Page 57

Fourteen Months Since Megan’s Escape

I t took half an hour to drive into West Bay.

Megan gave directions from memory and Livia got the impression that while she busied herself this past week in the morgue, Megan, too, had been hard at work.

The last few days had yielded a great discovery, and Megan was willing to share it with no one but Livia.

“Here,” Megan said, leaning forward in her seat to gauge her location. “Pull over here.”

Livia did so, pulling to the shoulder outside an undeveloped subdivision.

Two red-brick posts stood next to each other, a long slab of pine hanging between them.

Engraved in the wood and brightened by the lone remaining spotlight from three originals was the name of the subdivision: STELLAR HEIGHTS .

Livia pulled to the shoulder in the same spot Megan had skidded her car to a stop the other day when she fled Dr. Mattingly’s office. She listened to Megan tell the history of this abandoned development .

“Erected during the housing bubble,” Megan said, “Stellar Heights was meant to be the western expansion of East Bay. Big homes, wraparound porches, long half-circle driveways. So in came the bulldozers and pavers and back fillers. Up went this giant berm.”

Livia squinted through the windshield at the tall berm, covered by neglected trees and bearded with heavy weed growth that ran as far as her eyesight allowed. It encircled the Stellar Heights neighborhood.

“Up went the gates,” Megan continued. “Tall, black, cast-iron gates that would keep out the unwanted West Bay residents until they moved along, pushed out by wealthy expansion. In came the winding road meant to meander through the beautiful neighborhood. Seventy-nine custom homes were meant to fill this subdivision. Seventy-nine magnificent structures, each five thousand square feet. The builder managed to erect six before the housing bubble burst. No one was buying giant homes anymore. The credit crunch pinched all the people buying homes with the bank’s money.

And when the banks stopped lending, the builder ran out of capital.

So Stellar Heights, hidden from the world by the giant berm, was forgotten by all and sat abandoned for the last several years.

Until a county ordinance a few months ago came through demanding the destruction of the six abandoned homes and the ghost town they sat in. ”

Livia watched as Megan opened the passenger-side door and walked past the Stellar Heights sign and to the tall, black gate.

Highlighted by the car’s headlights, Megan looked like a ghost floating toward the haunted town.

She pushed the gates, which yawned open from the middle.

The effect was dramatic and eerie, as if something sinister had just been released from within.

Beyond the gates, through the mouth of the berm, blackness waited.

Megan sat back in the passenger seat and closed the door. “Let’s go,” she said. “I need to know for sure.”

“Megan,” Livia said. “Maybe we should call someone. Your dad, or someone to meet us here. If you think this is the place you were kept.”

“I don’t think . I know.”

Megan pointed forward, into the darkness of the abandoned subdivision. Livia thought of calling Kent Chapple to meet them out here. She knew he’d come in an instant if Livia asked. She thought of calling 911, but her mind stalled on what, exactly, she’d say was the emergency.

After a moment, she released the break and they slowly drifted past the gates and into Stellar Heights.