Broken Angels

78

Jessica searched every inch of the trunk, flipped through every magazine. There was nothing else. She found a few yellowed recipes, a few McCall's patterns. She found a box of small paper-wrapped demitasse cups. The newspaper wrapping was dated March 22, 1950. She turned back to the portfolio.

Tucked into the back of the binder was a page bearing a number of horrific drawings-hangings, mutilations, disembowelings, dismemberments-childlike in their scrawl, extremely disturbing in their content.

Jessica turned back to the first page. The news article on the murder of Annemarie DiCillo and Charlotte Waite. Nicci read it too.

"Okay," Nicci said. "I'm calling this in. We need cops out here. Walt Brigham liked whoever lived here for the Annemarie DiCillo case, and it looks as though he was right. God knows what else we're going to find in this place."

Jessica handed Nicci her phone. A few moments later, after trying and not getting a signal in the cellar, Nicci walked up the stairs and outside.

Jessica turned back to the boxes.

Who had lived here? she wondered. Where is that person now? In a small town like this, if the person was still anywhere in the area, people would surely know. Jessica sifted through the boxes in the corner. There were more old newspapers, some in a language she couldn't identify, perhaps Dutch or Danish. There were moldy board games, rotting in their long-mildewed boxes. Nothing else mentioned the Annemarie DiCillo case.

She opened yet another box, this one not as timeworn as the others. Inside were newspapers and magazines of a more recent vintage. On top was a year's worth of Amusement Today, a newsletter-style magazine that appeared to be a trade publication devoted to the amusement-park industry. Jessica flipped over an issue. She found an address label. M Damgaard.

Is this Walt Brigham's killer? Jessica tore off the label, shoved it in her pocket.

She had been hauling boxes toward the door when a noise stopped her in her tracks. At first it sounded as if it might just be the settling of dry timbers, creaking in the wind. She heard it again, the sound of old, thirsty wood.

"Nicci?"

Nothing.

Jessica was just about to head up the stairs when she heard the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps. Running footsteps, muffled by the snow. She then heard what might have been a struggle, or maybe it was Nicci struggling to carry something. Then another sound. Her name?

Did Nicci just call her?

"Nicci?" Jessica asked.

Silence.

"Did you make contact with-"

Jessica never finished her question. At that moment the heavy cellar doors slammed shut, the sound of the timbers resounding loudly in the cold stone confines of the cellar.

Then Jessica heard something far more ominous.

The huge doors were being secured with the crossbeam.

From the outside.