by James Hunt
“You think that’s what the adoption papers are for?” Lindsy asked.
“Maybe.” Mike stood and returned to the table where the documents were spread out. He rubbed his jaw, thinking. “Kidnapping is a big jump to try and get someone to sell their land.”
“Is it?” Lindsy asked. “Look at the town, Mike. This place is falling apart, and if the mayor doesn’t balance the budget by the end of the month, then Roster becomes an unincorporated city, which means the mayor loses his job. The town becomes even more of a ghost town than its current situation.”
Lindsy could tell that Mike still wasn’t convinced.
“We don’t know if Angela Maples's disappearance is related to what they’re doing,” Mike said, gesturing to the papers. “And if the mayor and Sheriff Torrence are responsible for Angela’s abduction, how does the midwife play into all of this? Or Daniel?”
Lindsy wasn’t sure what Daniel had to benefit from signing over his right to the house should Carla’s ownership come into question.
“I’m not sure yet,” Lindsy answered. “But I think I know of a way to find out.”
Mike arched his eyebrow. “I’m getting the feeling you’re not done breaking and entering tonight.”
Lindsy leaned forward, figuring that if she was already in some shit for what she had done about breaking into the mayor’s office, then she might as well go all in and tell him about the plan to break into the sheriff’s station.
“The police found something earlier when they were digging up the remains of all of those children,” Lindsy said. “A key.”
Mike frowned, not understanding at first, and then he tilted his head to the side and nodded. “The key to the trunk in the attic.”
“The trunk that belonged to Evelyn Carter,” Lindsy said.
“You think it belonged to Evelyn Carter,” Mike said.
“Whose else would it be?” Lindsy replied. “And I had visions when I neared it. It’s hers, Mike. And the key they found in the dirt in the forest is how we get it open.”
“We can try opening it another way,” Mike said. “If we get a blow torch—”
“And how long is that going to take to get something like that out here?” Lindsy asked. “Is that before or after Carla is escorted from this small-time holding cell to an actual prison?” She leaned closer to him, trying to get him to understand the gravity of the situation. “We don’t have that kind of time. You know it.”
Mike conceded the point, but he still shook his head. “We’re not breaking into a police station to steal evidence. We’ll find another way.”
“There isn’t another way!” Lindsy pounded the table, the sudden outburst surprising both of them. “We don’t have the time you think we do. They’re going to put her in a cell and keep her there until she drives herself so crazy she won’t be able to do anything but confess to a crime she didn’t commit. I know the toll this kind of stress can have on a person!”
Mike studied Lindsy for a moment and then shifted around the table to her side until he was sitting right next to her. He took her hand in his own.
“You talk about saving her like you’re trying to save yourself,” Mike said.
Lindsy hadn’t considered that side of the equation, though she had to admit that she saw much of herself in Carla.
Mike pulled her close, kissing the top of her head, and she rested her head in the crook of his shoulder. Even though she was taller than him, she always felt incredibly small in Mike’s arms, and she suddenly realized how tired she was. It was as if the past seven years had finally caught up with her and decided to weigh her down in that exact moment.
“I still have nightmares about what happened,” Lindsy said, whispering. “I can still remember what it felt like. I can still feel the moment when… they were gone.”
Lindsy squeezed Mike’s arm tighter, but then she lifted herself from him and looked him in the eye when she spoke next.
“I know what’s going through Carla’s mind,” Lindsy said. “And while I might see too much of myself in her, I know that what I’ve done is right. But we can’t wait to do this the ‘legal’ way, Mike. We have to act, and we have to do it now. I believe there is a chance to save the child, but we have to work now. I’d like to have you in my corner, but I’ll do it alone if I must.”
Lindsy knew it wasn’t fair for her to play that kind of a trump card, but she needed to make a move soon. And deep down, she knew that the speech would prompt Mike into action. He wouldn’t allow her to go in this alone. That’s not the kind of man he was.
“I’ve always got your back, love,” Mike said. “No matter what.”
“Thank you,” Lindsy said.
“I take it you have a plan?” Mike asked, arching an eyebrow.
“I do,” Lindsy answered. “And all you have to do is be the lookout.”
“Oh good,” Mike said. “Glad to know that when we’re caught, I’ll only be charged as an accomplice to the crime.”
13
Lindsy downed two cups of coffee while they waited until the early morning hours. Once the clock ticked past one o’clock in the morning, they figured that it was a safe bet that whoever was on duty at the station would either be zoned out watching television or sleeping at the desk. Neither she nor Mike suspected Roster to be buzzing after midnight. And once the coast was clear, they made their move.
The pair had to leave the RV at the Maples residence and hike back to town. And while the trip was long and dark, and slightly creepy, it was uneventful.
When they reached the sheriff’s station, Mike positioned himself from across the front entrance. The front glass doors allowed him to view the deputy who was stationed at the desk. So long as the man stayed at the desk, then Lindsy would be in the clear.
“You remember the signal, right?” Mike asked, grabbing her arm and pulling her back before she took off running.”
“Yeah, I remember,” Lindsy answered. “Just try not to pull the trigger too soon.”
“Be careful,” Mike said.
Lindsy kissed him and then quickly darted across the road to the station, keeping out of the deputy’s view.
Once Lindsy found the window to the bathroom she had unlocked during her earlier visit, she found some old cinderblocks she could stand on and then hoisted herself up. It took a few tries, but she eventually wiggled her way up into the top of the window and pulled herself inside.
Lindsy struggled to remain quiet, not wanting to alert the deputy at the building’s front. She awkwardly squeezed through the narrow opening, scraping her stomach along the window sill, and then stepped down onto the toilet.
Inside, Lindsy took a moment to catch her breath before she quietly cracked open the bathroom door and found the hallway empty. She heard the deputy at the front, listening to something on the radio, but other than that, the place was quiet.
Lindsy stepped into the hallway and made her way back to the bullpen, where she found a set of keys hanging on the wall. She snatched the ring from the hook, unsure of which one of the dozen keys would grant her entry into the evidence locker.
The radio grew louder down the hall as Lindsy reached the door to the evidence room. Less than twenty feet separated her from the deputy at the front of the building. She needed to move quickly.
Struggling to keep her hands still, Lindsy was nearing the end of the keys on the chain when she started to worry about what she might do should none of these keys work.
Finally, on the third to last key, the door unlocked. She hurried inside, quietly shutting the door behind her.
Once inside, the room was pitch black, and Lindsy slowly reached for the wall to her left, searching for a light switch. She glided her hand over the rough wall and found the button. One quick flick of her wrist upward, and there was light.
The inside of the evidence locker was small, and there was another barrier she hadn’t foreseen. “Shit.”
While Lindsy might have made it inside the actual room, she was now standi
ng in front of a chain-lined fence with another locked door. Beyond that was the evidence she needed from the case collected by the forensics team of the Maples’ property.
And there was another problem.
A camera sat in the back, top-right corner of the room. The red light on the side signaled she was being recorded, but Lindsy didn’t know if the deputy had access to a live feed. She paused, waiting for the deputy to run down the hallway and her ruse to be over.
But no one came.
Unsure of how much time she had left, Lindsy started sifting through the keys to open the fenced gate into the evidence locker. She would have to try and search for the location of where the video feed was being recorded, but finding the trunk key was the immediate concern.
After the fourth failed attempt to unlock the chained gate, Lindsy’s pocket buzzed, the text from Mike acting as her warning the deputy was leaving his desk.
Lindsy spun around and turned off the light, concealing herself in darkness as she listened to the deputy’s footprints growing closer. She stared at the crack beneath the door and watched as the deputy’s shadow passed by without incident.
Lindsy exhaled in relief and returned to her mission of unlocking the evidence gate. She worked in darkness, not wanting to turn on the light until the deputy returned to his desk at the front of the building.
It was much slower cycling through the keys in the darkness, and she paused again when the deputy returned to his post at the front desk. Mike texted her again, and she knew the coast was clear.
Lindsy flipped the light back on so she could work faster and cycled through the keys, finding the correct one on the very last try. She unlocked the gate, opened the door, and then searched for the evidence boxes stacked haphazardly on shelves and the floor.
She figured the boxes of evidence from the Maples house would be in the front, and she found the first stack on the floor. Each box contained a list of items, so Lindsy was able to read that instead of having to search through the entire box.
While she worked, Lindsy glanced back to the door, hoping she was keeping quiet enough not to catch the deputy’s attention. Her phone hadn’t buzzed, so she assumed that everything was still all right, but she didn’t want to push her luck by staying here longer than necessary.
“Where are you?” Lindsy whispered to herself as she opened another box, and then another, and another. She had eventually worked her way through all of the boxes stacked on the floor that involved the Maples case, and she moved onto the shelves to continue her search.
Finally, Lindsy found the box listing the small silver key that had been buried with one of the children. She quickly opened the box, pushing through the bagged pieces of evidence until she located the key.
Evidence in hand, Lindsy’s phone buzzed again, and she heard footsteps in the hallway. Lindsy hurried toward the light switch, careful not to trip over the boxes on the floor, and stretched her arm forward as she reached for the switch as the deputy drew closer.
The evidence room darkened just as the officer reached the door, and instead of listening to the deputy’s footsteps fade away, she held her breath when she heard him stop right by the door.
Lindsy knew there was no place for her to go, no place for her to hide if the deputy opened the door. She would be caught red-handed, and the worst of Mike’s fears would be realized. She would be arrested and more than likely sent away to jail for a very, very long time.
Lindsy couldn’t take her eyes away from the crack in the door, where she was able to see the two shadow marks that represented the deputy’s legs. She tried to will them to move. She shut her eyes and tried to visualize the deputy continuing down the hallway to the bathroom, or the bullpen, or back to the front of the station, or anywhere but his current position.
And then the handle to the evidence room jiggled. Lindsy had to cover her mouth to mask her breathing, which had suddenly quickened.
Lindsy clutched the bag with the key tightly in her hand and then realized that if she had the only access to the evidence room, then it might be her salvation. But it never made it that far.
A loud crash sounded somewhere outside the building, and it immediately pulled the deputy’s attention toward the front of the station. Once he was gone, Lindsy exhaled a pent-up breath, and then she felt her pocket buzz again.
The text from Mike was only a single word in all caps.
RUN.
Lindsy turned on the light and quickly rearranged the evidence room as fast as she could without raising suspicion. Once she was certain no one would be able to tell she had been there, she opened the door and vanished down the hallway toward the bathroom where she had snuck in. She was about to leave when she realized she still had the keyring, and she returned to the bullpen, placing the keys on the hook where she found it.
Finished, Lindsy returned to the bathroom and squeezed herself through the top window. She landed hard and awkward on the ground outside and then sprinted away from the building, away from the town.
Lindsy continued to run until she was utterly exhausted and then hunched forward, hands on her legs as she caught her breath.
The plan was to meet back at the RV if things got out of hand, so Lindsy stuck with the program, fighting the urge to go back to the town to see where Mike had fled, and if he had been the source of the crash she had heard at the station. Certain no one was following her, Lindsy continued onward at a more leisurely pace.
The forest was dark, the moon hidden by clouds, and Lindsy carefully trod so she wouldn’t trip, keeping the road in her line of sight so she knew she was still heading in the right direction. But the longer she walked, the more she sensed a presence somewhere close, a presence that had been eluding her since her arrival at Roster.
It was the midwife.
Most of the pictures that Lindsy had found of Evelyn Carter were of the woman in her midwife uniform, which was all white, with a red cross on her white hat. And that was the outfit of the woman ahead of her now.
Lindsy paused, unsure of why the midwife had decided to show herself, and then Lindsy remembered the key to the trunk in her hand.
“There’s something in there you don’t want me to see,” Lindsy said.
The midwife was ten yards away from her, and while it was dark, the white of the uniform seemed to make her glow in the woods. She remained stoic and silent. It was unnerving.
“Are you mad about the police finding your children?” Lindsy asked, taking a bold step forward. “I imagine it was difficult for you not to have children of your own.”
The midwife’s expression hardened into a thousand-yard stare, but Lindsy continued to prod forward.
“Do you still have the Maples girl?” Lindsy asked. “Angela? Her parents would very much like for her to come home.”
Lindsy knew that until she had the item she needed to cast the midwife back into the other realm, she would be susceptible to attack. But finally seeing the midwife afforded Lindsy with an opportunity to hold the ghost in her projected form.
However, when Lindsy reached out with her mind, trying to hold the ghost still like she had with so many others, Lindsy realized she couldn’t touch the midwife.
The midwife taunted Lindsy with a smile that sent chills down Lindsy’s back, but Lindsy still pressed forward, continuing her attempt to penetrate the midwife’s defenses.
“It’s been a while since you had a child again,” Lindsy said, walking closer to the midwife. “I’m sure you must have been starving—”
Without warning and quick as a snakebite, the midwife flew forward until the ghost had her hands around Lindsy’s throat and pinned her to the ground.
Lindsy squirmed beneath the midwife, but there was little she could do to free herself. The woman’s grip was like a vise.
The midwife snarled and bared her teeth as she stared down at Lindsy with contempt, but then as she leaned closer, the midwife sniffed the air around Lindsy, and when she pulled back again, she was smiling.
“You have death on you,” the midwife said. “You’ve carried death inside of you.”
Lindsy grimaced, unable to quell the rising panic overtaking her senses.
“Yes, I can feel the pain,” the midwife said, keeping Lindsy pinned down by the throat, using her body, or her projection of a body, to weigh Lindsy down. “I can hear the voices of your children crying in the afterlife. They’re only echoes to me, but I can hear them nonetheless.”
“Bullshit,” Lindsy choked the word out, her voice incredibly raspy and weak.
The midwife tilted her head to the side, still smiling. “I was angry like you too. Angry that the world wouldn’t allow me to have a child of my own. Angry that my womb, my cradle of life, was defective.” The smile faded. “But I found children in other ways. I realized that my calling in this life wasn’t to bring life into this world, but to spare it from the pain that caused so much horror. And I followed my purpose with such clarity and vision.” She snarled. “But then they killed me. Killed me for fulfilling my purpose!” She squeezed Lindsy’s throat harder, and this time the air was choked from her lungs. “I will not be denied again by you!”
The midwife tightened her grip around Lindsy’s throat, and just before Lindsy passed out, a man’s voice pulled the midwife’s attention away from her, and then she vanished, evaporating into mist.
Lindsy drew in a sharp breath, coughing and hacking as she rolled to her side. She saw a pair of legs running toward her, a familiar voice yelling her name.
“Linds?” Mike asked, kneeling by her side. “Are you all right?”
Lindsy nodded, but she still couldn’t speak. It took her a moment to find her voice, and she sat up, still coughing. She rubbed the spot around her throat, where the midwife had squeezed, and found that it was very tender.
“Don’t touch it,” Mike gently brought Lindsy’s hands down. “Looks like you’re going to have a bad bruise from that encounter.” He looked into the mist where the midwife had vanished. “It’s been a while since we’ve had a fighter.”