“I’m fine. I’m safe.” I looked over my shoulder. “But Dr. Cerny is crazy—he’s a fucking lunatic—and you don’t need to be in this house with him.” If I could’ve physically pushed him out the door I would have, but he retreated of his own accord, right out the door he’d come in.
I ran back up the stairs and down the hall to Glenys’s room. Correction. Not Glenys, not her room. I squared up to the door, drew in a deep breath, then kicked it as hard as I could. The door rattled in its frame but held fast. Which stood to reason. The thing had been built to last for generations. Twice as thick as modern doors and solid as stone, made from impenetrable, age-hardened oak.
I kicked again, feeling something bitter and strong rise up in me, the fear that had been seeping through my insides since the first moment I’d set foot in this house. It had been leaking from the poisoned well of my past, pooling in all the cracks, drowning me from the inside out. But now, each time my boot struck the door, I felt the fear transform to fury, giving me strength. I closed my eyes and thought of them all.
Mrs. Bobbie. Kick. Mr. Al. Kick.
Omega. Kick. The psychologist. Kick.
Chantal. Kick, kick, kick.
A crack appeared right down the center of the door, and the door banged open so hard, it slammed back and hit me smack on the nose. Eyes watering, I pushed it open again and entered the room.
Or, rather, the suite. The apartment—because that’s what it was—was made up of three identical rooms, just like I’d been seeing on the monitors, only I hadn’t noticed they were actually connected by doors. The doors were opened now, and as I turned a full three-sixty, the realization dawned that the suite ran the length of the entire hall. The room I was standing in was papered in faded brown roses just like I’d seen on the tape, the wood-plank floor worn bare. Cobwebs waved from the ceiling corners and edges of the windowsills. A film of dust covered everything. There was no furniture anywhere in sight. Not a bed, not a table, not one chair. Not even a stray rug or scrap of a curtain. It was completely bare.
No one had been here in a very long time.
I walked all the way through the apartment to the room at the end. It seemed to have been retrofitted for another use. One half was a kitchenette, the other half a makeshift classroom. A large chalkboard with bits of chalk and an eraser in the tray covered the window. I imagined a desk, a child’s desk like the one in the barn, situated in front of it, the board covered in history dates or math equations or diagrammed sentences. I envisioned the sharp point of a pencil as it dug into the soft wood of the desk’s surface. I have no pity.
Against the far wall, in between the two sections, sat a cherry buffet over which hung an enormous, rectangular gilt-framed mirror. The thing was a monstrosity, an overly ornate piece that seemed out of place in this bare, dusty room. I walked to it, drawn to my own reflection. My hair was sticking out all over, wild and frizzing in the humidity, my face flushed. I looked like someone I didn’t recognize. Someone angry and strong and determined. I touched my face, feeling the pressure of my fingertips against my skin.
I backed out of the room, returning to the middle one. This room had the same faded, scarred wood floors, but was papered in grimy gold grass cloth. Along the bathroom door, cut into the vertical wood molding, was a series of pencil marks. A growth chart, a lot like the one Mr. Al made on the garage door of the brown brick house.
So, a growth chart.
A chalkboard.
And a child’s desk.
All of which added up to one undeniable conclusion. Before being used as rooms for Cerny’s patients, they had been someone’s home. A child’s home.
That’s when I heard the music. Frank Sinatra. I looked over my shoulder, back into the bedroom with the faded brown-rose walls. Heath was there, standing in the center of the room, frozen. There was a look of horror dawning across his face. I walked toward him, slowly, as Frank’s velvet purr filled the room.
“Did you turn that music on?” I asked him.
It took a minute for his eyes to focus on me. He didn’t say a word. I walked past him. The iPod was lying on the windowsill, a long, snaking white cable connecting it to a small stereo receiver on the floor below. The iPod was an older generation, one of those oversize models with the big, chunky wheel. I spun the wheel and the screen lit up.
The song title scrolled across the screen: “Why Can’t You Behave?” I hit “Reverse” and saw the playlist. Matthew & Cecelia. All Frank Sinatra songs, scores of them. I felt dizzy.
“Heath?” I turned back to him. He still hadn’t moved. “No one’s been staying in these rooms,” I said. “We’re alone in this house.”
He shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“I know. But look at this place. He lied to us. Made us think we were here with two other couples. But it was a game. He’s playing us.” I looked at him. “Why did you turn on the music?”
“I don’t know.” His voice was calm, eerily so.
I felt like someone had grabbed my heart and was squeezing it so hard it might stop beating.
“Do you remember it—this song?” I asked him.
He shook his head. “Should I?”
“You said you hated it. You said Frank Sinatra was a deal breaker. Don’t you remember?”
He just stared blankly at me.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“We should go back to the room,” he said.
I took his hand. “We’re not just going back to our room, Heath. We have to get out of Baskens.”
He looked at me, expressionless. “Yeah.”
Somehow I maneuvered him back into our room, grabbed my bag, and started stuffing clothes into it. In the process, I fished out Jessica Kyung’s card and slid it into my jeans pocket. I’d be giving her a call about Dr. Matthew Cerny as soon as I could find a phone. The authorities were sure as shit going to hear about this insanity. In the bathroom, Heath seemed to have snapped out of whatever fog he was in and was gathering our toiletries and dumping them all into his bag.
“We should confront him,” he kept saying as he went back and forth between the rooms. “Get our money back.”
“Forget the money,” I snapped. “The guy’s a whack job. A lunatic. And we don’t need to engage with him. He could be dangerous. He could hurt us. He could hurt Luca. We have to leave.”
“I just think we should take a minute and think. Make a plan.”
“He tricked us, Heath. He set this whole farce up to make us think we were up here on this mountain, in this creepy house, with other people. But we’re not. We’re alone! And, incidentally, not only that, he’s got more cameras hidden around here, which we didn’t agree to. They could be running around the clock, and we’d never know—because he never told us. He’s gone to a whole hell of a lot of trouble to watch us night and day, and it’s not just because he wants to help us. Trust me. The man has got a screw loose. He’s got about a thousand fucking screws loose.” Grabbing a poker from the fireplace, I leapt up onto the bed.
“What are you doing?” Heath said.
“I’m showing him exactly what I think of his game.” I yelled out into the room. “You watching, Doctor? Remember how I said I didn’t do therapy?” I smiled. “Well, I changed my mind. I’m finally ready to express myself.”
I swung up at the lazily spinning fan, missed, then swung once more.
The poker hit the fan with a loud metallic clang. I swung again and again, beating the thing until it began to sway crazily. One final whack, and the blades caught the poker and flung it like a missile across the room. Heath and I both ducked. I snatched it up and headed for a painting. I whacked at it, as hard as I could, and the painting separated from the frame. In the crack between, I spotted a tiny lens and yanked it out.
But I wasn’t done. I circled the room, smashing lamps and pictures and the mirror above the dresser. Things shattered and ripped, fell off the walls, and crashed to the floor. Cameras sprung out of the wall, crazy, high
-tech jacks-in-the-box.
I let the poker clang to the floor, panting.
Heath lifted his head from his hands. His face was ashen. “What the hell did I drag you into?”
I grabbed his wrist. “It doesn’t matter. What we need to do now is get the car keys. And get the hell out of here. The keys are hanging on hooks in his office. And get the cell phones too, if you can. I saw Luca—”
“Luca?”
“The cook, the waiter guy. I told him to run. He’s probably gone already. I’ll get the car and bring it around front.”
“Cerny will be in his office.”
“Okay, then. Forget the cell phones. We don’t need them.”
He followed me down the front stairs. We dropped our bags in the front hall, and I followed him to the sunroom. He gently eased the door open and slipped in. Snagging the keys, he tossed them to me. I darted back through the hall to the front door. Outside, I ran for the car. The Nissan was still there, thank God. I looked across the yard. Without the chain, the barn doors gaped open. I ran over.
The knife was wedged between the concrete floor and the rotted wood-board wall, right where I’d kicked it when Heath hadn’t been watching. I grabbed it and ran back to the car, slid behind the wheel, and dropped the knife into the pocket of the door. But what the hell did I think I was going to do with a kitchen knife? Stab Cerny? Or Glenys? If things got dire, would I even have the guts to do such a thing? I guessed I was about to find out.
I turned the ignition, and the engine sputtered. Dammit, not now. I gave it one more go and, thank God, it turned over. Shaky with relief, I shifted into reverse. The next sound I heard, the crunch of metal on metal, made me stomp on the brake. Shit. I’d sideswiped the car next to me, the green Tacoma truck. I bit my lip, then kept going, scraping all the way down the vehicle until I was past it. We were getting out of here, and there was no turning back. Shifting into drive, I swerved around the side of the house just as Heath was striding across the porch with the bags. He climbed in the car.
“I couldn’t find them,” he said. It took a minute to understand what he was saying. Our phones. He wasn’t able to find our phones. But it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was getting away from this place. I punched the gas, and we spun away from the house.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Heath’s Nissan fishtailed over the gravel road, hitting every rock and rut as I maneuvered around the hairpin curves like a madwoman.
“Jesus, Daphne,” Heath said. He was pressed back against his seat, clutching the handle over his door in a death grip. I didn’t slow down. We could do that when we got to Dunfree. We would talk then, make plans, argue, whatever. As for now, I was getting us off this miserable mountain.
“Did he see you?” I asked.
“No. He wasn’t in the office. Watch it!”
I took the corner fast and felt the tires skid under us. “I hope he’s taken a dive off the mountain—that sleazy charlatan. That lying, garbage, snake-oil-selling sonofa—”
Out of nowhere, a figure appeared—a man in dark trousers and a tweed coat—and stepped into the road, right in front of the car.
I stomped on the brakes, hard, and the car jerked to the right, jolting us. We dropped, one time, then again, my stomach flopping like I was on a roller coaster. My head snapped sideways, bone connecting with tempered glass, and as my arms flew out to brace myself, I heard a loud, metallic chunk. I slammed back into my seat, and everything went deathly silent.
No. Not completely silent. I could hear the sound of my breathing, and after a few seconds, other sounds too. Heath breathing. The birds and the wind in the tops of the trees. I took stock of my situation. My wrist hurt, and my head, and I was wedged down between the seat and the dash, so far down all I could see was the door of the Nissan. I didn’t have my seatbelt on. I hadn’t taken the time to fasten it.
I looked out the cracked windshield. The Nissan was rammed against a tree, a small pine. I twisted around. We weren’t that far off the road. But where was the man? Had I hit him? And then I heard a groan. Oh my God, Heath.
I lifted myself back onto the seat and saw him slumped against his door, his back to me. I tugged gingerly at his arm.
“Heath? Are you okay? Talk to me.”
His head rolled to face me. Blood dripped from his nose, and a nasty red lump rose just above his eye. He groaned again.
I touched his face. “Heath?”
He shook me off. Pressed himself back against the seat. He dabbed his sleeve to his nose. Blinked a few times. “I’m fine.”
“That was Cerny. Jesus, he just jumped out in the middle of the road. Did I hit him?”
“I don’t think so.” He was massaging his temples now.
I climbed out to inspect the front of the car. It had cracked the pine clear through its trunk. I could smell the sharp aromas of sap and green wood. If I’d hit Cerny, there certainly didn’t appear to be any sign of it—or him—on the bumper. And we really weren’t that far off the road. It was just that it was so steep here. We were lucky we hadn’t flipped on our way down.
I heard the passenger door creak, and Heath emerged from the other side. He straightened, then went down hard. I ran to him. Although he’d already managed to right himself again, his face looked pale. I reached for him, but he shooed me back.
“I twisted my knee. Maybe tore something. Goddammit.” He stood, balancing precariously on one leg, grimacing.
“We have to get you to a doctor,” I said. “I’ll try to get the car started again. Do you want to sit down or something?”
“This car isn’t going anywhere.”
“I’ll try.” I slid behind the wheel and cranked it, but all that resulted was a forlorn clicking sound. A thin stream of smoke rose from a crack between the crumpled hood and body of the car.
“She’s gone,” came a voice behind us. For a second, I thought it was Heath, talking about the car. Then Cerny step-slid down the slope into sight, using the trees to balance. The knot of his brown silk tie was pulled loose, and his shirttails flapped. I struggled out from behind the wheel, leaping toward him.
“You idiot! You almost got us—” I began.
Heath put out a protective hand. “Don’t.”
“I can’t understand it.” Cerny was on the other side of the car now, regarding both of us with a look of sincere confusion. “I just can’t understand it,” he repeated, then leaned against the car and let out a wail, a low sound that made the hairs on my arm stand on end. After a few seconds he looked up. His face was puffy and red. “You know, you said she was missing, and I didn’t believe you. But I thought, I’ll drive down the road a bit, see if I can’t catch a glimpse . . . We have to call the police. She’s gone, and I need your help.”
The clouds had hidden the sun, and the wind was biting now. Heath pressed his jacket sleeve to his bleeding nose, then leaned against the car. He looked dazed, like he was on the verge of fainting.
I spoke up. “We can’t help you, Dr. Cerny. I have to get Heath to town. He hurt his knee as we were swerving to avoid hitting you.”
Cerny addressed Heath. “It’s Cecelia.” He looked at me then. “Glenys, as you know her. I need your help.”
I shook my head. “What do you mean she’s gone? Like missing, or—”
“Daphne.” Heath sent me a look heavy with meaning. I shut my mouth.
“Show us where she is, Doctor,” he said. “And we’ll do what we can. But then we have to go.”
“Heath, your knee,” I said.
“It’s fine.”
Cerny started into the trees, sliding on the dry leaves blanketing the slope, grasping at branches for balance. I followed him, my arms folded tightly over my chest, and Heath fell into line, limping behind me. My nerves were vibrating, singing along with the wind and panic inside me.
Less than a dozen yards into the woods, Cerny stopped. I did too, then covered my mouth. The body lay on the ground, partly covered by brush and leaves. I could see,
even from where I stood, who it was. But only from what she wore, the same thing she’d been dressed in the other day at the creek—black yoga pants and top. The yellow baseball cap on the ground a couple of feet away. The breeze lifted strands of her hair. Her face was a waxy greenish blue, an unrecognizable, bloated mass.
I took one more step forward, caught a whiff of decay, then stopped, suppressing the automatic response of sick that rose in my throat.
“She was hanging up there,” Cerny said beside me, and automatically, I looked up at the oak tree. I wished I hadn’t. There was a length of rusted chain hanging from the lowest branch. It looked a lot like the chain that had been wound around the barn doors. “She must’ve hanged herself.”
I lurched back and vomited into the leaves. When I was done, I sat down, gasping and wiping tears and snot and vomit. When I stood again, I felt Heath’s hand on my shoulder, leaning on me for support.
“Are you okay?” he asked me in a low voice.
I nodded. “It’s her. It’s Glenys.”
He pressed his lips into a thin line, then pulled me back toward the car, a couple of yards away from Cerny and Glenys’s still form. I grasped his jacket, two fistfuls, and held on to him as tightly as I could.
“Do you think he killed her?” he asked me.
“I don’t know. But we have to get down to Dunfree. Report it to the police there.”
“The car is wrecked. My knee feels like a truck ran over it. We can’t walk down to Dunfree.”
My eyes cut to Cerny. “We could take his car. Or one of the others.”
Heath shook his head. “And let him get away? No fucking way. Let’s just get him back to the house and see that he’s . . . I don’t know, secured, I guess. He seems pretty distraught. Maybe if we just talk to him, he’ll stay put. I’ll get a bag of ice on my knee. We’ll call the police and then, when they show up, get the hell out of here.”
The temperature was falling, and I felt a few drops of rain hit me. It had gotten colder, just in the time we’d been out here. I felt myself begin to shiver uncontrollably.
Every Single Secret Page 21
