The Girl on the Stairs

by V. J. Chambers

  That was Rachel herself. Soft. Barely there. Wispy.

  Sam remembered her body under his own, how he’d been frightened that if he pressed too hard against her, she’d shatter.

  But it hadn’t stopped him, not in the end.

  He’d gotten soft too. He’d spoken to her in a soft voice. He’d laid his hands softly on her shoulder to console her. He’d softly rubbed her back.

  And so he’d coaxed her, one step at a time, getting a little bit closer to her with every interview. His comforting, soft hands straying from her shoulder to the curve of her waist, from her knee to her thigh, his fingers dancing flutter-soft over her clothes, and then under her clothes, and then…

  In the end, she hadn’t shattered.

  In the end, he’d dragged the softness from her voice, wrenching groans from her lips as he’d rocked against her, rocked into her, pierced her.

  He’d gotten soft. And then he’d gotten hard.

  And then he’d had his fingers on her naked skin, digging into the scant flesh of her hips, crushing her close, jamming in and out of her, while she groaned under him. And he hadn’t been sure if the groans were pain or pleasure, and…

  He hadn’t cared.

  *

  “Sam?” Rachel’s voice was insubstantial, floating through the phone. “Why are you calling?”

  Sam scrolled through her playlist on his computer. “I was thinking about you.” His voice was soft too. That was his talking-to-Rachel voice, tentative and soothing.

  “You’re not supposed to call me,” said Rachel. “I thought we agreed it would be best if you didn’t.”

  “I know.” He sighed. He thought of Rachel’s spine. Rachel lying face down in bed, nude. He thought of tracing the notches there. He thought of how prominent they were. He thought of her soft skin stretched tight against the bone.

  He was turned on.

  She didn’t say anything. She breathed through the receiver, and Sam’s cock started to pulse in time to the rhythm of her breaths.

  “I miss you,” he said finally. It wasn’t true. He barely thought about her, and he never missed her, not really. If he missed anything, it was only the way it felt to fuck her. She was so breakable, and being with her had always been an erotic series of personal dares. How far could he take her? How much pressure could he use? At what point would she break?

  “You shouldn’t call me, Sam.” There was no fire or anger in her tone, only a mournful sadness. Wistful regret.

  “I couldn’t help it. I wanted to hear your voice.”

  “I saw you on the news.”

  He grimaced. He didn’t want to think about that. “You did?”

  “What are you doing to her, Sam?”

  “To who?”

  “To Lola,” said Rachel. “Are you doing the same things to her that you did to me?”

  “No, Rachel, of course not.” God damn Lola Ward. How had she managed to worm her way into every single part of his life?

  “I thought you were so good, Sam,” said Rachel. “You seemed so sweet at first. But you aren’t sweet, are you?”

  “Why would you say that?” he asked in his soft, wheedling tone. “I never wanted to hurt you, Rachel.”

  “Yes, you did.” And she still sounded sad, not accusatory. “I think that’s all you wanted to do, Sam.”

  And now, he was starting to feel uncomfortable and guilty. His arousal lessened, and it took his confidence with it. He found it easy to justify actions when he was turned on. They only seemed exciting and lush. But once the heady feeling had gone away, sometimes whatever he wanted seemed disgusting. Sometimes, he felt ashamed.

  “I don’t know who you are, Sam,” said Rachel. “I thought you were someone different than you actually are. Underneath everything, you scare me. Don’t call again. Please.”

  She hung up.

  Sam put down the phone and massaged the bridge of his nose.

  He thought of Rachel’s skin again, but then he realized it wasn’t Rachel.

  It was Hannah. Hannah slipping her robe off her shoulders, showing her bare back to him, showing him the notches of her spine.

  Do you think about touching me, Sammy?

  He grimaced, even more disgusted now. There was a pack of cigarettes in the trash can of his office. He hadn’t gone to the trouble of breaking them up, even though he knew he should have. He dug through crumpled papers and tissues and candy bar wrappers until he found them.

  The sting of the smoke at the back of his throat drove away all thoughts of skin and bone, even the blackened crispness of Hannah’s skin as he tugged her body out of the fire.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Sam knew it was stupid to go back to Barley and Hops. He knew it was stupid to try to run into Daphne, but he couldn’t help himself. He was feeling confused and disturbed by himself. Sometimes when he thought back on all the things he thought, the things he wanted, the things he’d done, he worried that there was something desperately wrong with him.

  But he knew that there had been nothing ugly about his love for Daphne.

  Daphne wasn’t some Hannah substitute. He didn’t hate her and adore her in that way.

  He knew it might seem otherwise, because Daphne was a victim too. Daphne had been abducted and held against her will.

  But Daphne was strong. She’d gone through it and come out forged in iron.

  And when he’d fallen in love with Daphne, he’d fallen for that strength, not for her weakness, her fragility.

  It wasn’t the same.

  Daphne might have been hurt by his affair with Rachel, but she knew he wasn’t something horrible.

  At first, he sat at the bar, sipping at one beer after another (a stout, an IPA, a lager, another stout…), and the hours ticked by. He didn’t think she was going to be here, after all. She usually came here on Friday nights, but this Friday was obviously different. Daphne wasn’t going to show up.

  By then, it was nearly midnight, and he’d had more beers than he ought to have had. He felt loose and fuzzy, the beginnings of drunk, but just the beginnings.

  And then she arrived.

  She came in, the flurry of her long winter jacket floating around her as she emerged from the cold.

  She saw him right away.

  He wasn’t sure what she’d do. He didn’t know if she’d turn around and leave, if she’d ignore him. But she came right up to him. She sat down on the stool next to his.

  “You look like hell,” she said.

  The bartender brought her a drink without her having to ask. He knew what she always ordered.

  “I came to see you,” Sam said. His voice sounded liquid, the consonants blurring together.

  “We aren’t supposed to be seeing each other.”

  “I know.” He turned to his bottle of beer. He began picking at the label. “But I wanted to ask you something.”

  “You could have called,” she said.

  “I wanted to see you.” He turned to her. She looked so beautiful, her cheeks flushed pink from the cold.

  She took a drink. “What is it, Sam? Let’s make this quick.”

  He pulled a strip of the label away from the glass bottle. “No, if it’s like that, I should go. I don’t want to bother you.”

  She snorted. “Of course you do. I know that lost-little-boy look you’ve got there, Sam. You’re feeling down on yourself for some reason. You want me to tell you it’s not true.”

  He didn’t respond.

  She leaned close. Her voice was kind. “You can’t keep relying on me for this kind of thing. I’m not your wife anymore. You need to find it within yourself. You can do that. You don’t need me.”

  He gazed at her. “What if I do?”

  “You don’t.”

  He resumed peeling the label. “Daph, you never felt… scared of me, did you?”

  She wrinkled up her nose. “Where is this coming from?”

  “Just tell me. Did I scare you? Did you ever think I wanted to hurt you?”

 
“You did hurt me, Sam. You slept with another woman. You tore my heart out.”

  “Not like that.” He took a slug of beer. “Like… hurt you.”

  “You mean physically?”

  He nodded.

  “Why, Sam? Did you hurt someone? Is that why that Lola woman was screaming at you on the news?”

  He hung his head. Even Daphne thought he’d done something wrong. “No, I didn’t hurt anyone.” Except maybe Hannah. Or maybe Rachel. Maybe Rachel, but only a little bit. “Do you really think I’d be capable of doing that?”

  “I never thought you’d be capable of cheating on me, and you did.”

  He shut his eyes.

  Daphne seemed to relent. “Sam, I was never afraid of you. Don’t be ridiculous.” She patted him on top of the head. “Why are you worrying about this?”

  “There are things…” He took a deep breath. “Things I never told you. About my father. About…”

  “Your father?” Daphne cocked her head. “I thought he was dead. I thought he died in a fire.”

  “He did,” said Sam. “He did, but there was more to it.” How did he explain Hannah? Daphne didn’t even know Hannah had ever existed.

  “More to it, how?”

  Sam gulped at his beer. He’d never told Daphne any of this, but suddenly he wanted to let it all out. He wanted to lay it at her feet; now that she already hated him, it couldn’t matter what he said, could it? “My father did… did things.”

  Her lips parted slowly. “Did your father hurt someone, Sam?”

  “He…” Sam was struggling now, searching for words, for some way to describe all of it. He never talked about this, and now, when he wanted to, he felt as if language had deserted him, as if the words to explain all of it didn’t exist. He tried to grasp at something, some string of phrases that would make everything plain. But the words weren’t there. He gazed at Daphne, helpless. “I can’t.”

  She looked at him with pity, with concern. “Sam, if your father wasn’t a great guy, and you’re worried that you’re like him, then don’t. You’re not a bad man.” She sighed heavily. “But you hurt me. You hurt me, and I can’t do this for you. I can’t help you.”

  “Daphne—”

  “No.” She got up off the barstool. “I don’t owe you anything anymore, Sam. You want to talk? Pay a therapist.” And she walked away.

  *

  By the time Sam made it out to the parking lot, it was clear that he was drunker than he’d thought. It was a thirty-five minute drive back to Harpers Ferry, and he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to make it. But he couldn’t sit in his car. The air was frigid, bone cold. He stood outside his car, fumbling with his keys in his numb fingers.

  He shouldn’t have come here.

  He wasn’t sure what he’d been thinking. Maybe he’d hoped that Daphne would see him this way, and it would kick in some kind of latent love that she still felt for him.

  Hoping to win her back by making her want to take care of him?

  That was the stupidest idea he’d ever had.

  Their relationship had never worked that way. Daphne hadn’t taken care of him. It had been the other way around. Sure, Daphne was no wilting flower like Rachel. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t still damaged.

  Sam gave up fumbling with the keys.

  Maybe the car was unlocked.

  He tried the door, and it opened. Huh. He hadn’t thought that would work. He’d been pretty sure he locked it. He usually did in Frederick.

  He slid gratefully into his car, pulling the door closed after him.

  It was cold inside. His breath came out in white clouds.

  He slumped in the seat. He probably shouldn’t drive. Maybe if he huddled up in his coat here, his breath would warm up the interior of the car.

  Probably not, but maybe.

  When Daphne was fourteen years old, her best friend Cara died—killed in a car accident. Daphne and Cara had been very close, practically living at each other’s houses. Everyone was devastated by her sudden death, but Cara’s father was especially shaken. He’d been driving the car. He’d killed Cara.

  He couldn’t handle the emptiness, the lack of Cara.

  And so, he’d abducted Daphne. He’d offered her a ride home from school one day, but he hadn’t taken her home. Instead, he’d taken Daphne to his hunting cabin, where he’d forced her to dress in Cara’s clothes and pretend to be Cara. Though he didn’t hurt Daphne, he did keep her tied up when he wasn’t in the cabin, and he got very angry when she didn’t remember things that only Cara would remember.

  Daphne was missing for two weeks.

  She was only discovered because Cara’s mother became suspicious about all the food that was disappearing from her house. Cara’s father was taking it all to feed Daphne. Cara’s mother followed her husband to the hunting cabin and discovered Daphne. She convinced him to let her go.

  Daphne had never quite been the same.

  When she’d met Sam, she’d been jaded and distrustful. She’d been hard, closed off. She wanted Sam to write the book because she was sick of answering questions. She told him that after it was published, she’d simply carry copies around with her, and when anyone wanted to know about her past, she’d shove the book in their hands.

  But slowly, Daphne had begun to open up more and more to Sam. He’d been gentle, pushing slowly at first, waiting for her to let him in. Eventually, she had to tell him everything, all her most vulnerable feelings and fears.

  There were things, things she’d confessed to him that he hadn’t even put in the book, like the night that Cara’s father had insisted that they take a bath together, considering he’d taken baths with Cara when she was small. That night, Daphne had to pretend to be two years old, and anything she did out of character had enraged her captor.

  Daphne had described the man’s nakedness, his hairy gut, his rough, calloused fingers rubbing shampoo through her hair. His body folded around hers in the small bath tub, insisting she play with the bath toys he’d brought for her.

  Nothing sexual had happened, but Daphne told him that she always thought about it when she tried to be in intimate situations.

  She had trouble letting men touch her. She felt coerced, she felt afraid.

  But the night that she’d told him about it, they’d ended up making love for the first time.

  And he didn’t put it in the book.

  He supposed that was what he’d done for Daphne. He’d kept her secrets safe. He’d been a receptacle for her to dump everything ugly and awful. And then he’d kept back the worst bits, locked them up and taken them from her.

  Maybe some part of him enjoyed having those secrets, those awful things. Maybe he treasured them, kept those nightmares close. Maybe if he had Daphne’s nightmares, he didn’t need to examine his own.

  He shivered.

  He couldn’t stay in this parking lot. He might be a little too drunk to drive, but he didn’t want to freeze to death either. He put his key in the ignition of the car.

  “Stop,” said a voice behind him.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Cold metal was jammed into Sam’s cheek.

  It took him a second to realize that it was a gun. A gun. There was someone in his back seat and that person had a gun.

  Sam’s heart beat picked up. His breath quickened. “If you want the car, take it,” he gasped, holding up his keys.

  “I don’t want the car.” Someone reached up and took the keys away from him.

  It was a male voice. Not too deep, but obviously a man. The voice was a little hoarse. It had an edge to it too, something angry.

  “You want my wallet? I can get it for you. It’s in my—”

  “Shut up,” said the voice. “I want you to shut up.”

  Okay, Sam could do that. He clamped his mouth shut, breathing noisily through his nose. His heart was beating even faster, and he was thinking about what it would be like if he was shot to death in this car. Would everything he had go to Daphne, considering
they were still married? Hell, he’d never even made up a will. He was too young to have a will. He wasn’t even thirty, for fuck’s sake. He couldn’t die like this.

  “I’m going to kill you,” said the voice.

  Sam whimpered. Oh God, this couldn’t really be happening.

  “But not yet,” said the voice. “First, I’m going to ask you some questions, and I want you to answer them truthfully. Do you understand that?”

  “Uh huh,” said Sam.

  “How is she?”

  “Who?” Was this guy talking about Daphne? Was he going to hurt Daphne?

  “Lola, of course.”

  And then Sam recognized the voice. He remembered hearing it before, only it hadn’t quite been so hoarse. “Nicholas Todd.”

  A chuckle. “Hello again, Sam. I can call you Sam, can’t I? After all, if we’ve both been in the same bitch’s cunt, that makes us close, doesn’t it?”

  Sam let out a shaky breath. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about Lola, you idiot,” said Todd. “Are you really this stupid?”

  “Well…” Sam swallowed. “It’s hard to think when there’s a gun pressed up against my head.”

  The barrel of the gun poked Sam’s cheek harder.

  Sam’s insides clenched and turned over again.

  “I’m going to kill her, too. I’m going to kill you both,” said Todd. “But not yet. Not quite yet. When the time is right.”

  “There’s… there’s nothing between Lola and me.” His voice was trembling. It was a squeak. He sounded like an eight-year-old girl.

  “You think I’m an idiot? I saw you on the news with her. Lola wouldn’t get that mad if there wasn’t something. I know her. If you aren’t with her that way, you will be soon.”

  Oh. Did that mean that Todd was going to leave Sam alive? If Sam had a future, did that mean he was going to make it out of this car?

  “Want to kill you right now,” Todd breathed. “Spray your brains all over the windows.”

  Sam choked. “Please don’t.”

  “Not yet,” said Todd. “Not yet. It’s not time yet. But I will, Sam. You and Lola. I’ll kill you both. Until then, I’ll just have to make do with other… substitutions. So when I kill someone Sam, every time I kill someone from here on out until the end of your life, I just wanted you to know that I’m really thinking about killing you.”