“How’s the sex life?” Chandler asked, and before Jack answered she launched into the game. “Rock, paper, scissors, throw!”

  Jack threw scissors. Chandler threw rock.

  “My sex life is good,” Jack said. “And you suck.”

  “I do. Which is why my sex life is also good.”

  Chandler knew Jack had an EDC, like she did. Everyday carry items always included a folding knife, a multi-tool, a pen, and a high-beam portable flashlight.

  They headed out into the night and followed the path from the patio into the woods, sweeping the trees with 1,000 lumens each. The path spread into a trail the width of a country road, rutted with what looked like the imprint of tire treads. The dark shapes of trees towered on either side, and here and there the bark of a birch caught their beams, shining like bleached and broken bones.

  Shadows danced and dodged. The night swallowed Chandler’s peripheral vision and chomped for more whenever she moved her flashlight.

  Coolness, stillness, and unnatural silence surrounded her, and except for the sound of their footfalls and breaths, and the tiny cones of illumination, Chandler felt enveloped in a void.

  Not the peaceful void she’d been hoping for. A disconcerting void, from which escape was impossible.

  What would my sister and her fixation with Carl Jung think about that?

  “Snakes,” Jack said.

  Chandler paused, casting her beam around the ground, aware of the local timber rattlers and massasauga. She’d seen venomous snakes in the wild before, and disturbing one wasn’t wise.

  “I mean the birch trees,” Jack pointed her flashlight upward. “They remind me of giant snakes, shedding their skins.”

  “Nice image. Not creepy at all.”

  “So you agree it’s creepy out here?”

  “Weed paranoia,” Chandler overstated, trying to convince both Jack and herself that it was the truth.

  But it really is creepy out here.

  And I keep getting that strange feeling I’m being watched.

  The tiny hairs on Chandler’s arms stood up, and she felt her insides clench.

  The only eyes on me are hoot owls and salamanders.

  I’m letting Jack’s fear make me nervous.

  We’re fine. Everything’s fine.

  Well, not everything. But I’ll get to that.

  They followed a trail made by what Chandler assumed were tractor tracks; two large rear wheels, two smaller front wheels. Some of the dead trees were cleared off the path, so the tractor likely had a bucket in front to lift and move debris.

  Smart business move to hire a groundskeeper if you own a B and B. Or maybe the owner did the clearing themselves.

  By the time they found the first item in the hunt—the close-up of what turned out to be the door handle of an ancient, collapsing outhouse—both Chandler and Jack let out nervous titters as they took their selfie.

  “This is so stupid.” Jack played her EDC beam up and down a gigantic white pine, searching for birdhouses. “Stumbling around in this forest. I keep expecting to see little hanging figures made of sticks.”

  “Blair Witch.” Chandler nodded. “I saw it on TV, dubbed in Portuguese.”

  “Where’d you see that?”

  “Portugal. Stuck in a safe house. Ate so much bacalhau I couldn’t look at fish for a year.”

  “That movie made me motion sick. All the shaky camera shots.”

  “Did you bring more gummies?”

  “Would another gummy make you tell me what is going on with you?”

  Chandler tensed again. She flipped to the next picture in the scavenger hunt. A chipped pig figurine painted in Green Bay Packer green and gold.

  “Keep your eye out for this little dude.”

  “If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine.” Jack paused. “Are you dying?”

  “What? No. Not that I know of.”

  “Is someone else dying?” Jack asked. “Heath?”

  “He’s good. Just a pompous ass.”

  “Did he dump you?”

  “No. Jack, this isn’t—”

  “You’re going to dump him? Have you talked to your therapist about how you push people away?”

  Do I do that? Maybe I should talk to her about that, next sesh.

  “No one is dumping anyone. Stop trying to guess what my problem is.”

  “Will you tell me if I stop guessing?”

  Chandler sighed, her breath fogging in the cool fall air.

  Here goes nothing.

  “You know I’ve been a spy my whole life.”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s all I know.”

  “You know more than that. You know a zillion things.”

  “I know a zillion things, but it’s all to do with that one thing. Every single thing I’ve been taught was to make me a better weapon.”

  “And you’re thinking about quitting,” Jack said, shining her light on Chandler’s face.

  Chandler nodded.

  “And you’re worried that if you give that up,” Jack continued, “then you won’t have a purpose.”

  Spoken just like my therapist.

  “I’m a scalpel, Jack. I am able to do delicate, sensitive surgery. Or I can cut out a heart or amputate a leg. It is what I was designed for.”

  “And?”

  “And what is the point of a scalpel if it isn’t cutting anything?”

  “You’re a human being, Chandler. Not a tool. We’re more than our skills.”

  “Would you create a tool that had no purpose?”

  Jack didn’t reply.

  “So you agree lives need purpose? That we need a reason for living?”

  Jack nodded. “Yes. So if you don’t want to be a scalpel, find another reason.”

  “My codename is Chandler,” Chandler said. “That’s the only name I know. That’s all I know how to be.”

  An owl hooted. And even though Chandler was standing right next to Jack, she felt very alone.

  “When I quit being a cop, I didn’t quit being me. Well, actually, I did quit being me for a while. But I found equilibrium. I wound up where I needed to be.”

  “I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready.”

  “To find something else to live for?”

  “To be boring and ordinary.”

  “But it’s fine to be a dick?”

  Jack started off down the dark trail, making Chandler hurry to catch up.

  “I didn’t mean for that to be insulting,” Chandler said.

  “Was that insulting? I must have missed it, because I’m too boring and ordinary.”

  Jack turned to keep going, but Chandler caught her shoulder. “Really, Jack? I’m reaching out to an older woman for help, and rather than act like the mature mother figure I need you’re all butt hurt that I belittled your lame life.”

  Jack blinked.

  Chandler winced. “That didn’t come out right.”

  “You really need to work harder on this friendship thing, Chandler.”

  “Noted. I’m trying.”

  Jack frowned. “Let me see that pig picture again.”

  The night was cool and quiet and Chandler caught a hint of decay.

  Autumn, though pretty, was all about death.

  She handed Jack the scavenger hunt cards. “What do you think?”

  “That’s a sad-looking pig.”

  “Not about that. About me quitting.”

  “It’s not what I think,” Jack said. “It’s what I know.”

  “What do you know?”

  “You already know what I know.”

  “Which is…?”

  “I know that you don’t want to quit. You like being this badass superbitch secret agent.”

  “I’m not sure I do.”

  “Then quit.”

  “And do what? Get married, have kids, live in the suburbs?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Because you hate your life?” Chandler asked.

  “Because you’d be a shit spouse and a shit mother.”

  Jack continued to walk on, but Chandler paused.

  Is that true?

  Maybe it is.

  How do I feel about that?

  How do I feel about anything?

  What do I actually want? Why did I invite myself to this getaway?

  Why do I listen to Jack’s phone when she has the most mundane, average, normal conversations with her boring family?

  I’ve engaged in hand-to-hand combat inside of a blimp. And on top of a high-tension wire. I was blown out of the window of the 95th floor of the John Hancock building.

  So why do I listen in on her as she makes mulligatawny soup with her daughter and husband?

  What am I running away from? Or toward?

  What the hell is my problem?

  Jack stopped and turned around. “Are you butt hurt?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “So why are you crying?”

  Chandler reached up and touched her cheek. Her fingers came away wet and shiny.

  Why am I crying?

  Why the hell am I crying?

  Jack frowned. “You can’t do that. You can’t be a total asshole and then fall apart when I throw it back at you.”

  She handed the scavenger hunt cards back to Chandler and started back in the direction of the cabin.

  For a moment Chandler just stood there, watching Jack’s retreating back.

  This conversation didn’t go as planned.

  But I’m still not sure what the plan was. Or is.

  And now I did the one thing I didn’t want to do.

  I killed the fun we were having.

  Heaving in a deep breath she swept the trees with her light once more before heading back. The wall of a structure, hidden behind a copse of trees, caught her eye.

  “Jack, there’s a scary building hidden in the woods,” Chandler said. “You game to check it out?”

  “I’m not game,” Jack said over her shoulder.

  “Might be bursting with scavenger hunt items.”

  “I want to go back in.”

  Chandler blurted out, “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry? For what?”

  “We were having fun, and I ruined it, and now you want to get away from me. I don’t blame you. We can go in.”

  Chandler walked past and Jack reached for her. “Wait.”

  The women’s eyes met. Jack sighed audibly.

  “Let’s go explore the scary building hidden in the woods,” Jack said.

  Chandler led the way, and ten meters later she found a tractor trail leading up to the front of the building, which turned out to be a sizeable rusting metal pole barn with a tin roof. The tire tracks ended at a large garage door, the clasp secured with a formidable padlock.

  “It’s locked,” Jack said. “It won’t have any scavenger hunt stuff inside.”

  “Don’t you want to see what’s inside anyway?” Chandler prodded.

  “I do not.”

  “Once a cop always a cop? Can’t do a little B & E? I can enter without breaking anything.”

  “I don’t want to enter anything. If it’s locked, it’s none of my business.”

  “Are you afraid?”

  Jack gave her head a slight shake. “Friends don’t pressure each another, Chandler. You’re acting like a bully at an all-girls slumber party.”

  Chandler’s expression remained blank. “I never went to a slumber party.”

  Jack did another big, dramatic sigh. “Fine. Pick the damn lock.”

  Chandler, a wave rake and tension wrench already in her hand, popped her flashlight into her mouth and focused on the keyhole, then raked the pins on the cylinder and popped the shackle in under four seconds.

  “I’m not armed,” Jack said as Chandler reached for the garage door handle near the ground.

  “I’m always armed.”

  “What if someone is inside?”

  Is she serious? Or just trying to stall?

  “There can’t be anyone inside. It was locked from the outside.”

  “Right. I knew that.”

  “Am I going in or not?” Chandler asked.

  “Okay, just open it.”

  Chandler lifted the door, and it rolled up on hinges, revealing—

  Concrete blocks. Stacked, staggered concrete blocks, formed into a wall.

  “Well,” Jack said. “That’s just weird.”

  Chandler played her flashlight over the structure, revealing it stretched floor to ceiling, side to side. She was puzzled. “Any idea what this is?”

  “Maybe the owner has a problem with concrete block theft,” Jack opined. “So he keeps them locked away.”

  “They’re mortared in place.” Chandler placed her palm on a block and leaned on it. “This isn’t a supply pile. It’s permanent.”

  “Maybe there’s something dangerous inside. Owner bricked it up.”

  “What’s so dangerous you need to wall it in with concrete blocks?”

  Chandler placed her ear against the cold stone and listened.

  Quiet as a tomb.

  Until—

  “I hear something really faint. Like a mouse squeaking. Something high-pitched.”

  “That’s one helluva big mouse trap,” Jack said.

  “I think it’s the wind getting between the blocks and the metal sides of the barn. It’s whistling.”

  Jack cupped her hands around her ear and leaned in. She immediately pulled back, as if startled.

  “That’s freaky. Like the souls of the damned being tortured. Or a ghost wailing for all it’s lost.”

  There was a lot about this that didn’t make sense to Chandler. Plus something nagging at her. Something obvious that she felt like she was overlooking.

  “Can we go back now?” Jack asked.

  Chandler nodded. She closed the garage door, cinched on the padlock, and began to follow Jack who followed the tractor tracks, their flashlight beams moving faster and jerkier, as if they were searching for approaching threats.

  Then Jack stopped abruptly.

  “Chandler. It’s Bitey the Gnome.”

  Jack left the path. Trudging through half-decomposed leaves and patches of rust-colored ferns, she slipped behind a large maple and vanished.

  “Jack?”

  No answer.

  “Jack?” Louder this time.

  An owl hooted, so startlingly close that Chandler drew her Beretta, training and instinct taking over.

  I think I’ve had enough of these woods for the night.

  “Jack? You okay?”

  After an uncomfortably long silence, Jack finally answered.

  “I dropped my flashlight. It rolled under something.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Chandler navigated the forest floor, finding Jack in a crouch behind the tree. She squatted and began brushing dead leaves and pine needles off the ground until she found Jack’s flashlight, face down in a gopher hole.

  After fishing it out, Jack directed her beam at the gnome… and then beyond the gnome.

  To something in the woods.

  Something human-sized. And human shaped. And horrifying.

  The flashlight began to jitter in Jack’s hand, making the awful image flicker and strobe.

  “Chandler… is that a dead body?”

  CAPTIVE #80

  Mia wasn’t answering.

  Tray tried to yell for her again, but his dry throat felt ready to splinter.

  He’d never been so thirsty.

  He’d never been so afraid.

  Not just for himself. But for the woman he loved.

  He had no idea where he was, or how long he’d been there, or how he got there.

  There was darkness. And cold. And stone. And salt.

  Thirst. And hunger.

  Pain. From the cramps that wracked his body, lying in a fetal position, surrounded by blocks of concrete.

  Pain. From his swollen tongue and raw throat and empty stomach.

  Pain. From knowing he was going to die.

  Pain. From knowing Mia was suffering the same horrible fate.

  He was too weak, too tired, too hurt to call for her again.

  But he called for her just the same—“MIA!”—with the heart of a lion and the voice of a lamb.

  He waited, straining to hear. The silence hurt worse than any pain he’d ever endured.

  And then—

  “TRAY!”

  The captive man sobbed in relief, but in his dehydrated state no tears came.

  HARRY

  Going West On Highway 8

  They say the measure of a man is what finally makes him quit.

  I measure men in a different way, using a ruler and a hand mirror.

  My name is Harry McGlade. I’m a private eye.

  You may know me from the rebootquel hit TV series based on my life, Fatal Autonomy. Or from my podcast, Live From The Toilet, which is currently banned on all social media except for the site formerly known as Twitter. Or from my signature fragrance, Eu du Bacon, with a brand-new formula that no longer attracts as many biting insects.

  Anyway, I’m rich and famous and every so often I take on a charity case because I’m also a generous philanthropist plus it counts toward my court-mandated community service hours. We’re all born naked and shouldn’t be ashamed of it, so having a tyrannical law that prohibits riding the subway with your pants off is unacceptable in a free society. The judicial system is corrupt. We all need to rise up.

  But don’t rise up on the subway, because that added to my sentence.

  My point: free willy. Let the whale wail. It was late at night, there weren’t any kids, and pants are one more injustice forced upon us by the cis white colonial tyrannical patriarchy.

  I’m kidding. Go woke go broke.

  But I really hate to wear pants. I can actually hear my balls gasp for air.

  Where was I?

  Oh, yeah. Going west on State Highway 8.

  The missing person I was pro-bonoing was a twenty-four-year-old guy named Traydorn Blouder from Elk Meadow, Illinois. Lived in his parent’s basement, likely doing skeevy online shit like streaming and gaming and streaming while gaming which is known as twitching. He came up north with his girlfriend.

  According to Traydon’s parents, he’d rented a cottage on a lake in Podunk, Wisconsin, to pop the question to aforementioned girlfriend, Mia Qualt. If she agreed to marry him, his plan was to buy a house and start a life together so they could do the mommy/daddy dance without mommy and daddy hearing them from the upstairs.