Patty started down the hall toward the stairs, moving slowly and keeping close to the wall, trying to make as little noise as possible. In the shadowy distance she could hear shuffling movement, but she still couldn’t see anyone. Next to the stairwell was an open area used for storage, a jumbled collection of old desks, mildewing textbooks, dusty computer monitors; the cluttered space provided any number of hiding places.
Holding the cookie sheet in front of her like a shield, she crept closer to the stairwell, intending to make a dash past the storage area and up the stairs, giving the prankster no time to jump out at her and yell “Boogedy Boo!” or whatever the hell he or she had planned. Nearing the bottom stair, she sensed movement in her periphery, someone stepping out of the shadows toward her.
Patty flung the cookie sheet at the indistinct form and made a break for the stairs, but then a familiar voice called her name. Three steps up, she stopped and turned, squinting into the darkness as a familiar face emerged to join the voice.
“What are you doing down here?” she said with a tremulous laugh, making her way back down the stairs. “You nearly scared me to death.”
And then a fist shot out and connected with the side of her head like a crashing moon.
After that, only shadows embraced her.
Chapter Eight
IT WAS ALMOST midnight when Connie awoke; she’d napped for nearly four hours. She might have slept straight through ’til morning if her bladder hadn’t insisted she get up and go to the bathroom. After taking care of that bit of business, she stepped back into the room, noticing that the top bunk was empty. The bed was unmade, but it pretty much stayed that way 24/7. Patty should have finished with her laundry and been back hours ago.
Then again, maybe she got a second wind and returned to the party. Despite a seemingly endless cavalcade of rejection, Patty remained persistent in her pursuit of love, a trait Connie actually admired. But a quick perusal of the room confirmed that Patty’s clothesbasket was nowhere to be seen, suggesting she’d never come back from the Dungeon.
Concerned but not yet truly worried, Connie reached for the phone to call her roommate, but then she spotted the other girl’s cell sitting on her desk. Checking the time again, she decided to head to the Dungeon and check on Patty. Maybe the girl had fallen asleep down there.
Or maybe she hooked up with some drunk jock, Connie thought with a laugh. Stranger things had been known to happen, especially when liberal amounts of alcohol were used to lubricate inhibitions.
Connie locked the door behind her and headed down the hall toward the stairs that would take her to the basement. She passed no one, which was unusual even for this late hour. Apparently the party over at Greer was a real blowout, drawing nearly everyone that had remained on campus this weekend. What with midterms coming up next week, people were probably desperate to blow off a little steam. March madness.
As Connie descended the stairs, she felt a familiar and unpleasant fluttering in her stomach. The Dungeon always made her uneasy; at the very least, she would have thought the administration would spring for some more lights down here. She and Kasey Gregory had become “laundry buddies,” always arranging to wash their clothes at the same time so neither of them would have to be down in the isolated laundry room alone.
She found herself wishing Kasey were with her now, but then she chastised herself for acting like such a stereotypical girl. Life was not a Richard Laymon novel, with predators hiding around every corner waiting to pounce on poor defenseless young women. Besides, the dorm was practically a fortress. It could only be accessed with a keycard, and there were security cameras located at both the front and back entrances which were routinely monitored by the guard on duty. In fact, the security office was located right next to Ebert, so there was no real reason for her to feel unsafe.
Despite knowing this, when she reached the basement level, she walked briskly down the hall toward the laundry room, eager to locate Patty and get out of this cavernous hellhole. She turned through the doorway, her roommate’s name on her lips, but paused when she found the room deserted. The washers and dryers were all quiet, none of them running, but Patty’s empty clothesbasket sat on top of one of the dryers.
Connie began opening the machines one at a time, and she found two washers full of Patty’s clothes. The washers were both cool, meaning they’d finished their cycles some time ago. Connie frowned, concern creeping toward outright worry, and looked around the room for some clue as to where her roommate could have gone. She noticed flies buzzing around the stove, and as she stepped toward it, she saw brown lumps on top of the appliance. Waving the flies away, she recognized the lumps as cinnamon rolls. She reached out and touched one; it was cold and hard. She figured these must be the cinnamon rolls Patty had been hiding in the mini-fridge for the last week that she didn’t think Connie knew about. It wasn’t really a secret in the dorm that Patty sometimes snuck food down to the laundry room so she could pig out in private, but the girls had the decency to let Patty go on thinking it was a secret.
So Patty had obviously started her clothes and made the rolls but then left before eating any of them, or even icing them for that matter. But where had she gone? And why hadn’t she returned?
Connie was about to leave the room when something occurred to her. She glanced into the sink and then opened the oven door, peering inside. Where was the cookie sheet that was left down here? She assumed Patty must have used it to make the cinnamon rolls, so why would she place the treats directly on the stovetop and take the cookie sheet with her to wherever the hell she went? It didn’t make sense.
Worry was edging toward panic at this point. Everything about this situation was wrong, and Connie’s instinct told her that her roommate might be in real trouble. She left the laundry room and started back toward the stairs, intending to go to the security office and tell the guard what she’d found, and what she hadn’t found. She worried that she wouldn’t be taken seriously. After all, it had only been four hours since Connie had last seen Patty. That didn’t seem long enough to truly generate alarm, especially when there was a party going on in one of the other dorms. Hopefully, she’d be able to convince the guard that this was more than a case of a girl slipping out with some boy or getting drunk and passing out in someone else’s room.
As she approached the stairwell, something on the floor by a tower of old books caught her attention. Deviating from her course, she walked over to it and squatted down. It was the cookie sheet, lying on the floor, little bits of the cinnamon rolls still stuck to it. What was it doing down the hall from the laundry room?
Connie was about to stand when she glanced over to her left and spotted a small puddle of something red, a red so deep it looked almost black, like an oil spill. Letting her eyes wander toward the stairs, she saw more spots and splatters of the stuff, making a sporadic trail up the stairs. Not much, just a drop here and a smear there, easy to miss if you weren’t looking for it.
Panic turning into a cold certainty, Connie touched a finger to the already congealing puddle and brought it to her nose, sniffing the distinctive coppery scent.
It was blood.
* * *
I’m not even supposed to be here.
That was what Norman thought as he stared at the video monitors, all too aware of the two men standing close behind him, looking over his shoulders. He normally had Saturdays and Sundays off, but one of the weekend guards had called out sick so Norman had been drafted to fill in. He’d accepted because he could really use the overtime, but if Eric hadn’t gotten sick he would be the one here dealing with this crap. And Norman really wished he wasn’t dealing with this crap.
Under normal circumstances, a report that a student hadn’t been seen for a few hours would not be much cause for concern, but the disappearance of the Butler girl had changed everything. Her parents were threatening legal action against the school, and the administration was on heightened alert. The standing orders for security were to report anyth
ing that seemed even the slightest bit unusual. So when the light-skinned black girl had reported that her roommate had gone to do her laundry and never returned, Norman had called his supervisor immediately.
Lt. Beckman in turn had called Dean Hartford, and both men had arrived on campus within half an hour. They now stood silently behind Norman as he fast-forwarded through several hours of footage from the cameras at the front and back entrances of the Ebert dorm, keeping an eye out for anything suspicious.
So far they had seen nothing but a parade of girls going in and out the doors, mostly in pairs and groups. The roommate had provided a picture of the missing girl in question, and she had been seen leaving the dorm by the backdoor at 19:17:33 according to the time stamp in the lower right corner of the screen, then she returned via the same entrance at 19:56:08. This corroborated the roommate’s story that the girl had gone to the party but returned after only half an hour. The question was now whether or not she left the dorm again after going to do her laundry.
“Whoa, what was that?” Lt. Beckman said, tapping Norman on the shoulder. “On the camera at the front door. Go back a bit.”
Norman had seen it too and was already in the process of stopping the tape and rewinding it. He started the playback at regular speed, and at 20:34:55 a long figure shambled into frame. Dressed in baggy cargo pants and an oversized hooded sweatshirt, with the head tucked down, it was impossible to tell for sure the gender of this person. If Norman had to guess, he’d say male just based on the walk. Then again, he’d seen plenty of female students with manly walks. The person used a keycard to open the door then slipped inside, all without exposing his or her face to the camera, and it seemed as if the head was always purposefully turned away. Like the person was actively trying to avoid being identified.
“I’d say that is textbook ‘suspicious activity,’ ” Beckman said, turning toward the Dean. “Don’t suppose you recognize who it is?”
Hartford shook his head. “Could be anyone.”
Norman started fast-forwarding the tapes again. The traffic through the building died down quite a bit. The tape played out for a while until…
“Sweet Jesus,” Norman whispered.
“Fuck me,” Beckman croaked.
“Shit,” Hartford gasped.
At 20:53:15 the back door of Ebert swung open and the hooded stranger stepped out, only this time he or she was moving rather slowly due to the load being carried. The limp form of an unconscious girl was draped across the hooded stranger’s arms. The girl’s face passed right underneath the camera, and Norman recognized Patricia Moore immediately. Her eyelids fluttered and her nose was bloodied.
Beckman and Hartford leaned down on either side of Norman, all three sets of eyes transfixed on the screen. The hooded stranger carefully descended the steps, and at the bottom almost dropped the girl. The stranger stumbled, readjusted, and managed to keep the girl from falling. But in the process, the hood dropped down, revealing a head of dark black hair, short and spiky.
“Turn around asshole,” Hartford mumbled. “Turn around and let us get a good look at that face, you sick fuck.”
And as if hearing the Dean, the young man carrying Patricia Moore out of Ebert dorm turned slightly to his right. Not much, but enough to give a glimpse of his profile. Norman immediately paused the tape, freezing the image on the screen.
“I know that kid,” Norman said. “I don’t know his name, but just a few days ago he was out by the Quarry in the rain. Out of it, like he was high or something.”
“Goddamn it!” Hartford shouted, pulling out a cell phone. “I’m getting the police out here right away.”
Norman turned and saw his superior officer glaring at him. He cringed back, as if anticipating a punch. “What should we do, sir?”
Beckman leaned forward, his face less than an inch from Norman’s, and Norman could spell onions barely masked by peppermint toothpaste wafting from the older man’s breath. “Some sicko waltzes into one of the female dorms and carries an unconscious, bleeding girl out the backdoor, and you don’t see a thing? Aren’t you supposed to be watching these cameras?”
Norman stammered for a moment before saying, “I do have other duties besides monitoring the cameras. I have rounds and—”
“And homework?” Beckman said, nodding toward the books lying on the desk behind them.
Norman opened his mouth, but could think of no response. His mouth snapped shut with an audible click.
Beckman sighed and ran a hand over his haggard face. “Get on the computer, pull up the student ID photos, see if you can put a name to this kid. I’m going to see if I can find out just whose card he used to get into the building.”
Hurrying to the desk and shoving his books aside, Norman did what he was told, quickly scanning through the hundreds of photos. He heard Hartford on the phone with the police, the words, “Get someone down here pronto, these rent-a-cops we have aren’t worth shit,” cutting him like a sharp blade.
I’m not even supposed to be here.
Chapter Nine
“YOU WERE A mistake, plain and simple.”
Emilio’s face burned with shame, and he felt tears threatening to fall, so he turned away. This wasn’t the first time his mother had said such things to him, but usually her tirades were private affairs between mother and son; this time she had an audience.
It was early Sunday afternoon, and Evelyn Gambrell’s birthday party was in full swing. Two dozen friends, family members, and co-workers from the textile mill gathered to celebrate the occasion. The house, a small two-bedroom, was packed, ’80s music blaring from the stereo speakers, the soundtrack of her misspent youth. Evelyn had woken up this morning still slightly drunk from the night before and immediately went right back to the bottle like a newborn to its mother’s teat. By 1 p.m. she was so far gone she couldn’t even stand on her own. It was only a matter of time before she started in on her son. Emilio had known all day it was coming, that there was no escape; all he could do was sit and wait for it.
“Lyn dear, let’s not spoil the party,” Emilio’s grandmother said, rushing to her daughter’s side. “Everyone has been having such a good time.”
“You warned me, Mama,” Evelyn said, grasping her mother’s sleeve. Her words were slurred, but not so slurred that everyone couldn’t understand her. “You told me not to fuck around, but did I listen? Hell no. I was sixteen, thought I knew it all, thought I had all the answers. I thought it gave me some kind of power over the boys, driving ’em wild with what was in my panties, deciding who I would and wouldn’t let slip it to me.”
Some guests started edging silently out the door, others averting their gazes from the ugly scene playing out, but there were a few that looked on with a hungry sheen in their eyes like people watching a bull fight; they knew there was a chance someone would be gored to death, and secretly they hoped to witness just such a tragedy. Afraid he wouldn’t be able to hold back the tears much longer, Emilio started toward his bedroom.
“You ruined my life!” Evelyn screamed, trying to get to her feet and stumbling; she would have crumpled to the floor if her mother hadn’t been holding her by the arm. “I got knocked-up with you, dropped out of high school, married your worthless shit of a father, and I’ve been stuck in this goddamn town in a nowhere job ever since. I’m only thirty-five, should be in the prime of my life, but I look and feel about sixty. All because of you.”
Emilio’s grandmother tried to quiet Evelyn, and Uncle Rory turned up the stereo in an attempt to drown out his sister, but New Kids on the Block were no match for Evelyn. She simply raised her voice and stumbled toward Emilio, dragging her mother along with her.
“I don’t even know if your father was really the one. I mean, he was the most recent before I found out I was pregnant, but there’d been others around the same time. Hank seemed the best bet though, had a good job lined up at his dad’s construction company. I thought he would be loyal, provide for us, but instead he ran off with that cheap tra
mp that ran the register at the convenience store down the street. Leaving me alone to deal with my big bastard of a mistake.”
Even those who had previously seemed to take perverse delight in Evelyn’s drunken rant became suddenly uncomfortable. More made hasty exits.
Rory came over to Emilio and put a hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “She doesn’t mean it. She doesn’t know what she’s saying, Em.”
“I know exactly what I’m saying!” Evelyn pushed her mother away and then tripped over her own feet, toppling onto her hands and knees. Looking up at her son, bitterness brimming in her eyes, she said, “Think you’re so much better than me, don’t you? Got a scholarship and ran off to some college in another state, all so you could have the kind of future I never got to have, the kind of future that was stole from me. The future you stole from me. I wish I’d listened to Mama and got that abortion after all.”
Following that nasty declaration, silence filled the room like a noxious gas. Even Evelyn seemed stunned by her words. Emilio shrugged off his uncle’s hand and retreated to his bedroom, slamming and locking the door behind him. At some point since the last time he’d been home from school, his mother had for some unknown reason hauled out dozens of boxes from storage in the attic and deposited them in Emilio’s room, creating a cardboard maze. He navigated the mess then flopped down on his bed, letting tears flow as he buried his face in a pillow.
Why had he come home this weekend? He should have trusted his gut and stayed on campus. It was his mother’s birthday, yes, but he owed her nothing, not with the way she treated—had always treated—him. No matter how many times she unloaded on him, the sting never lessened.
The rant was part one of the standard script. The second part would come about an hour from now, when she would knock at his door and offer empty apologies. Emilio would pretend to believe her—he always did—enduring sloppy hugs and alcohol-laced tears while he dreamed of escape. He had escaped, he reminded himself, was making decisions on his own for the first time, was no longer tied to the crumbling economy of his mother. But that did nothing to comfort him. He had opted into this latest episode, and, if anything, that made him feel more powerless than ever. Forever tethered to her pain.
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