Bone Music (Burning Girl #1)(122)

“Where is Elle Schaeffer?”

His bloodshot, tear-filled eyes cut to the left.

For the first time, she really surveys her surroundings, surveys this basement of horrors where at least two women lost their lives in a brutal, agonizing way. One wall is dominated by a utility sink and lockable metal supply closets that look like they could survive a bomb blast. To the left, the direction he just looked, are double doors to what looks like a giant walk-in freezer.

She heads to it, observes the lock, grabs both handles, one in each hand, and pries the doors open with minimal effort. The lock mechanism tears in half and falls to the floor at her feet. A blast of refrigeration hits her. The space is large enough to park a car in. And they’re all in there. All three of them. Elle’s body is still strapped to an operating table just like the one Charley escaped from, but her face is missing.

Toward the back, what remains of Sarah Pratt and Kelley Sumter sit side by side on a bench. Their missing faces reveal frozen eyeballs staring out from exposed muscles and tendons. But the rest of their flesh is intact. They sit upright, held that way by lengths of wire that secure them to the ceiling overhead. They are something between mannequins and puppets. Still being molded and formed into their final poses, destined perhaps for a rendering similar to the exhibit at the Bryant Center, only for the depraved delight of one man.

Charlotte is amazed to discover that even in this heightened state she is still capable of tears. That even as she lays her hand gently on Elle Schaeffer’s collarbone, as she wishes the woman some peaceful rest, that Zypraxon in full bloom in her veins does not rid her of grief or pain, for these women, for those who met their end in the Bannings’ root cellar.

For her mother, who loved “Angel of the Morning.” Who might have patched things up with her father again, if only for her sake.

She hears him behind her. Coughing, wheezing, struggling to his feet. She knows even as she turns that he’s going to try some pathetic, last-minute defense.

She also knows that she’s going to kill him.

He’s yanked the acetone bag from the stanchion; he holds the long rod of steel in his unbroken arm as he runs for her like a gutter drunk trying to scare off the cops. She reaches out and seizes his throat with the gentlest of grips. It’s enough to choke off his air and drive him backward as she walks out of the refrigerator.

She carries him by his throat to the operating table, slams him to the metal. Carefully straps his unbroken wrist, then realizes she tore through the other strap when she broke free. She secures his ankles instead. He barely manages to catch his breath by the time he realizes he’s restrained.

“Tell me, Doctor,” she says. “What happens if it’s all got nowhere to go?”

Goggle-eyed, he stares at her, shaking his head, wheezing, no idea what she’s talking about, until he sees her reach down and slide the large IV port from her arm with the press of one finger against the plastic. She studies the bloody needle briefly; then, with her other hand, she grips his left forearm just above his shattered wrist. There’s enough power in even this light grip to bring his vein pulsing to the surface of his skin.

She sticks him with the IV, reaches for the cord dangling from the acetone bag. “What happens if the acetone goes in and all your blood and body fluids have nowhere to go? Does it just fill you up, Doctor? Does it fill you with meaning?”

She’s never seen someone pass out from fear before, but that’s exactly what he does. Nods off like exhaustion’s overtaken him, when really it’s shock. She’s considering ways to wake him up when another man’s voice calls out to her from across the room.

She looks up, instantly recognizes him from the magazine profile of him she read only days before.

Cole Graydon.

He stands at the foot of the staircase. Two bulky men in black windbreakers with military-grade buzz cuts have preceded him into the basement, guns raised. Are they aiming at her or Pemberton or both of them? It’s impossible to tell. Because both men have seen what Cole hasn’t. They’ve seen Kelley Sumter, Sarah Pratt, and Elle Schaeffer.

“Don’t do that, Charley,” Cole says. “Whatever you’re about to do with that IV, just . . . take a step back from the table so we can talk.”

“Come closer, Mr. Graydon.”

“Let’s avoid threats if we can. And please. Call me Cole.”

“Come closer so you can see what your men are seeing.”

He complies, leaving the bottom step. When he sees what’s inside the walk-in refrigerator, he goes as still as if a snake were coiled at his feet. The confidence that sparked in his eyes when she first saw him fades. His nostrils flare. She doesn’t delight in his silent, muffled terror, but she thinks maybe it’s just. If he is one of the architects of all this, if, like Dylan, he’s tried to use her past to manipulate her, he should at least have to stand nose to nose with what that past is really made of.

He turns to face her, trying his best to compose himself. It isn’t working.

“Come with me, Charley. We have much to discuss.”

“And this . . . thing?” she asks. “What should I do with him?”

“We’ll take care of him.”

“I don’t want him taken care of. I want him dead.”

“No. No, that’s not true, Charley. You want him to have never killed at all. And that’s not an option. But you’ve done the next best thing. You stopped him.”