Esau nods.
“A little over an hour ago?”
“Yes.”
I swallow as I glance up the stairs, hoping Aunt Karen will materialize on the landing. It’s a futile wish. I already know she isn’t here. I square my shoulders and look to Esau, who is studying me with hungry eyes. A dull pain cuts through my chest.
“Whatever you’re thinking is going to have to wait. I think I left something in Mr. Baugh’s car. Can you drive me over there?” He doesn’t see the fingers I have crossed behind my back.
He shrugs.
“Be right back,” I toss over my shoulder as I run up the stairs. With hurried, unfocused movements, I toss on my jacket, shoving my bracelet into the front pocket. I stomp down the stairs in time with the throbbing pulses of my heart.
“You ready? It’s getting windy.” Esau asks as he stands in the doorway. Already wearing his coat. He drags a hair tie off his wrist and pulls his hair back into a bun on the crown of his head.
Over the blood rushing in my ears, the wind whips around the sides of the old house, howling as if begging to be welcomed inside. But I know better than to welcome monsters in.
The door flies against the wall with a smack when Esau opens it. Opposite, a frame falls to the ground and shatters.
“I’ll get it later,” I say when Esau moves, his boots crunching on the shards of glass littering the floor.
I pull him outside. Drag him after me as I run to his truck and jump inside.
My hands grow clammy in my jacket as he drives through town, which has already begun falling asleep even though it’s only just after 6 PM. Many of the stores are dark. There are only a few stragglers on the sidewalk.
“Everyone’s still out at the maze.” Esau glances at me before focusing on the road. “What’s so important that you have to go get it now?”
I squirm in my seat, not sure how to answer. So I don’t. My eyes are fastened to the red light ahead.
“Can you drive a little faster?”
Esau’s black eyebrow cocks upward, but he presses the gas harder with his boot and the truck guns forward.
My feet tap on the floorboards in a nervous rhythm as we ride out into the country. Rows and rows of almond trees flank the street. During the day, I find their spindly branches kind of pretty. Right now they look as if they’re about to grab me and drag me down like the ghostly trees in Snow White. But unlike the warbling princess, I’m not running away from my worst nightmare, but toward it.
I only hope I get there in time.
Chapter 36
Esau pulls on to a dirt road surrounded by gangly, overgrown trees on all sides. Up ahead there’s a pale green ranch house tucked under the naked boughs. A rusted metal playset sits on a dead, yellowed lawn. Mr. Baugh’s yard is so overgrown we could hide in the tangle of brambles and tall grasses and never be found. The screaming wind will cover any noises we make. I’m counting it as a sign that this isn’t going to be a total disaster. Not that it would stop me. I have to do this.
With one hand slung over the wheel, Esau turns to me. “What did you forget?”
“My phone.”
“You grabbed it off the counter before we left. Try again.” Esau’s expression is firm, brooking no argument.
My terror burbles up and bursts. “We don’t have time for this.” Panic has a stranglehold on my throat.
“Fine! Fine. But it doesn’t look like he’s home,” Esau grumbles, leaning past me to study the house’s darkened windows.
“You’re forgetting something.”
Esau’s deep eyes slide to mine.
“I make the magic happen.” I hate how unsteady I sound, but I keep eye contact with him and hope that he reads it as conviction. If Mr. Baugh isn’t home, I don’t know what I’ll do. But I press forward.
Opening the door and slide out of the truck, I zip my jacket up to my chin. The wind’s fingers snag in my hair, throwing it in my face and whipping it against my cheeks. When I manage to get it under control, Esau is holding an extra hair tie in front of my face. Snatching it off his pointed finger, I toss my hair up into a messy bun like his. It probably looks like hell, but at least I can see now.
My jaw drops to the ground when Esau pulls the bench seat forward and retrieves a hefty shotgun from a pair of hooks mounted to the truck’s rear interior wall. He checks and loads it with deft hands.
I swallow a nervous squeak.
“Is that necessary?”
He eyes me, resting the shotgun against one shoulder. “You tell me.”
“. . . Let’s go.” With a rushed breath, I move toward the yard and plow into the needling grasses.
The parallels of this experience and that day at the corn maze don’t escape me as I’m slinking around the side of Mr. Baugh’s house in a hunch, lifting just enough to peek in each window before I move on. Esau was right; the house looks completely empty. The TV sits dormant in the front room. Piles of Chinese takeout cartons litter the kitchen counter. When I dare to try the handle on the back door, it’s locked.
Almost imperceptibly, my pulse begins to slow. I’ve read this situation all wrong. Mr. Baugh isn’t the bad guy here. I’m tilting at windmills.
Then my eyes slide over the unkempt backyard to land on a barn so flimsy I’m dumbfounded the winds battering it haven’t caused it to collapse.
Esau stops me with a hand to my elbow when I start to move toward the leaning structure. “Whatever you forgot can wait. Let’s go.”
He’s giving me a chance to come clean about the reason I’ve dragged him to Mr. Baugh’s house and am sneaking around the place like a burglar with a hot tip about an easy take. But none of this is easy. If I come clean with Esau now, he’ll never understand. The drive inside him that pushes him to direct and control everything in theater has to be warring with whatever he might feel for me. I’ve given him less than nothing to go on, and yet he drove me over here on a flimsy excuse.
I can’t tell him everything, but I still have to try.
“Someone’s been putting notes in my backpack when I’m at school. Threatening ones.”
Esau’s eyebrows go up and his grip tightens on the rifle. “Someone has been threatening you?”
I nod. “And it occurred to me that it could be Mr. Baugh. At first I thought it was Justin, but it turns out Aunt Karen asked him to keep an eye on me while she’s at work.”
“What? Why didn’t she—”
“I can’t explain right now. Please trust me.”
I reach for his hand even as questions scrawl across his beautiful face.
“Lower your rifle.”
The sudden, rough words make me put my hands up and twirl around.
But it’s not the police doing the commanding. It’s Mr. Baugh. And he has a gun pointed at my chest.
“Mr. Baugh?” The words crack at the same instant the puzzle pieces begin to snap together to show the completed image.
Esau lowers his weapon slowly, never taking his eyes off the barrel of the other man’s firearm. “No need for that,” he says once the shotgun is leveled at the ground. “Megan just left something in your car.”
“Did she? Drop it.” He gestures with his free hand. Reluctantly, Esau complies.
“Why?” I ask my favorite teacher.
“I’m doing this for the same reason you are, Megan.”
Finally, Esau’s eyes jump from the man to where I’m frozen with my hands still up in the air like a freaking statue. I command them to lower, and my fingers twitch as they come down. My hands curl into fists at my sides. My eyes dart over the yard. Looking for a sign. Anything. There’s nothing.
“Go on.” The gleam in Mr. Baugh’s eyes turns greedy as he gestures for us to precede him to the barn. Inside, he marches us to a concrete structure. A tack or storage room, maybe.
I look around the cave-like space, once more sweeping for any shred of evidence that she’s been here, and come up empty. There’s no sign of her. I clench my teeth at my own stupidity. I
practically frog-marched Esau right into what is clearly a trap.
Tossing a key on a ring to Esau, Mr. Baugh orders, “Unlock it.”
Esau does, lobbing the keychain into our teacher’s outstretched hand.
“Now go inside, nice and slow.”
I start to protest; my instincts screaming at me to flee. If Esau and I go into the small, cave-like room Mr. Baugh is forcing us toward, we will never make it out alive. My hand clamps around my naked wrist, cursing myself. No one will be able to find us out here. No one will hear if I scream. Steeling myself, I ready the muscles in my calves to run. Cut a glance toward Esau, who looks primed to punch Mr. Baugh in the face with his tightened fists. His eyes meet mine. He’s ready.
The feel of cold metal on the back of my neck silences me before I can push the words over my tongue.
Esau’s mouth curls into a snarl, and his angry eyes smolder a glare at the man just behind my left shoulder. “Don’t touch her.”
“Inside. Now.”
“Run!” someone cries from within the dimly lit concrete room.
It’s the proof I’ve been looking for. With my heart thundering in my ears, I lunge inside.
There’s a scuffle at my back. A grunt. A curse. The squelching of metal hitting flesh. Esau stumbles into me, holding a hand up to his bleeding nose. His lip is split and crimson dribbles down his chin.
At our back, the door slams closed. There’s a scraping as the lock is thrown in place. We’re trapped.
Esau’s eyes land on me. “You okay?”
I stare at him blankly as my tongue struggles and fails to catch up with my fishtailing mind.
Rustling against the far wall draws his gaze, and he freezes. The color drains out of his beautiful face. His carefully constructed facade of calm control shatters into pieces.
Knowing what I’ll find, I look.
In the corner, tied to a chair, her cheeks stained with grime and tears, she sits.
The person responsible for all of the unfortunate events that have slowly embalmed us in misery, despite the fact that I’m kicking and screaming at the closed coffin lid, begging for air.
My mirror image, minus the scar that mars my cheek.
My twin sister.
Audrey.
Chapter 37
Audrey
Bafflement contorts Esau’s face. Hurt flickers behind his eyes as they bob back and forth between Taryn and me. I’m sure the makeup I used to draw on a fake scar is smeared by this point, adding to the mental wallop Esau is experiencing right now. His hands flex at his sides as realization works its way through his features.
My eyes fall to my wrist where my tracking bracelet is supposed to be. My plan to lure the killer out of hiding backfired, and now three people will pay for it instead of just me.
I turn my attention to my twin. “Where is Aunt Karen? Is she coming?”
“I don’t know,” Taryn says, shuffling her feet.
“Are you wearing your bracelet?” I ask, my last tinge of hope staining the words.
“I stuffed it in my pocket, but…” Taryn turns out both her jacket pockets ruthlessly; they’re empty.
My expression crumbles.
“So she has no idea where we are,” Taryn says. “This is it. We’re dead.”
I shake my head. “Untie me. Please. Now that you’re here, we can find a way out. There are tools on the workbench and—We’ll figure it out.”
Taryn doesn’t make a move. She glares in my general direction, but I don’t care. She’s acknowledging me. Talking to me. For the first time in months. Even with her arms crossed tightly like a shield over her chest, I’ll take it. It’s something. Hopefully, a new beginning.
When a beat passes and Taryn still doesn’t move, Esau lumbers over. Kneeling behind the rickety wooden chair I’m sitting in, he begins working at the knotted, rough cord.
“There are two of you,” he growls as he works. “Which one of you was Megan?”
The tender skin at my wrists pinches as he pulls at the rope, and I wince.
Esau huffs, which I take as an apology.
“We both were. We’re identical twins,” I say, straining against my urge to yank at the ropes, knowing it would not help Esau untie my bound hands any faster. After a minute, the ropes fall away and he moves to the side to work on the rope twined around my left leg. I bend to untie the one on the other side.
Nostrils flaring, he glares at me out of the corner of his eye as he works.
“I’m sorry.”
Esau yanks his gaze away.
A shuddering sigh escapes my lips as the last of the bindings falls away and I’m able to stand. I stumble toward my sister on wobbly legs. Pins and needles shoot through my calves as feeling returns to my muscles. “You have no idea how glad I am to see you,” I whimper, moving to put my arms around her.
She stands limp in my embrace, and it hurts as if she’d stabbed me straight through the heart. This distance she’s put between us since our parents were killed. We were always so close, thick as thieves our mom would say, and the distance Taryn has insisted upon the past five and a half months has been nearly unbearable.
It’s impossible to say how long I was strapped to that chair, and being left alone in a dank, dimly lit cage nearly pushed me to panic. But that’s not me anymore. I may have made the mistakes that led us here, but over the past few months I’ve gotten stronger. Bolder. Before Taryn and Esau showed up, I had begun to believe that I was skirting the cliff overhanging death. But having them here has snapped me out of it.
With a little shake, my sister pushes me away.
“Taryn, please. I’m so sorry…” I trail off, guilt choking off my throat. I should have said that a long time ago.
Something in my twin finally snaps.
“You’re sorry?” She spits, her visage a contorted mask of anger. All of it comes spewing out of her at last. All the words I knew she’d been bottling all the time she refused to speak to me. Any relief I might have felt that she was finally talking withers beneath the heat of the unadulterated fury in her eyes. “You’re sorry? Well I’m sorry, but that isn’t good enough. Your sorry can’t fix the fact that our parents are dead. They were murdered in our kitchen because you just had to show your stupid teacher that camera you’d been eyeing. You don’t even use the stupid thing. My face is ruined because of you. I can’t even look in the mirror without going back to that day. Our lives are ruined. Because of you. And now the Mayday Killer’s lackey has trapped us in a concrete room, again your fault, and he’s going to kill us.”
She might as well have shot a cannonball through my chest for the amount of pain firing through me.
“Taryn, please. You’re all I have left.” We’re going to get out of this. I’m going to get you out of this.
“How, prey tell?” Taryn bites off, making me realize I’d spoken that last bit aloud.
“With these.” I scan the workbench, unfamiliar with most of the tools abandoned there. They’re old, rusty and dirty. Falling apart with disuse, but there has to be something we can use to get the aged door open.
Esau stays where he is, watching.
Ridged metal bites into my palms, but I don’t stop. I can’t. This chisel, or whatever it is, has to work. It’s the fourth or fifth tool I’ve grabbed to try to pry the door open, but it’s not budging. Taryn is pacing around the small room, anger coming off her in waves. I want to say something, anything, but I’m not willing to get yelled at any more.
Esau leans against the workbench, arms crossed, saying nothing. I have no idea what is going on in that calculating head of his. I’ve never been able to read him.
I wonder if they’ve kissed yet. Glancing at my sister over my shoulder, I consider it. She was always more confident with guys than me. More sure of herself. She was the blond cheerleader involved in every aspect of school, surrounded by friends and admirers. I was the quiet one who worked hard and kept my head down. Despite our differences, we were best friends. If she and
her friends schemed to drive to San Diego for a can’t-miss concert, I was always included. There were no barriers, no questions between us. We were sisters. Twins.
Until we weren’t.
Pushing off the workbench, Esau comes over to the door. “Let me try.”
Instinctively, I hand him the rusted tool and step aside. He bends to work.
Taryn mutters something under her breath, and Esau glances over his shoulder in her direction. That I can understand. I’m sure there’s a lot that he’d like to say, to ask her. Because somehow, ever since Mr. Baugh locked them in this room with me, Esau has been carefully focused on her. Somehow, even though he’s only known we’re twins for mere minutes, he knows that she is his match. She’s the one who snuck out to see him that night in the orchard.
“Theater was her. Photography was you.” Esau’s dark eyes catch mine for a breath, and then he’s back to attacking the door’s hinge.
“Yes. She’s always been… more than me.”
“Don’t sell yourself short,” he growls, still angry. “You picked everything up pretty quickly. You had everyone’s lines memorized too, after a while.”
A corner of my mouth flicks up. “Yeah.”
“And she learned how to use a camera.” It comes out more like a curse than a statement of fact.
My eyebrows scrunch up. I hadn’t thought about that, but it’s true. In order to maintain the illusion, we had to meet in the middle of ourselves. Become each other when we stepped outside the old house. At the end of each day, whichever one of us had been to school handed the recorder off to the other for listening. Taryn may not have been our face every day, but she experienced all of it, just as I did. Taryn had to work at being Megan just as much as me, if not more. While I had to step outside my comfort zone, she had to stifle herself. Make herself smaller. The realization makes me feel even worse, if that’s possible.
“Why?” It’s a rough whisper on Esau’s tongue.
“We didn’t have a choice,” Taryn says. I didn’t know she’d been listening to our hushed conversation.
Both Esau and I turn to look at where she stands with her hands on her hips. “Made any progress on that door yet?” Her body is rigid as if she’s fighting its instinct to cross to where we are. And why should she give in to it? All of this is my fault.
Don't Look Behind You (Don't Look Series Book 1) Page 21
