“Wait!” she yelled into the radio. “I think I’m wrong.”
No reply.
“Jay! It’s not Carrie!”
The radio hissed, then Jay’s voice cut in. “We have to hurry, Sadie. We have less than ten minutes.”
“No!” she sobbed. “That’s not enough time to figure this out.”
“If you don’t have another suggestion, we’ll have to try Carrie.”
A sudden motion caught her eye.
Men streamed out of the ruins, moving a safe distance away. Everyone was out of the house—except the bomb squad detective in the yellow vest… and Jay.
“Maybe you should get out of there,” she urged him.
“Six letters, Sadie. Maybe he told you and you just didn’t know it.”
She recalled Sarge’s final words. “You can’t get into mi casa.”
“You can’t get into my house.”
Jesus! It had been right there in front of her. The bastard!
“MI CASA!” she shrieked. “M… I… C… A… S… A.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure, Jay. The bastard was laughing at me when he said it. He never thought I’d figure it out. Mi casa. My house.”
The line went dead silent.
Her pulse quickened. Was she wrong?
“Please, God… watch over Jay and the children. Keep them safe.” She lifted her head to the sky. “And please help us find Sam and Cortnie.”
She waited, holding her breath. Surely the time was up.
“Jay?” she said into the radio.
Static.
She stared at the house. No smoke, no explosion.
Five minutes passed. Still nothing.
The radio crackled.
“The code worked, Sadie,” Jay said, his voice sounding tired.
“And you found them?”
Pause. “Yes. We found them.”
Sadie released a long, ragged breath. Elated, she clicked off the radio, shoved it into her jacket pocket and strode toward the house. She was a jumble of emotions. She wanted to dance in the field. In that moment, she made a promise. To God, herself… and Sam. She would never drink again. It was a promise she would keep.
“Thank you, God,” she said. “I’m clean.”
She paced in the grass, excited to see the children again. One of them must have an idea where Sam and Cortnie had gone. Maybe Cortnie had said something before they left, given them a clue.
The officer in the yellow vest appeared first. He looked her way, then veered toward a group of men near the shed. He said something to one of them and they set off for the house.
When Jay finally materialized, he headed straight for her. His face was smudged with soot and he looked drained.
She ran to him, smiling. “We did it, Jay!”
He didn’t answer.
She tugged his arm. “Come on, the least you can do is smile.”
“Sadie…”
She peered over his shoulder. “Where are they? How come they aren’t out yet?”
Jay gave her a helpless look. “Sadie, they’re…”
She couldn’t breathe. “What’s wrong? Why are you looking at me that way?”
“They’re dead, Sadie.”
“What?”
“They’re dead. All of them.”
“But that’s impossible. They were all fine when I left them here. You’re wrong. Go check them. They’re alive.”
Jay’s wrinkled eyes clouded. “There are seven bodies down there. All in different stages of decomp, which means some of them have been dead awhile. And we know he blew up one boy in the car. That makes eight kids. That’s how many The Fog took.”
“Eight,” she said, numb.
“Including Cortnie… and Sam. I’m sorry, Sadie.”
“But I—” She shook her head. “You have to be wrong.”
She closed her eyes, trying to rationalize it all. She had brushed Marina’s hair, watched Holland drink hot chocolate with marshmallows and they had left gifts on her doorstep. She had even followed them through the woods to the bunker. How else would she have known where it was?
She pictured six sweet, trusting faces.
Marina, Holland, Brittany, Scotty, Kimber, Jordan…
“Marina said Sam and Cortnie ran away,” she insisted. “Sarge said the same thing.”
“He must have found them,” Jay said gently. “Before he came after you. He was messing with your head, Sadie.”
There was only one way to see if Jay was telling the truth.
She sprinted toward the house.
“Wait!” Jay yelled. “Come back! You don’t want to go in there. Trust me.”
But she was beyond trusting anyone. This was something she had to see for herself.
Tripping over chunks of blackened wood, she made her way through the damp cinders, kicking up sticky soot that had found refuge under slabs of wood and melted metal. In one corner she saw a broad-shouldered detective standing near a hole in the floor. He looked up as she approached.
“I need to get down there,” she said.
The officer peeked over her shoulder.
“It’s okay,” Jay huffed behind her. “Help her down.”
The two men secured a rope around her waist, then lowered her into the hole in the floor. The air thickened as ash wafted down around her, loosened by the motions of the men above. The pungent tang of smoke was everywhere—in her mouth, clinging to her skin and hair, but at least she could see. The basement was lit by strategically placed heavy-duty flashlights, and she was thankful that she wasn’t descending into darkness. She’d had enough of that lately.
When she reached the ground, a young rookie unfastened the rope. “This way,” he said, his face etched with green pallor.
As he led her through the rubble, she was surprised to see that the fire had not reached the basement. Most of the damage had been done by rain and soot seeping in through the floor and the gaping hole. Everything was covered with a layer of grime, and black rain dripped around her, looking as eerie as it sounded.
She spotted a crib in one corner and a toy box overflowing with games, Disney movies, dolls and Star Wars figures in the other. Beside the toy box, an air hockey table held about two inches of murky water.
“It’s behind here,” the rookie said, distracting her.
He pulled aside a metal shelf that was attached to a sheet of moldy drywall. Behind it, stairs led downward to another level.
Within minutes, Sadie was back inside the bunker.
“At least I didn’t imagine this,” she said, her eyes skimming over the room.
“What?” the rookie asked.
“Nothing.”
The young man led her to the door with the keypad.
“Mi casa,” she said, as he keyed in the code.
The door unlocked with an audible click.
The rookie stepped aside and gave her a worried look. “You sure you want to go in there, ma’am?”
Sadie opened the door.
36
The children were laid out on blanketed crib mattresses on the concrete floor—girls on one side of the room, boys on the other. A blue light above them shed little light in the room, casting the bodies in a ghostly pallor. They were dressed in their pajamas, their hands folded sweetly in their laps.
Sadie’s gaze grazed the lifeless bodies. It was too dark to see them clearly and it was obvious from the ripe smell that some were, as Jay had put it, in ‘decomp’.
Tears welled in her eyes. “They look like they’re sleeping.”
She counted them and stifled a sob. “Seven.”
Jay’s right. All the kids are here. Even Sam.
She let out tight, unsteady gasps.
“Are you okay, ma’am?” the rookie said behind her.
“No.” She turned away. “I have to get out of here.”