Hope flowed through Tenley. She was in the basement; maybe behind the wall was the backyard! She dug her fingers into the crack and pulled. The space between the floor and the wall widened. There was that strange smell again, a little stronger now.
She could hear the footsteps moving down the stairs, growing louder every second. Adrenaline surged through her. She tugged harder, using her feet to gain momentum. The wall shuddered, then widened even more. The smell sharpened, a foul tickle in her nose. She hesitated for only an instant. Then she grabbed her phone and squeezed through the opening, into a well of blackness.
She pushed the wall back into place behind her as best as she could. It muted all sounds, making it difficult to hear where the footsteps were. She pushed blindly forward, the floor soft beneath her feet. Around her, the darkness seemed to wake, blackness so thick it came alive, twisting into shapes in the corner of her vision. She fumbled with her phone. Finally, she got the flashlight app on. She shone it over the space. Its thin beam was enough to see that she wasn’t outside.
She was in a room. The walls and ceiling were painted a deep red, and the floor was covered in matching red carpet. The room was windowless, but a window had been painted in white on the far wall, with real red curtains draped over it.
The realization hit her like a slap.
She was in a red basement. Red walls, red carpet, red curtains. Exactly like the room Caitlin had described from her kidnapping.
There was only a single piece of furniture in the room: an old bookshelf. She moved toward it as if in a dream. She could hear nothing but her own movements. Her heartbeat. Her ragged breaths. Her stumbling footsteps. Sitting on the middle shelf was a beautiful toy: a steel circus train. It was the train. The one Caitlin had remembered from her kidnapping. The one she’d drawn so meticulously in her journal.
They were right. It was Sam Bauer all along. Not just the dares, but the kidnapping, too. He’d held Caitlin captive in this hidden room, drugged her, and made her fear for her life.… Tenley hunched over, about to be sick.
Footsteps. The sound, dulled by the wall, crept closer.
Tenley straightened up. She had to get proof before it was too late. She aimed her phone at the train and snapped a photo. The flash was much too bright, but she kept going, photographing the walls and the curtains. The flash lit on something in the back corner. A lumpy pile of sheets.
Something crawled under Tenley’s skin, a warning. Don’t go there. But her limbs were deaf to the command. She crept toward the sheets, her body moving as if of its own accord. And then she was there, only inches away. She held her phone up, shining the light over it. The material jutted out at sharp angles. It wasn’t a pile at all. It was a single sheet, with something hidden underneath it.
It all felt surreal. This hidden room with its red walls and its off smell: It was the stuff of stories, of nightmares. But then the sheet was in her hands and what she was staring down at was all too real.
It was a skeleton, slumped in a seated position against the wall. Tenley leaned over and vomited. Still, she couldn’t drag her eyes away. The skeleton was wearing a long yellow dress, and had a pretty linen napkin spread over its lap. An empty plate and fork sat next to it, as if it had just sat down for a meal. Even decomposed like that, Tenley could guess the body had once belonged to a woman.
She sagged to her knees, retching again. How long had this woman rotted away down here while life cycled on above, school and work and parties and love and meals? The room twisted around Tenley, a cesspool of red. She could hear her breath coming out high and heavy, and she wondered vaguely if she was hyperventilating, if soon she, too, would succumb to this room: another corpse to rot inside a cell of red.
A creak rang out behind Tenley. Someone had opened the closet door. She switched off her phone, using the darkness as a mask. The footsteps rang out again, directly behind the wall this time. Tenley pressed her hand into her mouth, trying to silence her breathing. If she didn’t move, didn’t even exist, maybe he would turn around.
Another step. Scenarios flashed through her mind. Sam drugging her as he’d drugged Caitlin. Sam propping her body up next to the woman’s. She’d be lost down here forever, and she’d never see her mom again, or Tim or Winslow or Emerson or Sydney. She’d never again take the walk to Great Harbor Beach or curl up in her bed or speed down Ocean Drive with the wind blowing through her hair. Her life, which had once seemed so big, suddenly shrank to bug-sized, small enough to squash.
The footsteps inched closer, so close she could hear the rustle of shoelaces. Tenley squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting Sam to be the last thing she saw.
Ding! The noise, sharp and high, drifted down from above.
The footsteps paused. The noise came through again, clearer this time. Ding-dong!
It was the doorbell.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sunday, 6:45 PM
Emerson jammed her thumb against the doorbell for the second time. “Come on,” she begged under her breath. “Answer.” When the SUV had rattled onto Neddles bridge a few minutes earlier, right past the bushes she was parked behind, there hadn’t been time to think, or plan, or even to text Tenley. She’d acted on instinct, leaping out of the car and slipping through the gate before it shut.
She’d stayed in the shadows, pressed up against the gate’s iron bars as Sam Bauer emerged from the car. He was bigger in person than she’d expected: tall and broad, with thick arms that made him look more wrestler than techie. His coloring was darker than Calum’s, but he had the same wild blond curls, impossible to miss. He’d stormed toward his house, muttering to himself. As soon as he’d disappeared inside, Emerson had raced across the front yard and rung the doorbell. She didn’t have a plan. All she knew was that she had to give Tenley time to escape.
Now Emerson shrank back at the sound of footsteps stomping up a flight of stairs, from somewhere deep inside the house. Sam must have gone straight for the basement. She half-expected him to appear dragging Tenley behind him, but when the door finally swung open, he was alone.
“Can I help you?” He looked curiously down at her. He was even larger up close. She waited for some sign of recognition—hey, here’s the girl I’ve been stalking!—but she found none.
“Is Calum home?” she asked quickly. It was the only excuse she could think of on the spot. She wondered if Tenley was still in the basement somewhere. She had to have heard the doorbell. If she distracted Sam long enough, she hoped it would give Tenley time to sneak out. “We’re doing a school project together and I think he has my notes—”
“How did you get through the gate?” Sam interrupted. He had a steady way of talking, with little inflection, making it impossible to gage his emotions.
“The gate?” The intensity of Sam’s gaze was making it difficult to think straight. “It, um… was open.”
“It closes automatically.” A wrinkle formed between Sam’s eyebrows. There was something unnerving about his focus, as if he could see through skin and bone, straight to the lies forming inside her head.
Emerson broke into a sweat. “I—it was open,” she repeated helplessly. Her voice was much too squeaky. There might as well have been a neon sign above her head, flashing liar.
Sam shook his head, but his gaze never left her face. “Well, Calum’s not home.” His tone made it clear the conversation was over. “I’d appreciate it if you would vacate the premises, before I’m forced to report you for trespassing.” He went to close the door.
“Wait!” Behind Sam, Emerson caught a flash of chestnut hair. She craned her neck. It was Tenley! She was tiptoeing through the living room, slowly making her way toward the back door in the kitchen. Her hair was mussed, and there was a wild look in her eyes. Stall, Tenley mouthed.
“I, uh, don’t have his number!” Emerson blurted out. “Can you give it to me?” She pulled out her phone and made a big show of opening up a new contact. “Calum,” she said loudly, taking her time typing in his name. “Okay.” She flashed Sam a quivering smile. Behind him, Tenley crept closer to the back door. “What’s his number?”
“Nine seven eight,” Sam recited impatiently. “Two eight one—”
“Wait, was that two nine one? Or two eight one?” Emerson cringed inwardly. But it was working. Tenley was almost at the door.
“Two eight one,” Sam snapped. “One five three—”
The last number was drowned out by a loud creak.
A muscle twitched in Sam’s jaw. Slowly, he turned around. Tenley stood immobile on the creaky floorboard by the back door. “Run!” Tenley yelled, making a leap for the door. Sam’s hand shot out behind him, clamping down on Emerson’s arm. She tried to yank away, but his grip was strong. His fingers dug down so hard she could feel them pressing against bone. They rubbed against one of her bruises from the fire, making her wince. “Your friend isn’t going anywhere,” he informed Tenley. “So I suggest you don’t, either.” Tenley froze, only an inch from the back door.
Sam pulled Emerson into the entryway with a hard tug. The movement knocked her phone out of her hands. It landed on the marble floor with a clatter, just out of reach. “No one move,” Sam said calmly, “and we can discuss this like adults.” He kept a tight grip on Emerson’s arm as he lifted a large black remote control off the glass entryway table. He pushed a button and a strange series of clicks sounded throughout the house. He smiled. Instead of softening his face, it distorted it, like an angry black splotch in the center of a painting.