Reunion (2 page)

“
One of the other women in here.”
 

Oh. Now I remember that name. The television. The news broadcast.

She was one of the kidnapping victims.

No.

She was one of the
bodies
they found.

“And then they took her, too. She had one arm left and they took her and I don’t know where she is and oh, Carrie, he’s coming back and you’re next.”

You’re next.

“
No. NO!” I hiss furiously in her ear. “Mark knows what’s happening. He’ll find us. He’ll rescue us.”
 

“Mark? Mark Paulson, town cop?” She makes a derisive sound. “Right. He can find us at the local donut shop, or pull someone over for a broken tail-light, but Mark isn’t exactly—”

“He’s a DEA agent who is deep undercover, Amy.”

She starts coughing, the sound oddly dry and wet at the same time. I hear something in her neck make a popping sound, then she seizes.

“
He’s a
what
?”
 

“Drug Enforcement Agency.
I
t turns out he’s been part of a deep undercover operation for years. Before my dad was arrested. He thinks Dean Landau is behind everything.”

“You mean behind the drug trafficking at the university?”

“Worse. That’s he’s...that the dean is...” I realize I have to say the truth.
I
t’s not like Amy’s going to blab it to anyone else.
B
esides, this may be the last chance I have to talk to anyone.

Mark will save us. I know he will. And yet...

“Mark thinks the dean is El Brujo.”

Because everyone in the U.S. has heard of El
B
rujo, I don’t even have to explain what I’m talking about.

“Mark thinks
what
? That Claudia Landau’s dad is the biggest drug dealer
ever
?”

“Yes.”

“You said ‘worse’. Carrie, what’s worse than that?”

I swallow and feel my dry throat click.

“He’s the head of a massive sex slave operation. Amy, those women who keep coming i
n
and out of here are probably being sold into the sex slave trade.”

I hear nothing. She doesn’t make a sound. I can’t even hear her breathe.

Finally, she whispers, “And I’m next.”

“
No! You’re
not
next. I won’t let that happen.”
 

Her fingers crawl up my chest, accidentally brushing against my breast. She finds my collarbone, then feels for my face. Her warm breath grows closer. She’s inches from me.

“You can’t stop them, Carrie.
I
n fact, you’re probably next, too.” She grips my shoulder with iron ferocity. “You can’t fight them. They’re too strong.”

“They?”

“The butcher and his
friend
.” She spits out the word friend like she accidentally ate a bug. “Hyper, fast-talking asshole.”

I turn into a block of ice.

“Does he call you ‘Girlie Girl’?”

H
er fingers dig into the soft flesh between my collarbone and my neck muscle.

“Yes.”

“That’s Frenchie,” I say, my voice flat. If I let the fear creep in, I’ll just sit here in the dark and cry.

“You know him?”

“I’ve had the distinct displeasure of meeting him at the dean’s house.”

“Why were you at the dean’s house?”

“Delivering a dog to him.”

“
Carrie, you’re not making any sense. You never deliver dogs to people. Why would you start with the Landau family? And my mom would never want a dog to go to them. She knows what a jerk Claudia is!”
 

Her mom. Minnie. Oh, hell. I have to explain.

“Um, your mom’s in the hospital,” I start.

She interrupts me with a shriek. “What? What happened to her? Oh, my God, please tell me mom’s okay. Please, Carrie.
P
lease.”

“She’s fine,” I say, trying to stay calm. “She had a nervous breakdown after you were kidnapped. She’s being sedated and kept calm. Elaine’s visi
tin
g her every day.”

Elaine. The thought makes chills run through me. Elaine and Brian are my stalwart comfort figures. But what if I can’t trust them after all? I thought Mikey was a good guy, and look at what he just did to me.

Us.

Mikey wouldn’t do this without being forced to, right? He’s following someone’s orders. But whose?

“Amy,” I whisper, feeling the urgency vibrate in my words. “You swear Mikey’s never been down here?”

“Why would he...
oh
.” Her voice gets very small. “Is that why you’re down here? Did Mikey—what the hell would
Mikey
have to do with any of this?”

“I don’t know!” I gasp. “That’s what I’m trying to understand.”

“I just wish it would stop hurting,” she sobs. I can hear the push of her hand against the concrete floor, the rasp of her pants against my leg, the sound of abject horror and defeat in her words.

“I do, too.” Tears fill my eyes and I let them fall down my cheeks. The act of doing something is better than doing nothing. Even if all I can do is cry.

She says something, but it’s just muttering.

And then she slumps against me.

Her breathing goes regular.
S
he’s passed out. I can’t see her. When she talks to me, it’s like I forget what’s really going on. Forget that someone hacked her arm off.

Forget that she may die, right here and right now, in my arms. Her shock and physical pain must be staggering.

I force myself to breathe in and out twenty times. I ignore the stench of her blood.
I
t’s especially hard to not pay attention to the underlying odor of decay. Infection will set in soon.

I may have found Amy alive, but how much longer can she stand this?

And when will the butcher and Frenchie come back?

I fumble on the ground for my water bottle. Forcing myself to move slowly, I take little sips. We have no idea when we’ll have water again. I pat my purse and make sure the other half of the croissant is in there. In my mind, I run through the contents of my purse.

By my memory, I have a few cough drops, some headache pills,
my birth control packet,
a tampon or two, my ID and some cash, the one secured credit card I could get with my lousy credit, and my car keys.

The croissant and cough drops are our only calories.

I feel myself calming down as I think strategically. I have no weapons. We have a tiny bit of food and water. Amy’s still breathing. She can move. I am strong and my stomach is full. We’re in the dark, but I can tell that far in the distance, behind Amy, there is a tiny light source somewhere.

We’re alive. We’re together. That has to count for something.

What I don’t know is how long it will take for Mark to realize I’m missing. Also unknown: Mikey’s role in all this. Is he running to tell Landau he has me trapped? Is he working with the dean and
Frenchie
?
I
s there some other reason why Mikey would trap me in here?
Are Brian and Elaine part of all this?
 

Does
Mikey
know Amy and the other victims have been stored in here?

Too many questions. Too many uncertainties. I’m calmer when I inventory what I have. I’m calmer when I don’t think about what I don’t know.

“
Calmer” is all in the eye of the beholder. How can I be calm when I’m sitting in a soundproof tomb with my dying best friend half conscious in my lap?
 

I have to stay focused. Panic will kill us.

Reason and logic are my only weapons.

Amy moves against me, her
c
lothes rustling. I gently
shift
her, resting her head on my purse, and take some deep breaths. The air is cool and fairly dry. While I can smell our sweat, Amy’s blood, and a slightly musty odor, the room isn’t as nasty smelling as I’d expect.

And then there’s that faint light on the other side of the storage space.

I stand up and something brushes against my eyelashes and nose. I scream and paw at it.

I
t’s a spider web.

My heart feels like it’s resting under my tongue and beating a thousand times a minute. I frantically clear the web from my face and force myself to stay in place. I’m sure there are spiders and probably mice down here. Maybe worse. I’ve never heard of rats in the old bar, but you never know.

None of that matters right now.

I make myself take a step away from Amy and toward the dim light. One step. I stop.

I did it.

I can do it again.

Ten steps later I find myself off balance. The light isn’t growing any brighter.
I
t’s just a vague, brownish light that I start to think is in my imagination. Maybe I’m going crazy and hallucinating this.

The ground becomes soft, then hard again. I backtrack, shuffling my toes on the ground.

Yes.
T
here’s a divot. A soft spot, but it’s not dirt. More like a rubbery section.

I start to pitch to the left and reach my hand out. It touches wood. Ah, that’s right. The shelving along the walls. I’d forgotten about that. My finger cracks as it strikes a piece of wood, but at least I know where I am.
Pain radiates from my finger.
I keep walking.

My hand reaches the end of the shelves and just touches the concrete wall. Every foot or so there’s a small indent. The cement blocks are stacked on each other down here for the foundation. I’m feeling the groove where they separate.

And then I hit something made of metal. The cold, stark difference between the cement blocks and the steel makes me squeal. I go quiet, then hear a rustling sound.
I
t’s tiny. It’s coming from in front of me.

Then I hear the unmistakeable sound of a mouse squeaking.

I go into instant panic mode. My eyes widen, desperate to see where I am so I can defend myself. I’m terrified of mice. Have been since I was little.
T
he spider web earlier was freaky enough. A live mouse will make my blood burn and I’ll faint.

Dad used to tease me about my fear. Dad isn’t here. No one is here other than Amy, and I’m the strong one now. I’m her only hope.

I’m
my
only hope.

An ache for
M
ark hits me square between the breasts, like an arrow shot through the bone.
I’ve been on my own for a very long time. The last three years were all about helping to get my dad exonerated. I know what it means to be completely on your own.
 

To have no one to lean on.

This is a completely different kind of aloneness.

I am it.
It
. No one else can save me or Amy. I can hope that somewhere above, Mark has started to figure out that I’m nowhere to be seen, but it could be hours. Even a
full
day before he figures out I’m not around—and that there’s a bad reason why.

I can’t rely on any assumptions. As I shuffle toward the metal thing in the wall I realize that every breath I take may be my last. Every internal freak out is a roadblock. I don’t have the luxury of having emotions any more.

Emotions are what you have when there’s time to feel.

And that time is gone for me.

The metal seems to be some sort of a handle. Weird. What could be down here, beneath the ground? Water lines, maybe. Electric or gas lines. I probably shouldn’t touch it. The last thing I need to do is accidentally turn on a water line and have this storage space fill up with water. Amy and I would drown.

Then again, if enough water started surging down here, wouldn’t someone in the building notice?
T
he coffee shop isn’t the only business in this building.

What do I have to lose? I literally have nothing.

Nothing.

I feel for the handle and grasp it with both hands. Which way do I turn it? I remember Dad’s old saying:

Lefty loosy, righty tighty.

I turn to the left as hard as I can.
I
t gives a little.
I brace my foot against the hard wall and shove. It gives a little more. My knee still aches from being hurt a week ago. God, was that only a week?
 

F
eels like a lifetime.

Three more tries
and I feel it loosen. I pause, ready for something to go wrong. Water? Gas? Oil? Anything could come out of that pipe.
 

Anything.

I pull gently. The metal against metal has a seal, the sound like my dad opening a can of cocktail peanuts when he used to watch football games with Brian on Monday nights.

Hissssssss.

And then—nothing. The metal doesn’t creak or groan as I open the hatch. I feel for the edges of the little door, puzzled.

My fingers touch something slick as I feel for the door’s hinges. More blood? No. It’s viscous.

It’s oil.

Someone has oiled this door recently.

What in the fresh hell is
this
all about?

Wi
p
ing my hand on my pants, I brush against my back pocket. I feel a corner of something poking out from under the pocket flap.

Hold on.

Allie’s matches.

Hope sparks inside me.

I have
light
.

Frantic, I reach back and pull out the little packet of matches. Going entirely by feel, I open the flap and tear off a match. It goes flying into the darkness, my hands shaking and too forceful.

Deep breath, Carrie. Deep breath.

I force myself to slow down. This time, the match is between my thumb and index finger. I feel for the thin strip to strike it on.

Sweet mercy, I’m su
c
cessful. The room lights up with the small glow of a single match.

Illuminating the true horror of what’s happening to me.

Streaks of dried blood cover the concrete floor. I can only see a few feet from the match tip, so I walk slowly back to Amy. I have to see her with my own two eyes
again. I only got a glimpse of her before, when my phone’s flashlight app still worked. I was too shocked to really take in all the details.