“Tell me everything,” Paul said as he took a seat at the dining table across from John. “Everything that’s happened since my visit, even if it seems unimportant. I want to know everything you talked about that has to do with the past, everywhere Kathy’s gone since then, every visitor she’s had to the house…”
Ginny, who’d slipped into the kitchen as soon as they entered the house, walked into the dining room and placed a glass of water in front of John and poured a couple of aspirin from a bottle in her purse. He gave her a grateful look and popped the aspirin, then took a big gulp of water before he started to talk.
“She had a nightmare last night. Her entire body was ringing with sweat and she woke screaming. Then she called at lunch and told me she was having these ‘spells,’ as she called them. She said it was like seeing a picture album but with no rhyme or reason as to why.”
Ginny nodded. “I think it’s flashes of memory from the past. The same thing has been happening to me. What did she see?”
John nodded. “She said she saw an older woman with long, wiry black hair.”
“The headmistress of the LeBlanc School,” Ginny said.
“She saw a stack of curtains, blue with yellow flowers.”
Ginny sucked in a breath. “Those are the curtains that used to hang at my mother’s café. She bought them from the girls at the school.” She went on to tell John about finding the note in the hem of the curtain.
John buried his head in his hands for a couple of seconds, and when he looked back up, the misery on his face was crystal clear. “What happened to her…to you? You were just little girls.”
“I’m just speculating, but I don’t think Kathy and Ginny were there very long before the fire,” Paul said. “Whatever happened to the other girls before then, I’m not sure it happened to Kathy and Ginny.”
A tiny bit of hope appeared on John’s face, then it disappeared. “If nothing bad happened to them, then why did Kathy have such a terrible nightmare?”
“I think they saw the other girls being killed. Each of them hid when the others were being gathered, but I think both snuck back to see what was happening.”
“So you’re sure the fire was intentional?”
“I think it started when the girls panicked, but locking them in a room with no escape was intentional.”
“Oh, my God.” The agonizing look on John’s face said it all.
“Is there anything else?” Paul asked.
John shook his head, then frowned. “I’m not sure this is part of the same thing, but it’s starting to sound like it. It’s been years—since college, actually—but Kathy used to sleepwalk. She’d be missing from the bed in the middle of the night and I’d go looking for her. The first time it happened, I was in an all-out panic because I couldn’t find her, but when I started looking more thoroughly than just scanning the rooms, I found her in the pantry, sitting on the floor with a notebook and pencil.”
“Was anything written on it?”
“Just some circles. No writing at all. She didn’t know how she got in the closet or why she was there. It happened several times during college and then just stopped. I had almost forgotten until today.”
“I guess I don’t have to ask…” Paul began.
John shook his head. “I checked every closet first thing. Checked the attic, the storage shed, everywhere a grown adult could fit, just in case. She’s nowhere on this property.”
“Could she have fallen asleep and wandered off during one of those nightmares?”
“I don’t see how. I talked to her when I was leaving my office, which is only twenty minutes away. She said she was going to start dinner, and the stove was on when I got here. Why would she take a nap after turning on the stove?”
Paul looked over at Ginny, who shook her head, a grave look on her face. They had to assume the killer had Kathy. At this point, there was no other logical explanation.
“Where is she?” John asked. “Surely, you have some idea. You’ve been working on this.” The desperation in John’s voice was heartbreaking.
Paul slowly shook his head, gazing out the window into the backyard. Then suddenly, a thought occurred to him. “Maybe the question we should be asking is ‘why’ and not ‘where.’”
“What do you mean?” Ginny asked.
“When the man attacked you at your mother’s house, he had a gun. He could have killed you there. We have to assume that if he has Kathy, he had the same opportunity to kill her here, in her own home. So why didn’t he? Instead, he hit you on the back of the head—something you do if you want someone unconscious.”
John’s eyes widened. “He wanted to take them somewhere.”
“The school,” Ginny whispered. “It has to be the school.”
“But why?” John asked.
Paul’s jaw flexed and then set in a hard line. “Because then he could make their deaths look like an accident or suicide. Both of them came from the school with no past and serious medical issues once rescued.”
“People would think we went insane,” Ginny said, “because of the past.”
John jumped up from the table. “We have to go get her!”
Paul rose and placed one hand on John’s arm. “I want to find Kathy as badly as you, but I need you to go to the police department and tell them your wife was kidnapped. Tell them you received a frantic phone call and that she’s being held hostage at the old LeBlanc School for Girls in Johnson’s Bayou.”
John stared. “You want me to lie to the police?”
“Yes. Otherwise, they won’t take you seriously. It will still take them some time to get moving, but if you threaten to go yourself, they’ll send someone. I may need backup. I’m counting on you, John.”
John didn’t look happy with the situation at all, but finally he nodded. “Okay. I’ll go now and raise hell until they send someone, but I’m going with them.”
“I don’t blame you,” Paul said.
As he and Ginny started to leave the house, John grabbed Paul’s arm. “Find my wife. Bring her back to me.”
“I intend to,” Paul said before they rushed outside and jumped into Paul’s truck.
Paul floored the accelerator and the truck tires squealed as they slid onto the road. He punched in his partner’s number on the cell phone and gave him a quick rundown of the situation and asked for backup. Mike was more than an hour away from Johnson’s Bayou, but Paul wanted someone who’d been involved from the beginning to know what they were doing.
When Paul finished the call to his partner, he glanced over at Ginny, who sat stock-still, clutching the seat with both hands. “We’re going to find her,” Paul said. “We’re going to end this.”
Ginny nodded, but the fear on her face was evident.
Paul’s own heart raced so hard he could feel it pulsing through his fingers as he gripped the steering wheel. The rest of the drive to Johnson’s Bayou was made in complete silence, and Paul knew both of them were running a list of possible outcomes through their minds. He parked in front of the café and Madelaine was already at the front door, ushering them inside.
“Grab your spotlight,” Paul told Ginny. “It will be dark soon.”
Paul filled Madelaine in on what happened and his theory as Ginny raced upstairs to grab the light. When Ginny rushed back down seconds later, Madelaine pulled her rifle from underneath the counter.
“Let’s go,” Madelaine said. “And don’t even try to talk me out of it. He may have been able to pull off killing Ginny and Kathy and making it look like suicide, but he can’t kill all of us without bringing down the house of cards.”
Paul didn’t even waste time arguing with her. She’d just follow them anyway, and he wanted to get to the school as soon as possible. Besides, if Madelaine was half the shot she claimed to be, he may need her. “Both of you do exactly as I say. Follow close behind and try not to talk. If you hear or see something, touch me and point. Got it?”
Ginny and Madelaine nodded.
They left the café by the back door and hurried across the field to the swamp, entering the dense brush at the same place Paul and Ginny had before. Madelaine huffed behind them but surprised Paul when she didn’t lag. The look of determination and anger on her face explained it, though. Someone was threatening her child and adrenaline had kicked in.
Paul pushed through the brush as fast as he could, trying to keep the noise level to a minimum, but he knew if the killer was within hearing distance, he’d recognize the sounds of something large approaching. Assuming he was from Johnson’s Bayou, he’d know the difference between the local creatures and humans.
In other words, he’d be ready for them.
G
INNY FOLLOWED
P
AUL into the ever-darkening swamp, her heart beating faster with each step. Her mind raced with all the bad possibilities of what might be happening to Kathy, and she shook her head to stop the barrage of frightful images.
Kathy will be all right.
She just had to keep telling herself that.
She didn’t realize Paul had stopped until she bumped into him. Peering around him, she realized they had reached the edge of the school grounds. Paul scanned the grounds, and Ginny knew he was assessing the best entry point.
Finally, he turned to them and whispered, “We’ll skirt the edge of the grounds until we reach the storage shed on the side. There’s only one window upstairs on that side of the house that has a clear view over the shed and into the swamp. It gives us the best coverage to approach the house without being seen. We can go in the side door at the kitchen.”
Ginny and Madelaine nodded before dropping into step behind Paul as they skirted their way around the school grounds along the edge of the swamp. When they reached the section of the swamp closest to the storage shed Paul stopped and scanned the grounds again then motioned to them to follow him as he crept out of the swamp toward the storage shed.
Ginny and Madelaine followed behind him single file then pressed their backs against the shed. Paul peeked around the end of the shed, then waved at them to follow, and they moved silently from behind the shed into the house. Paul stopped just inside the kitchen and put a finger to his lips. He stood completely motionless, trying to pinpoint the existence of any other humans in the house. All Ginny heard was the sound of her own heartbeat.
Paul leaned in and whispered, “I think we should check the room that caught fire first.”
Ginny nodded. If the killer was trying to make Kathy’s death look like a suicide, the scene of the tragedy was the most logical to choose. Unfortunately, it was also down a long hallway at the other end of the house. They were going to have to be very deliberate with every step. Even the smallest noise would echo throughout the cavernous house.
Silently, they slipped down the hall, carefully choosing their steps to avoid anything on the littered floor that would make a noise. At the end of the hall stood what was left of the burned room. The door was closed and Ginny held her breath as Paul turned the knob and inched the door open. She let the breath out when the hinges didn’t screech and followed Paul through the small opening he’d created into the room.
It took only a quick scan to know they were completely alone. Decades of old ash and dust coated every surface in the room, including the floor. No one had been in this room in years, much less today.
Disappointment and anxiety washed over Ginny as they crept back into the hall. What if they’d been wrong? What if Kathy was somewhere else and they were wasting valuable time looking for her here? And then she remembered John’s story of Kathy’s sleepwalking. It was a huge long shot, but something she had to try.
She motioned to Paul and Madelaine and made her way back down the hallway to the kitchen. Once inside, she eased the hallway door shut behind them, knowing that it would prevent some sound in the room from being carried into the hall and the entryway. She pointed at the pantry, and Paul’s eyes widened.
He eased the door open and sitting on the floor of the pantry, staring wide-eyed at them, was a very alive Kathy. She gasped when she saw them and scrambled from the closet on her hands and knees. Paul reached a hand down to help her up, and she rose and threw her arms around him, choking back a sob.
Finally, she broke away, her eyes darting around the room. “The man who took me—where is he?” she whispered.
Paul shook his head. “Did he leave you here?”
“No. I broke free in the swamp and ran. I found the school and hid here, but I heard him walking upstairs about ten minutes ago. He’s looking for me.”
“Did you recognize him?”
Kathy nodded. “He’s the man from my dreams. The man who killed those girls. I’ve seen him somewhere before, but seeing him didn’t mean anything to me then. I still don’t know who he is now.” She pointed to the pantry. “That’s where I hid that night I heard him arguing with the woman. I didn’t realize it until I was in there, hiding all over again.”
Ginny placed her hand on Paul’s arm. As much as she wanted answers, they needed to put off conversation until later. “We’ve got to get out of here before he comes back,” she whispered.
Madelaine nodded, her eyes wide.
“You’re right,” Paul agreed. “We’ll leave the same way we came. I’ll lead and Madelaine, you come last with the rifle.”
Madelaine took her place behind Ginny and Kathy, and they eased through the back door and hurried to the back of the shed. Once there, they paused only long enough for Paul to scan the swamp and then they ran, but before they made it to the deep underbrush, Mayor Daigle stepped out with a pistol leveled directly at them.
“Drop your weapon,” he said to Paul. “Madelaine, toss that rifle this way, and no tricks, or beautiful Ginny gets a bullet.”
Ginny gasped. “It was you. All this time, it was you.”
“Real estate,” Paul said, cursing himself for not making the connection sooner. “Your wife’s family has a real estate trust. That trust owned the café before Madelaine bought it. That’s how you had access to the café, which gave you access to the keys to Ginny’s apartment and Madelaine’s house that she kept in her desk drawer. You got the key to the café from the estate attorney, and since everything is held in the trust’s name, no one ever connected you with the building.”
“Smart boy,” Mayor Daigle said and motioned to Paul’s gun again. “But not smart enough, apparently.”