Tate ran around the back of the cottage, broke in the window in one of the bedrooms, which was already filling with dense smoke.
No sign of the girl.
He ran to the other bedroom-the cottage had only two-and saw that she wasn’t there either. The flames were already burning through the bedroom door, which, with a sudden burst, exploded inward. In the light from the fire Tate could see that this wasn’t a bedroom but an office. There were stacks of newspaper clippings, magazines, books and folders. Maps, charts and diagrams.
Sirens sounded in the distance.
Bett came up behind him. There was a burn on her arm but she was otherwise okay. “Tate, I can’t find her!” she screamed.
“I don’t think she’s here. She’s not in either of these rooms and there’s no basement.”
“Where is she?”
“The answer’s in there,” he shouted. “He only set the trap so nobody could find any clues to where he’s got her.”
He picked up several bricks and shattered the glass-and-wooden grid in the window. “Oh, brother,” he muttered. And climbed inside, feeling the unnerving pain as a shard of glass sliced through his palm.
The heat inside was astonishing, smoke and embers and flecks of burning paper swirling around him, and he realized that the flames weren’t the worst problem-the heated air and lack of oxygen were going to knock him out in minutes.
He raced to the desk and grabbed all the papers and notebooks he could, ran to the window and flung them outside, crying to Bett, “Get it all away from the house.” He went back for more. He got two more armfuls before the heat grew too much. He dove out the window and rolled to the ground heavily as the ceiling collapsed and a swell of flame puffed out the window.
He lay, exhausted, gasping, on the ground. Dizzy and hurt. Wondering why on earth Bett was doing a funny little dance around his arm. Then he understood. The file folder he held had been burning and she was stamping out the flames.
The sirens were getting closer.
“Great,” he muttered. “Now they’re gonna add arson to our rap sheets.”
Bett helped him up and they gathered all the notebooks and files he’d flung into the backyard. They ran to the car. Tate started it and skidded out of the drive, passing the first of the fluorescent green fire trucks that were speeding toward the house.
They turned north and drove for ten minutes until Tate figured there was no chance of being spotted. He parked near a quarry in Manassas. A grim, eerie place that looked like it should have been a serial killer’s stalking ground though to Tate’s knowledge there’d never been any crime committed here worse than pot smoking and drinking beer and sloe gin from open containers.
Tate and Bett pored over the singed files and papers, looking for some due as to where Matthews might have taken Megan.
The files were mostly articles, psychiatric diagnostic reports, medical evaluations. He also found surveillance photos of Megan. Dozens of them. And of Tate’s house and Bett’s. Matthews had been planning this for months; some of the pictures had been taken during the winter. In one notebook Megan’s daily routine was described in obsessive detail.
More patient notes.
More articles.
More diaries. With shaking hands Tate and Bett read through them all but there was no clue as to any other buildings, apartments or houses where he might have taken the girl.
“There’s nothing,” Bell barked in frustration. “We’ve looked at everything.” Tears on her face.
Tate gazed at the mess of scorched papers and files on their laps. His eye fell on a patient diagnostic report. Then another. He flipped through them quickly. Then read the name and address of the hospital where the patients had been evaluated.
He snatched up his cell phone and, eyes on one of the reports, made a call to directory assistance for Calvert, Virginia. He asked for the number for the Blue Ridge Mental Health Facility.
“Please be out of order,” he whispered.
“Why on earth?” Bell asked.
“Please.
“We’re sorry,” the electronic voice reported, “there is no listing for that name. Do you have another request?”
He clicked the phone off. “That’s where she is. An old mental hospital in the Shenandoahs.” He tapped the reports. “Matthews was a shrink. I’d guess he was on the staff there a few years ago. It’s probably closed and that’s where he’s taken her.”
“You sure?”
“No. But it’s all we’ve got.”
“Go, Tate.”
He pulled onto the highway and steered toward the interstate. Thinking with frustration that they’d have to drive the entire way right on the speed limit. They could hardly afford to be stopped now.
Glass knife in front of her, Megan walked through the hallways.
There was silence, then the shuffling of footsteps. More silence.
I hate the quiet worse than his footsteps.
I’m with you there, Crazy Megan shares.
Then the steps again but from a different place, as if the intruder were a ghost materializing at will.
Five minutes passed. Another noise nearby, behind her. A sharp inhalation of breath. Megan gasped and turned quickly Aaron Matthews was twenty feet away. His eyes widened in surprise. She stumbled backward and fell over a table, went down hard. Grunted in pain as the edge of the table dug into her kidney
Despite the pain, though, she leapt to her feet, lifting the knife threateningly. She assumed he’d charge at her But he didn’t. He merely frowned and said, “Oh, my God, Megan. are you all right?”
Crouching, eyes fiery, breath hard, gripping the cloth handle of her wicked knife. Staring at his dark eyes, his large shoulders and long arms. Why wasn’t he coming at her?
She glanced behind her
“Wait,” he said with a heart-tugging plea in his voice. “Please, don’t run, Please.”
She hesitated.
He sighed. “Oh, I know you’re upset, Megan, honey. I know you’re scared… You hate me and you have every right to. But please. Just listen to me.” He held his hands up. “I don’t have a knife or gun or anything. Please, will you listen?”
His eyes were so sincere, radiating sympathy, and his voice so imploring…
“Please.”
Megan kept her tight grip on the knife. But she straightened up. “Go ahead,” she whispered. “I’m listening.”
“Good,” he said. And offered her a smile.
27
“I didn’t know you’d gotten out of your room,” Aaron Matthews said.
“Cell,” she corrected bluntly.
“Cell,” he conceded, watching her eyes carefully. “But I should’ve guessed.” He laughed. “You’re the independent sort. Nobody was going to lock you away. It’s one of the things I love about you.”
Matthews noted how she fixed her gaze on his eyes. How her pale lashes stuttered when he’d said the word “love.”
How had she done it? he wondered. He’d been over the cell so carefully-and the lock was still on the door. Had she gotten through the ceiling? The wall? And she was wearing some of his clothes. So she’d found his living area. What else did she know?
However it had happened, Matthews was surprised. It showed more mettle than he’d expected from the spoiled little whiner.
“Are you all right? Just tell me that.” He looked her up and down.
No answer.
He continued, “I’m sorry about your clothes. When you passed out from the medicine I gave you… well, you had an accident. I’m sorry. I didn’t think it would happen. I’m washing your clothes in the laundry room here. They’re drying now. They should be reads’ soon. I didn’t touch you. I swear.”
He glanced at the knife in her hand. A long shard. He thought at first that there was something about the glass itself that was particularly unnerving, the sharp, green edge of the triangle. But then he decided that, no, it was her face that scared him. She was prepared-no, eager-to use the weapon. And so much in control… she’d be a hard one to crack. Harder than in Hanson’s office, where her defenses were down and her self-esteem bubbling near empty.