Chapter Sixty-Seven. Riley, Present Day
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
RILEY, PRESENT DAY
I expect to see Sandra holding a weapon. But what’s actually in her hand is almost worse: Alex’s student ID. “Alex is your patient,” I blurt, partly so Betty can make the connection.
“She is,” Sandra confirms.
At least she’s using the present tense. “Where is she?” I ask.
“Alex is safe for now.” Sandra crooks her index finger. “Come back to the living room.”
As Betty and I slowly return to the couch, Betty tilts her head toward the door. I know what she’s telling me: If I get the chance to escape, I should take it.
As we cross the threshold to the living room, my vision blurs briefly and I stagger before regaining my balance.
“It’s kicking in,” Sandra says. “Good timing.”
I look at my empty glass of lemonade. “What did you put in my drink?”
“Nothing dangerous. Just a sedative to keep you calm.”
As soon as Betty is on the couch, I collapse next to her. My limbs feel strange—heavy and uncoordinated.
Sandra reaches for my purse, which is on the floor by my feet, and puts it on her lap. Then she takes a napkin off the coffee table and wipes down Alex’s student ID before extending it to me, still using the napkin to prevent her fingertips from touching it. “Can you hold this for a second?”
My mind feels as sluggish as my body, but I understand why Sandra wants my fingerprints on the plastic: to pin Alex’s disappearance on me. And a half dozen witnesses from the sorority house can place me with Alex shortly before she disappeared.
I shake my head. “No.”
That’s when I see it, the transformation I’ve heard survivors describe in interviews.
Some say it’s like their assailant removed a mask, revealing soulless eyes.
Others describe watching the person they thought they knew morph into a complete stranger as the energy shifted in the room, turning dark and intense.
It’s happening now with Sandra. Her seemingly natural warmth and kindness have evaporated. She looks emotionless, which feels even more terrifying than rage. She locks eyes with me until I take the ID.
Sandra plucks the ID from my hand, still using the napkin, and drops it into my purse. “Now put your cell phone on the coffee table.”
I do as she says. “It doesn’t work here anyway.”
“My house is in a dead zone,” Sandra tells me as she scoops up my phone with the same napkin and puts it in my bag. “That’s one reason I bought it—that and the isolation. I have a booster for when I need Wi-Fi.”
“Oh, Sandra.” Betty’s voice is so soft. “Why are you doing this?”
Sandra’s head whips toward Betty. “Do you have any idea what my life has been like?”
“I knew your father,” Betty says. “So I can imagine.”
“I doubt you can. His second wife made him seem like a teddy bear. She wasn’t abusive to her own son—just to me. Which made him turn on me, too. It was a pleasurable game for them.”
“I’m so sorry that happened to you.” Betty leans forward. “Sandra, your mother loved you so much.”
“Don’t lie to me!” I flinch at Sandra’s roar.
Sandra clears her throat and composes herself.
“The only thing that got me through my childhood was imagining I had a mother who’d rescue me someday.
When she died—which my father told me as casually as if he were commenting that it was cloudy outside—it still helped to think that at least one person in the world had loved me.
Because of that, I was able to resist my …
impulses. You see, when you endure as much pain and cruelty in life as I have, the temptation to release some of it back onto others is almost irresistible.
Then I read my mother’s own words and learned she didn’t love me. She wished I’d go away!”
“But she was sick!” The words burst out of me. “Sandra, you said so yourself—your mom must’ve had postpartum depression and never got proper care.”
“Do you know one of my biggest challenges as a therapist?” Sandra says.
“Helping clients understand that hurtful things aren’t always personal.
They’re more a reflection of the other person than they are of you.
Now I realize it doesn’t really matter. Even if my mother couldn’t help it, does that make what I had to bear any easier? ”
Sandra sweeps her palms across one another, like she’s brushing off our conversation. “Betty, I need to secure you in another room, but I promise you’ll be comfortable there. I’m going to take Riley outside.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I push back.
Sandra reaches down and lifts up the leg of her jeans and pulls a small gun out of an ankle holster. “This is hunting country. An occasional gunshot isn’t uncommon—if anyone heard it way out here.”
Even if I had the strength to fight, I’d have no chance. I stand up, feeling as if I’m moving underwater. If I get outside, maybe I’ll have an opportunity to escape—or maybe Betty can find a way to get free while we’re gone.
“Sandra, I loved you from the moment I first saw you,” Betty says softly.
My eyes widen. I can hear the sincerity ringing through her voice.
“Oh, that headful of dark curls. And your little dimples. You were the dearest thing.”
Sandra shakes her head. “Stop it.” But pain raises a jagged edge on the steel in her voice.
“If I’d known what happened to Ivy, I would have tried to adopt you, Sandra,” Betty says. “I would have loved nothing more.”
“Well, that’s too bad for both of us.” Sandra’s moment of vulnerability has passed. “Come on.”
“I know what you’re doing, honey,” Betty says, so calmly I can’t believe it. “After you read your mother’s diaries you decided to replicate Dr. Trimble’s experiments. That’s why you stole Alex’s ID, to get the papers. But why did you need to take Alex?”
Sandra ignores her question, gesturing with her gun. “Go through the kitchen.”
Betty is wheeling herself much more slowly than usual. Is she stalling, trying to find a way to connect with Sandra, or is she weakening? “I’d really like to understand why you’re starting up the old experiments,” Betty says.
“Dr. Trimble was on to something.” Sandra falls into step just behind me and Betty.
I swear I can feel the gun aimed between my shoulder blades.
“Marquis did a good job of covering everything up after everyone died. Back in the sixties, it was a lot easier to erase ugly parts of history. But when I started digging, I discovered Trimble’s experiments were more than scientifically sound—they were revolutionary. ”
“But what are you planning to do?” Betty asks, no judgment in her tone. She’s paused now, catching her breath. Either her fall and the shock of discovering what Sandra turned into have drained her of strength, or she’s doing an excellent job of pretending to be infirm to keep Sandra talking.
“Once I’ve got a final set of subjects, the right people will be very interested. Our government, probably. Other governments, definitely. It won’t be the first time they’ve spent big money trying to harness these abilities.”
“Oh, Sandra. You still want to be seen, don’t you? To be important to someone,” Betty says.
“Don’t try to analyze me.” Betty gives a little cry and I realize Sandra has jabbed the barrel of the gun into the soft flesh of Betty’s back. My hands clench into fists; anyone who can hurt a helpless old woman is beyond savage.
“I’m incapable of forming a relationship,” Sandra says. “Every man I thought I loved left me. I have no children. Those experiments destroyed any chance I might’ve had at happiness. Don’t I deserve to get something out of them?”
Past the kitchen is a small, dark room with a single bed. When Sandra flicks on the overhead light, I see handcuffs are attached to a bar of the metal headboard.
She didn’t prepare this for us, I realize. She has kept people here before—like the young woman who ran out of the hospital, and Alex.
But the room is empty. What has she done with Alex?
“Stay in here, Betty,” Sandra says. “I’ll be back soon.” She motions to me, saying: “You come with me.”
She wants both of us to leave, but only she will return. It isn’t a stretch to imagine what she’s planning to do to me.
“You said you wanted extraordinary results, correct?” Betty tells Sandra. “Then don’t take Riley away. She and I share the same abilities; she’s even more gifted than me. Let us be your subjects.”