The Burying Place

'I said yes,' he told her without conviction.

'Stop it! Stop! My God, how could you? How could you do that to me? How could you let me spend three years looking at myself like a broken machine? The one thing I had finally found to do with my life, and I thought I couldn't have it. I thought God was punishing me, Marcus. But it was you.'

'Valerie, don't.'

'Don't? Don't what? Don't say the word?'

She turned on her heel and grabbed the medical form where it lay on the carpet. The form Regan had given her. 'I want to make sure I use the right word,' she told him. 'Doctors have their own words for everything. Deferentectomy. Is that it? Is that what I should call it?'

He closed his eyes. 'Yes, that's it.'

'See, I would have just called it a vasectomy, Marcus, but I'm not a doctor like you.' She waved the paper in his face. 'This is what you were looking for in Regan's files, isn't it? This is what you were so desperate for no one to find. Two weeks after I nearly died, Marcus. Two weeks after you said we could have a baby, you went and got a vasectomy. To make sure it didn't happen. And then you let me lie there for the next three years, hoping and praying and blaming myself and blaming God when I didn't get pregnant.'

Her husband shook his head. 'Shit,' he murmured. He looked up at the ceiling and added, 'Regan, you fucking bitch.' 'Did you kill her? Is that how badly you wanted to keep the secret?'

'No.'

'Did she know all along? Did you tell her the truth about Callie?'

'She knew,' he acknowledged.

'God, you both must have laughed at me. Or was Regan laughing at you? You had the perfect plan, and then another man went and got me pregnant. And you couldn't say anything. You know what's ironic? I never doubted it was your baby. It didn't matter that I was sleeping with Tom. I always believed Callie was yours. I thought we would finally have something we made together.'

'I could have divorced you then,' he said, 'but I didn't. I let you bring her into our lives. I accepted her as our own.'

'Don't make it sound like you made the slightest effort, Marcus. Don't pretend you invested an ounce of compassion in my baby. I wish you'd told me the truth and chucked us out on the street. Instead, you took her away from me. The one thing in my life that I loved. You took her away.'

'We're done here,' he told her, walking out of the room. 'This is over.'

Valerie watched him go and knew he was right. It was over. The long fall ended here. There was nothing to do but wait in silence and guilt. Wait for the searchers to do their work and the forest to give up its secrets. Wait for the night to grow long.

Wait for the phone to ring.

Chapter Forty-four

Kasey awoke with the stench of death in her nose, like a fetid pool in which she was drowning. Dead flesh rotted somewhere close by, emanating a cloud of decay that hung in the air as thick as fog. She tried to breathe through her mouth, but the smell climbed into her nose and festered there. Her throat gagged. She coughed up a harsh mouthful of acid, and sour chunks bubbled out of her lips.

When she opened her eyes, she saw nothing. No light at all, just black darkness. She listened and heard a steady rain of water dripping and splashing into puddles from the ceiling. Animals scurried on the floor below her, their nails scratching on metal and stone. Rats. She had no idea how many.

It was bitterly cold. There was no wind, but the freezing air pricked at her skin and made her numb. Deep inside, pain lingered in her muscles from the impact of the stun gun. Kasey tried to move and found she couldn't. Her arms were overhead, fastened with handcuffs to some kind of pipe. Where her bare wrists brushed the metal, the frost was almost hot. Her ankles were taped together, and she stood on top of a wooden platform that swayed unsteadily when she moved.

'Where am I?' she said aloud. Her voice had a strange echoing quality in her ears. No one answered.

She turned her head. Something heavy and rough, a length of rope, was wound around her neck. The tightness constricted her breathing, almost choking her. She struggled at the bonds that confined her, and as she did, she felt the platform under her feet rocking on uneven legs.

His voice came out of the darkness. Shockingly loud and close.

'Careful, Kasey.'

She bit her lip and shut up. Fear mingled with the pain and cold. She thought about praying, but prayer was worthless.

'Where am I?' she repeated.

'This is my school,' he told her, still invisible, but no more than a foot away. 'It's where people come to learn the sad truth about life.'

A light flashed in her eyes, blinding her. She squinted and closed her eyes, seeing hot orange circles in her brain. The brightness dimmed. When she opened her eyes again, the flashlight was pointed at the ceiling. She could see bits and pieces of the room around her. It was some kind of ruin, littered with rusted machinery and debris. Gaping, crumbling holes were punched in the walls. Water fell everywhere, as if the ceiling was a sieve.

'What the hell kind of place is this?'

'A long time ago, it was a classroom. You see what happens when nature and vandals have a few decades to reclaim a building.'

Kasey tried to look up, but the rope around her neck constrained her. She couldn't see her hands. Below her, she was barely able to see her feet, which were tied with gray tape. He had taken off her shoes and socks. She stood precariously on a five-foot circular table, and her bare, cold t — s poked over the round edge of the surface.

He waited as she assessed her condition. He stood on top of a long oak desk, pacing slowly from one end to the other and avoiding the holes where the wood had rotted away. She tried to quash the terror in her face and focus on him with anger and contempt. When he stopped in front of her and leaned close to her face, she sucked in her breath and spat at him.

'You're a sick fuck.' Her voice was raspy. The rope squeezing her throat made it difficult to talk.

He wiped his cheek. 'You could teach other women something about courage, Kasey. That's why I put you behind the teacher's desk, so your students can look up to you.' With a flick of his wrist, he turned the flashlight behind him and toward the floor.

Kasey moaned. The beam of light illuminated four bodies — three women, one man — tied into schoolroom chairs. The women were naked. They had been dead for days, and the remnants of skin had caved in on their skeletons, leaving them sunken and hideously white. Their eyes were open, staring with empty horror. Two dozen black rats, caught as they gnawed on protruding bone and decomposed flesh, scattered in fear as the light struck them.

Kasey squirmed instinctively to escape. The table swayed underneath her.

'That's not a good idea, Kasey.'

He came up to her and stroked her face with the back of his hand. She cringed and tried to pull away.

'You're handcuffed to one of the old water pipes,' he told her. 'It's corroded. Not very sturdy.' He fingered the rope on her neck. 'The noose, though, that's tied to one of the joists in the ceiling.'

'You bastard. What do you want?'

'I told you I have special plans for you.'

'What plans?'

'This is school, Kasey,' he said. 'You have to pass a test.'

'Let me go. Don't do this to me. Don't kill me.'