by Kate Brian
“I’m fine,” I assured my dad. “I’m just—”
“What were you thinking?” he asked suddenly, pulling away. I flinched, my heart vaulting into my throat, and I took an instinctive step back. “Cutting through those woods alone? You could have been killed!”
Now this was the dad I knew. Quick to temper, quicker to blame. It was oddly reassuring—a normal thing in a surreal day.
“Dad, lay off!” Darcy snapped.
His face turned red and he looked at the ground, avoiding eye contact with anyone.
“Get inside,” he said quietly but sternly.
I ducked my chin, tears stinging my eyes, and walked shakily toward our house. Darcy fell into step with me, so close our shoulders kept grazing while we walked. One glance back at Christopher was all I could manage. He lifted his hand from the steering wheel in a semblance of a wave, his lips flattened into a tight, encouraging smile. Suddenly, I just wanted to be back in that car, back with him, back where I felt safe. But then he revved the engine, and just like that, he was gone.
Once we were inside, my father slammed the front door behind us. Then he stopped short. Standing near the wall in the living room, next to framed photos of me and Darcy when we were younger, was a slight woman in a dripping black baseball cap and a black overcoat. Several men in blue jumpsuits were sweeping through the downstairs, running mechanical wands along the walls and counters, while another climbed the steps to the second floor.
“Who are you?” my father demanded.
“My name is Sharon Messenger.” She took out a wallet and flashed a badge at us. Three bold, capital letters leaped out at me: FBI.
My heart started to pound painfully.
“Why is the FBI here?” my father asked, his forehead wrinkling.
The agent ignored him and turned to me. “Is this the man who attacked you?” she asked, taking out a smartphone and tapping one of the on-screen keys. Instantly, Mr. Nell’s face appeared on the screen, but he was much younger, with a mustache and square black glasses instead of his gold wire-rimmed frames.
“Yes,” I said, turning away. “That’s him. That’s Mr. Nell.”
Agent Messenger pressed her pale lips together. She slid out of her rain-soaked coat, hung it on the rack, then gestured toward the sitting area. “Why don’t you all have a seat?”
“Why don’t you tell us what’s going on first?” my dad challenged, squaring his shoulders. In his day, my dad was an athlete, a lean cross-country runner like me. But after my mother died, he’d stopped working out, stopped running, and now he just looked tired and weak.
“Dad,” Darcy groused, “can we please not make a fight out of this?”
My dad’s eyes flashed, but he sat down on the old recliner. I sank down on the far end of the couch, pulling my knees up under my chin and hugging myself tightly. Darcy took the opposite end, while Agent Messenger paced over the worn Oriental carpet my parents had bought on their honeymoon.
“The man you know as Steven Nell is actually Roger Krauss,” she said without preamble. “The FBI has been trying to find him for over a decade.” She stopped pacing and looked me directly in the eye. Her drenched black curls stuck to her neck, looking like tattoos against her milky skin. “He’s killed fourteen girls in ten states. First he stalks them. Then he hunts them down and… You’re lucky you got away.”
My blood turned to ice. Fourteen girls. He’d murdered fourteen girls. And I was supposed to be next. I was number fifteen.
“No way,” Darcy blurted, shoving her hood away from her face. “Mr. Nell is an actual serial killer?”
“It looks that way, yes,” Messenger replied.
Suddenly, the shaking started again. For the first time, I noticed the dried leaves clinging to the undersides of my sleeves. I ripped them frantically to the floor, my fingernails tearing at the wool.
Messenger took off her baseball cap, wiping drops of water off her forehead. She had purple bags under her eyes, her cheeks were gaunt, and a few strands of gray spotted her dark hair even though she didn’t look much older than thirty-five. I wondered how much of Messenger’s past decade had been dedicated to finding Mr. Nell—and failing.
“Krauss is smart. Brilliant, actually,” Messenger said in an even tone, like she was talking about the weather or a movie she saw last week, not a brutal killer. “He always covers his tracks and he’s a master at disappearing. Every time we get close, he slips away.” Messenger’s phone beeped at her hip. She quickly checked the screen before tucking it back away. “We had intel that he might be here in New Jersey, and now we have our proof. Every officer and agent in town is searching for him right now.”
“Good,” Darcy said, looking at me. “I hope they shoot him in the face.”
“Darcy,” my father warned.
“Can’t say I disagree with her, sir,” Messenger said, raising her palms.
“Agent Messenger?” a voice called.
The man who’d gone upstairs bounded into view, a plastic bag in his hand. Nestled inside was a small black square attached to a wire. A spy camera. “We found it in the girl’s bedroom, hidden in the slats of the closet door.”
“Oh my god.” Darcy’s jaw dropped in horror as she turned to look at me.
I couldn’t breathe. He’d been in our home. He’d been watching me. The shaking turned violent.
“Take it to the lab,” Messenger said with a brisk nod. “Figure out the transmitting radius. It might feed to a location nearby.”
My stomach clenched. “How long has it been there?” I whispered.
Messenger’s dark eyes softened. “It’s impossible to say,” she said gently.
I thought of my room, with its butter-yellow walls, my microscope, and my biology books. It was where I did my homework and ran my labs, where I called my friends, where my mom used to tell me stories about a frog named Neville to help me fall asleep. It was where I woke up each morning and got dressed and…
I ran for the hall bathroom, slamming my knees against the tile floor in front of the toilet. I heaved and heaved until my stomach was empty. Then I sat back against the wall and closed my eyes, blindly reaching for the flusher. Instantly, Mr. Nell’s face swooped toward me, and I pressed the heels of my hands into my eye sockets, trying to obliterate the image.
If only I could erase the knowledge that Mr. Nell—the man who always wrote GOOD WORK in all capitals on my tests and underlined it three times, the guy who’d talked me into entering the statewide math competition last fall, the person I’d trusted and considered a mentor—had watched me in my bedroom and spied on the most private moments of my life. I had never felt so violated. I needed to escape. I needed a shower. I needed to get clean. I needed to be alone.
“I’m going upstairs!” I shouted on my way out of the bathroom.
“Wait.”
My dad stood at the end of the hall, a concerned look on his face. He hesitated for an awkward moment before asking, “Are you okay?”
Tears instantly sprang to my eyes. My dad crossed the living room in two steps, took the agent’s coat off the rack, and handed it to her. I almost couldn’t believe what I was seeing. My father and I had just communicated. We’d actually understood each other.
“Well, thanks for coming by, but if you and the other officers don’t mind, I think my daughter needs some peace and quiet,” my father said, trying to usher her toward the door. She didn’t budge.
“I’m sorry, sir, but that’s not going to happen,” Messenger said, folding her damp coat over her arm. “It’s not safe for you to be here alone. There’s a good chance Krauss isn’t done with your daughter.”
My heart and stomach switched places. I clutched my hands together to keep them from trembling. Not done with me? What the hell did that mean?
“We’re going to place a protective detail on your house,” Messenger said, turning to look me in the eye, as if she knew how badly I needed reassuring. “I don’t want any of you leaving this house until he is caught and
locked behind bars. That means no school, no work, no nothing.”
“What about my classes?” my dad asked. His job meant everything to him, at least since mom had died. “Summer term just started.”
“I’m sure the university can find a substitute,” Messenger said tightly.
“I guess that means I don’t have to take my bio final,” my sister said with a smile.
My dad glared at her. “We’ll have your school drop off all your homework.”
Darcy visibly sagged, but I barely registered any of it. Suddenly, I was back in those woods, running for my life, feeling Nell breathing down my neck while Messenger’s words echoed in my head, over and over.
Not safe. Not safe. Not safe.
“You’ll catch him, though, right?” I said urgently, finally finding my voice. “I mean, with all those cops and everything looking for him…there’s no way he’s going to get away.”
“I wish it had happened some other way, Rory, but this was exactly the break we needed.” Messenger placed a reassuring hand on my arm, her dark eyes locking on mine. “With any luck, we’ll have him by the end of the night.”
“What do you mean, you still haven’t found him?” my dad demanded.
“I’m sorry. We suspect he’s still in town, but he’s gone underground,” Messenger said wearily. Her black pants sagged around her narrow hips. “I promise we’re doing our best. It’s just a little bit of a waiting game.”
Waiting. That was all we ever did anymore. Seven full days had passed and here we were again, gathered in the living room, listening to Messenger tell us exactly nothing. I leaned my head on the back of the couch and looked up at the ceiling, staring at the crack I’d been studying all week long. It had actually gotten longer since last Friday, snaking its way from the corner near the front door all the way to the center of the room. Next to me, Darcy’s silver-polished nails stopped clacking on her laptop’s keyboard.
“So, wait,” she said, slapping the computer closed and standing up. “You’re telling me we still can’t leave?”
“Yes, that’s what I’m telling you,” Messenger replied, rubbing her forehead.
“No. No way,” Darcy snapped. “Tonight is Becky Mazrow’s graduation party. I’ve only been looking forward to it all year. There’s no way I’m going to sit here watching the Kardashians on my computer while everyone in my class is there.”
“Darcy,” my father said impatiently.
“What?” She raised her shoulders. “They can send me with a security detail or something,” she said, looking at Agent Messenger. “Their inepticy is the reason we’re holed up here like some family of fugitives.”
“Inepticy isn’t a word,” I said quietly.
Darcy ignored me.
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s top on Uncle Sam’s priority list,” Messenger replied.
“I don’t believe this! You said you were going to catch him ‘tonight,’” Darcy cried, throwing in some air quotes. “That was a week ago!”
“I’m sorry, but—”
“Sorry for what? Sucking at your job?” Darcy shot back.
“Darcy!” my dad thundered.
She fell silent and plopped back onto the couch, her chin jutted out in defiance. But the thing was, she was right. It wasn’t fair that we were stuck here. It made no sense that the entire FBI couldn’t catch one guy. I just never would have had the guts to say it.
“So…what?” I asked, crossing my arms over my E=mc2 sweatshirt. “You’re just waiting for him to show himself? To make a mistake? I thought you said he was brilliant. What’re the chances he actually screws up and lets himself get caught?”
Messenger didn’t have to answer. The resigned look on her face said everything. I pulled my knees up under my chin and hugged myself as tightly as I could. What if the mistake he made was breaking into my room and stabbing me to death before anyone could do anything? Had anyone considered that?
“Unbelievable,” my dad said, throwing up his hands. He paced over to the front window and looked out at the two police cruisers idling near the end of our driveway, a constant ever since the day I was attacked. A red light at the base of the window blinked at a regular interval, part of a complicated alarm system the FBI had rigged for the house. “I don’t think I can take much more of this. My sub better give that quiz tonight,” he muttered. “If she doesn’t give them the quiz, my whole grading system will be entirely thrown off.”
Darcy’s phone buzzed, and she groaned. “It’s Becky again. She’s going to kill me if I miss this party.”
“Enough!” I blurted, standing up. Suddenly, I felt like I couldn’t sit next to her for one more second. “There’s a killer on the loose and he’s after us! I can’t believe you’re worried about a party!” I wanted to yell at my dad for caring so much about a stupid quiz, too, but of course I didn’t. All my angry thoughts toward my father always stayed just that—thoughts.
Darcy rolled her eyes. “I know you’ve never been to one, Rory,” she said sarcastically. “But they’re actually kind of fun.” Then she looked me up and down and slowly pocketed her phone. “Unless you like being under house arrest.”
“I like being safe,” I retorted.
“Why am I not surprised?” she shot back, rising to her feet to face off with me. “You’re here practically all the time anyway, holed up in your room with your little stethoscope and all your beakers—”
“It’s a microscope,” I spat.
“Whatever. All I know is, it’s no wonder you’ve never had a boyfriend.”
“Darcy!” my dad snapped. “That’s enough.”
Darcy shot me an acidic glare.
My mouth filled with a bitter taste. As desperate as I was to keep the secret about me and Christopher, there were times, like now, when all I wanted to do was throw it in her face. Prove that she wasn’t the only one with a life, the only one people found attractive, the only one who could take a chance.
As if on cue, my phone pinged with a text. I smiled slightly when I saw it was from Christopher.
Any updates?
Chris had texted a few times to check in on how I was doing. A couple of kids from the cross-country team had also reached out. They all had the same set of questions, questions they would never have asked if they actually stopped to think. Like Were you scared? or Did you think you were going to die? And my personal favorite, Did your whole life flash before your eyes?
No. No, it did not. What had flashed before my eyes were the things that were actually there. The leaves budding in the trees, the cloudy sky, the dirt under my fingernails. All I could think was, These are the last things I’m ever going to see. I was going to die in the woods. The very same woods where Darcy and I used to play Peter Pan and Pirates of the Caribbean. The same woods where I broke my arm when I climbed a tree to spy on Darcy and her first boyfriend. The woods where I used to steal away and read my mom’s ancient encyclopedias when Darcy’s teasing got so merciless I couldn’t take it anymore.
I hit reply.
Nope. Still trapped.
Then I tucked my phone back in my front sweatshirt pocket.
Darcy glanced at me sharply. “Who was that?”
“No one,” I said quickly, hoping my cheeks didn’t look as hot as they felt.
Messenger rubbed her eyes. “You haven’t told anyone about the security measures here, right?”
“No, of course not,” I said quickly, a defensive tone in my voice. I always did what I was told. For a horrible moment, I wondered if that was why Mr. Nell had picked me. Because I was so predictable, so organized, so easy to follow.
Messenger rocked back on her heels, holding her hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay. I just don’t want you to get hurt again, Rory.”
My heart folded in on itself and clenched until it hurt. It was a new sensation, something that started after the attack, whenever I thought about Steven Nell.
“Look, guys, I understand that this is hard. I really do. I just need you to hang
in here a little longer. Can you do that for me?”
Messenger’s tone was earnest. But she didn’t get it. None of them did. They didn’t understand what it was like to run through the woods with a killer on your heels. The only person I wanted to be with, the only person I’d felt safe with since the attack, was Christopher. My heart gave another painful squeeze, and suddenly I felt claustrophobic, like I couldn’t breathe.
Screw it. I was going to call him. Darcy would never know. If she asked, I’d just tell her I was catching up with my lab partner. Then she’d definitely leave me alone.
“I’m going to my room,” I said, already clutching my phone inside my pocket.
I turned and took the stairs two at a time, my heart pounding with anticipation at the very idea of hearing Christopher’s voice. The upstairs of our house opened onto a wide landing with a skylight overhead. All five doors, which led to three bedrooms, a study, and a bathroom, were shut tight. I opened the first one on the right, the one to my room, and closed it behind me, leaning against the familiar wood. I tugged the phone out, but my hands were shaking so hard I dropped it on the floor. I left it there for a second and took a deep breath. I didn’t want to call him sounding all out of breath and hysterical. I needed to give myself a second to calm down.
I closed my eyes, and instantly thoughts of our first—and only—kiss flooded me. It was back when I was still tutoring him, before I started working with his little sister. We had been sitting at the desk in his room. I was on his cushy desk chair, because he’d insisted, and he was on a hard kitchen chair he’d dragged up the stairs. It was two inches shorter than mine, which put our faces about even. I’d been crushing on him for weeks, but he’d been Darcy’s boyfriend forever, and I’d done a pretty good job of controlling myself by reciting the periodic table or listing the presidents whenever I wanted to stare at him. For whatever reason, though, that night I couldn’t keep my gaze from traveling back to his face every five seconds. He’d gotten his hair cut, and for the first time I noticed the flecks of green in his brown eyes. It was hard to believe anyone that handsome actually existed in my school, and I suddenly felt so jealous of Darcy for getting to kiss him. She got to feel what it was like to be in his arms. She got to have him look at her like she was the only girl on Earth.
