“Yeah. A pat on the back for me. Because on top of the dungeon being small and black, it really stinks. At this point sheer adrenaline is guiding me. I jump down…it’s a good eight feet.” A large sigh. “I find the girl, Pete. She’s nude, wrapped up in plastic garbage bags with a ligature around her neck. By my rough calculations—judging by the time Mandy had been in the hospital—she’s been that way for at least two days.”

Marge’s voice had cracked.

“I take her pulse…didn’t feel anything. It was cold down there and she felt cold. But not ice-cold. She’s not moving, though. I assume she’s dead. I mean why should she be alive? Then I shine a light in her eyes. She fucking blinks!”

Decker couldn’t talk. How could he?

“She’s unconscious but alive. I tear the ligature from her neck. We call the paramedics. They get her out and rush her to the hospital. As of right now, she’s in critical condition. We don’t know if she’ll come out of it. But for the time being, she’s still among the living. How do you figure something like that?”

“You don’t. Does Mandy know who she is?”

“Mandy’s still under sedation. We’ll have to wait until it wears off before we can talk to her.”

The airplane door was closing. Decker had about thirty seconds. “You mentioned something about a strong stench. Was there anyone else in there besides the girl?”

“There are two other bodies down there in various stages of decomposition. The coroner’s investigators have pulled out one body so far. It’s bloated and filled with maggots and most of the skin has peeled off. It’s gruesome. And that’s the best of the two.”

“Oh, my word! How long do you think it’ll take before they clean the place out?”

“I don’t know, Pete. They’ve still got a corpse to go. After that, they’ll get to work on the ossuary. The bodies were sitting atop a pile of bones.”

WITH NOTHING TO obstruct the horizon, the sun rose in its full glory—a hot, gold disk pulsating with light. By seven in the morning, the outside spots that had allowed the investigators to work through the night were shut off, although the lights set up inside the bunker were shining full blast. It took many more hours before all the biological material could be properly removed from the cement grave.