Tess Gerritsen - The Silent Girl

“Why?” said Iris.

Mark smiled. “Because she was special. They all were.”

“We’re wasting time,” said Patrick, stepping toward Jane. “Let’s get her out of here.”

But Mark was still looking at Iris. “Sometimes I chose the girl. Sometimes Patrick chose. You never know what will catch your eye. A ponytail. A cute little ass. Something that makes her stand out. Makes her worthy.”

“Charlotte must have known,” said Jane, looking up at Patrick in disgust. “She must have realized what you were. Jesus, her own father . How could you kill her?”

“Charlotte was never part of this.”

“Never part of it? She was at the center of it!”

Jane’s cell phone rang. Mark glanced at the caller’s number and said, “Hubby seems to be checking on his wife.”

“Don’t answer it,” said Patrick.

“I wasn’t planning to. I’ll just shut this off, and let’s get her in the car.”

Iris said, “You think it will be that simple?”

The men ignored her and bent down to grab Jane. Patrick picked up her feet and Mark hauled her up under her arms. Though Jane squirmed, she could not resist them, and they easily lifted her and carried her toward the door.

“You’ve already lost,” said Iris. “You just don’t know it yet.”

Mark snorted. “I know who’s chained to the wall.”

“And I know who followed you back here.”

“No one followed me-” His voice suddenly cut off as the lights went out.

In the pitch black, both men released their grips on Jane and she fell to the floor, skull slamming against concrete. She lay stunned, trying to make sense of what was happening in a room where she could see nothing, where the darkness was chaotic with curses and panicked breathing.

“What the fuck?” said Mark.

Iris’s voice whispered through the gloom: “Now it begins.”

“Shut up! Just shut up !” Mark yelled.

“It’s probably nothing,” said Patrick, but he sounded unnerved. “Look, maybe we just blew a fuse. Let’s go upstairs and check.”

The door banged shut and their footsteps faded up the stairs. Jane heard only the thumping of her own heart.

“You must lie very still and stay calm,” said Iris.

“What’s happening?”

“What was always meant to happen.”

“You knew? You expected this?”

“Listen carefully to me, Detective. This is not your battle. It was planned a long time ago, and it will be fought without you.”

“Fought by whom? What’s out there?”

Iris did not answer. In the silence, Jane felt, rather than heard, the brush of air against her cheek, as though the wind had whispered into the room and was stirring the darkness. Something else is here with us .

She heard the soft clatter of handcuffs falling free. And a whisper: “Apologies, Sifu . I would have come sooner.”

“My sword?”

“Here is Zheng Yi. I found it upstairs.”

Jane knew that voice. “Bella?”

A hand was pressed across her lips and Iris murmured: “Stay.”

“You can’t leave me like this!”

“You’re safer here.”

“At least cut me free!”

“No,” said Bella. “She’ll just cause trouble.”

“And if you fail?” said Jane. “I’ll be trapped down here, and I won’t be able to defend myself. At least give me a fighting chance!”

She felt a tug on her hands, heard the hiss of the blade slicing through her duct tape bindings. Another slice freed her ankles. “Remember,” Iris whispered into her ear. “This is not your battle.”

It is now . But Jane stayed silent and still as the two women melted into the darkness. She could neither see nor hear their departure; all she sensed was the kiss of air again, as if they had dissolved into wind and had whispered through the door and up the stairs.

Jane tried to rise to her feet, but dizziness sent her staggering blindly in the dark. She sat back down again, her skull aching from being dropped on concrete. That and the lingering effects of the drug left her weak. She reached out, felt the wall nearby, and once again tried to stand, this time propping herself, as unsteady as a newborn foal.

A gunshot made her chin snap up.

I can’t be trapped down here, she thought. I have to get out of this house.

She felt her way to the door. It was unlocked and softly creaked open. Somewhere upstairs, she heard heavy footsteps running. Two more gunshots.

Get out now. Before the men come back for you .

She started up steps, moving slowly, afraid to make a sound. Afraid to alert anyone to her presence. Without a weapon, without any way to defend herself, she could not join this fight. She was the noncombatant trying to slip through a war zone to safety, wherever that might be. Find the exit, get out of the house. She didn’t have her car keys, so she’d have to run to the neighbors. She tried to picture the property. Remembered the long driveway, the woods and lawns and the tall hedge that surrounded it all. By daylight, it had looked like a private garden of Eden, enclosed to keep the world out. Now she knew that the gate, with its spiked posts, was not meant just to keep people out, but also to keep them in. This was no garden of Eden; it was a death camp.

She reached the top of the stairs and felt another closed door. Pressing her ear against it, she heard nothing. The silence was unnerving. How many gunshots had there been? At least three, she thought, enough to have taken down both Iris and Bella. Were the women lying dead, beyond that door? Were Patrick and Mark now on their way back to the cellar to find her?

Her hand was slick with sweat as she grasped the knob. The door swung open soundlessly, to darkness that was every bit as thick as in the cellar. She could not make out any shapes or shadows. This floor, too, was concrete, and as she slowly inched her way across it, arms outstretched for unseen obstacles, she heard something small and metallic skitter away from her shoe. She collided with an edge that hit her hip and she halted, trying to discern what it was. It felt like a table, coated with dust. Jagged metal suddenly bit her fingers and she pulled back, startled. It was a table saw. She shifted a few feet farther into the darkness and hit another obstacle. This time, a drill press. This was Patrick’s woodworking shop. She stood among the power tools, thinking of saw blades and drills, wondering if mahogany and maple were the only things this equipment had sliced into.

Renewed panic sent her fumbling in the darkness for a way out. She touched a wall and followed it to a corner.

More gunshots. Four in a row. Get out, get out!

At last she located the door and wasted no time slipping through it, to find yet another set of steps to climb. How far belowground had she been?

Deep enough so that no one would have heard my screams .

At the top of the stairs, she exited through a door and found herself in a carpeted hallway. Here she could barely make out shapes in the darkness, and a balustrade to her right. Hand brushing across a wall, she inched ahead. She had no idea if she was moving toward the front or the rear of the house; all she wanted to find was a way out.

On the second-floor landing above, footsteps creaked and started down the stairs.

Frantically she ducked through the first open doorway to her left, into a room where moonlight glowed through the windows, reflecting off a desk and bookshelves. An office.

The footsteps had reached the first floor.

She scrambled forward, seeking a hiding place in the shadows, and her shoes crunched across broken shards of glass. Suddenly her foot snagged an obstacle and as she went sprawling, she put out a hand to catch herself. Her palm slid through something warm and sticky. By the glow of moonlight, she stared at the dark form lying on the floor right beside her. A body.