The Girl on the Stairs

by V. J. Chambers

  “What if it’s not enough?”

  “It will be. These people are trained to deal with guys like Nick.”

  She got up off the couch, throwing off the blanket. She started to pace. “You don’t know Nick the way I know him. You’ve never seen what he can do. He’s… devious. And he just… he gets off on killing. He likes it.”

  “Lola, sit back down.”

  She shook her head. “Look, Sam, I understand that what happened between us didn’t mean anything—”

  “Hey, that’s not what—”

  “No, it’s okay, Sam.” She stopped moving and stared at him. “I’m a big girl. I can handle it. I told you before that I could. I wasn’t…” She folded her hands over her chest. “That’s not why I was trying to be close to you. Not because I wanted this to be some kind of love affair.”

  “We don’t have to talk about this.”

  “Maybe you don’t.” She ran her hands through her hair. “Listen, I was afraid, okay? That’s all. Afraid. And I just wanted to touch you because of that. Not because of…”

  “It’s okay.” He felt like crap. He studied his fingernails. “I’m sorry. I was being an ass.”

  She put her hands on his knees, her face close to his. “Doesn’t matter. What matters is that we need to get out of here. We need to go someplace that Nick wouldn’t know to find us.”

  “Lola, there isn’t a place like that.”

  She let go of him. She resumed pacing. “What about your mother’s house?”

  Sam swallowed. “What?”

  “Your mother’s house. You told me when you first met me that she hadn’t sold it. It’s outside of Cumberland, right? It’s fairly remote. He doesn’t know anything about it.”

  “I don’t know. He knows weird things. He knew about Rachel.”

  “But he has he ever said anything about your mother? Your father?”

  Sam flinched.

  “He hasn’t, has he? He doesn’t know.”

  Sam’s back itched. He reached back and scratched. “Lola, that house is the place where…”

  “I know that,” said Lola. “But that was a long time ago. And you’ll be okay. Trust me, I avoided my parents’ house for a long time, but when I went back, I was glad I did.”

  The itch was growing. He scratched more. “There’s a fucking snow storm, Lola. We wouldn’t even make it out there.”

  “If we left now, we would,” she said. “And if we got snowed in there, so much the better. It’s out in the middle of nowhere. The snow would protect us from Nick. He wouldn’t be able to get to us.”

  Sam rubbed his temples. “No. No, I’m not going there.”

  Lola glared at him. “He’s going to come back here. He’s going to kill us.”

  Sam squeezed his eyes shut, thinking of fire. Thinking of Hannah. Going back to that house would be like going back to his worst nightmare. He wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t rather face down Todd.

  But then he thought of Todd, dragging the bloody edges of his hoodie over the walls, leaving behind red streaks, baring his teeth and growling like a demon.

  He opened his eyes. “I don’t even know if there’s power in that house. And it’s got a well, so if there’s no electricity, there’s no water.”

  “Well, can you find out?” Lola put her hands on her hips.

  “I guess I could call my mother.”

  “Even if there’s not, maybe we could rough it,” said Lola. “Is there any other source of heat in the house?”

  “A wood stove,” said Sam.

  “Well, worst case, we could cook on that, and we could melt snow for water.”

  Sam dragged a hand over his face.

  “We can’t stay here,” she said. “It’s not safe here. I don’t think it’s safe here.”

  He got his phone and dialed his mother.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “No, it’s a good idea,” said Cross through the Bluetooth speaker in Sam’s car. “If Todd doesn’t know where you are, you’ll be safer. We’ll stake out your house in Harpers Ferry and hope he comes back, just like Lola said. But in that case, we’ll be waiting for him, not you guys.”

  Sam’s mother had assured him that it would only be a matter of flipping switches on the breaker box to get the power chugging in the house. She told him that she sometimes stayed in the house when she visited friends in Cumberland. Sam could hardly believe that. He’d asked her how she handled staying there, to which she had laughed and told him it was only a house and not to be silly.

  So, Sam and Lola were now on their way out there. She was sitting in his front seat, scrolling through his MP3 player and wrinkling her nose at the choices. She wasn’t acknowledging the conversation he was having with Cross, although she could hear every word.

  Sam was on the phone with Cross, letting him know the plans.

  “I’ll get in touch with the department up there,” said Cross. “And maybe they’ll send a patrol by or something. If you want me to push, I’ll make sure that someone else is out there watching the house 24/7.”

  Sam looked at Lola, who shrugged. “Uh, I guess it doesn’t really matter. It’s unlikely he’d know where we were.”

  “Right,” said Cross. “Well, keep an eye on your rear view. If you see any vehicles that might be following you, call me.”

  “Okay,” said Sam.

  “And I do have one question for you,” said Cross. “Um, I got an email address that’s registered to Nick’s mother, paid for by her credit card.”

  “There’s a charge for an email address?” Sam asked.

  “Oh, well, there’s an email system that inmates use at the prison. And people outside can send email to their loved ones on the inside, but there’s a fee associated with it. Anyway, Nick was getting emails from an address that was registered to his mother. Uh… it’s R-U-N, underscore, D.”

  “Run D?” said Sam. “Like Run-D.M.C.?”

  Cross chuckled. “Well, I can assure you, Nick’s mother is not a Run-D.M.C. fan. Thing is, she has no knowledge of this email, and she also didn’t sign up for the credit card, nor has she paid the balance. In fact, no one’s ever paid the balance. The credit card’s just a daisy chain of balance transfers from one credit card to another. Trail leads nowhere. The point of this is, we can’t be sure, but we feel like some of the messages from this email were communicating about Todd’s escape in a kind of code. We think this is the person who’s been helping him on the outside.”

  “Oh,” said Sam. “Whoa.”

  “I take it you have no idea who that email address might belong to,” said Cross.

  “Unfortunately, no.” Sam looked over at Lola. “What about you? Any idea?”

  She looked up from the MP3 player. “You think someone’s helping Nick?”

  “Well, yes,” said Cross. “I don’t see how else he could have evaded capture for so long.”

  Lola shrugged. “Nick’s good at that stuff. If I hadn’t gotten away from him and turned him in, I think he would have gotten away the first time.”

  “I doubt it,” said Cross. “He’s sloppy, Lola. He kills like crazy. You can’t run around, leaving bodies everywhere like that, and not get caught eventually. It brings a lot of attention to you.”

  Lola went back to the MP3 player. “Well, I have no idea who would have been emailing him.”

  “Damn it,” said Cross. “I got some computer guys looking into it, seeing if there’s any tracing they can do. But it would have been awesome if you guys could have just given me a name.”

  “Sorry,” said Sam.

  “Yeah, sorry,” said Lola.

  “All right,” said Cross. “Well, you two be safe and get in touch with me when you’re at your destination or if there’s any trouble.”

  “Sure thing,” said Sam. He hung up.

  Lola raised an eyebrow. “You actually listen to INXS?”

  “There something wrong with INXS?”

  “Well, you know the lead singer killed himself while masturbati
ng.”

  Sam laughed. “That was never proved.”

  “Seriously, Sam. You have terrible taste in music.”

  He snatched the MP3 player from her. “Maybe you just need educated.”

  *

  The minute Sam stepped out of the car, the only thing he could look at was the burned remains of the garage. He’d been out here recently, when he was in Keyser doing interviews, but seeing it again didn’t lessen the impact of the charred remains. His chest tightened. He could hardly breathe.

  Lola got out of the car and came over next to him. She took him by the hand and tugged. “Come on. Let’s go look at it.”

  He turned to her in alarm. Was she crazy? He didn’t want to go anywhere near the ruined garage.

  But she pulled insistently, and his feet moved. He shuffled over to the blackened wood.

  “Touch it, Sam,” she whispered.

  He gulped. He shook his head.

  She moved his hand, their fingers entwined, and together they pressed their hands against the burned wood.

  “See?” said Lola. “It’s cold. That’s because it’s over, Sam. It’s all over.”

  He drew a shaky breath. Then he tore his hand away from hers and away from the garage. “I’ll help you get the groceries.” He started back for the car.

  “That’s okay,” she said, coming after him.

  Lola had insisted on getting groceries before they got here. And looking up at the cold, white sky, he realized she’d probably been right to do so. The snow was coming soon.

  She was still talking. “Why don’t you go turn on the power? I can get the groceries myself.”

  The breaker box was in the basement. Sam nodded. “Okay.” He went to the front door instead and opened it with the key he’d picked up from his mother’s house. She hadn’t been home, which had been just as well, because if she had been, he was sure she would have wanted to meet Lola, and, for some reason, Sam just didn’t like the idea of Lola and his mother in the same room.

  He left the door open as he walked inside.

  It was cold in here, desolate. It would take a while for the house to warm up. Rubbing his hands together, he hurried through the living room to the door to the basement steps.

  Halfway down the steps, he realized he should have brought a flashlight.

  He peered up at the open door, at gray light filtering down.

  He’d be fine. The breaker box was right next to the stairs.

  He stepped onto the concrete and felt along the wall until he found it. He began flipping all the breakers, and as he did so, he heard the hum of things coming back to life.

  “Power’s on,” he called up the steps.

  “Awesome,” Lola yelled back. “Now where’s the thermostat?”

  He chuckled, climbing back up the steps. “I’ll take care of it.”

  When he got upstairs, he began turning up the thermostats in all the rooms.

  Well. Almost all the rooms. There was one room he didn’t want to go in. Couldn’t go in. Ever.

  When he was done, he found Lola in the kitchen.

  “You want me to get the rest of the stuff from the car?” he asked her.

  She grinned. “That would be great.”

  He ducked outside, grabbing Lola’s duffle bag and his suitcase. They’d stopped by her house so that she could get some clothes. He had expected her to bring more along. Lola seemed a little on the high maintenance side, and he was thinking she’d need bags of makeup and beauty products. But she’d only brought along this bag.

  He shut the trunk and headed back inside.

  Lola was still in the kitchen.

  He lounged in the doorway. “Can I help with anything?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Like what?”

  “Putting things away, I guess.”

  “Actually, I’m done.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Well, thanks.”

  She shivered. “I wasn’t feeling hungry before we got here, but now I wonder if I shouldn’t start making food just to heat up the kitchen a little bit.” She smiled at him. “Are you hungry?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe. I can help you make something.”

  “No way,” she said. “You’re hiding me from Nick. You’re doing enough. I can make you food as a thank-you. Besides, I’m kind of an awesome cook.”

  He laughed. “And humble too.”

  She just grinned. “Go away. I’m going to make something.”

  “All right. I need to call Cross and tell him we’re here, anyway.”

  *

  The only problem with calling Cross was that his cell phone didn’t seem to be getting any service. He had to walk all the way down the driveway just to get a measly bar. And then, after he got through, the sound cut in and out.

  Sam walked back to the house, feeling a little bit nervous. Cell phone reception hadn’t been that big of a deal back when he’d lived here as a kid. People didn’t have cell phones so much. His family hadn’t, back then. But he wasn’t sure that he liked being stuck out in the middle of nowhere with no way to call for help.

  If it snowed as bad as they said it was going to, that would mean that he’d have to shovel the entire driveway to have even a prayer of getting the car out. They’d be trapped.

  He opened the door and went back inside. The house already felt warmer, and there was a delicious smell already starting to emanate from the kitchen.

  “Listen, Lola,” he said. “The cell service here isn’t great.”

  She popped her head out of the kitchen. “Oh, that sucks. I thought we could tether our laptops to our phones to surf the web. I get a little stir crazy without the Internet.”

  Now that he thought about it, there wasn’t much in the way of entertainment in this house. There was no television or anything. He wasn’t sure what he and Lola would do to pass the time. How long were they going to be up here, anyway?

  He was beginning to feel like coming here was a bad idea, and it had nothing to do with the fact that the garage was so close, or that the room was just down the hall, door shut tight.

  “Well,” her voice floated out, “I guess we can both get some writing done.”

  Right. He kept forgetting that Lola wrote porn for a living.

  He went back to the kitchen. “I don’t know if I’m ready to start writing your book. I still don’t feel like I understand what happened back then.”

  She was stirring vegetables in a skillet. “What do you want to know?”

  “Tell me about what happened after the murders. How did Todd get you out of the house?”

  She drew in a deep breath. “Wow. Okay.”

  He held up his hands. “Look, if you don’t want to talk about it…”

  She stirred. “I kind of don’t.” She looked at him. “I’m sorry, Sam. Maybe later. But it’s really the last thing I want to get into right at this moment.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Sure.”

  It was quiet.

  She set down the wooden spoon she was using to stir. She walked over to him.

  She kissed him.

  He broke the kiss, backed away. “Lola, I thought you understood—”

  “Sam.” She put her hand on his cheek. She pressed close to him.

  He could feel the soft curves of her body through her clothes.

  He sighed.

  Shit.

  And then he kissed her back.

  *

  “So,” Lola grinned, “I think that worked to get warm.” She had a blanket wrapped her around her nude body as she handed him a bowl of food.

  He used his fork to toss it. He was also wrapped in a blanket. They were in the living room. “Well, it means that the stir fry got burned.”

  “Not burned,” said Lola primly. “Blackened. It’s Cajun.”

  He laughed. “Cajun stir fry, huh?”

  She sat down next to him, taking a bite. “Uh huh. It’s good. Try it. Seriously.”

  He took a bite. It actually wasn’t bad. Only parts of the vegetab
les were burned, and the parts that were seemed to have a sweeter taste. “I thought you said you were a really good cook.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Well, my plan is generally to fuck a guy before dinner, so that he’s biased.”

  “Okay. I see how you work.”

  She set down her fork. “I do want to make clear that I understand this is just fun, Sam. I’m not looking for lasting love or anything. But… we are all sequestered out here in the middle of nowhere, and the snow’s starting to come down…” She shrugged. “It’s kind of cozy, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” he said.

  “But you’re still weirded out by it.” She cocked her head. “How come?”

  “Who says I’m weirded out?” He shoveled more Cajun blackened stir fry into his mouth.

  “I can tell. You’re uncomfortable that we’re sleeping together.”

  “No,” he said, around bites. “I’m not.”

  “Stop it, Sam. I can tell that you are. Is it because you have a history of sleeping with women you write about?”

  He chewed and swallowed. “Well, maybe partly.”

  “What’s the other part?”

  He shook his head.

  “Tell me.”

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  “Sam.” She glared at him.

  He looked up at her. “You really want to know?”

  “I do.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s because I can’t figure you out. Because I’m not sure if you’re telling the truth about anything.” There. Maybe if he said stuff like that to her, she’d stop trying to seduce him.

  Lola pursed her lips. “That’s why you asked about after the murders.”

  He ate another bite. “It kind of doesn’t make sense, Lola. How’d he get you to come with him?”

  She laughed. “I really haven’t won you over, have I?”

  “I wouldn’t say that, not exactly. I mean, I believe that Nick is a very bad dude, so I’d like to believe that he was behind all of it.”

  “But you still suspect me?”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “You know what? It’s fine. It’s actually a good thing.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “It makes things more interesting.”

  Well, that was weird. Usually, when he expressed any doubt in Lola, she got pretty upset. But now, she seemed nonplussed.