Page 36 of You'll Never Know
Nothing. Absolutelynothingexcept the breeze brushing soft over my cheeks along with the rolling chirp of crickets. My palms burn, and I realize I’m clenching my fingers so hard my fingernails are cutting into my skin. I’m coiled, ready for a fight, but there’s no oneout here. No cars in the driveway. No headlights or thugs waiting to attack. Only empty black night.
“Who’s there?” I shout. “Show yourself!”
I wait for a reply, but none comes. With a final sweep of the yard, I turn back toward the house—and stop.
It takes a second for me to understand what I’m looking at. It’s hard to see in the dim porch light, but it’s there—a dark yellow square taped to the door. A manila envelope. I rip it free and rush into the house, slamming the door behind me. And then I’m back in the kitchen, dumping the contents on the counter. My blood turns to ice when I see what’s inside. There’s another cellphone and—shit—more photos.
With trembling hands, I pick them up. The first photo shows what looks like a basement with dirty concrete walls. There’s a bar attached to the low ceiling. A woman hangs from it, her wrists bound above the bar, her knees buckled, her toes drifting over the floor. Her head is slack, her hair roping over her breasts in greasy strands—because she’s naked. Fully naked this time. There’s no mistaking the triangle of pubic hair between her legs or the birthmark on her abdomen.
A waterfall of panic races down my spine. It’s Avery.
I fight the urge to vomit as I drop the photo and turn to the next. It’s the same picture, but this time there’s a man standing next to her. He’s dressed the same as when I last saw him, clad from head to toe in black. In his hand is a knife. The tip rests against Avery’s throat. My gut boils. I don’t want to look at the last picture.I can’t.I know what I’ll see: the knife buried in Avery’s neck.
With dread swelling in my chest, I flip to the final photo.
But I don’t see the man slitting her throat. It’s a zoomed-in shot of him pressing his masked face next to hers. I can’t see much of Avery, can’t make out her features through the limp hair, but I can see the dark trails of dried blood weeping over her lips. And I can seehim, or rather his eyes—the same frost-blue eyes I first saw at the trailhead when he took her from me. The same eyes from the quarry.
Spots wheel through my vision like snowflakes. What color were Gunn’s eyes? Or Holston’s? I try to picture them. Gunn’s were brown. Definitely brown. I’m sure of it. Holston’s were … shit, what? Brown, too? They definitely weren’t blue like—
The phone rings, and I jolt, the pictures falling from my hands. I grab it and stare at the screen. It’s a video call from an unknown number. I hit accept and an image flickers to life as the call connects. When the image comes into focus, I press a fist to my mouth. The woman staring back at me is all bruised flesh and dried blood. Her right eye is buried in a swollen mound of blue and purple skin. A clear trail of fluid leaks from the corner toward an equally swollen upper lip. Her features are all out of proportion—bloated on the right side but familiar on the left.
“Grant,” Avery says in a voice so soft it’s little more than a whisper.
“What have they done to you?” I manage to choke out.
“They …” She swallows. “They won’t …” Her left eye rolls wildly in its socket and she blinks and shakes her head. When her chin tips toward her chest, I wonder if she’s been drugged.
“Avery!”
She doesn’t move.
“Avery, look at me!”
A gloved hand sinks into her hair and rips her gaze back toward the camera. She grimaces, and her good eye flutters open.
“Say it,” a man growls off screen. “Tell him.”
Avery swallows again and then speaks: “You have to … you have to solve them.”
“Solve what?” I ask, trying to comprehend what she means. “Baby, I don’t understand.”
“They said they’ll—they’ll kill me if you don’t.”
“Avery—please. I don’t know what you want me to solve.”
Her head tips forward again, but the hand in her hair jerks it right back into place. Her face buckles in pain. “The riddles.”
I clutch the phone tighter. “Whatriddles?”
Her lips twitch as she issues a soft sob. “I can’t hold on much longer.”
“What riddles, Avery?” I repeat. “I don’t know what that means.” My eyes are burning now. I’m blinking back tears. “Just tell me what I need to do. Please, god, just tell me!”
A gloved hand holding an index card appears, placed right in front of Avery’s face. The man’s voice cuts through the speaker like a knife.
“Read it. Say the words.”
And she does.
