The room swam, then settled. Ten by twelve, maybe less. Concrete floor, concrete walls. A single wooden staircase climbed to a closed door at the top. A rectangular window set high in the wall near the ceiling—frosted glass, dark beyond it. So it was still night, or pre-dawn. Or something blocked the light.
A cot was pushed up against the far wall. A wooden table stood beside it with one leg propped on folded cardboard. A Bible sat on the table, the cover warped. A dirty plastic bucket was tucked in the corner near the stairs, and she could guess what that was for.
A thin blanket lay crumpled on the cot. The mattress was stained in places she didn’t want to examine too closely. The whole room smelled like mildew and an unwashed body.
She slowly pushed herself to her feet. Thankfully, though a little shaky, her legs held. The chain was long enough to reach the cot, the table, the bucket, but didn’t allow her to climb more than one step of the stairs.
Okay. Think.
By the looks of the place, whoever brought her here planned to keep her for a long while.
She was not about to let that happen, so she needed a weapon.
The cot was metal-framed but bolted to the wall. The table was wood and might come apart, but slowly, and she’d need tools she didn’t have. The bucket’s metal handle had been removed, and it was empty.
So the table was the only option. If she could break off a leg, she could wait by the stairs and slam it against the skull of whoever came down.
She crossed to the table. The chain rattled behind her. She tossed the Bible aside and reached for the table to flip it, but froze when the book landed against the wall with a thunk and a metallic clink.
She turned.
On the floor next to the splayed-open Bible was a necklace. Or, no, a bracelet with its cheap gold finish rubbed to silver in places.
Two interlocking hearts.
Just like the one she’d worn for fifteen years.
Just like the one she’d put in Alice’s casket.
No.
She dropped to her knees as her vision blurred. The room tilted. She closed her hand around the bracelet and pressed it to her chest.
Alice had been here. In this room. This basement. This prison.
She’d worn this bracelet. She’d read that Bible. She’d slept on that cot. She’d used that bucket.
She’d beenhere.
Greta looked at the room again, and this time she saw it through different eyes. The wear patterns on the concrete floor. The scratches on the wall near the cot. The way the blanket hadbeen folded at one corner, like someone had tried to make a space that felt like their own.
Alice had done that.
Alice had been alive.
She didn’t know when. Didn’t know how long ago. But Alice had been in this room. She had slept on that cot, had been chained to that same ring in this same wall, and had hidden the bracelet in the Bible so her captor wouldn’t take it from her.
Greta’s legs stopped holding her. She sat down hard on the concrete floor with her back against the wall and the chain coiled in her lap and the bracelet in her fist.
She couldn’t breathe.
This was where Alice had died.
Not the creek bank. Not in the mud.Here.In this concrete box, on that cot, chained to this wall, while Greta was looking for her in truck stops and cities, in mountains and rivers and woods.
She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes.
She couldn’t fall apart. She couldn’t. Whoever had killed Alice would eventually come down those stairs for her, and she needed to be ready.
