by Lili Valente
CHAPTER TWO
Caitlin
It is not a secret if it is known by three people.
–Irish proverb
Dust. Old Clothes. Mold.
Something bitter and metallic, with an overtone of rot.
The smells are the first thing I’m aware of. They are awful smells, smells that remind me of somewhere I’ve been before. I can’t remember the place, but I know it’s nowhere I want to be again. I know, even before my eyes creak open to see the dusty floor of Pitt’s attic forming my horizon line, and a single, bare, orange bulb dangling from the ceiling like a sickly little sun.
I blink, my lashes catching on the mattress beneath my cheek.
The mattress. I’m lying on the mattress Pitt’s mother slept on, wept on, died on.
My entire body convulses. I roll onto the floor with a spasm of arms and legs and a frantic clutching of my stomach. I roll and keep rolling until something catches hard around my ankle, bruising the bone, and I can’t roll any further. I sit up, sobs catching in my throat as I reach for my leg. The world blurs as I move and a dull, throbbing pain starts at my left temple, near the place where Pitt must have hit me to knock me out.
Knocked me out and brought me back to his attic, where God only knows what he plans to do to me. And there will be no one to stop him, no one riding to the rescue. No one will ever think to look for me here except Gabe, and Gabe is gone.
I have to get out; I have to fucking get out.
I find the source of the pain around my ankle. A handcuff circles my leg just above my anklebone. The other half of the cuff is attached to a length of heavy chain tied around one of the support beams not far from the mattress. I pick up the chain and track my way down it with trembling fingers, but every link is strong and there’s no way I’m going to be able to knock over the thick, wooden support beam without a sledgehammer.
I’m caught. Trapped. There’s no way out.
The truth is still settling in—hands wrapping around my throat, promising to choke the life out of me—when the trap door on the far right of the attic opens and the collapsible stairs descend. A shaft of brighter light pierces the orange gloom, casting a jagged, sharp-edged square of white on the wall.
I back away, arms trembling at my sides, getting as close to the window as I can. But I’m still two feet from the sill, far enough that no one looking in would see me, and I know this house is so deep in the middle of nowhere there will be no one to hear me scream.
Still, I have to grip my throat with one hand to hold back a panicked whimper as Pitt appears at the top of the stairs and steps into the attic. He’s wearing all black—black jeans, black tee shirt, and a black sock cap that covers his thinning blond hair—and I’m possessed by the nasty feeling that the tables have been turned, and I don’t like it.
Not one little bit.
“You’re awake,” he says, his tiny, pink-rimmed blue eyes looking even smaller with the bulb overhead casting dark shadows above his cheekbones. “I was worried. You barely moved the entire time I was carrying you.”
I don’t say a word. I watch him, fighting to keep the fear and panic from my face, resisting the urge to pull my pink sleep shirt lower around my thighs. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing how terrified I am. Terrified—for myself, and for the kids, who are going to wake up tomorrow morning and be scared out of their minds when they realize I’m gone.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Pitt says, in that same smug, condescending voice he used when he talked about Danny’s behavior problems and lack of potential at all those stupid conferences.
I can’t believe I sat across from him and talked about my brother like I was talking to a halfway reasonable person. I always knew Pitt was a jerk and a bully and probably had a penis the size of a shriveled gherkin—no man with even an average-sized dick would be so petty—but I’d never dreamt he was capable of breaking into someone’s house and kidnapping them. Even when I learned what he’d done to his mom, I hadn’t imagined he’d do the same thing to anyone else. I had assumed it was a twisted, mother-son thing that had played out its sad, miserable course, and been put to rest.
Obviously, I was wrong, and I’m not near as smart as I think I am. If I were, Pitt would never have traced that blackmail note back to me.
That has to be it. That has to be why I’m here. Somehow, he must have figured out that I wrote the note, no matter how careful I was to type the entire thing and print it out at the copy shop in town instead of using the printer at home.
But how? How the hell did he—
“Did you hear me?” Pitt breaks into my thoughts, making me flinch as he takes a sudden step closer.
I try to take a mirror step back, forgetting I’m tethered, and nearly fall.
“Careful.” Pitt chuckles. “You’re all arms and legs aren’t you? Like a little filly.”
“You have to let me go,” I say, liking the affectionate note in his voice even less than the smug one. If Pitt thinks I’m going to play house with him, or touch him, or do anything else with him, he’s very fucking mistaken.
I’ll chew my own leg off first.
Pitt shakes his head, pulling his cap from his head as he turns to pace across the attic, closer to where I found the DVDs. The area that was once filled with boxes is now barren, proving Pitt has learned not to keep his goodies where someone sneaking in the window can find them.
Not that he has any goodies left anymore.
“No, Caitlin. I can’t let you go.” His voice is muffled now that his back is turned, but I can still hear him loud and clear. “You took something that belongs to me, and now you’re going to help get it back.”
“How did you find out?” There’s no point in pretending I wasn’t the one who stole from him. He obviously knows. Now I want to know how. I want to know how Gabe and I screwed up, so we don’t do it again.
Gabe is done with you, and you’re never leaving this room. Your days of breaking and entering and living to plan the next job are over.
I clench my jaw, refusing to listen to the ominous voice in my head.
“The dust.” Pitt points to the floorboards. “I was able to get two clear footprints, but they were so small…”
He laughs as he turns back to me. “I thought it was a kid, one of my students. I was looking for your brother tonight, but then I saw those little black combat boots in your closet and the tread matched up just right…” He shakes his head. “I was surprised, Caitlin. I really was. You do such a good job of hiding what you are, coming off so sweet and honest and concerned about your brother.” He tips his chin down, casting his eyes in deeper shadow before he adds in an uglier voice, “but you’re just lying, thieving trash. Like the rest of your family.”
“At least I’m not a murderer,” I say, voice shaking.
Pitt smiles, a horrible smile that makes my belly churn as a tornado of acid sweeps across my stomach lining. “I spent over a month breaking in to little boys’ rooms because of you, Caitlin, and that really isn’t my thing. But I couldn’t let it go. You had to have known I would never let it go, not until I had them back with me. Where they belong.”
“You’re not getting the DVDs back,” I say. “Not from me. I don’t know where they are. My partner hid them.”
“A partner?” Pitt cocks his head, but I can’t tell if he’s really surprised.
“Yeah, my partner,” I say. “He handles that kind of thing, and he’s going to be very fucking upset when he finds out I’m missing. It won’t take him long to figure out where I am. You should let me go.”
“No,” Pitt says, but I hear a hint of doubt in his voice.
“Just let me go,” I insist. “I won’t tell anyone what happened. Not even my partner. I’ll just go home and—”
“You’re not going anywhere until I get what’s mine!”
I cringe away from the fury in his voice, arms flinching up to cover my head before I can stop myself. I drop my hands back to my sides as qu
ickly as I can, but I’m shaking all over and I know Pitt’s seen it, seen how scared I am.
He sees it, and he likes it. I swear it’s like he grows three inches as he stands up straighter, spine stretching as he feeds on my fear.
“If that’s true, then you’re right. Your partner will be able to figure out where you are…sooner or later,” Pitt says. “And when he does, I’ll be ready for him, and make sure he knows how very upset I am, and what it’s going to take to get you back.”
A cold ball of fear knots in my chest, but I do my best to keep my expression neutral. Pitt can’t know the truth. If he figures out no one is coming for me, I’ll have no leverage at all.
“He’s no dummy,” I say. “He’s not going to walk up to your front door and ring the bell. We broke into your house once without you knowing about it. He’ll be able to do it again. You have to sleep sometime…”
I let my words trail off as I lift one shoulder. The unspoken threat hangs heavy in the air for a moment before Pitt grunts.
“Then I’ll take the offensive.” He crosses to the left side of the room, reaching up to adjust something in the shadows near the rafters. I can’t see what it is, but his next words give me a pretty good idea.
“You can give me your partner’s name and address, and I’ll send him a free preview,” he says, still tinkering in the shadows. “Everything’s ready to go. I installed the camera and the new recording system a few weeks ago so I’d be prepared…just in case.”
“In case of what?” My throat threatens to close as a red light flashes on above Pitt’s head and I realize I’m being recorded.
“Well,” Pitt says, voice pitched differently, lower and more confident, as if he’s aware of being on camera, too. “As soon as I realized the DVDs were missing, I knew that there was a chance they had been destroyed, or hidden somewhere I’d never be able to find them. I knew there was a chance they were gone forever, and I would need to find…a replacement.”
I swallow, pulse fluttering wildly at my throat as Pitt walks toward me.
“Well, not a replacement. No one can replace Mother,” he says, voice soft, chilling. “Nothing can ever take the place of the memories you stole from me, but new memories can be made.”
Not new memories, new trophies.
Gabe and I may, or may not, be sociopaths, but Pitt is a flat out psychopath, a monster with a taste for human suffering who looks like he’s on his way to being a serial killer.
If I don’t find a way to escape, Pitt will kill me…eventually, of that there is no doubt in my mind. It will simply be a matter of how many days, or months, or years he’ll keep me captive, torturing me the way he did his mother, before he gets bored and decides it’s time to slip a lethal overdose into my food.
The thought sends a wave of terror and rage sweeping through me so powerful my trembling becomes quaking. I grit my teeth and clench my hands into fists, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t quit shaking like it’s nine degrees in the attic instead of ninety.
“Take off your shirt, Caitlin,” Pitt says, a gleam in his eye that is more predatory than sexual. But it doesn’t matter, because I’m not wearing anything but black bikini panties under my sleep shirt and I refuse to be all-but-naked in front of this man.
“No,” I say, in a low, firm voice that sounds like I’m talking to a dog. I might as well be. Pitt’s worse than a dog, he’s an abomination, a freak of nature that should have been put down before he could grow fangs.
“Take it off,” he repeats. “We earn our privileges here, and clothes are a privilege, not a necessity. Not in heat like this.”
“No.” I edge toward the mattress, eyes darting back and forth, scanning the floor, looking for something to use as a weapon.
“You’ll be more comfortable,” Pitt says in an upbeat voice. “And I bet your partner will enjoy seeing you naked. You’re fucking him, aren’t you?”
I press my lips together, fighting a whimper as Pitt gets closer, so close he’ll be touching me soon if I don’t do something. Find something.
My panicked gaze lands on the box of stuffed animals, but there’s nothing in the soggy cardboard filled with moldy toys that will do any damage. Pitt is only five six and on the slim side, but he was strong enough to carry me out of my house and up the stairs to the attic. I have to find something heavy or sharp or—
The tea set.
The porcelain tea set that made me want to cry last time I was in this attic is still there on the ground, laid out for a party. The cups and saucers are too small to do any damage, but the pot is grapefruit-sized, maybe big enough to knock Pitt out if I use enough force, and take him by surprise.
I turn back to Pitt and reach for the bottom of my shirt. “Okay.” I edge along the end of the mattress, toward the tea set on the far side. “I’ll take it off, but I don’t want you to look. Turn your back.”
Pitt stops, crossing his arms. “Why would I do that?”
“Because you’re not interested in seeing me naked,” I say, praying I’m right. “I can tell it isn’t like that for you.”
Pitt smiles, sending my heart diving into my stomach. “Oh, it is like that, Caitlin. It very much is, but you’re right, I’m not going to touch you.” He steps closer, showing no sign of stopping or turning his back.
I shuffle another step closer to the tea set, holding Pitt’s gaze as I keep the teapot in my peripheral vision, forcing myself to wait to reach for it, knowing I’ll only have one chance.
“But later, when I go back and watch the tape,” Pitt continues, his voice sludgy and slick, like slime oozing between my toes. “I’m going to get hard, and I’m going to take out my cock, and I’m going to jerk myself until I come all over the screen, all over your pretty face. I’ll do it again and again, as many times as I want, because you are mine now. And when I’m tired of this tape, we’ll make another, and another, until I have a new collection to fill the void left behind by what you stole from me.”
I bite my lip, holding back a scream. I hold my terror in, allowing the tension and fear and panic to build inside, fueling my body, tightening my muscles, giving me strength.
One shot, one shot, and I’m not going to screw it up, I’m not going to let Pitt’s prophecy come true, I’m not going to be his victim.
“Now, take off your shirt.” Pitt steps closer, until I could brush his chest with my fingertips if I held out my arm. “Show me your tits.”
I swallow, blood rushing in my ears, and then, with one swift movement, I rip my shirt over my head and throw it at his face. His hands come up a second too late to catch it and while he fumbles with the fabric, I whirl, snatching up the teapot and bringing it over my head.
I don’t think about the fact that I’m basically naked, or that I’m inches shorter and smaller than Pitt, or that I’m shackled and he’s free. I come at him with all my rage and hatred and loathing, I come at him like I am the monster and he’s the bug I’m going to squash beneath my foot.
I bring the pot down with every bit of strength in my body, a savage sound erupting from my lips as it shatters on his skull. The skin on his forehead bursts and blood rushes from the wound, but I don’t take time to appreciate the crimson running into his eyes. I’m already lifting my hands back into the air, threading my palms together into a single combined fist and bringing it back down on top of his head. I land two more blows—pounding his skull like I’m driving a fence post into the ground with my bare hands—before he lunges forward, tackling me, sending us both flying.
My back hits the mattress and my breath rushes out. Before I can pull in another, Pitt’s hands are around my throat.
He screams, howling into my face, blood dripping from the wound on his forehead to fall onto my cheeks, my lips, into my mouth as I gasp for air. I taste the salty filth of him and know I would be sick if I could pull in a breath. I bring my hands to his face, shoving at his nose and mouth, gouging at his eyes, but it’s like he can’t feel my fingers stabbing away at him. His
grip only tightens, and soon the air around his face goes blurry and gray, then fuzzy and black, and then there are flashes of light bursting in front of my eyes and my hands begin to go numb.
I flail my arms, but I’m not sure if I’m hitting him anymore. I’m not sure of anything except that I am dying, and Pitt is getting it all on tape.
My head is pounding, but my heart is slowing. The frantic thrum in my chest stutters, skipping a beat, then two. I lose sensation in my limbs and my vision narrows to a pinprick of light at the center of a long tunnel of black. I’m seconds away from passing out—passing out and sleeping my way through the last few seconds of my life—when something hits Pitt, knocking him off my prone body, and air rushes into my lungs.
CHAPTER THREE
Caitlin
May the devil make a ladder of your backbone
and pluck apples in the garden of hell.
–Irish curse
My back arches and pain shoots through my nerve-endings as I suck in one greedy breath after another, agony slamming from my fingers to my toes, before rocketing back to my head, making me groan. My head feels like it’s going to explode. My eye sockets ache and my temples throb like someone took a hammer to my skull and my throat hurts so badly I can’t believe I can still draw in breath.
But I can. I’m not dead. I’m alive. I’m alive and breathing, and slowly, the shadowed ceiling of the attic comes back into focus.
The moment the agony becomes manageable, I sit up, shoving myself into a seated position with half-numb hands, and falling onto my hands and knees on the mattress.
“Gabe.” I croak his name, tears springing to my eyes as my breath shudders in and out and relief floods through my chest.
I don’t know how he knew, how he found me, but there he is, the man I love, pinning Pitt to the ground, wrapping his hands around the monster’s throat, showing Pitt what it feels like to be on the receiving end of a strangling. It’s bizarre to see Gabe not dressed in his blacks in a situation like this. His light blue polo and dark blue jeans seem too civilized for the setting, making the moment even more surreal.
