by Debra Webb
“All right. You leave your friends right now,” the voice instructed. “Go out the back of the restaurant, slip through the alley and loop to your right which will take you to a street just beyond where you are now. Two blocks to your left is Franklin. Take the next left and a car will be waiting in front of Memory Hill Cemetery. If you don’t show up or you tell anyone else, they’ll all die. Including Ellen’s poor damaged daughter.”
The call ended.
Jo’s heart pounded faster and faster. She was familiar with the cemetery. Another of those haunted places new freshmen explored. First, she should tell Tony. No. She couldn’t go back out there. She couldn’t tell him and he would recognize something was wrong. Blume was right—had to be Blume—Jo had to go out the back. She had to do this.
But she couldn’t leave without giving Tony something to go on. Ending up dead without leaving some idea of where to start searching for the others would be plain dumb.
Jo ducked out of the bathroom and into the kitchen. She glanced around until she saw what she needed. She grabbed the pen from the counter and hurried back to the bathroom. Inside the first stall she considered carefully what to say before she wrote the message on the wall. If she told anyone or was too straightforward with her message he might catch up with her before she reached the car Blume was sending. Couldn’t risk it.
Going to save Tif and the others. Sylvia is there, too. Lunch was too close to the dead. Look up and you’ll see.
She shoved the pen into her back pocket and went to the door.
Deep breath.
She opened the door slowly and moved into the narrow hall. Bobbie, Tony and Nick were still at the table, hovering over the map.
Jo moved toward the back of the restaurant that had once been a historic home. This time when she reached the kitchen she moved on through as if she belonged there and out the door she went. She hurried along the alley until she found a narrow side alley leading back out to Wayne Street.
She moved fast from there. Not quite running, but close. She took the left at Franklin and spotted the cemetery immediately. Memory Hill was one of the oldest in the city. Students sneaked around the cemetery at night to see if the rumors that it was haunted were true.
A black car waited in front of the gate. Jo walked to the car. A man sat behind the wheel. He powered the window down. “Ms. Guthrie?”
She nodded.
“I’m here to take you to your meeting.”
Jo looked around, spotted what she was looking for immediately so she climbed into the back seat.
As soon as the door closed he rolled away from the curb.
“Where are we going?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I have orders not to discuss the destination with you. It’s supposed to be a surprise.” He smiled at her in the rearview mirror. “I pick you up. I drop you off.”
“I get it. My friend likes surprises.” She managed a smile back at him. “It’s my birthday. I’m turning eighteen again.” She prayed he would remember that when the police interviewed him.
The driver flashed her another smile before turning his attention back to the street.
Jo dug the pen from her back pocket. “You know,” she said to the driver as she leaned forward pretending to peer out the front windshield, “this is my first visit to Milledgeville. I had no idea there was so much history here.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised.”
As he talked on and on about the city that had once been Georgia’s capital, Jo kept her eyes on him in the rearview mirror while she wrote a message on the back of his leather seat.
Maybe she’d get lucky and the driver would see it when he cleaned the car this evening.
Or the next fare he picked up would take the message seriously and call the police.
Then she recognized the road they were taking and the pen slipped from her fingers.
She had known this was the place.
51
Day Fourteen
Eighteen years ago...
Carrie has a fever and she’s sweating.
I hold her hand and say soothing things to her. She mostly groans and complains.
I don’t know how many hours it has been since we ate the burgers. Maybe she has food poisoning or E. coli.
If only we had water.
We are all very weak today.
Ellen scoots next to me. “Is she dying?”
I elbow her. “Of course not. She’ll be fine. The raw meat probably gave her a bellyache.”
Ellen sits down beside me. “I feel kind of sick, too.”
I feel the same but I keep it to myself. Maybe he or they poisoned us and now want to watch us die in agony.
What was the fucking point of the key?
At least we haven’t been forced to fight again and the horrible movies aren’t playing anymore. That is something to be thankful for.
A loud clatter snaps my attention to the left just as something falls from the overhead door. It clatters and slides against the dirty floor. Then a second object falls.
What the hell?
A third one hits the floor, clattering and sliding into the others.
I release Carrie’s hand and crawl to the pile and sit back on my knees.
Knives. Not just knives, butcher knives—the kind I remember from my grandmother’s kitchen. She used one like this to chop up a chicken once.
“Oh my God.” Ellen grabs my arm as if she needs something to hang on to.
The male voice commands, “Take a knife.”
Fear twists in my belly along with the raw meat. “No!” I shake my head. I don’t know what’s coming but it can’t be good. My instincts are screaming at me.
Ellen reaches out and picks one up. She turns it side to side, watching the shiny metal flash in the light. “Are we going to need these to protect ourselves?”
“Put it down,” I whisper.
Carrie manages to sit up and scoot over to where we are. “What the hell?”
“Take a knife!” the voice repeats.
Carrie reaches for a knife.
I’m not doing it. I innately understand the knives are not for protection.
A grinding sound jerks my attention to the right. The hole we’ve been using for a toilet suddenly closes. There must be a hydraulic door I couldn’t see, not that I’d stuck my head inside the hole. It was too little to use as an escape route so I didn’t bother.
A gushing sound came next. I glance around to see where it is coming from. Water pours down the walls in a thin sheet as if all four walls have suddenly turned into waterfalls. I remember seeing water walls like this in a restaurant once.
I look at the others and then at the walls again. I feel the water rising around my ankles. As if someone inside my head is speaking to me I hear the words: we are going to drown.
The male voice booms loud in the room. “All you need for your freedom is one thing...a single key.”
We stare at each other. Carrie grabs her stomach and groans. Ellen clutches her knife and scoots away from us.
I pick up the final knife before the rising water can sweep it away and I turn to Carrie. Like Ellen, she scoots away.
The water rushes and rushes. The water is up to my knees now. I ignore it. They’re trying to scare us. The water will stop. Or we’ll just float up to the top and hang on to that metal gate-like door. Except the gate is even with the ceiling on our side. The wall around the opening goes up about another ten inches. The bottom drops out of my stomach. The water will rise above the metal gate by several inches.
Ellen and Carrie stare at me as if they, too, have reached this same conclusion.
I shake my head. “I’m not hurting anyone.” I throw down the knife. It floats this way and that until it sinks to the bottom.
“Only two of you can survive,” the vo
ice roars. “One must die. Make a choice. Take a key before it’s too late.”
No way.
The water is at my waist now. I am really scared.
Carrie is clutching her stomach again. I want to go to her but I’m afraid. She has a knife in her hand.
The water brushes the tops of my thighs. I back away from the others. Against the wall where the water oozes forth.
I will not kill anyone. I will not.
Ellen and Carrie are staring at each other.
My heart pounds. I need to say something, to stop whatever is about to happen.
“No!” I shout. “Don’t listen to him! He wants us to hurt each other.”
Ellen rushes toward Carrie. Carrie starts forward but stumbles and falls face-first into the water. Ellen stabs at her with the knife.
I rush toward them.
Ellen and Carrie are fighting. I try to pull them apart. Can’t. Water is at my waist now.
Carrie is under the water. Ellen kicks her in the stomach.
“Stop!” I scream and reach for Carrie.
Ellen holds her under the water. I pull at Ellen, first one of her arms and then the other but I can’t move her.
“Stop!” I can’t budge Ellen. How can she be so strong? Then it hits me, adrenaline. She is fighting to survive.
I grab her hair and yank her head back. She screams but won’t let go of her hold on Carrie.
I push her head under the water. We struggle and roll. Finally, she releases Carrie. I jerk loose from her and slug through the water to Carrie.
She isn’t breathing. Her eyes are open, staring at me.
Oh shit. Oh shit. I try to help her but the water is so deep. I hold her head up out of the water and try to squeeze any water out of her lungs. But it’s nearly impossible to keep her above the water level.
“She’s dead!” Ellen snarls. She stands in front of us with a knife in her hand. “Now hold her up so I can get the key.”
I stand there in a kind of shock, holding Carrie under her arms, her head sagging forward, while Ellen cuts into her. Blood rises up around us. Hot tears slide down my cheeks but there is nothing I can do.
It takes forever—the water is at our chins now. Blood swirls with Ellen’s frantic movements. The water sloshes back and forth, hitting me in the face. I taste the saltiness of Carrie’s blood. I stagger, almost fall. I don’t care. I hope we all die.
“Got it!”
Ellen pulls Carrie’s body away from me. I watch her sink to the bottom. Her insides floating all around her. Blood widening like a crimson cloud...
“Stand by the lock,” Ellen orders.
Instinctively my head tilts back to keep the water out of my nose. We are going to die. It’s too late to save ourselves. I don’t care.
“Do it, Joanna!” Ellen screams.
I move to the spot beneath the lock we cannot reach. It hangs from the cage-style door eight feet off the floor. The door is flush with the ceiling.
Ellen climbs my back. I stumble, nearly fall over, but I right myself and sputter water from my mouth and nose. She sits on my shoulders and works until she releases the lock. It splashes in the water next to me, sinking to the bottom with Carrie.
We should die, too. We don’t deserve to live.
As if the lock released more than the cage-like door, the water stops running in and immediately starts to drain.
The sound is deafening. The pull of the water almost drags me down.
Ellen is jerking and pushing. I peer up. She’s trying to push the cage-style door upward. Suddenly it starts to fall in on us.
We topple backward into the water.
When we surface again, the cage door is hanging from the ceiling like a ladder.
Ellen slogs through the water that is now only waist deep and grabs onto the ladder.
I rush after her and jerk her away from the ladder.
“Wait!” I put my face in hers. “We’re taking Carrie with us.”
“We have to get out of here!” Ellen cries.
I shake my head. “Not without Carrie.”
Only two of us are alive, but all three of us will get out.
52
2:30 p.m.
Forty-nine minutes had passed since Jo walked out the back door of the restaurant. They had searched the restaurant from top to bottom, twice, and combed the surrounding blocks.
Tony had called Phelps for backup. He, Bobbie and Nick had searched the restaurant and expanded their search a full block around the building.
No one had seen her.
“What the hell is she thinking?”
Standing next to him on the sidewalk, Nick said, “She’s thinking she had a lead or some plan she needs to do alone.” He glanced at Tony. “We’ve all done it. At the time you think you know more than anyone about the plan or the lead or whatever it is you feel you have to do.”
As badly as Tony did not want to admit Nick was right, he was. But that didn’t stop him from being worried and pissed. Jo was an adult; she had the right to make a stupid decision. Tiffany was a kid. This move, he feared, would somehow impact her and maybe not for the best.
That wasn’t fair. He didn’t know Jo well, but he was certain she would never purposely hurt Tiffany or anyone else.
“Bobbie said her cell rang before she went to the restroom, but she didn’t answer,” Nick pointed out. “Maybe she got a call she couldn’t ignore but needed privacy to take it.”
Tony was pretty damned sure that was exactly what happened. “Son of a bitch.”
Phelps joined them. “You know, LeDoux, it’s always possible Ms. Guthrie decided she’d had enough. Or maybe she has something to hide. She was silent about what really happened for a very long time. Maybe there’s more to the story than we know.”
Tony resisted the impulse to punch the guy. “She came here to help set the past to rights. If she hadn’t come back, we’d still be kicking around irrelevant scenarios.”
Phelps turned his hands up. “Just saying. You never really know what a person is capable of and, the fact is, we don’t know the full story about what happened eighteen years ago.”
Tony bit his jaw, letting the pain distract his temper. Right now he needed this man’s help. “But we do know what’s happening right now and at least four lives are at stake.”
“Hey,” Bobbie called from the restaurant entrance. When they turned to her, she went on, “I went through the ladies’ room again. Jo left a note.”
Tony followed Bobbie to the ladies’ room, the place Jo had claimed she was going before she took off. Nick was right behind him. Since witnesses in the kitchen had watched Jo walk out of her own volition there was no need to consider any part of the restaurant a crime scene.
In the first of two stalls a note had been written in red ink on the wall among half a dozen others of varying shades of black and blue.
Going to save Tif. Sylvia is there, too. Lunch was too close to the dead. Look up and you’ll see me.
Tony looked from the note on the wall to the ceiling. “What does she mean look up?”
“One way to find out,” Bobbie offered.
They moved through the entire restaurant scrutinizing the ceiling.
“Wait.” Nick turned to Phelps. “Is there a cemetery nearby?”
Son of a bitch. Nick was right. She’d said this place was too close to the dead.
“Memory Hill is maybe two or three blocks away.”
“Show us the way.” Tony was already headed for the door as he said the words.
The cemetery was no more than a three-minute walk from the restaurant. Two and a half if you moved quickly and knew that every second you wasted could cost lives. Tony ran the entire distance. En route way behind him, Phelps called a couple of uniforms to help with the search of the cemetery.
&
nbsp; Tony walked around the memorial to the thousands buried at Central State Hospital several times. He’d expected that to be the first place she would go. Nothing. No messages, no clues. No bread crumbs.
Nothing.
They searched the entire cemetery and found not one damned thing that showed Jo had been there.
When they were at the front gate again, Phelps shook his head. “She said to look up and see her but I’m not finding anything in the trees.”
Tony surveyed the street. His gaze lit on the traffic cam and he smiled. He pointed to the intersection of Greene and Wayne. “Traffic cams. She was talking about the traffic cams.” He turned to Phelps. “If someone picked her up here, we might be able to see who it was and what kind of vehicle they were driving on the traffic cams.”
Phelps gave a nod of agreement. “It’s worth a try, but it’ll take some time.”
There was nothing else they could do.
Milledgeville Public Safety Office, 4:15 p.m.
Forty-five minutes were required to get the engineer on-site, and then for him to pull the traffic cam data. Phelps had relayed the latest turn of events to the rest of the task force. Bobbie and Nick had remained at the cemetery location to question anyone nearby who might have seen Jo. Tony had paced a hole in the carpet of the chief’s office by the time the engineer scooted back from the screen and said, “There you go. That—” he pointed at the screen “—is about two this afternoon. Once you hit Play, it will move forward.”
Phelps grabbed his phone from his utility belt. “Phelps.”
Tony didn’t wait for the chief, he hit Play and took the seat the engineer had abandoned.
“We’re on our way out right now.” Phelps snapped his phone back onto his belt. “One of my detectives is out front with a local cab driver. The cabbie says he’s the one who picked up Guthrie and that she left a note on the back of his seat.”
Tony hit Pause on the video and rushed after the chief. Outside, the cabbie’s complexion revealed how worried he was.
“I picked up another fare and he told me about the message. I called 911 and came straight here.”
Tony slid into the back seat and stared at the words written in the same red ink as the note on the bathroom stall.