Forty-Four Box Set, Books 1-10 (44) (136 page)

“Got it,” I said.

He pulled up to the very edge of the darkness and cut the engine. We were about two hundred yards away from the house, which had no lights on. There were no signs of Cooper’s van.

There was something vaguely familiar about the place, the trees in particular. But I didn’t get a strong feeling from the house. It didn’t look anything like the cabin in my dreams.

“Let’s do this,” Frazier said. “And, Morales, no unnecessary chances. We take him alive if we can, but we do what we have to do. No hero business.”

The two men got out of the car. Morales closed his door, careful not to make any noise. Frazier came back, opened my door, and waited for me to move up front.

“Be careful,” I said. “He’s here somewhere.”

He nodded and gave me a quick smile before joining his partner.

They checked their weapons again, patted their vests, and turned on their radios.

My throat dry, my hands moist, I gripped the wheel and watched helplessly as they circled the edge of the meadow and headed toward the house.

CHAPTER 61

They finally reached the front porch.

I saw them split up and start looking in the windows before disappearing behind the house.

A few moments later they were back up front.

Frazier pointed at his partner and Morales turned the doorknob and then slowly stepped inside. Frazier followed.

For what felt like a long time, everything was quiet. Too quiet.

I then heard Frazier on the radio.

“Main level clear.”

“Upstairs clear,” Morales said a minute later.

After that they were quiet again. More time went by.

I finally saw them emerge from the house and trot across the meadow toward the car.

I took my seat in the back.

The two men sat down and didn’t speak.

“Damn it,” Morales whispered after a while.

“There was nothing there, Abby.” Frazier sighed. “No signs that anyone’s lived there in years.”

“Where did we go wrong, boss?” Morales said. “We were so sure.”

“He’s still our guy,” Frazier said, his voice old and tired. “I can feel it. That much we were right about.”

Even the engine sounded on the verge of giving up, refusing to start on the first two attempts. You could cut the disappointment with a knife. The life had been sucked out of us.

Emily Ross felt farther away than ever.

CHAPTER 62

Frazier turned the car around and drove slowly back the way we came.

Just a few minutes earlier it felt like we were close. So close. Now I sat there quietly, sadness enveloping me like a cocoon, wondering where William Cooper could be, wondering about Emily.

“Wait!” I suddenly shouted.

“What it is, Abby?” Frazier said.

“Back there. I think I saw something.” He turned the car around. “Up here on the right.”

There it was.

The trail.

“Stop the car,” I said. “There’s a path back there. I think it’s the one in my dream.”

“Whoa,” Morales whispered. “No shit.”

Frazier pulled over to the side of the road.

“You know the drill, Abby,” he said, getting out of the car.

“I know, I know. I stay here.”

A moment later the two men disappeared into the darkness beyond the trees.

CHAPTER 63

Someone came out of the woods, heading toward me.

At first I thought it was Frazier or Morales, but then he stopped 30 feet away from the car. His face was in the shadows but I sensed, I
knew
, that it wasn’t one of the detectives.

As the seconds went by, the fear inside me grew.

He just stood there.

When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I dropped down in the seat and felt around in the dark for the radio.

“Detective Frazier,” I whispered. “Detective Frazier, come in.”

“What is it, Abby?” he said a moment later.

“Someone’s here. By the car.”

“On my way,” he said. “Morales, you keep following this trail. And watch yourself.”

I heard footsteps just outside the car. I squeezed my eyes tightly and hugged the seat, trying to disappear down into the foam. I held my breath until I felt my head begin to spin. But when I finally opened my eyes again I saw that it was pointless. The inside of the windows were fogged up.

I summoned my courage and slowly lifted my head. I looked all around.

There was nothing there.

A minute later I saw the light from a flashlight coming down the trail.

“Abby,” Frazier said, knocking on the glass. I opened the door. “Did you get a look at him?”

“No, it was just a silhouette.”

“Did you see where he went?”

“No, but he was standing right over there,” I said, pointing to the spot.

“I’ll take a look around. Keep the doors locked and the radio close by. I’ll be back.”

I wanted to tell him, yell for him not to leave me alone. But I bit my lip and did as he said.

For a while I saw his flashlight as he circled the area. And then he was gone.

A minute later I thought I saw something move in the trees near the car. I wiped at the condensation on the windshield and stared out at the night, my eyes wide.

He was back.

He came closer, stepping out into the moonlight, and I almost let out a scream.

There, standing just in front of the car, was William Cooper.

His grotesque face glowed in the night. He opened his mouth, but all I could hear was the sound of my own heart pounding wildly in my ears.

Our eyes met for a moment before he backed away from the light, letting the darkness take him.

And I understood.

CHAPTER 64

“Frazier, there’s a cabin back here,” Morales said. “I’m checking it out.”

I saw Frazier’s flashlight returning.

“I didn’t see any signs of him, Abby,” he said. “I need to get back to my partner. But I’m not leaving you here. Come on.”

The faint smell of coconut still hung in the air.

Frazier gave me the flashlight and had me go first.

“Go as fast as you can without tripping and watch the branches,” he said. “I’ll keep up.”

I did the best I could, the whole world reduced to the few feet of muddy ground ahead of me.

“No,” Morales’ voice came over the radio. “Aw, shit.”

And then nothing.

“What is it?” Frazier said. “Morales? Come back. What is it?”

There was another long pause.

“Hurry, Abby. Hurry.”

I picked up my pace, but time seemed to stand still. I was pumping my legs, but it was like I was running in place.

“Morales, what is it?”

“The decomp is… ahh… something fierce. Something’s dead down there… in the basement. Wait. At the bottom of the stairs. Oh, no. No.”

“What is it, Franklin?” Frazier said, his voice cracking.

“She’s dead, E.
She’s dead
.”

CHAPTER 65

I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut but I had to keep them open. We had to keep moving.

I couldn’t believe it. Everything pointed to it. I knew that’s how these things usually ended. Just the same, I still couldn’t believe it.

And neither could Frazier.

“Are you sure it’s her, Morales?”

“I’m—”

Morales broke up.

“Say again, Franklin,” Frazier said.

Static. More static.

And then, “…dead.”

The shaking started at my hands and then spread to the rest of my body. My legs went numb, my chest tightening at the realization of what was being said.

“Slow down, Abby,” Frazier said, breathing hard behind me. “There’s… no point… now.”

Through the sadness, an overwhelming sadness, the words began to sink in.

It was over.

We were too late.

Emily was dead.

CHAPTER 66

I don’t know why but I didn’t listen to Frazier. I kept running.

I could hear the rush of a river. Then the cabin came into view.

The God-awful stench hit me before I reached the door.

“Wait, Abby.” Frazier grabbed my shoulder. “Wait out here.”

He handed me his gun.

“But I don’t—”

“Take it.” He called out to his partner. “Morales, I’m coming in!”

“Down here,” I heard Morales say. “It’s Cooper. He’s the one down here.”

I could hear the sound of footsteps on stairs.

“Look, in the corner,” Frazier said a moment later, his voice echoing back up toward me. “What’s that?”

Through a window I saw the glow of their flashlights coming from an open door. And then I heard it. Clearly.

“There’s a pulse,” Morales said. “My God, she’s still alive. There’s a pulse. She’s still alive.”

CHAPTER 67

Emily Ross was chained to a bed in the corner of the tiny basement.

Somehow still alive.

Barely.

“I’m coming down,” I called.

“No!” Frazier shouted. “Abby, stay back. Whatever you do, don’t come down here!”

I heard grunts and the rattling of chains and Frazier calling for paramedics.

A few minutes later Morales came up the stairs. He was carrying something. Something small and fragile.

Emily.

A breathing corpse, she was little more than skin and bone. Her hair thin and missing in places, her pale scalp showing through.

She appeared to be unconscious, if not dead.

Morales brought her outside and headed back up the trail.

Frazier came up the stairs next, looking like he had aged 20 years.

“She’s alive,” he whispered.

He almost lost his balance and I reached out to steady him.

“Are you all right?” I said, putting my arm around his waist.

“Never better,” he said.

There were tears in his eyes.

***

Morales carried her all the way to the car and then we drove back to the house. An emergency helicopter landed in the meadow 25 minutes later.

“Will she make it?” I asked Frazier as we watched the paramedics work on her.

“I don’t know,” he said. “It looks like she had stopped eating. Weeks ago, maybe more than a month even. I don’t know. There was food within her reach, too. Plenty of it. I think it was an act of defiance. She wasn’t going to let Cooper win.”

Morales walked over to us.

“I’m praying for her,” he said, his voice hoarse. “But I don’t know if it will do any good. She looks pretty fucked up.”

“She’s not the only one,” Frazier said.

He told me what else they had found in the basement.

“We think she killed him somehow,” he said, shaking his head. “There was a metal pipe near the bed covered with blood and hair and a bloody trail from the bed to the bottom of the stairs and Cooper’s body. I don’t know how she could have done it in her state, but it looks like she found a way to kill that son of a bitch. I would say he’s been dead for at least a week.”

“His head’s bashed in real good,” Morales said. “Looks like she went Miguel Cabrera on his ass.”

We watched as the helicopter took off.

The moon had dropped out of the sky, behind some trees and out of sight, leaving the night in the forest darker than ever.

I thought about the strength it must have taken. To endure months and months of torture. To make the decision to go on a hunger strike. And to kill the only person who knew where she was, her only chance at survival.

She must have known that he would never let her leave that basement alive. But her heart must have clung to some hope, frail and threadlike, till the end. And when the moment came, she must have known that by killing him, she was killing any chance she had for survival.

Maybe by that point, her sanity was gone. Maybe animal instinct took over. But maybe Emily knew what she was doing.

If she was going down, she would go down swinging.

Soon headlights began coming lighting up the road. Sheriff’s deputies first, followed by various other law enforcement agency vehicles. By the end, I counted more than a dozen cars.

“Best to go back to the car now, Abby,” Frazier said when it began. “If they ask, I’ll tell them you didn’t see anything.”

In a way it was the truth.

I slid in the back seat and watched the frenzied activity for a while.

Then I slipped in and out of an uneasy sleep, longing and dreaming of Bend. Of Ty. Sitting on the porch, sipping beer, watching the stars. His arms, hard and strong, pulling me toward him, pulling me away from all this horror.

I opened my eyes at some point and saw Frazier up by the front of the car. I rubbed my face and stepped outside. I went over and stood next to him, leaning against the hood.

“I didn’t want to wake you,” he said.

The road and trail leading to the cabin were still engulfed in cops and commotion.

“Anything new?” I said.

“We heard from the hospital. Emily’s in a coma. She’s critical. Too early to tell if she’ll pull through. But she’s alive.”

His voice was heavy with exhaustion, but there was also a trace of hope.

I nodded.

“We’re going to be here all night,” he said, looking at the road. “I’ll have someone drive you back to town.”

“There’s no hurry.”

I turned toward him and gave Frazier a hug.

“Thank you, Abby. For everything,” he whispered in my ear. “We wouldn’t have found her without you.”

“Or you,” I said.

Later, on the drive, I wondered about William Cooper.

Had he intentionally led me toward her? Did he want us to find her alive? And if he in fact had come to me in my dreams and led me first to the dog and then the cabin, had he been driven by guilt or did he love her through it all with a monster’s love?

I would probably never know. And maybe it didn’t matter.