Nicole was breathing heavily as she tore out of the abandoned subdivision, her adrenaline so powerful she was barely able to control her hands as they gripped the steering wheel. Her mind was incoherent and unable to process what had just transpired. Running would get her only so far. She needed help, and checked off the people she knew she couldn’t ask. Calling the police was not an option. There were so many reasons for this, but after considering only two—that she had assisted in kidnapping Megan and had also been involved in a hit-and-run—she stopped looking for more. She couldn’t call her parents, for obvious reasons. Her friends, soft and hysterical, could handle none of tonight. Nicole knew she needed someone smart and level-headed. Someone who would look past her failures. She needed Livia.
The wheels screeched as she turned out of Stellar Heights and headed back to the beach party. She watched her rearview mirror for a few moments, but she knew there was no way for Casey to follow her. Colliding thoughts of guilt and disgust came over her. She cried as the thud echoed in her mind from when she’d hit Casey, and her stomach rolled at the thought of Megan waking in the black basement. The image of Paula D’Amato burned her eyes and was there every time Nicole blinked. God, how long had she been missing?
There were no good solutions to these problems, and peeling back the events of tonight would be impossible. Still, she would try. It took twenty frantic minutes of speeding to find the frontage road that would lead back to the beach party. Twenty minutes to gather her thoughts. She’d go back to the parking lot, wait for Livia. She would do everything Livia told her.
As she approached a stop sign, she grabbed her phone. She dialed.
“Pick up, pick up, pick up. Please, Livia, pick up your phone.”
As Nicole rolled through the stop sign, all her plans changed. She looked in her rearview mirror and knew nothing would be the same. The red-and-blue lights of a police car filled her mirrors.
CHAPTER 57
November 2017
Fourteen Months Since Megan’s Escape
“I have to see for myself,” Megan said, standing at the back of the house. The plywood covering the windows still bright under the glow of her flashlight. “Come with me, Livia. Come with me so I can be sure.”
Megan was off again, headed toward the front of the house. Livia followed, stumbling in the dark over the uneven ground and chunks of concrete. At the front door, she hesitated before she followed Megan into the dark house. She caught a glimpse of the number sixty-one above the door. The interior was a hollow cove of high ceilings and vacant rooms barely visible in the rushed glow of Megan’s flashlight.
When Livia caught up to her, Megan stood at the door to the basement. She noticed the beam of the flashlight quivering. Livia reached out and put her hand on Megan’s arm to calm her tremor.
“Megan, stop and talk to me.” Livia took Megan by the shoulders, the beam of the flashlight falling to their feet. “You said you know who took you. Tell me.”
With the cellar door open, the staircase was a shadowless portal to a different world.
“During my last therapy session, I got further than ever before. He came down the steps and I heard it. I listened during that session, more closely than I ever did before. I heard it, Livia.”
“You heard what, Megan?”
“And then, during my dream the other night when you were in the passing train, when you waved to me . . . I heard it again, just before I woke.”
“Tell me, Megan. What was it?”
“That sound I know so well. That sound I’ve known from childhood.”
Livia waited.
“Leather,” Megan said. “I heard the leather holster of a belt.”
CHAPTER 58
August 2016
The Night of the Abduction
Nicole heard Livia’s recorded voice come through her phone as voice mail picked up. She ended the call as the flashing lights filled her rearview mirror. Part of her wanted to scream because she knew there was no turning back. Part of her wanted to step on the accelerator and flee. But another part wanted this, exactly what was happening. Wanted to be cornered with no choice but to tell the police what had gone on tonight.
She pulled to the side of the frontage road, her car pitching to a slight angle as the passenger-side tires settled onto the gravel shoulder. The officer came to her window as she rolled it down.
“You know you sailed through a stop sign back there, young lady?”
Nicole was crying. “I didn’t see it. I need help.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I hit someone. With my car. I hit my boyfriend. And there’s a girl who needs help. Two girls, maybe more. I don’t know.”
“Slow down. Shut the engine off, please.”
Nicole turned the ignition.
“Step out of the vehicle, please. Tell me what’s going on.”
Nicole climbed from her car, crying hysterically now. The officer put his arm around her and led her to the patrol car.
“Here, let’s have those,” he said, taking Nicole’s keys. He opened the back of the car and helped her sit down. “Wait here for a minute. We’ll find out what’s going on.”
He reached for her other hand and gently took her phone.
“Did you make any calls tonight?”
“My sister.”
“I see.” The officer’s voice was gentle and caring. “Did you speak with her?”
“No.”
“Leave a message or a text?”
Nicole shook her head.
“Call anyone else?”
“No,” Nicole said. “No one.”
“Good girl. Sit tight, okay. I’ll be right back.”
The officer helped Nicole glide her legs into the backseat, and then closed the door of the squad car. Nicole watched as he walked a perimeter around her car, the red-and-blue lights highlighting the scene in front of her. He shined his flashlight into the backseat, something caught his attention. Nicole wanted to scream at him that they needed to hurry, but her voice had left her. All she could do was stare. She watched him pull a handkerchief from his back pocket, shake it open, and use it to pull open her car’s door. Then she watched him lean in. He reappeared a few seconds later, something gripped in his hand. Only when he opened the patrol car’s door and sat behind the wheel did Nicole recognize the object he’d taken. It was the long fork from the barbecue set.
“I bought that at a Goodwill store,” Nicole said through the chain link that separated them, although she wasn’t sure why.
The officer doused the flashing lights and put the car into gear. He swung a rough U-turn and sped back down the frontage road.
“We have to go to West Bay,” Nicole said, leaning toward the partition.
Their eyes met in the rearview mirror.
“Oh,” Terry McDonald said. “I know where we’re going. Don’t worry, my Love.”
CHAPTER 59
November 2017
Fourteen Months Since Megan’s Escape