by Koethi Zan
‘No, no, I’m sorry I said that. Look for the keys. Check the kitchen. Do not leave me in this house. Do not leave me,’ she said through clenched teeth.
‘Okay, okay. Hold on.’
‘Keep talking to me. I want to hear your voice.’
‘Okay, okay.’ He ran down the stairs, gripping the knife tighter as he turned the corner.
‘I’m in the kitchen. I’m looking for the –’ and then he saw them. A ring of keys, hanging on a little brass hook by the door. He grabbed them and raced back up the stairs.
He held them up to her through the window.
‘These might be the ones.’
‘Hurry.’
He put the knife on the floor at his feet. His hands shook as he tried different combinations of keys and locks.
‘Come on. She could be back any minute. And she has guns.’
‘Listen, isn’t another woman being kept here? Older than you, mid-thirties?’
‘Oh, no fucking way do you think you are saving her. She’s the enemy, you idiot. She’s the one keeping me here.’
Adam shook his head, puzzled. He paused in his efforts and stepped away from the door.
‘I think you must be mistaken.’
‘Mistaken?’ She looked down at his hands. ‘What are you doing? Don’t stop.’
He went back to the locks, his fingers fumbling nervously as he tried each key.
‘Do you know how long I’ve been here?’ She stepped back and pointed to her belly. ‘At least this long. See? Even longer. Get it? Do you get it?’
‘Shut up. I need you to be quiet right now,’ he yelled back at her. He knew he was losing his cool but this stupid girl was impossible to deal with. She didn’t seem to understand that he was a hero. Her hero, for chrissakes.
‘I’m getting you out,’ he muttered.
The girl wailed. Tears streamed down her flaming red cheeks.
‘Why are you crying? I’m saving you,’ he bellowed at her.
She pounded on the window in obvious disgust. She should be grateful. He’d found the right keys for two of the locks, and there, there was the third. One more to go.
The girl pressed her face against the window again to watch his hands work at the final lock. He wished he could keep them from shaking. It was embarrassing.
‘How can there only be one of you? Where’s your partner or your backup or whatever? I’ve watched television and they don’t ever send in just one guy.’
He stopped in his work again. This was enough. Fine, he’d tell her the truth and she could deal with the same reality he was dealing with. Maybe that would shut her up.
‘Okay, I’m not really a cop.’ Her eyes went wide. ‘But don’t worry. I used to be. I’m just on – leave.’
‘So it’s just the two of us? And you don’t have a gun?’ Her face went from red to white, but his words had the desired effect. She got quiet all right.
At that moment, the last lock clicked and he swung open the door. She flew out of the room and pushed him out of her way with her one good arm. Spotting the knife at his feet, she dove for it and carried it off down the stairs.
‘Damn it,’ he muttered.
He ran down the hall and flung open the first door. A linen closet. The second opened onto a makeshift hospital room, the air stale from disuse. Surely for Mrs. Johnson. But where was she?
Finding the last bedroom deserted too, he headed toward the stairs to check the basement.
He caught up with the girl just at the bottom of the stairs where she stood stock-still, panting. He bumped into her hard and the knife in her hand flew across the room and clattered to the floor.
He looked up and saw immediately why she’d quit running. Standing in the middle of the room was a wild-eyed woman, her hair in a tangled mess of a bun and clothes that looked like a cheap costume from the Depression Era.
She held a shotgun pointed right at them.
CHAPTER 54
As she stared down the barrel of the gun that had shot her once already, Julie wanted to kill the ridiculous man who had come to save her. Why would he have tried to rescue her without a gun?
The knife would have been something, but there it lay on the floor, out of reach under the table.
But she couldn’t panic. She had to think.
She could barely function as it was – the room spun, her stomach heaved, and the pain in her shoulder thudded at her like a hammer – and now she had to figure out how to get them out of this situation too?
Part of her wanted to crumple up in a ball on the kitchen floor and give up. Beg the woman to kill her and put her out of this misery. She couldn’t try and fail again. She didn’t have the heart.
Then she remembered the child inside her.
When she’d been lying on that bed drowning in her delirious, fevered dreams of the past two days, she’d thought she’d blown everything with her premature escape attempt. Now, even though the effort so far had been thoroughly botched, she had to take this one final, fucked-up chance. Moron fake cop or not, there were at least two of them now. Her odds had to be improved.
If only her head didn’t feel so thick and her body so weak. How was she going to manage this?
Behind her, she heard him call out to the woman.
‘Are you Laura Martin?’
Julie couldn’t understand.
She was Laura?‘I mean, I know you go by another name now,’ he went on. ‘Cora, right? But in Stillwater, you were Laura Martin?’
Whatever he was talking about was having an incredible effect on her. The woman’s face had gone slack and the gun dropped an inch, then two. It was a distraction at least. He’d gotten her attention.
The woman gestured with the gun’s barrel for them to move to the left of the fireplace.
‘What do you know about that?’ she said, her eyes glued to his.
‘I know everything about it, Laura. About Reed Lassiter and Joy Marcione and all of it.’
The woman jumped at the names.
‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’ She glanced out the window. ‘Who else is here?’
‘They’re coming. A whole lot of them,’ Julie interjected. ‘He told me the rest of the force is on its way. You’d better let us go.’
Instead the woman moved in closer to them, positioning the tip of the gun less than a foot from the cop.
‘That true? Tell me.’
His image swam before Julie’s eyes. If only she hadn’t been given those pills. Everything was hazy and disconnected. How was she supposed to think like this?
‘Y-yes. They’re on their way,’ she heard him say from far away.
Julie took a deep breath. At least he got the picture. ‘You’re lying. You don’t have a gun. Or a uniform. You’re not a cop at all, are you? I know who you are. You’re the one who was snooping around here last night, scaring the daylights out of me. A petty thief, I’d wager.’ The woman laughed quietly. ‘Well, look what you’ve wandered into.’
A shadow fell over her face.
‘But who told you about Stillwater?’
‘I’m telling you, I’m a cop. I’ve been investigating you for three years. I know what happened. I know you killed those three people – Reed and the others.’
The shock of this news brought Julie back to her senses. She’d killed Reed? The one whose name Julie wasn’t allowed to say because she wasn’t worthy? The one the woman had clearly loved? And what about the baby the woman had mentioned? What was this woman capable of?
‘Don’t worry, Laura,’ the man continued. ‘You don’t have to worry about Stillwater anymore. I’ve taken care of it.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘All the evidence is gone. Destroyed. I burned it. I’ve come to save you, you see?’
Julie looked on in disbelief.
‘Save me? I don’t need saving. This is my house.’ Julie thought she had a point.
‘Laura, let me explain. My sister Abigail was abducted from a parking lot when s
he was seven. She would have been about your age.’
‘What does that have to do with anything?’
‘I know you were abducted too. So you see, it was fate that I found you, because I understand what you’ve gone through.’
She shook her head.
‘You don’t understand. Don’t even try.’
‘I came here to help you. Your father told me –’
She squinted her eyes at him, her jaw muscle twitching.
‘You didn’t talk to my father. Now I know you’re lying.’ ‘I can prove it. I have a picture of the two of you together. It’s on my phone. Can I just – will you let me show it to you?’
Julie watched them, thinking maybe this guy was a genius after all. He didn’t make any sense, but at least his story was sucking the woman in. Julie followed their movements carefully, straining to focus, and trying hard not to pass out as she waited for an opportunity to grab the gun.
Keep talking, little fake cop. Keep talking.
‘I’ll get it out. You keep your hands up.’ The woman edged over to him, the gun in his face now. She reached around to his back pocket and as she slid his phone out, Julie made her move.
She lunged for the gun. Julie’s shoulder throbbed and the room blurred before her but she fought for it with everything in her. The woman was strong though, so strong. Julie thought of the baby, Mark, her parents, her guardian angel in the photo on the stairs, and she mustered up every last bit of strength she had.
With a final burst of wild energy, she wrenched the shotgun free of the woman’s hands and whipped around to face her.
She’d done it.
‘Get over there,’ she screamed. ‘Get in the corner.’
The woman growled with frustration, but did as she was told.
Julie stood there panting, the adrenaline coursing through her.
Then something gripped her arm. Julie twisted left. The stupid fake cop was trying to snatch the gun away from her.
‘Leave her alone. Don’t hurt her. Not after all this,’ he yelled.
Julie was having none of it. She spun around and pushed the barrel of the gun against his chest, shoving him back. It went off, the blast echoing in her ears. She squeezed her eyes shut, nearly falling over, but forced herself back to consciousness in time to see the man fall to the floor clutching his leg.
Oh my God, I shot him.
‘I’m sorry,’ she blurted out. ‘I didn’t mean to. But what the hell were you thinking?’
He lay on the floor groaning in agony as blood soaked through his jeans.
‘I can’t believe it. You shot me.’
Julie kept the gun trained on the woman even as she scanned the room frantically trying to figure out what to do. She grabbed a tea towel hanging on the back of one of the kitchen chairs and tossed it down to him.
‘Here,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll get out of here. Give me your phone.’
‘Forget it. There’s no signal,’ he groaned.
She turned to the woman with eyes blazing. ‘Where’s the landline?’
The woman just stared.
Julie scanned the room and saw it on the wall. It was killing her to balance the gun against her injured shoulder and hold it with the same hand. The butt of it was inches from her healing wound, and the jolting pain nearly made her swoon. She bit her lip and gripped her fingers tighter around it, reaching for the receiver.
She put it to her ear. No dial tone.
‘Naturally,’ she muttered, throwing it down in a fit of rage. It dangled uselessly by its cord, swinging back and forth against the cherry-blossom wallpaper.
Julie screamed in frustration and kicked the table leg. What were her options?
She could take the gun and his car, and leave them there. But if she did that, the woman would get away. She obviously couldn’t trust Fake Cop to hold her there until the cops came. He cared more about saving that awful bitch than her.
She could lock the woman in the room. Julie glanced over at the stairwell and felt sick to her stomach. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t go back up those stairs ever again. Plus, this woman was devious. What if she managed to turn the tables and Julie ended up back in there? No way.
The walls seemed to be closing in. She struggled to get control of her thoughts.
What else?
She could shoot the woman in the leg too to keep her from running. But what if she missed and that was the last shell? She couldn’t risk it.
There had to be another way.
Her eyes scoured the room and landed on a smoke detector up in the corner. Those lines would be cut along with the phone, but it gave her an idea. Eventually someone would come if there were a fire.
If it were big enough.
‘Give me that towel,’ she yelled at the man.
He looked at her with a puzzled expression but threw it back to her.
Keeping the gun steadily pointed at the two of them, Julie backed up to the hearth and dipped the blood-smeared towel into the flames, watching it slowly ignite.
‘What are you doing?’ asked the woman, her terror evident.
Julie turned to her with fury in her eyes.
‘I’m going to burn this evil house to the ground, that’s what I’m going to do.’
‘No,’ the woman cried, ‘not the house.’ Her eyes flew from wall to wall, panicked. Julie saw in that glance just how much it meant to her and so with great relish, she tossed the burning towel at the curtains. They lit up like a torch, the flames shooting to the ceiling.
Fake Cop screamed.
‘This old house?’ Julie said with venom in her voice. ‘It’s going to go up like a box of matches.’
Smoke began to fill the room and Julie realized that it might kill them before her rescuers arrived. No way would she risk death when she was this close to escape. They had to get out of here. She looked down at her bare feet and then through the window at the snow. She aimed the gun back toward the dining room.
‘Move. In there.’
The woman walked backwards, her eyes on Julie, and Fake Cop crawled his way there, unable to bend the injured leg. They needed to get to the safety of the barn, but she wasn’t sure he could make it. By the time they reached the dining room, the roar of the flames was overwhelming as they lapped at the disintegrating framework of the old house. The wires must be ancient. Julie pictured the flames racing along them to the four corners of the house, eating up its poison. But this would have to do for the moment.
Then there was a loud pop and the sound of the fire grew even more deafening. Through the windows, she could see a column of black smoke trailing out into the backyard. The rescue squads would surely arrive in minutes.
The man started blabbering again.
‘I don’t think you meant to do it, Laura.’
Why wouldn’t he quit talking?
‘Shut up,’ Julie muttered as she leaned against the dining-room table for support.
He kept looking over at the woman. Why was he so fixated on her? He had to be watched carefully or else he’d still try to save this witch.
‘It wasn’t the real you,’ he raved. ‘Like my Abigail, you didn’t have the life you were supposed to have. Your real life was stolen from you. Horrible circumstances can twist a person and make you do terrible things. You can’t be held accountable for that.’
The woman swung her head back and forth from one to the other, looking confused.
‘Make him shut up,’ she said to Julie. ‘He doesn’t know anything about me. Shoot him again.’
‘He’s defending you. You should say thank you,’ Julie said. Then turning to him, ‘Go on. I’m dying to hear how you justify what she’s done to me.’
‘She’s done things for you too. What you don’t know is that James Jenkins is lying out behind that gazebo. Dead.’
Julie spun around to look at her.
‘You killed him?’
The woman stammered back, ‘You can’t prove that. You don’t know what happen
ed.’
‘He’s dead?’ Julie asked again.
‘That’s him, isn’t it, Laura? Out in the snow with his throat slit?’
‘Stop calling me that. My name is Cora. My name is Cora.’
‘You killed him, didn’t you?’
She hesitated, but then answered boldly, her chin up.
‘Yes, I killed him.’
Julie felt suddenly cold. What did this mean? The Evil One was dead? Why? To help her? Because she truly meant for them to be a family? Or because he had manipulated and abused her and it had made her crazy? Time shifted and warped in Julie’s mind, the scene before her veiled in a gray haze. She couldn’t tell how long she’d been standing there, her arm stiff and pulsing as she forced herself to keep the gun trained on this woman. At last, the sirens sounded from afar. She turned her head toward the window. Eventually a line of rescue vehicles charged up the driveway, spinning to a stop as they spread out on the plowed area.
Her heart surged. She was almost out of here.
Then spots of black blotted out the scene before her. She was dangerously close to unconsciousness. She knew she must stay awake, but her head was heavy and her eyelids were drooping closed against her will.
Meanwhile the red, white, and blue spinning lights shone brightly against the snow, their colors refracted through the windows and projected onto the ceiling above her. She would be saved if she could just hang on a few more minutes. The Evil One was dead. The woman would be locked in jail forever and ever. But only if she kept going.
Then something clicked in her brain and suddenly brought her back to life.
‘Why didn’t you let me go?’ she said.
The woman stared out at the line of fire trucks, ambulances, and squad cars, her face blank.
‘What?’ she asked as if she’d barely heard Julie.
‘After you killed him. You kept me here. Why didn’t you set me free?’ Julie turned to Fake Cop. ‘If she’d done it for me, as you say, she would have let me go. She didn’t.’
Fake Cop seemed distracted by the commotion outside as well. His eyes followed the rescue workers as they jumped out of the trucks, unrolled the hoses, and dragged them over to the front of the house where the flames burned brightest.
