He cleared the rest of the steps, taking them two and three at a time. She heard his feet pounding above her head. From outside came the sound of voices. Elliot and his team had arrived.
She and Anthony had gone through the basement quickly the first time. Now, while her heart pounded in her head, she forced herself to move methodically, training her flashlight on every crack and crevice.
Cobwebs. Mildew. Dripping water, falling and running across the ground. A door she'd checked before. She opened it again, shining the flashlight on canning jars of green and yellow beans. She directed the beam down. On the dirt floor was a footprint. A bare footprint. Small enough to be a woman's.
She stepped inside the cramped, smothering room and discovered something that hadn't been apparent from the doorway. The room appeared to be a rectangle about five feet deep. But once inside she saw that it was L-shaped, with the short length of the L turning to the left. At the end of that turn was a small padlocked door.
It was insanity to shoot a gun in such a tight space. She would never have graduated from the Academy if she'd done something so stupid during training.
Mary drew her gun, took aim, and then turned her face away as she squeezed the trigger.
She smelled burnt gunpowder. Her ears rang. When she looked back, the lock had shattered. She grabbed it, hot metal searing her fingers. Ignoring the pain, she jerked the lock loose. It dropped to the dirt floor with a soft thud. She lifted the metal hinge and shoved open the door.
A torture chamber.
A filthy mattress tossed across wooden slats. Handcuffs attached to a framework that made up the bed. She put a harid to her nose. The smell was bad, not like death, but more like an outhouse.
Something caught in her hair. She stepped back to see a shattered bulb dangling in front of her face. She moved the flashlight beam around to the back of the deep, narrow, suffocating space. There, lying on the ground like a coffin, was a refrigerator.
She bolted across the room, shoved open both doors, and shined her flashlight inside.
Visions of another time flooded her brain. Fiona. Dead. Murdered. Blood. Flies. And empty eyes. Those empty eyes…
Gillian was dead.
Her lips were blue, her skin, in contrast to the red satin gown, transparent. Red rose petals had been scattered-they clung to her white flesh.
The flashlight fell from her fingers as Mary dropped to her knees.
Too late. Too late.
She wasn't strong enough to lift Gillian from the tomb, so she leaned over, squeezed open her blue lips, and blew into her lungs.
What are you doing? Do you think you can wake the dead?
She blew another breath, then another, the panic she'd kept at bay until that point rising within her. She could feel the frightened wings beating against her heart, feel a helpless fear coming over her that threatened to shut off her mind completely.
It was a sensation she recalled from her youth.
Make it stop. Make it stop.
She blew another breath. And another.
Waking the dead.
A clatter behind her told her Anthony was there. His flashlight beam careened around the room. "I heard a gunshot. Oh, Christ," he said, spotting Gillian.
Now that Anthony had arrived, she broke down. "She's dead, Anthony!" she sobbed in disbelief. "She's dead!"
Together they lifted her from the refrigerator, the jagged edges of the freezer cutting into the sides of Gillian's neck. Blood beaded.
They put her on the floor, where Anthony placed two fingers against her carotid artery. "A pulse!" He turned to her. On his face was the most amazing mixture of incredulity and happiness. "She's breathing shallowly, but she's breathing!"
"I can't believe it." Mary fell to her knees beside him, an arm across his shoulders. "I can't believe she's still alive." Then she began to cry.
Sunlight hit Gillian full in the face, blinding her.
Was she dead? Was that the bright light they were always talking about?
A dark spot moved across the brightness. Her father? Grandmother?
"Gillian?"
She recognized Mary's voice.
"You're not dead, are you?" she asked, then realized nobody could hear her. She lifted a hand to her face. Something plastic. An oxygen mask.
"Here-" Someone removed the mask.
Gillian's eyes began to adjust to the brightness. The shadow that was Mary became more distinct until she could see her sister smiling at her. The smile was a smile from the past, from a time when they were young and the world was full of promise. She felt air move across her skin, and realized she was outside.
Birds were singing madly, the way they did after a rain.
Chapter 35
Gillian stood at the window of her apartment, watching for her sister. After being kept overnight at the hospital for observation, she'd spent the last twenty-four hours taking it easy and receiving visitors, including Holly, Ben, Wakefield, and Gavin. Nobody had wanted her to stay by herself, but she'd insisted upon it. The visits were nice, but highly emotional and draining. She needed time alone.
Then her mother, in true Blythe fashion, couldn't wait any longer to celebrate Gillian's return from the dead.
A car pulled up to the curb. Mary, bundled in a long wool coat, hat, gloves, and scarf, hurried across the yard, her body bent into the wind. Winter had finally arrived. Snow had blown in the night before, and the temperature had dropped to the teens.
"You'll need a hat," Mary told her, stepping inside, bringing the cold with her. Gillian pulled on a lime green stocking cap and dug a matching scarf from the closet. "I knit these last winter," she said. "Remember when we learned to knit? Mrs. Portman taught us."
"After school. I also remember we used to make some fantastic snowmen," Mary said, tying the scarf around Gillian's neck and giving the cap an extra tug.
"And snow women." Gillian emphasized the word women. They both laughed. You didn't have a feminist mother without snowmen of both sexes.
"We'll do that again, won't we?" Gillian searched Mary's face for affirmation and found it. "Play in the snow?" Suddenly she felt brittle and fragile and dangerously close to tears.
"Soon," Mary said. "Very soon." She gave her a gentle hug. "Come on."
In the car, Gillian stared through the windshield. "I was so out of it when I was there." She felt no need to explain there. At Mason's. Mary would know. Mary would understand. "I keep trying to remember exactly what happened, but I can't. I recall snatches of conversation, and snapshot images. I know some questions have no answers, but I keep asking myself, Why?"
"Loss can be a catalyst for many things," her sister said. "Unfortunately, Mason was unable to cope with the death of his sister."
"You probably think it's best if I just let it go, quit trying to remember, but I have an overpowering need to put those days together into some kind of perspective."
"That sense of unreality could be a protective mechanism. Abused children often have no memories of the abuse. Even adults have been known to subconsciously block out traumatic events."
He's still there, Gillian thought.
In my head.
For the rest of her life, she would be connected to Mason whether she wanted to be or not. It was out of her control.
He'd been buried in Poplar Grove Cemetery, next to his sister. The siblings would spend eternity together-or at least a few hundred years. Gillian had been told that both Josephine's and Mason's graves would be covered with cement to discourage any possible grave robbers. For some reason, people tended to dig up the graves of murderers. Sometimes such desecrations were committed by family members of victims who had been killed. Sometimes they were done by people who had an unhealthy curiosity about such crimes and were looking for souvenirs.
In the cellar room where Gillian had been kept, the crime scene team found the dehydrated eyeballs Mason had given her, plus an unearthed, mummified dog.