Authors: Suzanne Brockmann
The wood creaked as he went down into the basement, Dan right behind him.
It was cold and damp and it smelled like one of those museums that Alyssa loved to visit—old houses where Lincoln or Mozart or Mark Twain had lived. It smelled ancient and mildewy, but it didn’t smell of death.
“Nothing,” Mick announced. He put it differently than Carol had. “No puddles of blood or piles of teeth. Although we did find this.”
This
was a row of three new-looking freezers, their Energy Star stickers still on their doors.
“Two are empty,” Mick told him. “The third holds Dougie’s daddy—at least that’s the assumption we’re working with. Elderly man, no teeth …”
Sam nodded. “Suspect is armed with Alyssa’s SIG P226 and Cassidy’s Browning BDM, as well as a super-juiced Taser,” he told the police detective and the other agents who came down there.
Aside from those gleaming white freezers, this part of the basement could’ve been a museum, with an old time workbench, and an array of tools—from a garden hoe to a pickax to an ancient crank-roller washing machine.
The far part of the basement was a garage, with two sets of arch-shaped carriage house doors that were hinged on the sides and opened in the center. They led out into a back alley. There was room for two cars in the garage, but only one was parked there. It was a museum-worthy Pontiac, dating from the early 1970s, and neatly covered with an oilcloth.
Mick pushed at the doors on the empty side of the garage, and as they swung open, Sam’s heart sank.
“This was unlocked when we got down here,” Mick reported.
“We need to find out what other car was registered in either Forsythe or his parents’ names,” Sam said, “and we need that info now!”
“Already on it.” Carol was behind him, phone to her ear, Jules behind her. She turned to him. “Sir, with all due respect, you need to—”
“I know what I need,” Jules told her.
“I’m not sure you do, sir,” she insisted.
Sam didn’t hear the end of that argument, because his phone rang. It was Izzy calling from the hotel.
“Starrett here,” Sam said. “Tell Robin we found Jules, he’s okay, but Alyssa and Jenn are still UA. Tell Tony to bring over the weapons case and a pair of Jules’s pants, ASAP. When he leaves, you lock that door behind you and do not open it for anyone, not even the FBI agents in the hall, not under any circumstances. If someone tries to get in, shoot to fucking kill. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, give me some good news, Zanella,” Sam ordered.
“GPS puts Alyssa heading north on the Henry Hudson Parkway,” Izzy reported, “moving at forty miles per hour.”
His dread increasing, Sam repeated Zanella’s words.
“Can we set up a road block?” Mick asked. “Or a checkpoint at the toll?”
Izzy must’ve heard him, because he told Sam, and Sam repeated, “They’re already past the toll booth.”
“DMV doesn’t have another vehicle on record for either Douglas, John, or Danielle Forsythe,” Carol interrupted, “which doesn’t mean Douglas didn’t have a second car registered under an assumed name. And here’s a useful fact—John and Danielle Forsythe also own property on Lake Mahopac. It’s about an hour north of here, just over the Putnam County line. You’d get there by taking the Henry Hudson to the Saw Mill to the Taconic.”
Sam shook his head. “That’s too easy. He wouldn’t go there. He’d know it’s the first place we’d look.”
“We don’t have a lot of options,” Mick pointed out.
“Let’s start by following Alyssa’s GPS,” Jules said. “Carol, alert the State Police, as well as the locals in Lake Mahopac.”
“Already doing it, sir,” she said.
“I need a car and driver.”
“I’ve got a car,” Mick volunteered.
Jules turned to Sam and Dan. “You gonna come with or stay?”
“I’m in,” Dan said.
“We’ll find them,” Jules said, picking up on Sam’s uncertainty. “This is Alyssa. She’s going to kick his ass.”
But Sam wasn’t convinced.
“Oh, good, they’re leaving,” Douglas said with a smile that made the hair go up on the back of Alyssa’s neck.
He’d come back in, wheeling three large suitcases with him, which he’d stacked neatly against the far wall, then covered with a heavy-duty plastic painter’s tarp.
Alyssa had heard him coming, and she’d pushed herself back to where he’d left her. Jenn had moved, too—they were both playing unconscious.
Through her eyelashes, she’d watched as he dragged in a case of bottled water, and several grocery bags that looked as if they actually held food. Healthy snacks like rice cakes and pita chips. He brought in a cooler, too.
As if he were planning to stay here, in this windowless room, for a while.
“I know you’re awake,” he’d told her, “but if you want to pretend otherwise, that’s fine with me.”
It was strange—he was Douglas. She’d sat and interviewed him. God, she’d walked out to the dumpster with him, just the two of them, and she hadn’t been even slightly afraid.
And yes, he’d been on her suspect list, but he’d been way at the bottom, beneath Mick Callahan even. He’d fooled her—completely. He was smart, he was cunning, and he was completely psychotic.
He was the Dentist.
Her brain stuttered through her choices, her options. Stay silent and wait, because Sam was coming. She knew he was coming. And Jules was somewhere, too, because he wasn’t in here with her, and oh, please God, don’t let this monster have slashed his throat, like he did with all the others. …
She pushed aside her fear and grief, because she was alive and Jenn was alive, and right now her job was to make damn sure that they both stayed that way.
She could beg for Jenn’s life, but this man had no soul, no conscience, so appealing to him for mercy would be worthless.
She could try to figure out where the hell they were—they were still in his house, she was sure of it, and yet she’d clearly been wrong about much of this so far.
So she opened her eyes and spoke, making her voice even and calm. “What is this place? The floor is lovely.”
She’d surprised him—that was good. “Isn’t it?” he asked. “It’s a prohibition room. Back when alcohol was declared illegal, the owners renovated, and built this hidden room. They stored their wine here, and even brewed their own beer. They had dinner parties in here—the room was built around this table. Mother and Dad once tried to get it out, but it didn’t fit through the narrow doorway.”
So they
were
still in his townhouse. Which meant that Sam was going to be here, soon.
“He won’t find us,” Douglas told her, perceptive as always. “Your husband. The room isn’t big enough. It was designed to fit in behind the closets and the kitchen pantry. I found it, myself, when I was a child—just by chance.”
Alyssa was silent, just waiting, because this man, the Dentist, did love to talk.
He didn’t disappoint. “Besides, he’s not going to stay here long enough. I gave a taxi driver a very generous tip to take a package—with your cell phone in it—to a pizza parlor in a little town about an hour north of here. I imagine he’ll be chasing that.” He laughed. “I almost feel bad for him.”
She heard it then—the crash of a window being broken. And she drew in her breath to scream
—Sam!
But she didn’t make a sound because Douglas was on top of her, shocking her with that souped-up Taser that made the world shudder and shake with searing pain. And when she stopped buzzing and regained at least some of her senses, she discovered that he’d gagged her.
And damn it, he’d realized that she’d begun to loosen the binds around Jenn’s wrists.
“Look what you’ve gone and done,” he said, tsking, as he pulled the ropes so tightly that Jenn made a sound of pain behind her gag.
Alyssa tried to make noise—please God, let Sam know they were here—but Douglas zapped her again, and again the world went dim.
She fought it, though, and saw him smile, heard him say, “Oh, good, they’re leaving.”
He adjusted the plastic tarp over his suitcases and got out a deadly looking knife. God, they were in trouble. …
But Alyssa turned to look at Jenn, who gave her solid eye contact.
It wasn’t over until it was over, and they weren’t done fighting yet.
Sam was dragging his feet.
Dan wanted to scream at him.
Let’s go! Let’s move!
But Sam lingered in the foyer, looking back toward the kitchen, as if maybe he wanted to grab a sandwich for the ride north.
Mick was already in his car, engine running. And Tony was there with the Troubleshooters’ weapons case, helping Jules replace his stolen sidearm, and making sure they had all the ammunition they needed.
Dan grabbed a few more clips himself as Jules ran inside to change into the jeans that Tony had brought for him.
“Get in the car, sir,” Dan called to Sam as Jules came back out.
And then, alleluia, Sam jogged down the steps, behind Jules. But he didn’t get in. Instead he motioned for Mick to pull down his window, which the detective did.
“There was a bolt on the basement door,” Sam said. “When I went past, I thought it was locked. Were you the first one through that door?”
Mick nodded. “I was,” he said. “And it
was
locked.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Sam said. “Douglas takes Jenn and Alyssa into the basement—to the garage—puts them in his car and … Goes back upstairs to lock that door from the inside? He left the garage doors unlocked. Why would he bother? Did he really go back inside, lock the door, leave through the front door, walk all the way around to the back alley, go in through the garage, and only then make his escape?”
Dan wanted to get moving. “If he had the key he could’ve locked it from—”
“No,” Sam cut him off. “It’s not that kind of bolt. There’s no way to unlock it unless you’re
inside
the
house.”
“It was locked,” Mick said again. He turned off his car.
“What the hell … ?” Dan said. “We need to—”
“The kitchen’s too small,” Sam announced, as if that fucking meant something important.
“Shit, you’re right.” And now Mick was out of his car, and he and Jules were following Sam up the steps.
But Sam turned to stop them and put a finger to his lips. He wanted silence.
“Jesus,”
Dan said, but he followed them because the alternative was to stand there on the sidewalk with his thumb up his ass.
“I just want to find Jenn,” he whispered to Tony, who was right behind him.
“I think that’s what we’re doing,” Tony whispered back, pointing to the bolt on the door that Sam had been talking about.
The kitchens too small
—so what if the kitchen was too small?
But Sam and Mick and Jules were walking silently back and forth between it and the dining room and the living room, turning on all the lights.
Which was when Dan saw it, too. The
kitchen
was
too small
. It should have extended another ten feet from the back of the pantry.
There was another room—a hidden room—here on the first floor of this big house.
But how the hell were they going to get in? They didn’t have time to explore and find the equally hidden door. That psycho could be carving up Jenn and Alyssa right now, right behind those very walls. …
Sam motioned for Tony to bring the weapons case over, and Tony snapped to it, opening it up. Whereupon Sam reached—yes—for the small chunk of C4 explosives.
For what he was going to do, they wouldn’t need a lot.
Except these walls were old. God only knew what was behind the plaster. Possibly horsehair. They had to assume they were plenty thick.
One blast might not be enough.
But Danny remembered seeing a pickax in the basement.
He ran to get it while Sam set the charge.
He liked it when they bit him, hard enough to draw blood, so he always gave them a chance to do so. He had his Taser in the event that they latched on too tightly, so he was never in real danger.
But here they were, hidden away in his kill room, where he’d brought Monsieur Henri, Tinkerbell, Jolie, and Maggie Thorndyke all to their magnificent, snarling ends.
He wished there was a drain in the floor, and a shower so he could wash. After killing Maggie, he’d had to wipe himself down very carefully, so as not to get blood on Mère’s carpeting in the hall outside his bathroom.
And he also wished he could remove Jenn’s gag, so he could see and feel her sharp little teeth, as she felt the bite of his knife.
But he couldn’t, because there were still people in the house, moving quietly around, no doubt putting the gay FBI agent, Mère
et
Papa in body bags. He wondered, briefly, what the FBI would do with the freezers that he’d bought upon his return home. They were still almost new. Barely used.
He liked the idea of some unknowing person buying one of them and using it to store their ground beef and frozen vegetables—never realizing that this freezer they’d gotten at such a great bargain had been used, for months, as a tomb.
He also liked the fact that Alyssa was pretending that she wasn’t afraid. Or maybe she really wasn’t—he liked to think that was possible, too. That she was, in fact, as strong as he was.
But it was far more likely that she would crack when he took his knife to Jennilyn.
If Alyssa’s gag was off, she’d beg. And plead. And bargain. And cry.
He was going to make her cry before this was over, before this ended.
And it
would
end, one way or another.
If the house emptied, he’d kill Jenn here and leave her body for them to find, while he and Alyssa drove west. He would keep her alive a little bit longer. It was not his original plan, but he liked having her watch him work.
And he wanted to hear her scream.
Of course, there was always a chance that someone would find them—that someone would realize they hadn’t left the city after all. In which case he would kill Alyssa immediately, even as his own life ended.
Either way though, Jenn was going to die right now.
It was time to do it—to see if he could make Alyssa Locke cry.
Sam was coming back.
He was going to come back.