“What the fuck is this?” she said.
“Let me out and I’ll tell you.” He rattled the bars to keep her focused. “My name is Blake Dozier. Please, the key is on the wall right beside you. Please, please let me out. I have to get out of here.”
“You’re the Wonder Wheel Kid.” She spoke softly, walking toward him. “That’s why you look so familiar. Holy shit. You’re not dead.”
“What?” he said, not understanding.
“Your selfie,” she said. “Of you on top of the Wonder Wheel. It went viral and everybody’s been wondering what happened to you. They were starting to think you might be dead.” She took the key off the wall. “I’m Ava. My mom is the deputy chief of police of Seaside, and she’s been looking for you. Let’s get you out of here.”
She sounded confident, but her hands were shaking as she fumbled with the lock. Finally, she got the door open. She extended a hand and Blake stumbled as he reached forward to take it. The relief he felt was so powerful his knees almost buckled beneath him.
He felt the warmth of her palm, but before he could close his fingers around hers, he heard a loud snap. A sharp, hot, fierce pain emanated from somewhere in his midsection, and dropping her hand, he looked down in disbelief. A dark, wet spot was spreading fast over his purple Wonderland shirt.
The girl screamed as his knees finally gave out, and he collapsed to the floor of the dungeon.
It was cruel to have come so close to freedom only to die now, and the last thing he saw was the girl crouching over him, her face streaked with white makeup and tears, while his captor loomed over them both with a gun pointed toward them. His captor had never brought a gun with him before, at least not that Blake had seen, and he knew instantly that this wouldn’t end well for the girl, either. She held his hand and touched his face, then turned and said something to the captor Blake couldn’t quite make out. The dungeon was beginning to fade away.
Squeezing her hand with what strength he had left, he said the only word he could think of to say, the only word his brain seemed able to process.
“Run,” Blake whispered, closing his eyes. It was so cold down here, colder than it had ever been. “Run.”
FORTY-TWO
Vanessa and Jerry ran through the midway toward the Clown Museum, and if she hadn’t been on the verge of complete and utter hysteria, she might have paused to think about how eerie Wonderland looked at this time of night. The Wonder Wheel lights were still on—those lights were always on—but there was not a soul other than themselves anywhere on park grounds that she could see.
Nate Essex and Pete Warwick would be here soon, along with Oscar Trejo, whom Vanessa had called personally. She explained what had happened with Ava, and he’d offered his assistance immediately. Despite what he’d done, she needed his expertise on where to look for Ava inside the park.
“I know every inch of Wonderland,” Oscar had said to her on the phone. “We’ll find her.”
Donnie Ambrose, the detective who’d been so loyal and so anti-Wonderland from the beginning and who was likely the serial killer she’d been looking for, would have to be arrested by someone else. Vanessa had called for an APB on him, but all she cared about right now was finding her little girl. Ava was somewhere in this godforsaken park with a rapist who’d assumed someone else’s identity, and who’d managed to go unnoticed at Wonderland for two whole years.
Until now.
She should have taken her daughter more seriously when Ava had first complained about Carlos Jones. She should have asked more questions about him, dug a little deeper. She’d been teaching Ava from a young age to always trust her gut, and the one time her daughter had, Vanessa had dropped the ball completely. Serial killer or no serial killer, her kid came first.
The Clown Museum, the attraction Ava was scheduled to work at all week, was the logical place to start. When the other officers arrived, they would all spread out.
She approached the museum as if seeing it for the first time, even though it had been here when she had worked at World of Wonder all those years ago. The entrance was a gaudy, massive plaster structure, designed to look like a clown’s face, and guests entered through its wide, gaping mouth. The age of the attraction showed in the cracks and peeling paint, but somehow it only added to its creepiness.
A security guard was waiting for them right by the clown’s mouth. As they got closer, Vanessa saw that it was Rudy, the same security guy who’d helped out with the surveillance footage the day Homeless Harry’s body had been dumped at the park.
“Deputy Chief.” Rudy’s eyes flickered to Jerry and then back to Vanessa again. “I have the keys to every door in this park if you need them. Oz told me to do whatever you ask.”
“You can start by opening this door for us, Rudy. When we get inside, we’ll all split up. Do you know Carlos Jones?”
“Not very well, I’m sorry to say.” Rudy unlocked the door using a key attached to a giant ring. He stepped aside to let Vanessa and Jerry enter first. “He’s always kept his head down, though once or twice a few of the female Wonder Workers complained that he stares a bit too much. No one’s ever filed a complaint against him, though. Clearly we should have looked into it more.”
“Yes, you should have. Turn the lights on, please.”
“They are on.” Rudy looked around. “It’s always dim in here.”
Swearing under her breath, Vanessa looked at Rudy and Jerry. The security guard seemed half as tall and twice as wide as her friend, but the expressions of grim determination on their faces were identical. “Spread out,” she said to them. “Don’t hesitate to use your weapon if it means saving my little girl’s life.”
“Got it.” Jerry had grabbed an extra Maglite from the trunk of Vanessa’s unmarked and he switched it on. Vanessa switched hers on, too. Her gun was in its holster at her hip; Jerry’s was tucked into the waistband of his jeans.
“All I got is my stick and a can of pepper spray,” Rudy said, sounding ashamed. He turned on his flashlight. It was half the size of theirs and not nearly as bright. “They don’t give us anything else.”
“Then spray him and hit him as hard as you can,” Vanessa said. “Rudy, you take the celebrity wax figures, and Jerry can take the Dollhouse. I’ll take the clowns. Go.”
The three of them disbursed, and Vanessa made her way quickly through the museum. It hadn’t changed much in the twenty years since she’d been here. The wax clowns stared at her with their glassy eyes, and as she weaved her way through them, she looked for any sign of Ava. The light from her Mag flickered over every crevice and corner.
So help me god, if you’ve touched a hair on her head . . .
Two minutes later, she heard Jerry’s voice echo through the silence of the museum. Vanessa’s heart leapt into her throat, and she followed the sound until she found him. Rudy had beat her there, and they were standing by what looked like a utility or supply closet. The door was open.
“What is it?” Vanessa’s heart was hammering as she approached. “Did you find her?”
“Rudy says this isn’t normal.” Jerry stepped aside so she could look into the supply closet.
It wasn’t very big, and it appeared as though it had been converted into a dressing room of some sort. A row of clown and doll costumes hung from pegs along one wall, and there was a vanity table against the far wall. To the left was another door, which was also open. A second door inside a utility closet? That didn’t seem to make any sense. Cold, drafty air was wafting out of it, and shattered pieces of mirrored glass were all over the floor. As Vanessa took a moment to process what she was seeing, a knapsack in the corner caught her attention.
It belonged to Ava. She would never have left her knapsack behind. This was the last place she’d been.
“What’s through that door?” she asked Rudy.
“I don’t know.” The portly security guard looked genuinely baffled. “I?
??ve never seen it before.”
Jerry walked over and shone his light into it. “I’ve heard rumors about an underground tunnel at Wonderland,” he said. “Always thought it was an urban myth, something started by the kids to make the park seem cool. Looks like Miss Ava found it.”
“When you guys get down the stairs, go left,” a voice behind them said. They all turned to see Oscar standing there with Nate Essex and Pete Warwick. Vanessa nodded to him and Oz nodded back. “We’ll go right. The tunnel is a bit of a maze and we don’t know which way she went. It’s faster if we split up.”
FORTY-THREE
Under the Clown Museum
Ava could feel the life seeping out of Blake Dozier. His hand had gone limp in hers and his face was white. If he was breathing, she couldn’t tell.
The man holding the gun was dressed all in black, a ski mask covering his whole face except for his eyes, which appeared dark in the dim lighting of the dungeon. He was taller than Carlos Jones had been, and leaner. Other than that, there was nothing about him that was distinguishing.
“Don’t kill me.” Ava’s voice was cracked and hoarse from all the screaming she’d done. “I haven’t seen your face. I don’t know who you are. Please, just let me go.”
“Stand up,” he said.
She let go of Blake’s hand and got to her feet, wobbling a little, and faced him. Instinctively, she put her hands up in the air, palms out. “Please,” she said again. “I didn’t mean to come here. I was trying to get away from someone who was going to hurt me, and I fell down the stairs. Just let me go, please.”
“What’s your name?”
She didn’t recognize his voice, but he didn’t sound old at all. She didn’t want to tell him her name. Seaside was a small town, and everybody seemed to know who her mother was. If this man found out she was the daughter of the deputy chief, he would likely kill her so as not to take any chances that she might be able to identify him. He’d shot Blake without even hesitating. He was, clearly, the serial killer at Wonderland her mother was hunting.
“Marie.” Ava gave him her middle name, which was the only name she could think of at the moment.
“What’s wrong with your face?”
His question confused her, and then she remembered she was still in her doll costume. “It’s makeup,” she said. “I work here at the park. Upstairs. In the Clown Museum.”
“I know who you are.” He walked toward her, the gun comfortable and loose in his hand. “The makeup threw me, but as soon as you said Clown Museum . . . I’ve seen your picture. In your mom’s office, on her desk. Your name isn’t Marie. You’re Ava Castro.”
“No, my name is Marie.” She started to cry, the sobs heaving up from her chest painfully.
He pulled off his mask, revealing a young, clean-cut face and hair that was buzzed almost to the skull. He seemed weary and tired. “I guess I can take this off now. You’re not going to be able to tell anybody anything, anyway. I’m sorry, Ava, but you’re not getting out of here.”
“No,” she said, gasping for air. Hot tears were streaming down her face and every inch of her body began to tremble violently. It had nothing to do with the cold, and she couldn’t control it, couldn’t make herself still. The fear spread right to her bones, and then her gut, and she thought she might throw up. “No, please, I don’t know anything. I don’t even know who you are.”
“I’m tired, Ava,” he said. “I was going to stop, I really was. Blake was a mistake. I was trying to move Aiden’s body. He escaped into the woods and I had to kill him there, but it was a few days before I could go back and get him, and there was no way to get him back down here except through the Clown Museum. Blake was pulling some stupid stunt on the wheel, which is just so typical for boys like him who think they run the world. He saw me. I had no choice but to take him.”
Ava was still shaking so hard she could barely speak. “Please,” she said. “Please don’t hurt me.”
“The irony is, I like your mom.” His face crumpled for a second before he regained his composure again. “She took me under her wing, and I was learning so much from her. She made me believe I could turn it all around. She told me I could go to the FBI if I wanted to, that I could leave Seaside. She’s nothing like Bianca. All Bianca did was play games with me. Sometimes she wanted me, sometimes she didn’t, and there were so many times I tried to break free of her, but couldn’t. She’d always pull me back in. I thought when I made detective it would change things, that maybe she’d finally take me seriously, but nothing changed. To her I was always just a stupid Wonder Worker. I’ve wasted so much time on Bianca.”
“She was seeing someone else.” Ava’s mind raced as she tried to understand what he was saying. He’d been involved with Bianca Bishop, too, that much was clear. Ava needed to keep him talking. It was the only hope she had of staying alive. “Bianca was seeing one of my friends. He’s only eighteen.”
“Bianca was seeing a lot of people. Always young, always blond, always the Wonderland look. I had that look once. I got too old for her.” His voice hardened and he rubbed his head. “The things I’ve done for her. She doesn’t even know the lengths I’ve gone to, the things I’ve done because I love her—” He stopped abruptly.
“What things?”
“It doesn’t matter now,” he said. “I can’t undo it. I can’t undo any of it. I wish your mom had been around back then. Your mom . . . she was nice to me.”
“Then don’t hurt her.” Ava was desperate. She needed to reason with him, though she wasn’t sure she could. His sense of right and wrong was completely warped, to say the least. “Hurting me will hurt her, don’t you see that?”
“Get on your knees,” he said.
“Please, I—”
“Now,” he said.
She got on her knees. He was standing right above her, looking down. She turned her face up to his. “Please,” she said one last time, and the shaking was so bad her teeth were chattering.
“I’m sorry,” he said. And what was crazy was that he really did seem sorry.
He started to raise the gun, but then stopped when they both heard a noise. Seemingly out of nowhere, a thermos was rolling toward them. It was clear blue plastic, the kind that you put water in when you went hiking, and inside it was a mini Twix candy bar. It was the weirdest thing to see, and the noise it made as it rolled on the cement floor seemed loud inside the tunnel. It continued to roll until it stopped a few inches short of Ava’s knee. She had no idea where it had come from, but it was just enough to distract the man, who was looking down at it, too.
Without hesitating, she grabbed for his gun with both hands, pulling on it as hard she could. If she was going to die, she might as well do it trying to save herself.
There was a loud snap—the sound of a gunshot—and Ava screamed.
FORTY-FOUR
Under the Clown Museum
“Ava!” Vanessa screamed, racing through the tunnel as fast she as could. Behind her, Jerry and Rudy followed. “Ava! Goddammit, I don’t know where the hell I’m going. Ava!”
“Deputy Chief!” she heard a male voice shout. It sounded like Nate Essex. “Deputy, go straight and make a left, then head toward the light!”
She did as she was instructed, and a minute later, she saw a flicker of light up ahead. Not slowing down even a bit, she ran toward it, Maglite in one hand, gun in the other. She took in the scene all at once.
Her daughter was on the floor, sobbing hysterically. Just in front of her, a man lay crumpled facedown, dressed entirely in black. He was completely still. Nate and Pete were standing over him, guns still cocked. Behind Ava was a jail cell of some kind, and another body could be seen lying on the cement floor, also still. Oscar stood in the corner, looking stunned by the whole thing.
Vanessa dropped her flashlight, holstered her weapon, and went straight to her daughter, scooping her up in her
arms.
“It’s okay,” she said, holding Ava as tight as she could. Her daughter was trembling violently from head to toe, and she clung to Vanessa like she hadn’t done since she was a toddler. “It’s okay, I’m here. I’ve got you. You’re okay. Shhh. Mommy’s here. You’re safe.”
“I can’t get a cell signal down here,” Jerry said to Rudy, who seemed almost paralyzed by what was going on. “I need you to go back up and call an ambulance. Make sure they send at least two. I see two bodies.” The security guard didn’t move. “Go,” Jerry said again, and Rudy finally snapped out of his trance.
Ava’s crying slowed down a little, and she turned her face up to her mother. White, chalky makeup was flaking in little patches from her skin, and one of her false eyelash strips had come unglued and was hanging by a lash. “You’re really here.” She sounded as if she was afraid to believe it.
Vanessa plucked the dangling eyelashes off and kissed her daughter’s clammy forehead. “I’m here. You’re safe. They got him.”
Ava nodded, burying her head in her mother’s chest.
Looking up from where she was crouched, Vanessa said, “Is it Carlos Jones?”
Nate and Pete both shook their heads. “It can’t be,” Nate said. “He’s too tall. We haven’t turned him over yet.”
Ava had calmed down, and she pulled back. “It’s not Carlos Jones,” she said. “Whoever it is, he knew you and you knew him. Go and do your job, Mom. It’s okay.”
Vanessa kissed her forehead again and squeezed her tighter. “This is my most important job. I’m fine right where I am.” To Nate and Pete, she said, “Turn him over.”
Jerry, after briefly squeezing Ava’s shoulder, went over to see the body. Pete Warwick holstered his gun and bent down, rolling the man over onto his back. An audible gasp could be heard, confirming what Vanessa already suspected. She hadn’t had a chance yet to tell anyone here about Donnie Ambrose, so it was a hell of a way for them all to find out.