The flashlight flickered, threatening to go out. Donovan banged it against the heel of his hand, brought it back to life.
Jessie’s cries were behind him now.
Turning, he shone the light back the way he’d come. “Jess, where are you?”
The crying continued.
He swept the beam from side to side. The walls were rougher here, still bearing the impression of the wooden arches that formed the tunnel, as if the final coat of cement had never been applied.
Jessie was nowhere in sight, yet the crying continued.
“Talk to me, Jess. Say something.”
Still nothing.
“Goddammit, Jessie, where the hell…”
Then it struck Donovan. Now that he was this close, now that he was past the barrier that had muffled Jessie’s sobs, there was something odd about the sound.
An unreal, hollow quality.
The bulkhead door clanged shut and he immediately shot the Mag beam toward it, saw a flash of blue and white just above it: clothing hanging from a rusty piece of trolley wire.
A skirt and blouse.
The rest of Jessie’s uniform.
Donovan pushed toward them and ripped them free, feeling something hard and weighty as the blouse fell into his hands. Jamming his fingers into the pocket, he brought out a digital recorder, the kind reporters use for on- the-spot interviews-the kind with a built-in microphone and speaker.
Donovan shone his light on it. The tiny LED readout said it was set to repeat mode. Jessie’s sobs rose from the speaker, vibrating against his hand.
Heart sinking, he felt something else in the pocket and dipped his fingers in, bringing out a single Polaroid photograph.
It was Jessie, naked, feet and hands duct-taped, staring into the camera with wide, terrified eyes. She was lying inside a crude wooden coffin, an oxygen mask covering her nose and mouth.
And written on the narrow border of the photograph in neat block letters were the words:
NICE TRY, HOTSHOT
NO CIGAR
27
Wake up, Jessie.
Jessie… wake uhhh-up.
… Jessie?
She awoke to rain.
It was faint, but unmistakable-even through the wood and God knew how many layers of dirt piled on top of it: the muffled, but steady tattoo of water against-what?
Metal of some kind? Aluminum, maybe.
It didn’t matter. It was raining and she could hear it, and that one small link to the real world was enough to make her realize that she was still alive, still had a chance. She just hoped the water didn’t seep down here. She was already shivering.
Then she thought about how thirsty she was and changed her mind. Any kind of liquid would do right now. Even dirty rainwater.
Jessie had lost count of how many times she had drifted in and out of sleep. Her consciousness seemed to float on the same aimless current as her emotions. Awake. Asleep. Hysterical. Calm. Somewhere in between.
She usually came awake seized by a sudden rush of panic, but for the moment she was okay. She was Jessie Glass-Half-Full. And she knew that sooner or later someone would find her and take her out of this horrible place. Someone would save her.
The angel had told her so.
But she also knew that Jessie Glass-Half-Empty was lurking just around the corner, waiting to pounce. Then the tears would come-as they always did-and all hope would be abandoned to the dark demons gripping her soul.
How long had she been down here?
Hours? Days?
She couldn’t even begin to guess. She had no real point of reference to latch onto. Her memories were a blur of disjointed events, like keyframes in some whacked-out animation timeline.
Focus, Jessie. Focus.
But it was hard, really hard. And before she could rein herself in — she was undressing in the back of the Suburban, the man with the ponytail watching her in his rearview mirror, his gaze crawling over her as she stripped down to her bra and panties. She hesitated, but he waved the gun at her. Wanted it all off. She swallowed, tears falling, then reached back and unhooked her bra. The panties came next. And after she stepped out of them, she felt more naked-more exposed-than she’d ever felt before.
Humiliated. That was the word.
His gaze continued its slow crawl, watching her instead of the road, and she was sure he would crash, she wanted him to crash, and — then she was in back of a cab again, the driver looking at her as if he’d never seen a girl in a school uniform and — wait, what was that? Gunshots?
— a hole the size of a dime opened up in the neck of a man in a Megadeth T-shirt, followed by the screams of the passengers. Or were they her screams? Someone grabbed her hair and pulled her toward the front of the bus and — now she was zipping up her backpack, Matt Weber glancing at her as he walked by, and before she could return the look, before she could smile — tape was wrapped around her hands and ankles, the man with the ponytail smiling at her as he lowered her into a narrow wooden box-only she wasn’t quite sure, was it Mr. Ponytail or Matt who was doing all that smiling?
Or maybe it was the angel. The one who came to her as she slept.
The angel had called her Jessie Glass-Half-Full.
“It’s okay, Jessie. Everything’ll be okay.”
Then she came awake to the mask cutting into her face and the cool rush of air streaming into her nostrils and the faint stench of fertilizer and the deadly silence, and she realized she had zoned out again and nothing had changed. She was still trapped in this godforsaken box, still buried beneath the earth, still thirsty, and, most of all, hungry.
She screamed and cried and bucked and kicked and tried desperately to loosen the tape around her wrists — and then she remembered the rain.
Her only link to the real world.
Had she already said that?
Focus, Jessie, focus. Gotta stay in focus…
Jessie?
Shhhh. Don’t bother her.
She’s sleeping.
28
Donovan had never been a religious man. Despite his Irish roots, he had been raised a Methodist, apparently
