Deadly Little Secret (26 page)

My eyes fill up with tears again. I try my best to blink them away, to convince myself I’m going to get out of here. Glancing first at the knife still stuck above the door, I survey the room. It’s actually not much bigger than a walk-in closet. I scoot forward so that my feet reach the side wall; then I kick against it, noticing that the interior walls are covered with fake paneling.

The room shakes with my kick. More water splashes out of the bowl on the TV tray. I kick harder, and there’s more shaking, like the room doesn’t have a solid foundation, as if maybe I’m not in a house, or even a building at all. I take a deep breath, remembering the trailer I saw in the woods earlier, wondering if that’s where I am.

My pulse races. I continue to kick against the wall. The room bounces back and forth. And then I hear something outside—a screeching sound.

I strain to hear, and then I scream at the top of my lungs, until my voice breaks.

Still, no one comes. I can only hear the calling of birds outside now.

I close my eyes and kick harder, imagining the force of my blows actually toppling the walls over. But instead it’s the knife that topples. It falls from above the door and lands in the center of the room.

Quickly, I reposition myself, scooting to the side and extending my legs. A cramp runs down my outer thigh. I do my best to breathe through it, to make my muscles relax. Meanwhile, the knife lies just beyond my foot.

I reach for it, but my leg cramp worsens, causing me to fall back. My shoulders ache. My left arm is numb.

I let out a breath and try a little harder. The handcuff squeezes against my bones, and I feel something snap. At the same moment, my leg muscles relax a bit, enabling me to move forward just a little farther.

My foot grazes the knife, and I’m able to slide it toward me. I scoot back and sit up straight, dragging the knife toward my hands with my foot. After several attempts, I finally manage to wedge the blade under my shoe, just inches away from my cuffed wrists. My arm still numb, I try to cut through the knots but end up slashing my thumb with the blade. Blood trickles down over the rope, making it hard to see what I’m doing. Still, after several strokes against the knife, the rope is cut, and I’m free from the wall.

51

Though my wrists are still cuffed behind my back, I get up and stumble toward the door.

Blood drips from my thumb, spilling onto the rug and making me queasy. I position my back against the door and try to turn the handle, but it won’t budge.

My heart bounds up into my throat. Did he padlock the door from the outside? I look behind me, noticing a lock. I flip it open, hear a click, and reach for the handle once more. This time it moves beneath my grip—only I’m not the one turning it.

The door flies open, and Matt stands before me.

“Going somewhere?” he asks.

I let out a scream—as loud as I can manage, in spite of my dry and splintery throat. Matt pushes me, and I fall on my backside. I glance behind me to see if I can somehow reach the knife, but it’s too far away.

Matt starts to shut the door, but before he can, I jam my heel into his shin, as hard as I kicked the wall. He lets out a grunt and comes at me. Teeth clenched, he grabs me by the jaw.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, trying my best to soften my face.

Matt’s breathing is labored. His chest heaves in and out, but after a few seconds he softens, too.

A cool breeze filters in through the door, which is still open a crack. It’s daylight outside.

He takes a moment to look around, following the trail of blood to the knife by the wall. “I’m impressed,” he says, moving to reach for it.

At the same moment I draw up my leg and kick him in the gut. Matt lets out a wail and stumbles back. His head knocks against the wall.

I get up and hurry through the door. Outside in the woods now, I see that I’m in the middle of a campsite. There are trailers scattered around, but it looks as though they’ve all been closed up for the season.

I run as fast as I can, maneuvering through the undergrowth with my shoulders and legs. I can hear Matt somewhere behind me.

“Run all you want!” he shouts. “You’ll never find your way out of here—not before I find you.”

I scurry down a narrow path, hoping it eventually leads to the street. Panting now, I see a dark blue trailer in the distance with a car parked outside it. At the same moment, a long, pointed branch scratches at my face, drawing blood. I can feel my skin open up.

I hobble forward, the cramping sensation in my leg returning.

Finally, I get to the trailer. The car parked beside it is abandoned. It has no wheels, the grill is crushed, and there appear to be bullet holes in the side. It reminds me of my work-in-progress at the studio.

I crouch down behind it and try to catch my breath. After a few seconds, I venture to look out. Matt’s nowhere in sight, and I can no longer hear him. My legs shaking, I manage to stand up again. I turn around to continue on toward the street.

But Matt’s standing right in front of me. He smacks me across the face with the back of his hand—a stinging, biting pain—and then grabs my shoulders, shoves me again, and points the tip of the knife into my neck.

I try to bite his hand, but he jabs the knife deeper— until my teeth unclench.

He starts to drag me away. My legs flailing, I try to anchor myself, to kick his shins, but he still manages to bring me to the front of the blue trailer.

And that’s where we find Ben.

He lunges at Matt, tearing me from his grip. I feel myself fall to the ground. Matt comes at Ben with the knife, but Ben is able to grab Matt’s wrist, twist his arm back, and grab the knife right out of his hand. He throws it deep into the forest.

Matt barrels into him, but Ben pushes him away, and punches him in the jaw. Matt lets out a groan and stumbles back, but still he rebounds. He comes at him again.

Ben punches him once more—this time in the gut. Matt goes reeling backward, tripping over a rock. He lands on his back, hard, against a cluster of rocks.

Finally, he passes out. Police sirens sound in the distance.

“Are you okay?” Ben asks, making his way over to me. His expression is a mix of fear and fatigue.

I nod, and he grabs my forearm to help me up. Only he doesn’t let go.

“Thank you,” I whisper, on my feet now.

“You’re welcome,” he says. His lips curl into a slight smile, relieved maybe by what he’s sensing—or what he’s not sensing, more likely.

Maybe the danger is finally over.

52

It’s been five days since Matt’s arrest and I’m off from school with the principal’s permission. Word is he even called Ben’s aunt to apologize personally for all the harassment Ben’s had to endure, and to thank him for saving my life.

“I feel like such a shit for giving you a hard time about not being a good friend,” Kimmie says.

She, Wes, and I are sharing a Peanut Butter Barrel at Brain Freeze.

“I mean, we knew you were in trouble, but who expected
that
?” she says. “Tied up and handcuffed—”

“And not willingly,” Wes adds.

“Well, I’m done being out of the loop,” I say. “From now on I want the full scoop on what’s going on with you guys—every detail about your workshop at the Fashion Institute,” I tell Kimmie, “and all the drama about both of your dads.”

“I’ve hired a girlfriend,” Wes says. “Her name is Wendy, she’s eighteen years old, and I met her at the Pump & Munch. She filled my tank, checked my oil, and we got to talking.”

“And why am I just hearing about this now?” Kimmie asks.

“She’s pretty,” he says, ignoring the question, “charges a reasonable hourly fee, and comes by my house once a week to hang on me, which makes my dad happy.”

“Well, that sounds healthy,” I tease.

“Say what you will, but I’m done talking on this subject.” He takes a giant shovelful of ice cream to avoid answering any more questions.

“Okay, so, speaking of disturbing and dysfunctional,” Kimmie continues, “my mom has finally caved to my dad’s wacko ways. They’re going to a body piercer Saturday night to celebrate their twentieth wedding anniversary.”

Wes shivers in response, but I can’t help letting out a giggle.

“Laugh now, but it won’t be too funny when they’re asking to borrow your sterling silver hoops to decorate their various body parts.”

“Very true,” I say, glancing down at my watch. Only ten minutes until Ben is supposed to meet me here. I haven’t really spoken to him since Matt’s arrest. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to. It’s just that my mother’s kept me on a pretty short leash ever since I went missing.

Needless to say, my parents completely freaked when I didn’t come home that night or the following day.

Only, instead of breaking my mother down even more, it actually seemed to help put things into perspective for her.

“Maybe if I hadn’t been so out of it,” she said, sitting beside me on her meditation mat last night, “you could have confided in me. We could have avoided this whole situation.”

“It’s not your fault,” I assured her. “I should have said something sooner.”

My mother hugged me, promising she’d always be there for me, and that she’s even decided to go visit Aunt Alexia at the hospital once and for all.

“So, what happens now with Stalker Boy?” Wes asks, his mouth full of peanut butter ice cream. “Community service with a slap or somebody’s boy-bitch behind bars?”

“Maybe neither. It’s still too soon to tell.”

“I bet it’ll be a whole lot worse for him if Debbie doesn’t get better,” Wes says.

I nod, knowing he’s right. It turns out Debbie wasn’t getting stalked at all, but her so-called friends thought it would be funny to make it look as though somebody was after her. They were the ones who left notes on her locker and put ideas in her head, totally messing with her mind. Apparently the same friends were responsible for a lot of the school’s graffiti, including the mascot sign in the back parking lot. Debbie had gotten paranoid, completely convinced somebody was following her on a constant basis. Even though nobody was.

A witness came forward, saying he’d seen her walking home on the night of the accident. He said she’d kept looking over her shoulder, not really paying attention to where she was going. He’d even tried to get her attention, because she’d kept stumbling out onto the street. The guy had thought she was drunk, but there was nothing found in her system—just pure paranoia. In the end it was a car that hit her, not a motorcycle.