How We Fall (35 page)

I could have fallen over in relief that he stayed on the other side of the door.

The bed had been made, and I’d seen a blanket. If this was his room, there might be a light. I felt around until I found the legs of a dresser. Nothing on top of it except what felt like paper trash. I kept going and nearly fell over a nightstand. Something clunked to the floor and then rolled under the dresser. A flashlight.

I grabbed it and turned it on. Light pierced the room.

I paused for a moment on the floor and leaned against the dresser, trying to get air back into my body.

The quiet was shattered by Sylvia screaming. He started yelling, both of them so loud I couldn’t hear what he was saying. I wanted to cover my ears to block out her terror.

We’d be okay. We had to be okay. I hadn’t planned on getting caught, but the police would be here before long. They had to be.

I had to get out of here. Shag carpet ran to the walls, and the windows were boarded up. I tugged on the edges of the boards, but they were solid wood, not plywood, and they’d been screwed to the window frames.

Maybe they weren’t even coming. I’d told them about Ellie’s jersey, and it was still on Sylvia’s porch, but what if they didn’t think it was hers? The only thing out of place in the house was a broken plate. If Sylvia hadn’t reported problems with Mitch before, they’d have no reason to believe me. My panicked call about following a car out of town and that jersey was the only evidence they had that anything was wrong. Maybe they’d think it was a prank call. Maybe they’d think it was an ordinary volleyball jersey.

I couldn’t leave that to chance.

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Maybe the dresser drawers had something. I jerked open the top three, but they had a few changes of clothes and that was it.

The bottom drawer, though, had two giant scrapbooks. I shone the light into the drawer and opened the cover of the first. I froze.

Sylvia’s face stared back at me.

I pulled the book out. Photos in neat rows of her playing volleyball. The next page was more photos. Photo after photo.

Some in the winter, some in the fall. Some of her at the pool, from a ways away. One of her with Ellie after a game. In almost none of them was she looking toward the camera. Several were of her with Marcus.

The pictures were lined up neatly, trimmed to fit the page.

Mixed in with them were receipts, notes, small pieces of paper she’d written on. The last half of the book was filled with tiny, neat handwriting, marked with dates and times. Places she’d gone. Things she’d eaten. Who she’d talked to. Sometimes what she’d said. It went back for months.

I didn’t have time to do anything but skim it, but this would put him in prison. I reached for the second one. This had to be Ellie’s, and it might say why he’d killed her.

I opened it and then dropped it. My throat closed up and if it hadn’t I would have screamed.

Not Ellie. Me.

I touched the cover, then grabbed the book and opened it. Photos of my house. Of Candace and Angie. Of me at the pool, in my bikini. Me and Claire with ice cream. The house at night, through the big kitchen window, with us sitting at the dinner table. Sylvia’s car, sitting in our driveway. One of me searching through his tent that day Marcus’s tires had been cut.

A blurry shot of me on the bandstand, talking to Will. All of us walking into the pizza place on our double date.

Me and Marcus. So, so many of me and Marcus. I nearly 275

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threw up when I saw the one at night, at the creek. I could barely see us, but we were there, a dim shape on our towels.

My book was thinner than Sylvia’s. None of the pictures went back more than a few months, to the beginning of the summer when we’d met her.

I turned past the photos because I couldn’t look at them anymore. The next section was a long list.
Drinks coffee with
cream and sugar. Likes chocolate ice cream. Likes Hitchcock,
Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart. Doesn’t like cigarette smoke.

One sister. Wears a charm bracelet that matches Ellie Wallace’s.

Wears shorts most of the time. Owns a green and white bikini and
a black and white checkered one. Doesn’t like mornings.
The list went on for whole pages. I kept turning them, looking at the facts of my life over the summer. Chills trickled down my back, settled in my stomach.

The list ended. I turned the page and there in front of me were my blog posts. All of them, printed out and annotated with his handwriting. He’d underlined sentences and scribbled in the margins on every single one. Several of them were in each plastic sleeve. I flipped through them. They went back two years.

The final section made my fingers curl tight around the edges of the book.

My emails to Travis. All of them. With his replies. High-lights, underlining, notes in the margins. None of my other emails. I pressed my hands onto my legs and took several deep breaths, but it didn’t help.

The shrill scream of a car alarm punctured the silence. I scrambled to my feet. Something scraped at the lock. Mitch opened the door. His eyes were red. He strode over to me and grabbed my chin, a giant kitchen knife in his hand. “What is that?”

He could break my neck so easily. I looked into his eyes and 276

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hoped he couldn’t feel me shaking. “I don’t know.”

“Is that your car?”

I shook my head. There was no way my car alarm would be this loud from this far away, not through the storm. He let go of my chin and my stomach sank. For one second, I’d hoped the sound was a police siren.

“You were emailing me,” I said. “This whole time.”

He looked at the books on the floor, then back to me. “Sylvia doesn’t want me anymore,” he said. “But you. You understand wanting something you can’t have.” He touched my face again. “Because of you and your cousin. You know what it’s like.”

He gripped me by the neck again and pushed me out of the room back to the kitchen. The shrieking of the car alarm kept whipping through the air, punctuated by the blare of the horn.

He grabbed the last of the nylon rope from the counter, pulled my hands behind my back, and tied my hands together. The rope slid in tight figure eights around my wrists.

He forced me down into a chair. The oil lamp flickered in the wind from the open door but stayed lit. The candle guttered.

Mitch shoved my chair back into the corner, away from the table. He jerked the last length of rope around my leg and the leg of the chair.

I pulled against the rope on my hands, but couldn’t get it to give. I glanced at Sylvia. Swelling bruises marked her neck and her cheek.

I felt around but couldn’t find anything sharp on the back of the chair or the wall to scrape the ropes on.

Sylvia shivered, her eyes wide. He grabbed her hands and hauled her up, but all he did was cut the ropes on her hands.

The slit lengths dropped to the floor. She stumbled a bit, her leg still tied to the chair.

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“I wasn’t going to hurt you,” he said. He stepped back and picked up the dress. His breath rasped in and out. “I was going to take care of you.”

If Sylvia panicked, things would get worse fast. The storm blew sheets of water against the windows.

She was so pale. She looked like she might pass out. Something smacked the window outside. Hail here too, now. “Sylvia,” he said. His voice cracked. He handed her the dress. “I bought this for you. Put it on.”

The black fabric trembled as she held it. “Here?”

“Put it on.”

Sylvia’s leg was still tied to the chair. He pushed her down into it. “I’ll be back in less than two minutes, and if one of you is gone, the other one will pay for it.”

He ran out the door and into the rain.

It must be his truck alarm. Sylvia put her head down on the table as soon as he left. I jerked my leg against the rope. It was a small piece, not quite long enough to tie as tightly as he had my hands.

She had to pull it together if we were going to get out of this. “Can you get the ropes off your leg?”

She sat up and watched me. “They’re cutting into my ankle.”

The knot pulled apart. I stood up and ran over to the counter, looking for anything we could use. “What if you take your shoe off?” Plastic bags, the oil lamp on the counter. Nothing else. I tried opening drawers even though my hands were tied behind my back, looking for something, anything.

“I can try.” She reached down and fumbled with her sneaker.

It thumped to the floor. “Almost. I can’t get them over my heel.”

“Can you grab anything to help you pry on the knot? Will the leg pull out of the bottom of the chair?”

She worked at it with her fingers. She gasped and choked 278

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out a sob. “He’s my coach. My volleyball coach. He left Ellie’s uniform on my porch.”

My hands were tied, but I could run. He’d catch me, though, and if I was gone, he’d hurt Sylvia. She couldn’t leave, tied to that chair. “I know,” I said. “It’s okay. I called the police and they should be coming.”

“Oh, God. Oh, thank God. But I can’t get the knot. I can’t get it!” Her whole body shook. I’d never seen someone this panicked before. She choked. “I had a thing with him last semester.

He seemed nice. He said he liked me.” Her words tumbled over themselves and she cried into the sleeve of her shirt. “I had sex with him in his office. Just once. But Ellie saw me with him, after. He kept talking about her, said it was a problem. When she disappeared, I got scared. He kept messaging me online and calling me and wanting me to come over to his house. We were moving, so I deleted all my stuff online, changed my phone, and hoped he’d give up.”

The traveling rolls of thunder quieted. The truck alarm abruptly cut out. Sweat pricked my body.

A creak sounded from the living room behind me.

A glow stick rolled into the kitchen. Sylvia didn’t notice, still crying and wrestling with the knot. I stared at the little white tube. I edged over to the living room, my heart pounding.

Just the other side of the kitchen wall stood Marcus. I stared at him, stunned. He put a finger to his lips and spun me around in the doorway. I caught a glimpse of Uncle Ward’s gun.He sawed at the ropes around my wrists. His truck had the same kits as mine. I saw Mitch out the door, walking through the rain. “He’s coming back, he’s coming!” I hissed. “We can’t leave Sylvia. She’s tied to the chair.”

The cords fell off. Mitch climbed the steps. Marcus’s hands left me. All Mitch would be able to see was me standing in the 279

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living room doorway. I walked into the kitchen, away from Marcus. Rain water ran toward us from the pool by the open door.

Hail bounced on the front step, cracking when it hit the cement.

He was calmer now, and that was more frightening than his labored breathing had been. “Sit down,” he said. Hands still behind my back, I moved toward the chair and sat down.

“Did you mess with the truck?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I didn’t even see it.”

He grabbed Sylvia’s arm and pulled her up again. “You didn’t put on the dress.” He thrust the cloth at her again.

Marcus. Come on. What are you doing?

Mitch was right in front of Sylvia. Marcus would wait until he moved.

Tears ran down Sylvia’s face. She’d been shaking for so long, she had to be exhausted. She pulled her shirt over her head.

Her black bra made her skin look even whiter in the dim kitchen. Sylvia looked to me.

Mitch followed her glance. He looked from me to the doorway where I’d been standing. The rope lay on the floor. He lunged at me and Marcus stepped into the doorway.

But he wasn’t fast enough. I bolted from the chair, but Mitch grabbed me and jerked me up against his body. His blade pricked my throat. “Don’t move,” he said. I fought down my panic. My whole body was tuned in to the cold steel prick on my neck. He could stab me and I’d die right here.

“Put the gun down,” Mitch demanded. He pushed my chin up with the knife. His forearm tightened across my chest, pinning me to him. He yanked me closer to himself and I felt his heartbeat.

Marcus lowered the gun. My body shuddered as I pulled air into my lungs. The kitchen door still hung open. The sagging floor tilted the rain water toward us.

“Put it on the counter,” Mitch said.

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Water trickled past me on the floor and Marcus kept looking at me. His face had gone white. He set the gun down on the counter. Hail cracked against the kitchen windows.

This man had killed Ellie, had watched me all summer, had written my life down in a book. My hand brushed the pocket of my hoodie. The scissors.

We weren’t victims yet.

Marcus. Look at me. Be patient. One more moment.

His eyes were frantic, looking from the gun to the windows to Sylvia. He was going to do something rash; he wouldn’t let this guy hurt either of us without getting himself killed first. I needed him to look at me. He needed to wait.

He’d had a knife when he cut my hands free; he should still have it. In his back pocket or something. It had to be fast, before Mitch got this anymore under control.

Sylvia still stood in her soaking wet jeans and bra. Mitch looked toward her and I felt his attention shift. His chest and arms tensed. Right then, he wasn’t thinking about me. The girl he’d been stalking for months was undressing.

Look at me, Marcus. Please. Notice what I’m doing.

Careful not to move my upper arm, I slid my hand into my hoodie pocket. Thank God for the rain. I wouldn’t be wearing a hoodie otherwise. Finally, Marcus looked at me. I met his eyes, careful not to blink. I pulled out the scissors. They were small but sharp, meant for cutting gauze in the first aid kit. I could feel where Mitch’s jeans stopped on his waist. My fist covered the handle and most of the blades.

Marcus saw it. He looked back to my face. I blinked once.

Moving just my fingers, I turned the scissors around so the blades pointed down and opened the handles just a bit. I blinked again. A slight movement in Marcus’s shoulders told me he was ready. He had to go first, but only by a second. He was a few feet away.