Jilliane Hoffman (36 page)

84

By the time he’d called 911 and kicked in the front door, flames were licking at the top of the staircase on the second floor. Smoke had started to fill the old house.

Bobby drew his gun, cautiously stepping into the foyer, wincing at the sharp pain in his right hand. An accidental fire while he was sitting in the driveway waiting for the cavalry to arrive was no accident. Felding was here. Somewhere. Or his partner. And while Bobby didn’t want to give away his position for his own safety, if girls were locked away or hidden in the house and they were still alive, the quickest way to find them would be to have them call back to him. That meant they had to know he was here.

‘Police!’ he shouted, almost tripping over the two- and three-foot stacks of old newspapers and cardboard boxes filled with what looked like junk that lined the dark hallway leading to the stairs. The sun was almost down, there were no streetlights and a noxious gray haze was quickly filling the house. ‘This is the police! Call out if you can hear me! Police!’ An old wood-frame Victorian was a tinderbox. Bobby knew it would not take long before the whole place went up. Maybe he could get the fire under control himself. Buy a little time till the fire department – which was God knows how many miles away – finally arrived. He raced up the stairs.

The fire had obviously started in a front bedroom on the second floor, which was now engulfed in flames. If there had been anyone in there, he or she was no more. The door had been left open, and the fire was quickly spreading into the hall. In fact, the pink flowered draperies that decorated the picture window were already lit on one side, the flames feeding on the wall. Once it ignited the hall ceiling, flames would roll over the heavy old plaster like the wave at a baseball game. There was no way to put it out. And once it entered the walls, it would shoot up into the attic, and it would be over in minutes. He didn’t have much time.

‘Police!’ he yelled again. Three more rooms shot off the upstairs hallway, but those doors were all closed. The smoke was thick and it was almost impossible to see more than a few feet in front of him. He dropped to his knees and crawled to the first closed door. He heard the crack and pop of glass behind him in the front bedroom, followed by a whoosh as the fire welcomed in the oxygen from outside. Visibility on the floor below the rising smoke was better – at least he could see where he was going. He had to take his chances that either Felding or his possible partner weren’t waiting for him behind one of the doors, sitting on a bed with an AK47 and a twisted smile. He reached up and flung open door number one, rolling into the room quickly to dodge a bullet, if necessary.

There was no Felding. No deadly cohort lying in ambush. But the bedroom itself looked like a scene from out of a horror movie. Even through the heavy smoke he could make out the long chains, suspended from the ceiling like chandeliers. Iron shackles were secured to metal bedposts. It was either a torture chamber or a masochist’s playroom. He checked everywhere – no bodies, alive or dead.

He crawled back out into the hallway and over to door number two, reaching up again and praying as he turned the knob that the wrong person wouldn’t be there to greet him on the other side. Again he found the same macabre ceiling fixtures, plus a medieval-looking high-back chair with metal clamps fastened to a headrest and spiked shackles to lock in the arms. No bad guys. No bodies.

The third bedroom was completely empty.

‘Police!’ he shouted as he crawled out into the hall and back to the stairs. ‘Shout if you’re here!’

And just like in a movie under the hand of a skilled director, right on cue, Bobby got his response – the deafening, unmistakable blast of a shotgun.

85

Where had the shot come from? Where the hell was the guy? Had it been aimed at him?

Bobby’s head jerked in a hundred directions. In the thick smoke he lost his bearings and half stumbled, half fell down the stairs and back into the foyer. He recovered quickly, his Glock still clutched firmly in his hand, which was throbbing. He squinted into the smoke that was growing heavy on the first floor, and looked everywhere, all at once.

Where the hell was he?

There was no time to sit around and strategize. No time to worry about himself. Once the fire got into the attic, the roof would likely collapse. Floor by floor, the layers of the house would fail. He wiped the smoke from his stinging eyes.

Think, Bobby, think. Where would he have put them? Where the hell would they be?

He thought of Jane Doe’s hands, the dirt pushed so far up her nail beds it was embedded in her skin. She had been clawing her way out of her own tomb …

WELCOME TO BELLE GLADE. HER SOIL IS HER FORTUNE.

Downstairs.

A basement.

But Florida didn’t have basements, right? They had crawl spaces. Where the hell would the crawl space be?

He stood up and, hugging the wall, followed it into what looked like a round reception parlor. More cardboard boxes of junk and bundled newspaper stacks cluttered the floor. His head darted everywhere, searching for a madman through smoke that was growing increasingly thick. His eyes were tearing, his throat closing. Through the parlor he exited into what had at one time probably been the dining room for the B & B’s guests. Several small tables had been pushed to the far wall. Chairs were stacked on top of them. A tremendous red-velvet Chippendale wing chair sat facing the room’s dark oak fireplace, its worn back to Bobby and the room’s entrance off the parlor. Flanking the fireplace on display easels were three paintings. Portraits. Macabre renderings of death, styled like Gale Sampson, Rosalie and Roseanne Boganes, and Jane Doe’s final moments.

Bobby edged closer. He could see the milky white flesh of a hand on the armrest. The tip of a loafer on the carpet. With his gun aimed in front of him, he came upon the chair.

Sitting there, like some ghoulish greeter at the Haunted Mansion, was Mark Felding, dressed in a suit and tie, his WTVJ 6 press credentials around his neck, a Bible on his lap. Atop the Bible was a shotgun. Felding’s gloved finger was still on the trigger.

He was missing his face.

Fucking coward got off way too easy, Bobby thought in disgust, kicking the bastard’s foot to make sure he was dead. The body slumped over.

He rushed past what was left of Felding and into an enormous kitchen. A bed and breakfast would have to have extra room for food storage, he thought. Perhaps a root cellar or a wine cellar. Or a canning room. He only had time for one guess, and this was it. The fire was probably already in the attic. He thought of his daughter.

Look, Daddy, you’re famous! You’re a hero!

But am I your hero, Kit-Kat?

Always, Daddy …

He hoped for her sake he was right.

There was a door next to the refrigerator. He ran over and pulled it open.

It was a pantry. Still filled with tons of canned goods and gross-looking glass jars filled with what he hoped was just old fruit that no one had thrown out after a few years.
Damn
. He desperately looked around the kitchen.
Where would the crawl-space door be?

‘Police! This is the police!’ he shouted again, circling the room like a caged animal. They were almost out of time. ‘Is there anybody here? Elaine Emerson? Lainey? Katy? Katy, are you here? Can anybody hear me? Anybody? Damnit! Answer me, somebody!’ he pleaded.

And to his surprise, someone did.

86

‘Police! This is the police!’

It was very, very faint. The voice. But it grew just a little closer.

‘Call out if you hear me!’

Almost simultaneous to hearing the voice, Lainey smelled the smoke. It, too, was very, very faint. But getting stronger.

Footsteps walked somewhere above her and Lainey started to shake. She was petrified. Literally paralyzed by this cold fear that gripped her body where she sat. She thought of that time with Katy when they were convinced they were being rescued, but it was really just The Devil back from a long holiday. He had taken Katy after that. And Lainey had vowed she would always be a good girl. She had promised him. She didn’t want to be taken away. No matter how much she wanted to go home, she didn’t want to go away screaming like Katy.

‘Police!’

It was probably a trick. A test, was all. The Devil was testing her to see if she would be good. If she was true to her word. That was it.

But then there was the smoke. It was definitely smoke. And not cigarette smoke. Or burning leaves smoke. It was heavy, noxious-smelling smoke, like the Easter when her brother had set an oven mitt on fire. It wasn’t overpowering, but it was definitely there.

Her fingers went to her bandaged eyes. What should she do? What if it really was the police and she never spoke up?

She heard Katy’s voice in her head. Her words sounded loud and clear, like the day she had excitedly uttered them, a few months or weeks or days back.

Maybe someone’s here to
save
us! And if we don’t make noise, they’ll leave and we’ll never be found. Yell! Yell with me, Lainey, so they can hear us! We’re underground somewhere, they won’t find us unless we yell!

Lainey fingered the thick tape. Her panic was growing. What if the smoke was bad? What if there was a fire? Worse than starving to death would be burning to death …

She moved over to the door, pressing her hand against it to see if it was hot, like the firefighter who visited her class in fifth grade had taught them. It wasn’t. But the smoke smell was unmistakable. She put her head on the floor, near the door jamb, and breathed in.

It was definitely coming under the door.

Yell! Yell with me, Lainey!

‘I’m here …’ Lainey yelled, but at half the level she could have. She held her breath to see if she could hear The Devil, breathing at the door. Snorting at the cleverness of his trickery. She braced herself, waiting for the door to open.

But it didn’t. And she didn’t hear any snorty chuckles, either.

Yell! Yell with me, Lainey, so they can hear us! They won’t find us unless we yell!

The worst she could do would be to do something half-assed. Either she’d get caught and punished anyway, or she might not ever get found. ‘You can’t go swimming and not get wet,’ her grandma used to say. ‘Dive in and do it right.’

‘I’m in here! Help me!’ she yelled as loud as she possibly could. As loud as she ever had. ‘I’m underground. I’m down here!’

And if we don’t make noise, they’ll leave and we’ll never be found!

‘I’m in here! Help me!’ she screamed again, this time banging on the door with two fists as hard as she could.

Then the door flung open and she tumbled out into the darkness.

87

She landed flat on her face on the dirt floor. She cringed, her hands protectively covering her head, waiting for the Devil to chuckle. Or whisper. Or do something terrible. But nothing happened. Nothing at all.

There was no Devil. But there was also no police officer. No rescue team. There was nobody. The door had just opened when she pounded on it. Either someone had unlocked it, or her banging had maybe jostled it open. Or Katy – wherever she was – had lent her a hand and sent her a message. The last thought made her smile.

The smell of smoke was really strong now. She had to get out of here. Instinctively, that much she knew. And she wasn’t going to be able to do that without seeing where she was going. Her hands went to her face and with one quick tug she pulled at the bandages and plastic discs that he had, like Katy had warned, glued on to her face after she disobeyed him. She felt the soft, delicate skin around her eyes and eyelids peeling away with the bandages. It hurt, like the rip of a thousand Band-Aids off the worst boo-boo. But there was no time to cry. If she didn’t get out of here, bloody eyelids would be the least of her problems.

She squinted and opened her eyes slowly, blinking a few times, like a newborn puppy. Her fingers gingerly explored her face – she did have her eyelids. That was a good thing. And although she could only see lumpy shadows, she still had her eyes. And that was a really good thing.

‘Police! This is the police!’

The voice was back. And it sounded like it was right above her.

‘Elaine Emerson? Lainey?’

‘That’s me! I’m Lainey!’ The tears were already spilling. Her screams were now hoarse whispers.

‘Katy? Katy are you here?’

Katy! He was looking for Katy, too!

‘Is there anybody here? Can anybody hear me? Anybody?’

She wiped her face and took a deep breath.
Don’t screw this up now, Lainey
. ‘Me! I hear you! I’m down here!’ she shouted. ‘I’m down here! Help!’

There was a slight pause that to Lainey felt like a lifetime.

‘I hear you! This is the police! We’re here! Let me follow your voice. Keep yelling!’

‘Help me, please!’ Lainey screamed, crawling on her hands and knees. She felt her way to a wall and followed it along with her hands. There was a faint, blurry light coming from somewhere. ‘Oh God! There’s smoke down here!’

Then the voice stopped. It just stopped.

‘Hello? Are you still there? Officer! Sir! Help me!’

No response.

She started to cry. ‘I’m down here!’ The wall ended. She crawled through a doorway. It was no use. She couldn’t see anything, and the smoke was burning her throat. Then her hands fell on a pair of shoes. She reached up, feeling legs. She grabbed them and held tight. ‘Help me!’ she cried. Relief washed over her. It had never felt so good to hug another human being. ‘Please help me!’ she whispered, both her voice and her fight gone.

‘Of course,’ came the whisper back. ‘Of course I’m going to help you.’

Then the Devil squatted down beside her and patted her head.