“Mommy . . .”
I jerk my head and send the lamp crashing to the floor. Good thing Daniel isn’t with Abby yet, because he’d hear my attempts at escape. Then again, maybe that’s exactly what he wants to hear.
I’m stuck in this forward tilt, thighs burning as I strain to remain upright because the table is threatening to topple under my weight too. The tendons in my neck strain as I stretch my chin forward as far as I can, but the matches remain millimeters from reach. Exhaling hard, I let the chair’s weight swing me back again.
Sweating, I glare at the book of matches for a moment, then launch myself forward without thought. My forehead strikes the glossy top with a resounding crack and pain shoots through my temple and left cheek and destroyed ear. The world tilts. The chair slides away, the table remains standing, but I manage to snag one lacquered leg as I tumble and the table tips and finally falls. I bite my tongue when I land, and pain blooms red in my mouth.
Ignoring it, and Abby’s cries somewhere above me, I search the thick, pale carpeting for the gold matchbook. There. Half-hidden under the bed, the heads of the red-tipped matches stand out like runway flares beneath the ruffled bed skirt. I have to shift to my left side in order to extend my hands before me, and this sets the road burn there roaring to life while catapulting me farther away from the bed. Eyes squeezed shut, I take a deep breath and use my core to scoot forward, trying to use the pain to keep me focused, though I can’t keep from crying out as I stretch for the cardboard book.
The chair smacks against the bed frame, jarring, and stopping me short. I extend my shaking fingers and for a second I feel my middle finger scrape the matchbook’s cover before I push it farther away, under the bed. “Shit.”
Arching back, I swing around, grimacing again from the inflammation searing my left side. This time I ram up against the bed with the chair legs, but that’s okay. I just need to point my toes, give another scoot with my core—burn some more, GodGodGod—and then the top of my left foot scoops the matches up like the bumper on a pinball machine.
My left side goes numb as I swing back around, and I’m sweating as I stretch my fingers high, feeling the burn in the tendons of my wrists and fingers. Giving one final push, I drop my left hand down, directly onto the matches.
But I’m right-handed.
I fight anyway to work a match from the book one-handed, suddenly aware that Abby is too quiet. I don’t know why. I can’t see the television, but something tells me to move faster.
There’s this bar trick I saw once, a way to fold the matchbook cover over and apply the strike zone to the extended match. It’s possible to do one-handed, but if done properly, the whole book of matches will light at once. That means that even if I’m successful, I’ll only get one shot.
I fumble both the first and second attempts, my hand cramping with the impossible position. And then a third.
Closing my eyes, I stop breathing for a moment before trying again. Keeping my fingers stiff and tight, I angle my wrist painfully high while gripping the matchbook between my middle and ring fingers. I snap them just as I hear, “Mommy.”
The heat pounces, and I react like anyone would to fire lapping at their fingertips. I jerk away, but catch myself right before I drop the book, and flip it so that the remaining matches burst into flame. Then I lift the orange bloom to the filmy bed skirt, and force myself to stop thinking. The skirt catches fast and I jerk my body toward the upward licking fire. It’s going to quickly turn to ashes—it’s literally out of my hands now—and if I don’t get free, I’ll be trapped on the floor, still taped to this chair as the blaze grows. Making fists, I squeeze my eyes shut and tilt my wrists to the spreading flame.
It’s like plunging my flesh in scalding water and holding it there. Gritting my teeth and battling a scream, I fight to keep the tape over the flame. The towels Daniel placed between it and my wrists to keep from leaving marks shields me somewhat, but the aluminum in the duct tape amplifies the heat, and I wail as the hair on my forearms singes. Hearing me, Abby calls out. It’s the only thing that keeps me from jerking away from the fire.
My body finally rebels for me. I strain against the tape, even as I try to keep my wrists thrust forward, and my voice lifts free of my chest and floats somewhere on the other side of the room. I bear it for one more moment and I know it’s the last, I’m not strong enough to take this agony any longer, yet when I finally yank back, the tape abruptly gives.
My left hand no longer bound, I push from the burning bed with a cry, dragging the top swath of the bed skirt with me so that I have to move away from that too. The filmy lace curls orange, lashing close to my face, and I thank God for my shorn hair. Somewhere above me, Abby is calling to me.
Left arm or right. Tongue or ears. Eyes or nose . . .
Using singed fingertips and my teeth, I rip the strips of tape from my other arm, then claw at my legs, coughing from the newborn smoke, all the while thinking, hold on, baby. Hold on.
Then I’m crawling for the door, tiny flames climbing up to bounce atop the white coverlet as I fling it open. The flames crackle as oxygen kisses fire, and I break hard right and gasp into the cool mountain air, ignoring every burning part of me as my feet find purchase and I sprint up the sprawling green hillside. Thirty minutes. That’s the most time I have until this place is engulfed, and I’m going to need every second to find Abby. Because I have a vow to break, and it isn’t going to be the one I swore to her—to keep her safe—in the cab.
Do no harm.
As I stumble toward the enormous house, Abby’s cries still cupped in the shells of my ears, I think, No. Do serious harm.
Do whatever it takes.
There’s no place to hide.
Daniel has locked every window and door. At first I’m tentative as I turn knobs and push at screens and claw at leaded French doors, but then I realize that he isn’t trying to keep me, or anyone else, out. He’s setting the scene. Everything in the house, from the placement of priceless ceramics, to the dishes and the utensils, and the beds that are made and those that are not—all need to tell the same tale of a crazed PA from Las Vegas who concluded her murderous rampage on this lakeside, hilltop estate.
So I trample azaleas as I yank at the frames of three sets of bay windows. I claw at the ground, searching for a cellar entrance, and scour the area for a ladder leading to the second floor. The music echoing from the hotel across the lake masks my futile scraping, my labored breaths, but it won’t hide the shatter of glass if I try to break in, and stealth is still the only weapon I have.
I finally back away to look at the entire home, risking exposure, but Daniel isn’t staring back at me from one of the leaded windows, and all I see when I look at the grand house is a giant, vaulted tomb sinking into shadows. Then my gaze latches onto the marble banister on the second floor and traces the wide lake-facing patio. The entire lake—and, thus, the fireworks show—is visible from that patio. So is the guesthouse.
Looking more closely, I see that the patio doors are also flung wide, and I think back to the video of Abby. Daniel took care to mask the room where he’s hiding her, but the way the natural light struck Abby’s face spoke to a west-facing orientation. I’d also caught the glint of fractured light, likely a chandelier, and those don’t hang in boathouses or barns. She’s somewhere in that ornate tomb, and she’s in . . .
“The workroom,” I mutter, and break into a sprint for the back of the house. The servant’s entrance has a slim staircase that leads directly to that landing, and I know from my last visit that the old workroom sits to the right of that. It makes sense that Daniel would want to end this in the room where he killed his father, exactly where it all began.
I barely feel the gravel cutting my bare feet as I wheel around the corner to the back of the house. The stumpy concrete stairs of the back entrance don’t even look like they belong to the same home, a clear sign that th
e people entering here don’t either. I’ll fit right in, I think, and am already leaping to the top stair, an easy vault from the ground when the wooden door is flung open and nearly hits me square. Even barefooted, I skid against the gravel and know instinctively that the sound has given me away.
Or it would, except for the tinkling of piano keys inside the house. Daniel loves to listen to his jazz while he works.
I tuck in tight to the concrete wall, ignoring the spiderweb crackling against my thigh as I duck my head low. All Daniel has to do is look over the side to see me squatted there, but the heavy door is blocking me, and I risk an upward glance to find him skipping down the steps, headed back to the barn, an old doctor’s bag in tow. He is still setting the scene.
He is whistling under his breath, and the door is closing automatically behind him, though the hinge spring keeps it from shutting too quickly. I am reaching forward to stop it with my hand when Daniel suddenly stops whistling and curses loudly. I duck again, but I can’t be sure he hasn’t seen me. For a moment, there is only silence, with a veil of oblivious chirping coming from the copse to our left.
He’s returning, his footsteps crunching in an even march on the pebbled ground. He yanks the door back open, and I’m wondering what he’s forgotten when I hear four uneven beeps sound through the closed door, followed by a longer fifth. He’s setting the alarm behind him, not taking any chances.
So I only have this one shot.
He flings the door open again, and this time I anticipate it and snag its bottom edge with my left hand, timing it for the apex of the swing. The burn along my wrist blazes, but I don’t make a sound. He’ll still see my fingers if he pauses, but no . . . he’s impatient now, and just sets off again toward the barn. The music and his own sharp steps conceal the slight shift of stones beneath my feet as I slip onto the concrete block and slink inside. The door shuts behind me. The alarm stays silent.
I’m standing in the gloom of a black-and-white tiled vestibule, and I automatically reach for the string on the bald bulb above me before I catch myself. Moving forward in the dark, I jam my foot on the staircase, then do it again when I misjudge the depth. Between that and the way the old stairs groan beneath my weight, I’m lucky Daniel is outside. Finding my bearings, I rush upward and am rewarded with the sight of a wide landing. The floor put on a white marble face, and though no lights burn, an ambient glow enters from the opposing terrace. I was right. The French doors have been flung wide to the lake and the night. The guesthouse is settled in the foreground, and I think I see a flicker of something bright bouncing around the windowsills, but mostly it’s dark from the smoke and toxins roiling around inside. It’ll stay that way until it flashes over.
I have to find Abby first.
“Abby?!” I risk the yell because Daniel can’t be back yet, and it’ll be worth it if my daughter hears me and calls back in reply.
Nothing.
I veer right, because the workroom door is ajar, jazz horns and light spilling around the doorframe. Even though I know he’s outside, for some reason I expect Daniel to suddenly be there, jerking the door open, gun or knife or both raised high. Forcing myself to move quickly, I’m already inside the room before I register that the sound I’m hearing is not the beat of my own thudding heart.
Maybe familiarity keeps me from recognizing it at first, but I blink at the vitals monitor as if seeing one for the first time. I also expect the room to resemble the billiards parlor from the last time I was here, but instead I’m shocked with the sight of a makeshift OR. Daniel has pulled out all of his father’s equipment, it seems, for old time’s sake.
An antique chemist chest is propped open on the wet bar, rubber hoses trailing from it, part of some kind of intravenous or enema kit. The fluids are attached to an antique stand and held in a glass container, not a bag. Old, rusted forceps sit atop a tarnished silver tray, and a gold-plated syringe gun lies next to an open decanter of whiskey. The only nod to twenty-first century electronics is a flat-screen television showing the same image of Abby, now motionless and staring glassy-eyed into some unknown distance. That’s the source of the jazz music.
In this room, however, is Imogene Hawthorne.
She is bound to the massive oak billiards table, her wrists and ankles ringed in red and tied to the outer pockets with rope. Naked but for a diaper, goose bumps rise from her emaciated flesh. She has bruises, many that have gone green and mottled, but there are newer ones too. It might just be my eyes, but they seem to bloom, even as I stare. There are no puncture marks on her body, but the sweet-and-sour stench of unwashed hair and skin mingle with the more pronounced scent of human waste. The sagging diaper holds a sweeter decay too.
I track the feeding tube to an inflamed, red incision in Imogene’s stomach, though the bag system near Imogene’s head is empty. How long has she been without food or water?
Crystal did a fair job of imitating my mother too. I made her practice.
Jesus.
“Imogene?” I whisper. She doesn’t respond, and I know I can’t help her now. I need to get to Abby. Yet as I’m turning, I spot a glint of steel at her other side. The gun Daniel flashed in the guesthouse.
Don’t worry, it’s not for Abby. Mother needs it.
Relief washes through me as I skirt the table. It’s good to have a weapon, even if it holds only one bullet.
“I’m coming, Abby,” I mutter, reaching for it.
Imogene’s eyelids spring at the sound of my voice.
I fumble the gun beneath that soggy stare, my heart hammering as I slide it back onto the edge of the pool table and quickly move to Imogene’s face. Her lips are chapped and her tongue is swollen from dehydration, but her watery blue gaze tracks me with full awareness. “Com—com . . . ing.”
God. She’s alive.
“I know.” And I break into action, same as in the OR, sacrificing gentleness for speed as I work to free her wrists. She’ll be immobile, but I can lift her. At the very least, I can hide her while I search for Abby. Who knows, if Daniel returns to find the focus of his psychotic obsession missing, he might even forget about Abby and me long enough for us to escape. But I can’t just leave her here.
“I’m going to get you out of here, okay?” One wrist is free. I move to the other. “Just hold—”
“Hello, sweetheart.”
I whirl to the doorway, hands already held out in defense, but the room is empty except for Imogene and me. I blink before chills wash up my spine, and then I swing the other way. I catch, from the corner of my eye, the exact moment Abby lifts her head.
“No . . .”
Daniel steps into view, into the same room as my daughter. A scalpel gleams in his right hand as he shifts to stare directly into the camera. He knows I’m watching, and despite the part of his face that he’s carved away—despite the injury I’ve caused to his red, crooked nose—his face blooms with an enormous smile.
I kill everything to get her attention.
Daniel claimed that he used to bring his father the small animals and wild game that the elder Dr. Hawthorne toiled to heal and revive, but he was lying.
He brought those poor creatures into this house all those years ago for the same reason Abby and I are here today. They were for Imogene. So that she could see. And he has set her up now so that this time she can’t possibly walk away.
I am in front of the television, palms bracing the screen, unaware of even having moved. Daniel’s pixelated form saunters to the room’s center, obscuring my view of Abby, and my eyes wildly search the remaining space. Where the hell are they? It could be a large space or small. As he said, the setup is not elaborate. He needs to dispose of it easily.
I turn to face Imogene. “Where is my daughter, you bitch?”
Imogene’s head lolls to the side. “Com—ing . . .”
“Where is she?!” I shout it, but don’t expect her to a
nswer and turn back to the screen, getting in so close that I threaten to go cross-eyed. Daniel has left nothing uncovered, no way to identify Abby’s room, and even if I run now, even if I guess right, I’m already too late. He’s about to start asking questions.
Left arm or right. Tongue or ears. Eyes or nose . . .
And the guesthouse is burning inside. And I am not there to answer.
“First question,” Daniel begins.
I howl at the screen, as if I can will myself through it. My ears roar with blood and the nonsensical cry, and the whole world narrows into a pinprick the size of that screen. Daniel jerks upright and stares back at the camera, and I realize that he’s heard me. Right before the gunshot roars.
Ducking automatically, I reel around as Daniel’s voice reaches into the room.
“Mother . . . Mother.”
Imogene’s lower jaw is missing. The right side of her skull has been blown away and sits on the table’s railing in a jagged flap. Her ear is perched atop her head, and the gun lies next to her shoulder on the table, still smoking.
“Oh my God.” Nearly hyperventilating, I glance back just in time to catch Daniel slipping from the screen. I can’t blame Imogene for killing herself once she finally got the chance, but fuck.
Com—ing.
I bolt for the door, then pull up, realizing my mistake. He’s coming that way, and he’s hurrying too. A thump sounds somewhere in the core of the cavernous home, and I think about locking the door against him, but he’ll either break it down or return to Abby . . . and he’ll know exactly where I am. He’ll also know full well that I can see my daughter from here.
There’s no place to hide. He’ll look everywhere until he finds me. And as crazy as it sounds, even as every cell in my body urges me to flee, I know the best way to find my daughter is to stay close to the only person who knows where she is. I have to let him come.
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