And then I saw something else. The slightest movement through the opening in one of the other doghouses. A face appeared, streaked with dirt and surrounded by long black matted hair streaked with pink and blonde.
I touched Ethan’s shoulder and pointed. Courtney cowered inside the doghouse, her eyes wild and darting. There was something square and black strapped to her neck. I lost my breath when I realized what it was—the same thing the dog was wearing. My lungs stopped and my stomach unknotted and reknotted itself more tightly. I fought the urge to turn around and run. You’ve come too far.… I caught her eye and gestured for her to come out. Her eyes widened and darted again. Something was scaring her out of her mind.
Crack!
The impact of metal against skull made me jump. Next to me, Ethan collapsed in a loose-limbed heap.
I started to turn when a hand grasped the back of my head. Another came toward my face with a rag. The wet cloth slammed against my nose and mouth. The smell was pungent and sickeningly sweet. I reached up to pull the rag away, but my thoughts were already disappearing into a white cottony cloud. My arms began to feel heavy and I couldn’t get my hands to work. My knees went rubbery and I began to fall.
My shoulder throbbed with pain. I opened my eyes and saw chair legs. A rug spread out before me like an ocean. A prairie of silvery dust under the couch. A long, fat green duffel bag lay beside a black garbage bag held closed with a yellow tie. Voices came from somewhere close by.
I lay on my side on the floor, on my aching shoulder, my hands tied tightly behind my back. My ankles were bound and when I tried to straighten my legs, it pulled at my wrists. So I knew my hands and feet were tied together behind me. I could feel something strapped around my neck, and two hard bumps pressing against the bare skin.
The voices were coming from the TV. Some women were discussing the pros and cons of having more than one relationship at a time. One voice sounded familiar. Oprah’s. I twisted my head around. There was no one on the couch. The room was empty. The TV was on, but no one was watching.
“She’s only saying that because she’s on TV,” a voice said. But this one wasn’t from the TV. It was coming from another room.
“You don’t know that.”
“Oh, come on, it’s so obvious.”
“How would you know?”
“You can tell she’s just saying it for the shock value. Morons like her will do anything to get on the tube. She doesn’t believe a word she’s saying.”
“You don’t know that.”
I was listening to a conversation between one person. The same voice speaking both sides of the argument. It was a voice I knew well. I twisted my head around. Where was Ethan? The memory came back of that sickening crack when she hit him on the head.
A bell pinged and I heard a microwave oven open and slam shut, followed by the slither of slippers. They came through a doorway—old, yellow, and terry cloth. I twisted my head higher. Baggy orange sweatpants. A navy blue hoodie. A tray with some sort of steaming food in a black plastic bowl. Thick red hair. The slippers stopped. Ms. Skelling looked down at me. She made a face but said nothing. Instead, she placed the tray on a small folding table in front of the couch and sat down to eat.
When the show ended she clicked off the TV and said, “What do you think about having more than one relationship at a time?”
I waited for her to answer her own question.
“Cat got your tongue, Madison?”
That caught me by surprise. “Sorry.”
“Not as sorry as you’ll be soon,” she said. “How did you find Ethan Landers?”
“He found me.”
“Really?” Ms. Skelling sounded surprised. “How … resourceful.”
“I’m not sure I believe that.”
“I was sure the police had him.”
“What difference does it make now?”
Again, she seemed to be having a conversation with herself. “What did he tell you?”
A moment of silence passed. Then I said, “Are you asking me?”
“Who else would I be asking?” Ms. Skelling said with a dose of annoyance.
I felt a chill. Did she not realize she had conversations with herself? “He told me you killed his girlfriend and made it look like he did it.”
“Megan Woodworth.”
“God, wasn’t she a piece of work?”
“Thought she walked on water.”
“They all do.”
“Not anymore.”
“So you thought you’d be a hero? You thought you’d come here to rescue your friends? Some friends. I feel sorry for you, Madison. You’re so afraid that people only like you for your money. You think you have to be so nice to everyone because it’s the only fair way to be when you’ve been blessed with so much good fortune. What’s that fancy phrase for it? Noblesse oblige? No wonder you were so fascinated by that little bitch, Courtney. Such a bad girl. You liked that, didn’t you?”
“She’s different,” I said, knowing the best thing I could do was be agreeable and engage her. Maybe, if I could make her feel like I understood her, she would let me and my friends go. “I’d never really known anyone like her.”
“We have,” Ms. Skelling said. “Dozens of them. Snotty little bitches that think they’re the hottest things since sliced bread. Makes us sick.”
Us? I thought. What’s she talking about?
“Don’t you think the world would be better off without skanks like that?” she went on. “Who gives them the right to make everyone else feel so miserable?”
“Maybe no one gives it to them?”
“Maybe they just take it because no one stops them.”
“Everyone is too scared.”
It was hard to understand who she was speaking to.
“Can I ask something?” I said.
Ms. Skelling was silent for a moment, as if considering this request. “What?”
“Usually, the kids who care about that are the ones who, you know, have the problems with it. But you’re pretty and sexy. I mean, it’s hard to imagine you ever had those kinds of problems.”
“What does she know?” Ms. Skelling said. “Should we tell her?”
“What will it matter? We’ll be going in a few hours.” “You’re right.”
“The wonders of cosmetic surgery. Like the old showtune said, ‘Tits and ass can change your life.’ ”
“But that came later. Much later.”
“When we were your age we didn’t know. We were too scared to even think about it.”
“Plain looking, with a nose that was too big and eyes too close together. Flat as a board. A face only a mother could love.”
“But not our mother. The double whammy. She hated our looks more than the kids at school.”
“Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.”
“They always found us.”
“The terror we had to live with.”
“The way they stared. The hate in their eyes.”
“Even from our own mother, that stupid cruel bitch!”
“It’s only fair that they feel what it was like. Only fair that they know.”
Their eyes, I thought.
“They should suffer like we did,” Ms. Skelling went on. “Feel like trapped animals.”
“We did, didn’t we?”
She fell silent, gazing off across the room. On the floor I slowly tried to extend my legs again, testing how strong the cords were. Could I break them? And if I did, then what?
Ms. Skelling turned back to me. “Too bad, Madison. You shouldn’t be here. These aren’t your friends. Couldn’t you see that? Do you really think any of them would have come here for you? And now, even if they do, it will be too late.”
She finished eating and went back into the kitchen. As soon as she left, I tried to straighten my legs and pulled as hard as I could with my wrists. The rope was too strong. Keeping my eye on the kitchen doorway, I tried again but felt as if I was pulling my shoulders out of their sockets. A new co
nversation began in the kitchen: “You can’t take all this food.”
“You expect me to just leave it here?”
“Take the canned goods. Leave the perishables.”
“It could be a long trip.”
“You’ll manage.”
“How do you know?”
“You always do.”
“What about …?”
“Oh, right.” The slippers slapped out of the kitchen again.
“Time for you to leave.” Taking hold of the rope from my wrists to my feet, Ms. Skelling dragged me across the floor, through a doorway into the cold, damp air outside, over the cold wet ground to the rough concrete and stink of the pens. The wet quickly soaked through my jeans and hoodie and pressed against my skin. She dragged me past the pen where Ethan lay, his eyes closed, mouth agape, hair matted and dark with blood, a black collar around his neck. She opened a pen and dragged me in. So I was going in a cage like the others. Then was my fate to be like the others as well? She kneeled behind me. My nose filled with the sharp odor of filth. I shivered in the damp cold. From the tugging on the rope I had a feeling she was cutting it. I was so scared. My stomach was in my throat.
“You don’t have to do this,” I said, trying to sound calm.
“Do what?”
“Put us in these cages. Keep us here. You can go. I promise I’ll make the others swear not to tell.”
The rope was cut. I felt her tug at some of the strands around my wrists to loosen them. Then the gate clanged shut. I swiveled my head around and watched as she went back into the house.
I sat up and worked my wrists free, then undid the ropes from my ankles. I searched my pockets for my cell phone, but of course, Ms. Skelling had taken it. It was dusk. The sun had gone down, but there was still enough light to see. The cold crept through my clothes and my teeth chattered. The gate to the pen was locked. I turned to the other pens and whispered, “Courtney? Adam?”
No answer.
“Courtney, Adam, it’s Madison. Are you in there?”
I heard some scratching sounds. From the doghouse in a pen near mine. Courtney’s head came out slowly, her hair a nest of dirt and pieces of brown leaves. Her face looked boney and streaked with grime; her dry lips were cracked, her eyes sunken. Her lips moved and a hoarse whisper came out: “I’m so thirsty.”
I looked around. Except for a green hose lying on the ground near the house, there was no source of water. An empty bowl covered with a gross layer of crust lay on the ground in each pen.
Lucy died of dehydration.
“I’m so cold,” Courtney whispered. Her teeth were chattering.
I looked around for a way out of these pens but I doubted I’d find one. They looked like they’d been there for a long time.
“Get me out of here, Madison,” Courtney whispered.
“I’ll try,” I whispered back, with no real idea of what to do. “How’s Adam?”
Courtney shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“When did you last see him?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “It’s hard to remember.”
It was getting darker, and colder. The vapor of our breaths seemed to thicken. The wire fencing went over the tops of the pens. The doors were latched from the outside and wide rectangular metal plates prevented anyone from reaching the latch from inside.
I sat on the hard wet concrete and pulled my knees up against my chest, feeling the vein in my neck beating hard with fear, the dampness soaking in against my butt. Why had I insisted on coming here with Ethan? What had I been thinking? How stupid had I been? By now my mother must have come home. She’d see the broken glass and that my car was gone. She’d call the police first and then Dad in London. Then, while Dad raced in a panic to find a flight home, and the police investigated, she would lock herself alone in her bedroom where no one could see, and silently go hysterical.
How could I be such an idiot?
The cold continued to creep through my clothes, and I shivered uncontrollably.
“Courtney?” I whispered, but she didn’t answer. Hoping it might be a little warmer in the doghouse, I crawled inside. The smell made me want to gag and I was glad that in the dark I couldn’t see what I was lying on. I just lay there curled in a ball, trembling, unable to sleep, miserable, alone, alternately furious with myself and terrified of what was going to happen next.
chapter 21
Friday 4:46 A.M.
IT WAS EARLY in the morning, maybe an hour before dawn. I’d never been so cold in my life, lying on my side, curled up tight, shivering, my teeth chattering so hard I had to concentrate to keep from biting my tongue. Suddenly there was loud thrashing in the woods nearby, followed by muffled grunts. They sounded human, but I couldn’t be sure. Then came more grunts and muttering and the sound of something heavy being dragged through the sticks and leaves.
I got to my hands and knees and peeked out of the doghouse. In the predawn moonlight Ms. Skelling was dragging someone. Her arms went around his chest and she walked backward with his heels scraping the ground. It was too dark to see who it was.
“They’re really starting to come out of the woodwork,” I heard her say.
“Very funny.”
“Seriously, it’s time to go.”
“I know. There are just a few things left to take care of.”
She opened a metal gate, dragged the body into the empty pen across from mine, and let it fall with a thump. Then the gate clanged shut.
“What happened?” The whisper in the dark caught me by surprise. It was Courtney.
“She caught someone else,” I whispered back.
The hour before dawn isn’t just the darkest. It is also the coldest and loneliest. I sat up in the doghouse, knees pulled under my chin, teeth chattering, icy tears dripping down my cheeks. The sky was just beginning to grow light when I heard a long, low groan. I looked out. Tyler lay in the pen across from mine. He pushed himself up on one elbow and pressed his hand against his head.
“Tyler?” I whispered.
He looked up sharply, surprise turning into wonder. “Madison? What is this?”
I pressed my finger to my lips, then whispered. “A dog kennel.”
Tyler looked over at Ethan, who still lay unconscious. His eyes widened, then narrowed. Somehow I knew that behind his closed lips he was gritting his teeth. “Well, well,” he muttered.
“He didn’t kill your sister,” I said.
Tyler shot me a questioning look. I gave him a brief account of how Ethan had come to my house and told me what had happened and why he’d been on the run.
“You believed him?” Tyler asked dubiously.
“Sometimes you know when someone is telling you the truth. Besides, we know it was Skelling.”
Tyler hung his head. I guessed he was realizing that he’d made a mistake. He’d followed Ethan to Soundview, thinking he was the killer. Meanwhile Ethan had followed the real killer here.
Tyler looked up. “What about the others?”
I pointed at a nearby doghouse. “Courtney’s in there, dying of thirst. Adam’s in even worse shape. I’m so scared, Tyler. I think Skelling’s planning to go soon. I don’t know if she plans to kill us first or just leave us here to die.”
He didn’t answer, just looked around as if sizing up the situation.
“How did you find this place?” I asked.
“Maura. So Skelling just leaves you out here until you die of thirst and exposure?”
I wondered if he was thinking about how his sister must have died. The sky slowly continued to brighten. He stared at the latch holding my pen closed. I could tell from his face that he was formulating an idea.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“These pens were built to keep dogs in,” he whispered back. “Not people.”
“So?”
“Dogs don’t know how to help other dogs get free.” He crawled into his doghouse. I heard a loud crack! and the doghouse shook. Then another crack! and anoth
er. He was kicking at the wall from inside.
The knob on the door from the house started to turn. “Tyler!” I gasped.
The door flew open and Ms. Skelling stomped out, eyes darting left and right, looking for the source of the sound. In one hand she carried a small black device about the size of a TV remote. In the other was the pipe she’d hit Ethan with. I cowered in my doghouse as she walked between the two rows of pens, her head swinging back and forth. She stared in at me, then turned and poked the pipe at Tyler’s doghouse. “Come out!”
Tyler stuck his head out of the doghouse, pretending to blink and yawn as if he’d been asleep.
“Did you make that noise?” Ms. Skelling asked.
He shook his head and pointed at me.
“No!” I gasped. Ms. Skelling pressed a button on the device in her hand. The jolt felt as if someone had kicked me in the neck, knocking me back and making me cry out. Through eyes quickly filling with tears, I stared up at her blurred image.
“Whatever you were doing, don’t do it again,” Ms. Skelling threatened. “Next time will be five times worse.”
Tears spilled out of my eyes. I felt totally betrayed. Why had Tyler pointed at me? He had to know what Ms. Skelling would do. Meanwhile, the madwoman moved to the pen where Ethan lay on the ground. She stuck the pipe through the fence and poked him. Ethan moaned slightly but hardly moved. Next she stepped to Courtney’s pen and banged the pipe against the doghouse. Courtney peered out, shivering and trembling. “I need water,” she rasped.
“Of course you do,” Ms. Skelling replied with fake sympathy. “I’ll get you something to drink very soon.”
She turned to the pen where Adam lay and poked at him. “Wake up.”
I heard the dull thud of the pipe against flesh but no response of any kind. Not even a groan.
“Wake up!” Ms. Skelling prodded him harder.
Through my tears I saw her reach for the control and heard the spitting sound of the electric collar. But Adam didn’t flinch.
“Well, well,” Ms. Skelling muttered, opening the pen. “Just in time.”
Wish You Were Dead Page 17
