Megan sat back in the passenger seat and closed the door. “Let’s go,” she said. “I need to know for sure.”

“Megan,” Livia said. “Maybe we should call someone. Your dad, or someone to meet us here. If you think this is the place you were kept.”

“I don’t think. I know.”

Megan pointed forward, into the darkness of the abandoned subdivision. Livia thought of calling Kent Chapple to meet them out here. She knew he’d come in an instant if Livia asked. She thought of calling 911, but her mind stalled on what, exactly, she’d say was the emergency.

After a moment, she released the break and they slowly drifted past the gates and into Stellar Heights.

CHAPTER 50

August 2016

The Night of the Abduction

Nicole followed Casey as he drove from the beach parking lot. An odd thrill filled her chest from what she’d just witnessed. She knew Megan McDonald, at this moment, was terrified. And it served her right. Everything in her life had been handed to her. There had never been anything to challenge her or derail the perfect cadence of her life from grade-school star to high school princess and soon to college genius and medical-school scholar and eventually a physician who saved the world. No one should get everything they want in life.

So badly Nicole longed to be in Casey’s car, listening to Megan cry and plead. But they both agreed it was too risky. Surely, Megan would identify Nicole, even with the burlap over her head. Should Nicole talk or laugh, as she was certain to do, the ruse would be over. It was a better option to follow Casey to the old brewhouse where the club’s meetings had taken place. There, Nicole could watch from afar and muffle her laughs as Casey dumped her in the shed and slid the heavy latch down across the door. The same shed the club had used for Nicole’s initiation weeks before.

When they finally let Megan go, it would take the princess an hour to find her way out of the Cove, and though Nicole would never have the satisfaction of telling Megan she had been the one who organized the prank, she would certainly enjoy the aftermath. Matt could comfort her all the way to Duke.

“Where the hell are you going?” Nicole said to herself when Casey turned left at Junction Avenue and headed to the other end of West Bay. The old Coleman’s Brewery building was in the other direction.

She picked up her phone and called him. He didn’t answer.

CHAPTER 51

November 2017

Fourteen Months Since Megan’s Escape

Away from the streetlights of the surrounding road, the interior of Stellar Heights was an inky dark barely penetrated by the car’s headlights. As Livia slowly drove the long, winding road that meandered into the heart of the abandoned subdivision, the vehicle’s lights illuminated empty construction sites on either side of the smooth pavement. Gravel and boulders and large excavated holes meant to be the foundation for never-constructed homes came and went under the glow of Livia’s high beams. With each passing minute she drove into darkness, Livia felt the outside world beyond the berm drift farther and farther away.

She was ready to abandon the journey, to drive Megan home and present this lost girl to her parents and ask for help. Even admit her mistake for bringing such a fragile girl into this search for answers. But as Livia lifted her foot to apply the break, the far anterior reach of the headlights fell upon a home—a single home at the end of the tortuous road they had followed for the past few minutes. And then, under the scant moonlight, five other structures came to life. Each building sitting on two acres of undeveloped land, this string of six homes and twelve acres made up the whole of Stellar Heights.

Livia stopped the car and surveyed the house captured in the glow of her headlights. It could have been, Livia surmised, a magnificent home had construction continued. Red, vibrant brick made up the exterior of the two-story building. Above the beautifully trellised entryway was the framed glass that overlooked the foyer, reflecting back the lights of Livia’s car. She could imagine the warm light of a chandelier glowing from within. Across the entryway where a beautifully stained pine door should stand was, instead, heavy construction plastic, gray and dusty and frayed at the edges.

Megan stepped out of the car and pulled a flashlight from her bag. Livia followed Megan to the front of the car and watched as she played the industrial-style flashlight over the big house, then turned and pointed the light at the neighboring home and ran its powerful beam over the brick. Megan turned in a circle, head tilted back, and looked up into the night sky. Livia knew enough not to interfere. Megan was on her own journey, and Livia was along only for support.

It was a few minutes before Megan spoke.

“There!” she said, pointing to the sky.

Livia looked up to see, high overhead, the lights of a jetliner blinking against the black canvas sky. Megan closed her eyes and listened, nodding her head. She looked back to the sky and watched the plane until it was gone from sight and out of earshot. Then she sat down on the hood of the car and closed her eyes. After twenty minutes, Livia grew anxious, standing in the dark, abandoned subdivision.

She was gathering the courage to ask some questions when Megan’s eyes shot open, a faint smile finding her face. She began nodding. “Do you hear it?”

Livia listened to the dead night. “Hear what?”

“Wait. It will come again.”

And it did. Faintly in the far distance, Livia heard a train’s whistle.

Megan looked at Livia, locked her eyes with a triumphant stare. “This is where he kept me. In one of these abandoned homes.”

“How do you know, Megan?”

“I’ve searched for months during my lunch hour. Searched for the right distance from the airport. The right flight pattern of the planes. The correct height of their approach. The volume of their engines. And I searched for that whistle. It belongs to a freight train that runs through Halifax County. I know, the best I can remember through the haze of my sedation, that it took about an hour that night to transport me from the cellar to the bunker. With these clues, I visited location after location, but none of them quite fit. Stellar Heights, though . . . it’s the place that brings all those clues together.”

Again Megan ran the flashlight around the homes, a point source of light in an otherwise black abyss.

“I’m sure, Livia. This is the place.”

CHAPTER 52

August 2016

The Night of the Abduction

Casey watched the headlights in his rearview mirror, making sure Nicole was behind him. He’d ignored the chime of his phone. He was sure Nicole was calling to inquire why they weren’t headed to Coleman’s. The phone’s ringtone—“Sweet Home Alabama”—was a melodious contrast to the crying and pleading from the girl in the backseat, bound and hooded, who went on in hysterics about her father. Casey turned the radio louder.

When he reached their destination, he jumped out pushed open the cast-iron gates. Nicole yelled something through her open window but Casey did not acknowledge her. Instead, he climbed back into the Buick and turned into the darkness, following the winding road for several minutes. Finally, bathed in blackness and isolation, he stopped the car and shifted into park. Nicole stopped behind him. The girl’s cries had begun to die down, the sedative finally taking effect. He quickly slammed his door and walked to Nicole’s car.

“Where are we? This is creepy.”

“Trust me,” Casey said, sitting in the passenger seat of Nicole’s car. “What I have planned is better than the shed at Coleman’s.”

Nicole looked around at the abandoned homes with no lights. “Think she’ll be able to find her way out of here? I mean, where the hell are we, anyway?”

Casey ignored the question. He needed to give the ketamine a little longer. He turned the radio’s volume louder.

“What did you think of my technique?”

“I think you’re sadistic,” Nicole said. “Is she freaking out?”

He didn’t want to talk about the girl, so he slid a hand onto Nicole’s thigh. “So it turned you on?”

“Sort of,” she said. “When do we screw with her?”

Casey looked at his watch. “Twenty minutes.”

He leaned over and bit Nicole’s earlobe. They frolicked in the car, unaware of the sedan parked down the way, lights extinguished with the driver watching from the darkness. The man grew impatient as his body burned with anticipation. His delivery had arrived. A new girl. One he planned to love and care for more than any other. But his thrill of this night was overshadowed by the pulsing vessel in his neck.

The Buick Regal was not alone. A second car had trespassed into his secret world of Stellar Heights.

CHAPTER 53

November 2017

Fourteen Months Since Megan’s Escape

Livia stared at Megan. The car’s headlights were hitting them at thigh-level and gnats floated in their beam.