Chase started to stand, staggered, and then reached out to brace herself. She expected to touch cool dirt but instead felt something hard.
Bars.
It is a cell, her fractured mind informed her. You’re locked in the cell, Chase.
“You have to hurry, you have to hurry, and you need to be quiet.”
“No,” she moaned, dropping back to her knees, both hands sliding down the bars until her forehead was pressed between them. “It can’t be. I was… I was never here.”
Chase’s hands were so raw and blistered from digging at the dirt, that was painful just to stretch them, let alone grip the silver platter that Louisa had tossed to her before running off. And yet, her mind had locked onto one task, one goal. She didn’t understand what was going on, not really, not on any fundamental level. Chase only knew that if she stayed here, if she stayed here and did nothing, then bad things would happen. Bad things would happen to her and her sister.
“It’ll be okay,” Chase heard a small voice say. “He’s going to look after us — they both are, both Brian and Tim will look after us.”
Hearing those names — Brian and Tim — incited fury in Chase, fury that brought with it a measure of clarity.
It took all her strength to open her eyes again and to wipe away the tears.
“Stacy? Is that you?”
As Chase’s eyes started to adapt to the dimness of her cell, she made out a familiar shape in the cell across from her.
“Becky,” the little girl corrected, and Chase saw that this was true. “But Tim and Brian call me Andy. I’m not sure why they’re doing that, but they get mad at me if I don’t respond to Andy. Sometimes… sometimes they test me and call me Becky but if I look at them, Tim smacks me. Not hard, but still…”
Chase was shaking her head the entire time the little girl was speaking.
“Did they… did they do anything to you?” Chase whispered.
Becky’s tiny brow furrowed.
“No, most of the time they’re kinda nice. They give me food — I love the pasta — and even though there’s no TV, they promised to get me and the other girls one if we’re good.”
Chase opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out.
She wasn’t a profiler like Stitts, but she had nonetheless come up with an idea of the man who had taken her sister — the same man who had locked you in this very cell for three days before you escaped — in her mind.
He was a sadistic, malicious child molester. His IQ was sub-three figures, he was sloppy, he was clumsy, and he was a fucking animal.
But the dinner table scene, as confusing as it was, didn’t jive with this idea. Neither did what Becky was telling her now.
“What’s happening to me?” she moaned.
Chase brought the heel of her left hand and smacked her temple as if trying to physically unscramble her thoughts.
Pain shot across her vision, a stark reminder of the multiple blows to the head she’d taken recently.
“Shhh,” Becky hissed. “You need to be quiet. They are going to get angry if they hear us. And if they get angry, we won’t get a TV.”
Chase stifled a sob and then wiped her nose with the back of her hand, which only served to spread dirt across her face.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s okay,” Becky replied before disappearing into the shadows. “Get some sleep, everything will be better in the morning.”
Chase whimpered again.
She had no plans on sleeping tonight, she had no plans to ever sleep again, in fact.
Instead, Chase ran her hands down the bars to the piece of wood at the bottom that they were lodged into. She curled her fingers beneath and gave it a tug.
The makeshift cell door didn’t budge.
Thoughts of Georgina’s pretty face, of the sheer confusion on her features, filled her mind then.
Chase didn’t have a plate this time, but that wouldn’t stop her from digging.
With her body shuddering with sobs, Chase’s fingernails bit into the tightly packed soil and raked backward.
Chapter 48
By the time they exited the wooded area and emerged from the clearing that led to the mobile command center, Stitts’s white shirt was soaked through. It had been a while since he had done any grunt work and he was more out of shape than he could remember. Plus, there was the smoking and Tennessee heat to contend with.
They weren’t the only ones getting back to the command center, Stitts noted. It appeared as if the TBI, as well as Nashville PD, had already completed their searches.
“Goddamn it,” Terrence muttered as he hurried ahead of Stitts.
To a man, their faces showed their disappointment.
As Terrence approach, one of the senior Nashville PD officers stepped forward.
“TBI Conway, none of my men have any news to report. I have several officers still out in the field going door to door, but it doesn’t look promising at this point.”
Terrence nodded.
“My men have reported the same. It looks like—”
Terrence stopped suddenly, his eyes drifting over the officer’s shoulder to the road that he and Stitts had driven up on.
Behind the many police cars, a white cargo van had just pulled up.
“Fuck, they’re here already,” Terrence said, before excusing himself.
Stitts struggled to keep up as they hurried to cut off the press.
“I fucking hate these fleas,” Terrence muttered under his breath.
As they approached, a reporter holding a large microphone with a furry tip stepped forward. Behind him was a portly man sporting what looked like an old-fashioned video camera on one shoulder.
“Channel Nine Media,” the reporter said with an air of pretension. “TBI Conway, what is the connection between the missing girls and Kingsfield County? Do you think that someone from—”
“Turn it off,” Terrence instructed with a scowl.
The reporter, who was dressed in a fancy suit that was just dark enough to hide his sweat stains, held his ground.
“I have every right to be here. It’s my constitutional—”
Terrence reached for the mic, but the man pulled back just before his fingers grabbed it.
“I said, turn it off,” Terrence repeated, louder this time.
This time the reporter stepped back, but the cameraman made no move to stop recording.
“Come on, Terrence. Just give me something. Please.” The reporter looked around and indicated their van. “We’re the only ones here now, but in a few minutes, the entire area is going to be swamped with press. Just give me something — anything — before it becomes crowded.”
Terrence shook his head.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
The reporter went from pleading to defiant in less than the amount of time it took to blink.
“I’m not leaving. This is my chance, my big break, and I have every right—”
Terrence reached out again this time catching the reporter by surprise. He grabbed the microphone and wrenched it forward.
“Hey!”
The cable was connected to the camera and when Terrence pulled, the cameraman stumbled forward. The much bigger man knocked into the reporter from behind and nearly sent him sprawling.
If it weren’t for Terrence stopping his forward progress, he would have sullied the suit he was so clearly fond of.
“You want a tip off the bastards that took those girls?” Terrence hissed. “You want to be the guy responsible for freaking them out so that they slit their tiny throats and toss their bodies on the side of the road? Is that what you want? Is that the fucking scoop you want?”
Stitts watched this interaction with keen interest.
The reporter did another about face; his eyes went wide, and he started shaking his head from side to side.
“I just want the scoop, man. I don’t want any harm to come to those girls.”
Having seen enough carn
age for one day, Stitts put his hand on Terrence’s shoulder. Then he took the mic from his hand and gave it back to the reporter.
“I’ll give you an exclusive interview after this is all over,” Stitts said calmly. “After those girls are rescued.”
The reporter eyed him suspiciously.
“You?”
Stitts removed a business card from his pocket and handed it over.
“FBI Special Agent Jeremy Stitts. You have my word: when this is over, I’ll give you an exclusive.”
The reporter took the card, stared at it for a moment, and then his eyes widened again. This wasn’t as good as being the first on the scene to report the girls being saved, of course, but it was a close second. Stitts could just see the gears inside the reporter’s head turning, as he tried to figure how far an exclusive interview with the FBI would propel his fledgling career.
Stitts then gestured at the cameraman.
“The tape,” he said. The cameraman didn’t move, and the whiny reporter protested again.
“C’mon…”
“Give me the tape, kid. Gimme the tape or no exclusive.”
Eventually, the reporter relented and turned to his cameraman.
“Give him the tape,” he hissed.
“What? We’re not supposed to—”
“Just give him the tape!”
The fat man struggled to lower the camera off his shoulder, but he eventually managed and handed the tape over.
Stitts thanked the man and then started back to the command tent with Terrence at his side. When they were out of earshot, Terrence said, “I can’t believe that worked.”
Stitts weighed the cassette in his hand.
“And I can’t believe they still use video cassettes,” he paused before adding, “What do we do now?”
Terrence surveyed the units that were congregating beneath the tent, dour expressions on their faces.
“I’ll keep some of these men back to continue the search, but I’ll have to release most to their regular duties,” he sighed long and loud. “They’re not here, Stitts. The girls aren’t here.”
Chapter 49
At some point during her furious digging, Chase must have fallen asleep. She only knew this, however, because someone had appeared outside her cell and had awoken her.
At first, she didn’t know who it was, only that it wasn’t Becky; this person wasn’t in a cell but crouched in the long, narrow hallway between them.
Chase blinked the sleep away and then immediately scrambled to her feet.
The lighting was even worse now — the moon was higher in the sky, sending less light through the ground level window above — but Chase only needed a single photon to recognize Georgina’s face.
“Shh!” her sister hissed. “Brian doesn’t know I’m here, and neither does Tim.”
Chase reached a hand between the cage bars, wanting desperately to touch her sister after all this time.
“I knew you’d remember, Georgina,” she gasped. “I knew you were just —”
She stopped when she realized that Georgina had moved away from her hand, and not toward it.
“Georgina?”
Georgina shook her head slowly.
“I told you at dinner, my name is Riley.”
“No… no, no, no…”
Chase pulled her hand back and wrapped her arms around her knees and started to rock.
“You’re my sister,” she muttered. “You’re my sister.”
“No,” Georgina corrected her. “My only sisters are Melanie, Portia, and Sue-Ellen.”
Tears streamed down Chase’s cheeks now as she tried desperately to understand what the woman who called herself Riley was saying.
“They aren’t your sisters; they were taken, just like you. They were taken by those bastard Brian and Tim… their names are Kim Bernard, Teresa Long, Anastasia Blackwood. And your name is Georgina. Georgina Taylor Adams.”
“Chase, I think you’ve hit your head too many times. Brian didn’t take me. He saved me. And now I’m his wife. And Georgina? The real Georgina? The little girl that you saw running around earlier? She’s our daughter. Mine and Brian’s.”
Chase moaned. She didn’t mean to but couldn’t help it.
How many years did it take for one’s mind to shatter? For new memories to replace the old, for someone to convince themselves of a new, less painful reality?
“You must remember something,” Chase pleaded. “You have to; that’s why you named your daughter Georgina. Because your name is Georgina.”
Something strange crossed over Georgina’s face then, but it was quickly whisked away by the moonlight.
“I’m sorry,” she said, extending a hand. At first, Chase thought that she was going to reach out and hold her, caress her through the bars, maybe, but then she realized that Riley was passing her a glass of water.
Chase, parched and exhausted and dehydrated, took the glass and chugged it.
Then she placed it down beside her.
“Get some rest, Chase. Get some rest and then you’ll come to your senses. You’ll realize that Brian and Tim are here for us, that they are going to look out for you, the way they did for me and the other girls. The way they will for Andy and Donna and Savanna and Joanna,” Riley stood and started to back away from the cell. Chase extended a hand then, trying to pull her close, but as always, her sister was just out of reach. “And when the time comes for you to help the family grow, to prosper, you will do it willingly, the way I did.”
Chase’s brow furrowed, but before she could wrap her mind around what Riley was saying, the woman’s white dress faded into the darkness.
“No,” Chase whispered at first. Then she shouted the word. “No!”
She gripped the bars with both hands and tried to rip them apart, oblivious to the pain that shot up her wrists and forearms.
But they wouldn’t budge.
Chase glanced around, looking for anything that she could smash against the bars. But her cell was empty, empty save the glass that her sister had just given her. Without thinking, Chase picked it up and hurled it. Except it slipped from her mangled fingers and instead of colliding with the bars, it struck the ground but a few feet in front of her.
It didn’t shatter; only a single shard of glass broke free.
Chase scrambled to pick up the two pieces: a nearly intact glass, and a four-inch knife-shaped shard.
Her eyes darted from one hand to the other as she struggled with what to do next.
Slowly, she brought the knife-like splinter of glass to her wrist and pressed the point into her soft skin.
Chase had seen enough suicides in her time to know how it was done properly. You didn’t cut across your wrists, but lengthwise, up your forearm. That way you were virtually ensured of slicing all the veins and arteries that led to your hand.
In less than 10 minutes, she would bleed out, Chase knew.
With a sharp intake of breath, she pressed the blade into her skin just hard enough to draw blood. Chase would have driven that makeshift blade all the way to her bones if it hadn’t been for one thing.
If it hadn’t been for Georgina.
It didn’t matter that her sister didn’t recognize her, because Chase knew who she was. And this time, she wasn’t going to run.
This time, she was going to save her sister.
Chase slipped the piece of glass into her pocket and then grabbed the rest of the cup. She turned it over in her palm and then started to dig again.
Chapter 50
Stitts collapsed in the conference room chair and took a deep breath. Jordan took up residence beside him and passed him a fresh cup of coffee.
“Any word from your partner?” he asked.
Stitts looked over at the man to see if his concern was genuine. It appeared as if it was.
“No,” he said softly, shaking his head. “Nothing yet.”
As if to reinforce his point, Stitts took his phone out of his pocket and laid on the table.
/> There wasn’t a single message notification. Nothing from Chase, his mother, or Belinda.
Stitts rubbed his eyes then checked his watch. It was coming up on 10:30 at night.
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