The Botanist (29 page)

“Cody, get me out of here. Please,” she whispered. “I can’t be here anymore.”

He cupped her face in his hands, using a thumb to wipe away a tear that escaped down her cheek. “I will. I promise. But there’s nothing in this room that will break these chains.”

“So what do we do?”

“I have to go and find something that will.”

“Like what?”

“If nothing else, the Botanist has the keys.”

“You can’t just go looking for him!” Her voice was shrill.

“Alex, I can’t get you out of these by myself. If I can find something else—a sledge hammer, an ax, even a crowbar to pry the links apart—I will, but I have to go find
some
thing, okay?”

Alex ran her hands through her hair, feeling her nerves fray. She was sure Cody was a competent cop, but after the confrontation she’d just had with the killer, she wouldn’t wish for her worst enemy to come face to face with him. What if he killed Cody? The thought made her want to throw up.

“Here.” Cody pulled up his pant leg and produced a small gun. It was a nine mil.

Alex shook her head, pushing the gun away when he thrust it toward her. “No. If you’re going looking for him, you need to keep your gun.”

“I have mine.” She showed her his other hand which held his state-issued Glock. “This is my backup piece. Look. Load the magazine here, safety, hammer. Got it?”

She took the gun from him, too numb to speak.

“Alex, if he comes back, if he tries to do anything to either of you, kill him. Do you understand me?”

She nodded.

Cody reached down and kissed her again. Alex clung to him for a moment, needing his touch. She let go when he did.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Then he was gone. And Alex was left alone in the red room, shivering.

Chapter 45

Cody moved through the murky corridors as swiftly and silently as he could, sweeping his flashlight over everything, looking for something that would free Alex. There were plenty of rocks, but none that would help him. The chains the two women were shackled with were old and rusty, but they were also large and solid enough he didn’t think simply hitting them with a rock would do the trick.

He hated leaving them in there, especially Alex. At least Melissa was unconscious and therefore oblivious to the situation for the time being.

He knew Alex would be able to defend them. She was independent and capable. Actually, it was that independence that was the problem. Alex was a woman who was used to having her life in her own hands. Now she was chained up and at the mercy of a brutal killer. The helplessness was starting to unhinge her. He had to find something to free them quickly, for Alex’s sanity as well as her physical safety.

As Cody moved along the dark passage, he noticed tiny mounds strewn sporadically around the cavern. He stopped to study one of them. It looked like putrefying fruit, though he couldn’t be certain. Whatever it was, it was rotting, causing the sickly-sweet smell that permeated this part of the caverns.

The passage he was in opened into a bigger room. There was nothing in it, but there were several adjoining caverns beyond, and the air was cooler. He continued on, and was soon convinced there was an opening nearby that led to the outside. The air was no longer the stale, dank air of the underground. A refreshing desert wind was blowing through from somewhere.

He reached a cavern the size of the entire Mt. Dessicate police station, and knew he’d found something significant. He stood in the doorway longer than was prudent, running his flashlight over every corner and cranny. He didn’t want to enter and have the killer jump him.

In the center of the room, roughly twelve feet apart, were two beds, if they could be called that. They looked anything but comfortable and were furnished with leather straps, the kind used to restrain combative medical patients. From the ceiling hung an assortment of knives, scythes, sickles, hooks, pincers, and even a pickaxe.

In the left wall was an opening to a narrow corridor. The right wall had a huge hole in it that Cody could see led to open air. Cody move forward cautiously, trying not to notice the dried blood and…other things he didn’t want to identify on the various weapons hanging from the ceiling.

Careful not to turn his back entirely on the dark passage that led from the room—unbidden, his mind conjured images of the Botanist hiding just beyond his line of sight—Cody advanced to the opening. It was like the mouth of a cave, looking out over the black desert and dropping off sharply inches in front of where he stood. The desert air was a relief after so long in the close confines of the mountain, and though the sky was still black, the stars twinkled in a way that could make one forget the dire situation at hand.

Cody edged forward until he could look straight down. They wouldn’t be able to get out this way. The drop-off was severe with jagged rocks below. It was a form of psychological torture for any victims the killer brought into this room: the outdoors—and escape—were tantalizingly close, but to jump from this height would mean broken bones, if not death. Even if they survived, the killer would simply go get them. No one can run through the desert with broken legs. Cody sighed, then turned back to the torture chamber.

He wondered if he could use the pickaxe to free Alex. None of the knives would do him any good, and even the pickaxe he was unsure about. If it had a broader blade, maybe, but with just the pick . . .

A scratching sound on his left made him jump. He spun on his toe, landing in a squat, with his gun pointed at the noise, his pulse pounding painfully in his temples. In the shadows, only feet from the drop off, was a dark, round mass. He hadn’t noticed it before. It was tucked away in a pocket of shadow, and Cody couldn’t tell what it was. A small boulder perhaps? Certainly not large enough to hide a killer. Of course, this guy apparently had secret passageways and hatches all over the place, so maybe the scratching sound had been him trying to shift the boulder to the side. The thought made the hair on the back of Cody’s neck stand on end.

He crouched there, scrutinizing the boulder for a full two minutes before lowering his gun. Perhaps it had only been a rodent, scurrying by, but he had to be sure. Staying in a crouch, gun lowered but at the ready, he inched forward.

There was some kind of…material on top. So not a boulder, but a bundle of rags? What on earth was it? He nudged it with his gun…and it moved!

Cody stumbled backward, barely keeping from landing on his backside, and raised his gun again, pointing his flashlight as the thing moved again, groaned, and raised its head.

It was a person. Cody’s mouth fell open. If not for the full beard and intelligent, if farway, eyes, it wouldn’t have even looked human. The man was filthy and emaciated—rotting away. He was so thin, he’d huddled himself into a sleeping bag-sized ball. It took several seconds for his eyes to focus on Cody. When they did, the skeleton of a man pulled himself into a sitting position. The motion looked painful, and revealed a chain shackled to his arm.

This was another of the Botanist’s victims. But why would he take a man? And keep him alive up here? Cody couldn’t close his mouth. He sat for several seconds staring in shock.

“Who are you?” The man’s voice was surprisingly solid considering his physical condition.

“Cody Oliver. I’m a detective in Mt. Dessicate. The town a few miles from here,” he added when the man looked confused. “I . . . who . . . how long have you been here?”

“Probably since around the time you were born.”

Cody doubted that was true. Even a few days in place like this would seem like an eternity, and for this degree of emaciation, the man must’ve been here for months. It probably seemed like decades to him.

“Do you know where the killer is?” Cody asked.

“You mean old Mudface? He hasn’t come through this room recently.”

“Mud face?”

“He smears mud all over his face when he’s here, so I’ve taken to calling him that.”

Cody nodded. These were details for another time. “Look, he’s got two more victims in another room. I’m going to get you all out, but I have to find something that will break these chains. Do you know if he has any other prisoners down here?”

“Have you seen my daughter?” The hope in the man’s voice chilled Cody’s heart.

“Your daughter? Who’s your daughter?”

“She’s just a toddler—probably too scared to tell you her own name. Have you seen her?”

The panic rose from Cody’s chest to his throat. There was a child down here somewhere? He still didn’t have a way to free the now three prisoners, and the killer could be anywhere. Now would be a fantastic time for Frank and Court to show up.

“No, I’m sorry. I haven’t seen her. When was the last time you saw her?”

The man’s eyes looked far away. “It’s been a really long time.”

“Which way did the . . . Mudface take her? Did you see?”

“Back that way.” He pointed in the direction Cody had come from. Cody sighed. He hadn’t seen her, but it was dark. There could easily be other rooms or passages he’d missed. He hoped the child wasn’t dead. He didn’t know enough about this killer to know whether he was likely to hurt such a small child. The youngest victims they’d excavated from the mass graves had been young teenagers, and that was horrific enough, but a toddler was another thing entirely.

“Please,” the man said. His face was a collage of hope and desperation, and his iridescent blue eyes sparkled with a sheen of moister. “You must find my daughter. He said he’d keep her alive if I helped him. She must be here somewhere.”

Cody swallowed, wondering what to do. He preferred to get everyone out and come back en force with plenty of men and guns. He didn’t relish searching for a tiny child that could be hidden anywhere and, if they were being realistic, might not even be alive. Yet, he doubted this man would be willing to leave without his daughter.

Then something occurred to Cody. In his grimy, emaciated state, the man looked like he was eighty years old. He was probably twenty or more years younger that, but being kept prisoner had made him look older than he was. Still, he had to be at least fifty. Why would a fifty year old man have a toddler with him? Cody was in no position to contradict the man, but he wondered if captivity of this sort hadn’t driven the man over the edge, if he wasn’t a bit delusional.

“Sir, if your daughter is here, I’ll find her.”

The man looked relieved.

“For now, I need to try and get you out of here. Who are you?”

“I’m an artist.”

“What’s your name?”

“Jonathin.”

Cody had started to turn away, but he froze, turning back slowly. “Not Jonathin Landes?”

The man looked confused. He searched the dirt in front of him, before nodding his head, slowly at first, then more quickly. “Yes. Yes, that’s my name. How did you know?”

Cody was at a loss. Landes disappeared more than twenty years ago. What was he doing here now? Suddenly Cody was sure that between what he knew and what Stieger had found out, he had all the pieces of the puzzle, but he couldn’t see the picture in his mind.

“I . . . I’ve been looking for you.”

Landes
’ reaction was the last thing Cody would have expected. The man’s eyes filled with tears, which spilled down over his cheeks. “You’re looking for me? Why?”

“You’re still on your father’s land. Do you know that?”

Landes nodded, his body shuddering with unmitigated sobs.

“We looked into the prior ownership of this land, trying to figure out how . . . Mudface might be tied to it. No one’s seen you in . . .”

Cody realized that Landes’ assertion that he’d been here for most of Cody’s life was not so farfetched. Could he have been out here this entire time? Since the eighties?

Landes
’ body was still wracked with sobs. Cody leaned forward to put a hand on the other man’s shoulder. Carefully. Landes was so frail-looking that Cody was afraid too much pressure would break his arm.

Finally, Landes spoke. “For many years now, I’ve been convinced that I would die here, that no other soul on earth would ever see me, or know my name, or that I ever walked the earth.” He looked up at Cody, and gave him a pathetic, heartbreaking smile through his tears. “But you’ve been looking for me.”

“I’ll get you out of here,” said Cody. “I promise.” He sighed, turning away to collect his own emotions, before speaking again. “I’m going to try and break these chain links with that pickaxe.”

He got to his feet, but Landes raised a hand. “Wouldn’t a sledge hammer work better?”

Cody looked down at the emaciated man with surprise. “Yeah. Do you know where one is?”

“The bed on the right; there’s a trundle that opens at the bottom. He keeps heavier tools in there.”

Cody went to the bed and found a drawer near the ground that opened when he got his fingernails under the right grooves. Inside was an array of hammers, maces, heavy steel balls, even a meat tenderizer.

Cody shuddered but removed the sledge hammer.

It occurred to him that slamming a sledge hammer into a chain was going to make a lot of noise. He could only pray that it worked. If it didn’t, it would probably bring the killer running, and Landes still wouldn’t be free.

Landes laid out a two foot length of chain, then sat back against the wall so Cody would have plenty of room to swing without hitting him. He pointed to a series of particularly rusty links. “I think this will be the weakest section.”

Cody nodded, impressed at how clear-headed Landes was. His clarity suggested that perhaps he was telling the truth about his toddler. Cody hoped not. This whole thing might go much easier if Landes was just a bit delusional.

Letting the sledge hammer drop back behind his shoulder, Cody concentrated on the length of chain Landes had indicated, then swung the hammer up over his head with all his might. It clanged loudly against the chain, but failed to break it. Both men froze, listening. There was no sound but a soft moaning as the wind blew in through the opening beside them and wandered through the narrower caverns.

Cody repositioned the hammer and swung again. This time, the chain broke, one link shattering into four pieces while the side links sprang left and right. Relieved, Cody held out his hand to help Landes to his feet.

The other man was staring at the end of the broken chain like he’d never imagined such a thing before. He looked up at Cody. “I’m free?”

The man was in shock, but they didn’t have time for shock. The killer could appear at any instant. “You’re no longer chained,” Cody said, “but we won’t be free until we get out of these caves. Come. We have to hurry.” He held out his hand again.

Landes glanced at the hand as though it was of little consequence, then went back to staring at the broken end of his chain.

“Please, sir,” Cody implored, “if we’re to find your
daughter,
we must go.”

That got Landes
’ attention. He gripped Cody’s hand and allowed himself to be pulled up. Landes was shaky on his feet, so Cody put one shoulder under his arm, and grabbed the sledge hammer with his other hand. He would need it to free Alex and Melissa.

It was then that he noticed the markings on the wall where Landes had been chained. At first glance they had looked like scratches and dirt streaks that were fading into obscurity. Cody had barely noticed them. Now he could see there was more to them. There were drawings; many of them looked like plants. There were equations, both mathematical and chemical. There were even what looked like some sort of genetic pedigree charts.

Cody looked over into Landes’ haunted blue eyes, only inches from his now. “He’s not the Botanist,” Cody whispered. “You are.”