Chapter 45
The little door jarred into my back.
I dissociated for a second, left my body behind, and watched myself hang on, shut down a yelp of pain, swallow it, absorb it into my soul rather than let the guy know we were there.
The dust motes in the air all held their breath along with me.
And then I was returned, to pain, stars and sparkles in my eyes.
I tasted something at the back of my throat. Mortality. The tendrils of tattooed vines at my wrist pulsed, and I stared at them. That was greenery needled into my skin, pain I’d endured, willingly. I could tolerate this, too. Blood rushed through my ears, too loud.
I counted to myself. At thirty, I heard something that might be footsteps, then at forty, a distant floorboard complaining.
Retreat.
He would check the other bedroom, the bathroom. He’d make sure.
My back stung. I had a throbbing headache, even though I was sure my head was no longer attached to my neck. I could feel the reverb of that kick down to my fingertips.
I counted. I didn’t know what I was counting to.
He might come back and try the door again. I stayed in place. I wasn’t sure I could stand, anyway.
I’d lost count but I started again. Was that the front door? Were those footsteps, distant, on the stairs? Down? He’d be checking the alley. He’d be jumping into that truck, still running, and getting away.
“I think he’s gone,” Marisa whispered.
He’d be driving away. He’d get away with what he’d done.
Marisa was saying something, her voice distorted. “… for getting me out of there. For pulling me through when I got wedged in.”
He would have killed us. I had no doubt. He’d already killed Joey. He would have killed us.
“Dahlia?” Marisa said. “Honey, are you okay?”
My vision was blurry.
“Are you hurt?” she said.
She sounded as though she was a long way down a tunnel. Down in a black hole. Both of us.
I was cold and sweating at the same time, and my heart was racing. I couldn’t catch my breath. The ceiling in this space was low.
“Yeah,” Marisa said as though we’d piled into this inter-closet casket to catch up, shoot the breeze. “I sure was Winnie-the-Pooh stuck in that hole, wasn’t I? Remember that story?”
I couldn’t fill my lungs to answer. I managed to shake my head at her.
Shut up, shut up.
Couldn’t she see I couldn’t—
I can’t—
Was I dying?
I didn’t want to die.
“Of course you do,” Marisa said. “Remember the library? No, probably not. You were so little. We’d go to the library every week, Tuesday mornings songs and story times with the other kids.
And then I would read you whatever you found on the shelves.
Sometimes we’d sit there for hours. Itsy-bitsy spider, Old MacDonald. You could do all your animal noises.”
In the dark of the scuttle space, I couldn’t see her well enough to know if she was making a joke.
A library? For hours?
I was reminded of the photo on her dresser, mother and cherished child. And then the little pink cast on my arm when I’d come to stay with Alex. She couldn’t wipe that all away, make me forget the damage she’d caused with a story about Old MacDonald’s freaking farm.
“You,” I said, my voice choked. I licked my lips, concentrated on finding my breath.
“And you,” Marisa said. “They had this little record player and we listened to ‘You Are My Sunshine’ until I thought the children’s librarian would kick us out.” She changed to a lilting singsong and tried a few lines.
I looked up.
“Oh, you thought you developed your love of old-time music spontaneously?” Marisa said. “No, that was sitting in my lap, oh my darlin.’ Try humming.”
I tried. I couldn’t. And then I could.
I’d stopped shaking, at least. My back still ached, but in a dull way. I had found my breath, and my pulse had stopped thumping in my throat and ears. “You sure?” I said. “That it wasn’t Sicily you sang to?”
“I sang to her, too … I…” She sucked in a breath. “Did you say…” Her voice twisted away.
Sicily, who might be on her way to the pub. Who hadn’t seen her mother in four days, had imagined the worst.
Marisa wiped at her face, smearing dirt and grime. “You know Sicily?”
“I know her well enough,” I said, “to know she’ll want to see you.”
Marisa cried into her hands. Her fingernails were filthy.
“Oh, and that she might be failing out of college.”
“But how—” Her waterworks sniffled to a stop. “She’s not flunking out. Is she? How do you know?”
“That was called ripping off the bandage, Marisa,” I said. “You two can talk about it later. Soon. Let’s go.”
BEFORE WE MOVED ON, WE found a heavy box of old bar glassware against the wall and dragged it across the room to shove in front of the little door. It took us both, all our strength—“What’s in this, Alex’s anvil collection?” et cetera, et cetera.
When I opened the door to Oona’s closet and ducked through, one of the dogs gave a huffy, deep bark of warning from somewhere in the apartment.
“Bear,” I said as we struggled through the overstuffed closet, tripping among Oona’s shoes. “It’s me.”
“What’s that famous story about the world behind the closet?” Marisa said as we emerged in Oona’s room.
Bear and Lemondrop blasted in through the bedroom door, barking and then wiggling their butts, tails thrashing us, hard. They were especially excited to see their old pal Marisa.
“You’re not going to claim you read that one to me, too?” I said.
“I would have,” she said. “I think I got the book for you when you were…”
“Eight? Nine? If only you’d still known me.” I crossed to the open door to the living room and looked out. Everything was quiet.
“Whose room is this?” she asked.
“My roommate’s.”
“Do you use that entrance … a lot?”
“Only when being chased by murderers,” I said.
“Murder?”
She’d spent four days in isolation, and didn’t know. “A theory. Come on.”
Marisa trailed after me into the apartment. “But … you’ve seen Sicily? She’s okay, right?” Her pitch rose toward alarm again. “You’d tell me? If something had happened to Sis, you’d tell me?”
I probably wouldn’t. Not right now, anyway. “She’s fine. If she listens to voicemails, she should be here soon.”
“Here?”
“Downstairs,” I said. “And that’s where all the working phones are, too.”
I edged past the dogs through our kitchen toward the door, trying not to think that in every movie I’d ever watched, this was where the monster crashed through, snarling and gnashing their teeth.
The dog treat jar on the counter gave me an idea. “Move,” I said to Marisa. “You don’t want to be on the wrong side of this experiment.”
Marisa shrank against the wall.
Don’t even try tossing two dogs one treat. “Wufers?” I whispered. They went wild, barking and snapping their cookies out of the air, a synchronized event. That should clear the landing.
The dogs sniffed at Marisa for further treats while I went to the door to look through the peephole.
“I can’t see every corner where someone might be hiding,” I said. “There’s a blind spot near the door to the pub.”
Marisa nudged me aside and replaced me at the peephole. “Oh,” she said.
“I don’t know what to do.”
She pulled back from the door. “I see where we are, now. You knew about that little door because … Right.”
“It would have been a good place to grow up,” I said. “Once my arm healed up.”
She turned her head, frowning. “Your arm?”
“We need a phone,” I said. “Oona doesn’t have a landline…”
“I’ll go,” Marisa said.
“What? No, you can’t—”
“I’ll just poke my head over the banister there—”
“And get your head blown off, if they have a gun? Like you have at home?”
“How do you know—”
“I promised Sis I would help find you and I have. Do you know how pissed at me she’d be if you died now? No, thanks. I like the kid but I don’t want to be on her bad side.”
Marisa reached out. To touch my hair, maybe. I jerked out of reach, and her hand fell away.
“You like her,” she said.
“This is not the time for dewy eyes—”
“You’re a lot alike,” Marisa said.
“How would you know?”
There was a knock on the door. Polite as you please.
Marisa reached for my hand and grasped it. And for once, I didn’t pull away. I let her.