Right Next Door

  Caroline is sitting under the window, her narrow shoulders slumped against the wall. In her hands is the little Barbie car she plays with so often. She’s spinning one wheel, round and round and round.

  “Hey, honey, wha’cha doing?”

  Nothing about Caroline’s appearance or affect indicates that she even heard Marcy, but Marcy knows better. She knows her daughter is smart and observant. She’s just struggling right now. Unfortunately, Marcy has no idea how to help her through whatever it is that’s happening to her. Or even if Caroline wants help. It’s not that she seems like a miserable child. She seems happy in her own little world. Well, maybe not happy, but certainly not miserable. She doesn’t cry or complain; she’s just…quiet.

  “I’m going to the mailbox. Want to walk outside with me? It’s sunny and warm. The perfect summer day. We need to be out there enjoying it.”

  Caroline makes no move to respond. She just spins the wheel over and over again.

  Marcy tries not to let the pale skin and the thin frame of her daughter bother her. Kids who don’t play outside are pale. Of course they’re pale. It doesn’t mean anything is wrong with her. The doctor gave her a clean bill of health. Other than that one unmentionable word. Marcy just needs to stop worrying. Caroline eats well and she never complains of anything hurting. Those are both good signs. Marcy reminds herself to focus on the positive.

  “Come on. Come with me. You can bring your car out there and drive it around on the sidewalk. Cars run better when they get out of the garage, and this room is like a garage. You want it to work right, don’t you?”

  At this, Caroline raises her shadowy eyes. Marcy smiles into them, nodding and encouraging. “Come on. It’ll be fun.”

  She wants to say that maybe the neighbors will see them out and come out as well, but that would work more as a deterrent to Caroline than an incentive, so she keeps her mouth shut. Nevertheless, she herself holds onto that hope.

  It’s been three days since she took waffles to Jill. She has neither seen nor heard from her since then. She hasn’t seen anyone come or go during that time either. Not that she watches the house like some sort of crazy stalker, but Marcy knows Jill’s schedule, roughly, and she hasn’t seen her at all. Maybe Mark left for a trip and Marcy missed his exit. Or maybe Jill has shifted her hours to work longer. And the nanny probably stays in for the most part. That’s the most logical explanation for the lack of activity. But Marcy’s brain doesn’t always yield to logic. The imagination wants what the imagination wants, she likes to say.

  Slowly, Caroline levers herself up off the floor, her tiny fingers clutching the car like it’s a lifeline, and she shuffles her feet across the floor. She bypasses Marcy altogether and heads for the stairs. She stops at the front door, head slightly bowed toward the Barbie car, and waits for Marcy to unlock and open it. When she does, Caroline steps outside, walks a few feet off the porch and onto the sidewalk, then promptly sits down to play exactly as she does in her room—driving the sedan around and around. Aimlessly. Never going anywhere.

  Marcy sometimes feels that’s how far she’s getting with Caroline’s condition—a whole lot of nowhere.

  Stepping around her daughter as she descends the sidewalk, Marcy’s mind is still on Caroline when she reaches the mailbox. That’s why she doesn’t notice the damage sooner.

  The black aluminum box, the one with the beautiful scrollwork along the top and bottom —the one Marcy had hand picked to replace the standard one that came with their house—is now a lump of bent and twisted metal. It’s leaning helplessly to one side, held on by one metal bracket that’s still intact. It’s hardly recognizable as a rectangle, much less a box. The sides are crushed in and the front is so smashed, the door is folded back into the inside. Marcy can’t even see enough of the inside to know if there’s mail in it or not.

  The first emotion to surface is annoyance. “Damned teenagers!” she grumbles in angry indignation. “Smashing mailboxes is a federal offense, you little shits.”

  But then something else occurs to her. She takes a step back, one hand rising to the thin gold chain around her neck. What if…what if this has something to do with the neighbor’s mail that’s been coming to their address by mistake? The first letter was undeniably threatening. Could this be the second step in some sort of plot to harass and torture that person’s tormentor, a.k.a. Mark Halpern?

  “My God, Mark, what did you do?” Her voice is quiet, as though someone might hear her. Logic would tell her that’s impossible when no one is even around, but, again, Marcy doesn’t bother to consult logic. She only knows that she’s distinctly uncomfortable thinking about what could happen if Mark finds out that she knows.

  Not that she really knows anything at all, but she knows he’s done something. Something bad enough to warrant a definitive—and, by the looks of the mailbox, violent—reaction from the victim.

  Marcy starts backtracking her way down the driveway and onto the sidewalk where her daughter is playing. She tries to be circumspect about it, glancing left and right as she goes and staring at the neighbor’s house only a fraction of a second longer than she should.

  Her instinct is to go inside, to hole up with her little girl and protect her. But she finally got Caroline outside, and she hates to cut the outing short. So, ever vigilant, Marcy takes a seat beside her daughter, putting her body between Caroline’s and the Halpern house. She doesn’t want Mark Halpern even looking at Caroline. Not until she can find out more about what the hell is going on with him. She hasn’t gotten very far yet, but she’s far from quitting. In fact, this has only served to ramp up her motivation. Marcy will find a way. She’s nothing if not persistent. And she’s been known to show considerable ingenuity when the occasion calls for it. She’ll think of a way, even if she has to break into the Halpern house when they’re gone. She’s not above a little criminal activity of her own when the situation demands it.

  And this situation demands it.

  Like cool breath on the back of her neck, Marcy gets the feeling someone is watching her. She glances over her shoulder, scanning the area for a figure. She doesn’t see anyone, but as she returns her eyes to Caroline, she catches movement in the upstairs window of Jill’s house.

  The curtains are still fluttering, but whoever was watching Marcy is no longer there.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Cool air.

  It hit my subconscious mind first. My instinct was to roll onto my back, spread my arms and legs, and let it hit every possible surface of my feverish skin. So that’s what I did.

  Until it hit my waking brain.

  The moment it did, I sprung over onto my hands and knees like one of those strange battery-operated toys you see on display at Christmas. I was instantly consumed with identifying where the breeze was coming from. Initially, I thought it just might be conditioned air being pumped in to my prison, but when I took my first deep breath, I knew that wasn’t the case. This wasn’t cooled air; it was outside air. Night air. I could smell it.

  A week ago, if someone had asked me what night air smelled like, I’d have shrugged. Maybe even laughed. I’d certainly have said I had no idea. I might’ve even had a sarcastic answer like, “It smells like a darker blue than day time air.” I had no idea what I would’ve said, but if someone asked me in the future, I’d be able to tell them exactly what night time air smells like. Clean. It smells clean in a way that day air doesn’t. Clean and fresh and lightly scented.

  And that on one particular night in my life, it smelled like freedom.

  I held up my palm. It was still sort of damp. Tacky, like all my skin seemed to be. Like the ambient humidity laid on it like a film. I waved it around, slowly, back and forth like I was washing a window. I was trying to identify the direction from which the air was coming. I couldn’t see, but I could feel. In fact, that air on my skin was probably as good as sight at that moment.

  I stood and turned toward the flow of air. Took a deep breath. Felt it cool my lungs, invigo
rate my mind. I had every intention of running for it, chains or not. That made no sense, of course, but I wasn’t thinking clearly as much as I was thinking desperately.

  I was desperate to get away. It was as simple as that. And the power of that scent was intoxicating.

  Before I could do anything rash, however, daylight happened. Noon in the dead of night happened. Light, harsh, bright, overwhelming light, poured from every square inch of the universe. Or at least it seemed that way.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. Dropped to my knees. Grabbed my head with both hands. Pain sliced through my skull. A scalpel through warm butter. I tried to think past it, to act past it, to see past it, but I couldn’t. When I tried to look, I couldn’t see any more than when I was wrapped in pitch black.

  I wanted to cry, wanted to scream for my wasted opportunity. I had a chance to look, had a chance to see my prison. With my eyes, not just my imagination. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t look and I couldn’t see.

  I crouched like that for minutes. An hour. A day. Eternity. I didn’t know. I only knew the pain and frustration of it. Slowly, eventually, I cracked a lid. Tried again to see, to acclimate my eyes to light. It was no use. I had to be smarter than that.

  With my head still bowed, I took a deep breath and tried to relax. Then, inch by inch, I started lifting my head. Enough that I saw the glowing red of light as it filtered through my eyelids.

  I kept going, kept lifting, kept raising until my face was tilted toward the ceiling. Then, nanometer by nanometer, I opened my eyes.

  They watered. Prickled. Stung. My head throbbed, but I made myself at least glance around. Take in as much as I could. I confirmed much of what I’d mentally pictured based on my blind explorations—rectangular room, concrete floor, mattress lined walls, chicken wire cages. The one thing I hadn’t been able to get a feel for was the ceiling. It, too, was covered in mattresses and chicken wire. Every inch, except for where four flood lights and one narrow pipe poked through.

  What surprised me was the one wall I couldn’t reach. It was to my left and it was gone. Slid open, on rollers that hung just below the chicken wire on the ceiling, garage door style. How had I not heard it open?

  I knew the answer. More drugs.

  Once my brain finished cataloging details, it honed in on the most important thing. The door was open.

  The door was open.

  The door was open.

  Beyond it was night. As inky black as my prison had been until moments before. Deep, dark shadows, exaggerated by the blinding light that was directed at me on the inside.

  I squinted into the blackness. Tried desperately to see what was out there. What or who was out there. But it was no use. I couldn’t make out anything at all. Just more nothingness.

  Until something moved.

  It was barely perceptible. More a wave or a shift than an actual move.

  I stared at the spot. So hard that water trickled from the corners of my eyes. I stared until I could make out something. Until I could be sure I hadn’t imagined it. I stared until I could see two shapes.

  My heart stuttered. A one-two punch. Like a boxer warming up.

  One shape was much taller than the other. Drastically so. Both were dressed in dark clothing. Just a shade or two deeper than the murkiness of their surroundings.

  “Who are you? What do you want from me?”

  My voice was a hoarse croak. My throat was so dry the words scraped across my vocal cords like rock on a cheese grater.

  A modulated, robot-like voice replied. “I have a job for you to do.”

  “A job? Wh-what job?”

  “Kill her.”

  I stopped inhaling. Just for a second. “Kill who?”

  “Kill her and you’ll be free.”

  “Kill who?”

  “You’ll know.”

  I heard a loud clank and then the mechanical whir of the door lowering. “Wait! I can’t kill someone. I…I can’t do that. Wait!”

  Frantic, I raced toward the door. The chains yanked my arms back when I reached the end of them. Painful reminders of my situation. Of just how vulnerable I was. Of just how stuck.

  Kill someone or…or what? Be killed? Starve to death? Die of thirst? Be buried alive?

  “Kill someone or what?” I screamed.

  No response.

  The door clanked again. Stopped moving. All I could see were feet. One large set, one small.

  I squatted down. “Wait, please. I…I can’t kill someone. Please, just let me go and I won’t press charges. I won’t even go to the police. Just let me go. I have a family. My husband has already called the cops. They’ll be looking for me. Let me go now and we can forget any of this happened.”

  I was crying tearlessly again. This time for a different reason. I thought of my husband, of my son, of how desperate I was to see them again. Desperate, yes, but not enough to kill someone for. I could never be that selfish.

  “If you ever want to see your son again, kill her.”

  There was a pause. Mine or his, I didn’t know. I was thinking that I’d sealed my own fate, because I couldn’t kill another human being to gain my own freedom. Not even if it meant leaving my son without his mother.

  But then I heard it.

  I heard him.

  “Mommy!”

  I gasped. My whole body lurched at the sound. Bucked like I’d been hit with a cattle prod.

  Dalton.

  My son.

  I’d know that voice anywhere. In my dreams. In this nightmare.

  His cry was shrill, terrified. Then it was clamped off abruptly. Like a hand cut it off.

  He had my son.

  The sick bastard had my son.

  “Dalton?” I shot forward. Strained against my chains. Clawed against the concrete. “Dalton!”

  A muffled scream. The rustle of clothing.

  One set of feet disappeared. Lifted off the ground like they were tied to a rocket.

  The other set shifted. Dalton was struggling. My captor was restraining him. I could see it play out in my mind as if I could see through the garage door. X-ray vision.

  Then another scream. More desperate. More petrified.

  “Mommy!”

  I screamed. Or at least I thought I did. I might have lost a few seconds of time. Blacked out when the world tilted. When the earth shuddered on its axis. Everything stopped as the details of my worst fear, my most dreaded nightmare came to pass.

  “Dalton!” I cried again.

  No response.

  I fell to my knees. Crumpled onto the floor like a puppet whose strings had just been severed. “Oh, Jesus God, no! Let him go. Please. Oh, please. God, please, let him go.”

  “Kill her if you want to see him again.”

  The motor started to whir again and the door lowered the rest of the way.

  “Noooo!” I yelled. It swept under the door, slipped through the narrowing crack. Swooped out into the night like a banshee on wings, but it didn’t stop them.

  I watched the final piece of my cage settle back into place. Then the lights flicked off. And once again, I was plunged into darkness. Only this time, I welcomed it. It was as dark in my world as it was in my soul.

  Chapter Twenty

  To be a Monday, it feels like a fairly lazy morning. Probably because John took the day off. Makes it feel like the weekend. He’s putting together a new entertainment center Marcy ordered for the new house. It arrived weeks ago, but John just hadn’t had time to assemble it.

  Marcy is sitting on the couch, pretending to read a magazine. In truth, she’s eyeing her daughter’s bangs as they hang in her face. She really wishes Caroline would at least let her pull it back or braid it. Anything to keep it from hanging the way it does. It gives her the look of a disheveled child, and Marcy doesn’t like that. Caroline is a clean, neat, healthy little girl, and Marcy wants everything about her to speak to that. Caroline, on the other hand, couldn’t care less. She wants to wear shoddy shoes and have bedraggled hair, and she has wha
t’s becoming dangerously close to a panic attack if Marcy tries to mess with any of it.

  Marcy makes a mental note to ask the doctor about that. Maybe her attachment to her hair and her discomfort with being touched could mean something else.

  She forces the thought out of her mind. Today, she’s determined to be happy with the seemingly small win of getting her to come down to the living room and play since John is home. Maybe she can let her becoming a daddy’s girl work for her. Not let it hurt her feelings so much. But she does everything for Caroline, bends over backward to accommodate her, so it’s hard. John just comes and goes as usual, without making any special efforts. Maybe that’s the key. Maybe she tries too hard, she and her control freak personality. She can’t change that overnight, though. Marcy is pleased with the progress she’s made thus far, and refuses to feel guilty for not being able to become a completely different person in the blink of an eye. It takes time to undo a lifetime of habits and tendencies. But her daughter is worth it, so she will continue to make every kind of adjustment she needs to in order to further both their relationship and Caroline’s emotional healing.

  John sits up straight and stretches his shoulders and back. Marcy smiles down at him. “Stiff?”

  “A little. This stud body of mine is getting a few miles on it.” He winks playfully and Marcy rolls her eyes.

  “A few?”

  “Hard to believe by looking at me, isn’t it?” He shifts easily to his feet and proceeds to twist his arms into a variety of flexing positions. Then he turns and gives her a view of his world-class ass—Marcy doubts even age can detract from its round, muscular perfection—and gives it a one-two clench. “Take it all in. I don’t mind.”

  Marcy can’t help giggling. “You’re ridiculous.”

  “In the best possible way, though, right?”

  He walks to her and bends, pressing his lips to hers. She reaches up to cup his cheek with her palm. “In the best possible way.”