The call dropped.
Finley stared at the now black screen.
A horn blared.
She swerved back into her lane.
“Damn it!” Finley couldn’t risk calling her back and alerting Cecelia or Olivia if the phone was not silenced.
She called Jack. Got his voice mail. Hung up and called Matt. Voice mail.
“Shit!” She waited for the beep and left him a message about the call from Cherry.
Her thumb went instinctively to the nine, but she hesitated. If she called 911 and alerted the police, all three women could end up dead. Cecelia had a gun.
That would not end well.
She thought of Cherry’s little boy, and she flung her phone onto the passenger seat.
Finley wanted these women alive.
32
5:30 p.m.
The Castle
Centennial Boulevard
Nashville
Finley drove around the decaying castle that fronted the old state prison until she could see the chapel. She parked at the nearest entrance and scrambled out of her car. She had tried Matt again and left a second voice mail.
She glanced around. Didn’t see anyone. Didn’t hear anything except the rumbling of the traffic on the nearby interstate. She silenced her cell, tucked it into one of her back pockets and her keys into the other, then started walking. Graffiti marred the walls. Discarded trash littered the ground. Vandals. Teenagers looking for a cool place to do stuff they couldn’t do at home. Apparently, that hadn’t stopped. A safer place for the homeless than the street. Anyone could be hanging out here if there were no longer any guards. The last Finley recalled reading about the place, parts of it were used for storage.
MAINTENANCE.
She spotted a door like the one Cherry had mentioned and headed toward it.
The door opened with ease. She went through it, allowing it to close behind her. Scenes with the lead character entering an unlocked door in every bad horror flick she’d ever watched scrolled through Finley’s head.
As Cherry had said, there were stairs that disappeared downward. Peeling paint and evidence rodents called the place home kept Finley watching her step.
She imagined there were tunnels and underground storage or mechanical rooms all over the property. Hopefully this was the right one. Back in high school some of her friends had slipped in and explored the prison. She’d never had any desire to do so. Really didn’t now, but if she could find Cherry and the twins, it would be worth the effort.
Effort . . . or risk?
She would know soon enough.
The stairs ended at the entrance to a long, relatively wide corridor. Since it was underground and there were no windows, she was grateful for the lighting, dim as it was. At least the emergency lighting was still operating. She started forward, listening carefully for any sound.
Still nothing. Her arms and legs tingled with the rush of adrenaline pulsing through her veins. Why hadn’t either of the twins called her?
Was this some sort of final retribution? Some showdown?
Or just a plan to force a confession?
But from whom?
Olivia swore Cecelia was the one. Cecelia said the same about her sister.
Was Cherry caught in the middle, or had she played some more pivotal part in the murder than she’d shared so far?
Finley cleared her head. What difference did it make? More importantly, why now?
Somehow Charles Holmes had prompted all this with his decision to request a new trial.
Had this been his ultimate goal? A showdown of some sort between the three women closest to Lance Legard?
Drawing all the players back into this sick game of who did it?
Finley started moving again. When she reached another corridor that went left and right, she paused once more. She didn’t see anything resembling a door in either direction. Didn’t hear a damned sound.
She hadn’t seen any other vehicle. But Cherry had said she’d been in a trunk. Cecelia must have driven her mother’s car since she didn’t have one of her own. If Olivia was here, where was her rental car? Finley supposed one or both could have parked anywhere and walked to their destination.
She moved on. The silence had a sort of swell about it, as if she were underwater. A creepy feeling tapped its way up her spine. Up ahead, she saw a door on the right. About time. She was beginning to think there was nothing down here but empty corridors to nowhere.
“I knew you’d find us.”
Finley whirled around. Cecelia stood a few yards behind her. She appeared uninjured. Her jeans were muddy. Her pink tee was stretched and wrinkled as if someone had tried tugging it off her. Her short shaggy brown hair stood in tufts here and there as if she’d been wearing a hat. A large canvas bag or purse hung on her shoulder, rested against her hip.