An almost unnatural pounding of feet smacked the second-floor hallways like a jackhammer in fast-forward.
Janet jerked her head toward the building’s exit options. Before her, a hallway ran straight to the quadruple-door exit. But she wasn’t fast when she wore her expensive runners, let alone barefoot. He’d see her, catch her, and drag her into some dark corner if she tried that route.
Her opportunity, then, was to the right or left, where propped-open doors led into computer labs C and D. She ducked into D.
The lab, lit only by moonlight and a slight hue from the hallway, was set up in long rows of angled workstations that stretched from the teacher’s station at the front all the way to the windows in the back. Under each desk was enough room to hide a person. With university police coming, the conductor would have to take more time than he’d like to check under all of them. He’d be forced to leave.
Janet thought about running to the farthest row of computer stations, but the conductor was smart and, if he looked in here, might check that spot first. She ran to the back of the third to last row, moved the computer chair, crawled under the desk, then rolled the chair back toward her.
Footsteps pounded down the stairs.
A deep breath caught in her throat, and she froze. Her heart pounded like a subwoofer beating in her chest, ears, and behind her eyes.
The conductor had reached the first floor but now was still.
Janet could almost hear his thoughts whir like her computer fans had only moments ago. He knew she couldn’t have run the length of the hallway, which could only mean . . .
She prayed he’d choose lab C.
She heard him step into D.
Unlike Janet, the conductor wasn’t breathing hard. He remained steady, silent. “This is one of my favorite times of the year, you know? Every spring, regardless of what this unpredictable climate dealt, my grandmother used to take me to see the tulips, a wondrous sight to any child.”
She pressed one hand to her stomach and tears blurred her vision. She could vomit this very moment. What would he do to her? How much would it hurt?
Janet pursed her quivering lips and bared her teeth. She needed to get ready to fight, not faint. Which direction was he moving?
“Vibrant colors as far as the eye could see, and that wasn’t even the best part. No, the best part was the scent. The tulipa kaufmanniana, greigii, humilis. I had such a nose, enough that it was my sick old man’s first compliment. ‘You’re as girly as those Powerpuffs,’ he’d tell me. It’s a gift. I can smell anything.”
Janet closed her eyes, trying to concentrate on her hearing so she could pick up any noise beyond the throbbing of her heart. Please, someone, just get here.
“What I loved about you the moment I met you, Janet, was your lovely perfume—your spectacular scent.”
Sweat beads formed and slid down her face. She leaned forward an inch to dry it on the chair’s seat cushion.
With numbing legs, she kept her hands pressed to the floor like a sprinter ready to jump off the blocks. Her nook under the desk made her feel like she was crouching between two furnaces.
The chair, which only a moment ago had soaked up her sweat, smashed into her face with incredible force.
The back of Janet’s head crashed into the desk and blood sprayed from her nose.
The confined space spun.
Her hands trembled.
Watery eyes blurred her vision.
Hands pulled her out from under the desk, rendering her weightless. The next thing she knew, she was being slammed on top of the desk, sending pens and a stapler flying.
She screamed.
Janet tried to kick, but the highways on which her brain signals traveled appeared to have been destroyed. Her body wasn’t doing what her mind was telling it to.
But her eyes were working well enough to see the pale demon.
“Janet, Janet, tablet, tablet.” The gas mask the conductor had been wearing dangled from his white neck. “Where’d you put it, dear?” His hands groped up her legs and, after failing to find anything, punched into her diaphragm, knocking the wind out of her. Her blouse tore open, but again, he didn’t find what he was looking for.
“One word, one location, Janet.”
Glass shattered in the distance and the conductor snapped his head to the left. One of the lanes of her brain’s highway must have reopened, because Janet thrust her fist up into the lunatic’s throat.
He stumbled back.
Janet tried to stand but couldn’t. Whatever chest muscles she used every day had suddenly vanished. She gasped for breath but only managed to get tiny bits of air, her entire body limp. Unable to do anything else, she shifted her gaze to the conductor.
He was experiencing his own coughing fit, but looking at her immobilized state with a twisted excitement, as if she were the cover of his favorite magazine.
He walked away—whether smiling or snarling, she couldn’t tell.
Fire alarm screaming, Alec and I burst into the communications building through the side entrance.
I swung the AR-15 into shooting position as we passed several classrooms and cut through the commons area. “Janet?”
Out the other side, we spotted the stairs that would take us to her second-floor office and hustled toward them. At the bottom were doors leading into computer labs.
“I hear her,” Alec said, turning into computer lab D.
But I didn’t follow. I was frozen.
Slowly, I turned to look down the length of the hallway we’d busted through.
At the far end, past the commons area connection and near the building entrance, stood the conductor, wrapped in a pinstripe dress shirt and black raincoat, his face a nightmarish twist of black and white. A Von Boch hat, slightly tilted, shaded his eyes, and around his neck dangled a gas mask. His build looked slight and he stood maybe six feet tall. Two shiny objects were wrapped over his fingers and forearms—some sort of brass knuckles.
“Markus Haas, the brilliant paradox. Unbreakably broken, but not like the rest—no, not like the rest.”
I took aim. “What happened at Stephanie’s house?”
“A wonderful weapon. But you really should test your artillery before bandying it about in such militant situations. Especially with Cody, Steph, and the chickpeas all just hanging in the balance, yes?”
The conductor had known the squad car I’d drive—he’d emptied the AR-15 of its ammo, hadn’t he? I lowered the barrel. “Where are they? What have you done?”
The conductor pulled out his phone and texted something.
My phone buzzed.
“Look at it.”
I pulled up my phone so that I could glance at it while keeping the conductor in my line of vision. But I couldn’t just glance. There were several photos, each more grotesque than the last—an amateur surgery in which a body had been opened, implanted with a device the size of a skipping rock, and then sewn shut.
“Know who that is? Of course you don’t. You’re on stage and don’t have my vantage.”
My face burned and I found myself lifting the AR-15 back up at him, even though it was probably without rounds. “Why all of this? What do you want?”
The conductor continued as if I hadn’t spoken a word. “I ordered that little surgery after you sent Cody galloping to the farmhouse. I imagined you’d be the hard one to crack—but it still surprises and delights me.” He lowered his chin and looked at me the way a starving cannibal might look at his next meal. “How far are you willing to go? What will you sacrifice next? Janet? What about the reporter boy? The possibilities are endless.”
He tilted his head and clicked his tongue, mouth stretching into a grin. “My knots, all tangled up like Christmas lights. Hate that, don’t you? But the science behind the solution isn’t of the rocket variety—it’s quite simple.” He pulled the mask over his nose and mouth and raised his other hand, fist clenched, then popped it open. “Get new lights.”
A tiny canister dropped to
the floor and, upon impact, started spraying white smoke with the force of a fire extinguisher. All the lights in the communications building shut off as a loud pop rang in the distance.
I held my breath and broke into a sprint, shifting the AR-15 in my grip to wield it like a baseball bat. Couldn’t kill him. Not without knowing if he’d taken Steph and the girls. But I could capture him.
The conductor hadn’t looked particularly athletic. I could—
From somewhere in the darkness, what felt like a cinderblock smashed into my face.
The AR-15 slid across the marble floor and I thudded onto my back, involuntarily sucking in a breath of the white smoke. Almost immediately, my limbs started to tremble and go numb.
My head shook as I tried to fight whatever was taking over my body. But it was too late. The numbing crawled up my neck and touched my brain, shutting it all down.
11
SATURDAY, 11:34 P.M.
I jolted upright and took in my surroundings. Moving car. Alec driving, Janet passenger. I had been lying down in the back seat, and what felt like shards of cement were scraping against my skull. What had happened?
The conductor had escaped. Knocked me down and gassed me.
How’d I get in the car? Where were we going?
Stephanie. Cody. The girls.
I must have been speaking my thoughts because Janet turned around and shushed me. “You got knocked around, a decent bruise to show for it. We know he has your people”—she looked at Alec—“so we ducked the other university police and got out the back.”
I noticed she had the charred tablet on her lap, hooked up to a laptop. I pointed at it, then closed my eyes for a moment. If it could lead us to the conductor, he would have taken it; if it couldn’t lead us to him, Janet wouldn’t be working on it.
She flicked its screen as if it had caused her nothing but trouble. “Slid it behind the stairwell before he caught up. But having to use Alec’s laptop is making things more complicated.”
“Anything?” I rasped.
Janet shook her head. “Time’s all I need. If something’s on here, I’ll find it.”
I leaned forward and looked at both of them, back and forth, back and forth. Janet and Alec had done nothing shady or untrustworthy—but I had been out for a while, and the conductor could have messaged them any number of things that would make them turn on me or one another. “What’s he texted?”
Snow fell like feathers out the windows. Alec adjusted the rearview mirror as we passed a long stretch of white-laced evergreens on either side of the road. “Group texted Janet and me. Said we’d made mistakes, that the string wasn’t happy.”
“And?”
Alec stared through the windshield. “That he’d be surprised if we lived through the night.”
I pursed my lips, wanting to put a bullet in the conductor.
“Where are your people—Stephanie, the girls?” Janet said. “We’re all in whether we like it or not—so let us help you.”
Alec nodded.
These two people—practically strangers before today—were willingly driving into danger for me. But not without cost. “Forty-five sixty Aldergrove Lane.” I wiped my mouth and reached for my holster instinctively, forgetting that the chief had stripped me of my firearm.
“Here,” Janet said, handing me a pistol. “Yours was empty so we drove to my house and picked mine up. Don’t have a clue what it is, but it fires and the clerks said it was no peashooter.”
I looked at her, eyebrows raised.
“What, a girl can’t own a gun?”
I checked the clip and tried to get a feel for it. Looked like the clerks had known what they were talking about. It was a Smith & Wesson M&P 9mm. “There’s a long driveway. Drop me off a quarter mile in. I’ll foot the rest.”
“Forget that, tell us what to do,” Janet said. “We’re all breaking the string now, and you heard what he wrote—we’re in danger whether we help you or not. Don’t act like some hero. It’s not about you.” She turned back to me. “Frankly? We feel safer together.”
I looked away from her for a minute, staring at the double lines in the road. She was right. It just didn’t feel right. They weren’t trained like I was. The thought of using civilians to help bring down a terrorist would be absurd in almost any other scenario. But this wasn’t any other scenario.
“You know I’m right,” Janet said. “This is about stopping the conductor, so . . .” She paused a moment. “We do it together or I do it separately. Nothing changes that fact. End of discussion.”
“You thought through what he’ll do if we aren’t successful?” I said. “You checked on your sister?”
“I called in an anonymous threat on her life. Hoping it beefs up security.”
“Alec?”
The student journalist looked pensive. “My secret’s needed to come out. I can do jail time; I can’t sit back and do nothing anymore.” He gripped the wheel and glanced over his shoulder. “In other words, I’m good.”
I kept my eye on him in the rearview mirror an extra moment, trying to gauge him. “Let me see the text.”
Janet and Alec shared a glance.
“Here.” Janet held up her phone and I leaned forward to read it.
A couple of teenagers, you two, making bad choices.
I can be forgiving, but not the string. Ruthless, that string.
I’d hoped you’d stick around for the finale, but I doubt you’ll survive the night.
The string of texts ended with an emoji: a spool of thread.
We turned onto Aldergrove Lane and zigzagged Steph’s elaborate private driveway. Darkness and snow blanketed the headlights and made for an ominous tunnel of blackness through which the road twisted and turned. The normally gravelly path had been covered in white, and the pace at which Alec drove felt unbearably slow.
My stomach roiled as I thought through the scenarios the conductor may have orchestrated for Steph, Cody, and the girls. “Come on, hit it.”
“Want me to slide off the road?” Alec said. “This stuff is slick.”
I forced my hands to my knees and breathed. Even though the conductor’s manipulative game had only started hours ago for me, it suddenly felt as though Mother Nature had decided to join the madness as well, keeping me away from the one place I needed to be.
I looked out the window—
As if in slow motion, I saw the black raincoat, tilted black hat, and a white face staring at me, slowly turning his back and walking away into the obscurity of the wooded terrain.
“Stop!”
Alec hit the brakes and the car skidded forward in tiny spurts as the ABS kicked in. The tires shifted and we slid off the road, Janet bear-hugging her equipment the whole way. She craned her neck toward me, face ashen, shoulders tight.
I opened the door and jumped out, pointing my firearm at where I’d seen him. “I saw him. Get the car turned around. You see anyone but me, get out of here.”
Alec tapped the gas, but the tires just spun. “I think I can get out. Go.” He gripped the steering wheel with trembling hands and glanced into the blackness on either side of the road.
Snow crunching under every step, I ran to where I’d seen the conductor, keeping Alec and Janet in my periphery. The road provided a pale glow, but beyond the tree line—total blackness. I pulled out my flashlight and swung it and the Smith & Wesson left, right. Darkness swallowed the light like a black hole consuming a star. It was as if nightfall had formed a pact with the monster and was concealing him.
But I’d seen him. I knew I had.
I stepped lightly into the blackness, biting my lower lip and scanning the darkness with the pinprick of light from my flashlight. An eerie shiver worked its way through me, leaving me feeling as though the conductor were watching me with all the clarity of high definition. I had zero advantages in this situation. But if he were here, Cody and the girls had to be close.
My mouth twitched at the thought.
I slowed my breathing
and eased farther into the dark, glancing at the ground for prints and back up for a potential ambush. Fresh snow clung to my head and face.
There. A footprint. Two more. Leading deeper into the tree line. But he wasn’t this simple. Why was the conductor hoofing around in the woods and not at the house?
I followed the prints for twenty yards before they crossed a different set of footprints. A pit formed in my stomach. At least one other person was roaming out here with the conductor, and I wasn’t sure it wasn’t the devil himself.
He was trapping me.
Being the seeker put me at a disadvantage. Being outnumbered put my odds of overtaking the conductor at next to zero.
But Cody, Steph, and the girls needed me. There wasn’t any backup or time for a plan. I was the plan.
Whatever force had pulled Steph through her darkest days, I wished I could access it in this moment. Because every ounce of desire and determination inside me felt coldly hollow.
I continued following the first set of prints but found myself glancing in the direction of the other prints every few seconds.
A third set of prints crossed over the original prints in the opposite direction. I could be in the process of being surrounded.
Then I heard it.
The crunching of snow up ahead, in the direction of the original footprints—someone was there. Running.
I sprinted ahead, waving my flashlight. “Stop!” I shot twice at the air.
Ahead, I heard a rustling of sorts.
Full-on running, I nearly dove into what I thought was a person but turned out to be a tree trunk. My free hand jammed into the bark, but I managed to hold on to the gun. I glanced left, right, searching for tracks. But there were none.
Then a branch cracked above me.
“Someone’s coming,” Alec said, looking ahead at oncoming headlights. “They’re driving kamikaze fast.” He tapped the gas, trying to pull back onto the roadway. But the tires were gripping the icy snow about as well as butter grips oil.
The String Page 9