She knelt and picked up half of a red crayon. She walked to the wall and scrawled the words on the brick — LOOSE LIPS SINK SHIPS — in the big broken letters of a child’s handwriting.
“Someone killed her?” Crystal asked.
“Oh no,” Greta took on a small girl’s voice and shook her head adamantly. “She fell and hit her head.”
Greta didn’t look at Crystal, and Crystal suddenly thought the chance to run was upon her; but the moment she lifted her foot, Greta snatched her arm, sinking her sharp nails into Crystal’s bicep.
They returned to the mammoth asylum building at night, Crystal’s arms pinned to her sides, her legs free.
Greta held a small flashlight. They went in through a different doorway this time. No carpet stretched down the long hallway. The floors were cement, the walls a formidable brick that seemed to close in on them. File cabinets crowded the corridors and papers littered the floor.
“Hi-ho, Hi-ho, it’s to the tunnels we go,” Greta sang under breath.
“What are the tunnels?” Crystal asked.
Greta didn’t answer. She didn’t answer most of Crystal’s questions, but Crystal asked them anyway, unable to stand the silence broken only by the clap of their feet on the hard floor.
Greta stopped at another door and pulled out her keys.
“Time to go down… down… down… down,” Greta sang again in a deep, creepy voice that made Crystal want to scream.
Crystal spun around and ran through the dark corridor, quiet, holding her breath, heart racing. She barreled sideways into a door marked “Stairs,” nearly tripped, fell into the darkness and then found her balance. She clamored up, legs pumping, arms stuck to her sides.
Greta didn’t yell out, she didn’t threaten Crystal, but she pursued her. Crystal heard the double slap of the other woman’s footfalls, and she saw the beam of light as Greta burst into the stairwell behind her.
Crystal dove through another doorway and then slowed, trying to move quietly as a whisper, tiptoeing down the hall. She could barely see. Her shin struck the sharp edge of an object sitting on the floor, and the flash of pain in her leg momentarily blinded her.
Crystal pressed her back against the wall and shuffled until she came to an opening. She slipped inside and crouched low into a corner.
She heard Greta’s footsteps walking down the hall, slow, deliberate. She was not hurrying, not afraid that Crystal had escaped.
“One, two, three, four, five,” Greta called out in a sing-song voice. “Ready or not, here I come.” She released a loud, shrill laugh.
The yellow glow from Greta’s flashlight swept down the hall. The beam paused at the doorway, and Crystal held her breath.
It swept through and then back out again. She sighed and sagged against the wall.
If Greta walked further into the asylum, Crystal could double back, retrace her steps and escape.
She waited, listening to Greta’s footsteps get further away.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Greta called.
Crystal used the wall to stand up. Holding her breath, she crept back to the hall and started down the stairs, unnerved by the blinding darkness and a haunted chill. She moved painstakingly slow, pressing each foot gingerly to avoid tripping.
When she was halfway down the stairs, she heard a sound beneath her and froze.
Before her, a light flicked on.
Greta stood at the bottom of the stairs, the flashlight beneath her chin, a diabolical grin on her pale face.
“Gottcha,” she snarled, pulling her lips away from her teeth.
Crystal tried to turn and run, but she’d barely taken two steps when Greta’s hand sank into her hair and jerked her. She fell backward, but the woman shoved her forward into the cement steps.
Crystal couldn’t put her arms out to protect herself. Her knees and her chin cracked against the unyielding stairs.
“Oh-h,” she cried out, as her head snapped back painfully.
Crystal had little time to register the pain as Greta wrenched her to her feet.
She pressed something cold and smooth against the side of Crystal’s neck.
“Feel that?” Greta whispered. “Run from me again, and I’ll drag the blade across your throat. Slow. You’ll feel it slice through skin and fascia, then muscle, the carotid artery and the jugular vein, all the way to the spine. It’s not as hard as you’d think to decapitate someone.”
Greta’s breath was hot against Crystal’s neck.
“Walk,” the woman hissed, and Crystal did as she was told.
41
Now
Bette half expected to see Hillary’s piercing gray eyes staring back at her from the hotel hallway.
Instead, Matt’s sister, Lisa stood in the corridor.
Bette pulled open the door.
“Hi,” Lisa said, smiling apologetically. “I tried to call, but the front desk was busy.”
“No, that’s totally fine. Is everything okay?”
Tears shone in Lisa’s eyes but she nodded. “After you left, I dug around in the attic and found this box. It has… well it’s my Matt box. Yearbooks and photos and also newspaper clippings from after his death. I thought you might like to look through it. I’ll need it back.”
“Yes, absolutely. Thank you, Lisa. Listen, I’m going to go downstairs and grab a bite to eat—”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Lisa apologized. “I left my daughter with my neighbor to drop this by. But if you’d like to call and ask questions or talk about anything, I’d love that.”
“Sure, thanks Lisa.”
Bette took the box and closed the door, returning to sip her wine, before investigating its contents.
Inside the box, she saw photo albums and yearbooks.
Her stomach growled, and she realized she hadn’t eaten a meal all day.
She’d seen a restaurant and bar in the lobby of the hotel.
Bette took another sip of her wine and gathered up two of the albums before slipping into the hallway. The hotel was nearly empty on a Monday evening. The thick carpet muted her footsteps as she walked to the elevator. A song too low to hear came from the scratchy speaker in the elevator, and she watched the numbers light up as it dropped from the fourth to the first floor.
She found the lobby as empty as the hallway had been.
When she stepped into the dimly lit restaurant, she noticed two men at the bar, but all the tables were empty.
“Sit where you like,” the bartender, a slim thirtyish woman with short dark hair, said.
Bette opted for a little a booth near a window looking out onto the lake.
The sun had set, but tall light posts at the water’s edge illuminated a rush of turbulent waves.
“What can I get ya?” the bartender asked, stopping near the table.
“Umm… I’d like a glass of Cabernet and an ice water, please? And a menu for food.”
“Sure, hon. Just need to see some ID.”
Bette pulled out her driver’s license. She regularly got carded, but sometimes the idea seemed absurd. What person trying to sneak a drink would order a glass of wine?
The bartender glanced at her driver’s license.
“A lower peninsula girl. What brings you way up here?”
The woman had a kind smile and interested blue eyes.
“Doing some sightseeing,” Bette lied. “And I think I’ll just have the cheeseburger with coleslaw,” she added, pointing to the chalkboard listing the specials.
“Sure thing,” the bartender, whose nametag said Frannie, told her. “And if you haven’t been yet, Presque Isle Park is the place with the best views.”