She acted on instinct before her brain could stop her. She pushed herself off the grass and ran for the corner of the house. Only six feet separated the bottom of the garage door from the concrete floor. She got to her knees and rolled under the door, scraping her hands on loose rock. The old door didn't have a safety mechanism. It slammed shut, nearly pinning her leg, which she scooted into the garage under the metal skirt at the last second.
Hilary was alone in the empty garage.
She hurried to the door leading to the interior of the house and turned the knob silently. She pushed it open and felt warm air and saw the darkness of the kitchen. She listened, not knowing if the house was empty. She didn't hear voices or the sound of a television, only the hum of the furnace. The kitchen smelled like burnt tomato sauce.
Hilary crept inside. A voice in her head screamed: What the hell are you doing?
She swallowed down her fear. She'd given herself an opportunity to see if Amy was in the house. Katie was right. That was something the police couldn't do.
Where was Katie?
Hilary had a sickening thought, as she considered the possibility that Katie was in the back of the Civic that had just left. Tied up. Or dead. She'd been a fool not to stop her. One domino fell, and suddenly the others began to fall, and you couldn't prevent them from tumbling down.
She left the kitchen through swinging doors and followed the hallway to the living room. The hearth smelled of a recent fire. The television was on, which made her freeze with concern, but the sound was muted, and the room was empty. It occurred to her: Jensen wasn't going to be long.
She rushed through the downstairs rooms. The dining room. The bathroom. The library. The pantry. It was a big house with odd corners and Victorian spaces. There were nooks and crannies where you could hide things. Everywhere she went, the curtains were closed. The house felt Gothic. Haunted. Even so, the rooms were empty and innocent, as if she'd made a mistake.
She found the basement. Her heart was in her mouth as she descended the wooden steps. Here, below ground, she felt comfortable enough to turn on a light. The sprawling underworld was twisted, with concrete block walls, pipes and ductwork nestled among pink insulation, and corners and turns that mirrored the layout of the house above it. She practically ran, conscious of time passing, of minutes ticking away before Jensen came back. The basement was like a maze, and she had to open steel doors and peer behind stacks of boxes and into crawl spaces to make sure he hadn't built a killing ground for himself in the cold dampness down here.
Nothing.
Hilary returned carefully to the main floor. She breathed heavily as she ran up the twisting staircase to the second story. There was a hallway that broke off like a Z in several directions, and the doors were all closed. Too many doors. All she could do was check them one by one. She went left and tore each door open and swung it shut. Bathroom. Linen closet. Nursery. Master bedroom.
She began to think this was all a fool's errand. A misunderstanding. She had to get out.
Hilary retraced her steps and quickly investigated the other side of the house. Bedroom. Bathroom. Bedroom. All of them empty and mostly unused. She found a spur hallway leading to a last bedroom that overlooked the rear of the house, and as she headed for the closed door, she heard a sickening noise.
The rumble of the garage door. Gary Jensen was back.
'Oh, no,' she murmured, freezing in her tracks.
She almost quit right there. She almost didn't open the door, so she could run downstairs and let herself out the front of the house before Jensen made his way inside through the kitchen. Instead, she twisted the knob and pushed her way into the last bedroom, and immediately something was different.
She smelled a pungent mix of sweat, urine, and perfume. It all added up to fear. Someone was here in the darkness.
Hilary turned on the light, and her hands flew to her mouth. She was there. Spread-eagled, tied to the bed. Gagged. Eyes wide. Pleading. Awake. Alive.
Amy.
* * *
Chapter Forty-Seven
In the dark shelter, Mark heard only the hushed in-and-out of Tresa breathing and the rustle of her clothes as she shivered. They were both wet and freezing. Sharp pain shot from his ankle to his calf the longer he stood, and when he couldn't lean against the metal wall anymore, Tresa got up and forced him to sit down. She sat down again too, balanced on his knee. She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her head in his chest. He couldn't see her at all. She was invisible. He could only feel her huddled against him, her fingers clinging tightly to his skin, her damp hair nestled against his chin.
'I'm sorry,' she whispered. 'This is my fault.'
'Don't say that.'
He didn't think anyone would hear their low voices through the stone walls. They were in a black cocoon, just the two of them.
Tresa was silent, and then she said, 'I still think about it, you know. You and me. On the beach.'
Mark knew exactly what she meant. Weeks before Delia Fischer found her daughter's diary, before his life began to crash down, there had been the kiss. It had happened not far from here. They'd been on the beach in the moonlight behind his house, warmed by flames licking from a fire pit. Hilary had left them there as it got late and gone to bed. She trusted him, the way she always did, more than he trusted himself. He and Tresa had talked for two more hours, well past midnight, although Tresa was the one who did most of the talking. She told him about her dreams, fantasies, life, guilt, hopes, fears, and loneliness. Then, as they stood up and he poured dirt on the fire, she'd stood on tiptoe and kissed him, not a girl's kiss, not an innocent kiss, but a kiss with all the eroticism a teenager could bring to it.
She'd said what she wanted: 'Will you make love to me?'
Now, holding her, he could feel her arousal again, the heat through her clothes. This was romance to her, not life and death. Her rescuing him. Him rescuing her. He felt her shift on his lap, and though he couldn't see her face even an inch away from his own, he knew that her cool lips were about to find him with the same urgency, the same passion, as they had a year earlier. She wanted him to touch her. Undress her. She wanted to be the heroine in the novel.
He stopped her with a gentle pressure on her cheek. 'We can't.'
Tresa tensed. He felt her disappointment. She eased away from him and stood up in the cramped space.
'I've tried not to love you,' she murmured, 'but I can't help myself.'
'Tresa, don't.'
'I'm not a kid. This isn't a crush. I know I can't have you, and I know I'm a fool, OK? I never meant to hurt you and Hilary. That was the last thing I wanted. Really. Except here I am, doing the same thing all over again.'
Mark said nothing.
'At least tell me you were tempted, huh?' she went on. 'A little?'
'Tresa, there isn't any way that I would have let something happen between us. It's not just that I love my wife, and it's not because you aren't a sweet, beautiful, amazing girl. It's because I care about you too much. A girl like you falling in love with your teacher is absolutely innocent. A teacher who perverts that love for his own ends is sick. I wouldn't do that to you.'
'Oh, shit, you think I'm a child,' Tresa murmured, with a grievous hurt in her voice, as if it were the worst thing he could have told her.
'That's not what I mean.'
'You're wrong,' she told him. 'I'm not innocent. Do you think I didn't know exactly what I wanted on the beach with you?'
Her voice grew loud and he worried she would be heard outside.
'You read what I wrote in my diary,' she said. 'I know the positions, OK? I know where things go. I know I was asking you to cheat on your wife. I still am, and I hate myself for it. I don't care. I'd take off my clothes for you right now and get on my knees. That's me being innocent, Mark.'
He realized he was making the same mistake with Tresa all over again - treating her like a girl in woman's clothes when it was the other way around. She could be naive and seductive all
at the same time. Just like Glory.
'All right, yes, of course, I was tempted,' he told her. 'I'm human, but I wasn't going to wreck both of our lives. OK?'
'Say yes now.'
'You know I can't do that.'
'It doesn't have to be anything more than right now. One night.'
'Tresa, no.'
He felt her bitterness and disappointment emanating out of the darkness. When she spoke, her voice was thick with betrayal. 'Were you human with Glory?'
'What?'
'Did you say yes to her?'
Mark heard the echo of Glory whispering to him on the beach. No one will ever know.
'Nothing happened between me and her.'
'You were out there with her, though, weren't you? Just like everybody said. You and Glory. Together.'
'It wasn't like that.'
'Be honest with me.'
'Yes, I saw her on the beach,' he admitted. 'That's all.'
'Did you arrange to meet her?'
'No. It was an accident. I went for a walk, and I found her there.'
'Did she try to seduce you?' Tresa asked quietly.
Mark hesitated. 'Yes.'
'That bitch. I knew it.'
'She was drunk. She was upset. It wasn't deliberate.'
'What did she do to you?'
'It doesn't matter.'
'Did she kiss you? Did she go down on you? What?'
'No, nothing like that.'
He could hear the rattle in her voice as she battled between anger and tears. 'You know what, Mark? You know what I really think? I think you fucked her, and you don't want to admit it to me.'
'That's crazy.'
'You're lying, aren't you?' she demanded breathlessly. 'Glory got whatever she wanted. It's true, isn't it? Everybody's right. You had sex with her, and then you killed her to cover it up.'
'No.'
'I don't know what's worse. The idea of you killing my sister, or the idea that you wanted to have sex with her, not me.'
'Tresa, listen to me. Stop and listen. You're wrong. I didn't have sex with Glory. I didn't kill her.'
'So what happened to her?'
'I don't know.'
'Do you think I killed her myself? Are you trying to protect me?'
'You didn't kill her.'
'If I saw the two of you having sex, I swear I would have strangled her.'
'I know you, Tresa,' Mark said. 'I know you didn't do this.'
Tresa sobbed quietly. She shuffled closer, bent down, and threw her skinny arms around his chest. 'I'm sorry. I'm such a complete fool. I'm saying whatever comes into my head.'
'Tresa, you have to believe me. I didn't kill Glory.'
'I know. I'm just as bad as everyone else. I'm the one who's supposed to trust you, and I was ready to say you did it, too.'
'I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,' Mark said. 'That makes me the only suspect, at least until Hilary gets back from Green Bay.'
Tresa stiffened and pushed away. It was as if she hadn't heard him. 'What did you say? Why is Hilary in Green Bay?'
'There's a man there who was in Florida last week. Apparently he's got a sexual history with teenagers, and he may be involved in a girl's disappearance. Hilary thinks the police should be looking at him.'
'He's in Green Bay?'
'That's right.'
Tresa climbed off his lap and paced between the tight walls of the stall.
'What's wrong?' Mark asked.
'I don't know. I guess it's just a creepy coincidence.'
'What is?'
Tresa stopped and squatted in front of him and held on to his knees. He could feel her entire body trembling. 'A girl disappeared there? What's her name? Who is she?' 'Amy Leigh. Hilary coached her in high school in Chicago.'
'Amy Leigh,' Tresa repeated, rolling out the name as if she was searching her memory and coming up with nothing.
'Do you know her?'
'No, I've never heard of her.'
'Tresa, tell me what's wrong.'
'Nothing. I just can't believe—'
'What?'
Tresa reared back so hard and fast that she stumbled against the metal door. 'Wait a minute, you said Hilary coached her? This girl's a dancer?'
'That's right.'
'Was she in Florida?'
'Yes, she's on the Green Bay team.'
He heard Tresa breathing open-mouthed.
'Oh, shit,' she murmured, it has to be her.'
'What are you talking about?'
Tresa ignored him. 'How did Hilary get mixed up in this? Please, tell me what happened.'
'Amy called Hilary yesterday. It sounded like she thought her coach might have had something to do with Glory's death. Now Amy's missing, so Hilary drove down there to talk to the police. She's worried this guy may have grabbed her.'
'This guy you're talking about, is he the Green Bay dance coach?'
'I think he is, why?'
'What's his name? Do you know? Is it like Jerry something?'
'It's Gary Jensen.'
'Oh, shit, that's him, that's him. I forgot all about it. I'm so stupid! Peter Hoffman said I'd want to see it because I was a dancer. Shit!'
'Tresa, you're not making any sense.'
Her voice was urgent. 'Mark, we have to get out of here. Please, we need to go. We have to warn Hilary.'
He felt his adrenaline and fear accelerate as he heard Hilary's name. 'Warn her about what?'
'She has to stay away from there,' Tresa moaned. She crumbled, losing control.
'Tresa, Hilary's not going anywhere near Gary Jensen.'
'No! No, no, no, you don't understand. What have I done?'
The metal door swung open, and Tresa rushed out of the stall. Her panicked sobs bounced between the concrete walls as she stumbled for the way out. When she found it, she tore open the outer door and let it bang shut behind her. Mark chased blindly in her wake, heading into the woods outside the shelter, where the rain and wind swallowed the noise.
'Tresa, stop!' he hissed, it's not safe.'
For a moment, somewhere close by, he heard her running footsteps and the choked gasp of her cries, but he couldn't see through the darkness to follow her. Soon he didn't hear anything at all.
'Tresa,' he called again, as loud as he dared.
She was gone.
Cab awoke with his blood dripping from his face to the floor. It made a pool around the tips of his fingers. The pain in his head was like a nail hammered through the back of his skull and driven out between his eyes. When he pushed himself up on his forearms, a wave of dizziness and nausea almost made him vomit and collapse. He stayed on his hands and knees until his head cleared, then he stood up slowly, supporting himself against the bedroom wall. He touched the back of his head tenderly and winced as he felt the swollen bump, which was damp with blood. He had no idea if he'd been unconscious for a minute or an hour, but his flashlight was still lit, shooting a tunnel of light toward the bed. He squatted carefully and retrieved it.
When he listened to the cold, quiet house around him, he concluded that the assailant was gone. So was his Glock. It was missing.
He staggered toward the bathroom and turned on the water at the sink. He grabbed a hand towel from the rack, soaked it under the water, and dabbed it against his skull, wiping the blood. He opened the vanity cabinet under the sink and used the flashlight to find a box of gauze bandages and medical tape. Positioning a pad at the base of his skull, he added tape until the mesh stayed tight against his hair and skin. It was a crude job, but he didn't have time to waste.
Before he left the bathroom, he opened a bottle of Advil and took five of them to battle his monster headache.
Cab made his way out of Mark Bradley's house and tramped through the muddy driveway to the black Nissan, which was parked where he'd left it. He leaned against the car, letting the waves of pain in his head dissipate. Whoever had assaulted him couldn't be far. Neither could Mark Bradley and Tresa Fischer. He just didn't know where to fi
nd them. They could be anywhere, hidden by the night.
He opened the car door.
That was when he heard it. A sharp crack sizzled through the noise of the rain. The echoes bounced around him, but the ripples of sound started at the beach.
A gunshot.
The world spun as Cab ran for the water.
* * *
Chapter Forty-Eight
Hilary ran to Amy on the bed.
As she did, her cell phone rang, and the music was jarringly loud in the silence of Gary Jensen's house. She fumbled with the buttons to answer the call before the coach heard the ringing downstairs.
'It's Katie,' Amy's roommate whispered as Hilary pressed the phone to her ear. 'Gary's back! Where are you? Are you inside?'
'Call nine one one,' Hilary hissed. 'I found Amy. Get the police here right now.'
She slapped the phone shut before Katie said another word. She didn't have time to wait. At the bed, she cupped Amy's cheek and then clawed with her fingernails at the tape that bound the girl's wrists. The tape was tightly wound in layers and was slow to fray as she picked at it and pulled it away from the down on the girl's skin. Behind the gag, Amy whimpered, partly in pain and partly in relief, but Hilary quieted her with a gentle hand at her mouth. 'Shhh.'
Hilary succeeded in freeing Amy's right wrist, and the girl's arm flew around her neck and pulled her close. They couldn't stop for emotion. Hilary disentangled herself and set to work immediately on Amy's other wrist. This time, her progress was faster, and in less than a minute, Amy's arms were both free, and the girl immediately ripped off the tape from her mouth with a gasp and dug out the cloth bandage that had been stuffed inside, choking her. Her face was blistered and red.
Amy sat up and again hugged Hilary in an embrace so strong she could barely breathe. 'Thank God, thank God, oh, Hilary, thank you,' she murmured in a rush of words.
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