The Odds - Jeff Strand Page 0,34
his car.
He almost put them in the glove compartment, but he didn’t know what was in them. He had a vision of getting pulled over by a cop and having a dozen hypodermic needles fall out of the glove compartment when he went to get his registration.
Instead, he put them in the trunk and covered them with the towel.
Not having a flashlight would be much more of a problem if he was trying to find the location of the grave in Rendill Park. He hated to lose the time, but he had to return home.
He’d had no reason to think he needed extra equipment—the last time it had been thoughtfully provided for him.
Was he allowed to call Jenny to have her meet him outside with a flashlight?
Sure, why not? He wasn’t allowed to tell her about the game, but this would be part of the lie.
He texted her instead of calling. Less chance of one of them accidentally giving something away. He assumed they were monitoring his text messages, though it was possible that the idea that they might be reading his texts was supposed to be enough to keep him on the honor system.
There might be digging involved, but they didn’t own a shovel. A flashlight could be innocuous, but he didn’t want Jenny to wonder why he needed a shovel after midnight.
When he pulled into their driveway, Jenny was there with a flashlight. He rolled down the window and she handed it to him without a word. Then he sped off to Rendill Park.
It was the same deal as before. The gate kept him from driving into the actual park, so he left the car behind. He walked a hundred paces forward, then fifty paces to the left. It was easy to find the place he’d dug before, though he was disappointed that there wasn’t a green envelope resting on top of the freshly overturned dirt.
He knelt down and began to dig with his hands.
The ground was soft and it went quickly. He was careful to make sure he didn’t toss aside any clumps of dirt big enough to conceal an envelope.
About two feet down, the same distance as before, his fingers scraped against cardboard.
He scooped away more dirt. It was the same type of box as before.
He got enough dirt out of the way that he could open the lid.
Ethan gasped and recoiled. Another woman was inside. She was bound and gagged, her eyes wide with terror.
He lifted her up. The gag was difficult to untie, and he didn’t have anything to cut it with, but he finally got it off. She leaned forward and violently coughed for a few moments while he untied her hands and feet.
He helped her out of the grave, which was difficult because she could barely move. He tried to get her to her feet, but she turned into dead weight and he almost dropped her.
“Are your legs numb?” he asked.
She nodded. “It’s all numb.”
“Do you want me to carry you?”
She nodded again, then she began to cry.
Ethan shined the flashlight beam around the inside of the thick cardboard box to make sure there wasn’t an envelope in there. He saw nothing. He assumed that the woman either knew the clue or had it on her.
He hoisted her into his arms and carried her to the paved road. She wasn’t as emaciated as the first woman who’d been buried alive, but she still didn’t look like she had three hot meals a day very often.
Now she was sobbing.
He set her down. He didn’t want to leave the park until he knew she had the clue.
She’d had a deeply traumatic experience, so he could give her a few minutes to compose herself. He’d be sobbing, too.
A few minutes later, she hadn’t stopped. He gently helped her to her feet.
Ethan didn’t want to make this awkward, but he did kind of need the clue. He didn’t know how many more parts there were to this scavenger hunt or how long he had to complete them.
He wasn’t good at consoling people. He tried to give her a comforting hug, but she flinched and pulled away.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She said something back that he couldn’t understand.
“Do you know who did this to you?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Do you know anything about a clue?”
“What clue?”
“I’m looking for a clue.”
“What clue?”
She had to have the clue, right? The “don’t tell anybody about the game” couldn’t apply to a woman who he’d just dug up in order to