JOSIE
“You should answer your damn phone,” the same voice says. It’s female, but I can’t see the face.
“What did you do?” I ask. “Who are you? My grandmother needs help.”
“Your grandmother deserved this.”
“Grams,” I say, trying to shake my grandmother awake. I don’t see blood, but then, it’s dark. I don’t feel anything on her or on the floor, but I don’t know what’s wrong with her.
“Get up,” the voice says more harshly. Then I hear a gun being cocked. “I said, get up. Or both of you will be dead.”
I blink rapidly, trying to get used to the darkness to see who’s pointing the gun at me. I stand up. Inside my coat pocket is my pepper spray. I move my hand toward the pocket, but the shadow walking across the kitchen stops me.
“You move, and I shoot. Understood?” The voice is harsh, raspy, unpleasant.
Neither young nor old. I can’t figure it out.
“Now walk toward the door. We’re going to my car at the back.
I’m keeping my distance, so don’t even think about doing anything stupid.
I won’t chase you. I’ll come back to this house and shoot your grandmother in the head. ”
“Please, call the paramedics,” I beg. “She’s ill.”
“She’ll survive. Maybe. That is, if you follow the orders. Now, put your phone on the counter and open the door. Slowly. No turning around.”
I do as I’m told.
The person behind me holds the door as I let go and step out. I can smell her behind me. It’s an unpleasant smell—mold, mothballs, damp clothes. I could lunge at her, but I won’t take that chance. She has a gun, and I’m not a ninja.
“Please,” I beg, “my grandmother needs help.”
“Stop whining,” she interrupts me. “Back door. Now.”
We repeat the walk through the back door and into the backyard.
“Now, straight to the car parked in the alley,” she orders.
When we approach the car, an old sedan, the trunk pops open.
“Get inside,” the woman orders.
I shake my head. “I can’t. I won’t—”
“I said. Get. Inside,” she hisses behind me and pushes into the back of my head with the barrel of the gun. “Go. Face the inside. Curl up.”
This is not good. She could dump the car in the river, and I’d be dead in the water. Maybe she’s not that crazy. Either that, or she could shoot me. But I don’t have a choice, so I climb inside the car. I don’t have a weapon, but when she opens the trunk again, I’ll be ready. I’ll jump her.
“Arms behind you,” she instructs. I do as I’m told. “You move, and you are dead. Keep that in mind. I’ve had enough of your feisty family.”
She grabs my wrists, and suddenly, pain shoots through them. I whimper as she yanks something sharp around them, something that feels like a zip tie or a wire.
“That’s better,” she murmurs, then fumbles with something, and a sharp pain, like a wasp sting, pinches my neck.
“There,” she grunts. “Good. It’s a paralytic. You will feel numb soon. Just so that you don’t get any ideas.”
She slams the trunk shut, leaving me in complete darkness.
Shortly, the car starts moving, its engine eliminating any other sounds.
There’s no point in screaming. It’s late at night.
No one will hear me. If anything, this crazy person will shoot me.
No cell phone on me. No way to tamper with the trunk latch, because my hands are tied.
I concentrate on how I feel. Whatever she injected me with is making my body grow warm and limp.
I hope she didn’t paralyze me completely. I hope she’s not a monster…
The trunk stinks. My hands rub against something slimy, and I whimper and shake in disgust. I start moving, proving to myself that maybe if I do, whatever she injected me with won’t work.
But that’s a silly thought. By the time the car gets on a bumpy road, only ten minutes or so into the ride, my body feels like jelly.
Soon, the car halts. If we’ve arrived, that means we are just outside Burnville.
The drug is definitely working. My body has lost strength. I feel like I drank several shots of strong liquor in a row. I manage to turn around to face the opening of the trunk, but my hands are tied behind me, and despite the effort, I can’t move much.
The car engine goes off. In a moment, the trunk opens, and harsh light shines into my face, blinding me.
“Get out,” the woman orders.
I move, but my limbs are too weak. “I can’t,” I respond, hoping she undoes my wrists.
“Don’t play stupid with me. I said, get up and out.”
She grabs me by the parka and yanks me to a seated position. I struggle to get onto my knees and pray that, when I crawl over the trunk threshold, I don’t go face down into the dirt.
But I do fine as she fists my parka while I manage to stand up. My knees buckle, and it’s an effort to stand straight, my legs barely holding me.
It’s dark, but the moon illuminates some sort of junkyard. The monstrous dark shapes of farm equipment and low structures tower around. There are piles of scrap metal and junk cars. There’s a light about a hundred feet away at what looks like a barn.
As soon as I turn to the woman, she shines the flashlight in my face, blinding me again.
“Walk,” she commands, pushing me. “Toward that light.”
I obey. There’s no choice, even though this feels like a walk to the slaughterhouse, but I try not to think about it. I try not to fall face down as I stumble forward.
“What do you want?” I ask, walking on rubbery legs.
“Shut your trap and walk,” the woman says from behind me.
When I get to the barn door, she opens it for me and shines the flashlight inside. “Get in. Come on.”
Inside the barn is dark. It smells like hay, mold, and mothballs. Just like the woman.
“See that chair?” She shines the flashlight to illuminate a plastic folding chair. Ropes lie on the ground next to it. “Take a seat there. Nothing funny, understood?”
When I sit, she grabs the ropes. “Stay still,” she orders as she ties me to the chair. If I had a chance to get out of this before, now it’s gone, unless she does a sloppy job or lets me go. I hope for the latter.
She walks away, and with the little light from the flashlight, I can see that she’s wearing hiking boots, cargo pants, a work jacket, and a beanie over her long messy hair. There’s something familiar about her.
She comes back, shining the light in my eyes again, making me squint. She sets another folding chair in front of me, ten or so feet away, and takes a seat.
“Okay. Now we are here,” she says, then props the flashlight on the ground between us with hay, the light shooting up, which lets me see her in the dim circle of light it casts around.
The first thought in my head is, It can’t be.
She smiles, her teeth gleaming in the dim light. Then her smile vanishes abruptly. “What did you do with Derek’s body?”
I recognize her, but it doesn’t make sense, because she’s the woman from Derek’s basement, Mallory Blain.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask, confused.
There’s nothing shy or timid about her, nothing of the scared victim I saw at the precinct. She sniffles, then scratches the side of her head with the barrel of her gun and rests it on her lap. The way she looks at me is almost in disgust.
“I’ve dealt with Karen before,” she says. “The old woman should’ve been nicer to me. Then I hung out with your bitch of a mother, Alysha. Bootsie two-point-oh.” She snorts with laughter. “Let’s hope you are easier to deal with. Or you’ll end up like them.”
She chuckles. It is guttural, nasty, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
Right away, her lips curl in a nasty smirk, her cheerfulness gone.
“Let’s have a little chat, Bootsie three-point-oh. You see, Derek Sickler was the love of my life.”