CHAPTER 46

August 2016

The Night of the Abduction

She endured three hours of tedium while she waited. She talked with people she had no interest in, and laughed at stupid high school humor she’d long grown bored of. She watched Matt deliberately ignore her, and listened to Megan giggle in her fake voice whenever Matt uttered a word. On a normal night, it would have been too much to handle. But tonight was anything but normal. Tonight was special. Epic, even.

She stood with Rachel and Jessica around the bonfire and pretended to drink beer. Pretended to be interested in them. Pretended to care which college everyone was off to in the fall. Her phone vibrated in her pocket and she quickly grabbed it.

Finally, Casey was ready.

CHAPTER 47

November 2017

Fourteen Months Since Megan’s Escape

It was approaching midnight when Livia pulled to the intersection and saw Megan standing in the shadows of a building. The streetlight painted her face when she walked from the alcove, and even from such a distance Livia recognized the difference. When Megan climbed into the passenger seat, the dim glow of the car’s dome light confirmed the startling transformation. More than two weeks had passed since they were last together, when Megan had squeezed Livia’s hand in her father’s office after he agreed to help them. Back then, Megan’s eyes were filled with hope and elation. Now, Livia noticed vacant and wandering eyes, heavy with burden.

“What’s wrong?” Livia asked.

Megan shook her head. “I know where he kept me. I figured it out.”

Livia took a moment to decipher Megan’s words. “The bunker?”

“Before that. I know where he kept me during those two weeks. The cellar. I need to go there, Livia. I need you to take me.”

Parked on the side of a deserted road, dark and quiet in the middle of the night, Livia understood something cathartic was happening. She realized suddenly this girl’s frailty, and she felt the heavy responsibility of Megan’s well-being on her shoulders.

“Maybe we should talk to your dad, Megan. He told me you were having trouble with all this.”

“No. Only you.”

From her short stint through psych rotations during her internship year, Livia was familiar with different states of psychosis. She was certain Megan was in one now. “Maybe we should call Dr. Mattingly. Let him know about this.”

Megan shook her head in the darkened car, then turned and looked at Livia. “Please, Livia. Take me there. Help me.”

Livia stared at Megan, and in that moment another metamorphosis took place. Megan was no longer the girl who went to school with Nicole. She was no longer the other girl who had been taken that night. Megan was, in that moment, a friend who needed help. “Okay.” Livia put the car into gear. “Where are we going?”

“West Bay.” Megan shook her head in disbelief. “It’s not far. Not far at all.”

CHAPTER 48

August 2016

The Night of the Abduction

Casey drove a rusted-out Buick Regal he kept covered and stowed in a storage unit in West Bay. He drove this car when he took the girls. The last time he put miles on it was when he journeyed to Virginia the previous year to steal Nancy Dee. Now tonight, nearly a year later, it came from storage once again. His insides exploded with fear and excitement.

Tonight was as exposed as he’d ever been, planning a take in Emerson Bay. But he was sure, with the ease of the others as reference, that he could pull it off. It was the perfect way to lure Nicole into his world. The perfect way to introduce her to the thrill. Their pasts were too similar for her to be without the same needs as he. So when Nicole came up with the idea to scare one of her classmates by enlisting Casey to take her and dump her in the shed behind Coleman’s, he immediately understood the opportunity. He scratched his original plan to take the girl who worked at the high school three times a week—the girl named Stacey Morgan—who so perfectly fit the description of the latest request. He abandoned that original plan because even more perfect was the opportunity to bring Nicole to his dark and wondrous world. It was a world in which she would thrive, and he needed her there. He had unexpectedly fallen under her spell this summer. She was his perfect match, his exquisite accomplice.

He’d take Nicole’s classmate where he’d taken the others. Deliver her to the cellar under heavy sedation, the same way he’d delivered the others. He’d show Nicole his methods tonight. He’d show her his work and watch the reaction in her face and in her eyes and in the black pond that also made up her soul, so similar to his. Watch her transformation. And then, sometime in the future, when another request came, he would not be alone in his dark world but accompanied by the only person who understood him.

He pulled now into the parking lot. He wore the clothes Nicole had purchased from the Goodwill store, receipt-less clothing and shoes that would leave untraceable fibers and prints. He heard music coming from the beach, and voices from the group of people gathered around the bonfire. He parked across from the Jeep Wrangler, his headlights bright against the spare tire on the back. He turned off the lights and waited. His heart was going at a good clip and he found he was more excited than normal. It took fifteen minutes before Nicole’s text came. Casey pulled the burlap sack from the seat next to him, and grabbed the plastic zip ties. He scanned the parking lot to make sure he was alone. There was a pair of Porta-Potties off to the corner, which had been vacant for the past five minutes after three girls left them.

From the beach entrance, Casey watched the girl walk into the parking lot. She headed to the Jeep Wrangler and opened the driver’s-side door. With the burlap sack and zip ties in hand, Casey started the engine, his headlights washing Megan McDonald and her Jeep in a blinding white glow. She shielded her eyes from the high beams and never saw him coming until the headlights disappeared as the burlap covered her head.

CHAPTER 49

November 2017

Fourteen Months Since Megan’s Escape

It took half an hour to drive into West Bay. Megan gave directions from memory and Livia got the impression that while she busied herself this past week in the morgue, Megan, too, had been hard at work. The last few days had yielded a great discovery, and Megan was willing to share it with no one but Livia.

“Here,” Megan said, leaning forward in her seat to gauge her location. “Pull over here.”

Livia did so, pulling to the shoulder outside an undeveloped subdivision. Two red-brick posts stood next to each other, a long slab of pine hanging between them. Engraved in the wood and brightened by the lone remaining spotlight from three originals was the name of the subdivision: STELLAR HEIGHTS.

Livia pulled to the shoulder in the same spot Megan had skidded her car to a stop the other day when she fled Dr. Mattingly’s office. She listened to Megan tell the history of this abandoned development.

“Erected during the housing bubble,” Megan said, “Stellar Heights was meant to be the western expansion of East Bay. Big homes, wraparound porches, long half-circle driveways. So in came the bulldozers and pavers and back fillers. Up went this giant berm.”

Livia squinted through the windshield at the tall berm, covered by neglected trees and bearded with heavy weed growth that ran as far as her eyesight allowed. It encircled the Stellar Heights neighborhood.

“Up went the gates,” Megan continued. “Tall, black, cast-iron gates that would keep out the unwanted West Bay residents until they moved along, pushed out by wealthy expansion. In came the winding road meant to meander through the beautiful neighborhood. Seventy-nine custom homes were meant to fill this subdivision. Seventy-nine magnificent structures, each five thousand square feet. The builder managed to erect six before the housing bubble burst. No one was buying giant homes anymore. The credit crunch pinched all the people buying homes with the bank’s money. And when the banks stopped lending, the builder ran out of capital. So Stellar Heights, hidden from the world by the giant berm, was forgotten by all and sat abandoned for the last several years. Until a county ordinance a few months ago came through demanding the destruction of the six abandoned homes and the ghost town they sat in.”

Livia watched as Megan opened the passenger-side door and walked past the Stellar Heights sign and to the tall, black gate. Highlighted by the car’s headlights, Megan looked like a ghost floating toward the haunted town. She pushed the gates, which yawned open from the middle. The effect was dramatic and eerie, as if something sinister had just been released from within. Beyond the gates, through the mouth of the berm, blackness waited.