Once Two Sisters

by Sarah Warburton

10

  AVA

  THE RELIEF OF being with another human being overcomes any awkwardness I might feel about it being this human being. My ex isn’t some dashing prince who’ll slay a dragon or defeat a giant with grace and aplomb; he’s more a languid, ethereal Romantic poet, although right now he’s absurdly solid, bumping into me with every breath. His hands seem to be bound in front of him, and he’s using them like a billy club.

  As a bonus, we’re jammed together in this far-too small space, and Beckett won’t stop talking, firing off questions and working himself into a frenzy.

  “Are they going to keep us here?” he pants.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did you see them?”

  Before I can answer, he asks, “Do you know who they are?”

  “No. But they know my name.”

  “Mine too.” His breath smells rank.

  I press myself farther away from him and ask, “What happened to you?”

  No one has to prod Beckett to talk about himself. It’s one of the ways he deals with tension. The month before his midtenure review, he almost lost his voice, and after a week of his nonstop monologue, I wished he had. Now I want to know how his story compares to mine.

  “I was at the university, working late on a new piece—a deep exploration of the psyche through reverse point of view, experimental and very exciting—and I completely lost track of time.”

  He’s tripping over his words, an excessive amount of them, as if he’s trying to smother the fear and uncertainty of our situation under the weight of his own narrative. A ball of irritation gathers in my gut, but I just let him talk.

  “When I left, I was still completely immersed in that mental state—you know? And they took advantage of that. They must have been waiting for me to come out. I felt a sting and I got dizzy, and I woke up in the back of a van with my hands tied together. I don’t know how long I was out. I couldn’t see anything, but I think we were going uphill. Then the road got really rough, like gravel, and we pulled up here. But that woman wasn’t driving. She opened the back of the van, and somebody else drove it away. A man.”

  All the pieces of his story—the van, the male driver, the drugs—match what happened to me. “Let me see your hands.” I feel the familiar zip ties around his wrists. “These are what they used on me too.”

  “They untied you?”

  “I broke out of them.” I can tell by his sudden silence that he doesn’t want to believe me. “It’s easy if you know how.”

  If you know how, and if you have more space than we do, and any practical knowledge or coordination or an infinitesimal amount of competency.

  “Show me.” Beckett must be terrified if he’s asking me for help, and I feel a pang of pity.

  Blindly I’m trying to scoot him into a corner to give him enough room to raise his arms and bring them down hard enough to break the tie, and he’s explaining to me that this will work because the zip tie is weakest at the junction, when the door opens again.

  The woman and her dog are silhouetted in a painful rectangle of light. Behind them the windows of the house shine in the early morning. Before I can move, Beckett shoves his way outside, stumbling out of the shed, and runs. The woman’s eyes never leave mine as she says, “Zeus, fass!”

  Beckett is not athletic on a good day, and with his hands tied in front of him he runs like a character in a sketch comedy. I didn’t marry him because of his physical ability. Beckett seemed smart, interesting, and had a pallid, dreamy intensity. Now terror rises in my throat and I shout, “Beckett, stop!”

  But Zeus gets there first and brings him down. It’s frighteningly efficient, and the analytical portion of my brain marvels at the dog’s beauty, pure muscle avoiding the flailing legs to seize the upper arm, completely immobilizing Beckett.

  My own body is shaking. I’m crying and gasping. The woman’s mouth purses in disgust. That’s right, I’m weak. Just a girl. She doesn’t know my mind, my will. My cheeks are wet with tears, but there’s steel in my heart. I will survive. I step out of the shed.

  Beckett is curled into a ball on the ground, and the dog’s jaws are still around his bicep. Zeus’s tail swishes back and forth with pleasure. That dog could kill Beckett. I am helpless, as helpless as I felt when Zeus brought me down yesterday. Underneath my fear lies anger. If that dog attacks me again, he’ll lose an eye.

  Despite my apparent hysterics, the woman keeps her gaze on me and her cattle prod at the ready. “Mr. Coughlin, are you quite finished?”

  Beckett moans.

  “Enough. Zeus will let you go, and I expect you to stand up and walk over to me. If you don’t do exactly as I say, he’ll rip your throat out on my command. Are we clear?”

  Somehow she interprets the noise Beckett makes as assent. “Aus! Pass auf!”

  Zeus releases and takes a step back, keeping watch. Beckett pushes himself to his knees and stumbles upright. His face is blotchy and he ducks his head, avoiding my eyes, his humiliation tearing at my heart.

  The woman isn’t cutting him any slack. “Come here.”

  Slowly, Beckett walks over, stopping right next to me. Reflexively I reach for his hand, but he twitches it away, a stinging reminder that he’s still my petty ex-husband.

  Zeus returns to his mistress and stands at attention by her side, and I imagine using German to command his obedience, but the way he glances up at our captor makes me think he wouldn’t obey just anyone. She’s his handler, his alpha, his everything.

  She motions us forward with the cattle prod. “Go on.”

  None of our drama has deterred the inevitable—we are going to the house. It looks like an upscale cabin in the woods with exposed logs, a wood-shingled roof, and a wraparound porch with Adirondack chairs. Those empty chairs face the yard like seats in a coliseum, watching the spectacle of our pain and degradation.

  The woman follows behind us. “Go on,” she urges. “Up the steps and through the front door.”

  My heart is fluttering, my fists are clenched. I glance back and see on her lips the flicker of a smile. I don’t know this woman well enough to judge whether she enjoys our distress or revels in her own power, but I do know she’s hyperorganized, with a headquarters in the wilderness, isolated from the world for a reason I don’t yet know but dread.

  Zeus presses against my knee and Beckett hurries ahead. I will not shrink or run away as Beckett is doing. This dog is a tool, this woman’s tool, and I will not betray my fear to either of them, even as I try to remember how to walk, how to move my body with the animal so close, approaching a house that must hold terrible secrets.

  At the front door, Beckett stops, his hands still zip-tied in front of him.

  “You, Ava. Open the door.” She does not have a German accent, but she certainly has the attitude.

  The polished door is unmarked by time or weather, shining dark. If I could open it quickly enough, I could get inside and slam it shut, leaving the woman and her cattle prod outside. Maybe I could find a phone, maybe …

  I can’t keep myself from looking back, and our captor has a gleam in her eye, like she knows exactly what I’m thinking. She’s not even a little bit worried I’ll escape, and sending us through the door first could be a kind of test, or a trick, or one more excuse to cause pain. I remember the dark figure who drove me here—this woman has an accomplice, so even if I slammed the door in time, I bet I wouldn’t be alone in the house.

  And Beckett is in the way.

  I reach around him to turn the knob, and he stumbles through the door before it’s fully open. No matter how quickly I move, the woman’s right behind me, already shutting the door and shooting the dead bolt.

  Inside, everything—the concrete floors polished to a high gloss, the stainless-steel kitchen counters, the minimalist black leather sofas—is high-end, contemporary, and cold. This does not look like a cozy retreat. Oddly, it’s the kind of decor my parents would love.

  Beckett moves to one of the unwelcoming sofas, rais
ing his bound hands to maintain his balance.

  “No!” the woman snaps at him. “Don’t sit.”

  Startled, he staggers to regain his footing, needing his arms but unable to use them. Lurching sideways, he sends a lamp crashing to the floor, and the sound of metal against concrete rings like a gong.

  I look past the woman, past Beckett, to the door. Now could be my moment. Zeus growls, and I freeze with my foot barely raised, calculating—the dog’s right behind me, the woman’s between me and the way out.

  Not yet.

  The woman looks at Beckett and the fallen lamp with equal amounts of disgust. “Goddamn idiot. Don’t touch anything, either of you. Zeus, pass auf.”

  Don’t touch anything. My pulse is racing, but so are my thoughts. One of my sources, a cop, told me that every time he pulls a car over, even for a routine traffic stop, he touches the trunk as he approaches the driver, just to mark it with his own fingerprints in case he doesn’t walk away. Once there was a woman who disappeared, leaving no trace, not even a fingerprint, behind.

  The constructive part of my brain keeps spinning, making notes, planning. First, our captor’s not holding a gun, not even a Taser. Second, the cattle prod has only as much range as it has length, no more. Finally, Beckett is standing against the wall, chewing his lip, not looking at me. If we both ran for the door, Zeus could take only one of us down. I could get away, run for help. Beckett might not get out, but I could do it …

  The woman pulls out a phone and starts fiercely texting, but her gaze never completely leaves us. I turn a little so she can’t see my face.

  Look at me. I will Beckett to wake up, to engage. I need to get his attention, but in a normal, not-planning-to-escape way. “Beckett, are you okay?”

  He is lost in his own world, completely shut down. If I’m the only one who runs, Zeus will kill me. It has to be both of us to work.

  While I’m looking at him, I can’t see if the woman is paying any more attention to us, but I can hear her hiss in frustration. If I glance over at her, I’ll look guilty, and my skin is crawling with the effort of keeping calm.

  “Beckett!”

  Finally he raises his head, tears in his eyes. He whispers, “Why is this happening?”

  I jerk my head toward the door, roll my eyes, do everything I can to convey run.

  But Beckett just stares at me blankly. Maybe he’s afraid of the dog. Maybe he’s in shock. I am buzzing, electric with adrenaline.

  The woman looks up from her phone, and her dark gaze seems to lay my intentions bare. She doesn’t take her eyes from mine as she raises the phone to her ear.

  It’s too late. Disappointment lies bitter on my tongue. I could spit at Beckett.

  Her voice is low, but so intense that I can hear every word. “No phone, no computer, no excuse.” With her free hand, she taps the inert cattle prod against her leg. “Track her down and smoke her out. It’s your job to keep the pressure on.” Another forceful exhale, and she hisses, “Figure it out or you won’t get paid. I’ll be out of range for a while.”

  She jams the phone back into her pocket, and I note which one—the left hip. Some analytical part of my brain, a gift from my mother, keeps whirring, trying to find a way out. Solve X for Escape.

  But this isn’t the time. Our captor comes closer, her heavy hiking boots thumping on the floor. “Move.”

  She motions us over to the opposite wall and waits, holding the cattle prod at the ready, between us and the front door. Almost without realizing it, I’m backing away from her, bumping into Beckett. Zeus growls.

  “Now don’t start that again.” She sounds almost amused. Her eyes steady on mine, she reaches out to a keypad embedded in the wall and types in a code.

  A code is a security precaution, another kind of cage. I don’t want to be locked up again. Zeus is pressing hard against my leg right now, and I kick out in panic. He snaps and I choke on my own gasp, air and fear and a muffled scream all catching in my throat.

  A panel in the wall slides open, some kind of high-tech door. Zeus has a firm grip on my forearm and is tugging me toward it, and I can’t help resisting, even though I know it’s futile. “Go on down the stairs,” the woman says, gesturing with the cattle prod.

  “I don’t want …” I don’t know what I’m saying. I don’t want to go down there? I don’t want to cause trouble?

  Behind me I hear Beckett finally moving, obeying her orders, and my anger flares again. If he’d only run when I told him to, but now he steps in front of me, like he’s trying to earn extra credit by following directions.

  Then we hear a voice, a man’s voice, from the bottom of the stairs.

  “What’s taking so long?”

  I freeze. It could be the kidnapper, the one from the truck. I should have kept running through the woods; I should run now. There must be a reason they’ve kept us alive so long. Even if they’ve caught me and plan to hurt me, they won’t kill me, not yet. Any true-crime aficionado knows not to let your captor take you to a secondary location, especially a secret room nobody else could ever find.

  I try to twist away from Zeus, but his grip tightens until pain pierces my wrist.

  “Help us!” Beckett calls down the stairs.

  “Idiot.” The word escapes my clenched teeth. The front door is locked, the alarm is on, we’re in the middle of the godforsaken woods, and now the woman gives her cattle prod a burst of electricity, just enough to remind us who’s in charge.

  No one knows we’re here, no one except our captors, and once we go down those stairs, we’ll be lost in whatever pits of anguish they have planned.

  Zeus tugs at me again, then releases my arm. Swallowing my fear, I push past Beckett. It’s not hard to pretend I’m stumbling with panic as I lurch against the doorframe and slap my sweaty palm hard against the wall. My body is shaking for real, but I hope my fingers are leaving clear prints.

  I may not be coming back, but by God I will not disappear without a trace.

  The woman gives me a shove and I’m on the first step, flanked on either side by concrete walls. The air is colder, and there’s a moment before I can take a real breath.

  Instead of a monster at the bottom of the stairs, I see a gangly man in an ill-fitting lab coat, his thin wrists extending beyond the cuffs. He’s standing beside a heavy metal door like the door to a bank vault. I wish I didn’t recognize it, but I do.

  Any delusions of escape I’d been harboring vanish like so many soap bubbles. I know exactly where we are, and when that door seals shut behind us, there will be no way out.

  CHAPTER

  11

  ZOE

  WHEN WE ARE finished at the police station, my father asks, “What’s the next step?”

  “Go home and rest,” the detective tells us. “We’ll follow up tomorrow morning.”

  I wish I could go home. My real home in Texas. But Ava hasn’t reappeared yet, and Andrew and I arranged things so he and Emma could meet my parents. There is no way I can leave without looking like a complete monster. Failing that, I’d take a sterile hotel room without the memories. But I have a role to play here, dutiful daughter and supportive sister, and I need to act normal. That means staying with my parents.

  If I think of a childhood home, it’s the house in the suburbs where my parents were expanding their psychiatry practices. The lot next to ours was empty, so Ava and I used to gather blackberries there in summer and build elaborate snow forts in winter. We had tiny bedrooms that faced each other on opposite sides of the upstairs hallway. Mine looked out over the cul-de-sac and hers had a view of the forest.

  As I walk through the front door of my parents’ new townhouse, the familiar smell hits me: lemon furniture polish and new magazines. I’ve never lived here, but it smells like that long-ago house. A home that smelled absolutely nothing like children. No fruity bubble baths, no play dough or markers, nothing baking in the oven.

  From the entrance I catch a glimpse of the “family room.” More like a psychiat
rist’s office, a home version of what my parents have at work. Modern and impersonal with nothing that invites you to kick off your shoes and relax. This is a house for adults, with sleek leather furniture and abstract paintings depicting harsh angles in neutral colors.

  My mom stops in the front hallway and turns to look at me, as if searching for the right thing to say. Her hands flutter up to the reading glasses hanging by a chain from her neck, then back down again. “Do you want something to eat? Soup?”

  “No,” I tell her, although I am a little hungry. “I’m okay.” My parents never had much interest in food, even when we were little. She must be making a real effort.

  “Okay.” She looks at my father for help.

  “Towels,” he says decisively. “You’ll need clean towels.”

  “And sheets?” my mom asks him.

  “No, I washed them after the last guest and put them back on.”

  My father takes Mom’s arm and helps her up the stairs. She looks frail in a way that surprises me. I always thought my mother was made of steel, but she moves slowly, as if she needs my father’s support. Time didn’t stand still while I was in Texas, but I can see its effects only in the way my parents look. They still feel as distant as ever.

  As they talk to each other, they lead the way up the stairs. I trail behind them like the little kid I used to be, one who could never get their attention. The only other person in the world who would understand how normal this weirdness feels is Ava. Before we hated each other, we were allies in this family. Her gaze was proof I existed, even when my parents didn’t notice anyone except each other. I almost miss her now.

  We reach the top of the stairs, and Mom pushes open a door. I enter a small bedroom with a four-poster canopied bed flanked by small bedside tables with china-shaded lamps. If the rest of the house is cool and modern, this one room is almost a throwback, a little girl’s Victorian dream.

  This is it, the closest thing to a childhood home I have. My old bedroom with the furniture I pitched a screaming fit for one Christmas. Just like in the showroom: the bed, the tables, the lamps, and the marble-topped dresser with its matching mirror. Of course, now my parents have removed the plush carpet, so the mahogany bed and tables are adrift on a polished oak floor. They’ve even removed the gauzy canopy so the posts of the bed reach futilely upward, supporting nothing.