The Missing

Darby stood, dizzy in the dark. She tried to breathe it away as she patted down her body. Her jacket was gone, but she was still wearing her clothes and boots. Her pockets had been emptied. She wasn’t bleeding and she didn’t seem hurt, but her legs wouldn’t stop shaking.

The dizziness passed. Now she had to get her bearings.

Hands reaching out through the cool darkness, Darby inched forward, stopping when her fingertips bumped up against a flat, rough surface – a concrete wall. She moved to her left, counting her steps, one, two, three – her leg bumped up against something hard. She reached down, felt the shape with her hands. A cot. Five steps and the wall ended. Turn. Six steps, another bump against her leg. Here was a toilet. She was in a prison cell similar to the one that she had seen at Boyle’s house, the one that had held Carol.

A buzzer sounded, loud and angry like the ringing of a school bell.

The door was opening, clank-clank-clank, a thin skin of light parting the darkness of her prison cell.

She needed to defend herself. She needed a weapon. Search the cell. Everything was bolted down. There was nothing in here she could use.

The door had opened to a corridor of very dim light.

Music started playing – Frank Sinatra’s ‘I Get a Kick Out of You.’

Evan didn’t come in.

The dizziness was gone, lost in the adrenaline. Think.

Was Evan waiting for her to come out?

Only one way out, Darby inched closer to the strange corridor, straining to listen for any sound behind the music. Watch for sudden movement. If he came at her, she’d go straight for the eyes. The son of a bitch couldn’t hurt her if he couldn’t see.

Darby stood with her back against the cell wall. Okay. Get ready to run. Her heart was racing faster, faster… Okay, do it now. She turned and stepped into a long corridor holding six doors made of wood.

All of the doors were shut. Some had doorknobs. Two of them were padlocked.

Across from the doors were four opened prison cells. Darby checked the other three rooms. Empty. She checked them for something to use a weapon. Nothing. Everything was bolted down. In the last cell she detected an intense body odor that immediately reminded her of Rachel Swanson. This was where Rachel Swanson had been kept. This was where Rachel Swanson had lived all those years.

The alarm bell sounded again. The steel doors clanked shut and locked into place.

A new sound coming from somewhere far ahead of her – doors opening and slamming shut, opening and slamming shut.

Evan. He was coming for her.

She had to move, had to think about moving, but get moving to where? Pick a door.

Darby tried the one directly in front of her. It was locked. The door next to it was unlocked. She opened it and stepped into the kind of maze that haunted her dreams.

Facing her was a narrow corridor with no lights. She could make out the shape of four doors, two on each side – no, five, there was a fifth door at the end of the corridor. The walls were made of nailed-up sheets of plywood. Some of the wood had been split open. She looked through a small hole and peered into another room similar to this one.

And then it hit her, the numbers and letters Rachel Swanson had written on her arm and on the map – they were directions for this maze. Rachel had figured out a way through each of the doors.

Darby scrambled to recall the combinations of numbers and letters as doors opened and slammed shut all around her – someone else was in here besides Evan. Was Carol here? Was she alive? How many women were down here and why were they ru

No time to think, Darby moved into another room, this one with two doors to choose from, only one unlocked. There were holes in the wall. Bullet holes. Evan had his gun. If he had a gun, oh Jesus, what would she do – what could she do? She couldn’t do anything. She had to keep moving and find a way to sneak up on him and hurt him. First, she needed to find something to use as a weapon, had to find it quick.

Darby froze. Someone was moving closer.

The next room was bigger, with four doors. One of them was padlocked. She slipped inside and tried one door, and when it opened, she headed into another room, closing the door softly behind her, not wanting to give away her location.

This room had a corridor so narrow she had to go down it sideways. Some of the doors, she noticed, could be locked from the inside. Some had no doorknobs at all. Some rooms had no doors, just doorways. Why the variations?

They hunt their victims down here. They hunt them through this maze and let them try to find places to hide to make the hunt more exciting.

Moving deeper into the maze of changing rooms, her eyes adjusting to the darkness, pieces of her conversation with Rachel came back to her: There’s no way out of here, there are only places to hide… doesn’t matter if you go right or left or straight, they all lead to dead ends, remember?… There’s no way out of here. I tried.

There had to be a way out of here. Rachel Swanson had survived down here for years; there was a way out, or at least a place to hide –

A piercing scream made Darby jump.

THUMP and the woman screamed again – she was close, somewhere behind this thin wall. More doors opened and shut. How many women were down here?

‘HEEEEEEEEEEELP.’

Not Carol’s voice. Darby didn’t know who the woman was, but she was close. Call out and let her know she wasn’t alone? No, don’t give away your location. Darby crept deeper into the maze, quickly taking in each room’s markings as she searched the floors, hoping to find a piece of wood to use as a club, anything.

Here was a room with splintered wood on the concrete floor. Black liquid was leaking from beneath one the doors. Darby knew what it was even before she knelt down. Blood. She could smell it. The door facing her wasn’t locked. She eased it open. Please God, don’t let Evan be in there.

A woman lay facedown on the floor, blood pooling beneath her. Seeing how she had been butchered caused a scream to rise in Darby’s throat.

Darby stifled it back, her whole body shaking, her mind reeling as she looked around – bloody footprints were on the floor. The footprints moved down the corridor and disappeared. Evan was gone.

Faint movement coming from the wall behind her. No door here, but near the bottom of the floor was a rectangular-sized hole large enough for her to move through. Was Evan in there?

Darby had to look, didn’t want to look. She got on her knees and peeked through the hole, looking up into the room at Carol Cranmore’s small, trembling frame.

Chapter 67

‘Carol,’ Darby whispered. ‘Carol, down here.’

Carol Cranmore, crouching down on the floor, stared at Darby through the hole.

‘I’m with the police,’ Darby said. ‘Are you hurt?’

Carol shook her head, her eyes wide and terrified.

‘I think there’s enough room for you to wiggle through,’ Darby said. ‘Come on, I’ll help you.’

Carol shimmied through the hole of jagged wood and got stuck. Darby grabbed Carol’s hands and pulled her through, the ragged ends of the split wood scratching her legs. Carol was barefoot. Her feet and ankles were scraped, bleeding in spots. She was dressed only in her underwear and bra and she was trembling.

‘He’s holding an axe, I saw him –’

‘I know who he is,’ Darby said. ‘I need to know where he is. Have you seen him?’

Carol shook her head.

‘How many people are down here with us? Do you know?’

‘I’ve heard some people – some women – but I’ve only seen one. She was bleeding. I was trying to wake her up when he came for me and I ran away and saw a skeleton.’ Carol’s face collapsed. ‘Please, I don’t want to die –’