The Killing Moon

by A. S. French

  ‘Keep going.’

  Grace continued. ‘They protected their goods by building storage facilities underneath the buildings erected along the riverside. Eventually, they used a series of tunnels to connect the different rooms.’ She turned to Astrid. ‘I wonder why this wasn’t taught at school.’

  Astrid swivelled her head to try to shake the ache from her neck. ‘If you read further, you’ll see those tunnels and rooms were used to imprison slaves. After the Civil War, the locals tried to forget about it and keep it quiet. Once the mining companies moved in, the town had a new way to prosper. Those earlier events were kept secret for more than a century. That post you’re reading, the uncovering of hidden history, was only made five years ago. Most of the townspeople probably still don’t know about it. But someone found out.’

  ‘You believe they’re using the original tunnels to abduct, hide, torture and kill some of the missing kids?’ Grace grimaced through every word.

  Astrid stood and stretched her legs. ‘I think we should go and find out.’

  Grace frowned at her. ‘What are those marks on your neck?’

  Astrid lifted her hand to her chin and ran two fingers down her skin. The flesh was harsh and sore as she remembered her early morning activities.

  ‘Detective Cope is quite aggressive in the bedroom. I never took her to be a biter, but she does like to get her teeth and nails into you.’

  Grace moved back from her. ‘While you slept, I rang the station about our mystery corpses with no fingerprints. There’s no record of them in any database we have, including those used by the FBI and Homeland Security. Facial recognition scans also drew a blank.’

  ‘Cope told me the same thing last night.’

  ‘What aren’t you telling me, Astrid?’

  ‘Those men that attacked us at the cabin; I think I know why.’ She explained the situation with Daniel Gideon.

  ‘I’ve heard of Gideon. I didn’t know he had a daughter.’

  ‘He likes to keep his personal life quiet, including how badly he treated Chloe’s mother when he lived in England. I thought I’d warned him off, but I must be slipping.’

  ‘He’ll continue coming for you. What are we going to do about it?’

  Astrid flexed her arms and cracked her knuckles. ‘For now, we do nothing. We need to check those tunnels first. Finding Alex is my priority. I’ll deal with Gideon later.’

  She stepped over the papers and headed to the bathroom, aware that Grace still seemed unhappy. Astrid closed the door, undressed and took a shower. If it were Gideon’s men who attacked the cabin, then she’d have to make good the promise she made to him; the thought of it didn’t give her any pleasure. The warm water washed her clean. Closing her eyes and remembering the night she spent with Cope, she caressed the marks on her neck, let the memories linger and prepared for the day ahead.

  Twenty-five minutes later, they were in the car and heading for the river. Grace had been quiet since Astrid stepped into the living room wearing the clothes smelling of alcohol and sex. She wanted to lighten the mood but couldn’t think of any way to do that, so she changed the subject from missing kids to lonely ones.

  ‘Have you given more thought to being a foster mother?’

  Grace’s face was unmoving. ‘What makes you believe I’d be a good parent?’

  The window was down and the breeze was blowing Astrid’s hair across her face. An aroma of freshwater drifted off the river and into the car.

  ‘You care about others, Grace; that’s all that matters. Give it a month and see how you feel.’

  Astrid was focusing on Alex Sanchez, but at the back of her mind was the memory of the last time she’d spoken to Olivia. She took out her mobile and went through the contacts for her sister’s number. There’d been no reply to the last two texts she’d sent, but she tried again.

  How is Olivia?

  She didn’t know what else to say. Astrid put her phone away as Grace parked the car near the spot where Burns had found Katie.

  ‘There’s about a five-mile walk from here to the end of the river. That will cover all the possible points were Manny could have seen Katie come out of the ground.’

  ‘There’s no way to cross the river over that distance, no bridge or anything?’ Astrid glanced across the other side, considering if Katie could have crossed the water.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Grace said. ‘He never mentioned which side he saw her on, but I’m assuming it was the one near his cabin.’

  ‘We might have to check both.’

  Astrid inched from the water’s edge and stepped into the grass, scanning the environment for signs of those buildings built along the river nearly two centuries ago. Grace picked up a large stick and used it to sweep through leaves and mud. Birds scattered from the ground as they moved forward.

  ‘This will be the longest walk I’ve had here,’ Grace said. ‘I wasn’t allowed to come here after what happened.’

  Astrid walked with her, resisting the idea of mentioning the well again. ‘How long have your family lived in Angel Springs?’

  Grace strode through branches and wayward grass. ‘My grandparents moved here from New York after the Great Depression, getting farm work or labouring jobs. My father was a foreman in a metal box factory.’

  ‘Metal box?’

  ‘It made tins for the rest of America.’

  ‘Why did you want to be a police officer?’

  Grace laughed loud enough to bother some small creatures in the grass ahead of them. ‘You mean instead of being a basketball player? I used to watch repeats of 1970s cop shows all the time, so I think it came from there.’

  ‘So, you’re a Starsky and Hutch fan?’

  ‘That and Kojak, Police Woman, and Columbo, but it was a show called Get Christie Love! which got me hooked on being a cop. Did you have that in Britain?’

  Astrid shook her head. ‘I’ve never heard of it.’

  ‘The main character is an undercover female detective. I figured I could do that and escape from my real life.’ She laughed. ‘Imagine someone looking like me working undercover. It just goes to show you how watching videos on the internet is not good for teenagers.’ Astrid frowned as the dirt clung to her shoes and the bottom of her trousers. ‘What made you want to become a spy?’

  Astrid picked up a stone and threw it into the river, watching it skim and bounce but not quite reaching the other side. ‘Calling me a spy is far too glamorous. Working within the intelligence services is not like a Bond or Bourne movie. A lot of it is repetitive, tedious and boring.’

  Grace smiled and waited for her to catch up. ‘A bit like what we’re doing now?’

  Astrid grinned. She was no closer to finding Alex, was convinced a serial killer was in the town, and still hadn’t heard from her sister or Olivia, but at that moment, watching Grace smile at her, she felt as happy as she’d been in a long time.

  The only thing to dampen that newfound joy was the sudden smell of fire. She saw the wisps coming out of the earth before Grace put her foot on them. She grabbed her partner by the arm and pulled her backwards.

  ‘What?’ Grace said as Astrid pointed towards the smoke drifting from the soil.

  She took the stick from Grace and pushed at the leaves covering the ground, surprised when they didn’t move. She dropped the branch and knelt. The heat was there, but not strong enough to burn her fingers as she pulled at the greenery; none of it came away.

  ‘There’s a ridge here which goes into a rectangle. I think it’s an entrance with leaves fixed across it to cover it up.’ She grabbed the stick again, pushing it into the gap between the hatch and the earth. Smouldering air drifted everywhere as she stood and tried to get leverage in the gap, surprised at how easily it popped open.

  The air smouldered around them as they placed their hands over their faces and coughed. They moved back and waited for the smoke to escape into the sky.

  Grace handed Astrid a torch. ‘I think we’ve found one of those underground stor
age rooms.’

  Astrid nodded. ‘Did you bring a gun?’

  Grace pulled the weapon from her jacket. ‘Does that mean you want me to go first?’

  Astrid stepped forward. ‘How many searches through smoke-filled tunnels have you done before?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Then I’ll go before you; I’ve got experience of this.’ She waved her arm one last time to remove the smoke, shining the torch into the gap. There were steps cut into the side of the ground. She went down with her body twisted sideways, following the light with her eyes. She counted fifty steps before she hit the bottom. ‘The tunnel turns into the left.’

  Grace was only a few rungs above her. ‘Can you see anything?’

  The space was about six feet wide. ‘Not yet.’ The heat was dissipating. ‘The fire must have started hours ago.’

  ‘If someone closes that hatch, we could be trapped in here.’

  Astrid shone the torch on the wall. ‘Do you want to go back up?’

  Grace had a phone in her hand. ‘No, I’ve got a signal if anything happens. Let’s see what’s here.’

  They crept down the tunnel, taking great care about what was on the ground. The smoke irritated Astrid’s throat and bit at her eyes. Even with the torches, there was more gloom than light, making it hard to see much, but to her, it looked more modern than something built two centuries ago. She ran her fingers across the wall, a slight warming tingle running through her skin.

  ‘I think somebody modified the original foundations, perhaps dug it out a little wider and added a layer of concrete to these walls.’

  ‘How did they manage to do that without anyone in the town noticing?’

  ‘Maybe someone did,’ Astrid said.

  They found a door at the end of the tunnel. Grace had the gun in her hand as Astrid put her fingers on the handle. She pulled it down and pushed the door open. The stench of gasoline hit her first. Their torches flickered around the space, picking out parts of the room: two chairs on the left, a sink and taps on the right, and a large table ahead of them. Astrid made sure the place was empty before moving forward.

  ‘Stay here,’ she said to Grace in the doorway. ‘And keep the light on me.’

  She embraced the smell of smoke and gasoline, preferring it to the lingering one she detected underneath it: human blood. Apart from the remnants of the blaze, the floor was clean, as if someone had swept through it before setting everything alight.

  Astrid winced when she reached the table, seeing evidence people had been strapped down and bled across it. She glanced around the rest of the room. There was nothing they could do now; it was time to get Forensics there.

  She turned to Grace.

  ‘Call your colleagues and get them here.’

  She was striding towards the exit with a heavy heart, her torch pointed at the ground when she noticed something there.

  ‘I’ll call them now,’ Grace said.

  ‘Wait,’ Astrid shouted. She shone the light at the bottom of the door, staring at the letters carved into the wood. There were four sets, and she read them out. ‘KS, DP, MM, and AS.’

  They looked at each other before Grace placed a hand on Astrid’s arm. ‘I recognise two sets of initials.’

  So did Astrid: KS was Katie Spencer, and AS meant Alex Sanchez.

  19 Neighbourhood Threat

  Astrid brushed the smoke from her eyes. The smell of death lingered on her as she moved towards the river. Grace called her colleagues before checking those initials against a list on her screen.

  ‘No names are matching DP and MM on those recorded as missing, but I do have a Diane Pearson and a Melody Monitor next to those described as runaways from the care system; both disappeared six months ago.’

  Running away from home was the thing that saved Astrid’s life, if not her soul. She peered at the hole in the ground they’d climbed out of, her mind full of images of Katie Spencer crawling out of there and others who didn’t. The kid had escaped from one horror, only to find another below the water.

  Perhaps that’s what all any of us get from this life, running from one threat to another, searching for distractions to quell the silent terror ever-present in our minds.

  A chill wind bit her face as she decided on her next course of action. ‘I’m going to check the rest of this side for other tunnels while you wait for reinforcements.’

  She put a foot forward as Grace grabbed her arm. ‘Shouldn’t we stay here until more officers arrive?’

  ‘I can’t do that. What if there are more kids stuck underground further along the river?’

  Grace nodded as she let go of Astrid. ‘Be careful.’

  Astrid shook the past from her head and set off. The river ran deep and blue, catching her shadow and stretching it out until it twisted into a deformed replica of her. At times, as she walked and thought about the torture chamber, she imagined her reflection mocking her for this continuous failure, this inability to find Alex. Her mind played tricks on her, transforming her shadow into a much younger version of herself, with her face contorted into discomfort. She stopped and wondered where this memory was coming from; it was new, not one of the usual frames from her childhood, but something unseen for two decades.

  She bent her knees and placed her hand into the river. She ran her fingers through it in an attempt to wipe away the vision of her younger self, happy when she succeeded, but then distraught to see it replaced with a shimmering sight of her niece, of Olivia slipping below the ripples and not returning.

  Astrid staggered up with a jolt, her chest beating faster than it should. She took a deep breath and allowed nature to calm her racing heart. Trees lined the water, with their withered branches reaching for her, while a whisper on the wind told her things she didn’t want to hear.

  ‘You failed Olivia, and now you’ve failed Alex. Just like you failed all the others. And how you failed yourself.’

  She inhaled, but all she felt was the smoke from underground attacking her lungs. The sky had vanished almost entirely, with only a few fragments of blue remaining. The air was rich with the fragrance of leaves and damp. After yesterday’s storm, the soil remained wet, slowly releasing its milky white mist. The sound of running water in the river had a relaxing, hypnotic quality. She wanted to stop and stay there and let time stand still.

  But then the smoke stroked the back of her throat, and she remembered the initials on that door. And she started moving again.

  It took her forty minutes to get to where the land curved upwards into a small hill with a road at the top. The journey was nearly four miles long, and she’d found nothing but a couple of dead dogs a hundred yards apart; no signs of other underground rooms or anything pointing to Katie Spencer or anyone else spending time along that part of the river.

  On the return, she rechecked the canine corpses, finding no wounds or bruises on them. Both hounds had irritated red skin with blisters on their bodies. She’d never seen evidence of poison in animals before, but this reminded her of what she’d witnessed in humans.

  When she got back, the police were sealing the area. Detective Cope finished speaking to Grace and turned to Astrid.

  ‘You’ve been busy this morning, Snow.’

  She observed the professionals at work. ‘I’m running out of time. Where’s your partner?’

  ‘Pete was feeling unwell yesterday, so he’s having a rest day to be fighting fit for tonight.’

  ‘What’s happening tonight?’ Grace said.

  Cope scrunched up her face in amusement. ‘We’ll be at Senator Brady’s fundraising party. Pete doesn’t want to miss his favourite cause.’

  ‘The more time I spend around you, the more you surprise me,’ Astrid said.

  Julie Cope slipped a thick pair of protective gloves on her hands, and then did the same over her shoes. ‘Did you touch anything while you were down there?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Grace said.

  ‘I touched the wall once and the handle of the door,’ Astrid said
.

  ‘You might end up solving all the serious crime in the town, Snow,’ Cope said as she descended into the tunnel. ‘Perhaps I’ll speak to Tanner about getting you a job with the Angel Springs Police Department.’

  Astrid and Grace headed back to their car.

  ‘I gave her a statement,’ Grace said. ‘Did you discover anything along the river?’

  Astrid told her about the dogs. ‘Maybe someone poisoned them to shut them up and away get them from that hatch.’

  They reached the car and got in. ‘Shouldn’t we tell Cope about the dogs?’ Grace said.

  ‘Let her find out for herself. I need something to eat before we continue.’

  ‘I’ll take you to the town’s best diner.’ Grace floored the accelerator, and they headed from the river and the trees. ‘Where are we going after that?’

  ‘We need to let Christina Sanchez know where we are in the search for her daughter.’

  ‘And then?’

  There was despair in Grace’s tone, and Astrid knew why. They were no closer to finding Alex, they had a serial killer on the loose, and Grace had to return to her regular job tomorrow.

  ‘We get ready for Brady’s big party.’ Astrid pointed at her. ‘You’re going to distract him with your charm while I poke around the mansion. The Senator is hiding something, and I intend to find out what it is.’

  Officer Grace Crowley scowled at her as she drove to the diner.

  During their lunch, Astrid ignored all Grace’s attempts to talk about the plans for the party, instead questioning her temporary partner about what she was going to do when she returned to her regular police work. Grace poked at the fries on her plate, her appetite waxing and waning as she contemplated her immediate future.

  ‘This time tomorrow, I’ll be typing up traffic reports and making cups of coffee.’

  Astrid sipped at her hot drink. She’d been surprised to find the diner supplied green tea with mint. It reminded her of England.

  ‘You’re only young, Grace; the old men controlling the police department will have to move on eventually. A bit of patience might get you what you want in a few years.’