“Maybe there is,” Sydney said. “Calum and his dad are at an awards ceremony all night, remember?”
“Yeah, I also remember that Neddles Island is barricaded like Fort Knox,” Tenley replied.
“Except that I know the code to the gate,” Sydney shot back.
Sydney’s words made Tenley’s breath catch in her throat. “What did you just say?”
“I know the code,” Sydney repeated hurriedly. “Calum gave it to me a while ago, when I went over his house. That time I saw his dad’s upstairs office. It’s his mom’s name: Cassandra.”
“It’s risky,” Emerson said.
“Doing nothing is even riskier,” Tenley argued. “If we go to the cops without a real lead, then we’re just sitting ducks once again. This is our chance to finally end this.” Out of the corner of her eyes, Tenley saw Emerson nod.
The car’s tires screeched as Tenley made a U-turn toward Neddles Island. “I’ll meet you there,” Sydney said on the other end of the line.
“No.” Tenley gripped the wheel tightly, making the color flee from her knuckles. “We’re closer. And of all of us, you’re on the thinnest ice with the police. You stay at your place. We need someone to be our check-in call.”
She took a deep breath as she slammed on the gas pedal and accelerated toward Neddles Island.
There was an eerie perfection to the inside of the Bauer mansion. All the surfaces gleamed, the chandeliers glittered, and there wasn’t a single item out of place: no strewn couch cushions or dirty dishes in sight. Any evidence of last night’s party was gone. It made it seem as if no one lived there at all.
There had been a moment of panic on the bridge when Tenley had punched in Cassandra and the gate hadn’t opened. “He changed the password,” Tenley had moaned. “Of course he did.”
Emerson had tried to convince her it was a sign, but Tenley had refused to give up. She’d tried Calum, then Bauer. Finally, on the fourth try, she’d gotten it: Meryl. After that, getting into the house had been easy; apparently when your home was gated, it wasn’t necessary to lock the door. Now Tenley moved quietly through the house, wishing Emerson was with her. But someone needed to keep watch from the car.
She pulled her sweater over her hand before opening the door to the basement. She didn’t plan on leaving any fingerprints behind. The room loomed below her: a dark descent. She gripped the banister tightly and started down.
In the basement, it was too dark to see anything. Tenley’s breathing became shallow as she felt around for a light switch. Once she found it, the dim overhead light flickered on.
There were no computers, no high-tech equipment, no office paraphernalia at all.
Tenley looked around, confused. The room was filled with workout equipment. There was a treadmill, a rowing machine, a punching bag, and several racks of weights. The disappointment was crushing. Sam Bauer’s private office was a home gym?
She had just started picking her way toward the back of the room when a distant noise stopped her.
A car. She could hear the rattle of the Bauers’ one-lane bridge as the car trundled over it. She froze, listening hard. The car came to a stop. There was a pause, then the whine of the iron gate as it swung open. Tenley grabbed frantically for her phone. Where was Emerson? She was supposed to be keeping watch! Why hadn’t she warned her?
She had no missed calls or texts. Update??? she texted Emerson. She didn’t have time to wait for an answer. She could hear footsteps making their way down the driveway. They were hard, stomping footsteps—footsteps that definitely didn’t belong to Emerson. They drew rapidly closer, until they were climbing the deck to the house.
Tenley’s eyes flew to the basement door. It was hanging wide open. She heard footsteps upstairs advance inside. There was no time to make a run for it, or even to close the door. She had to hide. Her gaze landed on a closet in the corner of the room. It was her best shot.
She sprinted for it, clicking the door shut softly behind her. It was dark inside the closet, only a sliver of light stretching under the crack. A strange smell permeated the space, making Tenley wrinkle up her nose.
She could hear the footsteps working their way across the house upstairs. Slowly, her eyes adjusted to the darkness. The outline of coats and linens flickered in her vision. Her heart plunged as she noticed a small, furry form. She covered her mouth, trapping her scream inside. It was just a stuffed bear.
Above, the footsteps moved steadily toward the basement. If only she’d thought to turn off its light! But it was too late now. She slunk backward, trying to will herself into nothingness.
Her foot tangled with something on the ground. She grabbed wildly for the clothing rod, but she missed. Her phone slipped from her grip as she stumbled backward. She landed hard against the back wall. Pain shot down her arm and up her leg, but she was too numb to react to it, because the footsteps were louder, they were closer. They were right above. She was just about to grab a coat to hide under when she felt a strange buckling in the wall.
She twisted around. The wall looked normal. She shoved her palms against it and pushed. Nothing. The footsteps paused at the top of the basement stairs. “Hello?” The voice that reached the closet was muffled and unfamiliar, but there was no doubt: It was a man’s voice. “Someone down there?”
Tenley didn’t have time to think. She rammed her shoulder into the wall. Pain pulsed through her as it shifted under her weight, revealing a crack where it didn’t quite meet the carpeted floor.
Hope flowed through Tenley. She was in the basement; maybe behind the wall was the backyard! She dug her fingers into the crack and pulled. The space between the floor and the wall widened. There was that strange smell again, a little stronger now.
She could hear the footsteps moving down the stairs, growing louder every second. Adrenaline surged through her. She tugged harder, using her feet to gain momentum. The wall shuddered, then widened even more. The smell sharpened, a foul tickle in her nose. She hesitated for only an instant. Then she grabbed her phone and squeezed through the opening, into a well of blackness.
She pushed the wall back into place behind her as best as she could. It muted all sounds, making it difficult to hear where the footsteps were. She pushed blindly forward, the floor soft beneath her feet. Around her, the darkness seemed to wake, blackness so thick it came alive, twisting into shapes in the corner of her vision. She fumbled with her phone. Finally, she got the flashlight app on. She shone it over the space. Its thin beam was enough to see that she wasn’t outside.
She was in a room. The walls and ceiling were painted a deep red, and the floor was covered in matching red carpet. The room was windowless, but a window had been painted in white on the far wall, with real red curtains draped over it.
The realization hit her like a slap.
She was in a red basement. Red walls, red carpet, red curtains. Exactly like the room Caitlin had described from her kidnapping.
There was only a single piece of furniture in the room: an old bookshelf. She moved toward it as if in a dream. She could hear nothing but her own movements. Her heartbeat. Her ragged breaths. Her stumbling footsteps. Sitting on the middle shelf was a beautiful toy: a steel circus train. It was the train. The one Caitlin had remembered from her kidnapping. The one she’d drawn so meticulously in her journal.
They were right. It was Sam Bauer all along. Not just the dares, but the kidnapping, too. He’d held Caitlin captive in this hidden room, drugged her, and made her fear for her life.… Tenley hunched over, about to be sick.
Footsteps. The sound, dulled by the wall, crept closer.
Tenley straightened up. She had to get proof before it was too late. She aimed her phone at the train and snapped a photo. The flash was much too bright, but she kept going, photographing the walls and the curtains. The flash lit on something in the back corner. A lumpy pile of sheets.
Something crawled under Tenley’s skin, a warning. Don’t go there. But her limbs were deaf to the command. She
crept toward the sheets, her body moving as if of its own accord. And then she was there, only inches away. She held her phone up, shining the light over it. The material jutted out at sharp angles. It wasn’t a pile at all. It was a single sheet, with something hidden underneath it.
It all felt surreal. This hidden room with its red walls and its off smell: It was the stuff of stories, of nightmares. But then the sheet was in her hands and what she was staring down at was all too real.
It was a skeleton, slumped in a seated position against the wall. Tenley leaned over and vomited. Still, she couldn’t drag her eyes away. The skeleton was wearing a long yellow dress, and had a pretty linen napkin spread over its lap. An empty plate and fork sat next to it, as if it had just sat down for a meal. Even decomposed like that, Tenley could guess the body had once belonged to a woman.
She sagged to her knees, retching again. How long had this woman rotted away down here while life cycled on above, school and work and parties and love and meals? The room twisted around Tenley, a cesspool of red. She could hear her breath coming out high and heavy, and she wondered vaguely if she was hyperventilating, if soon she, too, would succumb to this room: another corpse to rot inside a cell of red.
A creak rang out behind Tenley. Someone had opened the closet door. She switched off her phone, using the darkness as a mask. The footsteps rang out again, directly behind the wall this time. Tenley pressed her hand into her mouth, trying to silence her breathing. If she didn’t move, didn’t even exist, maybe he would turn around.
Another step. Scenarios flashed through her mind. Sam drugging her as he’d drugged Caitlin. Sam propping her body up next to the woman’s. She’d be lost down here forever, and she’d never see her mom again, or Tim or Winslow or Emerson or Sydney. She’d never again take the walk to Great Harbor Beach or curl up in her bed or speed down Ocean Drive with the wind blowing through her hair. Her life, which had once seemed so big, suddenly shrank to bug-sized, small enough to squash.
The footsteps inched closer, so close she could hear the rustle of shoelaces. Tenley squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting Sam to be the last thing she saw.
Ding! The noise, sharp and high, drifted down from above.
The footsteps paused. The noise came through again, clearer this time. Ding-dong!
It was the doorbell.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sunday, 6:45 PM
Emerson jammed her thumb against the doorbell for the second time. “Come on,” she begged under her breath. “Answer.” When the SUV had rattled onto Neddles bridge a few minutes earlier, right past the bushes she was parked behind, there hadn’t been time to think, or plan, or even to text Tenley. She’d acted on instinct, leaping out of the car and slipping through the gate before it shut.
She’d stayed in the shadows, pressed up against the gate’s iron bars as Sam Bauer emerged from the car. He was bigger in person than she’d expected: tall and broad, with thick arms that made him look more wrestler than techie. His coloring was darker than Calum’s, but he had the same wild blond curls, impossible to miss. He’d stormed toward his house, muttering to himself. As soon as he’d disappeared inside, Emerson had raced across the front yard and rung the doorbell. She didn’t have a plan. All she knew was that she had to give Tenley time to escape.
Now Emerson shrank back at the sound of footsteps stomping up a flight of stairs, from somewhere deep inside the house. Sam must have gone straight for the basement. She half-expected him to appear dragging Tenley behind him, but when the door finally swung open, he was alone.
“Can I help you?” He looked curiously down at her. He was even larger up close. She waited for some sign of recognition—hey, here’s the girl I’ve been stalking!—but she found none.
“Is Calum home?” she asked quickly. It was the only excuse she could think of on the spot. She wondered if Tenley was still in the basement somewhere. She had to have heard the doorbell. If she distracted Sam long enough, she hoped it would give Tenley time to sneak out. “We’re doing a school project together and I think he has my notes—”
“How did you get through the gate?” Sam interrupted. He had a steady way of talking, with little inflection, making it impossible to gage his emotions.
“The gate?” The intensity of Sam’s gaze was making it difficult to think straight. “It, um… was open.”
“It closes automatically.” A wrinkle formed between Sam’s eyebrows. There was something unnerving about his focus, as if he could see through skin and bone, straight to the lies forming inside her head.
Emerson broke into a sweat. “I—it was open,” she repeated helplessly. Her voice was much too squeaky. There might as well have been a neon sign above her head, flashing liar.
Sam shook his head, but his gaze never left her face. “Well, Calum’s not home.” His tone made it clear the conversation was over. “I’d appreciate it if you would vacate the premises, before I’m forced to report you for trespassing.” He went to close the door.
“Wait!” Behind Sam, Emerson caught a flash of chestnut hair. She craned her neck. It was Tenley! She was tiptoeing through the living room, slowly making her way toward the back door in the kitchen. Her hair was mussed, and there was a wild look in her eyes. Stall, Tenley mouthed.
“I, uh, don’t have his number!” Emerson blurted out. “Can you give it to me?” She pulled out her phone and made a big show of opening up a new contact. “Calum,” she said loudly, taking her time typing in his name. “Okay.” She flashed Sam a quivering smile. Behind him, Tenley crept closer to the back door. “What’s his number?”
“Nine seven eight,” Sam recited impatiently. “Two eight one—”
“Wait, was that two nine one? Or two eight one?” Emerson cringed inwardly. But it was working. Tenley was almost at the door.
“Two eight one,” Sam snapped. “One five three—”
The last number was drowned out by a loud creak.
A muscle twitched in Sam’s jaw. Slowly, he turned around. Tenley stood immobile on the creaky floorboard by the back door. “Run!” Tenley yelled, making a leap for the door. Sam’s hand shot out behind him, clamping down on Emerson’s arm. She tried to yank away, but his grip was strong. His fingers dug down so hard she could feel them pressing against bone. They rubbed against one of her bruises from the fire, making her wince. “Your friend isn’t going anywhere,” he informed Tenley. “So I suggest you don’t, either.” Tenley froze, only an inch from the back door.
Sam pulled Emerson into the entryway with a hard tug. The movement knocked her phone out of her hands. It landed on the marble floor with a clatter, just out of reach. “No one move,” Sam said calmly, “and we can discuss this like adults.” He kept a tight grip on Emerson’s arm as he lifted a large black remote control off the glass entryway table. He pushed a button and a strange series of clicks sounded throughout the house. He smiled. Instead of softening his face, it distorted it, like an angry black splotch in the center of a painting.
He freed Emerson’s arm, and she lunged immediately for the door. In the back of the house, she could hear Tenley doing the same. “What the hell?” she heard Tenley cry. Emerson pulled desperately at the handle, but the door didn’t budge.
She spun back around to find Sam watching her. His eyes were eerily void of emotion. It made him strangely un-lifelike, like a walking cadaver. “Smart house remote control,” he explained. In the kitchen, Tenley kept clawing at the locked door, to no avail. Sam pushed another button on the remote, and it momentarily glowed red. “We’re in panic mode now. No one gets in, and no one gets out.”
He gestured toward the living room. A white leather couch was the focal point. It was flanked by matching leather armchairs, and a chrome-and-glass coffee table. Something about how crisp and spotless it was unsettled Emerson. The house was too clean, too perfect. Like Sam, it was almost un-lifelike. “Take a seat,” Sam said. He didn’t lift his voice, but the command in his words was clear. It wasn’t a question.
&
nbsp; Emerson moved woodenly toward the couch. There were floor-to-ceiling windows behind it, which made the outside feel tantalizingly close, as if she could just reach out and touch the cold night air. She turned away. The windows were at her back as she sank into the plush leather cushions. Tenley sat next to her, close enough that their knees knocked together. A full-length mirror hung on the wall opposite them, next to a fireplace. As Emerson stared at their reflection in it, an odd detachment settled over her. It was as if a veil had suddenly dropped over her eyes. She could still see through it—could see her wide-eyed reflection, could see Tenley’s hand grabbing hers, nails digging into skin—but it was all distant, like watching a movie screen. She couldn’t feel a thing.
Sam paced past the mirror, momentarily blotting out their reflection. “I suggest you tell me what’s going on while I still have some patience.” His voice had taken on a soft, soothing quality. It was a dad’s voice now, a voice that belonged to bedtime stories and good nights. But there was that same deadness in his eyes as he stopped in front of them, and the veins in his hand bulged from gripping the remote so tightly. They were tells: This wasn’t the voice of a dad, or the teller of bedtime stories. This voice belonged to a monster.
Sam’s gaze traveled from Tenley to Emerson. His expression hardened, and suddenly Emerson saw it: He knew. He knew they knew, and he had no plans to let them go. Tenley stiffened next to her. She saw it, too. “Someone better speak.” Again, Sam didn’t lift his voice, but the threat flashed in his eyes, unspoken.
Emerson’s mouth felt as if it were filled with sand. She couldn’t open her lips to formulate a word.
“I was in your basement!” Tenley blurted out. Her face was set in concentration, as if she was calculating each word. “Just like you were in our houses and our cars.” Tenley’s voice broke, but she didn’t stop. “Just like you were in our bedrooms.”
Sam cocked his head. Through her veil, Emerson could see his sculpted cheekbones, his thick blond eyebrows. Tenley’s nails dug into her hand, so hard it should hurt, but it was all so distant: dreamlike. “What are you talking about?” Sam asked slowly.
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