The other path was less worn, with bits of stubborn grass still growing through the trampled earth. That one led to the entrance of the alley I’d just come from. An alley that made for easy access to bring in an incapacitated woman. Or leave with a dead body.
I walked to the shed, removing my service weapon from the holster, and I let my finger rest next to the trigger. The door swung open easily on well-oiled hinges, not making a sound. Glancing around, I saw how clean it was.
There were tools lined up orderly. Literally everything had a place. It was like a scene out of a magazine. Perfectly organized, with nearly every hand or power tool a person could want. I recognized some of them, but my dad hadn’t been into working with his hands, so he’d only had the basics. Even then, despite how little he used them, they still had some wear and tear. These on display were spotless.
“Why have so many tools on display that you never use, Morris?” I murmured. “Could it be another façade?” It would cut down on a lot of suspicions from the neighbors if they thought he was simply a hobby builder who spent a lot of time in his shed.
Something about the space seemed off. It took me several moments as I scanned the virtually spotless tools and workbench to figure it out. There was a large rolling workbench sitting in the middle of the floor. Everything else was tidy, hung perfectly positioned in their places on the walls and pegboard. But this huge workbench was just in the middle of the floor instead of the space against the wall that appeared to be designed just for it.
I eyed it, wondering why it bothered me so much that he didn’t have it pushed into its proper position. I looked down at the floor. There were tracks that had been made over time, leading to the proper location. How many times had Morris pushed the workbench into place, only to pull it back to the center of the floor?
Sliding my 9 MM back into the holster, I gave the workbench a test push, then frowned when it didn’t budge. Stepping back, I looked at the wheels and saw that the locks on two of them were set to a downward position. Using the toe of my shoe, I pressed down until they clicked and were fully released in an upward position instead. Then, I gave it another nudge.
The workbench rolled smoothly across the floor. As it moved, the corner of what appeared to be a hatch appeared. With my heart racing rapidly, I pushed harder until the heavy workbench was out of the way and the entire hatch was revealed.
It almost blended in with the floor. If I hadn’t been specifically looking for anything suspicious, I might have overlooked it. The hatch was a large square, painted the exact color of the cement floor, with a frame around it. In the center was a drain that could easily be explained away inside a shed. Only, why would someone put a frame around a drain unless they were trying to conceal the seams of a hatch?
Bending down, I looked for a handle but couldn’t find any way to grip the hatch to open it. Finally, I pressed down on thedrain, only to realize that it had been a cleverly concealed handle as it flipped up. Gripping firmly, I pulled and held my breath as the hatch door came up on silent hinges.
Pulling my phone out, I peered into the dark hole to see a ladder. Swallowing hard, I took a shaky breath and reminded myself that Morris wasn’t here and I was safe. But there was possibly a girl down in that pit of hell who wasn’t.
Gripping the bars firmly, I descended the metal ladder, my shoes making an echoing sound in the darkness with every connection against a new rung. “There had better be a light at the bottom. Oh my god, I hope there’s a light at the bottom.” A part of me wanted to run away and never look back, but then I remembered what my sister had gone through and knew I could never leave her behind. Not Mariposa, and not Melanie.
Finally, my feet touched the ground, and I breathed a sigh of relief when my hands were free, and I was able to pull my phone out and use the flashlight feature again. I swept the light over the wall in front of me slowly, then turned in a circle. The space at the bottom of the stairs was small, hardly more than four feet by four feet. It could easily have been explained as a storm shelter during tornado season. It was just large enough for a couple of people to sit close together as they waited out a storm.
I didn’t find a light switch in the small space, but I did see a door.
Chapter 30
Parker
Just like the hatch disguised as a drain, the door was cleverly hidden. The walls were made of cinder block and painted the same industrial gray as the work shed floor. Except that one wall was onlypaintedto look like it was cinder blocks.
It was a good paint job, I had to admit. The shading was there. It must have taken him days to get it just right. The only problem was that the pre-painted shadows didn’t move when I swept the light from my phone over them.
I moved my phone left to right, sweeping over what I was certain was a door, searching for the hidden latch that would open it. I was more sure than ever that the missing woman was behind that door. He had gone through too much trouble disguising everything for it to not be the right place.
Looking at the floor, I could see scuff marks where shoes had moved through the dirt, but no obvious scrapes from a swinging door. I began sliding my hands over the edges, searching for hinges, but found nothing. It wasn’t until my fingers caught on something against one side that I put my light closer. I finallysaw what appeared to be a small, hidden handle, again, painted the same color as the wall.
I pressed until the small handle swung up. Pulling it to me did nothing, but pulling it to the side made the door slide into the wall. A fucking pocket door hidden inside a storm shelter, hidden inside a work shed. Motherfucker. The guy was clever.
As soon as the door slid open, the smell hit me, making me want to cover my nose and mouth. The scent of old blood had seeped into the floor and walls, becoming a part of it. No amount of scrubbing would ever make it clean. But it was worse than that, even. There were other smells, ones of bodily waste and something rotten.
It was too dark to make out everything clearly, but the beam of light had already landed on the wall in front of me and the girl chained to it.
Who I was certain had to be Melanie was hanging limply, her hair obscuring her face, but the clothes she wore matched the description Carly had given me. Turning almost frantically, I searched for a light switch. I knew Morris would want to be able to see his victims in full light. There was no way he’d be satisfied with working in the dark. A monster like him would want to see every reaction as he tortured his victim.
I couldn’t see a typical light switch, but I spotted a wire coming down from the floor above and followed it with my phone until the beam landed on an LED worklight hanging from a hook. I quickly walked over to it and pressed the switch. The light was so brilliant, I had to shield my eyes as they adjusted to the sudden brightness.
I was about to slip my phone back into my pocket when I saw the pictures hanging on the walls. Every wall except the one Melanie was hanging on was covered with pictures of a beautiful woman with light brown hair and blue eyes. She was pretty as she smiled at the camera. Several of the photos were candid,with the woman smiling or laughing. Some of the photos looked like school portraits taken when she was in high school. There were also several drawings and paintings. Someone had been obsessed with the girl. Morris had been obsessed.
There wasn’t much in the room besides a small table that held various tools that, unlike the ones in the shed above us, looked like they had been used quite often. There was a long rope coiled on a shelf underneath that he used to tie up the women he took. I would bet it was a rope that could easily be purchased at any hardware store.
In the corner was a sink with a deep basin. There was a sprayer instead of the typical faucet attached to a long hose. Under the sink, sitting on a shelf, were bottles of shampoo and conditioner, along with a hairbrush. I was willing to bet that the hairbrush was full of DNA from every victim he’d murdered. In the center of the floor was a drain.
I used my phone to take a video of the room, turning in a circle slowly, not wanting to waste any more precious time, but wanting to document the space exactly as I had found it in hopes that it would help send him to prison where he belonged.
I finally shoved my phone back into my pocket and rushed over to the woman hanging from the chains.
