The Last Place You Look

by Kristen Lepionka

  She shook her head and didn’t move. “I’m not stupid anymore,” she said.

  I wanted to ask what she meant. But there wasn’t time to ask. A digital clock on her nightstand said it was almost ten. I winced as I stood up and looked around the room for something I could use on the chain, running my fingertips over book spines and dirty plates and the base of the lamp. It was cheap metal, but it had some heft to it. I yanked the cord out of the wall, plunging the room into darkness.

  Sarah drew in a sharp breath.

  I stumbled over something on my way out of the room—a laundry basket. I grabbed a shirt and sweatpants from the stack and took them in to Veronica. She was still silently weeping, her tears sparkling grimly in the pale glow of my flashlight. She picked up the sweatpants and just looked at me like What the fuck am I supposed to do with this.

  “Right,” I said. “Okay.” I sat on the floor above the bolt and drove the base of the lamp against it with all my strength once, twice, three times. On the fourth, the lamp fractured into four pieces while the chain remained untouched. I threw what remained of the lamp against the wall, feeling sick as I stood up and paced the length of the small room. Veronica was still on the bed, but she had lowered the sheet to her lap as she struggled into the shirt. Her torso was blotchy with bruises.

  I was not going to cry.

  I went back to the bolt and thought about putting a bullet through it. But the chain was iron and there was no telling what might happen if I shot at it—I imagined a slug ricocheting around the house and killing us all. I tried yanking on it again with my bare hands.

  If only I had called Tom instead of Peter Novotny with my last remaining moments of sanity.

  If only I hadn’t broken my phone.

  If only I had a clue what I was doing.

  “I don’t like the dark,” Sarah whispered, close to my ear. I spun around, jumping slightly at her shadowy figure. “You took my light.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Here.” I placed the flashlight on the bed next to Veronica so that it lit up the floor in front of Sarah. I shrugged out of my leather jacket, sweat pouring off of me as I picked up the chain again. “Okay. I need some help. Please.”

  Sarah looked at me. She was physically in better shape than Veronica, but mentally, maybe far worse off. Fifteen years was a long time. She’d been in this house for almost as long as she’d ever lived outside of it. “You can’t be in here,” she said. “He isn’t going to like it.”

  “I know.” I yanked at the chain, my arms trembling. “That’s why we need to get out. Do you know where the key is for this?”

  “You have to leave.”

  “Sarah. Can you go to the neighbor’s house and get help? The garage door is unlocked.”

  She shook her head over and over. “He’s going to come back and I’m going to be good.”

  My hands squeezed into fists as a current of desperate frustration coursed through me. I didn’t know how to reach her, how to make her understand that the past fifteen years were not real life. It would probably take a very long time before she could see that. But I needed her to get it now. I had to try something else.

  “Sarah,” I said. “Did you know that Brad is in jail?”

  She said his name again, clutching her belly.

  “He’s in jail for murdering your parents,” I continued. I wiped a slick of perspiration from my forehead. My mouth was bone-dry. “But he didn’t do that. Did he?”

  She said nothing.

  “Once we get out of here,” I said, “and you tell the police what really happened? You can get Brad out of jail. You can take your life back. You can be in control. None of this has to count.”

  “The police,” she murmured, miserable. She looked from me to Veronica. Then Sarah sat down on the bed, her hands balled into fists. “This isn’t what was supposed to happen,” she said.

  I moved the flashlight so it was facing the bed and I crouched in front of her. “What’s supposed to happen?” I said.

  “He said,” she began. “He said that in the new house, it would be better and we could be like a family and he wouldn’t lock the door upstairs. And I could go outside sometimes, into the yard. And there could be a swing set and a garden, that’s what he said. It’s a big yard. He showed me.” Her eyes welled up and overflowed.

  I wondered how often Derrow had taken her out of the house. Maybe dozens of times over the last decade and a half, and everyone in Belmont was too self-involved to see. Maybe he’d gotten cocky, assuming nothing could ever touch him. Or maybe—probably—he was out of his mind. A family? How was that supposed to work? I felt the minutes rushing past like water down a drain. “Sarah, he’s not a good guy. You don’t want to stay here.”

  “It’s not as bad anymore,” she said. “Now that he trusts me, almost.”

  “He made you a prisoner,” I said. “He’ll never let you be anything other than that, not until you get away from him.”

  “He told me I love him.”

  “You don’t, Sarah,” I said. But she didn’t look too sure about that. She didn’t look like she believed me at all. “Listen,” I said, desperate. “He trusts you. Because he tested you before and you didn’t fall for it. Right?”

  She nodded.

  “He even took you to see the new house, right?” I guessed.

  Another nod.

  “You were at a gas station about two weeks ago,” I said. “That’s why I knew you were here. Someone saw you.”

  “How do you know that?” she whispered.

  “Because I’ve been looking really hard for you. That’s how you can tell this isn’t another test,” I said. “Because he already trusts you. He wouldn’t test you again, not after he trusted you enough to let you get out of the truck at the gas station. Right?”

  The sideways logic appeared to reach her. She looked up at me, her head tipped to the side. “But you knew about Veronica,” she said. “Brad wouldn’t know about Veronica.”

  “No, Brad doesn’t know,” I said. “But I found out, while I was looking for you. I found out a lot of things. He’s killed other women.”

  Sarah continued to stare at the floor. “It’s because of his sexual problem,” she said, like what was wrong with Jack Derrow just needed a prescription remedy. “He can’t help it. He can be okay. He doesn’t chain me up anymore when he leaves, and he lets me use the bathroom now. And take showers. He’s not so bad.”

  “Sarah, yes, he is.” I went to the window. I didn’t want to leave to get help myself in case Derrow came back sooner rather than later, but maybe I could get someone’s attention. The plywood covering the window was nailed down every two inches. I grabbed at the edges, hoping for a weak spot.

  “He said we could be like a family.”

  I looked back at her. “He killed your family. Didn’t he?”

  She nodded. “He—” But then she stopped.

  “What happened,” I whispered.

  “He gave me a ride,” she said after a minute.

  I yanked on the plywood as hard as I could, but nothing gave way except my fingernails.

  “I got a flat tire on my bike, and I saw him driving by, and, and,” she said, shaking her head, “he stopped to help me.”

  This was how it had gone down, I realized, for Sarah and the other women. Out and about in Belmont, maybe in some kind of distress, maybe not. There was nothing weird about a cop pulling over, especially one that you knew. On the street below, I heard a car approach, but it kept going past Derrow’s house. I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. He could return at any moment. I abandoned the idea of opening the window and went back to the bolt that secured Veronica’s chain to the floor. I squinted at it in the near-dark and considered the Swiss army knife on my keychain. Although I’d managed to get my father’s office door open with the Swiss army knife the other day, I’d need better tools than that if I was ever going to get this sucker open. A better light, too. Steady hands. Lots of time. And maybe not even t
hen.

  “He was my dad’s friend,” Sarah continued. “So I knew him, so I let him give me a ride home. And he took my bike in and his hands got all greasy from the chain and I said he could come in, to wash his hands.”

  “Sarah, it wasn’t your fault.” I stood up and looked at her. Sarah’s eyes were wide, glued to the floor in front of her. I needed to get her to do more than talk. “Please. Help me.”

  But she continued, “And then in the kitchen, he had, I saw he had an erection.” She stopped and wiped her eyes. “It made me really uncomfortable and I was going to go upstairs. But then my parents got home. And Jack went outside to help my dad with something on the car.” Now she looked right at me. “I told my mother about what I saw. And then he walked back in. Mom started yelling at him to get out, and she was calling for my dad, screaming his name. Jack got this knife out of his pocket and he just snapped his arm out and then my mom was clutching her throat. There was so much blood. So much. My dad came running in and Jack stabbed him too. He hit me and then I woke up here.” She pressed the heel of her hand against her mouth again, hard. “He told me he didn’t want to kill me, because I was good, I was a good girl. But he said he would do if it he had to because it was all my fault.”

  “Sarah,” I said, my voice cracking. I had no idea how much time had passed but it felt like a year. “It isn’t your fault. You have to believe that. You can change the story, starting now. You will change it. But we need to act fast here. Please.”

  She sat there without saying anything for a moment, just looking down at her hands. Then she reached out to me like she wanted to give me something, and she dropped a small silver key onto my open palm.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Sarah turned on every light switch as we made our way into the hallway and down the steps. She was scared of the house, or scared that Derrow was waiting for her around every corner. So we went slowly. Veronica, surprisingly strong despite her drugged condition, clutched my elbow. Sarah, two steps in front of us, held the flashlight in both hands. She had shoes, a pair of ancient women’s sneakers. Veronica had no shoes, the articles of clothing she was wearing when Derrow grabbed her nowhere to be seen. But it didn’t matter. My brother’s car was in front of the house, across the street.

  Less than a hundred yards away.

  But when we made it to the kitchen, I heard a sound that made my heart stop.

  The garage door going up.

  Derrow had returned.

  Sarah let out a strangled sound and said, “He’s going to kill us he’s going to kill us he’s going to kill us,” over and over.

  The door to the garage was the only one without the padlock. Now there was only one way out of the house—back into the basement and through the window I broke when I came in.

  Not only that, but there wouldn’t be much time before Derrow realized something was going on. If the car parked in front of his house wasn’t a dead giveaway already, he’d know it when he saw that every light in the lower level was on.

  I opened the basement door and ushered the two women inside. Derrow’s giant truck gunned into the garage, then turned off. Then there was the sound of a key in the lock a few seconds later. The garage door stayed up.

  “Come on,” I said. I pulled the door closed behind us, Sarah shrieking as we were plunged into darkness. I carefully felt for the next step, my whole body trembling.

  But she fumbled with the flashlight and dropped it, and it bounced down the steps and went out.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered.

  “We’re going to be fine,” I told her with a confidence that I in no way felt.

  We had to take the stairs even more slowly now in the pitch-black of the basement. I undid the snap on my holster and gripped the handle of my gun. My palms were wet. Veronica leaned heavily on my arm, her long hair brushing my wrist. Sarah’s breathing was ragged in my ear but I listened hard for an idea of where Derrow was, what he was doing.

  He wasn’t doing anything, not even walking. The floorboards weren’t creaking. He was just standing there, probably just inside the house, listening too. Then he took four heavy steps, crossing the room quickly with his long strides. He stopped at the basement door, turned the knob, but didn’t open it.

  “Why couldn’t you just stay away?” Derrow said through the door, his tone as dark and cold as the concrete walls around us. “You were afraid, on the phone. I could hear it in your voice.”

  I said nothing.

  “I should have dealt with you. I knew I should have. You’re not a good girl. You broke into my house. Both of my houses. Didn’t you?”

  I still kept quiet.

  “And you’re trying to turn my Sarah against me now?” he said.

  I didn’t say a word, too busy trying to formulate a new plan. If Derrow opened the door and we were still on the steps, we’d all be dead in seconds.

  “You miserable bitch,” he said. “I could shoot you through this door and what could anybody even say? Self-defense. Not a doubt in my mind you have that little revolver of yours in your hands right now.”

  Sarah yelped a little. I got the three of us off the steps in case he decided to do just that. I wanted to shoot him through the door myself but my eyes hadn’t adjusted to the darkness yet, and I couldn’t be sure exactly where the door was, or if he was behind it or beside it. “That’s the least of your problems right now,” I said, forcing my voice to sound strong. “But you’re right, I do have my little revolver in my hands. I reloaded it, by the way. And if you open that door, all eight shots are going into your chest.”

  I grabbed Sarah’s upper arm and pointed at the broken window, where the palest hint of moonlight illuminated the area on the floor just below it. She looked at me with confusion but then took Veronica’s arm and they shuffled toward it.

  “The least of my problems?” Derrow said next. His voice sounded slightly farther away, then closer as he added, “I wouldn’t worry about my problems right now.”

  I heard a scraping sound, and then the door rattled in its frame. He was wedging something under the doorknob, like a chair. He must have thought I broke into the house through the garage, not the basement window.

  “But your problems,” Derrow said. “I’d like to see you talk your way out of this one.”

  Then I heard him walk away.

  I ran up the steps and jerked at the doorknob, but it wouldn’t even turn. The sweat snaking down my spine went ice cold. A beat later, his heavy footsteps returned, accompanied by a wet, sloshing sound.

  Then the sharp tang of gasoline.

  I half ran, half tripped back down the steps and over to the window, where Sarah was just standing, staring up at the freedom beyond the small, open rectangle. Veronica was at the weight bench, hopelessly trying to drag it across the floor. But at least she was trying.

  “No, this is too heavy,” I said. I tried to think of what else I had seen in the basement. There were boxes, which might be sturdy enough to support Veronica’s weight but not mine or Sarah’s. And then I remembered.

  The deep freezer.

  I felt my way along the wall until I bumped into it, Veronica at my heels. I pulled the cord out of the wall and tried to drag it, but the thing weighed a ton.

  “We need to push it,” I said.

  Veronica and I went to the other end of the appliance and pushed and pushed, and it barely budged three inches.

  From upstairs, I heard a faint crackling sound, smelled smoke in addition to gas. A smoke detector began to peal.

  “Oh my God,” Sarah said.

  “What the hell is in this thing?” I said. I threw open the lid to the freezer and was met with a blast of cold, wet air and a smell that instantly made me gag, and Sarah shrieked.

  “Don’t open that, don’t, don’t,” she said. “Theresa is in there.”

  Veronica recoiled and I slammed the lid shut, unwilling to reach inside.

  Theresa.

  I remembered the name from my background check. His
ex-wife. My thoughts were going everywhere at once, a swarm of insects. And I had never been more afraid.

  “Focus,” I said out loud.

  I got lower to the ground, my hip screaming at me, and pushed as hard as I could. Veronica did the same. We got it moving, slowly, but steadily, until I heard it crunching over broken glass from the window.

  “There, that’s good.” I held back a cough as I helped Veronica and Sarah get on top of the freezer.

  As soon as I saw her standing at eye level with the window, I realized that there was no way Sarah would fit through the small opening with her pregnant belly. She realized it too, blind terror in her eyes as a smoke detector somewhere in the basement started going off over the anxious hiss of flames right above us. Smoke must have been seeping through the crack under the basement door.

  “You’re going to leave me here,” she whispered.

  “No. Sarah, I’m not.”

  “You are. You are you are you are.”

  She coughed so hard she had to lean against the wall for support. I felt sick. Sarah had lived through hell on earth only to now face dying in a house fire. And that was because of me.

  “Veronica,” I said. I had to raise my voice over the growing crackle of the flames. I braced against the freezer as I pulled off my boots and thrust them at her. “Can you run to one of the houses and get help?”

  She was bewildered for a second, but then she nodded and stepped into my boots.

  “It doesn’t matter which house. Just get help. Say—” I stopped for a second, not even sure now. “Say there’s a fire. There’s a fire and you need the fire department and the sheriff’s department, okay? Not the Belmont police.”

  She nodded. “Okay.”

  I scrambled on top of the freezer and helped Veronica up through the window. Then she stood there in the damp grass of Derrow’s backyard and looked down at me like a mistake had been made.

  “What is it, Veronica?” I said. “Do you see him?”

  She shook her head.

  “Okay,” I said. “Just go. Run.”

  She turned and ran.