Hide (Detective D.D. Warren, #2)(34)

I put my hand up, felt the wooden ceiling, moved forward, touched the support beams. "But he did all this? Converted it, so to speak?"

"That's our guess."

"Must've taken him time."

No one argued.

"Expense," I continued, thinking out loud. "Wood, nails, hammer. Effort. Would one of the mental patients really be that organized, have access to leave and reenter the grounds like that?"

D.D. shrugged again. "Everything here could've been harvested from the construction dumps on the property. So far, I've seen everything from cement dust to tiles to window frames."

I grimaced at that. "No windows down here."

"No, not for what he had in mind."

I repressed a shiver, walked to the far wall. "When do you think he started?"

"Don't know. There was about thirty years of plant growth over the plywood, so that puts us in the seventies. The hospital was dying by then, the property more abandoned than used. That makes some sense."

"And he operated for how long?"

"Don't know"

"But he must have known this area," I persisted. "Been a patient at the hospital or maybe even someone who worked there. I mean, to have found this space, to know where to harvest his supplies. To feel comfortable returning again and again."

"At this stage of the game, anything's possible." D.D.'s voice told me she was skeptical, though. I had the sense she was focused on the grounds being abandoned, which meant anyone could've been running around the hundred-and-seventy-acre site.

The thought took some of the wind out of my sails. I got my chin up, relentlessly pressing on in my role of amateur investigator.

"You said there were supplies?" I prompted.

"Metal shelving, metal chair, plastic bucket."

"No bedding?"

"Not that we found."

"Lanterns, cookstove?"

"No, but two hooks on the ceiling, which may have been used for hanging lights."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because he placed the hooks in front of the metal shelves where he stored the bodies."

I swayed, reached out to brace myself against the cold, earthen wall, then snatched my hand back. "I'm sorry?"

D.D.'s expression had grown hard, her gaze probing. "You tell me. You're the one pretending to be the witness. What do you see down here?"

"Nothing."

"Property, grounds—any of this familiar to you?"

"No." My voice was faint. "I've never been here before. I would think"—my hand returned to the wall, my fingers touching it tentatively—"I would think you don't forget something like this."

"No," she agreed harshly, "I don't think you do."

D.D. came forward, stood beside me. She placed her hand next to mine, her fingers splayed, palm flat against the cold earth as if to prove she could handle this grave better than I could. "Right where we are standing used to be two long metal shelving units. He used them for storage. It's where he placed the bodies. One per garbage bag, three per shelf. Two neat little rows."

My fingers convulsed, nails sinking into the raw earth, feeling the hard, compacted soil dig beneath my fingernails. And at that moment, I swear I could feel it. The deeply embedded evil, a powerful, biting chill. I retreated hastily, my feet moving in rapid little circles, while my gaze scoured the floor, looking for signs of… what? Struggle? Blood? The spot where a monster raped my best friend? Or ripped out her fingernails? Or took pliers to her nipples before he slit her throat?

I had read too many articles, spent too much time being prepped by my father. Why read Goodnight Moon to your child when you can read her 21st Century Monsters instead?

I was going to be sick, but I couldn't be. My thoughts ran too hard, too fast. I was remembering my seven-year-old childhood friend. I was picturing every crime-scene photo my father had ever shown me.

"What did he do?" I found myself demanding. "How long were they kept alive? How did he kill them? Did they know of one another? Did they have to stay down here, surrounded by corpses in the dark?

"Turn off the lights!" My voice was growing wild, incoherent. "Dammit, turn off those lights! I want to know what he did to them! I want to know how it fe/t!"

Detective Dodge caught my hands. He pressed my palms together, stilling my jerky motions, tucking my hands back into my chest. He didn't say anything, just stood there, looking at me with those steady gray eyes until, with a brittle snap, I felt something break inside of me. My shoulders sagged, my arms dropped. The hysteria drained from me, and I was left limp, wrung out, thinking of Dori again and that last summer when neither of us had known that we had it so good.

Dori's favorite flavor of Popsicle was grape. Mine was root beer. We would save those flavors from the assorted packs our mothers bought, swapping the two each Saturday

We used to race down the street to see which one of us could skip the fastest. Once I fell down and skinned my chin. Dori came back to see if I was okay, and when she was bending down, I jumped up and went skipping over the finish line just so I could say I won. She didn't speak to me for a whole day, but I still wouldn't apologize, because even back then winning mattered more to me than the wounded look on her face.