CHAPTER 63
Sarah lifted her head when she heard the squeak of the gate echo down the mine. He’d come back sooner than she’d expected. Usually the light died completely before he returned, but the bulb was still emitting a dull-yellow glow.
She hurried to finish what she was doing, picking up bits of the concrete and sweeping the dust into the hole she’d made. The light from the single bulb continued to grow weaker and she could not see well enough to be certain she’d found each piece, but she also didn’t have time to keep looking. She put the stake in the hole and refilled it with dirt, tamping it flat.
The door in the wall pushed open as she shifted the carpet back in place, moved to sit with her back to the wall, and picked up the paperback he’d brought for her. Edmund House stepped in, set a plastic bag on a folding table, and cranked the generator handle. The filament brightened, making her squint.
House turned. He seemed to take longer than usual to consider her. His eyes shifted to the piece of carpet on the ground, and in the light she could see that she had not replaced it squarely in the same location it had been.
“What have you been doing?” he asked.
She shrugged and held up a paperback. “What can I do? I’ve read every book twice. Kind of spoils the story when you already know the ending anyway.”
“You complaining?”
“No, just saying, you know. Maybe it would be nice to get a couple new ones.”
By her calculations, it had been seven weeks since he’d brought her here. It was difficult to keep track of the days without any windows, but she used him as her clock. She put a scratch in the wall each time he came back, which she figured to be a new day. He’d taken her on Saturday, August 21. If she’d calculated correctly, it was now Monday, October 11.
A month into her captivity, she’d found a metal spike partially buried at the base of a vertical beam. She figured they used it to put in the tracks for the mining carts to haul the silver out of the mine. Ten inches long, it had a flat end that must have been used to hammer it into the ground. She’d been using it to chip at the concrete around the metal plate he’d bolted to the wall. The plate’s bolts had some play in them that allowed her to dig behind the plate so he wouldn’t notice. If she could loosen the plate enough, she might be able to yank it free of the wall.
“Did you get the supplies?” she asked.
He shook his head. He looked distracted, sad. Like a little boy.
“Why not?”
He leaned against the table, the muscles in his arms prominent. “Chief Calloway came back again.”
She felt the flicker of hope but tamped it down. “What did that asshole want this time?”
“He says he has a witness.”
“Really?”
“That’s what he says. He says he has a witness who will say he saw you and me on the county road together. I don’t remember anyone. Do you?”
She shook her head. “Not that I remember.”
He pushed away from the table, approaching, his voice becoming angry. “He’s lying. I know he’s lying, but he says he has one and that his testimony is going to be enough to get a search warrant. What do you think he’s going to find?”
She shrugged. “Nothing. You said you were careful.”
He reached out and touched the side of her face with his fingertips. She fought the impulse to flinch and pull away. It only made him angry. “You know what I think?”
She shook her head.
“I think I’m being set up.” He dropped his hand and walked away. “If they made up the witness, they’ll likely make up some evidence to try me. Do you know what that means?”
“No.”
“It means this could be the last time we see each other.”
She felt a wave of anxiety. “They won’t catch you. You’re too smart. You outsmarted them.”
“Not if they cheat.” He sighed and shook his head. “I told Calloway he could go fuck himself. I told him that I’d already raped and killed you and buried you in the mountains.”
“Why would you tell him that?”
“Fuck him,” he said, now pacing, voice rising. “He can’t prove it, so let him live with that on his conscience the rest of his life. I told him I’d never tell him where I buried your body.” He started laughing. “You want to know the best part?”
“What?” she said, feeling more and more anxious.
“He wasn’t recording the conversation. It was just the two of us. He has no proof that I said anything.”
“We could leave,” she said, trying to sound enthusiastic. “We could go someplace together, disappear.”
“Yeah, I thought of that,” he said. He pulled clothes from the plastic bag. She recognized her shirt and jeans. She thought he’d burned them.
“I washed them for you,” he said.
“Why?”
“Don’t I get a thank you?”
“Thank you,” she said, though uncertain of his intent.
He tossed them at her feet. When she didn’t move, he said, “Go ahead and put them on. You can’t leave dressed like that.”
“Are you letting me go?”
“I can’t keep you here anymore. Not with Calloway on my ass.”
She slid the frock he’d given her from her shoulders and stepped out of it, naked before him. He watched as she picked up her jeans and slid them on. They hung from her hips. “Guess I’ve lost some weight,” she said, her rib cage and collarbones prominent.
“You had a few to spare,” he said. “I like you skinny.”
She held up her arms. “My wrists,” she said.
He took the key from his pocket and unlocked the left manacle. She slid her arm through the sleeve of her Scully shirt and expected him to reattach the manacle. Instead, he unlocked her right wrist and let the manacles and chains fall at her feet. It was the first time in seven weeks that both her arms had been free. She slid the shirt on, snapping the buttons, fighting to remain calm.
“Where are we going to go?” she said. “We could go to California. It’s big. It would be impossible to find us.”
House walked to the shelving and shook her jade earrings and necklace from a can on the shelf. He picked up Tracy’s black Stetson, seemed to consider it a moment, and then put it back on the shelf. He handed her the jewelry. “You might as well put these back on too. No reason for me to keep them.”
She bit back tears. “You’re letting me go?”
“I knew it would always come to this.”
Tears flowed down her cheeks.
“Don’t start crying about it.”
But she couldn’t stop. She was going home. “When are we leaving?” she asked.
“Right now,” he said. “We can go now.”
“I won’t say anything,” she said. “I promise.”
“I know you won’t.” He nodded to the door. When she hesitated, he said, “Well, go ahead.”
It was all she could do to keep from running, anxious to get away, to breathe fresh air again, to see the sky, hear birds, and smell the scent of the evergreens. She took a tentative step toward the door, and looked back at him. His face was a blank mask.
Sarah took another step and thought of seeing Tracy again, and her mother and father, of waking up in her own bed, in her home. She’d tell herself that it had all been just a nightmare, a horrible nightmare. But she wouldn’t dwell on what Edmund House had done to her. She was going to get on with her life. She was going to go to school and graduate and then she’d come back to live again in Cedar Grove, just as she and Tracy had always planned. In her excitement, she did not hear him pick up the chain from the floor.
She’d reached the door when the chain wrapped tightly around her throat, strangling her. She tried to dig her fingers beneath the links, then tried to scratch his arms, but he yanked her backward with the chain, flinging her with such force he lifted her off her feet. The light through the door grew distant, as if she were falling down a darkened well. She reached for it, arms straining, and thought she saw Tracy just before the back of her head hit hard against the concrete wall.