“Think,” Brenda said.
The flashing lights. Slicing everyone in half. Lighting up my torso, hiding my face, doing the same for the men inside, a line of them, Maureen in the center, turning. Brenda’s scream. And then the door slammed closed, but not before the man on the end, the thick-waisted one, dipped his face down, never bringing it into sight, but he didn’t need to because I knew how he moved from all the times I’d sat behind him in church.
Tears welled in my eyes. “Jeez.”
She nodded. “I was positive you saw him clear as I did. That’s why I was so bothered when he came by the stage last night. Did you see how upset Maureen was?” She tossed another glance at the front door. Sheriff Nillson had gone inside. “Let’s scram.”
“Who else was there?” I asked as we hurried around the corner, out of sight of Maureen’s. I felt exposed despite the shielding green arms of the neighborhood trees.
She opened her hands, palms up. “Nillson’s face was the only one I saw. His and Maureen’s when she turned. I think it was Nillson’s house they were all in, too. I biked by but couldn’t be sure. He lives on Twenty-Third, so if it wasn’t his place, it was close.”
The county sheriff hosting a BJ party in his basement. It made my scalp prickle. “What was she doing there?”
Brenda rubbed the back of her neck. “I don’t know, Heather, I honestly don’t. She never told me a thing about it. You know Maureen. She likes attention, and she likes money. Maybe she was getting both.”
My stomach flipped. The same had occurred to me, but there was something horrible about hearing it spoken out loud. Now that we were talking about it, we were going totalkabout it. “But they were grown men, weren’t they? Wasn’t what they were doing illegal?”
“I think so,” Brenda said, glancing over her shoulder in the direction of Maureen’s. “I was hoping they wouldn’t send out Nillson. What if he did something to Maureen, something to keep her quiet, and that’s why she’s not home?”
I shook my head. Sheriff Nillson worked with my dad. He’d visited our house. He was anofficer of the law.“Whatever was happening down there was gross, for sure, but I don’t think he’d kidnap Maureen over it, especially since she was keeping their secret. If she didn’t tell us, she didn’t tell anyone. Besides, what would he do with her?”
“Tie her up somewhere,” Brenda said. “Because he couldn’t know that shewaskeeping his secret.”
I gripped her arm. “Are you serious?”
She shrugged me off. “No. I don’t know. I’m just worried.”
“Did Maureen say anything to you on the drive over to the quarries last night?”
Brenda’s eyes grew wide. “I thought she rode with you.”
Brenda left to get ready for her shift at the nursing home. I was too antsy to sit in my house, so I took a bike ride. I didn’t have a destination at first. I pedaled aimlessly, searching for Maureen and for copper-colored ID bracelets in equal measure. The sun beat down on my nose and cheeks, crisping them, not caring that I was already hurting.
Eventually, I found myself drawn to Twenty-Third Street. Most people were at work or drinking iced tea in the shade of their porches, but on my way to the haunted end of Pantown, I passed Mr.Pitt mowing his lawn, his ball cap shading his face. He waved, and the sun glinted off something shiny on his wrist. Acid flooded my stomach.
When he dropped his arm, I saw it was just a wristwatch.
I took a quick right down Twenty-Third. This was the area of Pantown I wasn’t as familiar with, but I guessed the basement I’d seen Maureen in could be in one of five houses. All five looked like their owners were gone. They also presented as regular Pantown bungalows, not dens of depravity where teenage girls were lured in for a BJ train.
“Watch where you’re going!”
I’d almost biked right into someone on the sidewalk. He glared at me and then turned away. I’d caught only a glimpse of him—about Ricky’s age, sunken, shifting eyes, no mustache but a bristly chin curtain of a beard, like a mean Abe Lincoln—but knew I’d seen him somewhere. A customer at Zayre?
“Sorry!” I called to his back.
He loped away, swearing under his breath.
I biked home.
BETH
Beth woke to noises overhead. It sounded like creaking steps and then a male voice and a female one, but she’d lost track of time, of sound, of care. Her clothes were stiff and rank, her hair greasy, her teeth coated in thick fur. She was going to be here forever. There was no escape. Nothing mattered.
She smacked her forehead, ground her palm into her skull, trying to dislodge that dangerous thought. She couldn’t let that track wear a groove. She needed to keep herself together, to imagine escaping, toseea life after this. How could she be a teacher if she didn’t fight? She would break free of this prison. She had things to do with her life.
She mattered.
Plus, there was hope.
