CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

The car screamed around the final bend, and Starlit Meadow Farm rose from the shadows like a tumor. Ella could feel the tires skidding, fighting for purchase on the washboard ruts. But there wasn"t time for caution, for the pussyfooting dance of protocol. Not with a life hanging in the balance, sputtering out its final minutes while they burned rubber.

Up ahead, a gate reared out of the darkness. Chained and padlocked, a paltry ‘keep out' to thwart off the sane and sensible.

Too bad Ella had torn up her membership card to that club about fifty dead bodies ago.

She was long past the point of half measures. She didn"t even tap the brakes, just gritted her teeth and bore down on the accelerator.

‘Jesus, Ell, you're going to…' Luca said as she gripped the handle.

‘Buckle up,' said Ella. The gate rushed to meet them as rotted boards and rusted wire filled the windshield. Luca sucked in a sharp breath, hands flying up to brace for impact. But Ella welded herself to the seat and held steady.

The car hit the gate like a battering ram, timbers splintering, metal shrieking. Fragments peppered the glass, the hood, clattered across the roof like a hailstorm in hell. But they were through, the sad remains of the gate crumpled beneath the wheels like so much kindling.

Luca wiped sweat off his head. ‘We're alive.'

Ella just grunted, too focused on the task at hand to trade quips. The track curved sharply and she hauled the wheel around, nearly sending them fishtailing into the bone-dry ditch. Ahead, the farm proper swam out of the murk. The pictures on Seth"s wall had shown wide-open fields, a spread of healthy crops and rolling pastures.

But this was a graveyard.

Fields lay fallow. Rusted equipment jutted from the overgrowth like the bones of long-dead beasts. And somewhere up ahead, the farmhouse, with chipped paint that was peeling like bad sunburn. Beside it were a few outbuildings in matching states of decay, and off to the left, a silo stabbed into the sky like a concrete middle finger to God and creation.

But no sign of their drowning chamber.

Ella"s mind whirred like an overheating engine, possibilities and permutations clicking through at breakneck speed. No way would Baxter build his murder palace out in the open, exposed to the eyes of any passing stranger. He was crazy, not stupid. He"d want privacy, seclusion.

‘The barn,' Luca barked. ‘Maybe it"s in there.'

Ella was already shaking her head. ‘No, look at the state of it. It's barely standing up. He"d want something sturdier, more permanent.'

‘Silo? That's the only other place.'

It had to be.

Ella said, ‘It"s got walls, a roof. And how much you wanna bet it goes deep? Real deep.'

She whipped the steering wheel, sending them careening toward the silo"s hunched bulk. The tires caught, skidded, plowed furrows in the earth before finding purchase again. Ella didn"t let up, didn"t dare breathe. Just aimed the Detroit steel at the broad side of Baxter"s rural castle and prayed they weren"t too late.

The car juddered to a stop mere feet from the silo wall, and they were moving before the engine had time to die. Boots hit dirt, guns swept up, two sides of the same coin minted in blood and gunpowder.

Ella reached the silo first, Luca a half-step behind. She pressed her back to the corrugated steel, held up three fingers, two, one...

Then whipped around, bringing her Glock to bear on the darkness gaping at the threshold.

‘FBI!' Her voice bounced back. ‘Baxter, hands up!'

Nothing. Just the high, tinkling echo of her own bravado and Luca's movements beside her.

She took a step forward, then another. Let the shadows swallow her whole. The smell hit her like a wave; mold and rat droppings and motor oil and septic grime. The bone-deep reek of a killing floor.

But worse than that, cutting through the miasma like a scalpel – chlorine.

The astringent bite of a swimming pool gone rancid, chemicals left too long to curdle and congeal. The same unholy perfume that clung to their waterlogged stiffs. There was no mistaking that bouquet of death.

Ella"s finger kissed the trigger. She and Luca fanned out to cover all angles, only there wasn't much to cover. Just a raw concrete chamber, maybe twenty feet across. Pipes angled up the curving walls in a mad tangle of corroded metal and bursting seams. Puddles spread across the floor, like the whole room was slowly dissolving, melting down to its rotten core. There was a bench of work tools – Baxter's murder kit, Ella reasoned.

But there in the center – a sight that punched the wind from Ella"s lungs.

A silo within the silo. A giant cylindrical vat, its metal skin pockmarked with rust and algal blooms. It rose from the floor like a pagan monolith, gears clanked in its depths, the grind of teeth on bone. Water slopped over the lip in fetid waves, the sour odor of a thousand drowned and bloated dreams.

‘Ell.' Luca caught her sleeve, dragged her gaze to the base of the machine. ‘Look.'

Water. Black and glassy, lapping gently at the lip of the pit.

And bobbing there like a child"s toy was a figure.

A man, tethered to some invisible point below the surface. Floating face-up, eyes fixed and staring at the distant ceiling.

She must have made a noise, some bitten-off curse or muffled prayer, because the man's head suddenly snapped towards them. His eyes were wide, rolling, more white than iris. He thrashed against his bonds, churning the water, wordless cries drowned to nothing by the depths.

Ella was moving before her brain caught up, hammering towards the edge with Luca hot on her heels. She skidded to a stop at the lip, fell to her knees and lunged for the man's flailing arm.

‘Help me!' he gargled. Up close, Ella saw the water was at his neck, his mouth, his nose.

‘You're safe,' Ella shouted. ‘Grab my hand.'

The man reached upward, but the distance was too great. Ella couldn't reach him.

‘Hawkins!' She threw the name over one shoulder, half-command and half-plea. ‘Need some help here!'

He was there before she"d finished the sentence, already shrugging out of his jacket and kicking off his shoes. ‘Move.'

Then he was diving past her in a blur of coiled grace. The water welcomed him like a jealous lover, swallowing him down with hardly a ripple.

Ella held her breath, counting off the seconds. How long could he stay under? How deep did this thing go? What machinery was under the surface that could drag Luca down?

But then Luca was back, bursting through the surface in a sheet of silver. ‘Concrete,' he gasped. ‘His feet. He's locked down.'

As if summoned, Ella"s gaze skittered across the room. Landed on the workbench. She lunged, snatching up anything that looked like it could chew through steel or bone. A hacksaw, heavy-duty pliers, even a wicked-looking hunting knife. She settled on the hacksaw.

‘Hawkins! Catch!'

She hurled the saw, watched it arc and spin. Luca's hand shot out ad snagged the handle in midair like a barehand catch in the bottom of the ninth then submerged again.

She dug through the rest of the tools, angling for anything she could use. A coil of wire, a crowbar. Bolt cutters, rusted but intact. She snatched them up. No time for subtlety or plans. Ella kicked off her boots, drew in a breath and dropped into the vat.

Icy water engulfed her. Needles stabbing every inch of skin. She gasped, choked, forced her leaden limbs to obey and recalled her old swimming days. Down here, she felt like she'd condemned herself to some kind of watery underworld. There was a feeling of being somewhere other than the plane of reality she was familiar with. She had to imagine that this was how condemned men felt on their way to the gallows.

The victim – whoever he was – threw his head back and clawed for air. Ella"s feet couldn"t touch the floor in here, so this man was only a few minutes away from sleeping with the fishes given the oncoming drip from above. So she took in a lungful of air, submerged herself, and followed the path down the victim"s left leg.

And there it was. A concrete block the size of a cinderblock, strapped to his ankles with what Ella concluded were plastic zip ties. A makeshift anchor, a one-way ticket to a watery grave. Through her hazy vision, she saw a Luca-shaped blur beside her hacking away at the man's ankles.

But one freed leg wouldn't be enough. These concrete blocks could weigh a ton, and hoisting a body out of water with one attached to a foot would be near impossible.

Ella"s lungs burned like she"d sucked down a carton of Camels in one go. Every muscle screamed, lactic acid flooding her limbs as she sawed and hacked at the bonds. She gave it everything she could, but then needed to surface for air. She and Luca rose up in tandem, gulped down air then submerged again.

One more time.

And again.

Ella lost count of the surface-dives, the frantic gasps and muttered prayers. Time blurred, melted, lost all meaning in the face of their singular purpose. Save this poor bastard. Stick it to Baxter, one severed restraint at a time.

Then, with a muted snap, Ella's tie gave way. A second later, his other leg snapped free.

A shout of triumph burst from Ella"s lungs – or tried to, swallowed by the fetid water. She grabbed hold of their victim, felt Luca do the same on the other side. Together they kicked for the surface, thighs and calves burning with the effort.

They broke the surface in a tangle of limbs and sputtering coughs. The man flailed between them, choking on stale air and staler water. But alive, praise all the angels in heaven. Alive and coughing, chest heaving as he sucked down that sweet oxygen. Together they hauled him to the edge, rolling him onto the dank concrete like a landed fish.

‘Breathe,' Luca said as he grabbed the man's wrist. ‘We got you. It's over.'

The guy blinked slowly, like a drunk waking up after a three-day bender. He worked his jaw, coughed up another gout of rancid water.

‘Wh-Who…?'

‘Friends,' Luca said firmly. ‘The kind with badges and guns. You"re safe now.'

Ella tuned out the reassurances, the painful post-rescue patter. Her focus had narrowed to a laser, a tunnel with only one exit.

Somewhere out there, Seth Baxter was still breathing free air.

And Ella aimed to fix that, pronto.

The man was here. Close enough to fog a mirror if the slimy little cockroach still breathed. This was his sanctum sanctorum, the black altar where he worshipped the gods of his own derangement. No way would he abandon it, not while there was still dirty work to be done.

‘Stay with him. Get him stable, call medics.'

Luca opened his mouth, but Ella was already stumbling for the door.

‘Good luck,' he said. ‘Find him.'

‘Trust me.'

Time to end this.