Heartstopper

by Joy Fielding

“Au contraire,” Sandy countered, borrowing Pauline’s earlier expression. “I don’t want to be accused of sending out any mixed messages.” She picked up her martini glass. “To new beginnings,” she toasted again. She took a sip, then tossed the remaining liquid in Ian’s face.

  Ian shot to his feet, knocking over his chair. For an instant he looked as if he might retaliate, throw his beer, grab her by the hair, knock her to the floor. But he merely flailed about uselessly for several seconds, the liquid dripping from the tip of his nose to the front of his black shirt. “You’re crazy,” he said, before storming from the restaurant.

  Sandy shrugged. “I just wanted to make myself clear.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  Megan was dreaming.

  The dream came at her in fits and starts, a series of blurred, fluctuating images that refused to form a cohesive whole. One minute she was running along the side of a road; the next minute she was sliding headfirst into a large crater. The crater was the result of a recent storm, whose high winds had uprooted all the old banyan trees in the vicinity. One such tree lay on its side, its spindly roots exposed and trailing from its underbelly, like a bunch of severed arteries. Megan tried to grab on to them as she slipped through the giant hole, but her descent was too quick and the roots too fragile to sustain her, and she was rapidly swallowed up by the soft, moist earth, disappearing without a trace. Above her, she heard footsteps and laughter. “Where’s Kate?” someone was asking, and Megan recognized the voice immediately as belonging to her mother.

  “She’s at Mr. Lipsman’s,” came the answer.

  An orange-and-white tabby cat suddenly jumped into Megan’s lap. “No, I’m not,” she tried to call out as dirt filled her mouth, clinging to her teeth like bits of leftover fillings. “I’m here. Right under your feet.”

  And then suddenly she was walking through the perfume counters at Bloomingdale’s, and salesgirls, some of whom wore clinical white smocks over their smart black suits, were indiscriminately spraying various scents in her direction. She felt her neck grow moist with aromatic mist, her eyes start to water. And then someone shoved a particularly foul-smelling sample right underneath her nose, and she shrank from its poisonous fumes. “I don’t think so,” she told the smiling woman, whose name tag identified her as Fiona Hamilton. “I don’t like that smell at all.”

  And then Greg was at her side, lapping up the perfume at her neck, as if it were milk and he one of Mr. Lipsman’s cats. And Ginger and Tanya were dancing around her, and Liana was sitting in a corner, chewing on a piece of candy and watching them.

  “What are you doing here?” Megan asked her. “I thought you were dead.”

  “I’m not dead,” Liana answered. “I just had a face-lift.”

  “You look great,” Megan told her as Delilah Franklin and her mother strolled by arm in arm.

  “What are you doing here?” Delilah asked her accusingly. “You should be home in bed.”

  The dream ended, yanked from view with the suddenness of a movie projector breaking down.

  Slowly Megan opened her eyes and pushed herself up on one elbow, watching the details of the room slowly shift into position. It took a few seconds for the realization to sink in that she wasn’t in her bed, in her room, in her home, that she was, in fact, lying on a narrow cot in dimly lit and unfamiliar surroundings, with no other furniture, no paintings on the four blank walls, and no carpeting on the concrete floor. A thin, blue blanket clung to her shoulders, and a single light fixture, possibly a lantern, sat on a high ledge, far out of her reach. The room smelled dank, the way the unfinished basement of her grandparents’ house in Rochester used to smell before they sold their house and moved to the eighteenth floor of a new condominium, overlooking Lake Ontario.

  Where was she?

  Megan looked down at herself. She was wearing a black sweater and blue jeans, the same sweater and jeans, as well as the same tan suede boots, she remembered she’d worn to the cast party. How long ago was that? Tonight? Last night? The night before? Was it daytime or evening? How long had she been here, wherever here was?

  Where was she?

  She felt a glimmer of panic, like a heartbeat, against the inside of her breast. Relax, a little voice cautioned. Obviously you’re still dreaming. Everything you’re seeing—the room, the cot, the blanket, the lantern, even the dank smell—it’s all part of another series of confusing symbols that don’t add up to anything, and that you probably won’t even remember when you wake up.

  Please let that be sooner rather than later, Megan prayed, closing her eyes on her unpleasant quarters, although the dank smell lingered. “I don’t like this dream,” she said out loud, trying to force herself awake, hoping her voice would be powerful enough to jolt her into consciousness, then lying back down when it proved insufficient. She pulled the worn blue blanket up over her shoulders and curled her legs against her chest.

  She lay that way for what felt like an eternity, although it was probably only a few minutes. Her watch was missing, Megan realized, feeling the empty space on her left wrist where her watch used to be. The watch had been a present from her parents on her sixteenth birthday. It was thin and gold and had a delicate, heart-shaped face. “Just like yours,” her mother had said.

  Where was her mother?

  “It’s okay,” Megan tried reassuring herself in her mother’s soothing voice, the one she used whenever Megan wasn’t feeling well. “It’s okay, sweetheart. Everything will be okay. I promise you’ll feel better in the morning.” Would she? Or was it already morning?

  Where was she? What time was it?

  Megan didn’t remember having removed her watch, but then, she reminded herself again, this was a dream, and so memories couldn’t be counted on. There were no memories in dreams. No conjunctives either. She’d read that somewhere. Dreams carried you from one strange place to the next without so much as an and, if, or but, replaying the day’s events in a variety of seemingly nonsensical ways, combining voices and faces that didn’t normally belong together, mixing the banal with the bizarre, the everyday with the never-was, the living with the dead, without apology or explanation. Sometimes dreams were soothing and pleasant. More often, at least in Megan’s case, they were the opposite. She’d always had a lot of nightmares, and their numbers had increased since her father had moved out. This was just another bad dream, she told herself.

  Although it didn’t feel like any dream she’d ever had before.

  Megan reopened her eyes and sat back up, the thin blanket slipping from her shoulders and sliding down her arm.

  The room was exactly the same as it had been minutes ago. The same blank walls, the same uncarpeted, concrete floor, the same fusty smell. For the first time, Megan noticed a beige plastic pail at the foot of the cot, and a jumbo roll of toilet paper beside it. Gross, she thought, and laughed out loud, hoping again that the sharp sound would be enough to finally dislodge her from this tiresome ordeal. But the sound bounced off the bare walls and rolled toward her feet, like an abandoned rubber ball.

  In the corner stood two plastic bottles of water. Had they always been there, or was this something new?

  Megan considered getting up and walking over there—she was thirsty—but to do so meant taking an active role in this nightmare, and she had no desire to prolong it. So she remained where she was, her back pressed against the hard wall, trying to ignore the increasingly certain feeling that was circulating through her veins, the sinking sensation that was growing in her gut, the cruel, unthinkable understanding that this was not a dream, that she wasn’t going to wake up. Because she was already up, she realized with an intake of breath so sharp it felt as if someone had stabbed her through the heart.

  She wasn’t asleep. This wasn’t a dream. She was wide-awake, and she had no idea where she was, except she’d never been here before, of that she was certain. “Hello?” she called out. “Hello? Is somebody there?”

  And then she saw the door.

  “For God’s sake,” s
he muttered, propelling her body off the cot toward it. How stupid could she be! What a jerk she was, to get herself all worked up over nothing. The door was right there. How had she missed seeing it before? She was standing right in front of it, and all she had to do was open it.

  Except it didn’t open, didn’t even budge, no matter how hard she twisted and pulled and ultimately banged and punched and kicked at it with her new boots, until the delicate suede was scratched and scuffed. “What the hell is going on here?” she cried out, beads of sweat breaking out across her forehead. For the first time she realized how warm it was, how still was the air in the windowless room. “Open the door,” she screamed. “Somebody. Open the damn door this minute.”

  Where was she?

  “Where am I?” she asked out loud, pacing from one side of the room to the other. Think, she thought. “Think,” she shouted, banging her fists repeatedly against her sides. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  She remembered being onstage. She remembered singing and dancing. She remembered basking in the applause. She remembered Greg’s hand proudly clutching hers as they took their final bows.

  Greg, she thought.

  Of course.

  “Greg?” she cried. “Greg, are you there? Greg, let me out of here. This isn’t funny.”

  No answer.

  “Greg! Listen to me. The joke’s gone on long enough. You’re not Petruchio. I’m not your stupid Kate. And I really don’t appreciate being locked up like this. Let me out. Now.”

  This had to be Joey’s idea, Megan decided, finally giving in to her thirst and opening one of the bottles of water. Joey’s idea of a joke. A damn sick one. The Taming of the Shrew indeed. She lifted the bottle to her lips, her head falling back across the top of her spine as she drank, her eyes slowly panning the ceiling. She felt the water trickle down her throat, felt it turn to a block of ice in her stomach. Was someone watching her?

  “Is somebody there?” she whispered, then again, louder this time. “Is somebody there?” Her eyes scanned the walls, searching for holes or hidden cameras. But the light was too dim to make anything out, and the walls were too high for her to check every nook and cranny. She could turn the cot on its side, she realized, use it as a ladder, make a grab for the lantern, but what good would that do? She’d just expend a lot of energy she might need later.

  Need for what?

  “Greg! Joey! Open the door. Damn you! This is so not funny.”

  Megan spun around. What was that sound? Had she heard laughter, or was that just her imagination getting the better of her? She stood absolutely still, waiting to hear it again, but the only sound she heard was the ragged rhythm of her own breathing. Okay, she told herself. You have to calm down. You’re giving them exactly what they want. It’s just a bunch of stupid kids playing a stupid joke, trying to teach me some sort of lesson. Tanya and Ginger were probably involved, getting back at her for her stealing the part of Kate right out from under their stuck-up noses. And for sure, Joey had something to do with it. But Greg—could he really be involved?

  This is our night, he’d told her as the curtain came down.

  Ssh, he’d told her later.

  When was that? When had he told her to be quiet?

  At the cast party, Megan remembered, the scene suddenly taking shape around her: Lonny Reynolds’s living room, the music, the dancing, the drinking. The angry exchange with Joey. Going upstairs with Greg. The master bedroom with its king-size bed and satin pillows. The feel of Greg’s lips on hers, the taste of his beer on the tip of her tongue, his hands on her bare breasts. Her inane chatter. His telling her to ssh. Her walking to the door. The click of the lock as the door opened and she’d left him sitting there alone.

  Just as she was now.

  Was this his way of getting even?

  Yes, he’d been angry. There was no doubt about that. He’d obviously had big plans for tonight, our night, he’d said—was it still tonight?—and she’d put a damper on them. More than a damper. She’d blown them away. She’d talked about her aunt’s termites, for God’s sake. No wonder he’d told her to ssh. She’d tried to tell him she just wasn’t ready. But his response had been to call her a cock-teaser and tell her to send in the next girl in line.

  She’d fled the room, the house, the block.

  And then what?

  What happened next?

  One street had quickly become another. She’d run, all the while listening for the sound of Greg’s footsteps behind her, the touch of his hand on her shoulder, his plaintive voice telling her to stop, wait, slow down. I’m sorry, she could hear him say. I didn’t mean any of it.

  And then someone was behind her, whispering her name, and she was turning around, so relieved because he was there and she didn’t have to run anymore, and then …

  And then, what?

  What?

  And then—nothing.

  A faint memory—or was it her imagination?—of someone pushing something into her face, of noxious fumes filling her nostrils, of the world fading to black. Had that really happened?

  How had she gotten here?

  Where was she?

  Megan returned to the cot, sank back down. She took another sip of water, then lowered the bottle to the floor. If she drank too much water, she’d have to go to the bath-room—her bladder was already pinching, making its presence known—but no matter what, no matter how insistent her bladder became or how painfully her stomach cramped, she would never use that stupid bucket. She would never give them—whoever they were, Joey and Tanya and Ginger and Greg—please don’t let it be Greg—that kind of satisfaction. So it was better not to drink, and better not to cry out, because the more she used her voice in this dank, depressing, hot, little room, the thirstier she’d get, and the thirstier she got, the more she’d drink, and the more she’d drink… No, enough. She was going to make herself crazy. And for what? For the amusement of a bunch of perverted cretins?

  Thank God Liana’s killer had been found. Thank God Cal Hamilton had been arrested and was in jail awaiting trial. Or she’d really be making herself nuts. She’d be having all sorts of wild and crazy thoughts. Thoughts of sadistic serial killers. Of being raped and tortured and brutalized. Of having half her face blown away with a single shot. Of her lifeless body lying for days in some snake-infested marsh, of insects and alligators feasting on her remains. Of her mother being called to identify what was left of her body.

  A stream of involuntary tears washed down Megan’s cheeks when she pictured her mother’s anguished face, and she wiped them away. They will not see me cry, she determined. Damn you, Joey. Damn you, Tanya and Ginger. Damn you, Greg. Damn you most of all.

  It’s just that it’s easy to get lost in the moment, she heard her mother say.

  I won’t get lost.

  Promise?

  Except that’s exactly what had happened. She was lost. And one moment was pretty much the same as the next when you didn’t know what time it was. And maybe if she hadn’t said no, if she had gotten lost in the moment, then she wouldn’t be here now. So in a roundabout way, this was all her mother’s fault.

  So damn you too, Mommy. Damn you.

  Where are you?

  What was her mother doing now? Megan wondered. Was she asleep? Did she even know her daughter was missing? Was she anxiously waiting for her to come home, trying to decide on the proper consequence for staying out past her curfew? Was it past her curfew? Was her mother out looking for her? Was she even now combing the streets, waking up the neighbors, rousting the sheriff from his bed? Would they find her before it was too late?

  Too late for what?

  Cal Hamilton was in jail. She had nothing to worry about.

  Unless.

  Was there any chance he’d gotten out?

  The horrifying thought pushed Megan off the cot and into the middle of the room. Was it possible Cal Hamilton had escaped or that someone had posted his bail? He had a reputation as a ladies’ man. Had one of those silly
women actually believed his stupid story about being framed and come up with the money for his release?

  Or maybe it was a copycat. Another sicko who’d heard about what Cal had done to his wife and Liana and that other poor girl, Candy whatever-her-name-was, and he’d seen Megan fleeing the party and seized the opportunity. Somehow he’d managed to spirit her away without anyone seeing him.

  Had anyone seen him?

  “No one saw him,” Megan said out loud, “because he doesn’t exist.” She hoped the sternness in her voice would succeed in dispelling such ridiculous thoughts from her brain. The idea of another killer targeting the tiny town of Torrance in so short a time was too ludicrous and farfetched to be taken seriously.

  Reality was much more ordinary. And the reality was that Joey Balfour had come up with this stupid idea, and that he’d somehow managed to convince Greg to go along with him, and even now, the whole cast of Kiss Me, Kate were probably sitting somewhere watching her rant and rave and carry on, and were all having a good laugh at her expense. Hell, she was probably in the basement of Lonny Reynolds’s house. Of course. That’s where she was. Although she didn’t remember his house having a basement. Most homes in Florida didn’t.

  Was she still in Florida?

  “Okay, this is silly. You’re being really silly now.” Of course she was still in Florida. Where else would she be? Did she think she’d been driven out of state? That she was in some kind of holding cell, about to be sold into white slavery? She’d seen this show on television about girls being kidnapped and sold into prostitution, having to work for years before being released or, more likely, killed by their pimp. But those women were usually poor girls from destitute countries, not pampered American teenagers. As for the sex trade in America, wasn’t that restricted mainly to children? Surely she was too old for the child porn industry. Although there were those disgusting websites she’d stumbled across before her parents had put a block on her computer, sites filled with photographs of young women just like herself, some of them bound and gagged, others being whipped, still others being probed with cattle prods. It seemed there were sites for every conceivable depravity, including films where they actually killed people. Had she just landed another starring role?