by Blake Pierce
“Get her, Adele,” her partner snarled. “I’ve got this.”
Anyone else, Adele wouldn’t have left. Anyone else, she would’ve felt like she was abandoning her partner. But John was different. John could take care of himself. She trusted John. And so, she moved through the window, crawling, clambering through the wooden structure, her forearms scraping against the splintered frame. She dropped out the other side, landing in the soft dirt behind the house. Her eyes scanned the forest; no sign of movement.
Then her gaze darted to the blue van. The front door was open.
But no one was in the driver’s seat.
It looked like maybe Mrs. Klose had tried, or had forgotten the keys. Adele couldn’t be sure. Then her eyes darted to the plywood shed.
Gun raised, Adele hurried around the van, heading toward the shed. “Show yourself,” she called.
Adele glanced in the van as she moved by; the seats were empty. She reached the shed and spotted the door. It looked locked, and as she moved toward it, she hesitated.
“If you’re in there, come out with your hands up,” she snapped. “Come out now!”
She fell silent for a moment, listening. Nothing. Then, a quiet creak. Adele’s eyes narrowed. She pointed her gun at the shed door. And then a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye.
She heard a noise. Instinct told her to wheel around. Just in time, she stumbled back, as a woodcutting ax slashed at her ankles from beneath the car.
Adele howled and jerked back, raising her gun.
The woman scrambled out like some sort of spider, all signs of her own smile, her dancing movements, replaced now by some undulating, devilish twisting of her body as she scrambled from beneath the van. A shower of dust fell over her, and the ax was still clutched tight in her bony fingers. “You will not take my family!” she screamed. To Adele’s brief surprise, the woman was sobbing, tears streaming down her face. “You can’t take my children!”
Adele’s gun raised. The ax lifted.
“Don’t!” Adele screamed.
The woman shouted, took a step forward. Two shots. One missed. Wide, smashed the van window. The other, though, caught the woman in the shoulder, spinning her like a top.
The woman emitted a grunt and then spun around, collapsing to the ground. The ax fell from her hand. She howled at the sky, sobbing a wretched, terrible scream.
“Shut up!” Adele said, kicking out and knocking the woman over.
It took a moment, but she managed to restrain the older woman, cuffing her hands behind her back, where she bled into the dust from her shoulder.
She could hear more struggling, more sounds of shouting. And then, a sudden silence.
Adele spun away from the woman and growled, “Stay there!” Cuffed and shot, she doubted the woman had the energy to rise from where she blubbered into the dirt. Adele sprinted back toward the cabin, running with rapid footfalls.
“John?” she shouted. “John?”
She reached the cabin door, circling toward the patio. One form crouched, gasping, on hands and knees, a dark silhouette framed against the orange light from the cabin. A second lay, knife in his throat, gurgling his last, blood pouring from fingertips. And then, quiet.
John looked at her, breathing heavy, his eyes wide. “He didn’t give me a choice,” he said, wheezing.
Adele looked at the older, gray-haired man. The knife jutted from his neck.
She paused for a moment, swallowed, then her eyes narrowed. “Good job,” she said. “Are you all right?”
“Fine.
“The children?” she said. “The victims. Come with me, we need to check the well.”
“Did you get the bitch?”
“Bleeding, shot in the shoulder. She’s cuffed. She’s not going anywhere.”
“All right, hurry.”
The two of them raced down the cabin steps again, moving through the vegetable garden; this time, Adele intentionally stepped on the plants and kicked over a couple of the potted vegetables.
As she moved toward the well, she gestured at John. Both of them squinted into the darkness, and John’s hand sprang forward and he pointed. “Look,” he snarled. “A ladder.”
Her voice quavering, Adele said, “I’ll go first. Take care.”
She descended, her hands shaking, gripping the cold metal of the ladder, which led down to the base of the well.
Her whole body shivered as she moved. As she descended, her feet scraped against the stones of the wall. She listened, but couldn’t hear anything. She descended further and dropped onto the dusty ground. A crunching sound—she realized someone had scattered glass across the base of the well. With a snarl, she swept her booted foot, kicking the shards off to the side. Not a well… a disguise.
She spotted a wooden door in the base of the well, completely invisible from the top.
“John,” she called, her voice echoing up the stone tunnel. “They’re down here. Get paramedics! Find a signal. We’re going to need help!”
John was still at the top of the well, but at this, she heard the thudding sound of rapid footfalls as he hurried to follow the directions.
Adele reached toward the wooden door, her fingers trembling. Locked. Another gunshot, though, and she managed to kick the thing open. It took a few more tries than John had, but finally the frame broke and she pushed the remnants of the door aside to reveal a wooden staircase descending into a dark cellar.
Trembling, assailed instantly by the smell of rot and human waste, she moved into the darkness. A faint, orange glow from light bulbs throughout the room illuminated many cages made of chicken wire.
And in the cages, people.
Dirty, bruised, covered in cuts and scrapes. She spotted a thick bloodstain on the ground in the dirt near one of the cages.
A young man blinked out at her over the stain, and, in a croaky voice, he said, “Who are you?” His voice trembled with fear.
“Interpol,” she said, still staring, stunned. For a moment, she felt words had deserted her. But they needed words now. The eyes peering out at her needed her words. So she summoned them with a cough and a swallow. “I’m here to help, it’s going to be okay.” So paltry—so small, a bare offering of assurance in the face of a grim reality.
And yet, at her words, it was almost like a spell was lifted. Sound suddenly emerged from all the cages. Mewling, crying, desperate gasping sobs. Pleading.
Adele glanced at the young man who’d spoken first. “I’ll get you out of there.”
“Wait,” he said. His voice was sharp enough that she paused.
“What?”
“Electricity on the gates. You need to flip that switch, see there.” He jerked his bound hands toward the wall. Adele nodded quickly and hurried over. She flipped the indicated breaker, and the humming sound faded.
Then she hurried to the cages, unlatched them, and people started tumbling out into the darkness, moving toward her, but in some cases simply collapsing on the ground and rocking back and forth, sobbing.
Adele dropped next to a young woman, who was weeping into her lap in a sitting position. Her hands were bound in front of her. Adele shushed her quietly, stroking her hair.
The girl recoiled at the touch.
Adele quickly said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m here to help. It’s going to be okay. It’s all going to be okay.”
The girl kept rocking back and forth and sobbing. Adele bent her knee next to her, one hand hovering, but not quite touching.
“Are you really here to help us?” the girl choked out through tears.
Adele found a lump in her own throat. She felt a swirl of emotions in her chest, a swirl of grief. But she also choked out, “Yes, I promise.”
As Adele looked around, she spotted eight different victims. But there were far more cages than that. Many of them empty.
A slow, quiet sensation of dread filled her. Late. She’d come so late. So many lost… So many gone… A small sob came unbidden, tumbling from her lip
s, and she tried to bite it off and swallow it back—but too late. For a moment, in the dark, amidst the stench, surrounded by pain, she felt lost.
But then the young girl rocking back and forth leaned against Adele. She touched her and didn’t recoil. She rested her head against Adele’s arm, still sobbing. Her hands bound in front of her. Delicately, Adele withdrew a utility knife from her belt and began to saw at the ropes.
The dread began to fade as the girl cried into her shoulder. Adele could feel tears in her own eyes. She turned away from the empty cages, her eyes on the living, breathing, beautiful creature in front of her. Despite the gashes, the cuts, the dirt, the stains, she’d never seen anything so marvelous. She inhaled a shaky breath which became steadier as the girl continued to cry into her shoulder.
“You’re going to be okay,” Adele murmured. Her voice felt fragile at first, but then, as if treated with a backbone of iron, she said again, “All of you are going to be okay.”
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Adele listened to the rhythmic whine of the sirens above from where she sat buckled sideways on the aluminum bench. The flashing red lights reflected off the windshield and then off the glass of the hospital as the ambulance pulled forward. There was a screech of tires. Then the paramedics emerged from the vehicle and hurried to the rear.
Adele leaned back, keeping out of the way as the paramedics grabbed the stretcher with the young girl. They didn’t even acknowledge Adele as they lifted the survivor and carried her onto the sidewalk, and rushed, wheeling the stretcher toward the sliding glass doors.
In the distance, Adele heard more ambulances coming closer.
Adele swallowed, her hands clutched tight in her lap. She hadn’t been able to release her own hands the entire journey back to the hospital. The same hospital where Amanda was recovering.
Every time Adele let go of her hands, they would start trembling uncontrollably. And so she kept her grip tight, unyielding.
Now, though, the back doors of the ambulance were left wide open, the sirens had been turned off, but the flashing lights still pulsed.
As the paramedics passed through the hospital doors, Adele watched as the young girl’s head seemed to lift for the faintest moment from the stretcher. Her eyes were wide, a look of panic in her expression. Adele quickly unbuckled and stepped out of the vehicle, looking toward the door. She finally let go of her own trembling hands and gave a small fluttering wave.
The survivor on the stretcher spotted her, stared, and then seemed to relax, leaning back down and lying on the stretcher as she was carried through the hospital doors. The glass doors shut, sliding behind them.
A second ambulance came up quickly, following the path of the first. More rapid movements, more slamming doors and another stretcher. Adele spotted more ambulances following as well.
She turned away and moved toward the parking structure, putting the hospital behind her. She had wanted to drive with the girl. She didn’t even know the girl’s name. Didn’t recognize her from any of the missing people they’d found. And yet, the girl had clung onto Adele, from the base of the well, up the wooden stairs, and then to the pulley system rigged by the paramedics to help the victims out of the well. When Adele had tried to separate, the girl had started crying, and Adele had hurried back. The paramedics had reluctantly allowed her to ride in the back of the ambulance with her. Now, though, she was on her own. The doctors would take care of her. They would have to.
Adele sighed, no longer looking back. She could hear more slamming doors, more scurrying footsteps, more shouts of urgency.
But her job was done. It was someone else’s duty now.
This consoled her very little as she moved along the sidewalk, heading for the parking structure where she had agreed to meet John.
As she walked in the chill air, moving away from the hospital much to her relief, she felt the unsettling sense of the day descending on her shoulders.
“Adele?”
She paused, glancing along the sidewalk, toward the edge of the street beneath a single streetlight, bathed in the yellow flicker from the illumination; she spotted a police vehicle.
In the front seat, she recognized the slouched, thick form of the Sergeant. Joseph Sharp was peering out the window, one arm pressed against the metal through the open glass.
“Adele,” he said again, “what happened?”
Adele frowned and approached the parked squad car. “How did you know where to find me?”
But then she approached and heard the chatter of the radio extending from the cabin. “Oh,” she said. “Never mind.”
Her father had a troubled expression. Adele came to a halt beneath the streetlight. The ambulances behind them flashed, and a couple of them closed their doors as they drove away, making room for others.
“I was wrong,” said the Sergeant, his tone heavy.
Adele just watched him. “You did a fine job,” she said. “If you hadn’t found that couple, who knows what would’ve happened.”
“I was wrong,” he repeated. “I thought the Kloses were harmless. But I missed it.” He stared through the window, watching her.
“Dad,” Adele said, shakily, “don’t take this the wrong way. But I’m not in the mood right now. We can talk in the morning.”
Her father didn’t even seem to register her words. He sat in the squad car, a hunched form, his mustache drooping, as were his shoulders.
“I missed it,” he muttered. “But you figured it.” He looked at her, his eyes vibrant with something akin to hope, but tinged with something nearer to regret.
“I did what I could,” said Adele. “Eight of them recovered. Some of them might not make it still.”
“That first one,” her father said. “The young girl who escaped—Amanda?”
Adele’s voice cracked, to her surprise, but she cleared it and said, “It looks like she will make a recovery. She should be fine, or at least, on a path that could one day lead to fine.”
Her father shook his head again and muttered darkly to himself.
“Dad, it’s cold. How about we talk in the morning.”
Her father was still glaring now, his eyes fixed on a crack in the sidewalk. “I should’ve known that they were the killers,” he said. “But I missed it; every time I miss it someone dies. Your mother,” he said, darkly, “I missed those clues too.”
Adele felt a flutter of annoyance, but also one of sympathy. “Dad, please, let’s not talk about this now. It’s not your fault. You did a great job. You found that cabin when no one else did.”
But her father shook his head. “You don’t get it. If I’d acted sooner, we would’ve caught them. That girl might not have died.” His voice cracked. “She might’ve lived. Adele, don’t you get it?” he said, desperately. Now tears streamed down his cheeks, his chin shaking. “She might’ve lived! If I had been quicker, smarter, she might not be dead.”
He was now crying. Adele had never seen him like this before. She felt uncomfortable, sympathetic, annoyed all at once.
“Dad, look, it’s fine. Eight—actually, nine with Amanda—are alive. We did what we could.”
“I loved her, you know,” he said. “Not always. Not perfectly. But I did. If I’d paid better attention, if I’d really known, she’d be alive. But I couldn’t. I thought I could. I thought I could, but I couldn’t. And then she died, and I knew I had to figure it out. I had to solve it.” He shouted now, and Adele winced, ducking her head. A couple of the paramedics were looking over, alarmed.
“Dad, quiet. It’s fine.”
But he didn’t seem to be talking to her. He was still shouting, shaking his head wildly. Tears now streaming down his face. She had never seen him cry like this before. In fact, she wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him cry at all.
“But I missed it. I missed it. I thought I could do it. I thought I could solve it. I thought I had to,” he exclaimed. And now he fixed his burning glare on Adele. “And yet it was nothing. I couldn’t figure it out. I misse
d that clue, the couple in the cabin, I missed it, the same way I missed the point of those candies. I still don’t even know what it means.”
Adele stared at her father. Now, all her emotions receding like the tide, settling in her stomach, and leaving behind a cold prickle. “Hang on,” she said, “what candies?”
“Your mother mentioned that. Said something about one being poisoned. At least she thought they might’ve been. I thought she was hysterical. And then two days later, she was dead.”
Adele’s tone had a sharp edge to it. “Dad, what fucking candies? I’ve read every report they have on Mom’s case. What fucking candies are you talking about? There was nothing about candies in any of the reports. Nothing in your notebook. What are you saying?”
Normally, when Adele came after him, or if anyone tried to challenge him, his jaw would set, his shoulders would square, his hands would bunch. He’d fight it out to the last. All the fight had left Joseph Sharp, though, as he stared at his daughter through the open window of the squad car, his chin trembling. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I thought I could figure it out. I thought I could. She was my wife,” he shouted now. “Mine!”
“Dad, she divorced you. I don’t care. What candies? You better not have withheld evidence.” A cold wind was pulsing along the back of Adele’s neck. Her scalp prickled in the air and her eyes refused to blink, fixed in horror on her father.
Her dad swallowed. “It was nothing. So small. Nothing. She said something about candies. Thought they were poisoned. I didn’t think anything of it. It doesn’t make any sense anyway. It doesn’t.”
“Dad, that’s not for you to decide. That’s what the investigators are for!” Adele was screaming now, indifferent to the paramedics staring. A couple of them were moving toward the parked car.
“I’m sorry,” he kept repeating.
“I don’t care if you’re sorry. You hid evidence. Dad, look, you can’t figure this out on your own. You proved that. You should’ve given it to the people in charge of solving the case. You should have given it to me. What is this about candies—tell me everything. Tell me right now.”