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He could still hear her laughing when he would ask if there were any mail for him, any phone calls. "What did you expect from that tramp?" she would say of her younger, prettier sister.

After a while he stopped asking.

He’d been planning to stay with his aunt just until it was safe to go back home. But when he phoned his mother about a week after he got there, the operator told him the phone was disconnected. That’s not possible, he had said. There must be some mistake. Try again. And then two days later he got his letter back marked "address unknown."

Like the old joke—every time I leave the house my parents move.

The heat was rising up in him, the vein in his forehead beginning to pulse the way it always did when he thought about her. Caution forgotten, Alvin clutched the steering wheel and lowered his foot on the gas pedal. The
van shot forward.

Fifty

Ellen drifted in and out of consciousness. Someone was calling out to her, urging her to wake up.
Hurry, Ellen! Hurry!

Gail?
She forced her eyes open and was met with a deeper, almost palpable darkness. Her head felt as if it was packed with gauze, and her mouth tasted faintly of chemicals.

She lay very still and waited for her memory to tell her where she was. She felt disoriented. She couldn’t remember. She tried to move her hands and felt them trapped behind her. Panic seized her.

In the next instant, memory rushed down on her like an avalanche, and with it the horrible knowledge of where she was and why she was there. The city was going to burn down the Evansdale Home and he intended her to perish in the fire.

She tested the ropes binding her hands, and felt encouraged. They were not as tight as before. Ignoring the pain and stiffness in her right hand, and her raw, bleeding wrists, Ellen began systematically to work at the ropes. Ten minutes later, she slid one hand free and then the other. Trying not to breathe too loudly, she gently rubbed the circulation back into them, and quickly undid the ropes around her ankles.

She was free. It had seemed almost too easy. Was he close by, waiting, amused at her pathetic attempt to get away?

She strained to listen, but there was no sound but her own breathing now, not even the wind.

Outside the cocoon of blankets, she was shivering with the cold. It seemed to reach right inside her bone marrow. Dressed in just a cotton shirt and jeans, clothes she’d changed into to bathe poor little Sam, she knew she’d last maybe fifteen minutes out in the open.

First things first, Ellen.

Which meant trying to stand up.

After a couple of unsuccessful attempts to get to her feet, she finally made it. Her legs were shaky, and there was nowhere she didn’t hurt. Beads of perspiration broke out on her forehead, but she managed, by leaning against the wall, not to sink back down to the floor.

Waiting a couple of seconds, she took a tentative step in the direction she’d heard him leave.

With no light to guide her, her hands held out in front of her like a woman newly blinded, she took maybe a dozen steps before she felt the wall in front of her. Yes, she thought, this is where his footsteps begin to fade. She moved her hands over the rough wood, testing, touching—until a section of wall gave beneath her hands.

A door.

She stepped through, and knew at once by the musty smell of old clothes that she was inside a closet. Her guess was confirmed by a rattling of wire hangers as her shoulder brushed against them. Further exploration brought her in contact with a couple of cloth coats still hanging on the rack. She pulled what felt like the larger of the two from its hanger and put it on. It was snug across the shoulders and the sleeves were too short, but as far as Ellen was concerned, it was as welcome as a luxurious mink.

Slowly opening the closet door, she peered into the hallway. By the shaft of moonlight coming through the tall window at the end of the hall, she could see faintly.

Every silhouette was a beast crouching, ready to pounce.

No, not a beast.
Just a high-backed chair, an old trunk.
Calm down.
Easy.
You can do this, Ellen. You can get away.

Warily, she stepped into the hallway. She held her breath. Objects came gradually into clearer focus as her eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness after the total absence of light. She could make out the doors leading off the hallway on either side.

The stairway was to her right.

She was about to descend the stairs when she heard the heavy thud of boots on the lower floor. For an instant, like a deer caught in the glare of headlights, she froze, her mind flooding with panic. Quickly, she ducked into one of the rooms.

By now she was soaked in perspiration, her body screaming in pain. Her heart was hammering so hard it seemed as if at any second it might fly straight out of her body.

Unable to take another step, she sank to her knees and began dragging herself past the three remaining iron-framed beds into the farthest corner of the room, where moonlight did not reach. Huddled there like a frightened, wounded animal, trembling inside the moldy coat she clutched about her, she tried to make herself as small as possible.

And listened.

And waited.

Thump!

Yes. He was coming up the stairs. She pressed her back hard against the wall and felt the cold pouring through.

Thump! Thump
!

He was nearly at the top now. She sensed something different in his step.
A calculated slowness.
Measured.
Anticipating.
He was coming for her. She knew it as she knew her own name.

He was coming to kill her this time.

Fifty-one

Myra sat on the edge of the bed staring at her reflection in the mirror as if it were not one familiar to her. In a way, it was a stranger she was seeing. There were gaps missing from her life—whole chunks she couldn’t remember.
This thing with Jeannie—why couldn’t she remember anything more about Jeannie?
She was sure they’d been friends. What happened to her? And what did it have to do with Ellen’s disappearance?

What did I see in the basement?

I’m trying too hard. Just let the memory come, Myra. Let it come.

She closed her eyes.

Suddenly, she was back in the Evansdale Home sitting with the other girls at the dining room table. They were having breakfast. Miss Mattie has come into the room. She is tall and frightening in her black dress. Her long face is hard beneath the red wig.
Her voice sharp.
"I have distressing news. The new girl, Jean Perry, has run away. The police are combing the countryside looking for her. She is a worthless girl and you will all forget about her. Her name is not to be spoken on these premises. She is not to be discussed either among
yourselves
, or with anyone else. Any girl caught disobeying will answer to me."

I watched her go out of the room, heard the whisper of her black skirt, saw that stiff, unyielding back and I knew she was lying. Jeannie had not run away. But I obeyed the order. I forgot about her. For all these years I forgot about her.

And then Myra remembered something else. A few days before Miss Mattie’s announcement, Jeannie had told her a secret—an important secret.
One that had frightened both of them.
What was it? But all she remembered of the secret was the fear she saw on Jeannie’s face when she was telling it.

"Myra? Are you all right?"

She turned to see Carl standing in the doorway. "No, Carl," she said, her hands going to her head. "I really don’t think I am."

~ * ~

They now had a name to go with the face. APB’s were issued around the country for possible serial killer, Alvin Raynes. Law enforcement agencies were in close contact with one another, cooperation at a maximum. In Augusta, Alvin’s name showed up on a computer. At sixteen, he’d been charged with rape with violence. Later the charges were dropped. The girl said she’d lied, that she’d consented to have sex with him. Mike didn’t think so.

By all accounts, they should have apprehended Alvin by now. The problem was they still had absolutely no idea where to look. He wasn’t in the city directory, had never applied for a credit card, not even a driver’s license, which had to mean he was operating under an alias. All efforts to trace him fizzled out.

They were back where they started.
Which was exactly nowhere.

He rose from his desk, his hands clenching and unclenching. He paced. He sat down again.

Frank’s analogy about the guy who jumped on his horse and rode off in all directions didn’t really fit Mike. He felt more like he was running in place.

Gabe had managed to track down an elderly landlady who had once rented a flat to the Betts.
A copy of his notes were
in front of him on the desk. Mike reread them, thinking he might have missed something important.

"That wretched old devil made all their lives miserable. No summer camps for those two children, no sir. They were lucky to have shoes. He used to beat those little tykes unmercifully—and didn’t spare
no
rod on his missus. It’s probably why the poor woman’s head went bad. He was a mean drunk, Ralph Betts. It was a happy day when he left; too bad he did it too late. The children were in and out of foster homes half the time
cause
she wasn’t able to look after them properly. I heard the girl—Tracy—took off for greener pastures as soon as she was old enough.
Pretty little thing.
I don’t believe the boy fared too well—a lot like his father. Like they say, ‘
The
apple don’t fall too far from the tree’."

Mike wondered if Ellen or Gail ever spent any time in foster homes when they were kids. He picked up the receiver and dialed the Thompson’s number.

Myra had a raging migraine, Carl said. He gave her a couple of sleeping pills and she was dead to the world. He said he’d ask her when she woke up and call him back.

Mike hung up.
Sighed heavily.
He knew the suicide rate among cops was high. He wondered what the statistics were on those who simply descended into madness.

Fifty-two

She heard him going into the closet, heard the faint rattle of hangers, then the inner door open. Any minute now he would discover her gone. Now was the time to run, but she knew she wouldn’t make it halfway down the stairs before he’d be on her.
If her legs could even carry her that far.

She brought her fingers to the left side of her face. She could no longer feel it. It felt as if it were pumped full of Novocain. Both eyes throbbed with pain, but she could deal with that.

Her only hope was that he would think she was already on the road and race after her. Then she might have a chance.

At a sudden
thud
against the wall, Ellen’s fist flew to her mouth to stifle a cry.

~ * ~

Alvin had already begun to smile in anticipation when he felt for her beneath the mound of blankets on the floor. The smile was stillborn. At first, he couldn’t believe she wasn’t there. He tossed the blankets aside, kicked angrily at them. Switching on his flashlight, he walked the full distance around the passageway and back again.

She’s gone. The witch is gone!
He muttered an obscenity, kicked at the blankets again, smashed his fist against the wall.

He made himself calm down. He had to think. She couldn’t have gotten very far, could she? Not in the shape she was in. Unless she’d taken off as soon as he left. But she couldn’t have. He’d given her enough dope to keep her out for hours.

Alvin started to go after her, had his hand on the door leading into the closet, about to push it open when he stopped. Slowly he walked back to the place where so many years ago he’d made the nail hole in the wall.