“Trapdoor?” Matt echoed. “You mean, like in the ceiling?”
“Yes. There’s a ladder she uses when she comes down, and — ”
“I know!” Matt blurted. “I know where we are — the old root cellar in the basement of our house!” He was silent a moment. “But Mom won’t even go down in the basement — she hates it. She says it gives her claustrophobia!” He stood up and moved around in the darkness, feeling for the walls.
Twice his feet struck objects on the floor and he stumbled. The first time, he knelt down and found a corpse, its flesh cold, and he knew what had caused the stench he smelled when he woke up a few minutes ago.
It was the stink of rotting flesh.
The second time he stumbled, it was another body, but when he knelt down, he felt the warmth of life. The body stirred under his touch, and he heard a soft moan.
“Who is it?” he asked. “Who are you?”
There was silence, and then he heard a voice, barely audible, whimpering.
“Don’t hurt me. Please don’t hurt me.”
“Becky?” Matt breathed. “Is that you?”
Becky Adams’s only response was to beg him again not to hurt her.
“It’s okay,” he assured her. “I’m going to get you out. I’m going to get all of us out.”
But he knew the root cellar, could picture it as clearly as if it were illuminated with a halogen lamp. Its walls were bare and featureless. The ceiling was more than eight feet above the floor. The trapdoor — the only way to enter the chamber — was in the center of that ceiling. Even if he could find some way to reach it, how would he open it? It was impossible.
There was no way out.
* * *
THOUGH THE TV was on, Dan Pullman was neither watching it nor listening to the vacuously pretty blonde who was earnestly reporting the news of a low-sodium diet in the same solemn tones in which she’d discussed a plane crash a few moments earlier. Instead, the police chief’s attention was fixed on the special edition of the
His phone rang as he tossed the paper aside, and for a moment he was tempted to ignore it; Heather’s friends knew better than to call on his line, and if it were something important from the department, the message would come over the radio that sat on the end table next to his recliner. When the phone rang at his house, it was usually either someone calling to criticize something he’d done, or to demand that he deal with a situation that was beyond the purview of his department. On the other hand, he knew there was a remote possibility that this particular call might be from someone as fed up with Gerry Conroe as he was, and phoning to offer support. Which wasn’t really fair, he silently chided himself as he reached for the receiver. This time, at least, Conroe had a legitimate reason to be unreasonable.
“Hello?”
“Becky’s gone, Dan.” The man at the other end of the line spoke only the three words, but Dan recognized Frank Adams’s voice at the first syllable. Frank had been his best friend since they’d had a fight in second grade, and hardly a day had gone by since then that they hadn’t talked to each other.
“Tell me exactly what happened,” Dan said.
Frank Adams reconstructed the fight Becky had with her mother. “I’m not going to pretend Becky hasn’t ever taken off before,” he said. “She has, and frankly, there have been times when I couldn’t blame her. God knows I’ve wanted to take off myself plenty of times over the years. But before, she’s always cooled off in an hour or so and come back home. You know Becky — she’s a good kid, but she doesn’t have a lot of friends. The only place I thought that she might go was out to the Hapgoods’ to see Matt.”
“Did you call there?” Dan asked.
“That’s why I’m calling you. Joan said she hasn’t seen Becky, but she also told me that Matt’s not there. And after what happened to Kelly Conroe…” Frank Adams’s voice trailed off, but he didn’t have to finish his sentence for his friend to get the message.
“Frank, there’s absolutely no hard evidence that Matt’s done anything wrong. Just a lot of gossip and innuendo, and people wanting quick answers.”
It occurred to him to give Frank the same speech he’d given Gerry Conroe last night, but he knew he couldn’t do it. Frank Adams wasn’t Gerry Conroe, and in all the years he’d been running the Granite Falls police department, Frank had never presumed on their friendship for any kind of favor. Once, he’d even insisted on being given a speeding ticket Tony Petrocelli was about to tear up on the basis of his friendship with the chief. “You do that, and I’ll report you to Dan myself,” Frank warned Petrocelli. Though Frank had never told Dan about the incident, Petrocelli had.
“Let me make a few calls, and see what I can find out,” Pullman said now.
“I know I shouldn’t be calling you yet — ” Frank began.
“You shouldn’t call your best friend when your daughter’s missing?” Pullman cut in. “If that’s all you think of me, maybe I don’t want to be your friend anymore.” He started to hang up, then added one more word, just to let Frank know he wasn’t really mad at him: “Jerk!”
“Asshole,” Frank replied, just as he had since the fight in second grade.
Both men hung up, and Pullman immediately picked up the phone and dialed Joan Hapgood’s number.
* * *
CYNTHIA WAS JUST pouring herself a glass of Bill’s favorite sherry — something Joan had always declined when he’d offered it — when the phone rang. For a moment Cynthia was tempted to ignore it; she hadn’t liked the way Frank Adams spoke to her when he called a few minutes ago, and had no wish to speak to him again. He hadn’t been rude, precisely, but she heard an accusatory note in his voice. Still, if she didn’t answer, he might take it into his head to drive out here, which appealed to her even less than speaking to him on the phone. She picked up the receiver on the fourth ring, and was careful to keep her voice neutral. Not cold, but not overly friendly either. “Hello?”
There was a moment’s hesitation, then: “Joan?”
Not Frank Adams.
Reaching into her sister’s memory, Cynthia quickly identified the voice of the police chief. “Oh dear, Dan,” she said, her voice taking on an overtone of concern. “Is this about the little Adams girl?”
“Frank just called me,” Pullman replied. “He tells me Matt isn’t there?”
The question hung in the air for a few seconds before Cynthia responded. “No, I’m afraid he isn’t. He came home from school, but then went out again.”
“Do you know where he went?”
Cynthia felt a twinge of annoyance. “No, I don’t. But surely you don’t believe he could be interested in Becky Adams, do you? Such a — ” She was about to say “homely girl” but quickly edited herself. “ — shy little thing. Not the sort Matt would be interested in, no matter how much she chased him.”
Dan Pullman’s brow furrowed deeply. What was Joan talking about? Becky chasing Matt? He couldn’t imagine Becky Adams chasing any boy, least of all Matt Moore, whom she’d known all her life. And there was something strange in her voice, too. Though it sounded like Joan, it didn’t sound quite right. “What makes you think she was chasing him?” he asked.
There was a barely perceptible silence before Joan Hapgood spoke again. “All the girls chase him, Dan. Just like all the boys used to chase my sister. Don’t you remember? The boys always flocked around Cynthia just the way the girls flock around Matt.”
Pullman’s puzzlement deepened. Cynthia? He hadn’t heard her name mentioned in quite a while. And didn’t she know that the boys had sniffed around her sister because Cynthia had a reputation for doing pretty much anything any of them had in mind? “I’d never really thought Matt was much like his aunt,” he said carefully.
“Don’t be silly,” Cynthia replied. “He’s exactly like Cynthia! Good looking, and charming and — ” She caught
