Arlene, still naked, found herself in a deep, dark hole lying next to a gelatin blob that appeared to have the silhouette of a woman inside it. She was cold, hurt, and scared senseless. Her vision seemed blurred as she thought she saw gray, dank worm-like limbs lumbering among gray, dank stones, with manners as oppressive as the architecture. Even as a child Arlene detested dirt; she had never reveled in filth.
She was then grabbed by the scruff of the neck and hustled along at so fast a clip—for her, anyway—that she had to almost run along with the pulling of the gray worm limbs. More than once along the way down the tunnel that led off the hole, impatience prompted her attacker to yank her completely off the ground and carry her for a bit. Each time, though, she was not lowered so much as dropped. The tentacle around her neck wouldn’t let her fall, but the stumbles were painful. She knew these humiliations were deliberate, to put her in her place and make her more tractable; that didn’t make them hurt any the less.
There were more tunnels, but as she continued her descent, the way became more difficult. Not only by design, it was more a function of age. The deep substructures were far older than the ones above. She had to focus all her concentration here to keep her footing; if she fell, she suspected she wouldn’t stop before hitting bottom. Fortunately, the tunnels themselves were so worn and slippery from a slick coating of watery slime leaching off the tentacle that pulled her—that her attacker had troubles enough keeping itself from losing its grip.
Arlene lay in isolated pools of light, with only the slightest hints of what stood beyond. She could taste salt on the air, stale though it was, and feel a damp so profound it would guarantee sickness in any long-term resident of these tunnels. At least human residents. She shivered and began to pray silently.
After garnering the courage to look around she noticed the walls were mostly flat stone. She screamed, but it was lost in the underground tunnel. The volume of the scream should have echoed through the tunnel. Until now the sound had been deadened, consumed.
“Who’s there?” she asked.
There was no sign of life—or unlife, for that matter—about her that she could tell, none of the vermin—rats—that make their home in these dank, deep places, not even the faintest residual trace. As for the tentacle that had pulled her down these tunnels, it too was missing.
* * * *
“You got anything leads on those missing women, yet?” Dauphin County Sheriff Lindsey Hill asked as she passed by Gary Chapel’s cubicle. Dressed in a leather jacket, boots, and gloves, Sheriff Hill was headed outside, her black Rottweiler in tow, the brim of her battered Stetson in the fingers of one hand. She paused at Chapel’s desk.
“Nothing solid, boss.”
“Don’t want to hear that, Detective.” Her jaw slid to the side and her eyes sparked in frustration. Chapel supposed that once she would have been described as tall, blonde, and pretty. And probably not that long ago. Hell, he thought, he’d tap it if she wasn’t his boss. But these days, with winter raging and disabling the county and a rash of missing women, Sheriff Hill was borderline gaunt, her face craggy, her hair shot with gray, her expression hard-set and serious.
And still, he thought, the most interesting woman he’d met in a long, long time.
Hill, like Chapel, was not satisfied that the women were “just prostitutes” as many in the law enforcement field were classifying them; therefore not worth a whole lot of energy was being spent to find them.
“I really was hoping for more,” Sheriff Hill said. “Keep working those leads, something is bound to turn up.”
“I will, trust me, but other than the real estate lady’s car found the other day, there hasn’t been much new to go on.”
“I think that is the lead and person we should focus on,” Hill replied. “The other women aren’t garnering much attention from anywhere else because of their sorted pasts, but this woman, Arlene Balleza, was a pillar of the community. It is not in her to simply disappear without a trace. No doubt about it, she holds the key to this investigation.”
“I get that impression too,” Chapel said. His eyes darkened.
“Don’t just sit there. Find her. Send someone to check her place. Talk with those who knew her. There should be a deputy out in that direction. Check it out.”
“I’ll handle it myself, boss,” Chapel said. He was already shutting down his computer. “I’ve wanted to get away from the desk anyway. I’ll run by her house, her office, and see if anyone has anything that may be useful in locating her.”
“You sure?” Sheriff Hill asked.
“Absolutely.” Rolling his chair away from his desk, he reached for his service weapon, shoulder holster, and jacket.
“Good.” Hill glanced at the clock. “And have someone go out and talk to Mike Leopold.” She rubbed a hand over her face. “People say he’s crazy, but supposing it takes someone crazy to solve these crazy cases?” Her gaze was steady as it held Chapel’s.
“I will.”
Sheriff Lindsey Hill squared her hat on her head. “Let me know as soon as you find out anything. Have you kept tabs on dispatch? Seen if anymore calls came in? Always good to know as soon as something happens with cases like these.”
Rubbing a hand around the back of his neck, Chapel shook his head. “This is the craziest case I’ve ever worked. None of it makes sense. There are no bodies. Just hookers disappearing; no one knows anything, no one sees anything.”
“Until a local real estate lady disappears,” Sheriff Hill added.
“But again, she apparently had an accident. The other women disappeared or ran away for all I know.”
A muscle tightened in Hill’s jaw. “I forgot. Un-fucking-believable! How in the hell could I forget such an important clue?”
Sheriff Hill angrily walked back to her office, returning with a scribbled, hand-written note on a post-it pad. She handed it immediately to Chapel.
“Tests on Arlene Balleza’s car came back,” Sheriff Hill said. “And it was…”
Chapel looked up and interrupted. “…no accident. The tire was shot out. Hot damn! A real lead. But I don’t see how it relates to the other women, yet.”
“The Feds are running ballistics on the bullet. The blood appears to match that of Mrs. Balleza’s blood type, but we are double checking the results,” Sheriff Hill said, still disgusted with herself.
“This is great,” Chapel said. “I mean not for Mrs. Balleza, but for me; I mean us, the police, it is a solid lead.”
“All right, now go and find out more about this real estate agent. Why would someone take a shot at her, causing her car to overturn in the canyon like that?”
“I will,” Chapel promised, sliding his arm through his shoulder holster and strapping it on. Hill slapped the top of the cubicle wall and started toward the door. Gary Chapel was not far behind her.
* * * *
Following the disappearance of Arlene, Deena was back on the road early the next morning, shortly before seven. The night had been dismal as she and the Swaders waited nervously inside Arlene’s house for some news on her. Steve had called, but had decided not to join them as he felt as if he did not belong, even though it was his house. Deena suspected that he figured they blamed him somehow for Arlene’s disappearance. It had drizzled overnight, and so Deena had to deal with the awful business of slick roads as well as a heavy heart.
Detective Gary Chapel met her at the door. He appeared to be anxious.
“I think we may have a lead on your missing friend,” he said over the chill in the air and the rush of cars driving by.
“I’m waiting,” Deena said in reply.
“Sorry, forgot that your house was also vandalized,” Chapel replied. “Have you been back since?”
Deena shook her head.
“Allow me,” Chapel said, opening the door and poking his head inside. “I think you’re going to be very pleased.” When he finally presented the house by opening the door, it was with a flourish.
Deena was not very pleased, but she made an effort to appear so. Such was her gratitude to those men who had worked hard to restore the house for her. But there it was and she wasn’t even inside the door yet—the smell. It hit her like a truck. She had been away from it for so long she was overcome with nausea immediately. It was then that Detective Chapel got a whiff of it too as she hacked and gagged, pulling his jacket lapel over his nose as he struggled to pull the door shut.
He helped Deena take a seat on the steps.
“What is that smell?” Chapel asked.
“I wish I knew, I think,” Deena said with a smile. “Maybe I don’t want to know.”
“I’m a cop; I have to know.”
“Be my guest. You’re more than welcome to figure it out.”
“First things first,” Chapel announced. “There is a witness who thinks they may have seen your friend, Mrs. Balleza, the night of the crash.”
“What? Where?”
“We have uniformed officers checking it out now,” Chapel said reassuringly. “We just may locate her yet.”
“That doesn’t sound all that hopeful.”
“Sorry, I’ve been working a rash of disappearances lately and would love to be able to solve them,” Chapel explained.
“How does Arlene fit in with the rest of the disappearances?”
Chapel shook his head and stood. “That’s the thing! She doesn’t at all. The others, all women, were mainly prostitutes.”
“That is definitely not Arlene.”
He looked at Deena for several moments. There was a blank expression on his face as though he had not heard her response. Then suddenly his face flushed and he was smiling. “I didn’t mean to infer that Mrs. Balleza was a…”
“Oh, no. Sorry. You didn’t.”
There was an odd and long pause. Neither of them spoke. Deena looked around and Chapel wrung his hands, then blew into them to warm them up.
He broke the silence. “Look. I don’t think you want to stay here right now, what with the smell. So why don’t I call out a team to investigate the smell and we go and get a hot breakfast in town?”
Deena immediately thought the cop was hitting on her. What if he was? She wasn’t married anymore. What the hell, she thought.
“Sure. That sounds wonderful.”
“Great. Do you want to ride with me?”
Deena looked at the undercover vehicle and smiled and shrugged. “Why not?”
They piled into the sedan and drove off with only the sounds of his police scanner and radio to fill the void of talking.
At the scene Deena was shocked at the sight of her friend, Arlene Balleza, and her condition. It was a wonder anyone could have survived the horrors the police suspected went on in the basement.
After escorting Arlene to the hospital, it was Deena who along with Maggie Swader drove her home to continue her recovery.