Where He Can't Find You by Darcy Coates

Author:Darcy Coates [Coates, Darcy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Owl Books

A dozen glinting eyes stared at Abby from every corner of the room. She saw dogs and cats, their bodies misshapen. Limbs missing; extra limbs grown where they shouldn’t. Recessed and missing jaws. An eye with two pupils.

Bridgette leaned back in her chair as she finished her story. She looked older than when they’d arrived. The skin under her dark eyes seemed thinner.

“That officer,” Riya asked. “Is he still in town? Do you remember his name?”

Bridgette hesitated for a second. “No. He gave me his card in case I could help further but… No. I threw it out. I didn’t want to think about the Stitcher, or the days I spent missing, anymore. Even though those two things have gone on to shape the entirety of my life.”

Abby’s breathing was shallow. The mines. Everyone in Doubtful knew that their town was built over a network of abandoned tunnels, but she’d been told they’d all been collapsed and flooded decades before she was born.

Apparently, someone had lied.

If the mines truly still existed beneath them, and they were being used by the Stitcher, it would answer so many questions. Like how Vickers was able to contain multiple victims at a time. How no one had ever heard them calling for help. And how no location for where the bodies had been butchered and sewn up could ever be pinpointed.

The mines were the ideal location for Vickers to hide his crimes. They’d been under Abby’s feet this entire time, and she hadn’t even known.

“Ms. Holm…” Rhys hesitated. “You talk about the Stitcher as though it’s a monster. We… I…grew up believing it was a man. Charles Vickers.”

“Mm.” Bridgette’s eyes fluttered closed. “A lot of people believe that. The caverns were dark. I can’t tell you what the Stitcher looks like, but it wasn’t a human.”

Abby’s hands ached from how tightly they were clenched. “You found a way out of the tunnels. Where was that? What part of town did you emerge into?”

Her eyes opened, and the stare she gave Abby was piercing and shrewd. “The lakeside. There was a wall of what looked like fallen rocks. Behind that was an entrance to the mines. It had been boarded over long before, but the boards were old and crumbling and left just enough room for a body to get through.”

The lakeside. The place they’d visited so often and spent so many hours at. Abby knew the rockslide Bridgette meant. They’d walked past it a dozen times and never once noticed the mine entrance.

But then, they’d never been looking for it.

“Thank you,” she said, standing. Rhys and Riya followed her lead. “If there’s anything else you can think of—”

“Don’t go into the mines.” Bridgette took a slow, deep breath, then let it out carefully. “But, if you do, crawl away from the threads. The denser they are, they closer you are to the heart of its lair. And that’s not somewhere you ever want to be.”

Abby nodded stiffly as she turned to go. “Thank you.”

Riya tugged at her sleeve, stopping them before she could reach the doorway.

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