“You were in your car. Were you driving out of town—or was he? If he was, there would have been three of you in the car. Where were you sitting? In the driver’s seat? Shotgun? Or in the back?”
The flashbulb went off in her head again. The glare was brief, but the image was clear.
“How about Holli? Where was she?”
“Wait a second. Stop talking.”
He did, but kept driving.
“I was driving. Holli was next to me. He was in the back, bunched up because he was tall. Holli offered to swap places with him, but he said no. We were doing him a favor.”
She was astounded that she remembered something with such clarity after so much ambiguity and confusion. But in spite of the sharp image that had just come to her, the fog continued to hide what came next.
“So you picked him up?” Greening said with excitement in his voice.
“I don’t know. I guess so.”
“Did he ask you to drop him somewhere?”
She shook her head.
They reached Bishop’s city limits, and Greening kept on driving.
“OK, you’re driving on US 395. Holli’s sitting next to you. He’s in back. The Rohypnol has its teeth into you. You’re probably weaving on the road.” For emphasis, Greening let his squad car wander across the road before overcorrecting too far the other way. “He probably suggested that he drive.”
She clenched her mind tight, hoping for another flashbulb to go off. “Maybe.”
“He’s driving now. I think Holli is still in the front. You’re in back. You and he simply swapped positions.”
It sounded plausible, but it failed to ring true.
“You’ve been driving so long. It’s late and dark. You’re on roads you don’t know. It’s probably a relief to let him take over driving duties. Did you sit up or spread out across the backseat?”
Flashbulb, she thought, please show yourself. Greening was doing such a great job of re-creating that night with nothing, and she, who had been there, couldn’t remember shit. She felt her heart rate gather speed and blood pressure rise with her increasing frustration. “I don’t know. I don’t remember. Damn it.”
“It’s OK, Zo?. Don’t let it get to you. I don’t need the whole picture. I just need enough pieces to assemble the puzzle. Help me find the corners.”
He was quiet for the next five minutes. She was too, letting the frustration bleed from her. She kept her gaze fixed on the road, allowing its never-ending view to clear her mind.
As before, Greening pulled off at every turn to follow every secluded road to its end.
“Tell me about his place. What did it look like? Did you hear any strange noises? Did it have a smell? Tell me what you remember.”
Abandoning Holli, she thought. That’s what I remember. She bottled her guilt and pushed it to one side. She could always revisit it later. She always did.
“I woke up in a shack or a big toolshed with a tin roof. Ten feet by twenty, I think. It was full of junk and wasn’t new. The floor was bowed with age and the weight of all the crap in there.”
“Good. What else?”
She pictured herself naked, having just cut the cable ties binding her wrists and ankles. Reflexively, she rubbed her left wrist where the plastic had cut into her flesh. She was at the shed window, peering out, Holli’s screams thick in the air.
“There’s another crappy storage shed opposite the one I’m in. The workshop is to my right. That’s where he’s torturing Holli. It’s just as weather-beaten. The lights are on, but the windows are so grimy that the light is dulled.” She remembered looking through those small windows. “Stained glass.”
“Stained glass?”
“All those little, dirt-covered panes. It was like unholy stained glass on the devil’s church.”
Greening didn’t have an answer for that.
“OK, you escape from the shed. There’s another in front of you. The workshop with Holli and him is to your right. You’re naked. Hurt. Confused. It’s night. What else do you see, smell, hear, and taste?”
“Stars. Lights, I think, way off in the distance. I hear nothing. No car or truck noise. No planes overhead. No voices. I smell the night air—dry and dusty. I smell flowers or trees or something, but I don’t recognize them or see them. I don’t taste anything.”
“You’re barefoot. What are you standing on?”
“Dirt.”
“Just dirt. No concrete or asphalt?”
“No. Everything was dirt. The road was dirt. Just a track.”
Greening stopped the car and pulled out a couple of maps. He marked a couple of places and rejoined the highway.
He changed his tack. Instead of following every paved cross street, he explored all the fire trails and unpaved roads. The Crown Victoria wasn’t built for the loose and undulating surfaces. It struggled for grip and bottomed out on its suspension a number of times.
“OK, you’ve escaped from the shed, and you’re standing in the dirt outside,” Greening said.
She didn’t see the road ahead. She was back in the past. The cool night had been drying the sweat on her body after she’d escaped the oppressive heat of the shed.
“Yes,” she said.