by Sara Shepard
Brett watched the pointer steadily moving toward the blue expanse of ocean. It was soothing, really. Like watching an aquarium. “We always had fresh bread,” he said. “She was crazy about bakeries. And she liked farmers’ markets, too. Summer fruit, like peaches. And soft pretzels twisted to look like billy clubs.”
“Okay,” Seneca said. “That’s good. Thanks.”
Brett sniffed. “Don’t I get a reward for my efforts?”
“Give us Aerin, and you’ll get it all.” And then Seneca hung up.
Brett glared out the small window in his little room. High above the rooftops, someone was flying a drone. It was a cheap one, probably purchased at the local souvenir shop. It looked so innocent, flying up there. So cheerful and uncomplicated. He wished his eyes were laser beams, burning it, smashing it apart, bringing it back to earth. Ruining a child’s day.
He consulted the screen again. The little pointer icon was now going across a bridge that seemed to lead to a specific beach town. Brett leaned forward until his nose was nearly touching the monitor. He hit the maximize button, widening out the map to get a look at more of the land. That bridge led to only one little town. Breezy Sea.
Go-time, then. The GPS was portable. He could track them in the car. He wasn’t wasting any time letting them get to Elizabeth first.
He closed the laptop, then marched into Aerin’s room. Aerin sat up on the bed. “What did Seneca say?”
Brett ignored her, heading into the bathroom. A toilet wand and some cleaner were stashed in the cabinet. He took them out and began cleaning, mentally running over how he’d have to bag the wand when he was done and deposit it in a garbage can somewhere random and far away so no one would connect it to this place. Not that he was really worried about someone raiding here, scouring for Aerin’s DNA evidence. He had the deed to this place; there was no reason to raid here unless the police were given a reason. Still, it was good to be careful.
“Brett.” Now Aerin was standing in the doorway, watching as he peeled several of Aerin’s long blond hairs from the tub drain. “Talk to me. What are you doing?”
Brett turned and looked at her. Backlit by the tiny sliver of sun he allowed through the blinds, she looked angelic, divine. Her blue eyes gleamed. The gauzy blouse he’d bought for her floated delicately across her thin midsection, and her shorts showed off the length and curve of her thighs. The scales had tipped, and now Brett loved Aerin more than he hated her, which made what he was going to do so much more difficult.
“I’m going to have to make a decision soon,” he said evenly, trying to stare at her without emotion. “It’s not going to be an easy one.”
Aerin’s brow furrowed. “Meaning?”
He dropped the toilet wand into a plastic bag along with a bunch of paper towels and a hairbrush containing a few ice-blond strands, then washed his hands and dried them on his jeans. “It means come on,” he said to Aerin, taking her hand. “We’re going.”
“Going where?”
Something in Brett’s face must have given him away, because she stepped away from him. The corners of her mouth twisted downward. Brett grabbed a towel from the rack and lunged for her, looping it around her head to cover her eyes. Aerin let out a yelp, but he clapped his hand over her mouth.
“Don’t scream,” he said into her ear. But his tone was gentle. Even a little regretful. “This will all be over soon.”
TWENTY-FIVE
BREEZY SEA LOOKED like the other beach towns they’d visited—bustling and touristy with quaint, residential sections, and of course with the ubiquitous ocean looming large to the east. As they drove over the bridge, Seneca’s nerves jumped and snapped. They were close. So close. But it was almost 4:00 p.m.; the drive had taken longer than they expected. Brett had wanted answers by Monday evening, but did that mean by 6:00 p.m. … or by midnight?
There was another problem, too: According to the map, Breezy Sea was big. Without help, finding the woman who perhaps now went by Bethany Rose and her captive, Damien Dover, would be like finding a needle in a haystack.
“Where are you now?” Thomas said, speaking to them on speakerphone from his hospital bed. The doctors wanted to keep him for one more day, but Seneca could tell he felt out of his mind that he couldn’t be here.
“Just found the post office,” Maddox told him, swinging into its parking lot so abruptly the Jeep’s tires screeched. If Mr. Lord was sending Candace cash through a PO box, a postal worker might have noticed her accessing it … and even know where she lived. But as they drove up to the parking lot, it was ominously empty. Seneca leapt out and ran to the door, staring at a hand-printed sign that had been taped there: No AC, it read. Closed until Thursday. All PO box mail diverted to USPS at 104 Ocean Bright Road in Ocean City.
“No,” Seneca cried. “No!”
“What’s happening?” Thomas asked.
“It’s closed,” Maddox told him. Thomas groaned.
No one knew what to do. Seneca could literally feel time slipping away.
Then Madison pointed across the street. Darnell and Daughters Bakery, read quaint letters on a window. “Fresh bread, right?”
They hurried across the street. The bakery smelled sweet and doughy and was crowded with beachgoers hoping for a late-afternoon snack. A red Please Take a Number dispenser greeted them as soon as they walked in, but Seneca brushed past it to the counter.
“Have you seen this woman?” she demanded, showing Sadie’s picture to the first person behind the counter who looked his way.
The girl shook her head. Seneca showed the picture to another employee; when she didn’t know, she showed it to several people in line. No one found Sadie familiar.
“Are you sure?” Seneca pressed. “Someone who looked like this wasn’t in here for fresh bread? She might have different hair now. She might be thinner, or heavier.”
The first employee they’d asked shrugged. “Maybe,” she ventured. “The thing is, a lot of people come in here. Especially in the summer.”
Back on the street, they paced around like animals trapped in cages. “Maybe the toy store?” Madison suggested, pointing.
Maddox shook his head. “Brett and Viola never mentioned her buying them toys.”
“What about there?” Madison pointed at a farmers’ market across the street. “Didn’t Brett say something about fresh peaches?”
They entered the town square. Farmers had set up carts of fresh beans, corn, tomatoes, watermelon, and, yes, peaches, though the place had a droopy feel about it—the farmers had likely sat in the hot sun all day and were ready to get home. The group split up and showed the image of Candace to everyone who’d listen, but again, no luck. Only one woman perked up and said, “Haven’t I seen her on Nancy Grace?” But she hadn’t seen her in Breezy Sea.
By the time the cheese vendor, the organic beef farmer, and yet another watermelon grower had said no, Seneca’s panic was at a fever pitch.
They filled Thomas in on their lack of progress. “We have to think instead of randomly trying places,” he said. “There has to be evidence of her somewhere.”
“Do you mind if I grab a water in there?” Maddox asked, pointing to a Wawa mini-mart a few storefronts away.
Seneca glared at him. “We don’t have time to get water!”
“Fine, you want me to faint?” he countered testily. “We should all eat something.”
They hung up with Thomas, promising to update him when they had news. Inside Wawa, the air-conditioning was cranked to near-frigid temperatures. Seneca drifted around the store senselessly. Think, think, think, she ordered her brain. Candace had to be traceable. How was she feeding Damien? What if he needed medicine? Where did she get stuff to clean the house? Did she clean the house?
Still feeling breathless, she moved toward Maddox, who was waiting to pay for a bottle of Gatorade at the register. The checkout person seemed to be new, puzzling over his register and slowly ringing up the person at the front of the line. As he squinted yet again at th
e keypad, Seneca turned away, certain she might scream. Her gaze scanned the other items on the counter: packs of gum, local chocolate, and then something that turned on a light in her brain. It was a strangely shaped pretzel. She felt a jolt.
“A pretzel shaped like a billy club,” she murmured.
Maddox looked up. “What did you say?”
But Seneca was already pulling out her phone and calling up the picture of Candace Lord on Google. “Have you seen this woman?” she asked the cashier, startling him away from his intense inspection of his keypad.
“Who?” the cashier asked, squinting at the photo.
“She goes by Bethany. Have you seen her come in here?”
The worker shook his head. “Nope. Don’t think so.”
But maybe that made sense: This guy was new. Seneca strode to the deli counter, interrupting a guy as he constructed a turkey sandwich. “Have you seen this woman?” she asked him, showing him the picture through the glass.
“Don’t think so,” the deli guy said, barely looking up.
“Did you even look at the picture, dude?” Seneca snapped. She waved it in his face.
The Wawa employee dropped the knife he was holding with a clatter. His eyes were sharp, annoyed. “I said I haven’t seen her.”
Seneca peered at Maddox desperately. “Candace bought pretzels here. I’m almost positive. This is our last chance!”
“I’ve seen that lady.”
The voice came from another customer in line. Seneca, Maddox, and Madison spun to the left slowly. The person who’d spoken was a tall man in a Rip Curl T-shirt and board shorts. He looked in his thirties, maybe, and a little boy held his hand.
“You have?” she heard herself say faintly.
The man’s gaze bounced from the picture of Seneca’s phone to Seneca’s face again. “She’s staying down the street from my family on Sea Tern Lane. It’s about a mile down the road. We’re only a block from the ocean.” He cocked his head. “Why are you looking for her?”
Seneca glanced at the little boy by his side, desperately wanting to say, Don’t worry about it. Just keep your kid far, far away from her. But she just shrugged and muttered something about it being personal.
She thanked the man and left Wawa. It took every remaining shred of composure she had left to walk with an even pace and keep her expression neutral. Only after the activity in the store went back to normal, only after everyone stopped staring at her, even that man with his son, did she break into a run. They had to get to that house. Now.
TWENTY-SIX
BLINDFOLDED, AERIN FELT Brett pushing her from behind down a corridor. After a flight of steps, a door swung open, maybe the door she’d seen from her room, the same door she’d hoped to run out of when Brett was sleeping. A sharp, pungent sting of gasoline assaulted her nostrils. The floor felt hard and unforgiving—was she in a garage?
Brett’s hands clamped down on her shoulders, steering her to the left. Her feet stumbled beneath her, and she wheeled her hands out in front of her, catching nothing. Brett threw a hand around her waist with a grunt. “Walk,” he groaned into her ear. After another step, her hip bumped something hard and metal. With a beep, she heard the sound of something popping and releasing—the trunk of a car.
“No,” Aerin whispered, suddenly understanding what was coming next. She glanced over her shoulder to where she perceived Brett was standing. “Please, no. Let me sit next to you. I’ll still be blindfolded. I won’t say a word. Just don’t put me in the trunk. Please.”
“Stop talking,” Brett said calmly but sternly.
“Where are we going?” Maybe if she just kept him talking, he’d forget about what he was going to do with her. “Are we coming back here?” Brett hadn’t packed anything—not of hers, and not of his. She knew he was working on a laptop in another room. He wouldn’t just abandon something like that.
Brett’s fingers dug into Aerin’s shoulder. “I might,” he said. “But I’m not sure about you.” And just like that, he pushed her forward.
Aerin’s chin hit first. She felt Brett maneuvering her from behind, folding in her butt and her legs. He grabbed her wrists and tied them together behind her back. “Please,” Aerin kept gasping. “Please, Brett. I thought we were friends. Why are you doing this?”
Brett didn’t answer. The trunk slammed hard. Moments later, she heard the thud of the driver’s door closing and the car starting up. Then there was the telltale groan of a garage door opening.
Her body trembled with fear, but she tried to hold on to hope. While he was obsessively cleaning that bathroom, wiping away any trace of her skin and hair and saliva, she’d slowly, calmly bitten off a few fingernails and dropped them under the bed. And then she’d pulled out a few long hairs and stuffed them under the mattress. Also, she stuffed the contact case with Brett’s lone hair inside into her pocket. I’ll show you DNA evidence, she’d thought angrily. It had made her feel powerful at the time, but now it felt like too little, too late. And also? All those things she’d said to Brett. All those times she’d let him sit close to her, touch her. Hell, she’d even felt sorry for the guy—she’d even empathized with him! And this was how he repaid her? He was just going to kill her anyway?
Her body bounced as the vehicle began to roll. She was crunched in such an awkward position—her legs were bent, her back was curled, her head was turned to the side. It was dark in the trunk, too, and it seemed like the oxygen was slowly being sucked away. She was too afraid to even cry. Now, even more so than when she’d been trapped in that room, she realized how much she was going to lose … and how badly she wanted to live. If she got out of here, she was ready to change. Try. Thrive. Or at least give it a shot in a way she hadn’t in years. And she thought of the relationships she’d let go—with her mom, her dad, her friends, all because she was too angry and closed off and defensive. What she’d give to have time back with them, to say she was sorry, to do things over. Her family would never know that she’d always loved them, deep down—because, like an idiot, she’d never said those things. She’d always just pushed and pushed and pushed away.
And Thomas. Her heart clenched. Would she ever see Thomas again?
Please, Helena, she prayed, though she didn’t feel her sister’s presence in the slightest. Please help me get out of this. I’ll do things differently from now on. I’ll try to be a better, kinder, more open person. I’ll try to be happy, too. I promise.
She could hear sounds coming from the front seat. Brett had turned on the radio. A Metallica song came on, and he began to hum to himself. “Off to never-never land …” he sang off-key.
“Brett,” Aerin called out. She wriggled around the trunk, finally touching the small pass-through door that led to the backseat—her mom had one in her car, too. She pressed against it, hoping it would fall open, but it was jammed. “Please. You don’t have to do this.”
Brett changed the station. NPR news blared out. He changed it again. Something country. He paused on that for a moment, but then there was static once more.
“Are you really going to kill me?” Aerin asked.
A weepy song from the ’70s. A ballad with lots of violins.
“Brett?” Aerin pounded on the door “Talk to me! I know you can hear me!”
The car took several more turns. She could feel they were on a highway for a while, cruising steadily, but then the car jolted to the left, sending her body rolling against the side of the trunk.
“Brett, please,” Aerin said wearily. Oxygen was definitely seeping from this space; she was beginning to feel light-headed and spotty. Maybe this was Brett’s plan, then—drive around until she suffocated. “Please don’t kill me,” she wheezed. “I’ll do anything you ask.”
Did she mean that? She didn’t know. But she did know she didn’t want to die yet. The desire to live burned strongly inside her, brighter than it ever had.
After what felt like hours, the car jolted to a stop. The engine died, and Brett’s door opened. There were foot
steps coming her way, and her heart lifted. She braced herself, readying her eyes for the light and heat of the sun. But then, confusingly, the footsteps seemed to fade. Aerin’s ears strained for more sounds … but there were none.
“Brett!” she screamed, kicking on the underside of the trunk’s hood. “Come on, Brett! Not funny! Let me out!”
Cars swished by. Occasionally, she heard a roaring airplane. “Help!” she screamed more. She kicked until her knuckles were raw. But it did no good except to make her bleed and deplete her lungs of more precious air. As she struggled for oxygen, a new, crueler reality began to take shape in her mind. Brett wasn’t coming back. He had left her here. And it was somewhere no one would hear her scream.
This was how it was going to end.
TWENTY-SEVEN
TEN MINUTES LATER, Maddox and the others did laps around a packed beach parking lot near Sea Tern Lane and finally found a space. The sidewalks were eerily devoid of people, and it didn’t look like anyone was in any of the vacation homes, either—on a sweltering day like today, you’d be crazy not to be camped out by the water. A radio played something cheerful in the distance. The boardwalk loomed over the dunes, its Ferris wheel slowly turning, a loud screech of an arcade game blaring through the air.
From their view, three streets jutted out from the avenue that ran perpendicular to the ocean: Sea Tern, Sea Glass Road, and First Street. Sea Tern seemed to be only a block long before it came to a T at a park, so they had a decent view of each house. Which one was Candace hiding in?
“Okay,” Maddox said as he unbuckled his seat belt. “What’s our plan? Get eyes on Candace? Then call Brett?”
“Not unless he gives us Aerin,” Madison said.
“Right.”
“Is anyone else uncomfortable with the idea of just telling Brett where Candace is even after we get Aerin?” Seneca drummed her fingers on her phone case. “We’re basically giving him the okay to murder someone. It makes us accessories to the crime.”
