Chapter Forty-Eight
Mimi stared into the darkness. The door hadn’t clicked shut when Roland left. She sat on the floor with her back against the wall, Kara’s unconscious body against her chest. Mimi’s arms wrapped around her daughter’s shoulders. She pulled her close and whispered, “I’m so sorry, baby.”
Kara’s breathing remained shallow, her skin a cold, clammy suit upon her bones. How long could someone remain in a coma? Mimi wondered. Had the antifreeze already caused her body or her brain irreparable damage?
She laid Kara down on the floor and moved quietly toward the door, listening for Roland’s return. She tried to formulate a plan, but without knowledge of the building, she came up empty. She’d be running through a dark network of hallways and hidden rooms.
There had been a time, shortly after Roland had been placed in the Lowrey Home For Children, when Mimi’s home life had been peaceful, the atmosphere no longer electrically charged with Roland’s unpredictable behavior.
Mimi remembered thinking they had done the right thing by removing Roland from their home, and—as much as she’d hated it at the time—by having Al go to live with him, too.
Roland’s behavior had been such a shock to Mimi, she’d blamed herself for the change in his behavior, but Al had handled it as if he’d seen it before, as if he’d almost been waiting for it.
When he’d suggested he live with Roland at the children’s home and leave Marissa—his daughter, his flesh and blood—with Mimi, she had been stunned.
But Roland had become such a menace, with trying to hurt Marissa, and never letting her out of his sight.
It wasn’t normal. Al was older and wiser.
He was their father. Surely he’d known best.
Mimi remembered being proud of herself for ignoring the suggestions of the therapists and physicians, and placing him in a home that fostered children rather than institutionalized them.
When they’d had to relocate, a modicum of that guilt had dissipated with the help of Al’s constant encouragement of her mothering skills.
Now, she wasn’t so sure Al had been right—or honest. Had he encouraged her to move so he wouldn’t feel the guilt and stress of the broken family?
No, she reasoned, that couldn’t be it. Could it?
Why would he have allowed her to remain with Marissa, or encouraged her to change her name?
At the time, Mimi had felt it was overkill. Could Al have known this was to come?
Now, she knew he’d been murdered, and Kara was holding onto her life by a thread. The old guilt layered itself upon her current fear, overriding any rational thoughts she might have of not being to blame.
“Marissa!” Roland’s voice broke through her thoughts like a pitchfork through paper—fast and sharp.
She scrambled back to Kara, positioning herself between her daughter and the door again.
Fear filled her lungs, severely hindering her desperate attempts at breathing.
She closed her eyes, timing her breaths as she’d seen others do in movies and had read about in books.
One…two…three…Her breathing became even. Stay calm.
“Marissa!”
Mimi’s eyes flew open. She pulled Kara closer, squeezing her to her breast. Kara’s heart beat faintly against the pulsating rhythm of her own pounding heart.
Kara’s head flopped back. Mimi put her hand gently on the back of her daughter’s neck and righted her head against her chest, rocking her back and forth, as if soothing a small child.
Her fear sucked the air from the small room. A familiar voice rang out in the distance. She listened. It wasn’t Roland. The words were unclear.
“Marissa!” Roland’s voice boomed just outside the door. “Mimi! I’ll find you, you bitch!”
Silence.
“Mimi!”
Ted. Hope surged through her, then reality squashed it like an ant. Ted. No, not Ted. Oh, God. Mimi pulled Kara from her chest. She ached to cry out to him, to tell him where she was, but Roland was too close. She listened, silently pleading. Please, please help us.
Silence.
Footsteps neared, stomping past the door and fading into the distance.
Ted. He’d gone to get Ted and Jackson. Mimi laid Kara on the floor.
She had to help. Surely three against one were good odds.
But she knew Roland. She knew what he was capable of, and neither Ted nor Jackson were large or strong.
She had to help them. She moved quietly toward the door, looking back at Kara’s still body.
What if he killed her? Who would find Kara?
She hesitated, torn between wanting to help Ted and remaining with Kara.
Her heart ached with each beat. She could run out, find them, jump on Roland’s back, or try to get away and find help.
She could run upstairs and find her purse and phone, and call Mitch.
She could gang up on Roland with Ted and Jackson.
She stood in the dark for what felt like an hour, but in reality was only moments.
What if he found her before she found Ted and Jackson?
She looked at Kara again, envisioning her as a small girl, humming in the kitchen, Roland behind her, a knife in his hands.
She shook her head, mumbling under her breath, “No. Not again.” She had to protect Kara, no matter what the cost. For once, she was going to do the right thing. She wouldn’t let Kara down again.
Ted moved through the mist of coal dust, standing at the edge of the frigid room, unable to speak.
He’d lost so much blood, his thoughts were jumbled.
Dizziness begged to overwhelm him. He stumbled forward.
He tried to reconcile the man tied to a pole to Jackson as he knew him.
Jackson’s slim body trembled. His arms and legs were bound.
A gag clung to his chin, wet and threatening.
Jackson squealed like a child, the terror he’d gone through evident on his sheet-white face.
“Jackson, it’s me, Ted.” Ted rushed to his side, assuring him he was not his captor.
Jackson blinked, then stuttered. He clamped his mouth shut, as if trying to regain control of the muscles that allowed him to speak. Words tumbled from his lips, “He’s coming back. Hurry. He’s coming back.”
Ted fumbled with the ropes on Jackson’s arms. His side screamed out in pain with every tug and use of his muscles.
“Jesus, what happened?” Jackson asked.
Between untying the ropes and taking in the disarray of the room, Ted didn’t answer.
A broken Barbie doll lay cracked and mangled on the floor.
Puddles of liquid and pieces of food were everywhere.
Bottles of alcohol lay on their sides. It was like a teenager’s party gone bad.
Ted pulled the ropes free of Jackson’s arms.
“Help me,” Ted commanded.
Jackson leaned down and tried to untie the ropes that bound his legs. His fingers shook, making each tug an impossible task.
Ted crouched down and went to work. The pain in his side sent him to his knees. He put one hand on the floor to steady himself. He focused on the rope binding Jackson’s legs together, and, finally, he untied the knots.
“Ted, are you okay?” Jackson pulled himself to his feet, his eyes staring at the bloodied shirt around Ted’s midsection.
Ted walked to the back room. “Fine.” The smell of feces and vomit filled the small area. Ted took quick note of the grating in the floor, the sub-basement below, and the water running through the culvert.
“I saw her,” Jackson said.
Ted spun around. “Who? Mimi? Kara?”
“Mimi. I saw her. I was down there.” He pointed through the grate. “She was with him.”
“Who’s him? Who the hell is that guy?”
Jackson shook his head. “I have no idea. Never seen the guy before, and I have no idea how he got in.”
“Yeah? Well, I do. The fence is busted. There’s a broken window.”
“Shit.” Jackson looked around the room. “What now? He’s going to come back. I know he is.”
“Where’s Mimi?”
“I don’t know. She was there, with him. I think she was with Kara, too.”
“Kara? Shit.” Ted held onto the wall, steadying himself on his way back into the first room.
Jackson’s eyes settled on Ted’s blood-drenched clothing, his uneven and hindered gait.
“Did you hear anything? Do you know why he’s doing this? Are they alive?”
“Yes, yes, they were alive, but—” Jackson turned away, looking down at the floor and fidgeting with his hands.
“But what?” Ted’s serious tone drew Jackson’s eye.
“She said Kara would die without help.”
They stood under the light at the entrance to the blackened passageway.
“Generator’s not going to last.” Jackson’s eyebrows drew together.
“We have to get help,” Ted said. “The place I came in, we have to get there and get help. Detective Grant is already here, but I have no fucking idea where he is, or if he’s still alive.” His eyes rolled over Jackson’s head down to his feet, wondering why his life was spared.
Guilt washed over Jackson’s face. He nervously put his hands in and out of his pants pockets. “I was gonna get help. I tried. I really did, but the doors lock automatically when the power kicks out, and with the storm—”
Ted wasn’t paying attention. He was trying to see past his own pain and formulate a plan of escape. Where was Mitch? Why wasn’t Mitch in the basement? Ted hoped he wasn’t dead. That’s all they’d need—no cell service, no police, and no lights. “We have to get back to where I came in,” he reiterated.
“He’s out there somewhere. What if he comes back? What if we run into him?”
Ted rubbed the ache that had crawled up his back and nestled into his neck. “Any other brilliant ideas?”
Jackson looked down.
“Listen, do you know your way around down here? Can you find the place I’m talking about?
It’s a big empty room.” He tried to determine whether they were at the front or back of the building, but it was no use.
He had no idea how far into the plant, or from what direction, the cavity where they stood resided.