On the one hand, this kind of thinking was crazy; she couldn’t imagine Woody doing something like that. But the truth was, she couldn’t imagine anybody doing it. And somebody was.
She looked again at the closed glove compartment, pictured the bracelet inside.
Suddenly Anna knew what she had to do. Call me if you need anything, Jack Speerman had told them, just before they’d left him at Wendy’s. And she had written down his number.
Anna dug her phone and notepad from her purse and stepped around the far side of the building. No one was out there except a mangy dog sleeping in the shade. She punched in Jack’s number and held her breath while she listened to the ringing.
“Speerman,” a voice said.
“Jack, this is Anna Langley. Woody Prestridge’s friend.”
“Sure, Anna. What’s up?”
She hesitated. So far this was just speculation, she reminded herself. Nobody had been accused, nobody had been hurt. But that was about to change.
“I think I might be in trouble,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
She swallowed hard. “I’m at a gas station on Highway 25” — she gave him pinpoint directions — “and I think someone... someone here... might be the guy who’s making these women disappear.”
“What?”
“There’s no time to tell you everything now, but I think...” She stopped, took some more breaths. “That girl who caught a ride with us? Mary? I found something of hers, something she would never have parted with. And she’s vanished.”
“What are you saying, Anna?”
“I don’t know. I think I’m saying she might be dead.”
The phone went silent.
“Jack? Are you there?”
“I’m here. And you know my next question.”
She rubbed a hand over her face, forced her voice to stay calm. “You want to know who did it.”
“Do you know?”
She started to tell him her suspicions, then stopped. He and Woody were old friends; he wouldn’t believe her. Not on the phone. “No,” she said. “Not for certain.”
Another silence. Then: “Where’s Woody, Anna? Is he okay?”
“His cell phone battery’s dead,” she lied. “He’s here, though — he told me to call you.”
“Anna, you think it could be him. Don’t you?”
She paused. “I don’t know.”
“Okay. Okay, I’m on my way.” She heard, in the phone, the sound of hurried footsteps.
“We’re across the highway from the gas station. In the trees near an old windmill,” she said. “How long will it take you?”
“To get there? Twenty minutes.”
“Should I call somebody else too?” Now she could hear his car door opening, and then the roar of a motor.
“No, I’m coming. Keep an eye on him, okay?”
She disconnected and stuffed the phone into her pocket. Put both palms over her face and stayed that way a minute, then rubbed her eyes with her forefingers and stood up straight. Whatever would happen would happen, she told herself. She walked back to the car and took the picnic basket out of the trunk. The cooler and the goodies she left in the car for later, although she now wondered if there would be a later.
On an impulse, she opened the driver’s door again and groped underneath the seat until she located the padded steel club Woody had shown her earlier. She tucked it into her left shirtsleeve and buttoned the cuff to hold it tight and hidden.
At least she had a weapon.
After several long, deep breaths, Anna got out of the car and lugged the picnic basket across the field to where Woody was waiting. Actually, to where he was still snapping photos. If he’d just killed someone he was being pretty nonchalant about it. Above their heads, the windmill turned, tireless and eternaclass="underline" eeee-urrr, eeee-urrr. In other situations, the grating sound would probably have driven her crazy. As it was, she had more pressing issues to think about.
She put down the basket, wiped sweat from her forehead, took a look around—
And saw it. Not far past where Woody was standing. A brick-rimmed hole in the ground, about five feet across. Several rotten boards lay in the undergrowth to one side. From what little she could see, the brick walls were chipped and blackened and the opening was half-hidden by clumps of what looked like Virginia creeper. Five leaves each, not three like poison ivy. Not that it mattered. A little itch wouldn’t matter much to someone falling down that pit.
Woody glanced at her, and followed her gaze. “Looks like you were right about the abandoned wells.”
But this one wasn’t totally abandoned, she noticed. There was a rough path leading east from the edge of the well, and what looked like a single narrow tire track rutted the muddy ground. Something had been hauled to the well, and recently. Her first thought was a body, but she had another idea, one that made a lot of sense. If there was in fact a body in the well — or more than one — it would be stinking to high heaven. Unless something had been dumped in on top of it. And for that task, what would work better than good old dirt, and what better to carry dirt in than a wheelbarrow? Because that’s what had been used to make the single rut beside the well.
She raised her eyes and studied the rest of her surroundings. No other clues presented themselves. Off in the distance, in the same direction as the tire track, what looked like the gray-shingled roof of a house rose above the trees. No doubt it faced an unseen road, somewhere farther off to the east.
Woody’s voice snapped Anna out of her musings. “Something wrong?”
She blinked, looked at him, and forced a smile. If you only knew, she thought. “Just wondering where to set up the feast.”
“Here, I’ll help you.”
“Aren’t you worried about being late for the game?”
“It won’t start till two thirty,” he said. “Plenty of time.”
They chose a clearing twenty feet from the well, although Anna was much more aware of its presence than he seemed to be. After he’d spread out the blanket she unloaded the sandwiches and thermos bottles and sat with her back to the distant gas station, barely visible from here. She’d decided it was more important to watch Woody than to try to watch the parking lot for Jack’s arrival. Woody insisted on taking a picture of her sitting on the blanket with the picnic gear spread out around her, then he sat down as well and dug into his lunch. Her stomach was doing backflips. She’d never been less hungry in her life.
She was trying to decide whether to try a sandwich, at least for appearance’s sake, when Woody said, “Aren’t you gonna eat anything?”
She felt her face heat up. “Guess I’m a little uncomfortable. What if we’re trespassing?”
He looked amused. “We’re not. I know the owner.”
She blinked and glanced at the distant rooftop. “Of the house over there?”
“The land too. I should’ve told you—”
Suddenly her cell phone buzzed. She dug it out of her pocket and checked the display. No name was shown, and she didn’t recognize the number. Keeping her eyes on Woody, she held the phone to her ear.