Chapter Thirty-Seven
THIRTY-SEVEN
Phoebe
The estate is asleep. Groundskeepers in bed. Housekeepers nowhere to be seen. Without pause, without conversation, Rocky and I race toward Jake’s room on the softest parts of our feet. Silent, urgent thuds against floorboards as we sprint to him. He answers the door, pulling on cotton joggers over his boxer briefs.
“It’s Hailey,” I say.
He doesn’t waste time grabbing a jacket. Rocky is only in drawstring pants, and I doubt any of us care if we freeze to death trying to find her. Jake guides us out, only stopping in a hallway to snag a flashlight from a utility closet.
The three of us hightail it into the dark night together.
“To the right,” Jake instructs, pointing the flashlight into the foggy scattering of oak trees. Clouds hang low, and I can’t see much except the stone siding of the mansion and several mammoth trunks. Old, old trees. Old, old land.
A person who can navigate this property with a blindfold is with us. It offers a tinge of comfort. Still, my pulse hasn’t slowed. It’s hard to talk with the lump lodged in my throat.
At least it’s the first week of April. At least it’s not bone-chillingly cold.
Our breaths aren’t frosting the air. Adrenaline warms me head to toe, and I welcome the slap of wind on my cheeks.
The storm shelter is apparently a good half a mile from the main house, which means we’re all in a swift run.
I can’t keep up with Rocky’s and Jake’s long legs. I’m several paces behind them, but Rocky checks over his shoulder, ensuring I’m here.
Jake checks next.
I’m here.
“Just go ahead,” I call out. “I’ll catch up!”
They aren’t going to leave me behind.
Hot, angry tears prick my eyes. She doesn’t have time! She could be dying! “Just go!” I scream, fear scraping against my lungs. Why are they like this?! “GO!”
They pick up speed, and the beam of light bounces with Jake’s hurried, aggressive footfalls. They’re running like the horn blew and they’re in a one-hundred-meter dash for gold. Side by side, unrelenting, untiring strides forward.
Relief slams into me just watching them. Please reach her. As I jog from behind, darkness encases me the farther Jake distances himself, and I dial Hailey on Rocky’s phone. Over and over.
“Answer,” I beg.
Wind whips my hair, and the line goes to an automated voicemail for the fifth time. I send out an SOS text to Trevor and Nova. I give directions to the storm shelter, using a bocce court and a birdbath as land markers.
I stop calling Hailey when Oliver’s form comes into view. Jake and Rocky are closing in on him, and the flashlight illuminates his anguished, sweaty face; unkempt pieces of maddened, dyed-lighter-brown hair; and bloodied hands. He’s gripping a handle of the storm shelter door. It juts out of the grassy earth at a slight tilt, and Oliver braces his foot on the frame and tries heaving it open with all his strength, all his might.
He grits down, groaning as he pulls, he tugs, but it won’t budge .
The storm shelter is made of steel.
My legs pump beneath me as I run as fast as I can.
“Hailey!” Oliver screams, trying harder, trying, trying, trying. “I’m coming! Hang on! Hang on! ” Wind whistles and growls.
I can hear Hailey’s shrieks of terror from within the shelter. My heart catapults to my throat.
Jake and Rocky reach the steel door, and Oliver turns to them in urgent panic, his khaki trench coat in a heap on the grass, his white button-down untucked and sleeves rolled up. His hair so wild. His eyes bloodshot—sweat dripping down his heart-shaped jawline. I’ve never seen my brother look this much of a mess, this ruined. Never.
Not in my whole life.
“Someone is in there with her,” he says, out of breath, and I hear his labored sounds as I roll up to them.
Rocky takes the left handle of the door. Jake takes the right. While Oliver shuffles back, his hands on his thighs, he inhales sharper lungfuls of air.
“Hailey, we’re here!” I call out as Jake and Rocky try to wrench the double doors open together. “We’re getting you out!!”
She cries bloody murder. Like she’s being slowly tortured.
“Don’t you fucking hurt her!” I scream at the top of my lungs. “STOP HURTING HER!” Furious tears cloud my eyes. Take me… I’ll switch with her.
Take me.
Oliver catches my shoulders, drawing me back. My entire insides are decaying, shriveling, withering, and as much as I ache to claw at the metal until my fingers bleed, I don’t get in the way.
Jake’s and Rocky’s muscles flex in intense bands, the exertion all over their faces. They count to three and try again.
“Who’s in there?” I croak to Oliver.
His usual relaxed demeanor is replaced by rattled, distraught urgency. “I don’t know. I don’t know. They locked her in with them.”
“Who?!” Rocky yells back, the steel door clicking but not opening each time they heave. “Goddammit.”
“We’re not getting it open like this,” Jake says.
“Who, Oliver?!” Rocky turns on him.
“I don’t know!” Oliver shouts, talking a mile a minute. “I was on the balcony. Collin—he’d just gone to bed. I was alone . But I saw her—I saw Hailey walking in the grass. Barefoot. She had her service uniform on—but she looked dirty. I called down to her. She didn’t…she didn’t hear me. Then she started running .”
They pull again. It clicks. Not budging against the lock.
I press the heel of my palm to my forehead. Fiery tears threatening to surge once more. “Was she running toward someone?” I ask. “Or was someone chasing her?”
“Toward, maybe.” His face contorts, and he rubs at the sweat lines on his face. “As soon as she started running, I left the balcony to catch her. By that time, she was already trapped in there.”
Hailey shrieks again.
It’s killing all of us.
“Hailey!” Rocky shouts to his sister. “Can you hear me?!”
She’s not responding.
That motherfucker —whoever has her. Whoever is doing this to her…Varrick? He’s not leaving here alive. He’s not. He won’t.
He won’t.
“You can’t pick it. There is no outside lock,” Jake says quickly but calmly to Rocky. “It only locks from within.”
Rocky lets go of the handle.
So does Jake.
“Don’t stop!” Oliver yells. “We have to keep trying! We have to…” He stumbles forward, and I sprint after him as he tries to seize a bloody handle.
The blood, now on Jake’s and Rocky’s hands—it’s from my brother. Blood stains my T-shirt sleeves where he touched my shoulders.
His knuckles are busted open, his palms split raw. How long has he been out here? How long has he been trying to break into the metal to get to her?
“Oliver, it’s steel,” I say, pained. My voice fissures. “ Oliver. It’s a storm door!” It’s manufactured to withstand high-speed winds and whizzing objects. Tornadoes.
He reaches the door, just as Hailey wails, “Olly!” He drops to his knees, his face sheet white, and retches into the grass. As he pukes, I crouch behind him, rubbing my brother’s back.
“It’s okay.” I intake pained breaths. “You’re okay.”
He touches my hand that curves around his chest. “Phoebe.” He sounds like a child. Like he’s stretching toward comfort, and I wish it were more than just me. I wish he had her.
“Where’s my phone?” Rocky asks me in a ragged pant. Sweat glistens on his bare abs and drips down his forehead. “We need to call Nova.”
“I already texted him and Trevor.” I unpocket the burner phone and see a new message. “Nova is on his way. No response from Trevor yet.”
“We have to get something to break the door down,” Jake says. “There’s a shed another half mile south with tools. I can get there and back in under ten minutes—”
“Go,” Rocky says, and Jake is off. He takes the flashlight with him. Setting us in darkness.
Then Rocky yells over the growling wind, “Hailey! Listen to me! You need to open the door!”
“No, no, no!” she cries. “STOP! STOP!”
I can’t catch my breath.
Jake, hurry.
“HAILEY, FOCUS!” Rocky shouts from the depths of his lungs.
“I can’t! Stop! Please stop. ” Her panicky voice is a jackhammer to my skull. I imagine someone holding her down. Caging her. Threatening her. Worse… worse .
Oliver picks himself to his feet, and I follow suit. He goes to Rocky angrily. “What are you doing? I told you, someone is in there with her.”
“Have you heard another voice?” Rocky interrupts.
“What?” Oliver’s frown turns into a scowl.
“Did you hear someone else with her, Oliver?” Rocky asks hurriedly. “Did you ever actually see someone else?”
Oliver runs a hand through his thick hair. “No but—”
Rocky rotates back to the storm shelter. “HAILEY! OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!”
My eyes are flaming, burning suns.
“Rocky, she’s crying and terrified!” Oliver screams. “She said someone is locked in there with her! She told me that!!” He grabs Rocky’s shoulder to pull him away from the shelter.
Rocky shakes off my brother.
My stomach is a knotted mess. We shouldn’t be fighting each other. “Rocky.” I catch his attention. “Hailey would’ve already opened the door if she were alone.”
“Would she?” Rocky looks between us in disbelief. “She’s losing her fucking mind!”
Eerie silence grows on the other side.
I step closer to the door. “Hailey,” I say, pressing my hand to the steel. “Are you okay in there? Hailey?”
“He’s here. He’s here,” Hailey chokes out, fear lancing her voice. “Olly.”
I whip my head to the guys. “She says he’s here . Someone is with her.”
Rocky is disbelieving. “No one has said a thing but her, Phebs.”
“He’s being quiet. He’s playing with us! And what does it even matter, Rocky?!”
“She can open the door.” He presses a hand to my cheek. “She can open the door.”
Belief.
I’ve questioned what I believe more these past months than I have my whole life, and it comes down to this.
I believe in our love. I believe in the love that’s high voltage, the love that raises dead towns. The love that keeps you running when you’re on empty. The love that falls down with you—just so it can be there to drag you back up. I believe in love that has no room for failure because all it knows how to do is survive.
I believe in our love—the love of six people who only had each other to trust and lean on.
All I know is our love.
Oliver’s bloodied hands fly to the top of his head, then he waves heatedly at the shelter. “Rocky, I’m telling you, she’d open the door for me.” His eyes glass as he touches his chest. “She’d open it for me .” His voice cracks on the last word.
Rocky approaches him and puts a hand to his cheek now. “She might not know it’s you.”
That pummels Oliver. Almost breaks him. He staggers back as if oxygen was stolen right out of his lungs.
Nova comes sprinting out of the darkness. A black utility backpack strapped to his strict shoulders. He has a shotgun in his hand. Jake is running from the other side with welding equipment. A plasma cutter, I think.
We all take a collective breath as they converge, reaching us at the same time.
“Jake’s going to cut through the door,” I tell Nova, filling him in quickly as he drops his backpack and unzips it.
Jake places the welding equipment beside the storm shelter door.
Nova hands me a Glock, and I check the chamber. Then he gives a similar gun to Rocky. “Ol?” Nova tries to capture Oliver’s attention, but he’s out of it.
“She’s been calling his name,” I tell Nova, and pain bleeds through his eyes as he studies Oliver again. It hurts—seeing our brother in this state. Hearing Hailey being…
I swallow nausea. It’s all just anguish and fury.
Jake’s gaze stays on Oliver in concern for a long beat before he throws the flashlight to Rocky. “Has she said anything else?”
I answer, “ He’s here. She said someone is with her.”
“I think she’s alone,” Rocky tells him and Nova, then shines the light on Jake.
He’s trying to power up the torch to cut through the steel. The flame flickers in and out. “Come on,” Jake mutters. “Come on.”
My pulse is a wave of highs and lows.
The fire dies. It goes completely out.
“ Fuck ,” Jake curses, his brows knotting. He bangs the battery pack. Nothing. “It must be dead. I checked it before I left. I thought it was working.”
“Where’s Trevor?” Rocky asks, since he’s the one who could likely tinker with and fix it.
I check the phone. “He hasn’t responded.”
Nova hurries over to Jake and tries to help light the torch.
I kneel in front of the storm shelter. Gun in my hand. I don’t know if Rocky is right, but I just plead, “Hailey, please , open this door. Please. ”
Sobs come from the other side, and I take a deep, shaky breath. “Hailey, I love you. We all love you. You’re our everything. We-we can’t do this without you, okay? We just can’t.”
She cries harder.
My eyes pinch closed. We could be wrong. Varrick. He’s probably grinning down there, taking sick joy in our torment. That’s what this is. He’s getting off on our distress. “If someone else is there,” I call out, venom dripping off my voice, “then open this door and meet us face-to-face, you fucking coward!” I scream at the top of my lungs. “YOU FUCKING PIECE OF—”
The lock clicks.
I let out a surprised gasp, and Rocky drags me away from the door. I stumble back into his chest, and he pulls me behind him.
He flicks the safety off his gun. “I go first.”
Armed myself, I try to go second, but Nova shoves me behind him, too. Then Oliver tears forward, beyond me, and Jake places a soft, gentle hand on my shoulder. He goes out ahead of me.
Nova and Jake heave the doors open.
Rocky disappears.
Everyone follows, and I’m last down the creaky old wooden steps. Descending into a dark, damp space that smells like mildew and earth.
It’s pitch black. Except for the flashlight Rocky beams into the shelter. He swings it left and right. I see a bunk bed. Shelves of dusty canned goods. Beanee Weenees, Spam, SpaghettiOs.
“Hailey!” we all say.
It’s utterly silent.
Jake must know where the switch is, because he puts a hand to the wall—and the small space is instantly bathed in dim yellow light. The bunker isn’t any bigger than a wine cellar, and Hailey huddles in the grimy corner near the staircase.
I rush to her before anyone else can, dropping to my knees at her side. “Hails.”
She’s shaking, trembling. Leaves and twigs knot and tangle in her hair like she’s been lost in the woods, and buttons are popped on her dirtied white blouse, exposing her black bra. Her cheeks are scratched, from branches maybe.
She’s hugging her legs to her chest.
“Is there anyone else in here?” I glance over my shoulder. All four men linger and tower behind me, no longer searching the small shelter. The answer already rings in my ears. I see it on their troubled faces.
“No,” Rocky says, taking my gun from me. “She’s been alone.”
I swallow hard and focus on my best friend. “Hailey? Can you look at me?”
She mutters incoherently, her eyes wide and horrified.
“It’s me. It’s Phoebe.” I risk touching her fingers. She lets me pry them off her legs, and I gather her hands in mine.
I lean a little closer. “What are you saying?”
“He’s here…he’s here,” she mumbles. “I followed him, and then he followed me.”
“Who were you following?”
“Olly,” she cries with a contorted, ugly sob. Oliver squats beside her, but she’s still not focused on us. “I followed him here. He went in here.”
“I wasn’t on the grounds,” Oliver whispers to her. “I was on a balcony.”
“He followed me.”
“ Yes , I followed you, Hailstorm.” He tries to steady his voice with hope and light. “I found you.”
Her eyes bug out. “I-I need to tell him…I have to tell him…” She rips her hands out of mine and clutches her head. “No! No! No!” She shrieks, the bloodcurdling shriek again.
“Hailey! You’re okay!” I shout. “No one is here!”
She’s kicking out like we’re going to kill her. She digs her back into the cement wall. “No, no, no! STOP! NO!”
“She’s hallucinating,” Jake says in a deep, tight breath.
Rocky lets out a sandpapery noise. “She followed a figment of Oliver to the storm shelter.”
Nova ascends the stairs, his backpack strapped to his shoulders again. He stops mid-step to keep an eye outside.
“But why?” I ask them.
“She had to tell Oliver something,” Jake says, concentrated on her. “That’s what she just said. She wanted to tell him something.”
“Hailey?” I snap my fingers in front of her face. “Hailey.”
She rolls her head back and forth.
“?‘In a kingdom by the sea,’?” Jake breathes, and she goes still. For the first time, her big round gray eyes rise.
She looks right at Jake.
Softly, he says, “?‘And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side.’?”
Her nose flares. Tears fill her eyes. “?‘Of my darling…’?”
“?‘My darling,’?” Jake breathes, the words echoing around us. “?‘My life and my bride.’?”
Silent tears cascade down her scratched cheeks. “?‘In her sepulchre there by the sea.’?”
“?‘In her tomb by the sounding sea,’?” Jake finishes the poem. I recognize it. “Annabel Lee” by Poe. It’s the poem Hailey loves. It’s why a line from it is our SOS call.
Her face fractures, like she’s more cognizant of her real surroundings. “I saw Oliver…I know what I saw.” She rubs at her eyes furiously. Then her chin trembles as she looks between all of us, and her gaze plants on me. “Phoebe,” she says my name like we’re seven years old again. “I haven’t been sleeping.”
My heart shatters. “I know,” I tell her, my hand to the back of her head. She brings her forehead to mine. It’s just us for a moment. Cocooned in our lifelong friendship.
Tears are rivers on her cheeks, tracking through the dirt. “No, you don’t know,” she whispers shakily, clinging tighter to my hand in hers. “I close my eyes, but I don’t sleep.”
I blink back the onslaught of tears. I failed her somewhere. I failed her. “It’s okay,” I whisper back. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to get you help.”
“I tried so hard,” Hailey says. “I tried so hard to find answers, but I can’t do it. It’s all I’m good for and—”
“Hailey, stop,” I cry. “You’re beautiful—”
“You’re gorgeous ,” Hailey professes from her core, tears streaming down her face again.
I clutch her cheeks with two hands. “You’re brilliant, more brilliant than I could ever be.”
She chokes on a sob. “So brilliant that I’m a useless mess here. I’m nothing. I’m no one .”
“You’re my best friend,” I say from deep within. “If you’re no one then so am I.”
“You’re counting on me to find answers.”
My body caves. “You don’t need to.”
She’s shaking her head.
“Hailey, you don’t.” I blink, and hot tears wet my cheeks. “You don’t have to know everything. You could know nothing , and I’d still love you.” We’re both crying now.
She clutches my cheeks, too, holding on to me. Her chin quakes, and she squeaks out, “I’m not as smart as everyone needed me to be.”
“That’s okay.” I rub at her cheeks. “Because I don’t love you just because you’re smart. You could be dumb as dirt, and I’d still love my dumb-as-dirt best friend.”
She sobs harder and crumples into my body like a wounded bird. I wrap my arms around her, hugging her.
Oliver makes soothing circles on her back.
Jake is gripping the flashlight now. So tightly, the veins in his arms bulge out. Then there’s Rocky…my Rocky.
His eyes are full of violent fury that I can’t make sense of. “This ends here.” He comes forward. “Give me my phone, Phebs.”
I’m confused, but I don’t prod. I wrestle it out of my back pocket and toss it to him.
“Who are you calling?” Jake asks.
Oliver’s bloodshot gaze stays on the girl he loves. “He’s calling the godmothers.”
“Oliver Graves, right on the money,” Rocky says tightly, then stops dialing and glances over at Nova. “Still no Trevor?”
“No.”
Rocky’s concern mounts.
Oliver whispers melodically, “Hailstorm. You found me.”
“I found you.” She peers out of my hug, and an ugly sob contorts her face again. “Oliver, it’s so bad. It’s so much worse than what I-I thought.”
“What is?” I ask.
She has her hands to her ears. She pulls back from me.
Oh no, no, no, no. “Hailey,” I choke out.
Rocky lowers his phone, not calling anyone yet.
“They lied, they lied, they lied…” She nods dazedly. “Prudie said, Prudie said…”
“Prudie,” Jake says the name in recognition. “That’s one of our oldest housekeepers. She’s been with us for over forty years.”
Rocky frowns. “Hailey must’ve talked to her tonight.”
“Prudie said.” Hailey licks her cracked lips, trying to spell it out. “Sh-she said there were three. There were three.”
“Three what?” Oliver asks.
“Three children.”
Oh my God. The Tinrocks. She found this information through a housekeeper at the Koning estate? I glance between Jake and Rocky. Are they really…could they be?
“No.” Rocky shakes his head at me. “No.”
“Christian, Brent, Daphne,” Hailey lists out. “Christian, Brent, Daphne.”
Jake comes closer. “Those are the Wolfe children.” He bends down on my other side. “The ones who died in ’86.”
Hailey’s face is anguished as she stares off. “Christian married Josephine.” So the oldest son did have a wife. “Christian m-married Josephine.”
I take a sharp breath. “What happened to her?”
“Sh-she was in the car…when it ran off the bridge…and crashed into the river.” Her breathing shallows. “There were three. There were three children in the backseat.”
Hairs rise on my arms, on the back of my neck. Silence strains the storm shelter, and we all wait for her to catch her breath to tell us.
“Their three children,” she says shakily. “Evan. Griffith.” Her glassy, anguished eyes lift. This time, to her brother. “Brayden.”
We all turn to Rocky.
“The baby,” Hailey cries. “You were the baby in the backseat. You’re Brayden Wolfe. The only real Wolfe that survived.”