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Her voice dimmed. “When we were little, Phoebe wandered off to an old schoolhouse. It had a boiler room, and somehow she got herself locked inside.” Her eyes dilated with excitement. “We eventually found her, but she’d passed out from heat exhaustion from the boilers. There was no ventilation. It was just a windowless room.”
As if in a vacuum, all sound muffled as my dream the night she disappeared came back to me.
“I’ve been looking for you.”
“I know, silly.”
“Where are we?”
“Here. There. Lots of places.”
“Could you be vaguer?”
“You’ll understand someday.”
“Tell me now.”
“I can’t. I have to go.”
“You just got here. Wherever here is.”
“Shhh. He’ll hear you.”
“He? Who’s he? Who’s here, Phoebe? Where have you been, why is your hair wet?”
“Princess fell fast asleep, and dreamt she heard them rhyming; but when she awoke, she found it a joke, for the air was thick and climbing.”
In that instant, I knew she hadn’t died in that video. I could still save her. A single word tore from my throat as I ran for the front door
“Now.”
***
The GPS address led us straight to Hill Heights apartment building. My heart constricted as familiarity rang in my head.
This is the building Elisabeth Cayden managed.
Phoebe had been right all along. He was hiding in plain sight.
I didn’t wait for Zane to stop the car before I ran toward the maintenance building. My heart raced. The darkness was gone. Her light was dim, but I felt it. I frantically threw my body against the locked door, until Zane pulled me back and shot it open.
“Phoebe?” I called to her over and over as we searched the humid room.
The circular damp, dark room with no windows from my dream.
She’d led me to her. I didn’t know how, and I probably never would.
All three of us coughed through the fog. I could barely see my own hand in front of my face, and the heated air was so thick, my shirt dripped in sweat within seconds.
“Phoebe?” I called out, more frantic than ever.
“Over here!” I followed Zane’s voice to the far left corner of the room. Blindly reaching, I knew the minute I touched her leg.
It was my Phoebe.
“Is she breathing?” I coughed through the haze.
“Don’t know, help me pull her out. We’ve got to get her out of here.”
