My Everything (13 page)

When the van hit uneven pavement, she fell down onto her knees. Her captor had been thorough.

She thought about what he’d said… that her brother, Ben, was alive. On the surface, it didn’t seem so farfetched.

Angel had always been close to her brother despite the difference in age. Sometimes Ben had treated her more like he was her father than her big brother. But she’d worshipped the ground he walked on, and she’d been bereft when he disappeared.

Angel had always known he did something different, some kind of government work. It had been obvious. Nobody talked about his work so she’d assumed it was secret. The family had never been quite sure when he was coming to visit. He would just appear. Her parents had accepted it, but she’d never gotten used to it, and he never stayed long enough for her liking.

Ben had always been a loving and attentive brother. He’d taken her hiking and camping, showing her the natural world in and around central Texas and the Gulf Coast, even taking her out for night hikes, stressing over and over that how she got somewhere was as important as getting there. He’d taught her to pay attention.

The last time she saw him was two weeks before his disappearance, when he’d escorted her to her soccer game and cheered louder than anyone.

So Angel decided to listen to her big brother and pay attention. She closed her eyes and replayed the man’s words in her mind.

He said he wanted her brother. Why?

He said he knew Ben was alive. How? Even she and her mom and dad believed Ben was dead. Even Julie’s parents did.

Angel tried to remember what Julie’s parents looked like. Something about the man reminded her of them.

She pulled up the memory of the man’s face when he’d come close to remove the tape from her mouth. There was something familiar about him. Something about the shape of his face, the line of his jaw, his nose, his ears‍—‌put them together and…

Where had she seen that face before? Suddenly a photo appeared in her mind. It was Ben and Julie’s wedding photo, the one she carried in her wallet. Tom had taken the picture and Ben had printed up the copies himself and he’d given her one.

Julie had looked beautiful with her wild red hair pulled back in a bun and her green eyes and sprinkling of freckles. She’d been pregnant when she died. Angel thought about that every day. She’d been excited at the prospect of becoming an aunt, and even though he never talked about it, she’d been certain Ben planned to settle down once he became a father. Angel had hoped they’d live in Austin so she could be near them, babysit for her niece or nephew.

Sitting in the pitch dark of the van, Angel realized who the man looked like. He looked like Julie. Not in a girl way, in a guy way. Whoever he was, with that sprinkling of freckles across his nose, his green eyes and the pixie ears, that’s who he looked like.

Julie had a brother, didn’t she? Angel had a vague memory of somebody, Julie’s mother maybe, saying he couldn’t be at the wedding. She didn’t recall the reason.

Angel closed her eyes and pictured his face above her but with red hair. His hair was dark brown. She had seen that in the light.

He could have dyed it brown. His skin was fair enough that he could have red hair.

Angel opened her eyes, not that it made any difference. What if this was some sick revenge? Revenge for Julie’s death? That kind of stuff only happened in the movies, didn’t it? But that was the only thing that made sense.

He said he didn’t want her, he wanted her brother. He said he was going to trade her, use her to bring her brother back to life. And then he would kill Ben, like an eye for an eye.

Angel knew no matter what he said, once Ben was dead, he’d kill her too. She had to escape somehow. She had to.

When they stopped moving and he opened the back door of the van and untied her legs, Angel managed to sneak a peek over his shoulder. She saw a dark rundown house in what looked like a very bad neighborhood. She hoped for an opportunity to make a break for it because even in her weakened state she was willing to try to outrun him, but when he pulled her to her feet, her legs gave out and she tumbled into a patch of dry grass. Angel choked back a sob. She wasn’t going to get away from him, not now, maybe not ever.

Without a word, he picked her up and sat her on the edge of the open van, rubbing her legs until she had feeling in them. But he kept her hands tied and he used the rope to pull her into the house, as if she were nothing more than a stubborn dog on a leash.

He took her to the bathroom where she had to endure the humiliation of peeing in front of him. She had to go so bad that after a while it just didn’t matter. Besides, she figured he must have taken her to pee somewhere when she’d been drugged. He offered to let her shower, but he said he’d stay in the bathroom with her. Angel shook her head.

The only food he had was cereal and milk so that’s what she ate. When he wanted to sleep, he tied a rope around her waist and laid her on the bed next to him against the wall, then tied the rope to his wrist. He tied her hands in front of her and her feet to the bottom of the bed. He made the ropes long enough that she could turn a little but she couldn’t get off the bed.

Angel stared with longing at the lamp on the bedside table long after the man fell asleep. More than anything she wanted to bash him in the head, but she couldn’t reach it. The ropes were too tight.

Now he’d shut
her in a closet in the basement. There was no knob on the inside of the door. That was the first thing her hands felt for when she’d heard him flip some kind of lock outside the door. She’d listened to his footsteps fade away, dread filling her chest like a helium balloon.

He’d never left her this long before. Angel stared into the blackness, imagining the worst. If he didn’t come back, she would die of slow starvation and her family would never know what had happened to her. She didn’t want to die. It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair.

Angel stood up and checked the door as she had repeatedly since he left. Nothing had changed. She was still locked in. She pounded on the wood, listening for a sound that might indicate a weakness, a loose board, anything at all. The door seemed solid, but it made a sort of hollow sound. She wondered if it was a composite. Not that it mattered. She wasn’t going to dig herself out regardless.

Angel felt wet tears on her cheeks. She might as well be buried alive.

With a scream she kicked at the door as hard as she could. Her heel connected with something sharp.

Angel yelped with pain. She hopped up and down on one foot. One of her tennis shoes flipped off.

My tennis shoes?

Yes, the tennis shoes with her emergency house key under the insole. She was always losing her house key so her mother insisted she carry a second key where she wouldn’t lose it. She dropped to her knees and felt around for her shoe. She found it, removed the insole from the shoe and grasped the key, holding onto it for dear life.

Angel reached first for the place where the doorknob should be. She felt around carefully, using only the sensitive pads of her fingertips. There was a flat metal plate bolted over the door. It would take more than a house key to get that off.

She checked the hinges next. She found two, one at the bottom of the door and another at the top. The metal felt smooth. She wondered if the hinges and door were new, if he’d installed the door with her in mind.

She remembered now, when he’d shoved her into the closet the door had opened inward. If he had installed the door just for her then he’d done a half-assed job.

Angel felt for the screws holding the hinges in place. Her key was a little wide, but when she tilted it the right way, she got some traction, just enough to loosen a couple of the screws.

She reached into her pockets. Most of the money she’d taken to the lake was in her purse, but she remembered pocketing some change when she’d bought sodas at the local deli.

Which coin did people use in the movies to unscrew things, a dime? She felt around in her pocket. She identified a couple of quarters, maybe a nickel, a few pennies and one thin dime. Angel dug it out and placed it in her palm. She rubbed it around and around with a finger as if it were a magic wishing coin. What she wouldn’t give for a genie right now.

Angel lay on her side and set to work on the lower hinge. She was determined to take her time. She didn’t want to blow it. It seemed to take forever to remove the two screws that connected the lower hinge to the frame. She was tempted to kick at the door again, but unless she removed the screws from the upper hinge, she didn’t think it would budge because of the lock he’d flipped on the outside. The problem was the height of the door. Angel had to stand on her tiptoes to reach the top screw.

She took off both her shoes and stacked one on top of the other. She took off her shirt and her shorts and rolled them up, pressing them on top of her shoes, anything to gain another inch. This time it was even slower going. To her horror, Angel kept dropping the dime and then had to crawl on her hands and knees to feel around for it. Her biggest fear was that it would roll under the door.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, the second screw flipped out onto the floor. When the heavy door sagged sideways Angel pressed herself flat against the wall of the closet, trying to stay out of the way as the door fell towards her.

She felt like screaming and laughing at the same time, but she did neither. Instead Angel grabbed her clothes and shoes and scrambled over the door, thanking all the gods in heaven when her bare feet touched the concrete basement floor. She hurried to put her clothes on, shoved the key and the dime into the pocket of her shorts and stepped into her shoes. She had no time to waste. He could return at any time.

It was dark in the basement but not as dark as it had been in the closet. Besides, Angel’s eyes had adjusted. She didn’t dare turn on a light. As far as she could make out, there wasn’t an overhead bulb anyway. Ben had always told her that a person can see better in the dark if he doesn’t look directly at something so Angel swept her eyes from side to side.

She saw the staircase, but she didn’t dare risk going back up the way she’d come down. What if he was up there? Or what if she ran into him at the front door?

She could make out small windows, high up near the ceiling. The glass was so dirty very little light filtered through. She looked around for something to push against the wall, something she could stand on to reach a window.

She searched the entire room, but she couldn’t find a single stool, chair, ladder, or bucket. There was nothing. Then, in a dark alcove, she found a rotting staircase. The stairs, or what was left of them, led to one of those slanted cellar doors like in
The Wizard of Oz
, only this one looked really old.

At the sight, Angel blew out a breath, afraid to hope. She wiped her sweaty palms on her shorts, trying to keep calm, keep her wits about her. What would her brother do?

She ran her hands along the stairs, feeling her way up. All but the top step had rotted through, and most of the wood lay in splinters and chunks on the floor. She’d have to shinny up one of the boards on the side and hope it would hold her weight and then pray she could open the cellar door.

Angel tried to crawl up on her knees, but she fell, hard, onto the cement floor. Rubbing a bruised elbow, she studied the single slanted piece of wood. She decided her only option was to slide up the board backward.

The board was narrow, the wood rotted. Angel could feel splinters sticking into her hands, arms and legs. She didn’t care. Once she reached the top step, the only one left intact, she balanced carefully and kicked at it, checking to see if it would hold her weight or if it would fall the minute she climbed onto it. It seemed pretty stable. At least it didn’t fall when she kicked it.

Angel slid onto the step, head first. She remained on her back, studying the door above her. The wood appeared nearly as rotted as the staircase. Faint light shone through the slats. She wondered if there was a lock on the outside. There was only one way to find out.

Angel listened carefully for any noise upstairs. She strained her ears for the sound of a car or footsteps. She didn’t hear a thing.

She pressed her feet flat against the wood and pushed. She discovered she was able to lift one section a few inches. It didn’t seem as if the door was locked. In that moment, all the hope she’d tamped down surged through her body like a bolt of lightning, and she was as terrified as she’d been that first day. What if he came back now, right now when she was so close to escape?

Her heart pounding, Angel lowered the door carefully into place then braced herself to give it one hard, quick push with both legs. She pulled her knees to her chest and shoved with all her might.

Angel cringed when she heard the door bang against something on the other side. She had to get out now before he came running after her.

The step Angel lay on creaked as she moved and she feared it would crack. She grabbed for the frame above and hauled herself out of the basement. Scrambling to her feet, she took in her surroundings. The dim light of distant street lamps was a big improvement over the darkness in the basement.