Wolfhunter River (Stillhouse Lake #3)(104)

I lean forward. “Open this door!”

The sheriff hits the “Unlock” button, and I hit the ground running. I’m aware this is a crime scene, and I’m not wearing either a uniform or tech gear, but all I’m thinking at that moment is that minutes are passing, and there’s a little girl who’s already been kept for far, far too long.

The trash heap is massive. It’s more of a trash mountain range; that peak on the left is made of white garbage bags. The one in the center is fat tied stacks of decaying cardboard.

On the end, a tangle of rusting junk. Scrap metal, scavenged parts, the bare skeleton of a fifties sedan with no engine.

I look at the backhoe. It’s dirty, but that’s to be expected. There’s nothing remarkable about it.

No. There is. It’s sitting in a weird place, too close to the towering pile of garbage bags that might tumble down over it. There’s lots of space for the backhoe. Why put it there?

Because it’s blocking something.

Mike’s limping out to join me. The sheriff’s helping him. I reach the backhoe and climb into it. No keys, but they’re stuck under the floor mat. I start the engine and roll it straight back.

As I do, I see there’s a short length of PVC pipe coming out of the ground beneath it. Grace of God I didn’t turn the wheel as I backed up. It only protrudes maybe two inches, and it’s been painted to match the dirt around it.

The sheriff grabs a long piece of rebar from the scrap heap and starts stabbing it into the ground. Four inches down, it hits something hollow. He tries again. Another hollow sound.

“That’s wood,” Mike says. “It’s a trapdoor.”

We start kicking away the loose ground and finding the edges. There are two doors, and they are heavy wood. From the fading paint it seems like a set of barn doors that have been scavenged from somewhere else. Either that or this was once a root cellar or tornado shelter.

There’s a heavy chain and a new lock on them. The sheriff shouts for bolt cutters, and someone comes running with a set. He cuts the lock and sets it aside, careful not to touch it with bare fingers.

“Prints,” I tell Mike. He nods, and we wait until the sheriff hands us blue gloves to put on. Then we each grab a side of the doors, and haul. They’re damn heavy. Impossible for a small child to push open, even without the lock and chain. I feel my cracked ribs shift, and bite down on the pain. Pain’s good right now. Pain is productive.

It’s dark as an inkwell down there. The sheriff has a heavy halogen flashlight, and he shines it in, revealing a set of old wooden steps bowed in the middle, a dirt floor, a pile of empty plastic water bottles and shredded snack-food packages.

Ellie White is curled in the corner. She’s filthy, her once-pretty pink dress now streaked with mud and torn at the hem; she’s not moving. I can’t even tell if she’s breathing. She looks thin and fragile, like a bundle of sticks.

It’s Mike who plunges down those steps, injured or not, and scoops her up. She’s tiny in his big arms, and her head rests against his chest. Her hair’s out of one of its braids and fluffs into tight spirals that catch and move in the wind. Her arms and legs swing loose.

“Is she alive?” the sheriff asks. I can hear the horror in the question. Mike’s about to lay the child down when I see her finally move.

She puts her arms around Mike’s neck.

He leans against the backhoe and shuts his eyes. “It’s okay, honey,” he tells her. “We got you. We got you.”

“God almighty,” the sheriff says. “That’s a miracle. We got us a miracle.”

Nobody tries to take her away from Mike until the paramedics come racing up with a gurney. Once she’s loaded in and off to the hospital with a racing phalanx of county cruisers, I look at the sheriff. “He goes next,” I say. The sheriff nods. “You promised me. Now we get my family.”

He sighs and adjust his Stetson to a more comfortable angle. “All right. You’ve earned that. Let’s go.”





19

GWEN

When I click the remote to open the bookcase and ease it away from the secret opening, I use it as a shield; I don’t know if Mrs. Pall is still in the office with her shotgun. It might blast a hole through the books and the case, but it’s the best defense I’ve got right now.

She’s not in the room. I shut it, and hear it click as the lock engages.

It’s only then that I look at the red-leather collection that occupies the shelves. It’s nothing out of the ordinary, just law books like you’d find in any lawyer’s office. Specifically, Criminal Practice and Procedures, volumes one through eleven, followed by Tennessee Rules of Court, volumes one through three.

All of them are dated in gold leaf in the year 1982. Like everything else Hector Sparks has in this house, it’s a sham. Nothing but a museum to his father’s former glory; surely a real lawyer would have more recent law books. Not Hector. No wonder he needed my help with Vee.

I can’t imagine the kinds of twisted things that have gone on here to create the monster we’ve locked in his own dungeon, or the woman who’s been helping him. Serving him. Celeste. Mrs. Pall. I don’t really know who she is at all, or why she’d be part of this. I can’t even imagine the damage that’s brought her to this.

Because she’s what Miranda Tidewell has always imagined me to be: a full and willing participant in a man’s crimes against women.