Once Two Sisters

by Sarah Warburton

  “But why would she take Ava?”

  My mother blanches, whispering, “Because she’s angry.”

  Glenn leans down. “What’s she going to do?”

  But my mother only shakes her head.

  Standing up, my father says, “I think we should share this information with the authorities. Cristina had a tendency to be … overzealous.”

  I’m still reeling. Ava could be afraid, tortured, in danger. Then I realize what he said. He wants to talk to the police.

  My mother looks as skeptical as I feel. “What information? That Zoe—their primary suspect—broke into a home, stole evidence, evaded arrest, and thinks that maybe there might be a slight connection to work we did decades ago … all based on a few scraps of paper and an interview that—I’m guessing—would be inadmissible in court?”

  With a small nod to acknowledge her point—because after all, they’re just positing and testing a theory—my father says, “Understood. But what’s the alternative? Zoe and Glenn go off on a wild-goose chase? Even if they were to find Ava, even if she’s being held against her will, how are they equipped to bring her back?”

  I say, “That’s the time we’d call the police. Once we know where she is.”

  My parents lean toward each other as if I hadn’t even spoken. “Perhaps,” my mother says, “this is the time to hire a professional. I think we both agree that the police are ill equipped to—”

  A knock at the door cuts her short.

  My breath catches. Another delivery person? Other than that, no one comes to my parents’ house. Did they call the police somehow? But no, they appear just as startled as I am.

  “Don’t answer it,” my father says decisively. “We’re not expecting anyone.”

  As if to argue, the pounding gets louder, and the doorbell buzzes.

  “Ava.” My mother stands up, letting her glasses fall to the floor. “It’s about Ava.”

  It’s the cops. They’ve found me. Or—and my buzz of adrenaline runs cold—it’s a death notification. They’ve found my sister too late. I barely register rising to my feet.

  My mother hurries to the door in an awkward gait, almost a run. My father stands, but he doesn’t follow her. His hands clutch at each other and he looks at me. “Zoe,” he says, “you should go into the kitchen. Just in case.”

  He’s saying that I’m wanted by the police, but he’s implying he wouldn’t turn me in. This is the first time I’ve felt like my dad’s protecting me, that he might actually care.

  Shaking off Glenn’s hand, I shrink back so I won’t be visible from the hallway, but not before I see my mother is opening the door to two figures silhouetted against the fading daylight.

  “Mrs. Hallett? Did you know your son-in-law was involved with both your daughters?”

  Reporters. Did a neighbor call them when we showed up, or is this just terrible luck?

  They’re still shouting—“Do you know where Zoe is? Do you think Ava’s alive?”—when my mother slams the door shut with more force than I thought possible.

  She pivots to face me. She’s ghastly pale and the corners of her eyes are drooping. “Are you okay?”

  I don’t know how to answer. The reporters are just on the other side of the door, ready to strip my bones and declare me the villain. And if they know Glenn’s here, they’ll never leave. They can’t get a picture of us. Not another one.

  Glenn says, “I’m going to check the back of the house.” He disappears into the kitchen.

  I join Mom in the entryway and Dad comes with me, his breathing as rapid as if he’d been running. Something else I never imagined seeing. He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket, one of the cotton ones he sends out with his shirts every week to be cleaned and pressed, and dabs his forehead. “This isn’t what I expected.”

  Does he mean from me? Or to happen this afternoon? But whatever he meant doesn’t matter, because he sticks out a hand and, like someone touching an exotic animal, pats me twice on my arm.

  He clears his throat and then says, “So, you have some sort of plan?”

  I’m still reeling from his attempt to express concern. “Yes. I mean, sort of.”

  My mother says, “If they think Ava’s being held in James’ old cabin, the logical way to find it would be to ask his son. The one they just interviewed.”

  And she’s right. “That’s the plan,” I agree. We’ll track down Steven Spiegler again. And this time I won’t be stupid or blow my chance. I’ll get every answer we need.

  Mom studies my face, and I see unfamiliar uncertainty in her gaze. “Zoe, if your theory is correct, if Cristina has anything to do with this, it could be said that my actions contributed …”

  Does my mother feel guilty? If so, it’s the first emotion we’ve ever shared. But I have to be honest, and there’s no way Dad or Mom would have hurt us on purpose. Even after my years of rage, even after I ran away, they still took me home. Because as awful as they are at parenting, they have always tried to follow the letter of the law, if not the spirit. “No, Mom, this isn’t your fault.”

  She shakes her head a little, unconvinced, and her eyes don’t leave mine. “I can’t … I mean, it’s such a loaded word, with cultural associations and …”

  I don’t understand what she’s trying to say, but this time I don’t feel stupid. She’s not being clear or precise like usual. She’s struggling.

  Moving as stiffly as a marionette, my mother gives me a swift hug. It’s unyielding, but her gray bob brushes my cheek like a kiss. “I’m your mother,” she whispers, overenunciating the word. “I’m trying.”

  And before I can recover, my father steps in and I’m pulled close and then released, the scent of soap and starch lingering longer than the hug itself lasted.

  Glenn calls, “If we run, maybe we can get out through the back.”

  “Be careful,” my mom says. “Your father and I will make a distraction.”

  I say, “I’ll call you with the address, when we get it. Then you can send the police after us. They might not believe what we think happened, but maybe they’ll come after me and Glenn.”

  My mother nods. “Please be careful.”

  I nod, hesitating in front of these strange new parents.

  And then I run.

  CHAPTER

  28

  ZOE

  I CAN’T EVEN IMAGINE what my mother means by “a distraction,” but Glenn and I creep out through the back door. Unlike Ava, my parents haven’t planted a charming herb garden or arranged wrought-iron furniture and glass gazing balls. This backyard is a boring rectangle of green grass, and we’re trapped here by an eight-foot red-cedar privacy fence.

  We can’t just burst through and sprint down the block to Glenn’s car, because the gate opens on the front lawn. Hello, reporters. Our only chance is to jump the fence into the yard behind us. Then we’ll be one street over, and if we run, we might just get away. But climbing the fence will make us visible. We don’t even want to speak, because the reporters might hear us.

  Glenn meets my eye and indicates with a jerk of his head that he’s ready.

  The fence has only two horizontal rails, one right at the bottom and one at the top, nothing we can use to scale it, but at least there aren’t any points or spikes. Through two of the slats, I can make out something in the yard behind us … a trash can.

  Glenn sees it too. “If one of us got over and threw that back …”

  But how can we do that without drawing any attention?

  Then the world fills with sound. The initial blare of the siren terrifies me. Is it the police? But no, it’s coming from my parents’ house. They’ve triggered the security system. And there’s a secondary sound, a car alarm. On top of that, I hear my mother’s stern voice, not shouting, not exactly, but cutting through the din around her. “Go on! Get off my property! Do you hear me?”

  Glenn makes a stirrup with his hands, and I step into it without hesitation. As he raises me up, the sprinkler system hisses on, a
nd sprays of water rise while I scramble over the top of the fence.

  I land heavily, but immediately wrap my arms around the trash can, using my knees to lift it up. Struggling, I push it up the fence, using my shoulder when I can, pressing it up and up until the weight is gone and it falls into my parents’ yard. From the shouting, I guess the reporters are too busy trying to stay dry to notice.

  In a breath, Glenn is up and over, hitting the ground with a grunt. And we are off, sprinting to the gate. I barely notice the elderly woman opening her back door, her gaping mouth already a fading memory as we hit the street, Glenn’s car in our sights.

  Once we’re safe inside, we both start laughing, all the fear and the tension spilling out in near hysteria. Glenn passes me his phone. “Guess you better search for Spiegler again.”

  “Spiegler Junior.” My giggles subside as Glenn starts the car, carefully heading away from my parents’ house and the mob of reporters. “Hey,” I say to him. “Thanks.”

  He squints at me from the corner of his eye. “Just trying to find my wife.”

  “Me too.” I lean over the phone. What I want to say is that I forgive him for not choosing me. Hell, I’m kind of grateful. If Glenn and I had stayed together, there would have been no Andrew for me, no Emma. I would always have been angry and guilty, the girl who’d stolen her sister’s man. That guilt would have poisoned my future. And I didn’t love Glenn, not the kind of healing, supportive, forever love I feel for Andrew. The only thing I was good at was self-sabotage, and Glenn was just another example.

  “I need her to be okay,” he says softly.

  “Me too.” Ava is my way out from under the mess I’ve made. She’s my chance at a fresh start with Andrew and Emma, if I can convince him to give me one. But despite the terror and longing of that desire, I know finding Ava is about even more than my future. It’s about our past.

  No matter how far apart we’ve grown, no matter how different I thought we were, she and I are bonded, the only two creatures in the world raised in an environment created by my parents. We share more than blood. We share a history of nights huddled under the same blanket, whispered stories and secret glances, an understanding that the world shouldn’t be like this.

  And maybe it’s good she knows I made it out. That piece of paper with my Texas address on it could be a sign she still cares somehow. I want to show her my life is different, and to know hers is too. We were formed by where we came from, but it doesn’t have to determine our future.

  Not if I find her in time.

  * * *

  AVA

  I’m all alone. No one’s coming. There’s no one to see me release my grip on the metal cage, my fingers cold and sore from gripping it so tightly. No one sees me sink down to the floor, wrap my arms around my knees, and sob. This is not who I am, not someone I’d let anyone see. I cry to myself, I hug myself. And the whole time I know Beckett’s even worse off. Against my closed eyelids I can see him bound to the chair, writhing in pain.

  Time passes in a haze of fear and regret. Maybe I should have spent the hours making peace with my past, but all I can think is that I need more time. Time to embrace Glenn, time to forgive Beckett, time to learn who Zoe is now and what being sisters could really mean. Once there were two sisters, separated from each other by a vast and thorny wilderness, who were never reunited.

  I’m still groggy when Phil comes back into the room, the cattle prod in his hand. Something inside whispers to me You’re getting what you deserve as he pulls me back out of the cage and zip-ties my hands behind me. “Can I put my shoes on?” I ask, and then, “Where’s Cristina?” but he acts like I’ve said nothing.

  When he shoves me through the door into a narrow stairwell, he keeps a firm grip on my two hands bound together behind my back. While it’s true I could wriggle out of these bonds, I can’t very well do it while being shocked by a cattle prod.

  I might have earned everything that’s happening, but I’m no martyr either, walking placidly to my doom—no, resistance keeps building and building inside me. Every time my shoulders strain or I feel discomfort in my wrists, I want to step through the loop of my arms and snap the zip ties like I did before.

  Then I remember Beckett, and I choke that desire back down.

  Phil opens another door and shoves me through; then I understand why he’s holding so tightly to me. We’re in the hollow shaft for the missile. I’m standing on a metal walkway edged with a thin railing that encircles a terrifying abyss, a column of pure nothingness. The light from the room behind us isn’t bright enough to see the opposite wall, so all I can see is the railing and darkness. My feet make the metal grating groan, and it echoes again and again above and below us.

  He moves me along the metal walk, away from the doorway. “Keep going.”

  I shake him off. “Where’s Beckett?” On the screen he’d been in a small room, nothing like this.

  The cattle prod pokes me hard, but Phil hasn’t powered it up. I slip in my stockinged feet, stumbling forward until I feel the railing press under my ribs like a Heimlich before he yanks me back by my bound hands. “Just go slowly.”

  My whole body is humming with the shock of cold air rushing up and over my face. Phil gives me a little shake, his nails digging into my arms. “Move.”

  I slide my feet out one at a time, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, but they never do.

  We go only a few feet before he stops me. “Right here.”

  Phil releases me, and for a moment I stand alone in the dark. I know I could rush at the railing and throw myself over. I could, but that’s how stubborn hope is. Even when it’s clear I can’t escape any other way, I just can’t force myself to die.

  Suddenly harsh light floods over me, and I flinch, unable to tell if it’s a spotlight or a desk lamp, but blinding white is all I can see and my assaulted eyes sting.

  After the seconds it takes for my vision to adjust, I see the railing runs in a circle around a shaft about fifty feet across, and on the opposite side is a hooded figure who looks like he’s standing in space. Squinting against the harsh light, I see that the figure is tied to the outside of the railing, hanging over the abyss.

  All the terror I couldn’t feel for myself swamps my senses. My head and stomach spin as though I were the one hanging there, helpless. All at once I know this is what they’re going to do to me. “Beckett,” I whisper, and the hooded head jerks upright, as if looking for me. Maybe this figure is too short to be Beckett, maybe my desperate mind is grasping for nonexistent proof it isn’t, couldn’t be, him, but between the darkness of the abyss and my own panic, I can’t tell.

  “Why are you doing this?” I choke.

  Phil grabs the back of my neck. “Forward,” he says.

  We start walking again, making our way around the perimeter. I swear I can feel a breeze rising up from the darkness that laps at the edge of the metal walkway, and a chill tendril snakes around my ankles.

  As we approach the hooded figure, I want to break free and rush to help. Now that I’m closer, the figure does look smaller than Beckett, and the clothes, silky black trousers and a fitted T-shirt, look feminine. They look, I realize with a chill, like my own.

  “You feel sorry for him?” Phil sounds mildly curious. “You want to save him?”

  Even through my confusion, I can’t control the “Yes” that escapes my lips like a sigh.

  “Would you take his place?”

  I stumble, my feet giving the answer I’m too proud to say. I do feel sorry for Beckett or whoever this figure is, but I would do anything not to hang over that abyss. Even falling into it would be preferable to being suspended, helpless.

  We are standing a couple of feet away now, and I have just enough time to notice how thin the figure seems, much smaller than Beckett, surely, before a chill needle pierces my neck. I sink to my knees, reaching for anything to hold me up, but darkness overwhelms my consciousness.

  * * *

  I snap from oblivion
to discomfort in the same second. My arms are now fastened separately, one out to each side, my shoulders pulled backward.

  Against my face I can feel a dank updraft, and I’m afraid to open my eyes, afraid I won’t see anything. I am standing on a surface and my ankles are also bound to something behind me, a cold metal rod. My eyes are still squeezed shut, like a child afraid of the dark. I am not a child, but I am afraid, so afraid. When I open my eyes, I see the infinite open space before me. No railing, no wall.

  I try to back up, to scramble away from the edge, but I am bound too tightly. The same restraints that keep me from falling to my death also keep me from retreating to safety. The void below me fills my head with a rush of vertigo. I wish I were unconscious again.

  From behind me, Cristina says, “I’m going to ask you some questions.”

  “Why are you doing this?” I cry.

  There is a light shining on the opposite wall, like the light from a projector without film. Craning my neck, I can see the beam comes from somewhere above me, but I can’t make out its point of origin. I catch Cristina’s movement in the edges of my vision, but I can’t really see her either.

  When she speaks, her voice is completely devoid of emotion. “Remember what I showed you on the computer? Now look straight ahead.”

  My whole body is shaking, shuddering, and only the bonds on my wrists and ankles hold me upright.

  A film suddenly appears projected in the square of light on the wall, like some kind of documentary made with a handheld camera. The image judders before settling down, so I can see Beckett sitting shirtless in a wooden chair, electrodes taped to his bare skin.

  The last time I resisted Cristina, I saw Beckett get shocked. Now I’m even less able to help him, but I’m so scared and disoriented, I forget to be smart. Horrified, I hear the words coming out of my mouth. “Your dad, he studied psychological interrogation, not torture. This isn’t real.”

  Cristina laughs, thin and cold. “My father isn’t here. Neither are your parents. This is real. Look at the wall. Do you believe that’s really Beckett?”