The Botanist (28 page)

Chapter 43

After ten minutes of walking through the dark tunnel that led out from the cavern, Cody, Frank, and Court had found nothing. There weren’t even any obvious signs of animals, though Cody was sure plenty of insects and arachnids took shelter from the desert’s harsh climate down here. He tried not to think about it.

Then his flashlight illuminated something strange up ahead. At first, he thought they’d hit a dead end. Then he realized the wall in front of them was a septum. The tunnel forked, one branch leading off to the right, the other straight ahead. He turned to his friends.

“What do you think?” Frank asked.

“I think we should look everywhere.”

Frank nodded. “I’ll go down this side tunnel. With any luck it will dead end before long. When it does, I’ll double back and keep following the main drag.”

“You don’t want me to come with you?” Court asked.

Frank shook his head. “If there are more forks like this one, you two will have to split up eventually. Each of us should explore as far as we can. When we’re satisfied that there’s no women, or killers, down the branch we’re in, we can find each other and keep going.”

Cody played his light along the floor until he found a white rock that fit easily in his hand. He scraped it along the wall in the direction Frank would be going. It left a white, chalky scratch. He handed the rock to Frank.

“Use this to mark where you’ve been so you don’t get lost. I can’t imagine these tunnels go for more than a few miles in either direction. It shouldn’t be hard to find our way out again, but we can’t be sure. Once the Botanist realizes we’ve made it into his terrain, he may purposely try to turn us around.”

“Yeah,” Court muttered, “if he doesn’t just kill us instead.”

Cody swallowed, and a loud silence stretched between them until Cody cleared his throat. “Be careful, Frank. He’s going to see us before we see him, and these tunnels are his home. Use all your senses, not just your eyes.”

Frank nodded. “You two do the same. This guy doesn’t get to kill any more of Mt. Dessicate’s detectives.”

He started down the tunnel that branched to the right, and Cody and Court moved forward. Like a prophetic fulfillment of Frank’s words, another fork loomed up not three hundred yards further on.

“I’ll take the right, you take the left?” Court asked.

Cody considered for a moment. The tunnel Frank had taken had been smaller and led off to the right. It had seemed to Cody that the route he and Court continued on was the main thoroughfare, if there was one. Now the two tunnels were the same size and led away from each other in equal, opposite directions. Cody had no idea which one was more likely to have Alex and Melissa at its end.

“Sure. Be careful, Court.”

“You too. Cody?”

Cody had taken a few tentative steps to the left, but he stepped backward so he could see Court.

“Frank says you’re involved with Alex.”

Cody studied the ground, but there was no point in denying it. “What of it?”

Court studied him for a moment. “If you’ve got feelings for her, I get why you’re here. I do, but you can’t let it impair your judgment. You have to be a cop down here; a determined, pissed off, but impeccably careful cop.”

Cody smiled sadly. “I know.”

Court studied him for another moment before nodding. “Okay. Good luck.”

“You too.”

Cody moved forward.

After
fifteen minutes of digging, Alex’s fingers found the end of the chain, and her heart sank. It was attached to some kind of square object.

“Okay, Melissa. Looks like we’ll be digging out a box of some kind.”

Melissa sighed. “Is it heavy?”

“I won’t know until I unearth the entire thing.”

Melissa was silent. She didn’t resume her digging.

“Something wrong?” Alex asked.

“I just don’t like the idea of trying to find our way out of here while dragging a heavy object behind us.”

“We might not have a choice. If we
can
drag it, we should.”

“But we won’t be able to run.”

“Maybe not,” Alex admitted, “but at least it would be a rebellion. Even if he catches us again, at least it would throw him off. We wouldn’t be where he wanted us to be. Why should he make all the rules?”

“But it might make him mad. He could kill us faster.”

Alex sighed. “Melissa, there were a lot of women in that grave. I’m sure at least a few of them were submissive and did what he wanted in the hopes of living longer. All of them are dead. Doing what he wants us to do isn’t going to keep us alive.”

Melissa was silent. Then her breathing sped up. A lot. She was panicking.

“Melissa?” Alex stopped digging. “Melissa, take a deep breath.”

“No doubt some of those women fought back, too, or tried to escape. What you’re saying is that we’re going to die no matter what, so we might as well go out fighting.”

“That’s not what I’m saying. We’re going to get out of here.”

“You don’t know that!”

Alex took a deep breath. “Of course I do. We have a lot of advantages those other women didn’t have.”

Melissa had begun sniveling, but she stopped at that. “Like what?”

“When they were taken, no one knew who this guy was or what he was doing. No one was looking for these women. Cody—actually most of the state—is looking for us. They’re coming for us, Melissa. I know they are. But we have to help them.”

Alex scrubbed a hand over her eyes, thinking fast. “I’ve been along this stretch of highway more times than I’d care to admit. If we can get topside, I know I can figure out where the highway is and head toward town. Actually, if we come up anywhere near where he snatched me, there will probably be a herd of police cruisers in sight. We just have to get there. And in order to do that, we
have
to keep our heads.”

Melissa’s breathing slowed down again, and, though Alex still couldn’t see her face, she could tell Melissa was nodding in the darkness. Alex hung her head in relief when Melissa turned over and went back to digging underneath her own boulder.

Her first hunch had been right; she’d have to keep Melissa busy to keep the other woman from freaking. Melissa’s fear was contagious. As soon as her breathing sped up, Alex’s adrenaline, her panic, had spiked. She needed to keep Melissa calm as much to keep herself calm as anything else.

Feeling weak, Alex started digging again. She tried to dig along the edge of the box she was chained to. If she could uncover one side, she’d get an idea of how big it was.

Three minutes later, Alex heard a faint scratching sound. “Did you find what you’re chained to, Melissa?”

“No. Not yet.”

Alex frowned. The scratching sound was getting louder. “Melissa! Shhh. Listen.”

Melissa stopped digging. An instant later she jumped to her feet and started scooping all the dirt she’d dug up from around the chain back into place.

“What is it?”

Melissa’s voice was a high pitched squeal. “He’s coming!”

Alex watched Melissa scoop everything back into place and plop down next to the boulder as though she hadn’t done anything mutinous at all. Alex couldn’t judge her. Their captor was a killer after all. Alex didn’t get to her feet. She didn’t replace the dirt she’d moved. She sat up on her backside, crossed her legs, straightened her spine, and relaxed her shoulders. Despite a pounding heart and cold fingertips, she refused to show fear.

The door opened, the light from the adjacent room blocked almost completely by his shadow. When he entered, he was much smaller than his shadow suggested, but still one of the largest men Alex had ever come face to face with.

Slimy mud covered his face, and Alex wondered what its purpose was. He was dressed in worn denims and a colorless button down shirt. His left foot dragged a bit when he walked, which made the scratching sound she’d heard, and his hair hung, long and greasy and limp, to his shoulders.

He walked forward until he was standing between Alex and Melissa, looking down at them. He stared at Melissa for a long time before turning his head toward Alex.

“It’s you.” His voice was raspy as ever.

Alex felt annoyed, or at least she tried to feel it beneath her trembling hands. “Who? Who do you think I am?”

He turned his head slightly to the side without taking his eyes off her. “His.”

That left Alex genuinely confused.
“Whose?”

He jerked his head to the side, as though indicating a person standing next to him, but the three of them were the only ones there. “His.”

Alex looked down at the ground, telling herself to stay calm. Then she lifted her chin and met his eyes again. Her voice trembled only a little. “I don’t know who you mean.”

He stared at her for so long, her entire core started to shake. She didn’t want to look at him anymore, but she didn’t dare look away.

“Now that’s sad,” he whispered. “Cordelia.” He raised one long arm to touch her face. Alex tried to lean away from him, but there was nowhere to go. His fingers lingered on her cheek. His thumb traced her lips, then gently pressed on her bottom one to part them slightly.

Alex jerked away. “Why do you keep calling me Cordelia?”

“Because your father loves you. So much.”

Alex huffed in frustration. What kind of answer was that? She was afraid to know.

“It’s a pity,” he said.

“What is?” she whispered, just to have something to say.

“Because you’re his, I’m not allowed to touch you.”

His hand dropped, and he turned toward Melissa.

Melissa’s form stiffened, shrinking back against the boulder, and Alex started talking, grasping for a way to stall him.

“No, it’s me you want. It’s me you’ve been looking for, trying to catch all this time. You’ve finally brought me back here.”

“Yes.” He turned his head to look at her. “Back for safe-keeping.”

“But why bring me here you aren’t gonna . . . do anything to me?”

“I never should have lost you in the first place.”

Turning back to Melissa, he pulled something long and sharp from his belt. It glinted metallic in the moonlight.

Melissa started screaming.

Chapter 44

Cody didn’t know how long he’d been traveling through the dark tunnels. He was losing track of time in this place. He wasn’t wearing a watch, but knew the cell phone in his back pocket would have the time. He didn’t bother to check. In truth, he didn’t care. He
did
wonder whether anyone had noticed their absences yet, but that was not something he had the luxury of checking on.

He’d only come across one other fork since leaving Court, but when he’d shined his flashlight down it, he could see its end. It was really more of a nook. He’d taken the time to walk its length, just to be sure there were no bends or hidden tunnels that he couldn’t see from the main one. There weren’t.

As he
’d come back to the main tunnel, a fat mouse had run across the ground in front of him. It was the first sign of life he’d seen, and it came at the perfect time. Because his flashlight was on the ground, following the mouse’s progress, he’d seen the tripwire.

Upon closer examination, it looked like simple string, but no matter where Cody shined his flashlight, or how close he got to the walls, he couldn’t figure out what kind of booby trap it triggered. Perhaps it was just meant to strike fear into the hearts of any intruders; perhaps it was some kind of alert system, so the Botanist knew when outsiders had entered his lair; or perhaps, had Cody walked into it, a sharpened stake would have swung down to pin him against the wall, Rambo-style. There was simply no way to tell.

Cody’s first worry was for his friends. He stepped carefully over the tripwire and pulled out his phone, wondering if he would be able to text the others and warn them about booby traps. He couldn’t. His phone was in roaming mode and wouldn’t even let him access the text menu.

With a sigh, he slid the phone back into his pocket and moved forward, sweeping his flashlight in broad circles over floor, walls, and ceiling. Up ahead, he could see another fork. He wondered how he would choose which way to go.

It was then that he heard it: a far, echoing shriek. Cody’s head snapped up. Someone—a woman—was screaming. He ran to the fork, and waited. It was twisted to hope that she’d scream again, but it was only way he’d be able to tell which way to go. A moment later, she did. The sound unmistakably came from the right.

Forgetting to be cautious, Cody tore down the right tunnel, the beam of his flashlight jumping and bouncing ahead of him. The screams continued, but he had no way of knowing which woman was making them. There was white light coming from up ahead.

As Cody barreled down a particularly long, straight stretch of tunnel, a hulking, dark figure stepped out in front of him, blocking his way. Cody skidded to a stop and raised his gun to point at the man’s chest.

“You’re going the wrong way,” the man said. His voice was urgent, but solid.

The light was coming from behind the man, leaving his features in shadow, but of one thing Cody was absolutely sure: this man was African-American. Alex had sworn up and down that the killer was either Caucasian or Latino. She was a reliable witness. Could she have been so wrong about the killer’s ethnicity?

“W-what?” Cody stammered.

“You’re going the wrong way. If you want to save her, go back to where the tunnel forks and go left.”

Cody regarded him suspiciously. “The screams came from this way.”

The huge black man shook his head. “The killer has the place rigged. There’s a small opening into the room she’s in. That’s why you can hear her screaming. But the opening is the size of a basketball. You won’t be able to get through. To actually find a way into the room, you have to go left and take the long way around.”

“Who
are
you?”

“It doesn’t matter who I am.” The man stepped toward Cody, and Cody had to stiffen his legs to keep from stepping back. The man was considerably taller than he was and twice as wide through the shoulders. “Look,” the man said, “you need to go and get her. She’s the woman you love. You’re supposed to be with her. Go now or she’ll die!”

Cody’s adrenaline was through the roof, and for some reason he couldn’t explain to himself, he wanted to believe the man. He wanted nothing more than to fly back through the tunnel and to the left.

Still, the cop in him stood rooted to the spot. This could all be a ruse to let the killer, or if not that, the killer’s accomplice, escape. Something told him he wouldn’t see this man again.

“Who are you?” he shouted.

“Go now!”

“Not until you give me a name!”

“Karl! Now go!”

Knowing he’d regret it later, Cody spun on his toe and fled back the way he’d come.

Alex
vaulted onto the killer’s back. She’d planned to wrap the chain she was shackled with around his neck, but it wasn’t long enough. By the time she clutched his shoulders, the chain was taut.

He did little more than thrust his shoulder back, but it was enough to throw her off of him. The small of her back slammed into the boulder her chain was under, and the air was knocked soundly from her lungs. She rolled onto her side in the dirt, gasping for breath. By the time she got her bearings and looked up, his hands were on Melissa’s neck, thumbs pressing down into the delicate hollow at the front of her throat.

Alex refused to watch a woman be strangled to death. Still unable to draw a full breath, Alex scuttled around in the dirt with her hands, looking for a weapon. Her hand closed around a rock. It’s wasn’t large, or sharp, but it was all she had. She knew she’d only get one shot, so she let her adrenaline build for a few extra seconds. She turned onto her side and sat up on her elbow, putting one foot flat on the floor.

Throwing all her energy into her left arm, she leapt up and swung the rock at the killer’s face.

It was never going to cause him severe damage, but she connected with his cheek, striking bone and scraping mud and skin. It knocked him off balance, and he let go of Melissa.

The breath Melissa sucked in sounded raw and painful.

The Botanist swung around, backhanding Alex. She flew a short distance before hitting the ground and skidding to a stop, the hard-packed ground scraping the tender skin from her back. Panting, Alex sat up on her elbow.

He moved toward her. There was stark rage in his eyes. He said only minutes before that he wouldn’t touch her, but his face said all bets were off; she’d pissed him off, and he was coming for her.

She rolled onto her stomach and tried to crawl away, but he grabbed her ankle and easily dragged her back, flipping her over. He stood over her, knife raised over his head, about to come down.

Alex shrieked . . . and nothing happened. He cocked his head to the side, as though listening for something. If he hadn’t done that, Alex would never have heard it: a soft clattering sound, constant and repeating.

The killer slowly lowered the knife. Blood dripped from his cheek where Alex had struck him with the rock. Some of it fell off his jaw and landed on her jeans. He got to his feet, then slowly backed out of the room. When the scratching of his dragged foot could no longer be heard, the soft clattering sound stopped.

Alex lay on the floor on her back, panting, for several minutes before she could find the will to rise. Then she remembered Melissa, who was utterly silent.

“Melissa? Melissa, are you okay?”

Melissa seemed like she might be unconscious, but she groaned and turned her head toward Alex. Alex let her breath out, relieved that Melissa was alive, but her chain wouldn’t allow her to get close enough to tell how bad the other woman’s injuries were.

Alex pulled herself into a sitting position, wrapped her arms around her knees, and tried to still her shaking hands.

Minutes
later, Alex became aware of footsteps heading toward the room. They were much quicker than the killer’s slow gait and came from the opening on the opposite side of the room from where the killer had exited.

Unsure what to expect, she got to her feet, but remained in a squat, and found the same rock she’d attacked the Botanist with minutes before. In truth, she wasn’t sure she would have the strength for another fight with him.

It took interminable seconds for the owner of the footsteps to reach the room. When he did, it was immediately obvious he wasn’t the killer. He wasn’t big enough. This guy had a flashlight and a gun. The flashlight roamed around the room before coming to rest on her. She couldn’t see beyond the blinding white light.

“Alex!”

Alex let her breath out in a whoosh, falling forward onto her hands in relief. “Cody.”

Cody skidded to his knees in front of her, throwing his arms around her. Alex wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder. He pulled back to kiss her several times, his hand running through her hair, then down her back. They stayed in the small of her back, pressing her against him, but he managed to find the exact spot where she’d fallen on the boulder, and she shuddered, inhaling softly.

“What’s the matter?” He took her face in his hands. “Are you hurt?”

“Just a bruise, I think. Cody, Melissa’s right over there. The killer attacked her. She needs a doctor. She’s unconscious.”

Cody crawled over to Melissa, taking her face in his hands. “Melissa, can you hear me? Wake up.”

It was too dark for Alex to see Melissa, but it didn’t sound like she was waking up. In the semi-darkness, Alex saw Cody raise one hand to his face, studying it.

“What’s wrong?” Alex asked.

“Blood. The back of her head is bleeding.”

Alex groaned. That wasn’t good. “How bad?”

“I can’t tell. It’s too dark. I can carry her if you can walk.”

“How? We’re shackled.”

“What?”

Alex raised her chained arm in explanation. Cody ran his flashlight beam over it.

“I’ve been trying to dig it out, but there’s some kind of box under this rock. I don’t know how heavy it is.”

Cody came over to kneel beside her. Together they dug at the chain, feeling along the edges of what it was connected to. Three minutes later, Cody stopped, shaking his head.

“Can you tell what it is?”

“I think it’s concrete,” he said. “It’s huge—gotta be a hundred pound block.”

Alex’s shoulders fell. “I can’t drag that amount of weight. And you certainly can’t carry her while dragging that behind you. What do we do?”

“We’ve got to find something to get you out of the chains.”

“What about your gun?”

He shook his head. “The chains are too thick. The bullet would ricochet off; it could hit one of us, and you still wouldn’t be free.” Cody ran his flashlight over the room, running it along the walls, the ceiling, and into the corners. He stopped somewhere up behind her.

“What is it?” she asked. “Did you find something that’ll help?”

“Not with the chains, but I think there’s a light switch up there.”

“A light switch?”

Cody got up and walked over to the wall behind her, climbing up on some boulders. He fiddled in the darkness with something she couldn’t see, and a moment later, the room was flooded with light. Soft orange bulbs were strung around the perimeter near the ceiling. Compared with the darkness Alex had been sitting in, it was blinding.

She squinted and grimaced for several seconds before her eyes adjusted. As Cody jumped off the boulder and landed behind her, she got her first real illuminated look at the room.

She gasped, hand flying to her mouth. Horror and revulsion were not strong enough words to describe what she felt. Her entire frame trembled.

Cody was instantly by her side. “Alex, what’s wrong?”

She wanted to answer him, but she was so shocked by what the dim lights revealed that she’d forgotten how. The walls of the room were hewn from the red rock of the mountain.
The room with red walls
. It was the room from her dreams. The smells and feels, which hadn’t registered in the dark, now reverberated with an intensity that made her spine ache. The sweet smell she’d awoken to was sickly sweet, but she hadn’t realized it at first.

The fear she felt was different from what she’d felt before when she was wrestling with the killer. That was a fear of something real, something tangible. If she couldn’t get away, he’d kill her, but that was the here and now. Alex could fight until he
did
kill her.

This fear was different. It was psychological, something that had happened in her childhood that she’d never understood; the paralyzing fear of a vulnerable, innocent child, returning to attack her during one of the most terrifying experience of her life.

“Alex, what is it?”

She looked at Cody, mouth open, eyes fearful, hearing his questions but not comprehending them. She had no idea how to explain, or how to utter a sound.

Cody turned her fully toward him, put his hands on her shoulders and shook her. “Alex, snap out of it!”

It worked. Alex shut her mouth, looked down at her knees, and shut her eyes. She was in an underground cavern with Cody. And Melissa. There was a killer here. She had to keep it together.

She opened her eyes and looked back up at Cody. That was no longer concern in his face, but stark fear.

“What’s the matter?”

She swallowed. “This room. I’ve been here before.” Her voice quavered violently as she spoke, but she no longer cared.

“You have? When?”

“I don’t know. I’ve had dreams about it for . . . ever since I can remember.”

He was looking at her strangely now, as though she were something dangerous, or worse, something to be doubted.

She felt compelled to explain. “I thought they symbolized something. I didn’t think it was a real place!”

Cody put a hand on her shoulder. It was a calming, reassuring influence. “It must have been when you were a child.”

She shook her head. “My parents would have known—”

“It was probably before they adopted you. You were found wandering on the highway not far from here. You were just a toddler, Alex. Why
would
you remember?”

Alex thought about the things the killer had said: he’d brought her back for “safekeeping;” he “never should have lost her to begin with.” She shivered. Could she be the offspring of a killer? It was looking more and more that way, but Alex turned her head, hiding from the thought.