The Bad Sister

by Kevin O'Brien

  Ellie took a step back, and the porch floorboard squeaked. She gazed at the slightly battered front door. This house in the middle of nowhere was the perfect spot to keep someone prisoner in a cellar, attic, or closet.

  She noticed a front window was open a crack. It looked like it was permanently stuck in that position. She tried to peer through the dirty glass, but couldn’t see much. It was just a big, dark room—vacant except for some debris on the floor. Obviously, Alma Pierson did all her cleaning in other people’s houses, and not her own.

  There still hadn’t been a sound since Ellie had first stepped up on the porch. If this was some kind of trap with somebody lying in wait for her, they were doing a damn good job being quiet about it.

  Ellie gave the window a tug, but it didn’t budge. She glanced down at the dirt smudges on her sweater. With a sigh, she tried the window next to it. After some resistance, it started to give way, but not without a loud scraping noise. Ellie winced at the sound. Still, she kept pulling and jerking at the sash until the window was about two feet open. She waited a few moments, listening again in case the noise had alerted anyone. But there wasn’t a peep.

  Maybe Lance and his mother were out somewhere closer to the school, already stalking their victims for tonight’s double homicide.

  Her stomach clenched, Ellie climbed through the window. The house had a damp, stale smell to it. She paused and let her eyes adjust to the darkness. On the scruffy wooden floor of the room were beer cans, a broken chair, some dirty clothes, and a crowbar. Ellie made a beeline to the crowbar and grabbed it.

  She heard a humming noise in the next room. Switching on her phone light, Ellie shone it on the arched doorway. From the banged-up, built-in hutch on one wall, she figured she was in the dining room. She shone the phone light on the floor and noticed a pathway through the layer of dust. It went from the front hall to the next room, where the mechanical hum continued.

  Ellie crept through the doorway and found herself in the kitchen. The humming came from a refrigerator. It was a newer, stainless steel, smaller “apartment size” model, like the one in her townhouse—only this fridge seemed dwarfed and anachronistic in the big, old country kitchen. Biting her lip, Ellie opened the refrigerator door. It was stocked with juice, soda, fruit, yogurt, and food from the campus deli. She also noticed a bottle of champagne. What were Lance and his mother doing with an expensive-looking bottle of champagne? It seemed more Rachel’s taste than theirs.

  In the glow from the refrigerator light, Ellie had a better look at the kitchen. There was a grease-stained, old gas stove against the wall—with the oven door missing. But on the cracked-tile counter sat a new microwave. Ellie noticed a light switch on the wall. She gave it a flick, and a light went on—a bare bulb hanging over a card table with two folding chairs.

  Something the bodyguard had said didn’t make sense. He’d mentioned that Rachel brought her laundry and picked it up here. But according to Hannah, the cleaning woman always took the laundry back and forth from the bungalow. Why was Rachel making trips here with something in a laundry basket?

  Ellie’s theory about Rachel coming to the house for drugs suddenly didn’t make sense either. If Lance was dealing drugs out of this house, security would have been a lot tighter. It wouldn’t have been so easy for her to break into the place.

  But it didn’t seem like anyone’s home either. The setup inside looked more like a safe house or someplace where a mobster might bring a prisoner or hostage he needed to interrogate.

  Ellie thought of Eden again.

  Leaving the kitchen light on, she headed back through the dining room to the front hallway. With the crowbar in her hand, she crept up the stairs. She wanted to find that room on the second floor where someone had the TV on.

  Halfway up the steps, her phone rang, and Ellie almost jumped out of her skin. If anyone else was in the house, they now knew they had an intruder.

  She checked and saw it was the bodyguard, Perry, calling. She touched the phone screen to pick up and stop the ringing. Then she listened for a moment. Still no footsteps. “Yes, hello?” she whispered into the phone.

  “Did you find the place?” he asked. “Is anyone there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here,” she said, still whispering. “But the place seems to be empty. Have you actually seen Alma or Lance here?”

  “No. Just Rachel coming and going. Sometimes there’s a car in the driveway. I’ve always assumed it was Lance’s. So—nothing, huh? Nobody’s there?”

  “Just me.”

  “Well, sorry to send you out there for nothing. I’m still at the bungalow. They have some priest leading prayers for the crowd next door. So are you coming back here or what?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” Ellie said. “I’ll let you know. Talk to you later, okay?”

  “Okay, so long.” He clicked off.

  Ellie hung up. Something else didn’t make sense. She’d just been in that big kitchen with a microwave and a refrigerator—but no washer, no dryer, and no ironing board. No one was doing laundry in this house. She was convinced Lance and Alma didn’t live here. Their names were on the mailbox out front, but Ellie seriously wondered if they even knew this place existed.

  Tightening her grip on the crowbar, she continued up the stairs. The flickering light filled the second-floor hallway. To her surprise, it came from a room in the back—but the light bounced off a cracked mirror on the hallway wall. There were five other open doors in the corridor. But all of the rooms were dark except the one in back. Tiptoeing to the doorway, Ellie peeked inside. There was a cot pushed against one wall—with a pillow and a messy blanket. A cardboard box—for the microwave oven downstairs—was brimming with trash. But empty beer and soda cans and candy wrappers still littered the bare floor.

  Ellie stepped into the room and saw a long desk against the wall. It held a computer and keyboard, speakers, some kind of sound system, and three monitors. The screen behind the keyboard was off. But the other two monitors were on. Each one had a smaller picture-within-picture at the bottom corner of the screen. The large images were the ones Ellie noticed first. One TV showed Hannah and Eden’s empty bedroom. Ellie recognized the Degas poster. It looked like someone had hidden a nanny-cam in the room. The smaller image, the picture-within-picture showed a little girl curled up on a cot with a blanket bunched up around her feet. It looked like a still photo, shot from overhead.

  The bigger image on the other monitor was a shot of a neglected yard. The camera must have been up in a tree, because a few bare branches almost obscured the view—though not quite. There was another tree with an old tire swing. But the camera seemed focused on a tool shed at the edge of a leafless hedgerow—a shed like the one in Lyle Duncan Wheeler’s backyard.

  “My God,” Ellie whispered. She turned and ran to the bedroom window. She gazed down at the derelict, barren yard, the old tire swing—and the tool shed.

  Breathless, she hurried back to the monitor and set the crowbar down on the desk. Her hand was shaking as she tried to manipulate the mouse on the pad in front of the monitor showing Hannah’s bedroom. She clicked on the smaller image, and it suddenly filled the screen. It wasn’t a still photograph, because the girl restlessly tossed and turned on the cot. Ellie found a knob that enabled her to zoom in on the image.

  It was no little girl. It was Eden O’Rourke.

  And she was still alive.

  A movement in the small picture on the other monitor suddenly caught Ellie’s eye. The bigger picture of the backyard was completely still. But a different camera picked up some activity in another location. Ellie manipulated the mouse again and clicked on the smaller, picture-within-picture image. She hadn’t noticed a surveillance camera earlier, but there must be one mounted somewhere above the front door. She could see the desolate front yard, her car parked in the driveway, and someone creeping past it.

  She didn’t need to zoom in on him. She could see that it was Perry.

  He’d lied to her on the phone five m
inutes ago when he’d said he was waiting by the girls’ bungalow. He must have been down at the end of the driveway when he’d called her. One of the first things he’d asked was if anyone else was there.

  She should have listened to Nate’s warning. Sloane’s goons must have identified him from the security cameras at the Bonners’ house. Then obviously, they’d tracked down the taxi driver and gotten her name from him.

  Perry couldn’t very well have nabbed her earlier at the bungalow, not with all those people gathered in front of the garden next door. So he’d persuaded her to drive out here—in the middle of nowhere, he’d said.

  Was this a safe house for Sloane’s men? Were they the ones who took Eden? Maybe Nate was right about that, too.

  Or was Perry the Immaculate Conception Killer’s self-appointed disciple?

  Ellie grabbed the crowbar off the desk. She hurried out to the hallway and ducked into one of the front bedrooms. It was empty—except for some trash scattered on the wood floor. Ellie stood flat against the wall by the window. The tattered shade was halfway down. Past the dirty glass, she could see Sloane’s man directly below, sneaking up toward the front porch.

  This close, she could also see the gun in his hand.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Friday, 7:51 P.M.

  Hannah heard the noise again—a distant scraping sound, like someone in another room had bumped into a chair and the legs had dragged against the floor. It seemed to come from the basement.

  She sat with Rachel and Maddie in the breakfast nook, watching The Big Bang Theory on Hildie’s TV and eating the pizza that had been delivered twenty minutes ago. Rachel had insisted they change into their pajamas before they ate. So while the pizza had gotten cold, Hannah had changed into her blue gingham pj’s. At least Rachel had managed to pack the right pajamas. Rachel had on a sophisticated lacy gown with a matching robe, and Maddie wore flannel lounge pants and an old Hello Kitty T-shirt.

  Hannah thought eating in their nightwear was a stupid idea—especially in this huge, drafty mansion. But the notion wasn’t nearly as moronic as Rachel’s quirky moratorium on phones for the evening. Hannah kept wondering when she’d be able to get hers back.

  She also wondered when Alden would show up with his friends. She’d thought Rachel would have ordered a pizza for them, too. But, no, she’d gotten only one large mushroom pie—her choice. She hadn’t even asked Hannah and Maddie what they’d wanted on the pizza. Why had Rachel become so selfish and snotty all of a sudden?

  So far tonight, Hannah was having a miserable time, and it wasn’t just because she didn’t have her phone or because Rachel was acting so awful. Hannah kept thinking of Eden, alone and terrified, locked up in a shed or a closet someplace, at the mercy of some killer. Before, it had merely been a theory between her and Ellie. But now, the TV newspeople were reporting it as a very real possibility. She was hardly in a “pajama party” mood.

  Hannah also thought about those two girls murdered fifty years ago tonight—two of the three students in bungalow eighteen that night.

  She just wanted Alden to show up. Then she’d feel safe. Then the two of them could sneak away from the others and talk or maybe cuddle—corny as that sounded.

  There was yet another noise from the basement. Hannah put down her slice of pizza. “Okay, I just heard something again . . .”

  “I heard it, too,” Maddie whispered.

  “Turn down the TV.” Hannah nudged Rachel, who, of course, had charge of the remote.

  Rolling her eyes, she turned down the volume. “I told you. It’s just the furnace. It does that sometimes . . .”

  The three of them remained completely still at the kitchen table, waiting and listening. Hannah stared across the room at a vent by the floor.

  Rachel let out a sigh and then reached for her Diet Coke and took a sip.

  Hannah heard a man quietly snickering. The sound sent chills up her back. It seemed to come from the vent.

  Maddie let out a little shriek and covered her mouth.

  “That’s Alden!” Rachel laughed. She sprung up from the table. “He must have snuck in while we were upstairs. He’s screwing with us! C’mon . . .”

  But Hannah didn’t want to move. She could see Maddie was just as frightened as she was. “This isn’t funny,” Maddie said.

  “I’m telling you, it’s Alden,” Rachel said through a giggle. “He has a key. He knows all the security codes. He’s down by the vent in the basement. Who else could it be? C’mon, don’t be such scaredy cats . . .”

  Hesitant, Hannah finally got to her feet.

  Maddie stood up as well, but she was trembling. “I don’t like this,” she murmured.

  “Join the club,” Hannah replied under her breath.

  Still, she followed Rachel out of the kitchen to the basement door in the front hall. When Hannah reached the doorway, the basement light was on and Rachel was already halfway down the stairs.

  She felt sick to her stomach. “Rachel!” she called down to her. “Rachel, I want my fucking phone back!”

  But Rachel ignored her and continued down the steps.

  “Damn it, I’m not having a fun time!” Hannah yelled. “Neither is Maddie. For God’s sake . . .”

  With Maddie hovering behind her, Hannah reluctantly started down the stairs. From one of the middle steps, she saw the light go on in the game room.

  “Alden?” she heard Rachel call. “We know it’s you! Nice try, buddy! Where are you?”

  “Alden?” Hannah called in a shaky voice. “Alden, we’re majorly creeped out here. The joke isn’t funny anymore. If I wanted to be scared, I’d have stayed at the bungalow tonight. Now, c’mon, enough is enough—”

  “I don’t think this is a joke,” Maddie whispered, her voice quavering.

  With a hand on the banister, Hannah continued down the stairs. She glanced around the huge game room. Rachel had already moved into the back corridor—toward the mini-gym, sauna, bathroom, and the extra bedroom. The hallway light went on, and Rachel’s shadow moved across the wall. “Alden, you asshole, where are you?”

  Exasperated, Hannah shook her head and reluctantly started toward the back corridor.

  Rachel let out a brief shriek. It was as if she was cut off mid-scream. Then suddenly, silence.

  Hannah stopped dead. From the end of the hallway, she saw the light was on in the guest room. “Rachel?” she called nervously. “Rachel, what’s going on?”

  There was no response. From the room down at the end of the corridor, all she heard was a whimper.

  Maddie clung to her arm as they headed down the hallway together. Hannah felt her heart thumping against her chest. She crept up to the doorway and saw Rachel standing in the middle of the bedroom.

  With tears in her eyes, Rachel stared at something off in the corner, out of Hannah’s line of vision. She seemed in shock. She kept shaking her head over and over.

  The room wasn’t the same as when Hannah had seen it last week. The twin beds had been shoved against opposite walls. All around the room were pots and vases with cut chrysanthemums—just like the ones in the garden where bungalow eighteen used to be.

  Reaching a hand out to Rachel, Hannah stepped into the room. That was when she saw the man standing in the corner, by the closet door. He wore strange, outdated clothes. He had shaggy dark blond hair, a thick mustache, and glasses. It all looked like part of a disguise.

  He pointed a gun at them.

  Hannah stopped. All at once, she couldn’t breathe.

  Behind her, Maddie let out a little cry.

  Past the bizarre disguise, the man grinned. “I want you holy sluts to get down on your knees,” he whispered.

  * * *

  The 911 operator repeated the address.

  “That’s right,” Ellie whispered into her phone. “It’s a mile north of Waukegan, a farmhouse—on a dead-end road. The missing O’Rourke girl is in a tool shed in the backyard. She—she’s alive. Someone’s trying to get into the house right
now, and he’s got a gun . . .”

  Ellie stood beside the window, clutching the crowbar in her other hand. She could hear Perry downstairs, struggling to raise the window higher. The opening must have been too small for his stocky frame.

  Ellie realized if he had to climb through the window, he didn’t have a key to the house. He and Sloane’s men weren’t using it as a hideout. Maybe he had no idea that Eden was locked in the backyard shed.

  “All right, Ellie,” the 911 operator said. “Stay calm, and remain on the line . . .”

  Earlier, Ellie had given the woman her name, and since then, the operator had called her by name in every sentence she spoke. It was probably supposed to calm her, but it just unnerved Ellie even more.

  “I can’t hold on,” she whispered. The crowbar almost slipped out of her hand as she hung up. She couldn’t keep her hands steady. Tucking the weapon under her arm, she pressed Perry’s number. She had to do something to stall him until the police arrived.

  He must have had his phone on vibrate because she didn’t hear it ringing.

  “Shit,” he grumbled. She heard that much through the open window downstairs.

  There was a click. “Yeah, what’s going on?” he whispered, out of breath.

  “Well, I—I got inside the house,” she explained in a hushed, shaky voice. “I’m in a back bedroom, and there are some TV monitors here. From one of them, it looks like somebody planted a nanny-cam or a spy-cam in Hannah’s bedroom. They’ve been watching her . . .”

  “You’re kidding me,” he murmured. He sounded genuinely surprised.

  Ellie wondered if, when he’d sent her here, Perry had been telling the truth about never having set foot in the place. Maybe it was just like he’d said—he’d merely dropped and picked up Rachel there on a few occasions.