Chapter Seventy-Three. Betty, Present Day
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
BETTY, PRESENT DAY
A distant siren wails, growing louder with each passing second. Betty hears pounding on the front door of Sandra’s house and loud shouts of “Police! Open up!”
A moment later, a tremendous crash announces the door has been breached.
“In here!” Betty cries. “Back by the kitchen!”
Two officers appear in the doorway, their guns drawn. They look at Sandra, still splayed on the floor with her feet tied, then at Betty in her wheelchair. Betty sees surprise flicker across one of the cops’ faces.
She lowers her gun to her lap and puts on the safety. “She kidnapped Alex Finch. She’s holding Alex somewhere on this property.”
“We’ve already got officers searching, ma’am.” The younger cop kneels down and handcuffs Sandra’s arms behind her back, then reads her rights.
“I want my lawyer,” Sandra declares. “I’m not saying another word.”
“Be careful—she has a handcuff key somewhere,” Betty warns.
The officer nods. “We’ll search her.”
“Ma’am, I’m going to take your gun now.” The older officer steps toward Betty and retrieves it from her lap, his movements slow and deliberate.
“It’s Sandra’s gun. We got it away from her. She held young women here,” Betty explains. “Alex wasn’t the first. She was using them as test subjects in experiments.”
A female officer enters the room in time to hear Betty’s words. She turns and yells, “I need crime techs in here.”
Then she nods at Betty. “Ma’am, please come with me.”
She leads Betty toward the front of the house. Outside, a half dozen police cars and an ambulance ring the yard, their blue-and-red lights spinning.
“Did they find Alex yet?” Betty asks.
Before the officer can answer, Betty looks through the open front door and spots Riley walking out of the woods, alongside medics carrying Alex on a stretcher.
“Is she alright?” Betty cries.
“I think so.” Riley hurries to Betty’s side, wrapping her in a hug. “She’s semi-alert and asking for her mother.”
Betty’s eyes fill. “At least one girl was saved,” she whispers.
They hold on to each other until the female police officer speaks up: “I’m going to need you both to move aside for your own safety.”
Betty turns to see Sandra being led through the house by a scrum of police officers. Her hair is disheveled, and the blood has dried on her cheek.
“Sure, but she can’t hurt us,” Riley says loudly enough for Sandra to hear. Betty waits for Sandra to look at them, but she keeps her gaze fixed ahead and her expression blank.
An empty vessel, Betty thinks again.
They watch as Sandra is put into the back of a cruiser and it takes off, its siren blaring, followed closely by another police car.
“I still can’t believe I found the hut,” Riley says.
Betty looks up at Riley, waiting a beat. When she has Riley’s full attention, she says softly, “I can.”