by Sara Shepard
“But, Brett,” Maddox said, “don’t you see the irony? You went through a horrific experience as a prisoner, but now you’re putting Aerin through the same thing. We’ll still help you if you give her back. We promise. A woman like this deserves to go to prison.”
Brett’s heart twisted at the tenderness in his old buddy’s voice. Could he do that? Could he send Aerin back to them? Could he just rely on them to help, even without a bargaining chip?
He shut his eyes tight. No. That wasn’t the plan. “We have an agreement. You hit a dead end at Tallyho Island. You found one of her old victims—me. But that tells us nothing about where she is now, and you’d better get on that before it’s too late.”
Seneca let out a note of protest. “But, Brett—”
“No buts!” Rage flooded him. “You’re running out of time. Aerin’s family is going to be looking for her soon, so find Elizabeth or Sadie or whatever she goes by now, or you’ll never see Aerin again. We’ll be on a plane out of here so fast. She’ll never see her family. She’ll never see anyone. Or maybe I’ll burn her up, just like I did to her boyfriend. So if you really want to fuck with me, go for it, but if you don’t, you have until Monday night.”
He stabbed at END and dropped to the floor, trying to hold back the hot, angry demons from slithering through the locked grate in his brain. But when he turned, he noticed he’d left the door to Aerin’s room open. Aerin was sitting upright on the bed, her mouth dropped open, her hands trembling in her lap.
She’d heard everything.
AERIN COULDN’T MOVE. If Brett were to touch her right now, she felt like she would disintegrate to dust. Crumple to bones.
Or maybe I’ll burn her up, just like I did to her boyfriend.
She despised him. She wanted to turn away from him and scream, Fine, then I won’t be nice anymore, either. But she knew that would only push him to actually do the things he threatened. Only sympathy would keep his rage at bay. Not that she felt particularly sympathetic for him. The world was a mess. Bad things happened to good people. But on the other hand? Most of those people didn’t transform into monsters.
As Brett watched her, the mortified expression on his face began to shift into irritation. Think, a little voice inside Aerin pushed. What would a friend say right now? What does he want you to do? She tried to remember what she’d wanted people to say to her after Helena disappeared. Few people actually said the right thing. It was always pleas to talk about her feelings, or weird platitudes about Helena’s fate being in God’s hands, or her personal favorite, that the universe only gave people what they could handle.
“That totally sucks,” she finally said, quietly, hoping she didn’t sound as sarcastic as she felt.
Brett looked away fast. His jaw tightened, but then the air seemed to go out of him. He slid down until he was sitting on the carpet just inside her door.
“She really locked you in a shed?”
He shrugged one shoulder.
“Come on,” Aerin mustered. “You can talk to me about it.”
He gave her a strange look. “I know you don’t want to be nice to me. I know you heard what I did to that dude of yours.”
Aerin felt a ripple of dread go through her. That dude. She wanted to claw his eyes out. Smash in his skull. He’d burned Thomas? How?
It took every ounce of willpower to give him a kind, sympathetic smile and let the comment go. Because he did want her sympathy, she could tell. He did want to talk about this with her. “When you were in the house, was it just you and her?” she asked. “Were you all alone?”
“Not totally alone.”
Aerin raised an eyebrow, then waited for Brett to expound upon that. He didn’t. “Your kidnapper’s name was Elizabeth, right?” she went on.
“That’s what I called her.”
“Was she always so awful?”
Brett shuffled his feet, making patterns in the carpet fibers. But then he turned to her. Actually looked at her. His expression was crushing. He looked so young, maybe even younger than she was, and so very lost. “No. Sometimes, she acted like a…mom.” He squirmed at the word. “She knew how scared I was, so she sang me lullabies to sleep, even though I was much too old for that sort of thing. And we worked on reading together. Math. She was smart. And when she was in a good mood, she let me watch TV. Never the news or anything—because the news might have been about me, and she was very intent on making me believe that nobody cared where I’d gone. So we watched cartoons. Nature shows. MythBusters!”
“That doesn’t sound so bad. I watch nature shows when I’m stressed, too.”
Brett laughed mirthlessly. “The flip side was that she hit me. Threatened me. Verbally abused me. And then there was the shed. Every time she shut me in there, I lost all concept of time. When she finally let me out, I felt like a vampire. The sun was too bright. I was too weak to talk. I was also too keyed-up to sleep.”
Aerin felt a pull in her chest. “You really didn’t go to the police because you wanted to get Elizabeth for yourself?”
Brett’s eyes were coal black and haunted. “I wanted to see my parents, but when I got there, I found out they both had died.” He looked away, pressing his lips together. “And then afterward…I don’t know. I still believed a lot of the things Elizabeth told me—I was worthless, I was a bad person. I worried that if I went to the cops, I’d somehow be in trouble.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know. My head was a mess.” Brett squeezed his kneecaps. “I was also afraid of doing anything too public. I escaped from Elizabeth. I’m sure she was furious. I had this horrible feeling that if she ever found me, she’d kill me.”
Aerin chewed hard on her bottom lip. Ironic: It was the same way she felt about him. But as Brett sat there on the carpet, he looked so placid and harmless—and almost handsome. Aerin swallowed hard, astonished her brain could conjure up such tenderness for someone she hated so much. But people were people, weren’t they? Everyone was vulnerable. Everyone was scared. Even maniacs.
Aerin awkwardly pushed herself to standing and shuffled to him in the doorway, covering his hand with hers. “I’m really sorry. I understand how hard it must be to move on.”
Brett glanced at her cagily. She’d taken a huge risk, leaving her bed. But then he lowered his head again. Breathed in and out. Let her stay there. “Yeah right,” he grumbled.
“No, seriously!” She pointed at herself. “Do you think I’ve moved on since I lost my sister? Hell no! I’m still swirling in that pain! I’ve basically pressed pause on my life because I don’t think I deserve to be happy because she’s…you know.” She peeked at him. It was beyond bizarre that she was having this very conversation with the person who’d killed her sister in the first place, but she knew Brett needed her to connect. That her survival depended on it. “So I know a thing about being stuck in the past.”
“Yeah, well.” Brett shrugged. “It’s very hard to forget.”
“Exactly.”
They fell silent. Carefully, she peeked down the hall. There were two doors at the end of the corridor, then a railing that led to a set of steps to a first floor. They seemed to be in a house…a rather nice house, actually, with pretty wood baseboards and a stained-glass window above the stairway. This wasn’t a house that was in the middle of nowhere. She could intuit it in her bones. Down those steps would be a front door that would spit Aerin back into civilization.
But she didn’t run. She stayed put next to Brett, needing him to trust her. Because if he trusted her, maybe eventually he’d lower his guard again, this time for real. She would plan her escape, one that actually had a chance of working.
The AC ticked on. Shadows shifted on the other side of that stained-glass window. Aerin considered everything she’d just told Brett. She’d never really thought about how stuck she was since Helena vanished…but it was totally true. Did it make sense, though? Would Helena want her to be in pause like this? Wouldn’t her sister want her to move on with her lif
e, do great things, try and be happy?
She looked at Brett, wishing she could tell him this. He was the poster child for how dwelling on the past had done absolutely nothing good. Couldn’t he just try and let it go? Couldn’t he just try and change? But she knew that wasn’t what he wanted to hear, and right now, it was more about stroking his ego than telling the truth.
“I totally get why you want revenge,” she said. “That bitch deserves to be locked up forever. She shouldn’t be allowed to walk the streets. She’ll just keep doing terrible things again and again.”
Brett nodded at her. “Yeah. You’re so right.”
Little did he know, though, that there was more Aerin wanted to say. More that was spiraling around in her head, poignant and humming. She deserves being locked up forever…and you do, too.
AFTER CLIMBING OFF the ferry, the group grabbed a booth at a diner near the dock. It was past six, and the place was crowded and smelled heavily of french-fry grease. Seneca stared at the thick, stained laminated menu the waitress had handed her as soon as they sat down, but the words swam before her eyes, meaningless. Hot, uncomfortable pressure was building inside her, ready to explode.
“I just can’t believe it,” Madison was saying into the phone as the waitress delivered their drinks. They were on the phone with Thomas in the hospital, eager to relay him the news. “The guy grew up in darkness. Literally.”
“It explains a lot.” Thomas sounded groggy but better than when they’d spoken to him earlier. “We had to do this whole course at the police academy about the psychology of killers and kidnappers. Most of them had really messed-up pasts.”
Madison fiddled with her straw wrapper. “Messed-up is putting it lightly. A nine-year-old kid, stolen from his parents and locked in a freaking shed? It sounds like a horror movie.”
“You gotta sympathize with the guy.” Maddox poured sugar into his coffee. “To be honest, I’d probably want to kill Elizabeth, too.”
A scream exploded inside Seneca. Sympathize with the guy? She couldn’t believe what was coming out of their mouths. It was like they’d been brainwashed.
“Elizabeth Ivy, Sadie Sage, it seems like there’s a pattern,” Madison mused. “Were they part of a song, or maybe characters on Sesame Street?”
“Let’s hope not,” Maddox said. “A demonic woman using cute little Sesame Street characters as her aliases?” He shuddered. “Her victims must be living a nightmare.”
That was it. Seneca slammed her water glass on the table, liquid spilling over the side. Everyone looked up in alarm. “Oh, so now we feel bad for Brett, is that it?”
Maddox shook his head. “I was thinking about Sadie. If she did that stuff to Brett, she’s probably doing it to Damien, too.”
“Yeah, but you care about him now.” Seneca’s voice was shaking. “Admit it. You feel bad for the guy. That’s why you said we’d help him with finding Sadie even after he gave Aerin back. You actually want to help him.”
Maddox held up his hands in a whoa gesture. “I said that because I thought it would keep Brett talking, Seneca. And like maybe he’d see what he was doing and return Aerin to us. This doesn’t mean I like Brett. I’m just processing this new side of him.”
Seneca was seeing stars. “There is no new side to Brett, and there’s no reason to process his feelings! This is still the man who killed Aerin’s sister and my mother and is now holding our friend captive!” She narrowed her eyes. “Are you next going to tell me that if we have the chance to capture Brett, you’re going to let him go? Because the poor guy has been through enough already?”
“Seneca, that’s not—”
Seneca waved her hand to stop him. “You can’t let anything Brett tells you interfere with who he is and what he’s done. If you feel like you can’t handle that, maybe that’s something we should discuss.”
Madison touched her arm. “Hey. You know I want Aerin back more than anything. That’s not what we’re saying. We still know Brett’s awful. We’re just talking, okay? Trying to understand.”
The waitress reappeared, ready to take their orders. All of a sudden, Seneca felt claustrophobic in the sticky vinyl booth. She stood, wriggled around Madison, and headed for the door. “I’m not hungry anymore.”
Outside, the sky was gloomy. Across the street, in a vacant lot, a bunch of wild turkeys pecked and clucked. Seneca wandered out of the parking lot and into a neighboring empty playground, plopping down on one of the swings. She knew she should be happy that they’d finally figured out who Brett was and what he was all about. And she wasn’t totally heartless—his story was sad. It tugged at her, too.
But that bothered her. She didn’t want there to be meaning to Brett’s actions. She would have been happier if Brett had chosen the Damien case at random, not because it was connected to his dark, tragic past. She didn’t want to feel anything for Brett except blind, vengeful hatred; she didn’t want to imagine him as a scared little kid, not unlike Damien, actually, locked up by a madwoman. He had done unspeakable things, and that was what she needed to focus on. Sure, he could blame his actions on a horrific past…but a lot of other people went through awful things and didn’t grow up to be murderers. Why didn’t Maddox understand that? Why was he trying to be so objective?
The door to the diner jingled, and Seneca looked over. Madison walked across the lawn and dropped into one of the swings next to her. “In case you were wondering, Thomas’s MRI was clean. He doesn’t have a concussion. His burns aren’t that serious, either. He’ll probably be able to get out in a few days.”
Seneca gripped the rusty swing’s chains. She’d actually forgotten Thomas was still on the phone, hearing her outburst. “And are you also out here to tell me I was out of line with Maddox?”
Madison started to swing higher, her untied shoelace flapping. The swings were the type that groaned at the slightest movement. “Nah. He’s okay. He understands where you’re coming from.”
“Does he, though?”
Madison gave her a look. “Uh, yeah, Seneca. Believe it or not, Maddox and Brett aren’t BFFs. He still understands the guy’s a psychopath.”
Seneca swallowed hard. But I want him to be as angry as I am, she thought to herself. I want all of you to feel exactly how I feel.
“But for what it’s worth?” Madison said. “I’m going through some frustrating stuff, too.”
Seneca gave her a quizzical look. Madison, frustrated? She seemed so straightforward, so well adjusted. “What do you mean?”
Madison dug her toe into the mulch to stop swinging. “It’s kind of stupid. I’ve tried to tell my cheerleading teammates I’m doing important stuff, and that’s why I’m not at summer practice. But just now I got a text where they’re like, You’re not dedicated. Maybe you don’t have the heart to be captain.” She rolled her eyes. “I know it barely compares to the stuff you’re going through, but it still sucks.”
“Oh. That does suck.” Seneca breathed out. A plane soared across the sky. She watched it until it disappeared behind a highway overpass. It hadn’t occurred to her that all of them were giving something up to be here. It also made her feel bad because, although she’d been by Madison’s side all week, leaning on her, utilizing her, she didn’t feel like she actually knew her well. That should change.
Maybe her whole attitude should change. There was no use squabbling with the others. It was probably what Brett wanted: for them to splinter, with some of them siding with his plight, and others—like her—hardening even further…and lose sight of their goal.
Well. She wasn’t going to fall prey to Brett’s schemes. They were running out of time.
She straightened up. “We need to make this worth your while, then. Imagine the looks on those cheerleading bitches’ faces when they find out you solved a major cold case—and saved Aerin.”
Madison tossed her ponytail over her shoulder. “I’ll be the Wonder Woman of the team.”
“Totally.” Seneca gripped the swing’s chains hard. “That thin
g Brett said about keeping Viola out of this was interesting. Maybe she isn’t part of this scheme—or at least not Sadie.”
“I think you’re right.”
“If only we could reach her. Maybe Brett wants to leave her out of this because she knows where he’s hiding out.”
“Still nothing from RedBird?”
Seneca pulled out her phone for the millionth time, expecting the same result, but to her surprise, there was a PDF from RedBird in her inbox. She let out a happy cry. The PDF was a record of all of the phone calls made from the number attached to Brett-as-Gabriel’s condo in Avignon over the past month.
“Whoa,” Seneca whispered, showing Madison after she opened the file. Her eyes boggled at the long list.
“Huh. It seems like it’s all businesses.” Madison pointed to line after line of 1-800 numbers. She dialed the first number on the list, and when someone answered, she burst out laughing. “It’s a psychic hotline!”
“I just got the weather forecast for Alaska,” Seneca said, puzzled.
They called customer service lines for Lowes, Amtrak trains, and several numbers that were now disconnected or didn’t have weekend customer service support. Why on earth would Brett call these numbers? “Maybe Viola works at one of these places?” Seneca wondered aloud. “Maybe that’s how Brett reaches her?”
“Usually when you call a 1-800 number, you get a random person,” Madison said.
“Did you guys notice there are wild turkeys across the street?”
Seneca looked up. Maddox stood over them, his hands shoved into his pockets. She cut her gaze away, feeling sheepish at her outburst in the diner. It seemed easier just to brush over what happened than acknowledge it, though. “We finally got the call list for Brett’s phone line in the condo.” She showed him the PDF. “One of these numbers has to be Viola’s. We’re thinking maybe she works at one of these businesses.”
“I’ll help,” Maddox said. His hand brushed Seneca’s wrist as he leaned in to check the screen, but he quickly pulled away. He was being careful with her. He probably thought she was going to blow up again.