“Clear,” Jimmy calls, his voice slightly muffled by the mask.
He comes back to a narrow wooden table to the left of the ladder and begins to fiddle with something as I make my way down two steps at a time. Just as I reach the bottom and turn around, a bright glow bursts from the table, and Jimmy turns around holding an electric lamp that casts light fifteen feet in every direction. It’s the type of lamp designed for hunters and campers, and uses fluorescent bulbs powered by a rechargeable battery pack. It puts off a good glow, but even so the bunker is large enough that the corners are in shadow.
I pause to look around as Jimmy makes his way to the far left corner. The bunker is primitive by any standard: unpainted, stained cinder-block walls, a timber roof held up by a series of four-by-six beams, a dirt floor filthy with squalor.
There’s a steady tap-tap-tap coming from the left and I turn to find the source: a six-inch puddle in the dirt. Above the puddle, sitting on a wooden frame, is a fifty-five-gallon white plastic drum about half full of water. The seal at the spigot is faulty and the water drips from it with a clocklike rhythm.
Jimmy’s already in one corner and as I make my way over I notice he’s standing on a makeshift floor of two-by-six planks laid down over the soil. No other part of the bunker has a floor, just this corner. A mattress rests upon a portion of the planks and a still figure rests upon the mattress: a rag doll cast aside after play.
Susan Ault.
She’s covered in an old blanket with a quilt pattern, not a true quilt, just some knockoff made to look like one. A primitive, homemade manacle is around her scarred and bloody left wrist, secured in place by a small lock. A section of chain connects the manacle to the wall.
As before, a key is nearby, this time in plain sight. A nail protrudes from the cinder-block wall just beyond Susan’s reach; a nail that holds the key. It’s as if he put it there intentionally, on display, to taunt her.
A minute later she’s free of the manacle but still not responding. Her eyes are closed, her lips dry and cracked, her pulse weak. Jimmy takes her in his arms, blanket and all, and lifts her from the filthy mattress. As he does, her eyes flutter and then open to a narrow slit.
Jimmy sees it. “We’ve got you,” he says gently, his voice breaking at the edges. “It’s all over. You’re safe.”
It takes a moment for her to focus on his face, and then on the FBI logo on his jacket. “Thank you,” she says, her voice barely a whisper. “My … daughter?”
“She’s safe,” I say, taking Susan’s hand and holding it to my chest. My mind is suddenly overcome by the image of little Sarah burying her small face in my chest when we found her in her crib. The memory breaks me apart. “Your sister’s looking after her,” I manage. “She’s a beautiful little girl and she’s waiting for you.”
“Thank you.” Her eyes close, and for a moment I fear that she’s letting go, drifting away, but then her breathing steadies.
“We’ve got to get her out of here,” Jimmy says.
“Let me get topside. I can pull—” The words fall away, fractured and spent.
I stand rigid in the heart of the bunker, staring into the gloom of the right corner. The smell! My knees threaten to buckle and I stagger forward several steps. Oh, God. I should have known—I should have guessed.
“Steps.”
Jimmy’s voice does little to call me back.
“Come on, Steps, I need your help. STEPS!”
I don’t answer him. My next words are directed elsewhere: difficult words that are hard to think, let alone speak. I push them from my throat, from my mouth, through my teeth. I force the words out and feel the sting of salt in my eyes as I address the silent shadow slumped in the corner.
“I’m sorry, Lauren. I’m so sorry.”
Her naked body is bloated, discolored, and misshapen from decomposition. She’s unrecognizable, but I know her. I know her shine, sweet girl. It’s dull and flat now, with no vibration, like the locket, but it’s her.
Seconds pass, minutes pass, maybe even hours. I feel a hand on my shoulder like someone reaching down from the rafters above. No … not rafters. I realize I’m huddled on the ground; folded over; broken. Jimmy takes me by the arm and helps me to my feet. He guides me away from the silent shadow and back to the light of the world above.
Susan has already been rushed from the bunker and spirited away in the back of an SUV. An ambulance is en route and will meet them somewhere along the way to Red Bluff.
Lauren is gone. I already knew that; I always know, I’ve known for days. But finding her body, seeing her … it makes it that much worse. My failure becomes tangible; in sight, in smell, in every way imaginable.
This is on me.
Jimmy will tell me later that it’s not my fault, that we did everything we could to find her, to unmask Sad Face, but in the end his words are but wind and I’m left with the image of a once-beautiful girl on one side of my brain and a rotting corpse on the other.
My failure.
I feel hands on both sides of me now, Jimmy to my right and a giant to my left. It’s Walt. He has tears in his eyes. They lay me down on the cool dirt in the shade of the copse of trees and I rip the surgical mask from my face and toss it aside. Jimmy forces me to drink some water; his forehead is hard and wrinkled, his eyes narrow with concern. He pats me on the chest and forces a bitter smile.
“Susan’s alive,” Jimmy says. “You saved her. She’s going home to her little girl because of you, Steps.”
I’m shaking my head and trying not to lose it again. “Lauren…”
“I know.” He puts his hand on my shoulder, my brother in so many ways.
He doesn’t say it; he doesn’t have to. I hear the words in my head, the motto, the mantra.
We save the ones we can.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR