Autumn's Game

by Mary Stone

  Autumn grabbed her arm. “Are you al—”

  “Go!” Winter cried. “Just go.”

  Without hesitation, Autumn was out of the car in a flash. By the time Winter had her own door open, Autumn was almost to the door. Checking that her Glock and handcuffs were in place, she began to run after her friend.

  Something was wrong in that house. She just knew it.

  The neighborhood didn’t seem unusual. It was just another aging neighborhood in a normal small town. The breeze picked up, and a line of decorative flags with Christmas themes, sports teams, and cheerful messages fluttered along the street.

  Nothing to see here.

  Instead of knocking, Autumn was trying to look through a window. She turned back toward Winter, her face white. “Hurry!”

  Winter picked up speed, her head easing. On the porch, a bright welcome mat beamed “All Are Welcome Here” in front of the door.

  Just as Winter lifted her fist to pound on the door, there was a scream. And it came from inside.

  Autumn jammed her thumb on the doorbell repeatedly as she shook the doorknob with her other hand. It was locked, and Winter couldn’t hear any ringing inside. The bell was broken.

  Winter placed a hand on her friend’s shoulder and pushed her firmly out of the way. Winter took a step backward and was about to kick, then Autumn grabbed her arm. “We don’t have a warrant.”

  She shook off Autumn’s hand. “There was a scream. Probable cause.” In one smooth motion, she pivoted on the ball of her foot and planted a solid kick near the door handle.

  The door jumped open as the cheap door lock popped out of the strike plate. Fortunately, the door hadn’t been bolted or gaining entry wouldn’t have been that easy.

  Winter drew her gun, aiming it at the floor while she cleared the hallway.

  Another scream was followed by “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

  Winter followed the frantic voice down a short hallway.

  In front of her, the hall opened up into a kitchen with a heavy wood dining table. A girl wearing jeans and nothing on top but a bra was bent at the waist over the tabletop with her hands braced on the edge. An older woman with a thick stick in one hand was staring at Winter.

  “Who are you?” the woman shouted.

  She wasn’t holding a weapon, other than the stick. Winter assessed the rest of the room, left to right, scanning for additional threats. Two boys cowered in the corner by the refrigerator, the taller of the two holding the smaller one, who was sobbing uncontrollably.

  “Stay put,” Winter ordered them. The girl’s back was covered with reddened skin that was cut in several places with bloody streaks.

  Autumn appeared at Winter’s elbow and growled low in her throat. “That’s Helen Mathers. And that’s Lisa Hill.”

  Helen Mathers was shaking with rage, her face bright red with anger. “What is going on here?”

  Winter didn’t aim her Glock at the woman. There could be no mistakes, and there was no need for deadly force. Not yet. “Helen Mathers. I’m Special Agent Winter Black with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Drop your weapon and step away from the girl. Now.”

  Mathers actually looked puzzled. “I have no weapon.” She shook the stick. “This is a tool for discipline. You have no right—”

  Winter turned up the volume on her commands. “Drop your weapon and move away from the girl.”

  When Mathers still didn’t move, Winter processed her options. She couldn’t shoot an old woman holding a stick, as satisfying as that would feel at the time. Finally, she sighed and holstered the Glock. If this elderly woman was able to take her down, she’d quit the bureau tomorrow.

  Moving quickly, she placed herself between the woman and the girl. If someone was going to get hit with that damn thing again, it wasn’t going to be a kid.

  Mathers raised the stick to lash out with it, and Winter let her, taking the hit on her covered forearm.

  “Nice,” Winter said as she grabbed the stick and twisted it from the woman’s hand. “Now, in addition to child abuse charges, we can add resisting arrest and assaulting an officer of the law to the list.” When the woman continued to fight, Winter whipped her around and had her face pressed into a wall before she could say another word.

  “Helen Mathers, I’m placing you under arrest…”

  As she rattled off the Miranda warning, she got the cuffs in place as the children watched.

  They should watch. Winter suspected they would have nightmares about this day regardless, but they would also remember how someone had stopped Mathers in the end. How someone protected them. How most cops were generally good and could be trusted.

  Autumn pulled out her phone. “I’ll call the sheriff.”

  “Call 911 instead,” Winter advised. “It’ll be recorded.”

  Autumn nodded, immediately understanding. There were three children crying and the foster mother was screaming and cursing. Another piece of evidence for the trial.

  As Autumn explained the situation, Winter put Mathers in a chair and used a zip tie to secure the cuffs to the wooden slats. It wasn’t exactly protocol, but she needed to immobilize the woman and comfort the crying children.

  Lisa was pitifully trying to cover herself with her bare hands, eyes wide. She had stopped crying but looked pale as a ghost. Shock. Winter grabbed a folded towel from a nearby table and wrapped it around the girl. Lisa winced as the cloth touched her tender back.

  “Are you okay?”

  She clearly wasn’t, but the girl nodded. “I’ll be fine.”

  Brave. Winter liked that in a person.

  Winter guided her over to the two boys still cowering on the floor. “Are you two okay? Are you hurt?”

  “I never hurt them,” Mathers screamed. “I was just doing my duty.”

  Winter ignored the woman and eyed the children. Lisa appeared the only one harmed at the moment.

  The smaller of the two boys, a small preteen with golden, curly hair, shook his head and slowly pointed an accusing finger toward a door on the other side of the kitchen.

  Both Winter and Autumn turned to stare as Lisa burst into tears.

  “What’s that?” Autumn asked, tucking her phone back into her pocket. “A closet? The basement?”

  “A cellar,” Lisa corrected, her voice hitching on the word. “Help her.”

  That was good enough for Winter. More probable cause. She wouldn’t need a warrant to search if she believed another person’s life was in danger.

  The boys nodded but didn’t speak. They were clearly terrified of saying too much.

  “There’s nothing down there!” Mathers screamed when Autumn tried the lock. It didn’t budge.

  Winter looked back at the kids. The smallest boy said nothing, but his little finger pointed up. “Look on the top of the doorframe,” Winter said.

  Autumn felt across the top and came away with a small key, her green eyes flashing with anger.

  Mathers was trying to get up, dragging the chair along with her, and Winter put her hand on the woman’s shoulder, forcing her back down. “Autumn, wait for backup. Whatever is down there can wait another minute or two. I can’t leave Mathers here with the kids, and you can not go down there alone.”

  The wail of sirens was already rushing toward the house. The sound was low, but it was there. Autumn hesitated and took another step.

  Mathers glared at the children and hissed through her teeth. “If any of you say one word…!”

  Lisa whimpered in terror, and Autumn turned to face her, holding her arms out. The girl rushed into her arms. Winter and Autumn’s eyes met over the girl’s head while she stroked her hair.

  They were both furious.

  The sirens screamed up to the house. Car doors slammed. Footsteps pounded up to the porch.

  Sheriff Morton’s voice roared through the open front door. “Sheriff Morton here, and I’m coming in!”

  Autumn kissed the top of the girl’s head and gently set her aside. She turned toward the
cellar door, throwing it open so hard it slammed against the wall as she rushed down the stairs.

  Winter groaned. “Autumn, wait!”

  23

  Autumn rushed down Helen Mathers’s open wood stairs into the dirty, dank cellar. “Hello? Anyone? I’m here to help. Is anyone down here?

  The cellar was less spic-and-span than the house upstairs. A water heater stood against a cinderblock wall, and a few dim, narrow windows were so dirty they couldn’t be seen through. Bare metal supports held up the floor above and stacks of boxes lay everywhere. Shelves upon shelves lined the walls, filled with canned vegetables. There was enough down here to feed a small army.

  But it was empty of anything human.

  “Hello? Is anyone down here?”

  Autumn hunted around for a light switch, pulling out her cell phone to light up the space a bit.

  From the top of the stairs, she heard Winter tell the sheriff to keep an eye on the foster mother, then her friend appeared in the doorway, backlit from the kitchen light. “Anything?” Winter called.

  “Not yet. I need more light.”

  Autumn shuffled into the darkness, trying not to trip on anything underfoot. The dirt floor smelled musty and there were mouse droppings everywhere.

  “There isn’t a light switch up here,” Winter said.

  Something thin and white bounced away from her arm. Either there was a pull-string for a light in front of her, or there were some really thick spiderwebs down here.

  She grabbed it and pulled.

  A dim bulb lit up the room. Almost immediately, the dust-covered lightbulb smoked then popped, and the cellar went dark again.

  “Do you have a flashlight?” she called up to Winter.

  Winter’s silhouette disappeared, and she heard her talking to the sheriff. A moment later, Winter was clamoring down the steps, a bright beam of light leading the way.

  Autumn turned, and her arm brushed against a box. Something squeaked, and she jerked her arm away. Something skittered across the cardboard.

  “Mice?” Winter asked, shining the beam around the room.

  “Yeah, but I don’t see any other living creature.”

  Winter groaned and lowered the beam until it scanned across the dirt floor. “Please don’t let this be a cemetery,” she murmured.

  The idea rang around Autumn’s head as she took a step back. She searched her memory. The reports said that Mathers had been caring for four children. When she and Adam had been here yesterday, there had only been three, and the interview had been cut short before she’d realized one was unaccounted for.

  Where was the other child?

  The light threw shadows across the unfinished interior walls, which were a weird mix of materials: stone, cement, cinderblock. Being so close to the mountains must have made for some interesting issues digging basements and cellars. She wondered if most houses here even had them.

  Wintered peered through the darkness. “There’s nobody down here.”

  “Hand me the flashlight.” Autumn shuffled forward and held out her hand.

  Winter handed it over. “We’re missing something.”

  “Yeah,” Autumn agreed. “The fourth child.”

  “I’m not seeing anything.”

  Autumn crouched down, careful not to touch the floor. There were definitely mouse pellets everywhere. It was insane that someone who seemed so neat and tidy as Helen Mathers wouldn’t call in an exterminator.

  Unless she didn’t want other people down here?

  Autumn turned around in a slow circle. The shelves of canned food were a little dusty, but not nearly as bad as the rest of the basement. The flashlight glinted on the glass. A search around the jars revealed several mousetraps that had been put out, the kind that killed with a snap. They were baited with fresh peanut butter.

  “What is going on here?”

  Autumn wasn’t really directing the question at anyone, but Winter answered her. “Maybe it’s just that the kids are scared of the basement? Maybe she made them stand down here for punishment.”

  “A woman who whips kids with a stick doesn’t just make kids stand in the corner.”

  “Everything okay down there?” Sheriff Morton called.

  “Ask the kids if there is someone down here,” Winter called back.

  A full minute passed before the sheriff reappeared at the door. Helen Mathers was screaming loud enough to be heard from the basement. “A girl named Ashley. The boy said she was in the thinking box.”

  A box?

  The corners were all stacked high with boxes. Please don’t let a child be in one of those, she thought. A few minutes later, the women looked at each other and then around the cellar again. These boxes were empty, so where…

  Beside her, Winter lifted her finger to her nose. It had begun to bleed.

  “What do you see?” Autumn asked.

  Autumn used to believe that the special intuitive abilities she’d received after her head injury was a curse. It wasn’t until she was in college that she began to see it as a blessing. And Autumn knew that it had taken Winter even longer than that to come to accept her own special abilities.

  Winter’s intuitions were much stronger than Autumn’s. Where Autumn could feel things when she touched a person, Winter had some special insight that allowed her to see things that others couldn’t see. She also had visions of things that happened in the past, and on occasion, she had been forewarned about what would happen in the future.

  To be honest, Autumn was a little jealous that her own abilities weren’t as strong. If they were, she wouldn’t fight them like Winter did. She’d add them to her arsenal, using them to help her take more bad guys down.

  Even in the dank basement, she smiled a little. Autumn’s game of thrones, her own personal war against evil.

  The smile fell away, as Winter took a step toward one of the shelves of food. The shelf was a little different. A little taller. Because that particular shelf was on wheels.

  “Winter, you’re brilliant.”

  Autumn rushed to the shelf and began to push. Winter ran to help, although the wheels rolled smoothly.

  Winter whistled. “Holy shit.”

  Where the shelf once stood was a smooth metal door no more than three feet tall and three feet wide. The perfect size for a child.

  There was a lock, and Autumn frantically began searching for a key. Winter ran to the bottom of the steps. “Sheriff Morton, ask our foster mother where she’s hidden the key!”

  More screaming ensued, then light footsteps came rushing down the steps. It was Lisa, and she was holding on to the towel covering her front with one hand and a set of keys with the other.

  “Thank you, honey.”

  Lisa fell back a couple steps but didn’t leave. When Winter urged her to head back up the steps, she refused to go.

  Autumn chose a small key that look to be the right fit. It wasn’t. She chose another, then on the third try, the lock popped open. Her heart nearly soared in her chest.

  She pulled on the metal door, then soon realized it needed to slide.

  Autumn coughed when she was assaulted with the scent of stale urine and feces. She swallowed down a rush of bile, then pointed the flashlight into the opening. The space wasn’t wide, but it was long.

  “Ashley.”

  Her voice didn’t echo. It barely seemed to penetrate the space at all. It had been very effectively soundproofed. She climbed inside.

  Another scent hit her. Urine and feces and sweat and fear. There was also another faint smell. A clay or doughy sort of smell mixed with ammonia that she would recognize anywhere. The horrible, unmistakable smell of someone starving to death.

  Autumn whimpered. No…not that.

  The scent wasn’t strong, but in the not so distant past, a child had nearly starved in this place. She had known a girl in the foster system who had starved herself. She had anorexia, and no one knew until it was almost too late. She had smelled like that.

  She hunched her
shoulders and crawled farther through the narrow opening.

  To the right was a toilet bucket. To the left were two wood shipping pallets with a mound of cardboard on top.

  Autumn walked over to the pallets, crouched down, and lifted the top layer away.

  Underneath was a girl.

  Unconscious. Hot to the touch. Her breathing and heart rate were both too fast.

  “Ashley, honey.” Autumn stroked her hair back from her face. “We’ve got you. You’re safe now. We’re going to get you out of here.”

  “Autumn?” Winter was crawling through the opening.

  “Call an ambulance. Teenage girl. Alive but unconscious.”

  Winter backed out and shouted up the stairs. “Sheriff Morton! Ambulance!” After a moment, she stuck her head back in. “There’s one already on the way for Lisa.”

  Autumn stroked the girl’s hair again. The girl was truly burning up to the touch. “Hear that? Ambulance is on the way.”

  Even unconscious, Ashley shuddered, and for a second, Autumn thought she was going to have a seizure. Autumn hoped the girl didn’t wake before she was moved out of this horrible house. She didn’t need to remember another second of torture here. If Autumn had been able to, she would have waved a magic wand to make the girl forget it completely.

  The girl whimpered, and Autumn adjusted her position. As she did, the flashlight swung around and lit up something on the wall for a second. Autumn aimed the flashlight back at it.

  GINA

  Autumn had no doubt that it was Gina Webster who had carved her name into that wall. She must have smuggled something in sharp enough to scrape into the hard surface.

  “Ambulance one is here,” Winter called from the opening. “This is Ashley Franklin, age sixteen.”

  “How long has she been down here?” Autumn asked, stroking the girl’s sweaty hair back from her face.

  “The kids aren’t sure, but a couple days at least. She was beaten prior to being brought down here.”