Page 65 of Bad Blood
If any of the rest of us had asked the question, Agent Sterling might not have responded, but given their history, she was incapable of ignoring Dean.
“A staircase.”
The staircase led to a basement.Not a basement, I corrected myself when it had been deemed safe enough for us to enter.A cell.
The walls were thick. Soundproof. There were shackles on the wall. There was a decomposed body in the shackles.
A second body lay on the floor.
The room smelled of decay and death—but it didn’t smellrecent.
“Based on the level of decomposition and taking into account the temperature and humidity levels in this room…” Sloane paused as she ran the numbers in her head. “I’d guess our victims have been dead between nine and eleven years.”
Ten years ago, my mother and I had left Gaither.
Ten years ago, I’d seen a body at the bottom of the stairs.
“Who are they?” I asked the question that everyone was thinking. Who had Holland Darby chained up under his chapel? Whose bodies had been left here to rot and fade away?
“Victim number one is male.” Sloane stepped closer to the body still shackled to the wall. The flesh was nearly nonexistent.
Bones and decay and rot. My stomach threatened to empty itself. Dean laid a hand on the back of my neck. I leaned in to his touch and forced my attention back to Sloane.
“The depth and thickness of the pelvic bone,” Sloane murmured. “The narrow pelvic cavity…definitely male. Facial bones suggest Caucasian. I’d put height at around five foot eleven. Not a juvenile, and no signs of advanced age.” Sloane studied the body for another thirty or forty seconds in silence. “He was shackled postmortem,” she added. “Not before.”
You built this room for something. For someone. I took in the size of the room.You chained this man’s body, even after death.
“What about the other victim?” Agent Sterling asked. I knew her well enough to know that she’d already developed her own theories and interpretation of the scene before us, but she wouldn’t contaminate a second opinion by letting us see even a hint of what that interpretation was.
“Female,” Sloane answered. “I’d put her age somewhere between eighteen and thirty-five. No visible sign of cause of death.”
“And the male?” Agent Starmans asked. “How did he die?”
“Blunt force trauma.” Sloane turned to Agent Sterling. “I need to go upstairs now,” she said. “I need to be not here.”
Sloane had seen plenty of bodies, plenty of crime scenes, but since Aaron’s death, victims hadn’t just beennumbersto her. Slipping an arm around her, I led her up the stairs. On the way, we passed Lia, who stood with her back up against Michael’s body.
As Sloane and I made it up into the fresh air, I heard Lia’s ragged whisper. “He put them in a hole.”
YOU
Without order, there is chaos. Without order, there is pain.
That’s Lorelai’s chorus, not yours. Youarechaos. Youareorder.
Five stands before you, sharpening his blade. It’s just you and him. Two had his turn yesterday, a dozen burns on your chest and thighs. And still, you wouldn’t tell them what they wanted to hear. You wouldn’t tell them to eliminate the problem, to take whatever steps necessary to rid Gaither of the FBI.
Not yet.
Five steps forward, blade and eyes gleaming. Closer. Closer. The flat of the blade presses against the side of your face.
Without order, there is chaos. Without order, there is pain.
You smile.
They left you all day in this room, thinking that you were Lorelai. They left you, roaming free in a room with your own shackles, under the belief that the threat of retribution—to you, to Laurel—would keep you in line.
They were wrong.
