One by One

by Sarah Cain

  Danny was soaked once again, but he didn’t care. It felt good against his blistered skin.

  “In here.” Johnny pushed him toward the utility shed.

  Were they keeping Alex in this metal shack? It had no windows, and when Johnny opened the door, heat blasted out. A bolt of lightning illuminated the inside for a moment. Danny glimpsed old rakes and a riding mower, as well as a few brooms and saws. A wall had been constructed inside the shed with a heavy-looking metal door.

  “Open the door,” Johnny said. He pulled out a small flashlight from his back pocket and trained it on the door. He handed Danny a set of keys.

  Danny fumbled with the lock. “You’re keeping her here? Like a goddamn animal?” He pushed open the door and stared down the steps.

  In the dim light, Danny could see that Jenna Jeffords lay on her back at the foot of the stairs, tangled in what appeared to be a wedding dress. She looked up at Danny, lips white and eyes glazed. When Johnny nudged him in the back with his gun, Danny took a cautious step down into the dank cellar.

  Jenna’s lips were trembling. “You came,” she said. “I knew you would.”

  “Jesus Christ. What happened here?” Danny tried to take in his surroundings. Water poured through a hole in the corner of the cellar, puddling on the dirt floor. He couldn’t see Alex. Where the hell was she?

  “My leg is broken, or maybe it’s my hip,” Jenna said. “We fell down the steps.”

  “Where is Alex?”

  Jenna sighed. “Gone.”

  Danny knelt beside her. “What do you mean gone?”

  “She ran away. Left me here.”

  “Goddamn bitch. I’ll kill her!” Johnny shouted, and Danny grabbed his arm.

  “No. Call nine-one-one. Get an ambulance for your mother.”

  He could only hope that Alex had found a telephone and a way out of this place. Outside, the storm was raging, and he wondered if the foundation for the shed would hold. The metal groaned in the wind.

  “This doesn’t seem too stable,” he said to Johnny. “This whole shed could collapse.”

  “I don’t want to die in a hole,” Jenna sobbed.

  “Fuck!” Johnny banged his fist against the railing.

  “Call for help,” Danny said.

  “How could you let her get away, Ma?”

  Danny grabbed the kid’s arm. “We need to get your mother out of here. Do you understand that?”

  Johnny stared at him with wide, unfocused eyes. “We got unfinished business, Ma. It won’t be right if we don’t finish.”

  Jenna clutched Danny’s hand. “You came back to me,” she said.

  He wanted to pull away, but the horror that was Jenna Jeffords held him to the spot. If he stayed, maybe it bought Alex time. “What happened here, Jenna?”

  “Ma! We need to take care of business!”

  “She doesn’t need to do anything. She needs help!”

  Johnny leaned close for a moment. “Don’t worry, Ma. I’ll call for an ambulance. Then I’m gonna find that bitch.” He took off up the stairs, and Danny heard the door slam. Now he was trapped.

  “Jenna,” he said. “Do you have a phone?”

  “No service down here,” she said. “But at least we’re together. Do you like my gown? It’s just like Michelle’s prom dress. I thought it would be beautiful for the wedding.”

  “Oh, Christ, Jenna. This whole goddamn building is going to collapse.”

  “We’ll be like Romeo and Juliet.”

  The side of the shed seemed to lift slightly and settle as the wind caught it, and one of the jacks supporting the floor tilted and slid sidewise. The hole in the side of the foundation had opened into a gash and water gushed through. It sounded as if a freight train was bearing down on them. The shed moaned and swayed as the wind picked up volume.

  The side of the shed gave a final moan and began to collapse in on itself. Danny saw the ceiling begin to buckle and dragged Jenna toward the stairs. As the ceiling gave way, he wedged both of them as close as possible to the stairs and closed his eyes.

  57

  From inside Jenna’s ranch house, Alex had watched Johnny Jeffords drag Danny down the dirt path to the shed. She didn’t know how much time she had. She gave a quick glance at the balled-up prom dress on the bathroom floor and shuddered.

  It was still pouring rain, but the wind had died down somewhat. Alex was pretty sure a tornado had touched down close by, because she had never seen the sky turn that copper color or heard wind howl with that force. For a few moments, she’d thought the house was going to lift up and swirl into the angry sky. She’d hidden herself in the master bathroom of the creepy house, crouching in a pink ceramic tub until the wind subsided.

  Alex heard sirens in the distance.

  She’d already called 9-1-1 and was torn about what to do next. She didn’t want to wait in this house any longer than necessary. She could get out. She’d found her purse in what she supposed was Jenna’s bedroom, a pink-and-white lacy boudoir covered with needle-pointed sentiments straight out of clichéland—“Every day is special because you’re alive”—and the same dreary pictures of kittens and puppies. On Jenna’s nightstand was the same altered prom photo. It made Alex’s skin crawl.

  Alex couldn’t go searching in a prom dress. She found a stretched-out yellow spandex shirt in Jenna’s drawer and a pair of men’s running shorts. They were dark blue and didn’t hang down to her knees, so she figured they belonged to Johnny. Alex looked at Jenna’s shoes, every pair a size six. She found a pair of Johnny’s running shoes and put on two pairs of socks.

  Alex glanced in the mirror. No time to do anything with her filthy self.

  She found her car keys and figured her car was in the garage. There was nothing to keep her from leaving, except she knew Danny was out there. She took her purse to the garage where her car stood waiting for her. Her phone was still tucked under the passenger’s seat, and when she pulled it out and turned it on, she had one bar of service and almost a full battery. She found a flashlight, some rope, a baseball bat, and some gardening shears. Maybe she’d need them; maybe she wouldn’t. It wouldn’t hurt to go prepared.

  *

  When she reached the clearing, Alex stared at the space where the shed had stood. The thing had collapsed inward. She ran to the edge, sliding in the mud, and peered over.

  Wood flooring and beams stuck out, as did jagged pieces of aluminum siding that looked to have been crumpled by a large fist. A riding mower sat upside down in the mud thirty feet away, and two rakes stuck out of the edge of the hole at right angles. She grabbed one and leaned as far as she could over the hole.

  “Danny?”

  She tried to remember where the stairs would have been and moved to her right. It was a mess of twisted metal, concrete, and mud down there. Rain was pouring into the hole.

  “Danny?”

  If she had enough rope, she could climb down at least partway. She wasn’t going to leave him in that hole. No matter what.

  “Danny. I’ve got rope and a light. I’m gonna climb down.”

  The silence terrified her. What if . . .

  A tree stood ten feet from the hole, and Alex tied the rope to it. She tied the other end to her waist and stood by the rakes. The river was swollen, already starting to overflow. If it got much higher, the ground would be completely underwater.

  “Ryan,” she called. “Can you hear me?” She wished she could whistle. Maybe he’d hear a whistle. Going over the edge of this hole seemed a little foolhardy. Did it matter? Was now a good time to remember she was afraid of heights? Was climbing down the same as climbing up?

  Just do it.

  She sat on the edge. A sheet of metal jutted out. She could grasp it and work her way down. The rain made the metal slippery and hard to hold onto, and she had to keep the rope from getting tangled. Slowly she began to ease her way down into the darkness. The metal groaned.

  “Ryan? Where are you?”

  In the gray light, she could see
a pool of water filled with debris. She didn’t know how deep it was, but it seemed to be in the center of the room. What if he was trapped underwater? She fumbled for the flashlight.

  “Danny?”

  She thought she heard someone call her name.

  “Danny?”

  She let go of the metal piece and lowered herself straight down.

  The water was cold, slimy, and knee deep. She shuddered and shined the flashlight around the room. The shed had collapsed in toward the middle, though pieces of debris lay all about in the water. Alex picked her way through the cement blocks and broken wood.

  “Ryan!”

  “Alex!”

  His voice came from her right, and it occurred to her he probably hadn’t been able hear her over the pouring rain and groaning metal when she was above ground. A piece of the floor had crashed down and cut the room in half.

  “I’m going to see if I can find a way around this. Are you okay?” Alex called.

  “Jenna’s hurt pretty bad. I think her legs are crushed.”

  “I called nine-one-one. Can you see my flashlight?”

  “Alex, it isn’t stable in here.”

  “To hell with that. Where are you? Are you hurt? Can you see my goddamn flashlight or not?”

  “I can see it.”

  She could almost feel him take a breath, and she willed him to hang on.

  58

  Danny supported Jenna’s head in his lap and tried to slide closer to the steps. He couldn’t see much in the gloom, but he could tell from the groaning of the metal and the fallen debris that the ceiling had collapsed. The cellar was flooding. He could hear water rushing uncomfortably close, though the water was only a few inches deep in the area where he and Jenna sat. When the ceiling had come down, Jenna’s legs had been crushed, pinning her to the ground. Somehow the shock had kept her from processing the pain, or maybe her back was more damaged than either of them realized.

  He watched the thin beam of Alex’s flashlight at the far end of the room. She squeezed herself though a crevice, untied a rope from her waist, and picked her way across the floor. She was covered with muck, her clothes were torn, and she had never looked so beautiful.

  “Ryan.” She ran the beam of the light over Jenna and him. “Are you hurt? Oh, man. The only way out is up the side of the wall on the other side.”

  Jenna began to wail. “I can’t get out. I can’t get out. This is your fault,” she said to Alex.

  “My fault?” Alex gave her a grim smile. “You and your nutball son created this little hideaway. How is this is my fault?”

  Jenna clutched Danny’s hand. “Please don’t leave me here in the dark. I’m so afraid.”

  “Help is coming,” Alex said. She leaned closer and touched Danny’s face. “Jesus, Ryan. Someone beat the hell out of you. Your face is blacker than mine.”

  Danny was pretty sure he looked worse than he felt. His lap was soaked with blood, but he wasn’t sure how much was his and how much was Jenna’s. He suspected she was in far worse shape than he was, though his thoughts seemed to be running on a ten-second delay. “It’s not a big deal. I’m a little beat-up, but I’ll live. I’m okay otherwise.”

  “Not down here. You’ll get some kind of flesh-eating bacteria. You’d better come with me. You’ll be lucky if you just get off with a concussion.”

  Jenna whimpered and clutched his arm tighter. Danny didn’t know how much longer she had before the shock wore off and the pain set in. If she were lucky, Jenna would pass out, but her prospects seemed pretty grim. Danny wasn’t sure how much faith Jenna should put in luck.

  “You can’t just sit here,” Alex said. “This place is going to flood.”

  “I can’t leave her alone,” Danny said. Too many people had let Jenna suffer alone.

  “So maybe you like me a little,” Jenna said.

  He leaned his head back against the wall and looked up at Alex. She shook her head.

  “We were meant to be together,” Jenna said.

  Maybe this was how things ended: trapped in a flooding basement with a poor deluded woman who lived in a fantasy world surrounded by resin elves and plastic flowers and a malignant psychopath of a son.

  “Jesus, Daniel! Are you insane?” Alex smacked his shoulder.

  From far away, he heard what sounded like voices shouting. The voices grew closer, and suddenly the bright glare of a flashlight sliced through the darkness, and Alex bounced up. “Now at least I don’t have to hit you on the head and drag you,” she said.

  He started to smile, but stopped when he saw the look in her eyes. As she turned away, he saw the pair of gardening shears jammed in her back pocket. If it came down to it, he had no doubt that Alex would have done what she had to do, no matter what the cost.

  59

  There wasn’t going to be a happy ending. Not for Ma, anyway. Or maybe there was. She was buried under the rubble of that shed with her true love.

  Johnny Jeffords maneuvered his car to the side road off Delaware Avenue that looped back to G and R Scrap. Overhead, cars zoomed past on the I-95 bridge. Clueless people in their stupid cars. He wanted to pull out his Glock and take a few shots, but he was on a mission.

  He’d taken Ma’s car just in case that bitch reporter managed to get to the police. Normally, Ma would have kept her car in the garage, but they’d stowed the reporter’s car there. Alex Burton. He wished he’d had a chance to make her pay for hurting Ma. He should have taken the time to look for her, but he was too agitated. It was hard to think straight. He had to concentrate.

  He’d deal with the reporter later.

  Right now, he had this job to complete. He had to deal with the final name on his list. Stan Riordan. The big, dumb water boy. Frank Greer’s buddy. Johnny knew all about him, and he knew just where to find him.

  He pulled across from G and R Scrap. It was getting ready to close for the day. Time to get acquainted with Stan Riordan.

  60

  It had only taken the firefighters a half hour to free Danny and Jenna and Alex from the cellar, and they emerged from the darkness, blinking in the glaring gray, rain still spitting down. Alex stood talking with a policewoman. Danny overheard the EMT say Jenna had no pulse in her feet before they loaded her onto an ambulance.

  It took almost an hour for Danny to convince the emergency personnel to release them.

  “You need to come into the hospital to get checked out,” one of the EMTs said. “We can’t just let you go.”

  Danny shook his head. “I’m fine. Most of the blood is Jenna’s, and we really need to get back to Philly.”

  “Your face looks like someone tap danced on it.”

  “It always looks that way,” Danny said. He gritted his teeth against the pain in his side and told the police to look for Johnny Jeffords. His car was still on the property, so he figured the kid must have taken off on foot.

  Alex waited without comment. When they finally made their exit, she let him use her phone to call Jean.

  Kevin had survived his heart surgery and was resting in the ICU. Danny promised to be there soon. If Jean was angry, she didn’t show it. Maybe she was too exhausted. He should have been there instead of wallowing in the mud with Jenna, and yet he couldn’t have left her in the dark.

  It wasn’t until they were finally on the road back that Alex lit into him.

  “Are you insane, Ryan? What the hell were you thinking? Sitting with that crazy woman!”

  “But Jenna was kind of pathetic, don’t you think?”

  “Jenna killed people.”

  “I know.”

  “So if you were writing her story, you’d say that it wasn’t her fault?”

  “No. I wouldn’t say that. But she was tormented and bullied, and she wasn’t stable to begin with. I think it broke her.”

  “So the moral of the story is to be careful who you bully, because it might come back to bite you on the ass?” Alex considered for a moment. “I didn’t bully her.”

  “I’m
not sure it mattered.”

  “And look at you. That kid of hers beat the crap out of you. He killed Greg Moss. He killed who knows how many others. Christ knows where he went.”

  “He didn’t kill Greg Moss.”

  Alex put up her hand. “What do you mean?”

  “He tried to kill Barb. He did kill Michelle Perry—you don’t even know about that one yet. The point is, he confessed. I was there when he killed Frank Greer and his friend Mark Piscone. He killed the others, too—Ricky Farnasi, Nate Pulaski, and Chris Soldano. But he didn’t kill Greg.”

  “And you know this because?”

  “He told me.”

  “And you believe him?”

  “Why confess to everything else and lie about Greg? He said he was trying to save him. I know it doesn’t make sense. But this kid doesn’t make sense. He’s as crazy as his mother.”

  “But you’ve got somebody you like for Greg Moss’s murder.”

  Danny nodded. “What if you were a guy who was getting squeezed by Greg Moss, and you were also close to someone working with him, someone who wanted you to keep an eye on Greg because he didn’t trust him one hundred percent?”

  “And you were stuck because both of them had something on you?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Are you thinking about the mysterious partner?”

  “I’m thinking about a cop.”

  “Wait.” Alex shook her head. “I don’t believe it. You’re thinking about Officer Friendly. But I don’t get it. Why?”

  “Because he knew Greg. He had a substance problem that Greg knew about and held over his head. Because his father is Congressman George Crossman. He was the man in the middle. Plus, Kevin warned me to stay away from him.”

  “George Crossman.” Alex said nothing for a few moments. She digested the information, tightening and loosening her hands on the steering wheel. “That’s a lonely place to be. Talk about a river of tears.”

  “I don’t have any proof.”

  “It makes sense though. He would have known Greg well enough to have heard about the texts, but maybe he didn’t know what exactly they said.”