Riley could be in there. She could be in trouble. I grab my purse, a shaky hand opening the lip to reveal the gun nestled inside—the gun I had grabbed from the closet before leaving on my trip, the gun I had been looking for that night of the alarm. Then I take a breath before easing myself out of the car, closing the door with a silent click.
The air is warm and damp like a boiled-egg burp, the sulfur from the swamp oppressive in the summer heat. I tiptoe toward the driveway and stand there for a while, peering down that road toward home. The woods on either side are pitch-black, but I force myself to take a step forward. And then another. Another. Soon, I’m approaching the house. I had forgotten how absolute the darkness is out here, with no lights from the street or neighboring houses—but with that perfect, inky contrast, the moonlight always shines so bright. I look up at the full moon above me, totally unobscured. It beams on the house like a spotlight, making it glow. I can see it now, perfectly—the chipped white paint, the wood siding peeling under years of heat and humidity, the grass growing wild beneath my feet. Vines crawl up the side of the house like veins, giving it an otherworldly appearance, pulsing with devilish life. I start to creep up the stairs, avoiding the spots that are prone to creaking, but I notice that the blinds are open—and with the moon this bright, if Daniel is inside, I know I could be seen. So instead, I turn and walk around back. I eye the junk cluttering the backyard the way it always has—there are piles of old plywood stacked against the back of the house along with a shovel and a wheelbarrow with other gardening tools loaded inside. I imagine my mother on her hands and knees, soil pushed into her skin, a streak of dirt swiped across her forehead. I try to peer through the windows, but back here, the blinds are all closed, the lack of light on this side of the house making it impossible to see anything through the gaps. I try twisting the doorknob, jiggling it slightly, but it doesn’t open. It’s locked.
I exhale, resting my hands on my hips.
Then I have an idea.
I look at the door, summoning that day with Lena to the forefront of my mind—library card in hand, breaking into my brother’s bedroom.
First, check the hinges. If you can’t see them, it’s the right kind of lock.
I dig into my pocket and pull out Aaron’s badge, still wedged in my jeans after I had found it buried beneath the motel room sheets. I bend it in my hands—it’s sturdy enough—and insert it into the gap at an angle, just like Lena taught me.
Once the corner is in, straighten it up.
I start to wiggle the card, applying gentle pressure, moving it back and forth, back and forth. I push it in deeper, my free hand twisting the knob—until finally, I hear a click.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
The back door pushes open, and I yank hard to free the card, wrapping it in my hand as I step inside. I feel my way through the hallway, trailing my fingers along the familiar walls to keep myself straight. The darkness is disorienting; I hear creaking in every direction, but I don’t know if it’s simply the noises of an old house or if it’s Daniel, creeping up behind me, arms extended, ready to strike.
I feel the hallway open up to our living room, and as I step inside, the room illuminates with the glow of the moon through the blinds, making it bright enough to see. I glance at my surroundings. The shadows of the room look exactly the way I remember them: my father’s old La-Z-Boy recliner in the corner, the leather faded and cracking. The TV on the floor with smudges on the screen from where my fingers pressed into the glass. This is where Daniel has been going: this house. This awful, terrible house is where he vanishes each week. It’s where he takes his victims, doing God-knows-what with them before returning to the spot where they disappeared and dumping their bodies. I look to my right, and that’s when I notice an unusual shape on the floor, long and lean like a stack of wooden boards.
A shape like a body. The body of a young girl.
“Riley?” I whisper, running across the living room and toward the shadow. Before I reach it, I can see that it’s her: eyes closed, mouth shut, hair loose around her cheeks and cascading across her chest. Even in the dark, or perhaps because of the dark, the paleness of her face is startling—she looks like a ghost, lips blue, all the blood drained from her skin, giving her a translucent glow.
“Riley,” I say again, my fingers shaking her arm. She doesn’t move; she doesn’t speak. I look at her wrists, at the line of red starting to form across her veins. I look at her neck, preparing myself to see those faint, finger-shaped bruises beginning to marble across the skin—but they’re not there. Not yet.
“Riley,” I repeat, shaking her gently. “Riley, come on.”
I bring my fingers beneath her ear and hold my breath, hoping to feel something, anything. And it’s there—just barely, but it’s there. A gentle pounding, her heartbeat, slow and labored. She’s still alive.
“Come on,” I whisper, trying to lift her up. Her body is deadweight heavy, but when I grab her arms, I see her eyes flicker, a rapid side-to-side movement, and she emits a gentle groan. It’s the Diazepam, I realize. She’s heavily drugged. “I’m going to get you out of here. I promise I’m going to—”
“Chloe?”
Immediately, my heart stops—there’s someone behind me. I recognize his voice, the way my name rolls around in his mouth like a lozenge before melting on his tongue. I would recognize it anywhere.
But it doesn’t belong to Daniel.
I stand up slowly, turning around to face the figure behind me. The room is just bright enough for me to make out his features.
“Aaron.” I try to think of an explanation, a reason for why he’s standing here, in this house—my house—but my mind goes blank. “What are you doing here?”
The moon dips behind a cloud, and suddenly, the room goes dark. My eyes widen, trying to see, and when the light streams through the blinds again, Aaron seems closer—by a foot, maybe two.
“I could ask you the same question.”
I turn my head to the side, looking at Riley, and I realize how this must look. Me, kneeling over an unconscious girl in the dark. I think back to Detective Thomas hovering in my office, the way he had glared at me, suspicious. My fingerprints on Aubrey’s earring. His words, accusatory.
The common thread binding all this together seems to be you.
I motion to Riley and open my mouth, trying to speak, but I feel a choke lodge itself in my throat. I stop, clear it.
“She’s alive, thank God,” Aaron interrupts, taking a step closer. “I just found her myself. I tried to get her to wake up but I couldn’t. I called the police. They’re on their way.”
I look at him, still unable to speak. He senses my hesitation and keeps talking.
“I remembered you had mentioned this house. How it just sits here, empty. I thought maybe she might be here. I called you a few times.” He lifts his arms, as if to gesture to the room, before dropping them back to his sides. “I guess we had the same idea.”
I exhale, nodding. I think back to last night, to Aaron in my motel room. His eager hands as they snaked through my hair; the way we lay there afterward, quietly. His voice in my ear: I believe you.
“We have to help her,” I say, finding my voice. I swing back around to Riley and crouch down next to her, checking her pulse again. “We have to make her throw up or something—”
“The police are coming,” Aaron says again. “Chloe, it’s going to be okay. She’ll be fine.”
“Daniel has to be close,” I say, rubbing my fingers against her cheek. It feels cold. “When I woke up, I had all these missed calls. He left me a voice mail, and I thought maybe—”
Then I stop, remembering the sequence of that night again. Of me drifting into sleep, of Aaron’s chapped lips sticking to my forehead as he kissed me goodnight. I stand up slowly, turning around. Suddenly, I don’t want my back to be facing him.
“Wait a second.” My thoughts are moving slowly, like they’re trudging through mud. “How did you know Riley was missing?”
I remember waking up, a full day later, after Aaron had left. Calling Shannon, those slow, wet sobs.