Brian Freeman - The Burying Place

Where was he?

Behind her, something hard and loud rustled in the brush. Kasey spun, lifting her gun. She saw a driveway, overgrown with shooting vines. The silhouette of a large house hugged the beach. She followed the noise and took slow, soundless steps down the driveway. Every few seconds, she glanced nervously behind her. She was scared and blind. The driveway lasted for forty yards, and then she broke into the open grass around the house. Snow covered the steps leading to the door, and there were no footsteps in the blanket of white.

From the other side of the road, back where she had parked her patrol car, Kasey heard another noise. An engine fired. Through the web of trees, she saw headlights and heard tires grinding on the dirt. She ran back along the driveway, but she spilled head first over a tree root breaching like a whale out of the earth. Her gun dropped from her hand and skidded into the brush, and she wasted almost a minute feeling for it with her bare hands. When she finally found it, she ran again, following the driveway to the trail where her car was parked. She stopped and listened, but the sound of the engine was distant. She heard the squeal of its tires as it swung on to the main highway and headed north. Escaping.

Kasey swore. She went to her patrol car to call for back-up. As she leaned inside, she saw a rectangle of glossy white paper on the seat. She picked it up and turned it over. 'Oh, my God,' Kasey murmured.

She stared at her own face. It was a photograph that Bruce had taken of her and Jack a year ago. She felt the breath leave her chest as if it had been sucked away.

There it was again. The same message he had written on her mirror. Two words scrawled in red marker across the front of the photograph in block letters. BAD GIRL.

Valerie Glenn turned off Highway 2 into the empty church parking lot at midnight. She parked her white Mercedes and got out and shoved her hands into the pockets of her suede jacket. Ahead of her, the one-story church was surrounded by tall pines whose branches spread outward like a priest's outstretched arms. She crossed the lawn, her boots stamping down the thin layer of snow. At the front of the church, she sat on the concrete steps, and the cold stone felt icy through her jeans.

I know what happened to your daughter.

The woman on the phone had told her to come alone and keep the call a secret from the police and her husband. Despite everything Serena had told her, Valerie had done exactly as the woman wanted. She was here, miles outside the city, on her own. Waiting.

Deer tracks criss-crossed the snow. Overhead, the moon was a faint glow through the shroud of dark clouds. Twenty minutes passed as she sat on the steps, and she felt the bitter cold numbing her face. No one arrived. She began to think the call had been a hoax and that no one would show up to tell her about Callie. She told herself that she would wait ten more minutes and then go home, but the truth was, she wasn't going to leave. She would stay all night if there was even the slightest chance that it would bring her daughter home.

On the highway, from the southeast, she saw the twin beams of headlights. A black Hummer came around the curve. The heavy vehicle slowed sharply and turned into the church parking lot across from Valerie's Mercedes. She felt her heart rate accelerating and, out of nowhere, anger bubbled up and made her fists clench. She didn't know who was in the Hummer, but whoever it was, she wanted to kill them. If they had taken her daughter, she wanted them to pay.

The door opened. A woman climbed down. She wore a winter coat with a fur hood pulled up over her head, cloaking most of her face. She was thin, with legs like drainpipes. Valerie watched her come closer. She stopped in the snow ten feet away and slipped her hood back from her face. Her skin was white, and she had dark, almost purple make-up.

Valerie erupted. 'Where's my baby?'

She launched herself off the steps and threw her body across the short distance between them. Her sudden assault took the woman by surprise, and she didn't have time to move before Valerie collided hard with her chest, tumbling both of them to the ground. The woman landed on her back in the snow, and Valerie climbed on top of her, pummeling her torso with her fists and shouting in her face.

'Tell me! Tell me where she is!'

The woman shoved hard with one hand against Valerie's shoulder and dislodged her, but Valerie climbed back and struck her repeatedly until her tears and the cold got the better of her, and she ran out of strength. The woman grabbed Valerie's fists and held them and then pushed her away again as she rolled out from under her. Both women breathed heavily. Valerie lay on her back like a snow angel, watching the sway of the pine branches above her.

'Who the hell are you?' Valerie asked. 'What have you done with Callie?'

The woman staggered to her feet and braced herself against the railing beside the church steps. 'I don't have her.'

'Who are you?' Valerie repeated.

'I'm Regan Conrad.'

It took Valerie a moment to remember the name. She scrambled to her feet and drew back to throw herself on the woman again, but Regan held up her hands to stop her.

'Wait! Hear me out.'

'What is this about? What are you trying to do to me?'

'I didn't think you'd come if I told you it was me.'

'You're right.'

Regan shrugged. 'I know you hate my guts. That's OK. I spent a lot of time fucking your husband. I could tell you I'm sorry, but I wouldn't mean it, and you wouldn't believe me. So I won't waste your time.'

'What do you want?' Valerie asked.

'To talk.'

'About what?'

'Your husband,' Regan said.

'I have nothing to say to you.'

'Then listen to me.' Regan sat down on the steps. She touched her chest gingerly and twisted her neck. 'You pack a punch for a rich bitch. I figured you for the girly type who wouldn't get her hands dirty.'

'You figured wrong.'

'You didn't call the cops like I said. That was smart.'

'I can call them right now if you'd like.'

Regan didn't look concerned. 'Go for it. I'll just tell them what I was going to tell you. I told you not to call the police because I figured you'd want to hear this for yourself. Then you can decide what to do. You're the only one who knows whether you can live with it.'

'What are you talking about?' Valerie asked. 'You told me you knew what happened to Callie.'

'We both know, don't we?'

'No, I don't. Tell me.'

Regan shook her head. 'You're closing your eyes because you don't want to see it. But everyone else knows. That reporter, Blair Rowe, she knows, but she has to dance around it to keep the lawyers happy. The cops know it, but they can't prove it. And you know it, too. You feel it in your gut. Right?'

'No. You're wrong.'

'Maybe you can't say it out loud. I get it. I'll say it for you. I'm a nurse, and I work with mothers, so believe me, I know how awful this is for you. But Callie is gone. Marcus made her go away. Maybe it was an accident and he had to cover it up, but I don't think so, and you don't think so. We both know what kind of man he is. He's cold to the bone.'

Valerie turned her back on Regan. 'I'm leaving.'

Regan let her get halfway back to her Mercedes before she called after her. 'Run away if you want, but don't you want to know why?'

Valerie stopped. She knew she should get in her car and go. She knew she was being manipulated, but she couldn't resist. She had to know what else Regan was going to say. The evil bitch had put her sharp red fingernail squarely on all of Valerie's doubts and fears. She had echoed the voice in Valerie's head that had been whispering like a drumbeat ever since Callie disappeared. The same whisper, over and over.