If she reached it, he was lost.

Annie ran.

She’d been so close to safety, or so she’d thought, and then the cop had appeared. She’d recognized him at once: the shape and size of him, but most of all the way that he limped. She’d seen him twice before. The first time was just after the handover, when she’d been brought to the basement. She’d fought against them as they carried her from the truck, and the cloth across her eyes had slipped a little. The cop had been there, supervising the operation, following on behind as they brought her to her cell. The second was on one of the occasions when they permitted her to shower, although they always kept her hands and feet manacled. She had glanced to her right as she left her basement cell, and caught a brief glimpse of the man with the gray eyes at the top of the stairs before the door closed. On neither occasion had he been in uniform, otherwise she would have known better than to let the old geezers call the cops.

The couple had kept her well fed. That, at least, was something. She had strength, perhaps more than she’d had in many years. There was no alcohol in her system, and she was clean of drugs. Her own speed surprised her.

Annie saw the truck at the same time that Morland did. If she could get to the highway in time, she could stop it and beg for a ride to another town. There was a chance that the cop might come after them, but any truck driver in his right mind would be able to see her bare, bloodied feet and her tattered nightgown, and know that something terrible had befallen her. If that wasn’t enough to convince him, she was sure that her story would do the rest. He – or she, if she was lucky enough to be picked up by a woman – could take her to the cops in Bangor, or to the nearest state police troop house. The truck driver could haul her to the FBI in Washington DC for all Annie cared. She just wanted to get away from this godforsaken town.

The ground began to slope upward as she neared the road. She stumbled slightly as her feet hit a rock, and there was a terrible, sharp pain. She’d broken the big toe on her right foot. She was sure of it. It slowed her down, but it didn’t stop her. The truck was still some distance away, but she was going to reach the highway long before it passed her spot. She was prepared to stand in the middle of the road and risk being hit if that was what it took to stop it. She’d rather die quickly under its wheels than be taken back to that basement.

Something pushed her from behind and she fell to the ground. An instant later she heard the shot, and there was a pressure in her chest, followed by a burning that set her lungs on fire. She lay on her side and tried to speak, but only blood flowed from between her lips. The truck passed barely an arm’s length from where she lay, the driver oblivious to her dying. She stretched her fingers towards it, and felt the breeze of its passing. The burning inside her was no longer fiery but cold. Her hands and feet were growing numb, the ice spreading inward to the core of her being, freezing her limbs and turning her blood to crystals.

Footsteps approached, and then two men were looking down on her. One was the limping cop, the other the old man who had given her his coat. He was holding a hunting rife in his arms. She could see the rest of his friends following behind. She smiled.

I got away. I escaped. This wasn’t the ending that you wanted.

I beat you, you fuckers.

I—

Ben Pearson watched the life depart the girl, her body deflating as its final breath left it. He shook his head in sorrow.

‘And she was a good one too,’ he said. ‘She was scrawny, but they were feeding her up. If we were lucky, we could have got ten years or more out of her.’

Chief Morland walked to the road. There were no more vehicles coming their way. There was no chance that they would be seen. But what a mess, what a godawful mess. Somebody would answer for it.

He rejoined the others. Thomas Souleby was closest in height to himself. These things mattered when you were dealing with a body.

‘Thomas,’ he said, ‘you take her left leg. I’ll take the right. Let’s get this all cleaned up.’

And together the two men dragged the remains of Annie Broyer, lost daughter of the man named Jude, back to the store.

5

They saw the cars pull into their drive and knew that they were in trouble.

Chief Morland was leading, driving his unmarked Crown Vic. The dash light wasn’t flashing, though. The chief wasn’t advertising his presence.

The chief’s car was followed by Thomas Souleby’s Prius. A lot of folk in Prosperous drove a Prius or some other similarly eco-conscious car. Big SUVs were frowned upon. It was to do with the ethos of the town, and the importance of maintaining a sustainable environment in which to raise generations of children. Everybody knew the rules, unofficial or otherwise, and they were rarely broken.

As the cars pulled up outside the house, Erin gripped her husband’s hand. Harry Dixon was not a tall man, nor a particularly handsome one. He was overweight, his hair was receding and he snored like a drill when he slept on his back, but he was her man, and a good one, too. Sometimes she wished that they had been blessed with children, but it was not to be. They had waited too late after marriage, she often thought, and by the time it became clear that the actions of nature alone would not enable her to conceive, they had settled into a routine in which each was enough for the other. Oh, they might always have wished for more, but there was a lot to be said for ‘enough’.

But these were troubled times, and the idyllic middle age they had imagined for themselves was under threat. Until 2011, Harry’s construction company had weathered the worst of the recession by cutting back on its full-time employees and paring quotes to the bone, but 2011 had seen the company’s virtual collapse. It was said that the state had lost 4800 jobs in March of that year alone, which contributed to making Maine the nation’s leader in lost jobs. They’d both read about the arguments between the Maine Department of Labor and the Maine Center for Economic Policy, the latter basing its figures on higher Bureau of Labor Statistics job loss figures that the former refuted. As far as the Dixons were concerned, that was just the state’s Department of Labor trying to sweep the mess under the carpet. It was like telling a man that his feet are dry when he can feel the water lapping at his chin.

Now Harry’s company was little more than a one-man operation, with Harry quoting for small jobs that he could complete with cheap labor, and bringing in skilled contractors by the hour as he needed them. They could still pay their mortgage, just about, but they’d cut back on a lot of luxuries, and they did more and more of their buying outside Prosperous. Erin’s halfsister Dianne and her surgeon husband had helped them out with a small lump sum. They were both hospital consultants, and were doing okay. They could afford to lend a hand, but it had hurt the couple’s pride to approach them for a loan – a loan, what was more, that was unlikely to be discharged anytime soon.

They had also tapped the town’s discretionary fund, which was used to support townsfolk who found themselves in temporary financial trouble. Ben Pearson, who was regarded as one of the board’s more approachable members, had taken care of the details, and the money – just over $2000 – had helped the Dixons out a little, but Ben had made it clear that it would have to be paid back, in cash or in kind. If it wasn’t, then the board would start delving more deeply into their situation, and if the board stared snooping it might well find out about Dianne. That was why the Dixons had agreed, however reluctantly, to keep the girl. It would serve as repayment of the loan, and keep their relationship with Dianne a secret.