“Out in the middle of nowhere, where a BMW has no business being,” he said. “From the signal, it looks like the middle of the woods. We’re heading up to search. Got some guys coming in from the next county, too.”
Finley watched Jones, who wore a deep frown. Without thinking, Finley reached for the glove compartment, where (of course) there was a notepad and pen.
“What are the coordinates?” asked Jones.
Finley jotted down the numbers. Outside the snow was collecting in the gaskets of the windows, on the shoulder, and in the trees. But the road ahead of them was still black, slick, and wet.
“Satellite image shows a clearing in that location,” said Ferrigno. “Course this weather is not our friend at the moment. We have to try to get up there before it gets any worse.”
“Could be The Chapel,” said Jones.
“That’s what I was thinking,” said Ferrigno. Finley saw a muscle working in Jones’s jaw.
“Coming up?” asked Ferrigno.
“We have to check on the other incident first,” said Jones. “Someone might be hurt up there.”
“Need some backup?” Ferrigno asked. “I can spare a guy if you think there’s an emergency.”
“I’ll call you if I need someone,” said Jones. “Hey, just one other thing. When Abbey Gleason went missing? How thorough was the search on the properties of the folks living up there?”
“Pretty thorough,” he said. “The few families that are still there cooperated fully. But there aren’t that many people anymore—maybe five or six total. There are a few shacks, one or two houses. The landscaping guy has a pretty nice place up there, Abel Crawley? Makes you think, you know, that there’s something to shedding the modern world. He’s got a generator, chickens, pigs and a cow, a deep water well. Works all spring, summer, and fall, off all winter.”
Squeak-clink. Squeak-clink. Squeak-clink.
The water pump for the well; Finley could see it. Things that squeak. She saw the red metal pump resting on a wooden platform. There was a girl, using all the strength to pump it, the barn off in the distance. Squeak as the handle went up, clink as it came back down.
They pulled off the paved road and onto a smaller dirt one. Jones shifted the SUV into four-wheel drive. Finley looked out into the darkness, the same questions scrolling through her mind. What had happened to Rainer? Why did she have his car? Whose blood was all over her?
Finley’s whole body pulsed with tension and fear now, her mind a whirl of images and disconnected thoughts. Then, out in the night, she saw a bobbing white light. It went dark for a moment, and she sat forward looking. Then it came on again.
“Stop the car,” she said.
Jones put on the brakes and the vehicle skidded to a stop.
“Do you see that?”
“I don’t see anything,” said Jones. “It’s pitch-black out there.”
She saw it clearly, and then she was outside, running toward it with Jones calling after her.
TWENTY-FIVE
She crouched low, making herself very small in the tiny space she found between the wall and the shelves. She could be quiet; she was a good hider. She listened as Poppa clomped up the hallway, big boots on hard wood, then climbed back down the stairs. She waited; she didn’t hear an outside door open and close, but still it grew very quiet as if he had left. She waited a long time, crouched inside the linen closet.
It was moldy, the dust tickling her nose, a sneeze threatening. She buried her face in her jacket, plugging her nose. If you hold your sneeze in, her brother had warned, you’ll explode your eyeballs. For the longest time, she’d believed him.
She waited and waited, until finally she got up painfully from her crouch and quietly moved toward the door. The hallway was empty, the stairs waiting to lead her down and out the door.
She didn’t know where Poppa was, or Bobo. But she knew she had to go. She didn’t have to listen to the voice. She only had to listen to her mommy, and she was sure that her mommy would tell her to get out of that house and run the way Poppa had told the clean man to go.
The door squeaked a little, but not too loudly. She crept down the hall, trying to be quiet in those boots. At the top of the stairs, she paused, listening. If she tried to tiptoe down the stairs, they’d creak. If he heard her, he’d trap her upstairs. She had to run and burst through the door, and then head straight for the gate and then keep running. She took a deep breath and got ready.
“What are you doing in here, girl?”
An electric shock of fear spun her around to see Poppa standing behind her.
“You think you’re the only one who can creep?” he asked, his smile mean.
She had no words. She stared at his sunken blue eyes, his white hair wild. His hands she knew were rough and hard. He was so skinny that his face looked like a skeleton and she could see all his bones. Behind the fear, another feeling vibrated. Hatred. She hated him. She wished he were dead, that he’d rot and the bugs would eat his flesh. She lifted her chin at him.