I Know Where She Is: a breathtaking thriller that will have you hooked from the first page

by S. B. Caves

  Once again the dog released a harsh series of barks and growled ferociously.

  ‘Whoa, listen to that,’ one of the guards said. ‘She’s spotted something for sure. Let her go, Hector.’

  ‘You gonna fetch her back?’

  ‘I wasn’t asking you, I was telling you, motherfucker. Let her go.’

  The other guards laughed, but Hector didn’t move. When the dog rattled another series of violent barks, he subsided and released it. The German shepherd flew up the hill. A scream rocketed into Autumn’s throat but she managed to keep it locked in her mouth. The animal was less than thirty feet away, close enough for her to make out the thick webs of saliva dangling from its black gums. Its muscles stood out through its shaggy fur, and as it ran, Autumn could clearly define the guttural rhythm of its breathing. She braced herself, curling her fingers around the knife handle.

  The dog was almost on her when it abruptly changed direction and darted off, snapping its jaws, completely ignoring Autumn. She listened as its barks and snarls receded into the distance.

  ‘Aw, Christ, where’s she going?’ Hector asked, then put his fingers to his mouth and whistled. The sound pierced the forest and reverberated through the trees.

  ‘After a squirrel, it looks like,’ another of the guards said, unable to keep the amusement out of his voice. ‘She’s gonna come back with supper for us.’

  ‘Christ, we’ll be camping out here if we don’t get a lead on this little bitch soon.’

  ‘I told you she ain’t this way,’ Danny said. ‘We’re wasting our time out here. They’ll pick her up on the path. Come on, anyone wanna bet on it?’

  They continued arguing among themselves, staring off up the hill in the direction that the dog had gone. Autumn held her breath, certain that one of them would eventually pan over and see her pale face peering out. She couldn’t be sure whether the gnarled tree roots concealed her completely.

  ‘You’re going after that damn dog,’ Hector said, pushing a smaller guard.

  Autumn’s throat closed as though a hand was throttling her. She squeezed the knife handle until the muscles bunched in her arm and shoulder and the plastic grip burned her palm.

  They came within ten feet of her, squabbling as they ascended the hill. She saw their drained faces and could smell their sweat and the bitter coffee on their breath. The last thing she heard before their voices faded away completely was something about the radios losing their signal, and how they should head back to the path.

  It was a very long time before she found the courage to slither out of her hiding place. She flinched as the birds squawked loudly above her, and became deeply unsettled by the beating of their wings as they commuted between trees. Her skin was itchy all over and she kept thinking that ants were marching across her flesh, crawling in her ears. Every now and then she would shake her hair to rid her scalp of some imagined spider or centipede she was sure had tangled itself in there. Her nails were black with grime and she was barefoot, though she couldn’t recall when or where she had lost her sandals.

  She began to jog through the forest, her soiled white dress billowing behind her. The soles of her feet had become accustomed to the pain, but the impact of her movements played havoc with her knees. Worst of all was her headache. At first she was unsure why her temples throbbed and her brain felt as though it were inflating against the roof of her skull. She thought maybe she’d bumped her head somewhere along the way but couldn’t remember doing so. Then she realised that she was thirsty. She’d lost pints of sweat during the night and had peed out what little water she had in her system. When she reached the stream, she would get on all fours and lap the water up like a thirsty dog; she just had to find it first.

  The deeper she ventured into the forest, the heavier the doubt weighed in her mind. She had to continually remind herself that Lena had not only escaped from the house – avoiding the other guards and the dogs – but that she must have made it all the way out of the forest too. The only way to do that, as both of them knew, was to follow the stream. You would have to be a complete lunatic to chance taking the path, where the cars could easily pick you up. And Lena might’ve been many things, but stupid wasn’t one of them.

  Lena had been like a big sister to Autumn, a mentor who’d shown her the ropes upon her arrival at the house. From the start, Autumn had sensed that something was not quite right with the other girl, but as she spent more time with her, she also began to realise that Lena was a damn sight smarter than she let on. It was Lena who’d told her about the stream, about how if you followed it for long enough, it would take you right near the highway.

  Despite Lena’s attempts to rally some sort of escape committee, none of them took her seriously enough to act upon it. The only proof she had that her plan would work was her claim that several years before, a guest who had come to pick her up in his car had driven out along the highway, and she had glimpsed water through the trees when he allowed her to remove her blindfold. It was the same stream, she claimed, that she found when she’d been granted permission to forage for berries and flowers for the festival, all under Les’s watchful eye, of course. Nobody could prove or disprove her theory, so it was far easier to shrug it off as folly. And even if they could have proved that it was accurate, what real difference would that have made? None of them had the guts to attempt a breakout. None apart from Lena, that was.

  For a while, Autumn entertained the idea that Lena would have tried to raise the alarm somehow, despite knowing that she wouldn’t be taken seriously. There was no way she could go to the cops, though, and with that in mind, what alternative did she have? She could try shacking up with some lonely man who might be naive enough to entertain her story, but would she be able to get him to act upon it? And what had Autumn been expecting anyway – a band of vigilantes to turn up and have a shootout with the guards at the house, before rescuing the girls and returning them to their rightful owners? No, that was absurd. If Lena had made it to the road and managed to hitch a ride somewhere, then she would have used that hidden sense of hers and disappeared forever.

  Autumn came to a clearing and immediately felt exposed. She spun around, scanning her surroundings, wondering how best to proceed. If she pushed on further, there was every chance she’d come across water, but then again, there was every chance it would be more trees, more hills, maybe even bears. She thought she’d seen deer prancing in the distance, but when she’d attempted to track the fleeting shapes, they’d vanished into the foliage. How far did the forest go on for? Would she be able to keep walking in the same direction and get to the edge of it? Not a chance. Even when they were driven out, it took them over an hour, and they were always blindfolded.

  She did a three-sixty and surveyed the land, scouting for options. She didn’t feel completely confident in carrying on the way she’d been heading, especially since she couldn’t so much as hear a trickle of water. Everything looked the same no matter which direction she turned: trees, twigs, logs, mist. The frigid air bit into her skin and she hugged herself for warmth. It was as though the whole forest had shifted around in an attempt to confuse her. But that was silly and she knew it; it was her mind playing tricks on her, some optical illusion of nature.

  She closed her eyes and rewound her memory in an attempt to see where she’d gone wrong. She was probably too deep in the forest to turn back to the house now even if she wanted to, and yet she wasn’t sure she would last another night out here. She was already sneezing and coughing from deep in her chest, her nose running uncontrollably.

  Her mind wandered back to Wendy. She tried to imagine the girl outrunning the guards in the night, fighting her way out of the forest and onto the main road. In her mind, she saw Wendy bursting through the bushes and into the path of an oncoming car, which would stop just before hitting her. The driver – a kindly old woman – would usher Wendy into the car and drive her to her home; maybe the old lady had lost a daughter many years before, and as such she would be fiercely protective
of Wendy. She’d take her in, feed her hot soup and warm bread, give her clean clothes and a bed. The two of them would heal each other, filling the gaps in their lives.

  The fantasy distracted Autumn from her fear that she was lost. She should never have left the house. Now the best she could hope for was that she would curl up and die of hypothermia in the night, but even that seemed unlikely. Knowing her luck, she would probably last a week, thirsty, hungry and bitterly cold. She would die just the way she had lived: miserable and full of pain.

  ‘No,’ she said, wiping snot away with the back of her hand. ‘It’s all under control.’

  She walked a bit further and noticed – or thought she noticed – that the trees were thickening and growing taller. Was that a good sign, that the trees were at least different? She didn’t know. The only thing she did know was that her tongue had seemingly doubled in size from thirst, and she was beginning to feel dizzy. She came to a moss-covered tree that had bowed with age and reached up for a branch, pulling it down and lapping at the droplets of rainwater on the leaves. It wasn’t enough, but the moisture was good for her mouth. It was ridiculous how much of a difference a few drops of rain made. She almost began to believe that she wasn’t doomed after all.

  There was a way out, and Lena had found it.

  All she needed to do now was stumble upon some berries and she might just be able to pull this thing off. The cold still presented an obvious problem, but if she could find some source of food, and maybe an impression in the ground deep enough to collect rain to drink, then that was a damn good start.

  She would walk until the blisters in her feet popped. She would look for some other place to tuck herself away at night, and she would find a way to keep warm. She didn’t know how to make fire, but she probably wouldn’t have been able to even if she did, given how wet everything was. ‘Fuck fire,’ she said, forcing herself to believe that the thought of flickering flames held no attraction for her. She had her knife at least, which meant if she saw a rabbit she could snatch it up and kill it.

  She saw a large boulder in the distance and made that her target. She would stop there for a break, inspect her feet, see if there was anything that could be done about this cold. All the while she kept her eyes open for anything that she might be able to use as clothing. More than the hunger, the thirst and her various aches and pains, it was the cold that really tortured her. She thought her teeth might break in her gums they were chattering so hard.

  She reached the boulder and sat down, bringing her knees up into her chest and hugging them tightly. She blew breath onto her arms and then tucked her mouth into her dress to blow on her chest. It offered very little warmth; it was like holding a lighter flame next to an open freezer. Her eyelids were growing heavy and she briefly contemplated looking for another place to hole up for a nap, but she quickly fought the urge. She hadn’t covered enough ground today, and the more time she spent in this forest, the closer she came to death.

  The soles of her feet were a horror show. She took one look at them and could not bring herself to do so again. Black blood blisters pulsed on the ball and heel, and the spaces between her toes were stained red, yet she could not feel any pain. Her feet were like two blocks of ice, completely numb from the ankle down.

  She bent her head and sighed as fireworks popped in her skull. Every part of her body was heavy, and now that she was sitting down, she didn’t think she could bring herself to rise again. Would it be possible to just lie down and go to sleep? Maybe then death would take her easily and she would no longer have to burden herself with the need to survive.

  There was a dull thud, and it took her a second to realise that it was the knife slipping from her grasp. Quietly, she began to cry, the emotion running out of her like blood from an open wound.

  When she had cried out all the tears that her body could afford, she rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. There would be no happy ending to this story. She picked up the knife again and held it against her wrist. One good slice would do it, and then it would be over quickly. One of the girls had demonstrated this back in the kitchen many years before, as they’d been making stew for the day’s lunch.

  It was only as she lay down and prepared to die that Autumn heard the faint trickle of water.

  24

  ‘He’s not an idiot, you know.’

  ‘No. He’s a child molester and a rapist.’

  ‘He’ll be on his way down here with backup. He’ll take you out in two seconds flat, lady. This whole thing will have been for nothing.’ Cindy’s face was ghoulishly grey. She’d aged ten years in the last two hours.

  ‘That’s what you want though, isn’t it? You want me out of the equation so you can go back to your mansion and your drugs and your disgusting fucking parties.’ Francine had checked the gun every few minutes, throwing alternating glances out of the window and at the door, half expecting someone to come crashing through at any second.

  ‘No. You’ve freed me from all that. I was never like him. Never. But I didn’t have a choice, you understand that, don’t you? I didn’t have a say in the matter. I just had to do as he said,’ Cindy croaked, each word a laborious exercise. ‘Just do as I was told.’

  ‘You torture children,’ Francine said, staring down at the woman. There was no emotion in her face.

  ‘He does it all. Him and his friends. You don’t think he’s passed me around to people for his amusement? You don’t think I’m as much of a victim as those girls?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  The clouds looked like great steel mother ships looming over the ocean. Below them the waves crashed against the jagged rocks and sprayed foam into the air. The daylight was fading fast. It would be totally dark within the hour. Francine didn’t like that, but she had no choice.

  ‘He’s friends with the police and the judges,’ Cindy said, panting. ‘Even if I were to go to the cops, nothing would happen. They’d string me up for it.’

  ‘Why are you telling me all this now?’

  Cindy sucked air, her head swivelling. ‘I don’t want to go to hell.’

  The laughter took even Francine by surprise, but once she’d started, she couldn’t stop. She bent over and rested her hands on her knees, tears rolling down her cheeks.

  ‘Go ahead and laugh. But it’s something you should think about too. Especially with what you’re planning to do.’

  Francine stopped laughing and her face turned to stone again. ‘I’ve been in hell for ten years. There’s nothing anyone can throw at me to make my life any worse than it is.’

  ‘Then let me really help you,’ Cindy pleaded weakly. ‘Anything you need me to do, I’ll do it.’

  ‘I don’t need anything else from you, so shut it.’

  ‘But you don’t know Glenn like I know him.’

  ‘What kind of car does he drive?’ Francine squinted at the vehicle barrelling along the winding road far below.

  ‘He’s got lots of cars.’

  Francine bent down and put her lips close to Cindy’s ear. ‘From here on, you’re not to make a single sound. If you breathe too loud, I’ll put some wrinkles in that face of yours that no doctor will be able to smooth out. Be a good girl, or you’ll be going to hell a lot sooner than you thought. Nod if you believe me.’

  Cindy nodded.

  Shadows consumed the living room. Now that the darkness had truly arrived, Francine decided that she liked it. It wouldn’t be a hindrance to her at all. She walked over to the corner of the living room, where she would be hidden when the door opened and Glenn walked in. She checked her gun was fully loaded again, cocked it and braced herself.

  * * *

  Francine heard the tyres kicking up pebbles as the car came round the bend. The engine, which had only been a purr to begin with, died. She trained the gun on the door. Her arms were steady and the gun didn’t waver. Her ears strained against the silence, trying to discern who had arrived.

  The doorbell rang, chiming through the silent house. Cin
dy jerked and shifted in the chair, exhaling heavily through her nostrils. The bell rang again and a tiny moan stirred in her throat. Francine snapped her head to the side and cracked her neck, then flexed and curled her fingers more tightly around the gun grip.

  ‘Cindy? Are you home?’ It was Glenn. His voice was a lot less jubilant than it was on TV. Now he just sounded like a cantankerous old man. Francine heard a key scratch at the lock, and then the whistle of wind as the front door opened. She closed her eyes and concentrated. She heard feet stepping into the house, the click as a light was switched on. ‘Cindy?’ She tried to pinpoint the footsteps in an attempt to guess how many people had come in. She opened her eyes and saw a yellow glow seeping in under the door. She inhaled deeply as the handle began turning.

  ‘Cindy, are you in here?’

  In response, Cindy gasped. Glenn turned the living room light on.

  The sudden luminescence of the lights bouncing off the white walls made Francine squint. She saw the back of Glenn’s head, his pink scalp showing through the thinning white hair.

  ‘Jesus, Cindy. What’s going on?’

  Cindy’s eyes widened to saucers, her dilated pupils shooting to the space behind the door where Francine was standing. Schilling began to turn. In his peripheral vision he saw Francine’s shape and instinctively jolted away from her, raising his hands.

  ‘You’re in charge,’ he said casually, using his showbiz voice.

  ‘Don’t go near her. Go over there.’ Francine pointed to the sofa with the barrel of her gun. ‘Sit.’

  ‘Is it money you’re after?’ Glenn asked, slowly lowering his arms. ‘I keep none at this address. But there are plenty of valuable things. Even the crockery is worth thousands. It’s yours. I’ll help you carry it out. I can always buy more. No big deal.’