Chase
May, Oklahoma
Even if Ortíz manages to solve the crossword puzzle, he’s going to be really fucking angry and disappointed—because I won’t tell him where his son is.
You lost. That’s the solution.
This is only a game, too—one I made specifically for Grace. Only I know the rules, so only I get to decide who wins and who loses.
She told me she’ll only come with me if I let Jason go. So be it—I’ll let the kid go. I’ll show her I’m not that heartless, just enough to make her think she can control the events. She feels safe in the little world she created for herself… I don’t need anything more than that.
For now.
She was partly right when she called these places ghost towns.
May is—partly—a ghost town in the southern part of Harper County.
Its population peaked in 1920 at 324, then started to decline steadily after World War II.
In 1957, the school closed. Now, only fifty people live here.
It has a post office, a church, and a few shabby homes.
Wheat and cattle still matter to its economy, but I only know one person who’s still obsessed with tending her fields and farm animals.
Charlotte Gibson, who is a fucking psycho bitch.
There are few things in life that can creep me out, but she’s one of them—she sends a chill down my spine.
This fucking ghost town is her kingdom. She belongs in this horrible place.
She’d scare Grace to death, so I sent her away before we passed the Welcome to May!
sign. Grace got lost in the picturesque beauty of an abandoned town destined for decay—it really is beautiful in an eerie, horrid way.
Wheat fields stretch as far as the eye can see.
Abandoned houses, barns, and stables sit beside the dusty dirt road.
A few cows and horses linger here and there.
The residents are all somewhere between sixty and death.
Charlotte Gibson is the only exception—she is a youthful, dark beauty of 28 laced with danger.
She’s like a black widow. For two days, I handed the kid over to her.
I didn’t want him to break too soon. But I’m sure the little guy won’t get over this kidnapping as fast as he did the previous one.
Lucas only scared the cop… I’d have gone further.
For Grace. Because no one understands how much she means to me.
I suspect that whenever she had some time on her hands, Charlotte kept whispering in the boy’s ear—things that would give him nightmares for the rest of his life.
Fucking. Psycho. Bitch.
She loves terrifying people. She loves the fact that people avoid her like the plague, not even daring to come within five hundred yards.
She has a crazed smile and crazed, empty, black eyes—eyes I have only seen in movies.
The girl is such a great actress, she could make millions of dollars in Hollywood.
But she prefers living in this filth—this is what satisfies her perverse mind and sick soul.
I can understand her, because life dealt her a rough hand, too.
I’d be sad if she left because I love working with her.
She isn’t loyal to us because she’s afraid of us.
She fucking laughs in Lucas’s face. She is playing with us.
Lucas would never admit it, but he likes her, too.
She has managed several times to make Lucas’s expressionless mask slip, to make his dark, icy smile appear—the smile everyone is terrified of.
We drive to the edge of town in the quiet twilight.
I park in front of the old barn and watch Grace’s face.
Because her face gives away what’s going on in her soul.
Disgust, contempt, and anger are written all over it.
Her lips part slowly, her breathing turns uneven, and a daunting emptiness settles into her eyes.
This place is creepy. For miles, there’s nothing but fields, meadows, and patches of forest—groves of different sizes.
Cawing crows circle above the old, shabby building, a hair’s breadth from collapsing in on itself. You can see the passage of time in the inevitable decay it drags behind it.
I pull off the chains that hold the two wings of the massive door together, then swing the creaking, cracking doors open and let the bloody reality stare us in the face. The boy’s terrified, pale face turns toward us.
I hope Grace will recognize the red bandana that asshole gave him. I tore it apart and used it to gag him and blindfold him.
A painful knot tightens in my throat. That motherfucker forced himself on her and defiled her with those huge hands. He was greedy and dumb. I click my tongue. Maybe I should’ve killed the old hag to make my message crystal clear.
Jason is hanging from a crane bolted into the barn’s roof trusses.
Beneath him sits a metal grain tank, filled to the brim with water.
I swing the crane and slowly reel him down.
His thin body drops into the hay, and he lets out a muffled moan.
I walk over and untie him. The boy has mosquito bites all over him.
His pants are wet, and he reeks of piss and shit.
The stench makes my stomach turn. I grab a fistful of his thick hair and lift his face.
“You’re lucky,” I whisper low into the ear of the boy who inherited his father’s red hair and pale, freckled skin. “An angel saved your life.”
My dark gaze slides to Grace, who watches us, motionless—tears in her eyes, her mouth hanging open.