“I hope you’re not giving her too much of that shit,” the other man muttered. “I don’t want to feel like I’m screwing a corpse in the back of that SUV. If that’s the case, we might as well just finish her off here instead of waiting to do it in Wilmot Woods. The whole point to nailing an eighteen-year-old is that she’s got some life in her . . .”
“Shut the hell up,” the one with the needle grumbled.
The light blinded her again. “Look at her,” the other one said. “She’s so out of it, the bitch has no idea what we’re talking about . . .”
Horrified, Eden shook her head and tried to cry out. She knew exactly what he was talking about. They were keeping her alive long enough so the new guy could get his rocks off. Then they were going to kill her in those woods. They’d probably bury her there, too.
She struggled to stay awake because she knew she’d never wake up again.
“Go make sure the coast is clear,” said the man closest to her. Tossing aside the hypodermic needle, he pulled his phone from his jacket pocket and switched it on. With the screen glowing, he placed the phone on the cot—just above her shoulder. “She’ll be out soon. Pull the car right up to the door so no one sees us loading her in there. They’ve got security cameras all over the place.”
“Hey, no shit, I know what I’m doing,” the other one said. “You forget, I chose this locker because the camera coverage on it sucks. That’s why I parked the SUV where I did.”
The man’s flashlight went off. Eden heard a click and then that mechanical humming as the big door started to ascend again. She saw the new guy silhouetted against the moonlight as he headed outside. She noticed a row of other storage units across the way—and a barbed-wire fence beyond that.
“Close the door until you get back with the car!” called the man at her side.
“I know, I know,” grumbled his friend.
The humming noise started again as the door descended.
Eden felt her body shutting down. Her eyelids fluttered as she desperately clung on to consciousness.
The man backed away from her. He collapsed one folding chair and then let it drop to the floor with a bang that echoed in the near empty storage room. He did the same thing with the other chair. “Y’know, I tried to cut you a break,” he said. “I told them that you wouldn’t remember anything with all the drugs I’ve given you. I said we could just get you high and dump you near one of those homeless areas downtown, leave it up to chance. Everyone would think you’d partied too much or something—even you. But it was too risky, they said. So it’s the woods for you. Crying shame—sweet, young thing like you . . .”
Bending over her, he started to unfasten the strap across her feet.
Eden tried, but couldn’t move her legs.
“Where the hell is he?” the man muttered to himself. He straightened up and glanced toward the door. With a sigh, he took out a switchblade and hovered over Eden again.
For a second, she thought he was going to stab her.
But he just cut the duct tape that kept her hands adhered to the sides of the cot.
Outside, she heard brakes screeching, and then a car door slammed. There was that click again, followed by the motorized humming. The door started to ascend.
Eden glimpsed the SUV parked parallel to the door opening—and the other man as he headed toward them. He switched on the flashlight, momentarily blinding her once more.
“Jesus, what took you so long?” asked the man at her side. He straightened up and turned around.
His friend moved toward him at a brisk clip. The new guy had something in his other hand. He held up a little canister and sprayed something in the other man’s face.
Eden got a whiff of it—some kind of Mace or pepper spray. She squeezed her eyes shut. She heard the other man coughing and gagging. Something landed on the floor with a clank. She wasn’t sure if it was the canister or the flashlight. One of the men bumped against her cot, jolting her.
She opened her eyes again. The flashlight was still on, rolling back and forth on the floor. In the fractured light, she saw the new guy slash his friend’s throat. The blood splattered across Eden’s face.
The man clutched his own throat as blood seeped through his fingers. Choking and gagging, he collapsed on the floor—right beside her and the cot.
The other man swiveled around and made a beeline for the SUV. He opened the side door and grabbed something. With a grunt, he hauled it out of the vehicle. The corpse made a thud as it hit the concrete floor. He dragged the body over toward the other one, leaving behind a crimson trail.
Breathing heavily, he leaned over her.
Stunned, Eden gazed up at him, but his face was just a blur. She couldn’t move. She was helpless.
“Those assholes almost spoiled everything,” he whispered. He made a fist and drew back his hand. “You weren’t supposed to disappear until tonight.”
He punched her in the face.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Sunday, September 13, 2:08 P.M.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” Ellie said, catching her breath.
“No worries. I just got here a few minutes ago myself. Plus it gave me a chance to read. I just started this, and I love it.” Diana showed her a paperback copy of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca.
It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon, and Diana had scored an outside table at Campus Grounds. With her fair skin, she’d moved her chair into the shade. She already had her latte. “That’s a cute top,” she said, nodding at the multicolored, striped pullover Ellie wore with her khaki slacks. “Go get your coffee. It’ll give me time to finish this chapter.”
Ellie laughed. “Yes, ma’am! And thanks. You look cute, too.” She headed into the coffee house and got in line. There were only a few people ahead of her.
Diana seemed like she was in a good mood. Ellie’s young friend had had a date the night before with J.T., the lifeguard at the recreation center, the one who was supposed to have slept with half the campus. Ellie hadn’t said anything about it to Diana yet. She wasn’t sure how serious Diana was about the guy. It seemed like an odd match—this cocky, handsome lifeguard and a shy, vulnerable girl with body issues. Plus he seemed like a bit of a dim bulb, and Diana read the classics for fun. But Ellie had decided to keep it all to herself. While Diana was out on her date last night, Ellie had been binge-watching season four of The Gilmore Girls. So she didn’t feel very qualified to dole out love advice today. She figured she would just listen to what Diana had to say about the date.
Last night’s TV marathon had taken Ellie’s mind off Nicholas Jensen for a while. Despite an extensive search online, she hadn’t been able to find anything about him before that massage review in April of this year. It was as if he didn’t exist before that. But other than giving the wrong phone number for his emergency contact and showing up in her journalism class when she’d just been exposed to a whole summer’s worth of hate mail—Nicholas Jensen hadn’t done a damn thing wrong. He wore hair gel and made his living massaging men and women—and apparently very well, according to the glowing reviews. That hardly fit the profile of the racist, homophobic misogynists who were out to get her. So why was she obsessing over him? He barely seemed to know she was alive. He paid plenty of attention to Hannah, but very little to her.
“What can I get you?” asked the skinny barista with her hair in cornrows.
A life, please, Ellie wanted to say. She ordered her coffee and thought about how she needed to pay more attention to her own love life—or lack thereof—instead of focusing on Hannah’s or Diana’s. These girls were under twenty—with plenty of time and opportunities ahead. But Ellie was lonely, and she felt her biological clock ticking.
She took her coffee outside and sat down with Diana. They didn’t waste any time with idle chitchat. They got right into Diana’s date the previous evening with J.T. He’d taken her to dinner at the student union of all places, not exactly haute cuisine. Then again, the important thing was that he treate
d Diana nicely.
“He was sweet,” Diana said. “But I think he seemed nicer, more interesting, and funnier than he really was, because he’s so good-looking. Could it be I’m really that shallow? And the whole time I was with him, I felt like What does he see in me? I mean, he could go out with practically any girl he wanted. I kept noticing other people looking at us, especially girls, and I’m sure they were thinking, Why is he on a date with that fatty?”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Ellie said, putting down her coffee cup. “Don’t even start with me on your bodyweight issues again. Not every woman needs to look like Kate Moss. He obviously finds you attractive, or he wouldn’t have asked you out. What did you do after dinner?”
“We walked to town and saw a movie, the new Keira Knightley.”
“Did he pay?”
“I offered to pay, since he picked up the bill for dinner. And he let me. He put his arm around me during the movie . . .”
Ellie nodded. She felt very protective of Diana. Ellie still wasn’t sure if she should tell Diana about J.T.’s reputation. She remembered how, on Friday afternoon at the pool, he’d secretly taken a photo of Hannah in her swimsuit. It had struck Ellie as odd—in fact, more than odd, downright creepy.
“After the movie, then what?” she asked.
“He asked if I wanted to go to the rec center, which was closed by then. But he said he had keys to get in, and it was kind of cool at night when nobody else was around.”
“Here we go,” Ellie said cynically. She shifted around in the café chair.
“Anyway, we went there, and I was a little nervous. He wanted to show me the pool—”
Ellie heard her phone ring inside her purse. “Damn it, sorry,” she muttered, reaching into her bag, which hung by its strap over the back of her chair. She glanced at the screen: 847-555-7117, Admin—Our Lady of the Cove.
Ellie wondered what someone in the college’s administration office wanted with her on a Sunday afternoon. “I should take this. I’m sorry, Di.” With a sigh, she pressed on the phone screen and answered: “Hello?”
“Ellie, this is Father O’Hurley . . .”
“Hello, Father O’Hurley,” she said, making a surprise-face at Diana across the café table. It wasn’t just someone in the administration office calling; it was the vice president, who pretty much ran the university. The president, Monsignor Clark, was eighty-seven years old and had been nothing more than a figurehead for years. The last time Father O’Hurley had even acknowledged Ellie had been four months ago, toward the end of the school year, when he’d seen her on campus on a Monday afternoon and good-naturedly chided her for not attending Sunday mass. Ellie remembered, despite his smile, he’d had a certain edge that told her he’d been dead serious about the whole thing.
“Um, how are you today, Father?” she asked.
“I’m fine. Did I catch you at home?”
“Actually, I’m having coffee with a friend at Campus Grounds.”
“Oh, then you’re practically right next door. I’d like to meet with you in my office at Logan Hall this afternoon.”
“What time this afternoon?”
“Well, you’re about five minutes away. So let’s say in fifteen minutes. My office is two-oh-one.”
Ellie was momentarily dumbfounded. He expected her to just drop everything, dump her friend, and run to meet him. “Can I ask what this is about, Father?”
“We’ll discuss that when you get here, Ellie. See you in fifteen minutes.”
He hung up.
* * *
Father O’Hurley’s secretary was a skinny, wry-faced old woman. She reminded Ellie of Ellen Corby, who played Grandma Walton in The Waltons reruns Ellie had watched as a kid—Grandma Walton minus the warmth and sweetness. When Ellie had walked into the anteroom and told her who she was, the secretary scowled at her—almost as if she blamed Ellie for her having to work on a Sunday. “Take a seat. Father O’Hurley will get to you soon enough.”
Except for the church, Logan Hall was the oldest building on the campus. It housed the administration offices. A former mansion, it had a seedy grandeur and seemed like the type of place that was haunted. Despite the sunshine outside, the waiting room seemed gloomy. Ellie sat on a sofa, and on the coffee table in front of her were old copies of Catholic Digest fanned out.
The secretary’s idea of O’Hurley getting to her “soon enough” was twenty minutes—and counting. Ellie could have driven home and changed clothes had she known she’d have to wait this long. In her casual pullover and slacks, she felt underdressed for meeting with the head of the school. She’d also rushed Diana through the rest of her date story in order to make it here on time.
It sounded like J.T. had lived up to his reputation last night. He’d taken Diana to the pool and suggested they go for a swim. He’d told her that he sometimes swam there at night—naked, since no one else was around and the lights were off. But he’d told her that she could swim in her underwear if she wanted. Fortunately, Diana had been too smart to fall for that. No one had gotten into the water, and their clothes had stayed on. But they’d kissed and necked on the sideline bench by the pool. J.T. had felt her up, too. But when he tried to get his hand under her sweater, Diana had called it a night. At least he’d been a good sport about it. He’d walked her back to the dorm, kissed her good night, and said he wanted to see her again. Diana had said sure, but in truth, she had mixed feelings about it.
Ellie had promised to call her tomorrow so they could talk about it some more. Then she’d hurried to Logan Hall for this mysterious meeting. That was—she glanced at her watch again—twenty-seven minutes ago.
Grandma Walton’s intercom buzzed. She picked up her phone and murmured into it. Then she hung up, cleared her throat, and announced: “Father O’Hurley will see you now.”
Throwing Ellie another resentful look, she came around her desk and opened the big mahogany door for her.
“Thank you,” Ellie said, stepping inside.
The door shut behind her.
O’Hurley’s office was huge—especially compared to Ellie’s little cubbyhole of a workspace. It had a slightly cluttered, fussy opulence: oversized antique furniture was arranged around the fireplace, a bookcase was filled with beautiful china, vases, and ornate gold and silver plates, and framed oil paintings hung on the walls.
O’Hurley was at his big mahogany desk in front of a picture window. It had a beautiful view of the treetops and Lake Michigan. O’Hurley stood up. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Ellie,” he said. He motioned to the two hard-back antique chairs facing his desk. “Have a seat.”
He was in his mid-fifties, about six feet tall, and quite commanding in his priest’s garb. He had wavy gray-brown hair and might have been handsome if his complexion weren’t so pasty. He also had a strange, pinched look on his face. His mouth was smiling, but the eyes were joyless, without any sparkle.
Ellie sat in a chair, which was uncomfortable as hell. On the wall to Ellie’s right hung a painting of a pious-looking woman, a halo encircling her head of long, brownish hair. Unlike the pretty, virginal martyrs commemorated in various statues on the school grounds, the saint in this head-and-shoulders portrait looked dour and middle-aged. A small light shone down on the elaborately framed piece.
“That is a painting of Saint Anne that my mother posed for,” O’Hurley explained. “I’m glad you noticed. Isn’t she beautiful?”
“She’s lovely,” Ellie lied. She noticed a sparkle come to O’Hurley’s eyes when he looked over toward the painting of his sour-faced mother.
But then he turned toward Ellie, and that gleam vanished—along with his smile. “Well, we have a problem,” he said, sitting down. He folded his hands on the desktop, which was cluttered with antique knickknacks—including an ornate crucifix in one corner. “It’s been brought to my attention that you’ve become very close to one of your journalism students—I’d say in record time, too, since she’s a freshman and the school year has barely begun.” He g
lanced down at some notes he’d jotted on a yellow legal pad. “The girl is Hannah O’Rourke, and she’s here—along with her sister—on a scholarship arranged by Mr. and Mrs. Richard Bonner. But then, you already know that, don’t you?”
Ellie couldn’t help narrowing her eyes at him. “Yes, it came up in a conversation with Hannah after class the other day.”
“I understand, in another conversation—this time at the fitness center pool during a swimming date—you managed to extract some far more sensitive information from the girl.”
Ellie shifted around in the uncomfortable chair. “I didn’t extract anything. And I wasn’t on a swimming date with Hannah. I happened to be passing by the rec center on Friday. I saw her by the pool, and she waved me inside. And by the way, those are the only times I’ve ever talked with Hannah O’Rourke outside of class.”
Ellie wondered where Father O’Hurley had heard all of this. Did he have someone spying on her? She immediately thought of Nicholas Jensen, who had been hovering close by during both of those conversations with Hannah. Or maybe it was J.T. Perhaps that was why he’d taken their picture at the pool on Friday. She also remembered how Lance, the custodian, had been lurking around Lombard Hall on Friday.
“I’m sorry, Father. I don’t understand what all this is about.”
He frowned at her. “This is about the fact that you’re a reporter. And you gained the trust of a naive girl so you could gather confidential information from her for a potentially big news story.”
Gaping at him, Ellie shook her head. “Whoever’s telling you this has it all twisted around—”
“Please, don’t interrupt me,” he said. “This is an extremely sensitive and private issue that Mr. and Mrs. Bonner don’t wish to see made public. Rachel’s parents are among the leading financial contributors to Our Lady of the Cove. We depend on their generosity to help keep this university running. We have an excellent relationship with the Bonners. And I won’t see it ruined by some opportunistic reporter who happens to be a part-time teacher here.”
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