Taking the kitchen knife, George cut at the tape around his wrists and ankles. With his shaky hands, he was so afraid he might nick him, but he didn’t. Once free, Jody threw his arms around him. George could feel that he’d sweated through his shirt.
He whispered in Jody’s ear again. “I want you to jump out the window and run to Brad’s house. He’s waiting for you.”
Jody shook his head. “I’m not leaving you guys….” Heclimbed off the bed. But his legs must have fallen asleep, because they suddenly buckled underneath him. George caught him before he tripped, and then he helped his son to the window. “I’ll be okay, Dad,” Jody whispered. But he still leaned on him. “Don’t ask me to run out on you guys. I want to help….”
George hesitated. “All right, you wait outside here. I’ll lower Steffie down to you in a few minutes. Then take her to Brad’s. I’ll get Jessie out, and we’ll meet you there. Understand?”
Jody nodded. “I love you, Dad.”
Giving him a kiss on the forehead, George helped him out the window, and then down to the patio chair. From there, Jody hopped to the ground. But his legs gave out on him again, and he stumbled, like a paratrooper landing. Jody seemed to roll with it. He quickly pulled himself up and nodded at his father again.
Moving to the bedroom door, George peeked toward the kitchen. The young man stood in front of Jessie, holding both phones again, one to his own ear, one to Jessie’s. “George, this is Jessie,” she was saying into the kitchen extension. “Are you there? Pick up…”
George darted down the hall to Stephanie’s room. He saw that she’d wet herself, and it incensed him. He just wanted to kill that smug bastard for doing this to his children. He took a few breaths, then moved toward Steffie’s bed. She seemed to be sleeping.
As George started to bend over her, Stephanie suddenly gaped up at him and tried to cry out. “Quiet, sweetie,” he whispered in her ear. “Please, hush. I’m going to cut you loose and take you into Jody’s room. But you mustn’t make a sound.”
George paused for a moment. Jessie had stopped talking. He heard footsteps. The young man was coming toward the children’s bedrooms.
Creeping back to Stephanie’s door, George stood with his back to the wall. He had the knife ready.
It sounded like the man had stepped into Jody’s room, but George wasn’t sure. He glanced over at Stephanie and put his finger over his lips.
Wide-eyed, she stared at him and suddenly became very still. Then a shadow swept over her. She knew enough to look away from her father-and at the man standing in her doorway.
George remained perfectly still.
The shadow moved away, and the footsteps retreated. The young man was headed toward the living room now. George heard a click, like a door opening or closing.
He hurried back to Stephanie. He gingerly cut the tape around her little wrists and ankles, and then lifted her off the bed. It seemed cruel, but he kept the tape over her mouth for now. He couldn’t risk her crying out again as he smuggled her into Jody’s room. Carrying her out to the hallway, he stroked her hair.
He didn’t hear anyone talking in the kitchen. Peering around the corner, he saw only Jessie. Tied to the kitchen chair, she struggled with the tape binding her wrists in back of her, but to no avail. George wondered where the hell the man with the sunglasses had gone.
Ducking into Jody’s room, he carried Steffie to the window. He looked outside, and his heart sank. Jody wasn’t there.
Whimpering, Stephanie clung to him. He couldn’t drop her out the window. It was too high for her, and she was terrified.
Suddenly, the kitchen door slammed.
George swiveled around. He skulked back to Jody’s bedroom doorway and glanced toward the kitchen again. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe. It was as if someone had just punched him in the gut.
He saw the young man holding Jody up by his back collar. Blood trickled from a gash on the corner of Jody’s forehead. He seemed dazed, barely able to stand. The young man pressed a gun to his ear.
George was paralyzed.
Even with those dark glasses on, it was obvious the man was staring right at him. “Hi, Daddy,” he said. “Look who was trying to run away. I think I heard his skull crack when I hit the little bastard.” He smirked. “So, do I get a reward for finding him?”
A flat-edged shovel was wedged under the handle of the fallout shelter door.
That big, heavy door muffled Amelia’s voice. “Who’s out there? Karen? Please, somebody…”
With her hands tied behind her, Karen stood in the Faradays’ cold, clammy cellar. Among the clutter, there was a washer and dryer pushed against the wall, a bicycle, and some boating equipment. Karen noticed a drain in the middle of the concrete floor, and cobwebs on the exposed pipes running along the low ceiling.
Annabelle kicked the shovel aside, and it hit the floor with a loud clang. On the other side of the door, Amelia suddenly fell silent.
Karen felt woozy from the blow to her head earlier, but she fought the nausea and dizziness. She furtively pulled at the cord around her wrists while Annabelle was busy with the door. The hinges groaned as she opened it.
Amelia stood by a cot in the grimy little room. Her hair had been cut in a short shag style identical to her sister’s. Despite the blanket wrapped around her, she was trembling. She wore the same T-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms she’d had on last night. In her hand, she held a jagged piece of glass. Dumbstruck, she stared at Annabelle.
For a moment, neither one said a thing.
“Are you going to pretend you don’t know me?” Annabelle asked finally.
Amelia slowly shook her head. Clearly, she couldn’t comprehend what she was seeing. She didn’t move.
Karen kept tugging at the cord around her wrists. The skin there started to chafe and burn.
“Tell her who I am, Karen!” Annabelle barked. She suddenly grabbed Karen’s arm and jerked her forward.
“Amelia…. honey, this is your twin sister, Annabelle,” she said carefully. “You haven’t seen her since you were four, not since before the Faradays adopted you. Do you-do you recall telling me that you often talked into the mirror when you were a little girl? You-”
“You have to remember me,” Annabelle cut in, her voice choked with emotion. “Just look at me, Amelia. I’m your sister, your real sister. Those others, they weren’t your real family.”
Amelia stared at her. “My God, you killed them, didn’t you?” she whispered.
Annabelle let go of Karen’s arm. “I did it to bring us closer together,” she said. “You needed to feel what it’s like to have absolutely no one. That’s what happened to me after you left, after you forgot about me. You need to feel that firsthand, so we can be the same again.”
Karen edged back from her again. She kept pulling at the binding around her wrists. She felt it loosening.
“You killed my parents,” Amelia whispered, squinting at her twin, “and Collin and Aunt Ina….” She still had the piece of glass in her shaky grasp, as if ready to strike. “I felt it when you killed them. I thought it was me….”
“I’m closer to you than any of them ever were,” Annabelle said. “And we can be sisters again, Amelia. We’ll be there for each other. You really don’t have a choice. There’s no one left.”
“My God,” Amelia whispered, tears in her eyes. “You shot Shane, too. In a boat. I saw it. I thought it was a nightmare. Oh, Jesus, he’s dead, isn’t he?”
Annabelle nodded. “I had to. It makes us closer. My boyfriend will die tonight, too. It’s one more thing we’ll share. We don’t need them if we have each other. Don’t you see?”
Suddenly, she grabbed Karen again, and yanked her toward the fallout shelter doorway. Karen stumbled onto the dirty, concrete floor. Annabelle pulled her up by her hair.
“Stop that!” Amelia cried. “Stop hurting her!”
“Karen, make her understand!”
Trembling, she knelt in the doorway. She frantically t
ugged at the cord around her wrist. She could almost squeeze her hand past the knot. “Your sister wants you to start someplace new with her. She killed that police detective. The police think you did it. They’ll probably blame you for my death, too. Annabelle’s making it so you have no one else to turn to except her.”
Annabelle rolled back her sleeve and pressed the revolver to Karen’s head. “And I’ll look after you, Amelia, I promise,” she said. “I’ve forgiven you for turning your back on me. You’ll forgive me, too. You’ll have to. I’m the only family or friend you have left.”
Tears streaming down her face, Amelia stared at her twin sister. “That mark on the back of your wrist,” she murmured. “I felt it when that happened. Someone burned you….”
“Our father put a lit cigar out on me. You felt it, too?”
Amelia nodded.
“See?” Annabelle said, with a tiny smile. “We feel each other’s pain.”
Karen tried not to squirm as the cord scraped a layer of skin off her knuckles. Still, at last her hands were free. But she kept both hands clasped in back of her. The cord dangled off one wrist.
“Please, Annabelle, put the gun down,” Amelia said, finally. “You don’t have to do this. Let her go. Karen’s my friend.”
“I know she’s your friend,” Annabelle whispered, nodding. “That’s exactly why she has to die.”
“Wait. Look at me,” Amelia said, imploring her. “Do you really feel what I’m feeling right now?”
Annabelle nodded.
“Okay,” she said. Then she slashed the piece of glass across her own hand.
Annabelle let out a shriek. The gun flew out of her grasp.
It happened so fast, Karen wasn’t sure if Annabelle had dropped the gun in a moment of panic or if she had actually felt the glass, too. Karen only knew that the revolver dropped on the floor right in front of her. She dove on it.
All at once, Annabelle was on top of her, frantically clawing at her, struggling to retrieve the weapon. Karen fought back. She wouldn’t let go of the revolver. With her elbow, she smacked Annabelle on the side of her head, but the young woman was relentless. She tugged at the revolver and scratched at Karen’s hands. Suddenly the gun went off.
An earsplitting shot echoed in the tiny gray room.
Jody went limp and fell to the kitchen floor at the man’s feet.
George quickly put Stephanie down and started toward his son.
“No way!” the man said in a loud voice, glaring at him from behind the dark glasses. He had his.45 trained on Jody’s crumpled body. “First you show me the safe, then you can tend to the kiddies.”
Crouching down, George carefully pried the duct tape from Stephanie’s mouth. He watched her eyes tear up with the pain. Once he pulled the tape off, she gasped for air, and then started crying. She threw her arms around his neck. “Daddy, Daddy…” was all she could say.
The young man grabbed Jody by the collar, then dragged him across the kitchen floor as if he were a bag of laundry. Then he dumped him at Jessie’s feet. George could see Jody was still breathing. But he was afraid his son might have a concussion.
“We need to get him to a doctor,” Jessie said.
“Shut the fuck up!” the man snapped. He turned to George, and pointed the gun at him. “I want to see where this safe is,” he said. “C’mon, show me, and bring the little brat with you.”
“It’s in the living room,” George lied. He took one more look at Jody, still breathing, but not moving a muscle. The blood from the gash on his forehead had trickled down to his jaw.
“Where in the living room?” the man pressed. “I’ve been all over this dump.”
“Around this corner,” George said, shielding Stephanie’s eyes from the sight of Mrs. Bidwell’s corpse on the sofa. Steffie cried softly. Her whole body was trembling. George patted her on the back. “When I say go, run as fast as you can out the front door,” he whispered. “When I say go. Okay, honey?”
She sniffed, then nodded her head.
“Good girl,” George said under his breath.
“So where is it, man?”
George nodded to an antique oval mirror on the living room wall. It was 24 by 18 inches, with a very ornate, pounded-tin frame.
“The mirror?” the young man said. “Shit, I already looked behind there, asshole.”
“Well, then you weren’t looking very carefully,” George replied.
“Show me.”
George patted Steffie on the back again. “I need to put you down for a minute, sweetie,” he said, setting her on her feet. “Be a good girl, and remember what I told you.”
Stephanie clung to his leg.
Swallowing hard, George reached for the mirror on the wall. “The money’s not in the wall, it’s in the back of the mirror,” he lied. He glanced back at the man with the sunglasses, and then lifted the mirror off the wall. It was lighter than it looked, only a few pounds. “There’s about six thousand dollars back here, sort of an emergency fund. It’s yours. Just take it and go. Do you hear me? Just go!”
All at once, Stephanie scurried toward the front door.
The young man turned his gun on her.
He didn’t see that behind the mirror frame, there was nothing. He didn’t see George swinging the mirror at him with all his might.
A shot rang out. The young man howled in pain as George hit him in the face with the mirror. There was an explosion of glass.
Squeezing his eyes shut, George turned his head away for a second.
When he opened his eyes again, Stephanie was gone, and the front door was open. The.45 lay on the carpet amid shards of reflective glass.
In a stupor, the young man stared at George. His sunglasses had been knocked off his face. His eyes were listless. Blood dripped from several little bits of broken mirrored glass embedded in his face. One large piece was stuck in his neck. In a daze, he pried it out. Blood gushed from the fatal wound, cascading down the front of his white shirt, tie, and the shiny black jacket.
He remained standing, looking stunned.
George heard the sirens from police cars coming up the street. He realized Jody’s friend, Brad, must have called the police. The searchlights and beams from the red strobes poured through the windows. For a few seconds, the same light danced off the mirrored fragments in the young man’s face.
Then he collapsed dead on the floor.
Through the sheer window curtains, George could see four police cars pulling in front of the house. One policeman ran across the yard and scooped up Stephanie.
George started toward the kitchen, and stopped dead.
His forehead still bleeding, Jody stood near the kitchen counter with a tired smile on his face. He staggered toward his father, and threw his arms around him.
Dazed, George embraced his son. He glanced over at Jessie, a bit unsteady on her feet, slowly making her way into the living room. George realized Jody must have untied her. He kissed the top of Jody’s head. “God, you-you sure had me fooled,” he murmured. “I thought you were practically dead.”
“Me, too,” Jody said, with a weak laugh.
“We still need to get you to a doctor,” George said. With an arm around his son, George dug the cell phone out of his pocket. He checked for messages. There were two Jessie had left on the home phone and two more from that sheriff in Salem. No one else.
“Are you calling Karen?” Jessie asked.
He nodded. “It’s been nearly two hours.”
It rang and rang. No one picked up. It didn’t even go to her voice mail.
Jessie gave him an apprehensive look. He just shook his head at her.
When he’d last talked to Karen, she’d been on her way to meet Amelia at the restaurant near the lake house.
George stayed on the line. He didn’t want to hang up just yet, not even as the three of them started toward the front door.
Jessie paused for a moment and looked down at something on the carpet amid the mirrored fragments. Frow
ning, she kicked it out of her way and then moved on.
The bent, broken sunglasses skittered across the floor.
Chapter Twenty-five
Breathless, Karen ran along the water’s edge.
Her head was still throbbing, and her lungs burned, but she pressed on toward Helene Sumner’s house. She could see the lights on inside her cottage farther up the beach.
She’d left Annabelle Schlessinger in that grimy, little fallout shelter with a bullet in her stomach. Annabelle’s black knit top had been soaked with blood by the time Amelia had staggered back down to the cellar with several dishtowels from the kitchen. They’d managed to move Annabelle to the cot, and pulled off her blood-sodden sweater. Karen had told her to lie still and keep the towels pressed against the wound.
But Annabelle wouldn’t stop screaming and squirming. Her shrill cries echoed off the walls of the little gray chamber. Her legs were curled up toward her stomach as if some shifting in her organs had locked them there. Pale and trembling, she seemed very afraid. “Don’t let me die in here!” she cried several times. She’d lost a lot of blood, and Karen noticed her breathing was shallow. She wasn’t sure about her chances. At the same time, she couldn’t help wondering if Annabelle was stronger than she let on. Was it an act to throw them off guard?
Karen remembered something Naomi Rankin had told her about Annabelle always being the weaker twin. Amelia was the stronger one.
The cut across the palm of Amelia’s hand wasn’t too deep. Karen wrapped a wet dishtowel around her hand to slow the bleeding. Amelia admitted the searing pain in her stomach-exactly where her sister had been shot-was far more severe.
She promised to look after her twin sister. “Helene Sumner’s house is closer than Danny’s Diner,” she told Karen, catching her breath as they paused in the fallout shelter’s doorway. “You’re better off calling the paramedics from there.”
Furtively, Karen tried to pass the revolver to her, but Amelia shook her head. “I won’t need it,” Amelia whispered. “She won’t try anything.”
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