Dream Escape
Page 10
“That Ceylon black tea looked so yummy,” Molly added. It took every ounce of self-control she had to smile.
“No. That’s fine,” Emma said. “I like any kind of tea, actually.”
She cut slices of pound cake, making Molly’s extra thick, arranged them on small plates, and returned to the table.
“You think I should have taken the job in Palo Alto, don’t you?” she asked.
“I’m not one for hindsight. I’m here to be a supportive friend,” Molly said, proud of herself for not choking on the words.
“And you are,” Emma replied. She stirred two teaspoons of sugar into her tea.
Molly lifted her steaming mug in two hands, and offered a toast. “To the future,” she said.
Emma grabbed her mug, and lifted. “Hot,” she called out. The mug slipped from her hands, and fell to the floor, shattering.
“Oh, me! Sometimes I’m so darned clumsy. It’s that mug. It’s made from paper thin ceramic. The heat comes right through it.” She got up. “Don’t move. I’ll clean this up in no time. With two small kids, I’m used to cleaning up messes around here.” She laughed.
Molly stared aghast at her poisonous cocktail spreading across the floor. She felt something tickling her belly. It wasn’t fear, or panic. It was something she hadn’t felt in quite a while—rage.
Emma was stooping with a dish towel when Molly lost it.
“You stupid, fucking bitch!”
*
Emma looked up from where she was gathering the larger shards of the shattered mug. While Molly’s language surprised her, what alarmed her even more was the tone of Molly’s voice. It was a voice she hadn’t heard before, as if Molly had been taken over by another person.
“It’s just a coffee mug,” she said, trying to play down whatever was happening with Molly. “And a cheap one at that.” She smiled, but she was feeling uneasy.
“I don’t know how Peter can stand you. You’re so annoyingly weak,” Molly said, hitting the last word extra hard.
She was on her feet now, staring down at Emma on the floor. The expression on Molly’s face alarmed Emma even more. Kind, friendly, and supportive had vanished, replaced by an expression of hate. Her eyes were brimming with rage.
“Molly, are you okay? You’re… scaring me.” The words, laced with vibrato, rattled up her throat. The pieces of the coffee mug dropped from Emma’s hand, and back to the floor.
“All you had to do was leave. Take the job at Mobilsift and be on your way.” Molly moved from the table to the butcher block, her contempt filled eyes never leaving Emma. “It would have been so easy that way. But nooooo. Now I have the children to deal with. I DON’T WANT CHILDREN!”
She’s having some kind of seizure, Emma thought.
She’d recently read about tonic-clonic seizures in Parents magazine. How quickly they came on, how much they changed a person.
“You’re having a seizure. I’m calling nine-one-one.” Emma, stood and grabbed her phone from the table.
With catlike quickness, Molly moved to her and knocked the phone to the floor. That’s when Emma saw the butcher knife in Molly’s hand.
“Don’t you get it? All I want is Peter. It’s me he loves, not you, or the nanny, but me.”
Molly swung the butcher knife. It made a violent swoosh through the air, and thunked into Emma’s arm with the sound of chopping meat. It was a sound you’d expect to hear in a butcher shop—not one you’d hear coming from your own arm.
“Molly,” Emma screamed, as pain surged through her arm, exploding in her head. A geyser of blood erupted. It spurted as if from a blood squib in a movie, only this was her arm, and it was her blood.
It was a nasty gash, but Emma couldn’t concern herself with her arm now. Molly was brandishing the knife above her head, about to strike again.
That’s when Emma decided to run.
Chapter Eighteen
She sprinted down the corridor toward the bedroom.
Molly was on her heels. She tackled her. Emma came down hard, thudding onto the floor, a quarterback being sacked by a linebacker.
The air was knocked out of her. Blood continued to spill from her arm, and quickly began pooling onto the hardwood floor.
“Didn’t think the fat lady you try to fill with cookies could move so fast, did you?” Molly laughed. The laughter mirrored the hatred in her eyes. “Didn’t think I knew what you were up to with all those cookies, huh? I saw right through you trying to fatten me up so I wouldn’t be attractive for Peter. Don’t you know he’s deeper than that, you dumb bitch?”
The knife had been dropped in the pursuit. Molly was clinging to her left leg with both hands. She tried to pull away, but the woman was strong.
“Molly, please, don’t do this. You’re going to regret it if you do. I promise you, you will regret this,” she pleaded.
“The only thing I regret is that Peter and the children will find you here on the floor dead in a bloody heap, the victim of your crazy nanny. He doesn’t deserve that. The poison would have made a much better final image of you for the little ones. At peace, you know what I mean?”
Just then, Emma realized two things:
1) Molly was not having a seizure, and
2) If she was going to survive, she needed get away from her.
Emma kicked out hard with her right leg, catching Molly square in the nose.
“Ow! You stupid—”
Molly had loosened her grip enough for Emma to pull her leg free. She rolled into a stand, and was running again.
She ran into the bedroom, slammed the door, and locked it.
She leaned heavily against the door, her heart rat-tat-tatting in her chest like Buddy Rich on a snare drum. Her breathing was coming in quick, ragged bursts, and her arm felt as though it were in an ever tightening vise.
But she was alive.
She listened. Molly was coming for her.
The door knob turned. She jumped back a step, her breath catching.
“Open the door, Emma.”
Molly had calmed, was sounding more like herself. A part of Emma wanted to believe the seizure had come to an end. They’d get her the help she needed, and maybe one day in the future they’d even laugh about this.
“I’m calling the police,” she called through the door.
“No phone,” Molly said. Emma thought she heard a note of delight in Molly’s tone. “I know you don’t have a house phone. Your phone, the one you need to make the call, is on the kitchen floor. Tell you what, open the door, and I’ll let you get it.”
“Okay,” Emma said. “Put down the knife.”
“It’s already down. I left it on the hall floor. I’m sorry to scare you, Emma. I think you were right about the seizure. But things are starting to come to me more clearly now. Just come on out.” Her voice was calm, but there was a strange quality to it.
Emma wanted desperately to believe her.
She kneeled down, and peered through the keyhole into the corridor. A sliver of glinting steel was all she could see. Her breath caught again.
Molly was going to kill her. She was going to butcher her to death, and allow Shay to be blamed for the murder.
Emma turned from the door, her gaze bouncing around the room in search of an escape route. The window. She could open the window and scream her bloody head off. But the house was set back from the curb. Westchester was a working community. Her immediate neighbors to the left and right wouldn’t be home until after six pm. Just in time to see the coroner carrying out the body bag.
Emma decided to remove the screen in the large window and climb out to safety. There was a slight impediment, a very prominent rose bush in front of the window. She’d have to deal with the thorns. That was a whole lot better than dealing with a butcher knife.
Once she reached the curb she’d run, and scream, and someone would call the police.
She looked down at her arm. It was throbbing, and blood was still seeping.
I need to apply a tourniquet.
She took a step toward her dresser. The door crashed behind her.
Emma wheeled around. Crash!
Molly was hurling herself against the door.
“I’m gonna kill you. I’m gonna kill you.” She screamed the words each time she threw herself violently into the door. She’d become a mad woman, hell bent on killing Emma.
Molly was a hefty woman, but the door wouldn’t budge. Thank goodness for old houses, Emma thought.
She went to the dresser and pulled a pair of tights from a drawer. She picked up a bottle of cologne. Cologne was mostly alcohol. She’d use the cologne to clean the wound, and help staunch the flow of blood.
While Molly continued ramming the door, she sat on the edge of the bed, and began dressing the wound. She splashed the cologne onto her arm. The pinkish runoff dripped to the floor.
Her arm felt as if it were on fire. She got woozy for a few seconds, until the fire calmed to a steady, dull throb. As her head began to clear, she wrapped the tights firmly around her arm, stopping the flow of blood. It was the best she could do for now.
It was then she noticed the assault on the door had stopped. There was an eerie quietness in the house.
Silently, she moved back to the door, stooped, and peered through the keyhole. This time she could see clear down the corridor. Molly was gone.
She wondered if Molly had gone outside to cut her off from using the window. If she did, this might be her chance to escape. If she could get out the front door, she could run and scream.
She remembered feeling embarrassed the night she and Peter stood outside among her neighbors while the police were searching their home looking for Shay. Now she was happy for nosey neighbors. They might save her life.
“Emma,” came Molly’s voice from directly behind her.
Emma froze. She was so frozen with fear, she could barely breathe, much less move. It was as if rigor mortis was setting in.
Through some miracle of time and space, some horror movie nightmare impossibility, Molly had gotten into the room.
Chapter Nineteen
Emma forced herself to move. She turned stiffly, a woman made of sticks, to face her tormentor.
“I know you can hear me,” came Molly’s voice.
Emma’s gaze moved to the dresser where the baby monitor sat, and the breath she’d been holding onto released. Molly was not behind her. She was in the nursery, using the baby monitor as an intercom.
“Peter has the children for the entire day. He won’t be home for hours. By the time he returns, you’ll be dead.”
With Molly in the nursery, Emma’s faculties quickly returned. She was out of danger, but only for the moment.
She realized she had the chance to make it to the kitchen and retrieve her phone. Moving quickly, and before she could talk herself out of it, Emma unlocked, and then eased open the bedroom door. It creaked loudly. Her heart danced in her chest. How many times had she told Peter to fix it?
“I’ll make you a deal. I’ll make it quick and painless, if you come out on your own.” The voice, calm and measured was coming from the intercom.
Molly hadn’t heard the door.
Emma stepped out into the corridor. The voice, coming from the nursery down the hall, was clearer now.
“If you make it hard on me, I promise, your death will be a painful and violent one. Do not doubt me, Emma. I’ve done this before.”
The idea that Molly had killed before lodged in her mind as Emma began moving slowly toward the kitchen. There was a lone creaky floor board a few feet ahead. Emma knew the exact spot where the floor would creak and give her away. Avoid that, and she’d be home free.
“Emma? I know you can hear me. Say something.”
Emma took another step. The floor creaked. She hadn’t noticed this floor board before. It wasn’t as creaky as the other, but still…
“Emma?”
Slowly she lifted her foot from the creaky board. It offered up a gentle complaint.
“Emma!” Molly’s voice, once calm, raged into the intercom.
Emma kicked her leg out, taking a long step out over what she knew to be the troublesome board. It was as if she were playing a gruesome game of Twister.
Her foot came down on solid, silent floor.
She let out a slow breath of relief, and took another step.
“Emma.” This time the voice did not come through the intercom. She peered back over her shoulder. Molly was standing in the nursery doorway behind her. Dried blood was caked on her lip beneath her nose. She was wielding the butcher knife. Her eyes were the eyes of a killer.
The words I’ve done this before fired through Emma’s thoughts.
“Going somewhere?”
Emma took off on a dead run. She knew she wouldn’t have time to scoop up her phone from the floor before Molly tackled her, and she was still too far from the front door to make it there as well. Her only chance of saving her life was the basement. She ran, yanked open the basement door, and nearly tumbled down the stairs as she scrambled for the bottom.
She righted herself on the bottom step, and ran for Shay’s room with all she had, slamming the door behind herself.
*
As far as Molly was concerned, things had just taken a turn for the better. Emma was trapped. She had no access to her phone, but more importantly, no access to a window or the outside world.
That bedroom window had really troubled her. If Emma opened it, a neighbor might hear her screams. Her attempt to murder Emma with the butcher knife was an impulse. She needed to control that. She hadn’t come so far by being impulsive.
Fortunately, Emma had made another dumb move. The basement was below ground. Now, there would be no one to hear her screams.
Molly could now relax, take her time and find something to knock down the basement door. And when she did, Emma’s death would be slow and painful, just as she promised.
*
Emma leaned against the door listening for Molly. There was silence on the other side. The only sound in the tiny room was that of her own breathing—quick, gasping, dying breaths.
She knew Molly was out there. She knew she wasn’t going to give up.
Emma slowed her breathing. She needed to gather her thoughts. She took in her surroundings, and instantly realized her error. The basement was the worst place she could have come to—one way in, and one way out. She should have stayed in the bedroom, and tried the window. Maybe no one would have come to her rescue, but at least above ground she had a chance.
In the basement—one way in, one way out—she had little chance of escaping, little chance of surviving. Who was she kidding? In the basement she had zero chance of surviving. She was the proverbial sitting duck.
Things had been happening so quickly when she was upstairs, she wasn’t thinking clearly. One moment she was having tea and chatting with Molly, her husband’s assistant, the next she was running for her life from the crazy woman with the butcher knife who wanted to kill her and take her husband.
If she were thinking more clearly she never would have detoured into the basement. This wasn’t an escape route, this was a death trap.
She gazed around the room that had belonged to a woman she once thought was her friend. She eyed Shay’s belongings with distaste. She hadn’t been down there since the night Shay disappeared. She hadn’t wanted to set foot in the room of her betrayer. She had believed Shay to be a friend and confidante, but Shay was only there for Peter’s pleasure.
And he’s been sleeping with Molly, too.
It was as if she were waking up from a bad dream. She’d never thought of Peter as a Lothario. The idea was absurd—wasn’t it?
Peter and Molly were close—husband and wife close, now that she thought about it. Often, Peter would start a sentence and Molly would finish it.
She realized how naive she’d been. She often joked that Peter only has eyes for Horace Booker. The joke was on her. Seems Peter had more eyes in his head than a fly—roaming eyes.
She gazed at the throw pillows she’d bought at Bed Bath & Beyond to dress up the basement room for Shay. Shay and Robbie loved playing with the pillows, tossing them at one another in a playful game of dodge pillow.
Shay was good with Robbie. She was good with Dinah, too. Robbie had asked for her almost every night at bedtime since she’d been gone.
“When is Shay coming back?”
“Soon,” she’d respond, lying to him. But what was she supposed to say? Shay is not who she pretends to be. She couldn’t lay that on a five year-old.
Robbie’s world had been turned upside down. He lost his father and his best friend on the same day. She knew she needed to be gentle with him.
As the jumble of thoughts rolled around inside Emma’s head, she realized there were tears rolling down her cheeks. The old, familiar guilt came swimming up from her belly, lodging in her throat. She’d been so preoccupied with having a career she’d lost sight of what was important. She’d been so jealous of what Peter had that she stopped feeding the marriage.
They say when a marriage goes bad it’s never one person’s fault. She had a hand in it. They were happy once, weren’t they?
I am never going to see my children again.
There, she thought it.
And once she allowed the thought she’d deftly danced around to enter her mind, she straightened up. The revelation stirred something inside, and the guilt went swimming back down.
The thought of never seeing her children again rather than filling her with despair, gave her new resolve. Her children were the most important people in her life. She made a silent vow that she wasn’t going out without a fight. And all right, she’d made a mistake fleeing to the basement, but she was there now, nothing she could do about it.
Emma moved away from the door, and began searching the room. She needed to find a weapon.
She hadn’t been searching long before she realized the room had been totally child-proofed. She could find nothing with sharp edges except for a pair of cuticle scissors. There had to be something more, something Shay had tucked away from the children. She would not be able to put up much of a defense wielding the tiny scissors.