I try to slow my breathing as I stand in the dark behind the door in the guest room. Dotson and his wife turn on the TV and make something to eat. I wait, afraid to move, worried they’ll see my wet footprints or hear the rain dripping through the broken window. But they apparently haven’t noticed either. Finally, I hear Dotson’s phlegmy snoring on the couch. What if he sleeps there all night, and I’m stuck here? I should leave now, but then I’d have to leave Laura again. This time when I leave, I can never come back.
Finally, Arelle wakes him up. “Come to bed,” she says again in her raspy, smoky voice. “Come on, get up.”
“Have to check on them,” he mutters as he walks back to the bedroom next door to where I stand. The floor squeaks with every step.
“Do it later,” she says. “Leave ’em alone for tonight.”
I listen as they grow quiet, and I imagine they’ve gotten into bed. After a while, I hear him snoring again.
I move out from around the door. I tiptoe up the hall into the den, see the food bowls out on the table, soggy cereal congealing in milk. I get to the basement door, pull it open.
It squeaks loudly. Why hadn’t I noticed that before? I hear movement from the bedroom, so I hurry away from the door, across the room. The floor squeaks in the hall. I dive under the table, the yellowed tablecloth hiding me.
“Do you want to die?” I jump as Frank Dotson’s voice bellows. He knows I’m here! I crouch under the table, holding my breath as he stomps through to the kitchen. The light comes on, flooding the room and casting long shadows that seem to point to me. He’s going to kill me and no one will know. Murder is my destiny. It’s going to happen to me one way or another.
But then he curses and throws open the basement door. “What are you doing?” he yells down.
He’s not talking to me. I hear him thump down the stairs, curses flying. I don’t hear anything from Laura, but now I’m sure she’s here. I tiptoe across the floor again, knowing it will creak beneath my feet, but maybe he’ll think it’s Arelle. If Laura’s there, I need to know how to get to her. I peer through the basement door and see him going to a shelf, shoving it out of the way. Nothing but cinderblocks there, but then I see a rectangle opening up. It’s an optical illusion, wood painted to look like cement blocks. I should have seen it! I realize it’s the old coal chute. Of course! It must be closed in at the top, and that’s where that broken patio is.
“You’re a slow learner!” he bellows in. What are you doing to the ceiling? It woke me up!”
A baby’s cry rises in startled terror, and my gut hitches.
“I didn’t do anything!” I hear a girl saying in a dry, brittle voice. Laura! “We were sleeping. You woke her up! Please. We didn’t do anything. You said yourself you can’t hear us through all the padding. I can’t even reach the ceiling. I don’t have anything to stand on.”
A shiver goes through me. If he’s angry or drunk enough, my carelessness—the very sound of my footsteps—might get her killed. I shrink back into the kitchen. The storm outside gets angrier, and rain pounds against the roof, the windows. Thunder cracks as if God himself is reacting to this evil. Somehow, that gives me courage. I head back up the hall to the guest room, praying that if Dotson hears my steps he’ll think it’s his wife. I wait behind the door, shaking.
I think of escaping through the window while I still can, going straight back to the police, turning myself in but demanding that they search again for the coal chute where Laura is hidden. But their main focus will be the murderer hiding out in Shady Grove, rather than the rescue of the missing girl. They won’t listen to me. Why should they?
My courage wanes, and paralysis freezes me. No, I can’t freeze. I have to act.
My brave girl.
Tears come to my eyes again, and I wipe them on my sleeve. No time to cry. I have to move.
I hear him striking her, things crashing, her abbreviated yelps. I wait as the door to the coal chute crashes shut—silencing the baby’s cries completely—as Dotson comes up from the basement, slams the door, and pounds his way back to bed.
I wait longer this time, certain that he’s snoring rhythmically before I venture out. The storm is loud now, a symphony of percussion against the house, lightning flashing and thunder cracking quick behind it. Is that answered prayer, meant to disguise my steps? Can I assume God is really helping me? Maybe Miss Lucy is praying too.
Tears wet my face again, and I wipe them away, force myself to draw in a cleansing breath. I take huge steps to make fewer creaks, and I make it to the basement door. I don’t open it wide, because I can’t risk another squeak. I slip through the gap, turn on the light, and quietly steal down the stairs.
He’s pushed the shelf unit back to the wall, but I know which one it is. I move it as quietly as I can, an inch at a time, constantly checking the top of the stairs. I’m running on pure adrenaline now, desperate to get to that little door.
Finally, I make enough room behind the shelves to open the door. I twist the deadbolt up and pull the camouflaged door open.
The room is tiny, damp and cold, and smells of diapers. It’s dark and only a few feet wide. There’s an extension cord going under the door, lighting a small yellow lamp. I should have noticed that cord before. The baby is sleeping on a mattress on the floor, wearing a dingy pink onesie. Laura’s in a fetal position on the concrete next to the mattress. She looks dead.
“Laura?” I whisper loudly.
She startles awake, sucks in a breath, and looks at me. “Who are you?”
Her eye is black and bloody, her nose looks broken. She has a busted lower lip, and when she sits up, I can see that her knee is purple and swollen. He has beaten her up because of me.
I hold out a shaky hand to quiet her. “I’m Grace. I’ve come to get you out of here.”
Her lower lip trembles. “Are . . . are they here?”
“Yes. They’re sleeping. The storm is loud. We have to hurry, though. We can go out the cellar door. I broke the lock on the outside . . . and I have bolt cutters for the inside lock.”
She grabs up her sleeping baby. She looks like she’s Emma’s age. The child keeps sleeping as Laura clutches her to her chest.
“I can’t walk . . . my knee . . .”
“Do the best you can,” I say, going in and putting her arm around my shoulders. “I’ll help you. Come on. They seem drunk and they’re sleeping hard.”
She hobbles out with me, and I feel her ribs under my fingertips. She’s skeletal, as if every ounce of fat has wasted out of her. I wonder how often he feeds her. She shifts the baby to the side with the strong leg, and I get under her other arm and help her walk. Each step makes her grind her teeth in pain. We get to the concrete steps leading up to the cellar hatch. I go up first. There’s a two-by-four bolted across the double-bulkhead door. One end of the two-by-four is fastened with an old hinge, and on the other, there’s another lock with a padlock slipped through. I slip off my backpack and take out my bolt cutters.
“I’ve got this,” I tell Laura, who has dragged herself up three of the dozen or so stairs and waits with her baby just below me.
I try with all my might to cut the padlock, but at this angle, reaching above my head, I’m not strong enough. I can hear the rain pounding through the wood, and some of it leaks through, wetting the concrete stairs. We’re so close . . .
Then the baby starts to cry.