Chapter Forty-Five
At first Mimi thought the voice was in her head—an echo of her fears.
The words were unclear, just a burst of syllables coming closer.
She grabbed Kara under her arms and tugged her limp body onto her lap.
What could she do? If he found them, they were as good as dead.
Damn it, Jackson. But she couldn’t really place blame on that poor man.
This was all about her—her lies, and her inability to protect her child.
Tears spilled down her cheeks and her lower lip trembled.
She had to figure out a plan. She looked around in the darkness, still unable to see anything at all.
Could she block the door? With what? Should she run out and away from Kara, causing a distraction that might save her daughter?
She placed her fingers on Kara’s neck, closing her eyes as she felt for her pulse.
The faint beat beneath her fingertips sent adrenaline racing through her veins.
If he found them, she’d protect Kara. She’d kill him.
With what? She lowered Kara to the floor and felt around for anything that would work as a weapon.
The steel contraptions beside her were too heavy with no loose parts.
She crawled into the center of the small room, reaching from side to side, contemplating everything she touched, trying desperately not to make noise.
A loud crash came from outside the walls of the tiny room. Mimi froze, her eyes wide, her heart racing at a frantic pace. No, no, no. God, please, no. She inched backward in the darkness, feeling behind her, her eyes trained in the direction of the door.
Another loud crash—metal against concrete—followed by a heavy thud that sent a vibration beneath her knees. He must have thrown something. Oh, God.
“Where are you, bitch?” Roland’s voice boomed just beyond the door, fading and growing louder as he changed directions, then neared again.
Mimi scrambled back to Kara, folding her daughter’s unconscious body into as small of a bundle as she was able. She tucked her daughter’s knees to her chest, and placed her own body between Kara and the door. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Kara.
Her arms hurt. She realized her fingers were digging into her own skin.
She released her grasp and clasped her fingers together.
Mimi closed her eyes and prayed. “Please, God, let him kill me, not her. Please, I didn’t mean to put her in danger.
I didn’t mean to…to burn him. I didn’t throw him away.
I loved him.” She thought about those words.
Loved him. Had she loved him? As a tiny boy, maybe?
It was so long ago, and they’d only spent ten months together.
She closed her eyes, trying to mentally locate her buried memories of Roland as a child—a malleable, innocent child.
His smooth, unmarred face rose to the surface of her memory.
His smile when Al had given him his first baseball hat.
She could feel his lanky little boy arms wrapped around her neck, his breath on her cheek as he said, “I love you, Mommy.” Yes, she had loved him.
She was sure of it. The change that had overtaken him happened so suddenly, as if a switch had been flipped.
Overnight, he’d morphed from a sweet, caring child to another little boy all together, possessive and aggressive.
She’d blamed herself—an outsider entering his world, which had already been upended enough.
It was Al who had tamped down that worry, with his talk of how Roland had most likely inherited his mother’s chemical imbalance, that the trauma of his mother’s institutionalization was likely what had triggered it, even if it had revealed itself several months after her disappearance.
“Marissa!” Roland’s irate voice boomed through the closed door.
Mimi reached for Kara’s hand, clenching it, then releasing it. Kara might suddenly wake and make a noise, leading to their discovery. Mimi covered her mouth and nose. Her own breathing seemed too loud.
The gears of the doorknob turned.
Mimi gasped.
A click filled the room. The door pushed slowly open, just enough to allow cool air to whisk across Mimi’s cheeks. Mimi listened to Roland’s heavy breathing. Her heart was sure to leap from her chest. A faint crashing sound came from somewhere behind him.
His heavy breathing quieted. Mimi held her breath.
She watched him standing in the doorway, his silhouette barely visible.
Another noise rang out. Mimi listened as the doorknob righted itself and Roland turned and walked away.
The door slid off his back, failing to click shut. Roland’s heavy footsteps retreated.
A rush of air expelled from Mimi’s lungs.
Ted hung from the open window for only a second before dropping onto the concrete floor below.
The sky boomed, sending sheets of rain through the rough opening.
He stepped across the broken glass, away from the spray of the rain, fumbling with the weight of the gun in one hand and Jackson’s cell phone in the other.
Jackson had an iPhone, as did Mimi, and Ted remembered how happy Mimi was that the phone came with a flashlight application, which she used to shine on her car’s lock at night.
He searched Jackson’s phone applications.
Water dripped from his clothing. His fingers shook with cold.
The powerful stench of wet coal surrounded him.
He found the flashlight icon and pushed the image.
The phone emitted a high-pitched whine, and then tendrils of light extended into a spray before him.
Ted swung the light from side to side. The stale room held nothing of interest. He took a few steps forward, the light held out before him.
He stepped into a small puddle, and spied a hallway leading out of the room.
His shoe gripped the floor as if he’d stepped in syrup.
He turned back toward the window, shining the light on the floor behind him.
His footprints were not brown, as he’d expected, but rather a rich, crimson red.
“What the—” Ted’s sweaty fingers clasped the gun even tighter.
He walked back toward the puddle and crouched, setting the phone on the floor beside his feet.
Light spilled over the pool of blood. Mimi.
The hair on the back of Ted’s neck stood on end.
He spun around toward the hallway, picking up the phone and rising slowly to his feet.
He listened to the roar of what seemed like a never-ending storm.
Ted was momentarily paralyzed with fear.
One hand clenched the gun like a lifeline, the other held the illuminated phone.
A noise came from somewhere far away in the plant.
He couldn’t place what it was, or guess the range of its distance.
He blinked rapidly, the danger of what he had embarked on settling around him like an invisible demon.
He moved to the wall, beside the opening to the hallway, and crouched, clicking off the flashlight application.
The sound of his own breathing filled the room.
His heart pounded in his throat erratically.
He pushed 911 on the cell phone, and raised it to his ear.
The line clicked and crackled, but no ring came through.
Ted lowered the phone, clicked the red button, then tried again.
Click, crackle, silence.
“Damn it.”
He took his own phone from his pocket, setting Jackson’s on the floor beside his feet. His fingers trembled as he tried to find his call log. He pressed the number for the last incoming call, and lifted the phone to his ear. Mitch.
The line crackled.
Thunder crashed beyond the plant walls.
Ted sat up straighter, listening to the dead air and hoping the call would go through.
“Marissa!” A man’s furious voice boomed through the bowels of the plant.
Ted shot to his feet. Marissa? Who the hell is Marissa? The line was dead. He stuffed the phone in his pocket. He used both hands to steady the shaking gun, which he held out before him, his index finger hovering just millimeters from the trigger.
He couldn’t keep his fear at bay. His chest constricted.
His eyes darted from the hall to the room, which suddenly felt much smaller.
His body felt too large, as if there was no way to hide his presence.
His footprints would announce him, even if he were to hide.
He dropped his eyes to the puddle on the floor.
Mimi. Ted took a deep breath and headed for the hall.
The walls pressed in on him. The ceiling pushed down from above. There was no escape. He was in this for the long haul. Whatever lay before him was his destiny. Whether or not this had anything to do with his stepdaughter or his wife wasn’t clear, but he was in it all the same.
He rounded one corner into another darkened tunnel. A dim light spread across the area just ahead, where the path crossed with another. Ted lowered his chin, looking through the tops of his eyes, his shoulders residing just beneath his ears. Tension laced every fiber of his being.
As he neared the end of the passageway, a low mumbling became apparent—a man’s voice, low and shaky, his words unclear.
Ted stopped and listened. It was not Jackson’s voice.
Where the hell was Mitch? His fingers locked in a vice grip around the gun’s thick, unfamiliar handle.
Ted breathed heavily through his nose, convincing himself to be brave.
He inched closer to the light, lowering his rigid arms just a few inches so he could peer around the edge of the wall without being seen.
He pressed his back against the wall, the gun still clenched in both hands.
He counted to ten, building his courage with each number.
Eight. Nine. Ten. He leaned his head toward the adjoining hallway, peering with one eye beyond the corner.
The mumbling halted. Ted saw a dimly lit, empty hallway.
It suddenly occurred to him that the voice may have come from the other direction.
He pulled his head back against the wall.
Shit. How could he do this? He couldn’t watch both sides. He was a dead man.
The murmuring began once again. Ted focused on the sound, listening for the direction it had come from. His eyes bounced from right to left. The sound stopped again. Focus, he told himself.
A shuffling sound came from the left side of the hall, as if something was being pushed along the floor, followed by a sloshing sound.
Ted’s eyes widened. The shuffling continued.
A low groan floated through the air. Ted raised the gun.
Another slosh, followed by a loud exhalation.
Ted peered around the wall. A silhouette of a massive man became visible in the darkness.
He raised something large to his lips with thick, bulky arms. Then, the sound of lips smacking, and the silhouette turned toward Ted.
Ted slipped back behind the wall, his finger on the cold metal trigger of the gun.
Ted clenched his teeth, raised the gun, and stepped into the hall, his gun aimed at the center of the mass of a man who stood before him.
The man held two jugs of antifreeze in one hand, the other clenched into a thick fist.
The man lifted his gaze to Ted, a confused expression in his dark eyes. He dropped the jugs of antifreeze to his side and lifted his chin. Like a dog measuring a rival’s stance, he set his eyes on Ted and cocked his head.
Ted watched the man’s deadpan gaze change from one of confusion to that of a wild animal. Ted’s legs shook. Fearing they’d buckle, he locked them as straight as he was able to, the gun outstretched, his trigger finger ready.
“Where are they?” he said.
The man took a step toward Ted.
“Where’s Mimi?” Ted’s voice echoed in the corridor. He stumbled backward, the gun feeling more foreign than ever.
The man’s chest rose and fell. His girth dwarfed Ted’s average build. The man took another step toward Ted.
Ted moved backward, trying to hold onto the thread of courage he’d felt just moments before. “Where’s—” His voice caught in his throat. He’d backed himself against the wall.
The man took another step forward. Heat and the rancid smell of death wafted around him. Dried blood soaked his clothes. He raised a mangled hand in Ted’s direction. His disfigured face became clear as he crossed beneath the light.
Ted felt the cool metal of the trigger pressed firmly against the pad of his trembling index finger. “Where’s Mimi?” The pitch of his voice failed him.
The left side of the man’s lips rose in a sinister smile. He let out a sarcastic chuckle, and raised a hand to grab the gun.
Ted’s heart pounded in his ears. A rush of blood flooded his senses. He cried out and squinted, training his eyes on the man’s chest as he pulled back on the trigger.
A tiny click filled the space between them. A shock of fear ran through Ted’s gut. His heartbeat pulsated in his throat. The gun trembled in his hand. Just as Ted realized the safety was still in place, the man dove for the gun.
Ted fumbled for the safety, holding onto the gun with both hands as the man’s enormous palms wrapped around his, pressing so tightly that Ted felt the small bones in his hand crunch beneath the man’s grip. He cried out in pain, no match for his opponent’s bulk.
The man gripped Ted’s wrist, squeezing until the pressure on the bone was excruciating.
Ted cried, “Where’s Mimi?”
The man twisted one of Ted’s arms as if it were made of rubber, and slammed his back into the wall.
The gun remained in Ted’s injured hand, his finger on the trigger, the barrel pressed between the two men’s torsos.
Ted stared into his opponent’s hate-filled eyes, trying to get his broken hand to cooperate.
He didn’t care if he died in the process, he was going to take this bastard down.
He stomped on the man’s toe with his heel.
The man let out a loud grunt, his hand clenching Ted’s arm. His eyes narrowed. In the blink of an eye he dropped his shoulder and rammed it into Ted’s sternum. Ted doubled over in pain with a loud groan. A shot rang out. The gun dropped to the floor and skittered across the floor.