Page 176 of 1001 Dark Nights: Bundle Forty-Two

Then, darkness would descend.

Light or dark, they would findAngela. Because she was still alive. He didn’t know why, but he was sure in hisheart that if she wasn’t, he would know.

* * * *

Angela reached out, inching her way along the stoneof her strange prison. Memories were returning, bit by bit, and then in a rush.

Suddenly, they seemed to flood into her mind. She rememberedall of it.

She’d been drugged.

The scratch hadn’t been just a scratch. Whatever littlepiece of metal had snagged her had been set in the cupboard on purpose andlaced with something.

Knocking her out just enough to get her out of the safehouse.

Making her compliant enough to gether to wherever she was... but not enough to leave her unconscious for a longtime or dead. No, Debbie wanted her to suffer and know that she was far morecunning than any Krewe member.

Well, she had been. She’d played the ultimate victim.

What was more benign than a cup of afternoon tea?

But why? Why give herself away? She might have gotten awaywith all this so far, but she would have to know once she was out of the safehouse, the Krewe would be on to her.

Angela was startled to hear a voice, muffled and from somedistance. It was Debbie’s voice, and she sounded delighted.

“I’m betting you’re awake by now! Ah, Angela, clever Angelawho does all her research, who figures everything out. Well, you’re awake, andnow you can crawl around in the dark for eternity. Of course, when they findme—”

“They’ll arrest you,” Angela said, her voice surprisinglystrong.

“Me? Little old me? Poor girl, her defender taken once, andthen the woman sent to guard her useless and incompetent, causing her to beabducted again, knocked out, only to wake in the darkness of the woods andescape in terror.”

“Debbie, there are cameras all over that house.”

“There were cameras. All disabled now. Youknow, I was almost part of Robertson Technologies. But, anyway, I’ll just be sopathetic when they find me...”

“I already told Jackson you were guilty,” Angela said. Shewas exaggerating, but Jackson would have known once she went silent thatsomething was wrong.

And she had said that she felt Debbie knew something and wasacting strangely.

“You bitch!” Debbie said. “You are going to die in thedarkness all alone and screaming, but no one will hear you! Die, like you mademy father die.”

“I made your father die?”

“You put him in prison. And he died there!”

Who is her father? Does it matter?

“Well, maybe you’ll die in prison, too,” Angela saidquietly.

“Bitch!” Debbie cried. Then... nothing. Angela knew thatwherever Debbie had been, she was no longer. Only the darkness was there. Thestone below her was cold, and she closed her eyes against the darkness for aminute. They were by the woods or in the cemetery.

She had known there was something wrong with the crypt. Itclearly had an underground catacomb, and she was in it.

There had to be a tunnel that led to the woods. MaybeGervais Conte had not been the one to build it. Still, she was suddenly certainshe had figured it out. Debbie and her accomplice or accomplices had carriedout their murders in the woods and used the tunnel to bring the dead into thecemetery.

All she had to do was...

She touched something and moved her fingers over it.