Where was I? Why? I was trapped in something small and dark and wet and…
I sucked in and screamed.
I screamed until I felt like the blood vessels in my face and neck would burst. I screamed until my throat felt ripped, shredded, and I banged and kicked until my hands and heels and toes had to be as shredded as my throat.
You scream when you want someone to come.
Someone did.
Oh dear god. Someone did.
Ben Gray wasn't. He was black. That was his joke. Even he was tired of it, though. Basketball scholarship, but not talented enough for the pros. Ben loved his job, but knew not to live it. His partner didn't know that yet. Scott Michaels's shield was shiny new and his energy was exhausting. He had spiked hair, for god's sake, looked like a surfer, and acted like a cocker spaniel on speed.
“Roger Oakley,” Ben said. “Never screws up. If the family hasn't messed up the place, we're in great shape.”
“You think we got an Amber?”
Ben sighed. “We don't go in guessing.”
“I know. But this would be my first Amber.”
“Scott,” Ben said, his tone a warning.
“I know. Don't say Amber again.”
The subdivision where Cass McBride lived was gated but without a guard. Ben pressed the code Roger had given him and the gate opened. As his rat's-back-brown Crown Vic crawled through, Ben noted that the car behind him rolled in on his tail. Well, he thought, it was better than no security at all, but not much.
A man in pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, his hair sticking up in tufts, waited on the porch with Officers Roger Oakley and Tyrell Ford.
The man in pajamas started talking as soon as Ben stepped onto the porch.
“I didn't touch anything,” the distraught man said. “When I saw the glass I knew not to. I just backed out of the room and called. I told these guys that.”
Ben shot a glance at Roger. “Oakley. Glad to hear you caught this one.”
Roger nodded. Compliment received. “This is Ted McBride.”
“Cass would never run away,” Mr. McBride said, leaning forward and jabbing the air with a pointed ringer. “Understand that. Go look at that glass. Someone took my girl.”
“I hear you, Mr. McBride. We're here to get your daughter back as soon as possible. Why don't we go in the house?”
Ben's eyebrow registered the word “glass” as why he and Scott had been called out. Roger had gotten a case of his legendary “spider feet,” when he felt like spiders were racing up his neck. Something was wrong in this house.
Before Ben could ask Ted another question, the man collapsed onto a couch and sobbed. He covered his face but tears leaked between his fingers and his attempts to muffle his sobs came out as rough coughs.
“She's my little girl. I'll give all this away to get her back.” He began rocking back and forth. “Don't let her be hurt. Please.”
Roger's partner, Tyrell, held up a small spiral notebook and pointed to the hall. He read in a low voice. “Father, Ted McBride, owner of the home. Mother lives in Louisiana. Divorced. Daughter, Cass McBride, 17, high school junior. Father and daughter home last night. Daughter went to her bedroom first. She wasn't up when he awoke. Went to check. She was missing. He saw broken glass on her floor. Immediately called police.”
“Good work, Officer Ford.”
They returned to the living room. McBride was sitting with forearms on knees, head hanging.
“Mr. McBride, I'm Detective Ben Gray and I'll be taking the lead on your daughter's case.”
Ted swallowed hard then stood and shook Ben's hand. “Sorry about that. Ted McBride is a man that takes control. Ted McBride knows how things work, how to get things done. I have no idea where all that came from.”
“Grief and fear, sir. Natural emotions in this situation.”
“I disagree. Fear gets in the way and grief is premature. Cass is alive and I want her back. Emotions won't get her back. Work will.”
Roger's spiders must have jumped over to Ben's neck. He could feel their feet. Was this guy having a breakdown? Talking about himself in the third person? “Yes, sir. I want you to talk to my partner, Detective Scott Michaels, while I check your daughter's room.”
Roger led Ben out of the room and down the hall. The house was all one floor, laid out in a big U-shape around a pool in the back. A place of barely beige and white, chrome and glass. Cold. Nothing could feel at home here but ghosts.
Ben felt alien and abrupt in this place.
“You think the father is good for this?” Ben asked Roger.
“Nope. I think you got an Amber.” He opened the door to the room of a young female. But no boy-band posters on the walls, no heaps of this and piles of that. Clean, orderly, the room of someone who knew where things were. Thick, barely beige carpet, snowy bed linens, cream walls, white crown molding, a plasma TV on the wall across from the bed, a laptop computer on the cleared desk. A clock and lamp on the night table. Ben snapped on his gloves and opened the drawer. An iPod and an Emily Dickinson anthology.
Ben opened the book. “She wrote in this book. In ink. I wouldn't expect that.” His brow furrowed. “There's a bunch of stuff about fathers here. Maybe she has some issues with her own?” He slid the book into an evidence bag.
Roger interrupted. “Bed slept in. Room clean. Look at the glass.”
Ben leaned over. “Window punched through from outside. Look at that.” He squatted and peered at the carpet. “Damn.”
“That's what I thought,” Roger said.
“You check the father?”
“Haven't looked at his shoes. But eyeballing his feet, I'd say he's not even close.”
Ben stood up. “Get a picture of that print and the girl's stats. Crime Scene needs to be here ten minutes ago. We've got a kidnapping by an unsub and time is against us.”
Ben shook his head. “An Amber. Scott will wet his pants.”
“I'm not going to lie. I enjoyed it. I did. Cass sent my brother off that limb and she had to pay.”
“See, that confuses me,” the big cop said. “If that's the truth, why didn't you just tie her up in the greenhouse?”
“She had to end up just like David,” I said.
“Then why didn't you hang her? Pin notes to her?”
A shudder rippled across my shoulders. This guy must be sick.
“Is that all you got?”
The voice came from my right hand. I shrieked. Where was he? My hand smacked the top of the box. He wasn't in here. He could hear me? Could he see me?
“What are you doing down there? So quiet?” His voice was low and smug. Whispering.
Panic surged through me. The bad dream. Someone in my ear. The hard arms pinning me. The sting in my arm followed by a hot arc into my muscle and a warm flush spreading across my chest that took me back down into sleep.
Adrenaline had cleared my head now. That voice had broken the window. He had probably drugged me. Yes, that quick hot pain and that cool voice. And then he had taken me.
Who?
Why?
Where?
What did he mean “down there”?
My head spun and my chest burned as I consciously tried to gulp air. There was air. I could breathe but I wanted more. In a dark box, feeling like weights pressed against me, rolled me flat, squeezed out the air. I sucked it in, proving I could. Demonstrative evidence that I was alive.
What did he mean “down there”?
I sobbed. But I didn't scream anymore. My throat was raw and I knew that voice wanted the screaming. And if he wanted it, it wouldn't do me any good. Not if I made it easy.
I had to wipe my nose and mouth with my left hand before I strangled on my own snot and tears.
Gasping and gulping in the damned blind dark.
Flat on my back with a psycho whispering in my ear.
“Cass? You're too quiet. I can hear you scream, but I can't hear you cry. You are, aren't you? Sure you are.”
I clamped my eyes down hard and grit my teeth.
He knows my name.
He didn't grab a stranger.
He grabbed
me
.
Someone I know put me in a box, in the dark, and he wants me to scream. He wants me terrified.
And I am.
But I won't scream. Not if he wants me to.
I held my breath, went rigid with the effort of listening.
And I heard it.
Footsteps. Vibrations. Above me.
My head lolled back. The footsteps were muffled like there was padding, lots of thick padding between the monster and me.
Dirt?
That smell like a new garden.
Earth?
My muscles went loose.
Not relaxed…
Hopeless.
New panic. Dragging the deep, hard breaths, trying to store all the oxygen I could.
Down there.
The smell of soil that's been turned for a new garden.
The chill.
Down there.
Muffled footsteps above me.
The size and shape of this box.
The total dark.
I had been buried alive.
Buried.
Alive.
Buried.
“Mr. McBride, what size shoe do you wear?”
Ted looked at Ben like he'd just grown an extra head. “Shoe size? You're going to find my daughter armed with my
shoe size
?”
“Nine, nine and a half?”
“Nine. Do we make jokes about my small feet now?”
“There's a shoe print on the carpet by the window in your daughter's bedroom and it's an eleven, by my eye.”
Ted's mouth fell open. He shut it slowly. “Oh my god. Someone took my girl from my own house while I was asleep. This house is wired with every kind of alarm…” He looked away. “I get careless. I watch television, toss back a few drinks, don't remember to set the alarms. It's such a safe neighborhood, you know, the best people, the –”
Ben sat in a chair and pulled it close. “We need a recent picture. Names of friends. Addresses. Tell me about her mother. Where is she? Would she take your daughter?”
Ted took a deep breath and straightened up. “I'll get the pictures. There's a million of them. She's practically on every page of the yearbook.” He took a step, then stopped, faced Ben, and established eye contact. “And I'll tell you something about my daughter, Detective. I don't know who took her, but unless he…” Ted shielded his eyes with his hand. He cleared his throat. “Cass will find a way to come home.” Ted removed his hand and regained his composure. He straightened his back and again locked eyes with Ben. “Cass knows how to take care of herself. I taught her that.”
“Why did I bury her?”
I sat back in the chair. “Because it's what the Kirbys do. We bury things. We shove them out of sight. I didn't want to look at her, but I did want to torture her. So I grabbed her, dumped dirt over her, but made sure she understood why she was there. Tortured her the same way she had tortured David.”
“But she didn't bury David.” This was from the big cop.
“I don't get how she tortured your brother. You want to explain that for us?”
Big cop with the statements; little cop with the questions. My head hurt and I put my forehead down on the table. “It's complicated.”
I was so quiet I could hear the cops breathing. Finally the baby cop cleared his throat. His signal for me to start talking again.
I turned my face without lifting my head. “I said I wanted to tell this my way. Maybe David went off that limb alone, but it wasn't suicide. It was murder. And someone has to pay for that. And that's not going to happen unless I tell it right. And you're hammering at me with questions and yammering at me to get things in the order you want. Shit, you're just like her.”
I rocked my face to the other side, seeking the cool surface against my skin. “Now, I want something cold to drink, and some aspirin. And get that camera out of my face. I'll talk later if you step off and leave me alone for a while.”
I couldn't make eye contact with the big cop.
“I can't get my mind right. You guys are screwing with my head. Can you leave me alone in here? And turn off the lights?”
Oh god, this was real.
“You've figured it out, huh, Cass?”
His voice snapped me back and I could feel him pace back and forth across my…grave.
“This not-talking shit is just pissing me off, Cass. You don't want to do that.”
More pacing.
I cried, but no sobs. Quiet tears.
“Push in the button that's under your thumb and talk, Cass. I'm warning you. You won't like what happens if you don't.”
His voice was slow and measured. Serious as—well, death. But I didn't answer. I couldn't.
And what did he expect me to say?
A spot of light as big as a silver dollar appeared above my face
(not blind!)
, then the light blotted out and something showered down on me. Dirt. In my nostrils and mouth. The light appeared again for an instant then disappeared.
I turned my head, spit, and cleared my nose and mouth, fear causing me to jerk up and bang my head, knees, and shoulders into the top and side of the box. I hit the button.
“Stop, please, don't do that again. Please.”
“There now. Got you talking. That's what I want.”
What did he want me to say?
“Cass?”
“Yes, don't throw dirt on me, please. I…don't understand what's going on.” A sob escaped. I couldn't help it. My fingers again scrabbled the rough wood above me, ripping what was left of the skin and nails. I pounded the tape-bound hand, then pulled it closer to my face and pushed in the square button. “Please, let me go. I don't know who you are so I can't tell anybody anything. Just let me go. Let me out of here.”
I was begging him. I knew it would get me nowhere. I watch TV. I read
those
kinds of books. The bad guy likes the begging.…He gets off on it.
But what else did I have? I WAS BURIED IN A BOX!
“Please. Just let me go. I won't tell anyone.”
“Oh, I know you won't tell anyone. I'm so sure you won't that I don't care if you know who I am.”
I bit down on my lip until I tasted blood. He was going to kill me.
He paced again. Across my chest. Back across my head. He stopped.
“My name is Kyle Kirby. David Kirby is—
was
my little brother.”