Chapter 27

Tuesday, March 16

6:00 p.m.

No answer from Katherine Garrison.

Whatever Michelle Cross had planned to do by stealing her son's and Troy's baby teeth had died with her.

Leigh hauled the heavy garage door overhead, assaulted by dust, mold, and must. The blisters along her shins threatened to burst with the effort. She'd had to wait until Lebanon PD had finished processing the scene of Chris Ellingson's home. No telling how far the news of the chief's banishment had spread, but she'd managed to sweet-talk her way past the pair of officers assigned scene security for the night with coffees and her credentials. For now.

She compressed the flashlight's power button and stepped inside. Her heels scraped a piece of cement free and sent it into the nearest wall. Not much had changed. A few boxes moved to the side, that bike she'd noticed earlier now angled toward the exit. It'd take days to go through it all. "So what did they want when they broke in?"

Because as much as she believed the unsub had come here to learn everything he could about his victim, there were easier ways to go about gathering information than rummaging through boxes that hadn't seen the light of day in decades. In fact, most of these seemed to belong to Chris Ellingson's mother, whom Leigh had confirmed had passed three months ago.

Leigh bit down on the end of her flashlight, trying to keep it steady and her hands free as she scanned the too-small space for something easily accessible. Most of the boxes seemed to be packed into the far-right corner, leaving space along the left. "Now why wouldn't you stack them against the back wall? What did you need to get to?"

Dragging the closest box from the row, she discarded the collection of nightgowns at the edge of the cement. Next, a stack of puzzles that'd never been opened. Halloween decorations, broken pieces of a Christmas tree. Sweat beaded beneath her bra and at the back of her neck the faster she worked, feeding into the stoked fire telling her there was more here than what met the eye.

An oversized duffle bag fell off the top box as she hefted it down and hit the floor. Leigh didn't bother going through the box digging into the top of her thighs and set it down. The bag was new, from the looks of it. At least not covered in dust and webs.

Out of place in the middle of this mess.

Crouching, she located the main zipper, pulled it back, and positioned the flashlight on a nearby box.

"You weren't looking for anything at all, were you?" She bared the bright blue tarp stained with rivets of brown, crusted liquid. Blood. Chandler Reed would have to take a sample to confirm it, but her instincts said it belonged to Michelle Cross. One of the corners of the tarp had been torn. Caught in the victim's jacket. And packed underneath it, a worn leather book stuffed with inserts. She pried the book open. Not inserts. Newspaper articles. From Lebanon, Concord, and every other surrounding town. All dated within the months of her brother's and Derek Garrison's disappearances. Handwritten notes and highlights had turned it into some kind of journal. Chris Ellingson's journal. "You were leaving something behind. To frame Chris Ellingson."

Leigh gave the garage another once over. Ellingson hadn't known this was in here. He would've disposed of it the moment he'd discovered the unsub had been trying to set him up. "Which means he hasn't been in here for a while."

She left the bag where it'd fallen and called for the officers posted at the front of the house, stepping away from the evidence. "I need this photographed and logged right now. Then get the bag to the federal investigator at the station. Chandler Reed. He's been looking for it."

"We're assigned scene security, Agent Brody," the taller of the two said. "We can't leave our post without permission from our CO."

"Give me his number. I'll stay." She'd already made the decision to finish what she'd started. "This bag could tell us who the killer is. It's important it's processed as soon as possible."

"Yes, ma'am." The officers followed her orders in quick succession, leaving her alone to protect the house from trespassers, the murder-obsessed, and people too curious for their own damn good.

She checked each access point: windows, the front porch, and the back door to ensure nothing had been left unlocked and turned back into the garage. She'd gotten through maybe half of the boxes stacked to the ceiling. It could take the rest of the night if she didn't get her ass in gear.

One by one, she sifted through and categorized Ellingson's possessions. She'd had to do the same for her mother, for her brother. After everything that'd happened, she'd been the only one left, and it'd taken weeks to be able to simply touch that ballerina jewelry box on the closet shelf again, or one of Troy's action figures, without emotionally losing it.

Leigh dropped one of the heavier boxes and scrambled to keep the contents from escaping into the shadow of the back wall. Until she recognized what'd been inside. "You son of a bitch."

Toy soldiers.

Hundreds of them.

She easily picked out a soldier similar to the one Troy had received. Another that looked like the one recovered from Roxanne Jennings's body. Only this set was new. Never given the chance to be left with a body. Whole, instead of diced up for comparison in a lab test or wearing thin in the jacket of a grieving family member.

How many of these had been saved for potential victims?

How many more were out there, waiting to be found?

She sat back on her heels, brushing against the box beside her. The flashlight rolled off the top and crashed to the floor. Its beam shot into the corner of the garage.

And highlighted a bright gold padlock.

"What the hell?" Leigh shoved the soldiers aside, crawling toward the padlock on hands and knees. Brand new. The arm threaded through a metal cage attached to what looked like a wooden hatch in the floor, but there were at least ten more boxes sitting on top to conceal it. She tugged at the mechanism. It didn't budge, and she hadn't come across a key in her search. Maybe there was one in the house.

She dropped the padlock back into place.

A whimper reached through the seams between cement and wood.

Leigh stilled, her heart thudding hard behind her ears. Seconds ticked off, distorted and too long. "Hello?"

Silence.

She pressed her ear against the corner of the hatch peeking out from underneath the boxes. There. She heard it again. Something alive. "Hello? This is Agent Leigh Brody of the FBI. Is someone down there?"

"Help me." Two words—weak, barely audible—fractured the pressure building inside.

"Carter? I'm… I'm here! Stay right there. I'm here. Okay?" She shoved to her feet, going for the next box in the stack. She threw it behind her without consideration as to what was inside. It didn't matter. "Don't worry. I'm going to get you out."

In minutes, she'd cleared an entire hatch spanning two feet by two feet. Leigh dropped onto her knees and pulled at the padlock a second time. Splinters bit through the thin fabric of her slacks and stabbed at the blisters underneath, but the pain was nothing compared to the idea of Carter Boucher starving to death in a manmade hole beneath a garage. There wasn't a single photon of light escaping from the seams between the cement and the wood. A voice in the dark was all he had down there. "I just need to break this lock. I'll be right back."

"Don't leave me!" The sob escaping from beneath the wood pierced her resolve. A jolt struck the hatch from inside. "Please!"

She pressed both palms into the floor, pinching her eyes closed as tears burned. She wouldn't be any good to him unless she got through this door. "I have to. I'm sorry. I'll be right back. I promise."

"No!" The frail voice followed her out into the driveway. Seared into her memory the same way her screams filled the courtroom after hearing the guilty verdict at the end of her father's trial.

Leigh bolted for the house, phone in hand. She dialed straight into 911, gave them the address, and requested an ambulance. Help was on the way. She had to believe that. She had to believe Lebanon PD would come through for a little boy who needed help this time. Because that hope was all she had left.

She tugged on the screen porch door. Locked. This place was a crime scene. She'd even checked to make sure there weren't any windows or doors left open. Leigh rounded to the back of the house. Every second she wasn't trying to open that padlock was a second Carter sat terrified and alone and sobbing, and her heart couldn't handle it.

Overgrown vines snagged at her ankles as she ran for the basement window well. The rocks that'd been left at the bottom back then were gone now. Leigh tested the lock then plunged her elbow through the glass. She didn't have to worry about being overheard this time. Chris Ellingson wasn't going to walk her back to her parents' house with his fingers bruising her arm again. "Hang on."

Glass sliced through her palm as she hefted herself inside. Blood bloomed across overheated skin and dripped to the floor. Contaminating the scene. "Shit." Rushing to contain the wound, she grabbed for a stained rag left beside the furnace. She couldn't worry about what that meant for the investigation right now. She had to find something to break that lock. A shovel, a pair of bolt cutters—anything.

She charged up the stairs and started going through drawers all over again. Nothing. The hooks installed near the back door were empty. No signs of a set of car keys. Ellingson must've had them on him when he'd died. Which meant his personal belongings were with the body in Concord. "Why isn't there a set of pruning shears in this place?"

Her search upstairs was turning out to be useless and had already wasted too much time. There was no telling what state Carter Boucher was in. His small voice had sounded so weak, strained even. He could be on the verge of suffocation, starvation, or bleeding. She wouldn't know until she got in there, but rushing without letting logic take the wheel could make things worse. She'd trained for this, to work in high-stress situations while finding that center of calm. In and out of the field. Leigh forced her heart rate to come down. Ellingson would've needed tools to work on the furnace. There had to be something in there strong enough to break the padlock. "Okay. Tools."

Leigh jogged back down the basement steps where she'd noted a few tools left behind. She just hoped CSU hadn't taken them yet.

"Come back! I want to go home!" That same sob that'd burned itself into her brain echoed through the basement.

She stopped dead. She could hear him. "Carter? How… Where are you?"

"Please get me out of here," he cried. "I want to go home."

"I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere." She hadn't imagined it. His voice was somehow carrying from underneath the garage to the basement, but the unfinished space didn't have any air duct vents. In fact, the HVAC wasn't connected to this level at all. "Keep talking. Okay? I'm coming. What can you see?"

Wet sniffles grated along her nerves. "I can't see anything. It's too dark."

Leigh gripped the rag to the cut in her palm, pressing both hands to the nearest wall. She knew every inch of this basement from personal experience and studying the blueprints of the original home builder until she felt as if it was her own. There wasn't anything here but framing, insulation, and… the HVAC and water systems. "What about things around you? What can you feel with your hands?"

"I feel cold. There's dirt," he said. "Can I go home now?"

There. Through the furnace. An entire crime scene unit had been in this room, and they'd missed it. Leigh dropped the rag and grabbed for the wrench a few feet from the appliance. She didn't know how it was possible. She just knew she had to get in there. "I know where you are. I'm coming."

She twisted the bolts off the sides. The wrench slipped, stripping the already worn edges, and her knuckles hit the side of the HVAC system. She tried again, and the bolt turned with her. "Almost there. Okay? Tell me about the first thing you want to eat when you get out of here."

The first bolt dropped to the ground, then the second. The wound across her palm and every muscle in her arms screamed for relief, but she couldn't stop. Not yet. Her lungs threatened to pop as the last bolt refused to move.

Realization struck. He hadn't answered her last question.

"Carter?" She tried to see through the vents in the unit, met with nothing but blackness and the charred smell of oil. Shoving to her feet, Leigh gripped the wrench in both hands and swung as hard as she could. Twice. "Carter, talk to me."

Stillness.

No. This wasn't how it was going to end.

Chris Ellingson didn't get to win this time.

She swung the wrench a third time. The bolt head broke off, and the furnace casing fell with a loud protest of metal on cement. She dropped the wrench and crouched to fit into the open space.

A tunnel.

Ellingson hadn't been fixing his furnace. He'd been suring it up as a prison. Dirt packed under her fingernails and into the cut in her palm as she crawled on hands and knees through the shoulder-wide hole in the foundation. She'd left the flashlight in the garage, now surrounded by only the sound of her heavy breathing. "Carter? Can you hear me?"

She wasn't sure how far she'd made it. No way to tell if she was even going in the right direction, but she wouldn't stop until she got him out of here. The ground sloped upward slightly, adding pressure to the doubt cycloning through her head. There was barely enough room for her to fit through. Getting Carter out would take time he didn't have. Her elbow brushed against the side of the wall. One wrong move and this entire tunnel could buckle on top of her, severing her chances of escape, leaving Carter to die. "I'm coming. Just hang on."

The air was colder here. Closer to the surface. Rocks and tree roots bit into her knees to the point her slacks shredded down to raw skin. Reaching out to get a sense of what was ahead, her fingertips connected with something soft. Not dirt. Fabric. She gripped on to the source. A T-shirt?

"Carter? Say something. Please. Say something." She felt for his face. The soft skin of his eyelids tugged beneath her fingertips. Closed. Leigh set her hand on his chest. He was unconscious, but he was still alive. Barely.

Determined voices called through the darkness. "Agent Brody!"

Help had arrived.

"We're down here!" A burst of relief escaped up her throat as she craned her head up. Wood slats let in the slightest amount of light from her flashlight aboveground. She was underneath the hatch.

She'd found him.

Leigh gathered the boy into her arms as best she could in the small space and held on to him with everything she had left. "I've got you. I've got you."