The Keepsake

TWENTY-FIVE

The relentless pings of dripping water were like hammer blows to her aching head. Josephine groaned and her voice seemed to echo back, as though she were in some vast cave that smelled of mold and dank earth. Opening her eyes, she saw a blackness so solid that when she reached out, she half expected to feel it. Though her hand was right in front of her face, she could not see even a hint of movement, not the faintest silhouette. Just the effort to focus in the darkness made her stomach rebel.

Fighting nausea, she closed her eyes and rolled onto her side, where she lay with her cheek pressed against damp fabric. She struggled to make sense of where she was. Little by little she registered the details. Dripping water. Cold. A mattress that smelled of mildew.

Why can’t I remember how I got here?

Her last memory was of Simon Crispin. The sound of his alarmed voice, his shouting in the darkness of the museum basement. But that was a different darkness, not this one.

Her eyes shot open again, and this time it wasn’t nausea but fear that gripped her stomach. Fighting dizziness, she sat up. She heard her own heartbeat and the whoosh of blood in her ears. Reaching beyond the edge of the mattress, she felt a frigid concrete floor. Her hands swept the perimeter and she discovered, within reach, a jug of water. A waste bucket. And something soft, covered in crackling plastic. She squeezed it and smelled the yeasty fragrance of bread.

Farther and farther she explored, her dark universe expanding as she gradually ventured off the safe island of the mattress. On hands and knees she crawled, her leg cast scraping across the floor. Leaving the mattress behind in the dark, she suddenly panicked that she would not be able to find it again, that she’d be eternally wandering on the cold floor in search of that pitiful bit of comfort. But the wilderness was not such a large place after all; after only a short crawl, she came up against a rough concrete wall.

Propping herself against it, she rose to her feet. The effort left her unsteady and she leaned back, eyes closed, waiting for her head to clear. She became aware of other sounds now. The chirping of insects. The skittering of some unseen creature moving across the floor. And through it all, that relentless dripping of water.

She limped alongside the wall, tracing the boundaries of her prison. A few paces took her to the first corner, and she found it oddly comforting to discover that this blackness was not infinite, that her blind wanderings would not lead her to drop off the edge of the universe. She hobbled on, her hand tracing the next wall. A dozen paces took her to a second corner.

The features of her prison were slowly taking shape in her head.

She moved along the third wall until she reached another corner. Twelve paces by eight paces, she thought. Twenty-four feet by thirty-six feet. Concrete walls and a floor. A basement.

She started along the next wall, and her foot bumped up against something that clattered away. Reaching down, her fingers closed around the object. She felt curved leather, the bumpy surface of rhinestones. A spike heel.

A woman’s shoe.

Another prisoner has been in this place, she thought. Another woman has slept on that mattress and gulped from that water jug. She cradled the shoe, her fingers exploring every curve, hungrily seeking clues to its owner. My sister in despair. It was a small shoe, size five or six, and with the rhinestones, surely it had been a party shoe, meant to be worn with a pretty dress and earrings, for an evening out with a special man.

Or the wrong man.

Suddenly she was shaking from both cold and despair. She hugged the shoe to her chest. The shoe of a dead woman; of this she had no doubt. How many others had been kept here? How many would come after her? She took in a shaky breath and imagined she could smell their scents, the fear and despair of every woman who had trembled in this darkness, a darkness that had sharpened all her other senses.

She heard blood pumping through her arteries and felt cool air swirl into her lungs. And she smelled the damp leather of the shoe she was cradling. When you lose your eyes, she thought, you notice all the invisible details you once would have missed, the way you really only notice the moon after the sun finally sets.

Clutching the shoe like a talisman, she forced herself to continue the survey of her prison, wondering if the darkness hid other clues to past inmates. She imagined a floor littered with the scattered possessions of dead women. A watch here, a lipstick there. And what will they someday find of mine? she wondered. Will there be any trace of me left, or will I be just another vanished woman, whose last hours will never be known?

The concrete wall abruptly dipped and changed to wood. She halted.

I found the door.

Though the knob turned easily, she could not budge the door itself; it was bolted shut on the other side. She screamed and banged on it with her fists, but it was solid wood and her puny efforts succeeded only in bruising her hands. Exhausted, she slumped back against the door and through the thumping of her own heart, she heard a new sound, one that made her snap taut in fear.

The growl was low-pitched and menacing, and in the darkness she could not locate it. She pictured sharp teeth and claws, imagined the creature advancing toward her even now, poised to spring on her. Then she heard a chain rattle and a scratching sound that came from somewhere overhead.

She looked up. For the first time, she spied a crack of light, so faint that at first she didn’t trust her own eyes. But as she watched, the crack slowly brightened. It was the first light of dawn, shining through a tiny boarded-up ventilation window.

Claws scraped at the boards as the dog outside tried to tear its way in. It was a large animal by the sound of its growl. I know he’s out there, and he knows I’m in here, she thought. He smells my fear and he wants a taste of it as well. She’d never owned a dog, and had imagined one day having a beagle or perhaps a Shetland sheepdog, some sweet and gentle breed. Not the beast that now stood guard outside that window. A beast that, judging by the sound of it, could rip out her throat.

The dog barked. She heard car tires and the sound of an engine shutting off.

She went rigid, her heart slamming against her chest, as the barking grew frenzied. Her gaze shot upward to the ceiling as footsteps creaked overhead.

Dropping the shoe, she retreated as far as she could from the door, until her back pressed up against the concrete wall. She heard a bolt slide. The door squealed open. A flashlight shone in, and as the man approached, she turned away, as blinded as though it were the sun itself burning her retinas.

He merely stood over her, saying nothing. The concrete chamber magnified every sound, and she heard his breathing, slow and steady, as he examined his captive.

“Let me go,” she whispered. “Please.”

He did not say a word, and it was his silence that frightened her the most. Until she saw what he held in his hand, and she knew that there was far worse in store for her than mere silence.

It was a knife.