Page 74 of The Chain House

“I’m Oliver Crown.”

He headed for the door, but she stopped him: “Oliver?”

“What?”

“Can I see your face?”

“No.”

“Do I know you? From somewhere?”

After a beat, he said, “Yes.”

And then he closed the door.

CHAPTER35

Before

JENNIFER WASN’T THE oldest of the group, but she was the newest to the ranch—what was left of it—and therefore, in her mind, the least damaged.

Which also apparently made her the most equipped to handle their current circumstance, locked in the dark closet with a flashlight as their only source of light, and that had begun to flicker over the past thirty minutes.

The inconsistent light made it difficult to draw.

Iris said every time the light flickered it looked like the figures and shapes in her mural were moving.

The strobe effect, Jennifer had told her, smelling fresh urine from one of them having just gone in their pants. The five of them with an unspoken agreement not to ask who it was, perhaps in fear of them being the next one to have an accident.

The closet was completely empty, which Jennifer took to mean this was not the Breaker of Chains’ bedroom, but instead a spare. Which meant, she hoped they’d be spared. The new boy’s name was Steven. She wondered if he had a mother somewhere. He didn’t talk much, and when he did, he had a nervous voice. Of course, he was new to her, but not to the rest of them. But in the weeks he’d been away from the children’s barracks, it seemed an awkwardness had developed between them, and therefore little was said. Them thinking he’d been killed by demons, only for him to be alive inside the Blue House again, and now locked inside the closet with them, the five of them like the fingers of a hand, promising, in what few words they’d uttered since being ushered into the closet, to not be broken apart. We’re like a fist now, Jennifer had told them in a hushed whisper as she drew on the wall, careful not to draw too hard in case someone would hear.

And she knew it was Steven who’d wet himself, and she felt sorry for him.

Had his mother gone into the woods too?

The sound of footsteps on the stairs rendered them still, ultra quiet, and when the footsteps came closer, across the floorboards and then stopping on the other side of the door, Markie started shivering from fright.

Jennifer gripped his sweaty hand, and he calmed a little.

A key unlocked the closet door, and along with the fresh air that whooshed in, The Raven’s face showed in the opening. They were safe. But his face didn’t show it; he was worried and rushed, and instead of looking for all of them, his eyes sought out only one of them. He reached for Steven and gently ushered him out.

The Raven said, “I can only take one of you now, but I’ll be back. I promise.” And then, “Stay quiet, just for a little longer.”

The door closed, locked, his footsteps trailed away, back across the bedroom floor and down the distant stairs, and somewhere even more distant, a door closed.

Jennifer had Peter hold the flashlight on her mural. In large letters, she wrote The Raven was here across the wall.

And then she found the five stick figures she’d drawn inside the house in the middle of the wall and erased the fifth one.

CHAPTER36

CARL WENT AS far as he was allowed inside the Kentucky Correctional Institution for Women, before telling Jennifer he’d see her back at the truck.

Carl being Carl, he took it in stride; he loved his truck and didn’t mind sitting in it. And he promised to keep himself busy as he waited by scouring the Spider Web, the online true crime network he’d talked about all the way from the state penitentiary at Twisted Tree to the women’s prison in Pewee Valley, with a quick stop at a Goodwill store along the way. After reading the visitor’s dress code, Jennifer realized, in transit, that while her morning interview attire would suffice because it showed no shoulders or cleavage, her open-toe shoes would be out of compliance. It was something Sal’s prison had either overlooked or had no rules against, but she wasn’t taking any chances here. So instead of going out of their way to her apartment, she’d hurried into the thrift store and came out five minutes later with a pair of five-dollar closed-toed flats. By the time they’d pulled into the prison’s parking lot, they’d heard news of yet another fire, this one set in Ransom, a town that neighbored Twisted Tree, at the home of millionaire Henry Hollingsworth. It was the third fire of the day, the victims all from the moneyed class, all in the same general area, and all were considered arson.

So Jennifer could tell Carl couldn’t wait to get back to his truck to do his own bit of gumshoeing on the fires. Meanwhile, Jennifer did her best to prepare herself for another unprecedented interview. She was shocked she’d been able to jump through the numerous hoops of protocol to secure the visit with Nancy Tanner. It was a shot in the dark, spurred on by their confrontation with Harold Martin back at the state pen, but Warden Julia Bates, after putting her on hold for ten minutes, returned with the news that Nancy Tanner had agreed to speak with her within the hour. The female warden made it immediately known that this wasn’t their typical protocol and then proceeded to list every rule she was about to break in allowing the visit.

They had visiting days, and this wasn’t one of them. They had visiting hours, and even if this was the right day, that window had closed hours ago. And inmates in the Segregation Unit were required to have an appointment scheduled one week in advance, and then it was up to the inmate to schedule it with their caseworker, which Nancy Tanner had obviously not done. All visitors were supposed to be listed on the inmate’s approved visiting list, which Jennifer clearly was not. All this, Jennifer knew, would have been impossible on such short notice, but with a resigned sigh, Warden Bates said, “Now, out of all three of the women mentioned, why is it Nancy Tanner you’d like to talk to?”