The Missing Page 0,85

of four doors, two on each side – no, five, there was a fifth door at the end of the corridor. The walls were made of nailed-up sheets of plywood. Some of the wood had been split open. She looked through a small hole and peered into another room similar to this one.

And then it hit her, the numbers and letters Rachel Swanson had written on her arm and on the map – they were directions for this maze. Rachel had figured out a way through each of the doors.

Darby scrambled to recall the combinations of numbers and letters as doors opened and slammed shut all around her – someone else was in here besides Evan. Was Carol here? Was she alive? How many women were down here and why were they running? What was Evan going to do to them? To her?

No time to think, Darby moved into another room, this one with two doors to choose from, only one unlocked. There were holes in the wall. Bullet holes. Evan had his gun. If he had a gun, oh Jesus, what would she do – what could she do? She couldn’t do anything. She had to keep moving and find a way to sneak up on him and hurt him. First, she needed to find something to use as a weapon, had to find it quick.

Darby froze. Someone was moving closer.

The next room was bigger, with four doors. One of them was padlocked. She slipped inside and tried one door, and when it opened, she headed into another room, closing the door softly behind her, not wanting to give away her location.

This room had a corridor so narrow she had to go down it sideways. Some of the doors, she noticed, could be locked from the inside. Some had no doorknobs at all. Some rooms had no doors, just doorways. Why the variations?

They hunt their victims down here. They hunt them through this maze and let them try to find places to hide to make the hunt more exciting.

Moving deeper into the maze of changing rooms, her eyes adjusting to the darkness, pieces of her conversation with Rachel came back to her: There’s no way out of here, there are only places to hide… doesn’t matter if you go right or left or straight, they all lead to dead ends, remember?… There’s no way out of here. I tried.

There had to be a way out of here. Rachel Swanson had survived down here for years; there was a way out, or at least a place to hide –

A piercing scream made Darby jump.

THUMP and the woman screamed again – she was close, somewhere behind this thin wall. More doors opened and shut. How many women were down here?

‘HEEEEEEEEEEELP.’

Not Carol’s voice. Darby didn’t know who the woman was, but she was close. Call out and let her know she wasn’t alone? No, don’t give away your location. Darby crept deeper into the maze, quickly taking in each room’s markings as she searched the floors, hoping to find a piece of wood to use as a club, anything.

Here was a room with splintered wood on the concrete floor. Black liquid was leaking from beneath one the doors. Darby knew what it was even before she knelt down. Blood. She could smell it. The door facing her wasn’t locked. She eased it open. Please God, don’t let Evan be in there.

A woman lay facedown on the floor, blood pooling beneath her. Seeing how she had been butchered caused a scream to rise in Darby’s throat.

Darby stifled it back, her whole body shaking, her mind reeling as she looked around – bloody footprints were on the floor. The footprints moved down the corridor and disappeared. Evan was gone.

Faint movement coming from the wall behind her. No door here, but near the bottom of the floor was a rectangular-sized hole large enough for her to move through. Was Evan in there?

Darby had to look, didn’t want to look. She got on her knees and peeked through the hole, looking up into the room at Carol Cranmore’s small, trembling frame.

Chapter 67

‘Carol,’ Darby whispered. ‘Carol, down here.’

Carol Cranmore, crouching down on the floor, stared at Darby through the hole.

‘I’m with the police,’ Darby said. ‘Are you hurt?’

Carol shook her head, her eyes wide and terrified.

‘I think there’s enough room for you to wiggle through,’ Darby said. ‘Come on, I’ll help you.’

Carol shimmied through the hole of jagged wood and got stuck. Darby grabbed Carol’s hands and