I felt utterly stupid. I had driven all the way out here, and for what? Nothing. I considered my options:
1. Climb back over the fence, go home, and feel like an idiot.
2. Ring the doorbell and... feel like an idiot.
“ARGH!” I pressed my forehead against the metal gate, looking at my car through the bars. This was ridiculous.
“Yes, this is ridiculous, Kat,” I told myself. “You wanted to play Nancy Drew, well, here’s your goddamn chance. Stop being a boring idiot. Okay? Okay.”
With that settled, I turned around and looked up the curving driveway in the middle of the forest. Every step I took put one more butterfly in my stomach
I couldn’t even see his house from the road. Huge pine trees cut off the view after about fifty feet of road. I swallowed. If he was a secret agent, wouldn’t he have some kind of security system? What if I got shot or caught in a trap before I reached the house?
“Shut up and walk, Nancy Drew. He’s not a secret agent, and you’re not going to get shot.”
I walked boldly down the driveway, and when I turned the last curve I couldn’t help but gasp.
The house was a gorgeous two-story log cabin, with a giant stone chimney stretching out over the tops of the pines. It was incredible that I hadn’t been able to see it from the road, but it was tucked away into the side of the mountain.
“Wow,” I said.
It seemed stupid, but I felt like a total badass. I’d followed Fabio all the way up here without getting seen and I’d slipped through the gate. No matter what, I could go back to Jules with an interesting story.
I went to the front door, but there was no doorbell. As I raised my hand to knock, I heard something from the back, somebody yelling. Then it stopped.
“Hello?” I said. Nobody answered.
“Okay, Nancy Drew, you know what to do now.”
Actually, I knew exactly what NOT to do. Normal, boring Kat would have put the slip of paper on the doormat and ran away. But I was curious, and today I was determined not to let myself get in the way of... myself.
With newfound courage, I crept along the side of the house. There was a light on in a room near the back corner, and I made my way through the side yard landscaping, dodging the rose bushes that were planted under the windows. I reached the lit window and, standing on tiptoe, peeked up over the edge of the windowsill.
What did I expect to see when I peeked into the window? I don’t know. Fabio sitting in an armchair, reading a book he’d checked out from the library, maybe. I imagined that he would see me and laugh, invite me in for a drink, put on some music and tell me that he was kidding, that actually he would love to date me. We would dance and talk and make love all night.
Instead, what I saw made me scream.
Not scream, exactly. More like a terrified mix between a gasp and a yelp that I tried to stop as soon as it came out of my stupid, stupid mouth. Because when I looked into the window, I saw a room with a single metal table and a man strapped down, covered in blood. Standing over him was the handsome man from the library.
My Fabio.
Holding a knife.
It might have been the professor on the table. I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know. As I yelped, my hand slipped and hit the windowpane, and if my half-scream hadn’t gotten his attention, the loud clunk sure did. Both of the men turned to look at me. Fabio’s dark eyes narrowed to slits, locking on mine. My mouth went dry.
Jesus, it’s real. He’s not a secret agent. He’s the killer. Holy fuck.
“Help! Help!” The man on the table began yelling at the top of his lungs, which made me jump again—I’d thought he was dead. Fabio walked around the table toward the window, still carrying the knife. I stumbled back and fell right on my ass under the window. The rose bushes scratched my arm badly as I fell, but I barely noticed the pain. I was too busy freaking the fuck out. I couldn’t go back around to the front - he’d be right there. Oh, shit. Oh, shit.
I scrambled to my feet in a panic and ran for the forest in a blind sprint. This wasn’t what I’d signed up for. Nancy Drew had walked into the last chapter of a Stephen King novel, and she was getting the hell out of there. Behind me I could hear the door opening. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I pumped my arms and legs, trying to gain speed. I was already into the trees, and I could see ahead of me the driveway curving into view, the metal gate I would have to climb over. I angled slightly toward the driveway. Good. Perfect. A shortcut to the exit.
Just as I was coming out of the treeline onto the driveway, my foot caught a tree root. I stumbled, rolling my ankle and falling to the ground. I gasped in pain as I got up to my knees. Hot agony shot up the side of my leg, but I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t. My mind screamed: Go, go, GO!
I scrambled forward on the driveway, the paved surface hot under my scraped hands.