathed unsteadily as a stream of several more deer took a leisurely stroll from one side of the woods to the other. The windows of the SUV began to fog.
Behind them, blue lights appeared as Osborne and his team caught up. Ellery gunned the engine and pulled the car back out onto the road. “It should be up here on the left somewhere,” she said, leaning forward and squinting.
Reed spotted an opening in the trees just as they were nearly past it. “There.”
She turned at the last minute, sending him up against the door again. He righted himself as she took them through the tunnel of trees and down the pitch-black dirt road. The SUV rose and fell like a Martian rover over the bumpy terrain, rattling his brain inside his skull. He wanted to tell her to slow down but knew the words would be futile. At last, the trees parted to reveal the husk of a house—frame and walls in place, the roof partly done, but no front steps or windows. “This is it,” Ellery said, eyeing the fieldstone foundation. She grabbed her flashlight and leaped from the car. Reed took his own light and followed close behind as the remaining cars rolled up the road.
Ellery climbed through the opening that would have been the front door. Reed shone his flashlight in and saw that there was a subfloor in place. He climbed up as well while Ellery pushed deeper into the house. He heard only the sounds of her moving up ahead of him. “Here!” she called out, and he followed her voice to the top of the basement stairs.
“Careful,” he murmured as she started down the rickety temporary steps that were only half-formed. He tested the first one and the thin piece of wood bowed under his weight. When they reached the bottom, Ellery went left while he took the right.
“Chloe?” she called. Silence.
Reed shone his light around, picking up cobwebs and dead leaves accumulated in the corners. He saw a muddy boot print on the floor, but he couldn’t say when it had been left there. At the back, he found an actual wooden door. It might have led to the furnace room. He tugged, but it held fast. Not locked, he realized, but swollen shut from the humidity. “I’ve got something,” he said to Ellery. She appeared at his side to help him tug on the door. With both their weight, it lurched free, sending them stumbling backward.
The scent of urine coming from the room hit him hard. Ellery grabbed up her flashlight and he blurted, “Wait.” Just a few more seconds and there would be no denying what was on the other side.
Ellery reached the threshold and let out a horrified gasp. He braced himself as he looked over her shoulder. There in the corner was the cage from the picture, the door hanging open. Inside on the floor lay a small figure with blond hair, curled up and motionless. She had a plastic bag over her head. “Chloe,” Ellery called as she rushed over to her. “Oh God, no.” She fell to her knees, the flashlight going off-kilter as she grabbed up the girl from the cage. “It’s not real,” she said with utter relief. “It’s a mannequin.”
“What?”
“It’s a doll. Look.” She hauled out the mannequin to show him and he could see the face was painted on.
“What’s that?” Reed used his flashlight beam to point out another white card on the floor of the cage. Ellery pushed aside the doll to snatch it up. There was no name attached.
She opened the envelope to reveal a plain white index card inside. “‘Tell Teresa she’s too late.’”
Detective Osborne came thundering down the stairs with a pair of officers hot on his heels. “What’ve you got?”
“She’s not here!” Reed called out.
Osborne stuck his head into the room and made a face at the smell. “What’s that?” he asked,
shining his light on the mannequin. Reed noticed for the first time that the doll was dressed in the pink shirt and denim shorts Chloe had been wearing when she disappeared.
“It’s a doll made up to look like Chloe,” Ellery said.
“Jeez, he’s a crazy fucker, isn’t he?”
“We’re going to need another forensic team to go through this place,” said Reed. “Maybe we can find something to indicate where he’s taken her next.”
“What, like a scavenger hunt?” Osborne asked, incredulous. “Follow the clues, find the prize?”
Ellery jumped to her feet at his words. “Yes,” she said. “Exactly.” She dashed out of the room without further explanation, so Reed had to chase after her.
“Where are you going?” he asked as she went back out of the house toward her SUV. It was still running with its lights on.
“I’m going to find Bobby Frick.”
“He could be anywhere.” Lisa had listed three usual locations for him: his home, his work, and the great outdoors. New England had thousands of acres of forest and mountain territory in which to disappear.
“That picture he had in his locker—I recognize the rock bridge. It’s the same one that’s visible in the shot he took with Lisa back at his apartment. That means the place must have special meaning for him, right?”
“Probable, yes,” he said, admiring her insight. “We could ask Lisa where the picture was taken.”
“We don’t have to. I know it. It’s Marble Arch Park out in western Massachusetts. Bump and I used to go hiking there sometimes when I lived in Woodbury.” She climbed into the car and waved him along impatiently. “Are you coming?”
He glanced back at the house, torn. “We should take backup.”
“Not them. Someone has to stay here for the forensic team. We can radio for more help on the road.”
Convinced, he climbed in with her. “Then let’s go.”
29
Near midnight, the slow roll of Ellery’s tires crunched over the grit and bits of gravel that comprised the parking lot for Marble Arch. Moonlight shone on the wet leaves, the air heavy with humidity. She felt the hair curling at the back of her neck as she got out of the car. “Look at that,” she said, nodding in the direction of a white van at the end of the lot. It sported Rhode Island plates and was the only other vehicle nearby.
She and Reed approached from the rear, crouching to avoid being seen in the mirrors in case anyone was inside. Reed pulled out his phone to run the plates while Ellery slid alongside the van up to the driver’s-side door. “Nothing visible here.” She tried the handle and found it unlocked. The inside smelled like cigarettes and fried food. She found a cheeseburger wrapper on the floor and a soda bottle in the cupholder.
“The van is stolen,” Reed reported from outside. “It was reported two days ago.”
Ellery released the lock on the van’s rear doors and went around to open them. “This is definitely him,” she said, shining her flashlight into the cargo space. “There’s the missing camera.”
“Not to mention a half-dozen burner phones and a roll of duct tape.” Reed trained his light on the inside of the door. “Is that blood?”
Ellery leaned in to inspect the red-brown smear. “Yes, I think so. Already dried.”
Reed turned to look at the vast swath of trees behind them. “We’re going to need a search team.”
“Good, call them.” She started for the path.
“Ellery, wait.” He jogged after her. “There’s ten thousand acres in there, with no light.”
“I have a light.” She waved her flashlight at him and continued heading for the head of the trail. “We can’t wait. You said it yourself—he’s suicidal, and from the looks of things, he wants to take Chloe with him.”
“I know you want to find her, but—”
She halted and whirled on him, aiming the light right in his eyes. “When you found Coben’s farmhouse, did you stop to call for backup?”
He shielded his face with one hand. “You know I didn’t.” A dozen movie and TV reenactments over the years had dramatized the pivotal moment when Reed broke into the old farmhouse and discovered Ellery nailed into a closet.
Satisfied, she turned again and strode toward the black maw of the trail. Behind her, she heard Reed on the phone relaying their location and the latest developments. The heady wet-earth scent of the forest enveloped her as the trees blocked out the moon from overhead. Bugs chattered at her, their electric hum giving the woods their own unique pulse. Lovesick frogs burped out a mating song in the darkness. She slapped at the mosquitos that thrilled to the arrival of fresh flesh, dive-bombing her bare arms with hungry, stinging tongues.
Quickening footsteps behind her made her heart miss a beat, and she whirled to find Reed hurrying up the trail after her. “It will take time to mobilize everyone in the middle of the night,” he whispered to her. “But they’re on the way.”
Ellery reached a branching point in the trail—go higher toward the marble arch or lower down near the water. She cast her light on the ground for some indication of which way to go, but hundreds of hikers had probably passed this spot in the last few days. “We should split up.”
“No.”
“Yes. We can cover twice as much ground that way. You have your phone and I have mine. Contact me if you find anything.”
“Ellery…” She set her shoulders against further argument, but he merely brushed her arm with his fingertips. “Be careful.”
“You, too.”
Light on the path shrank by half when Reed’s flashlight disappeared onto the lower part of the trail. She could glimpse him at first, a flicker visible through the brush and branches, but then the light winked out for good. She stumbled over an exposed tree root, barely catching her balance. She couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead of her. An owl screeched its disdain for human intrusion into the nighttime hours, the sound like nails down her spine. She pressed onward and upward, her calves starting to twinge at the unrelenting climb. She and Bump usually took the trail at a slow pace.
The humidity dampened her T-shirt into a second skin and perspiration condensed on her forehead and upper lip. She paused to listen but heard only her own heightened breathing and the distant sound of rushing water. She was nearing the stone dam, which was itself a work of art comprised of marble bricks stacked more than sixty feet high. A crack of a branch to her left made her freeze. She trained her light into the forest and saw the glowing eyes of a pair of foxes looking back at her. They watched silently, heads turning in unison as she continued onward toward the sound of the water. As she neared the river, the trees thinned and parted to reveal the gleaming water.
Ellery halted. There, in the middle of the river, standing on one of the dam’s low columns, stood Bobby Frick. He was bare chested and staring down into the canyon below. Ellery knew the view was spectacular during the daylight hours—curved rocks carved out like honeycomb by the melting glaciers over thousands of years. The trickling of the river, slowed to a brook by the marble dam, bubbled over the rocks and highlighted their nooks and crannies. Bobby appeared to be unseeing, as if in a trance. Ellery took her phone out and texted Reed:
I FOUND BOBBY. HE’S ON TOP OF THE DAM. NO SIGN OF CHLOE.
She took a careful step from behind the protection of a tree so that she could get a better view of the surroundings. The fast-moving river stretched perhaps eighty feet wide and the other side of it was cast in deep shadow. She did not see any indication that Chloe was nearby, and she had a flash of terror that Bobby might be staring down at her in the ravine. She crept closer, moving in slow motion so as not to draw his attention. The roar of the water felt like it was inside her head. She held her breath as she reached the cliff’s edge. Her vision swam, vertigo seizing her as she forced herself to look at the bottom. She exhaled in a rush when she saw the naked rocks and water below. No Chloe.
She eased backward in relief. “Bobby Frick,” she called sharply, and his head whipped a
round to look at her. The square column he perched on was only about a foot above the waterline, just at the edge of where it went over the dam.
“Stay back!” He grabbed a gun from the waistband of his jeans and pointed it at her chest.
“Easy,” she said, holding up her hands. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
“Too late,” he said. Then he screamed it, head back and shouting to the sky, “You’re too fucking late!”
Ellery licked her lips and tried to remember Dorie’s training. Empathy first, no matter what horror they’ve committed. Make them believe you are a friend. “I’m sorry about your mother!” she yelled to him over the rush of the water. He stopped screaming and looked at her. “About Carol,” she continued as she stepped forward. “It’s awful what happened to her. What happened to you.”
“She was the hero. Everyone just forgot about her.”
“They focused on the boy,” Ellery agreed, keeping her tone neutral. She advanced a step closer to the rocky dam. “It wasn’t fair.”
“She tried to save his life. He wasn’t even her son. I was her son!”
“You were younger than him when it happened. Too young to lose a mother.”
He wiped his face on his bare arm, his hand still clutching the gun. “They sent me and Lisa to different homes. Hers was nice, I guess. Mine didn’t have enough food, and guess who got to eat last?”
“I’m sorry. I know how that goes. The empty feeling in your belly could swallow you whole. You can’t think about anything else.” She stepped up onto the edge where the water ran over the top, spreading her arms to keep her balance against the current. The cold river seeped into her boots, rising like the tide.
“What are you doing? I said stay away!” He pointed the gun at her again.
“I want to help you,” she said, standing still.
He gave a bitter laugh. “No one wants to help me. Except maybe Lisa, and she has her own life to worry about. I just drag her down.”
“That’s not true. Lisa loves you. She’s worried about you right now.” She waded in closer to him, water up past her knees now. “I talked to her earlier tonight, and she very much wants to see you.”
Every Waking Hour Page 26
