I crouch low, glass shard in hand. I keep my eyes peeled on the barely visible doorknob, a slight silver gleam in the now darkened hall.
The door will open toward me, into the corridor. Plan A, trip up my attacker and dart through, yanking the door shut behind me and leaving my captor as trapped as I had once been. From there, I’d have smooth sailing down the stairs, out into the free world, where I could flag down help.
Plan B, fight like hell. I have surprise, training, and a shard of glass on my side. Wars had been won with less.
The door rattles slightly. I hear the rasp of a metal bolt being pulled back. Unlocking the door from the outside. And now . . .
The handle turns. I will myself to be lower, smaller, invisible in the dark.
As the door pushes open. One inch, two, three. Enough that I could get a foot in to block it.
The door opens. A figure fills the void. And then . . .
I spring forward, clutching the glass dagger close to my chest as I lash out with my foot. An oomph as the person falls, not forward into the corridor as I’d hoped but backward onto the equally dark landing.
No time to think, no time to redirect. The heavy metal door is already swinging shut as I suck in my stomach and slide through. A dark void to my left. Stairs, I think, twisting toward them.
Just as a hand snaps around my ankle.
A woman’s voice sings out. “Molly! It’s been so long.”
Stacey Summers has been telling the truth all along. Outside our locked rooms, things are much, much worse.
*
“TELL US ABOUT NATALIE DRAGA,” D.D. said at last. “She was the first victim, and the one Devon kept the most photos of. You were her friend.” She turned to Larissa. “What should we know about her?”
“I don’t know. She was pretty. But kind of dark, really. Her sense of humor, it could be cutting. Honestly, I thought that was one of the things Devon liked about her. She was one of those women who even when you had her, you didn’t know where you stood. She’d say something awful to him one minute, then throw her arms around him the next.”
“She talk about her personal life? Time in Florida?”
“No.”
“Mother, father, brothers, sisters, family?”
“Never.”
“I have her file,” Ethier spoke up. “But to be honest, there’s not much in here either.”
D.D. reached across the desk for it, discovering inside the required government paperwork, a sheet of personal information, and a check dated nearly nine months ago, confirming that Natalie Draga had left her job one day, never to return.
As the manager had warned, the sheet of personal info was scant in its contents. The top of the page contained Natalie’s full name, in looping script. After that: emergency contact, which was blank; then a phone number, which, according to Ethier, was disconnected; followed by a physical address that took D.D. only a moment to place as the official location of the Massachusetts State House in downtown Boston. She glanced up at Ethier, who shrugged.
“We’re only required to ask for an employee’s information, not to verify it. Around here, lots of people are new to the city or just passing through. As long as they show up on time and work hard, it’s good enough for me.”
D.D. went back to the file, the top of the form where Natalie had scrawled her full name. Natalie Molly Draga. Middle name Molly. Which rang a bell. She’d recently heard the name Molly. Who’d she been talking to . . . ?
It came to her. And when it did, D.D.’s gaze went straight to Keynes.
“Molly. That’s the name Jacob Ness gave to Flora,” D.D. stated.
“After Jacob served time for raping a fourteen-year-old girl, Mahlia—Molly to her friends.” Keynes took the file from her. “She could’ve had a child. Certainly, she’d have good reason not to include Jacob’s name on the birth certificate.”
D.D. got out her phone; she dialed Phil first, who was her expert on database searches. Keynes provided Mahlia’s full name. Phil did the honors of searching hospital databases in Florida.
He came back in a matter of minutes. “Mahlia Dragone. Gave birth to a daughter, same year as the sexual assault. Oh, and get this. A year later, I have a record of Mahlia legally changing her last name to Draga. Her mom did as well. How much you wanna bet the whole family was looking for a fresh start?”
After Mahlia gave birth to Jacob Ness’s child. Who at this stage of her life would now be an older, manipulative female. Her father’s daughter. Recently moved to Boston to do some hunting on her own.
D.D. turned to Larissa.
“Tell us. Right now. Where does Natalie live?”
“I don’t know. I never went—”
“She had to have mentioned something. Come on. Think. Where did Natalie go at the end of your ‘wanderings’?”
“The T station. Wait! I can tell you the line. Oh, oh, oh, I know which subway line she took!”
Chapter 46
I DON’T THINK. I move. I hear her voice, Lindy’s voice, for the first time in years, and it triggers an immediate wave of horror, rage, guilt, terror. I don’t have to think about it. I kick hard, connecting with the side of her head.
Her hand loosens around my ankle.
I flee.
No thought. Blind panic. I thunder down the stairs, heart racing, pulse pounding. In the back of my mind, an internal voice is yelling at me. Stop. Take a stand. Fight. This is the moment I’ve dreamed about. Even imagined during every single self-defense or target-shooting class.
Finally coming face-to-face with Lindy again. Except this time, I’d get it right. No more dropping the kitchen knife. No more being pinned to the floor while she sat on my chest and outlined what she was going to do with me.
No, in my wildest fantasies, I slayed the beast. I did what I should’ve done years ago.
A woman with promises left to keep.
Except the truth is, five years of training later, I still haven’t headed to Florida in search of Lindy. Because five years later, she still terrifies me.
She’s laughing. The sound drifts down the stairs behind me as I round the first landing and keep on trucking. Beneath my hand, the railing is wooden and wobbly, clearly in need of repair. Old home—I was right about that.
I have to find the door. Make it to ground level, locate the front door, and flee into the night.
Leaving Stacey Summers behind with Jacob’s beloved daughter and favorite partner in crime.
I hit the bottom. No more stairs. Just a dark enclosed space. With no lights, it’s hard to get my bearings. I think I’m in a small foyer, not unlike the one in my apartment building. As my eyes adjust further, I can make out an open doorway to my right, where I can peer through to the lighter shadows of other rooms. Then I identify another opening to my left, leading to yet another corridor. This confuses me. I’ve been picturing a traditional triple-decker layout in my head. In that case, the stairs should be at one end of the building, not in the middle. Meaning this probably isn’t a triple-decker. Meaning I have no idea where I am after all or where the front door might be.
Play the odds. Doors have a tendency to lead directly to the stairs, hence straight across from me should be an egress. At least that’s the best place to start.
I approach with my arms outstretched, feeling for a doorknob. Behind me, I hear groaning wood as Lindy begins her descent.
Come on, come on, come on. There must a door. Any kind of exit. Come on!
I feel wood panels, then to my left the thin outline of a hinge. My hands fly to the right, and lo and behold. Knob. I have located the doorknob. I twist, yank, and . . .
Nothing. The door doesn’t open. Doesn’t budge.
It’s locked.
My fingers fly around the knob, searching for latches to twist, bolts to undo. I find one, then two.
A second twist, a second yank.
The door moves, rattles in the frame. But it doesn’t open. Something is still connected, a bolt, a chain, something I haven’t found yet.
I remember the doors of the upstairs rooms, then stretch up, up, up. And sure enough. I find it. Them. Two more bolts latched tight at the top of the door frame.
I whimper. I can’t help myself.
The stairs, creaking right behind me.
I’m running out of time.