Otherworldly Bad Boys: Three Complete Novels (104 page)

The door opened into pitch blackness.

I stepped inside, trying to keep the door open behind me, in order to let in some of the scant light from the parking garage.

But it was too heavy, and it slammed shut behind me, plunging me into thick darkness.

Complete darkness. I couldn’t see my own body—my limbs or my torso.

It was warmer here, and the musty smell was worse—almost too much. I felt as if I’d been swallowed into the city’s stomach.

I scrabbled in the darkness, feeling for the doorknob. I needed to open the door again. I was too closed in.

But when I tried it, the door knob wouldn’t turn in my hands.

Locked.

It had locked after me, and I was shut up in this darkness.

Panic shot through me, hot and bright. My breath quickened. Sweat broke out on my brow.

I was trapped down here. Alone. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t get back the way I’d come.

I covered my face with my hands, feeling hysterical tears bubbling up in my chest.

“Get it together, Kane,” I said aloud in my best no-nonsense gym-teacher voice.

The door was locked. Okay. Fine. I’d have to find another way out. There was one. I was sure of it. Barclay came in this way, but he came out as The Phantom, and he sure as hell didn’t go back through the lobby of the law firm.

I took a deep breath. I was going to be okay.

And then I remembered that the club I’d brought with me was also a flashlight.

I switched it on.

A circle of blue light appeared ahead of me. I shined the light around, taking in my surroundings.

I was in a narrow hallway with a low ceiling. It was made of smooth stones, haphazardly fitted together so that there were no chinks between them.

This must be old, some old underground passage from hundreds of years ago. The city of Aurora had been settled since the early 1700s. This could be that ancient.

I pushed forward, moving deeper into the darkness.

The ground under my feet was earthen. I saw a few insects crawling over it. Big insects. Blind and scuttling.

I shuddered involuntarily.

I forced myself to keep my breathing steady. I was not afraid of bugs. I was bigger than bugs. They were gross and creepy-crawly, but I could handle it.

I kept walking.

The passageway went on for some time. I pushed through its musty warmth.

Something was crawling on my back.

Instinctively, I reached back to brush it away.

Oh. My hair. My own hair.

What the hell was up with me?

I pushed on.

No, there was still something crawling on me.

I twisted to look.

There was nothing there.

I let out a whimper. I hated this.

Every few seconds, the sensation persisted. I felt something crawling on me, and I had to try to brush it off.

There were never any bugs on me.

I was beginning to wonder if it had been a good idea for me to come down here by myself. Here I was going into The Phantom’s lair. He was a serial killer. And I was freaked out by the dark. By bugs. I was having a hard time breathing, and I was jumping at things that I imagined.

I was losing it.

But I couldn’t go back.

The door was locked.

I had to keep going, bad idea or not.

I picked up the pace. I didn’t want to be in this damned passageway anymore. I felt like it was growing narrower on me, like the walls were closing in.

I imagined the walls coming for me—pressing against my skin, the stones vaguely slimy and cool.

I would push at them. I would struggle.

But they would be too strong.

They would squeeze me and squeeze me.

I’d scream. I’d rake my nails against the hard stone.

But they’d bear down on me, inexorable. Crushing.

I wouldn’t be able to breathe.

My lungs would be pressed together.

My bones would snap—

Fuck.

I sucked in air through my nose.

The air was musty and dead.

I could swear I heard the goddamned bugs crawling everywhere. They were coming up my legs.

I started to run.

My breath was loud and labored, echoing through the corridor.

The light of my flashlight bobbed up and down, bouncing crazily over the smooth, stone walls.

I tore down the hallway, panic tearing at my chest, tears sliding down my cheeks.

I would have yelled, but I didn’t have the breath for it. I was pushing myself to run faster and faster. I needed to get out of that fucking hallway. I needed to get free.

My lungs were filling up with the fetid air, and I felt like I was drowning.

And then—

I tumbled into a room.

There was a step down, and I stumbled, barely catching myself, barely remaining on my feet.

I knew that something had changed, I could feel that the air was cooler, that the walls were farther away.

I shined my flashlight around, and then I spied something out of place.

A light switch.

Down here?

I didn’t care right then. It was civilization. It was something from the world I knew down in this dank, closed-in world, and I ran for it, flicking it on.

The room was bathed in light.

I’d found it. The Phantom’s lair. Relief mixed with triumph surged through me.

I’d made it through the hellish hallway of bugs, and I’d gotten to the goal. I was like a Greek hero emerging from the underworld.

It was okay now. There was light. There was space. I was going to make it.

I drew in several quaking breaths, ashamed of the half-sobs that punctuated each of them. I’d really let everything get to me way too much. And I wasn’t that kind of girl. I didn’t get freaked out at that kind of stuff.

I was here to do a job. I needed to be calm.

“I’m Cecily Kane,” I said out loud, my voice echoing through the chamber. “I’m a reporter. I’m strong. This doesn’t freak me out.”

My next few breaths were more steady.

I looked around the room.

It was carved out of stone, an underground cave. The ceiling was smooth above me, hollowed out long, long ago. It was high, maybe ten feet or so. Someone had gone to the trouble of putting in recessed lights all over it.

In the center of the room, there was a table, bolted to the ground. The lights seemed to focus on it.

I went closer to examine it.

There were leather straps lying on its surface, the kinds that could bolt down a person’s arms, legs, and neck.

This was where he brought the girls, I realized. This was where he killed them.

Looking closer, I realized the table was awash in reddish brown stains, and the floor underneath my feet was spattered in them too.

Blood.

My stomach convulsed.

With trembling hands, I got out my camera. This was what I needed. I had all the evidence right here. I began to snap photo after photo. Of the straps. Of the table. Of the bloodstains.

Something caught my eye.

A splash of bright color.

Purple.

I turned in the direction.

It was a purple shoe.

It was attached to a leg.

It wasn’t the only leg.

The legs were set up on a raised dais against the wall. They were surrounded by red curtains—like they were on a macabre puppet theater stage.

The legs were preserved in the same way that Maria’s had been, wrinkled and dessicated, like dried apricots.

He’d arranged them. He’d dressed them. Some were in fish net stockings, some in lace garters, some bare. The toes were all stuffed into high heeled shoes.

One long row of women’s legs. All on display.

I stood, staring, my whole body shaking.

This was what I’d been looking for, but I hadn’t expected to feel this way when I saw it.

One of those sets of legs belonged to Darlene.

He’d killed her. Destroyed her. And all so that he could display pieces of her like she was a dismembered doll?

Barclay was sick.

And I was feeling a mixture of revulsion and rage.

I wanted him dead. I wanted to cut off his fucking legs and make him watch while I dressed them up. I wanted him to suffer. I wanted—

Slam.

A distant sound of a door shutting, far away.

The passageway. Someone was coming down the passageway.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

My heart raced.

He couldn’t be here. He came near sunset. It was much too early.

But I thought I could hear the faint sound of footsteps on the dirt floor, coming closer.

Closer.

I dashed across the room and shut off the light.

Had he seen it?

I remembered the passageway as incredibly long, but I couldn’t remember if had been straight or twisting. I’d been too concerned with trying to put one foot in front of the other. With brushing off the imaginary insects. With getting through it before the walls closed in on me.

If he’d seen the light go off, he knew someone was here.

But I couldn’t have left it on. That would have given me away too.

It would have meant that he could see me.

Of course, I realized, my heart in my throat, the minute he got down that passageway and turned on the light, he’d see me anyway.

I had nowhere to hide.

I slid along the sleek walls of the cave, feeling for something—anything—that could conceal me.

There was nothing.

I inched further away from the opening of the passage.

It was dark.

I closed my eyes. I could hear the sound of my own pounding heart so loud it drowned everything out.

I tried to force myself to calm down, to regulate my breathing.

My breath! He’d hear me panting away down here. It wouldn’t matter if I was hiding. He’d know where I was.

It was dark.

It was quiet.

Hugging the wall, I kept feeling my way along it.

It was perfectly smooth and cool. There were no indentations. There were no hollows.

I was exposed.

It was dark.

I strained to try to hear him.

Nothing.

No sound whatsoever.

What if I’d imagined it? What if I hadn’t heard the door slam after all? What if I was simply cowering here in the dark, frightened out of my wits for absolutely no reason?

My pulse stammered just below my skin.

I listened.

Silence.

Something crawled over my foot.

I kicked out instinctively, knocking it off.

My shoe collided with the wall of the cave. A dull thud echoed through the room.

Shit.
If he didn’t know I was hear before, he did now.

Assuming he was there at all. Assuming it wasn’t all my imagination.

Oh god.

How long could I stand here, waiting? If I waited for ten minutes, could I assume that he wasn’t actually in the passageway, that I’d been hearing things when I heard that slam? Twenty minutes?

But how would I know how much time had passed?

It was dark.

It was quiet.

I didn’t hear
anything
.

I remembered that I had weapons. Besides the club/flashlight, I had a knife. I set the club down softly. The flashlight wasn’t helping me too much at the moment. I drew my knife out of its sheath, gripping the handle tightly with one hand.

I began to ease my way back the way I’d come—back towards the light switch.

If he was really coming, that was what I would do. I’d wait by the light switch. And the minute he turned it on, I would stab him.

I could do that.

I began to work my way back, my fingers crawling over the smooth wall. In my other hand, I clutched the knife.

It was dark.

The only noise I could hear was the fabric of my shirt sliding against the cave.

I moved as quickly as could. As silently as I could.

My hand was starting to sweat.

I was afraid that I would lose the knife, that it would slip out of my fingers.

Then—

There it was.

The light switch. I could touch it.

I stopped moving, holding tight to the knife, standing there, waiting.