House at the End of the Street (12 page)

The last thing she remembered was his hands underneath her arms as he pulled her backward. A thin trickle of blood came down her forehead. She watched the front door get farther and farther away, the cell phone open on the floor as he dragged her deeper into the house.

E
lissa awoke a little while later. Her head was still throbbing. The room slowly came into focus. She was back down in the hidden room in the cellar, sitting in a wooden chair in the corner. The blond girl—
Rebecca
, she reminded herself—was strapped down to the bed, still unconscious. Elissa’s first instinct was to get up, to run, but when she tried to move she noticed the restraints around her wrists. He’d tied her arms and legs to the chair with thin plastic twine.

She looked up, watching as Ryan paced the length of the hall. He looked agitated. He kept biting at his fingers, ripping small pieces of skin away from the nail.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked. She tried to keep
her voice calm. She wanted him to believe that he could let her go, that she wouldn’t reveal his secret—that that was still an option.

He wiped at his bloodshot eyes and took a ragged breath. “Carrie Anne
died
that day on the swings. It was my fault. She was so small, and I grabbed her hand; I pulled her off the swing and she fell. There was this horrible crunching sound. I didn’t know what had happened, but her eyes went completely cold. It was like she wasn’t there anymore. She was just so little.…” He crumpled against the doorframe, putting his face in his hands. He kept banging his palms against his brow, as if he were trying to get a memory out of his head.

Elissa slowly processed what he’d said, the fear building inside her. Every hair on the back of her neck was standing up straight. “If she died, then who killed your parents?”

“I can’t live without her. She was my sister, and it was all my fault. They said it was my fault,” he wailed.

Elissa let out a slow breath. “You can live without her. You have me now.” She tried to sound sweet and inviting, hoping her voice would calm him down.

He looked at her, his eyes blurry with tears. He seemed so disoriented. “You’re not Carrie Anne. I can’t have you both—I don’t deserve it. They were trying to punish me. You have to understand. They wanted to punish me for what I did.”

Elissa tried to contain the terror she felt. She wanted to scream, to try desperately to be heard. How much longer would it be before her mother got home and realized she wasn’t there? Had the call gone through? If Sarah had called her back and hadn’t gotten a response, she would’ve tried again until Elissa picked up. It was possible she knew something was wrong.

She watched Ryan rock slowly back and forth, his hands still pounding his forehead. If Carrie Anne had died years before, then Ryan must have been the one to murder his parents—there was no one else who could have done it. That seemed plausible now. She’d never seen someone so unhinged. All that time she’d believed he was still recovering from the trauma he suffered as a child, but doing okay. She felt so stupid now, so naïve. But how could she have predicted this—that he was so wildly
not okay
?

He stood up straight suddenly. Afraid he might strike her again, she felt her back go rigid. Instead, he moved methodically, untying Rebecca’s restraints. The girl’s body was limp as he scooped her up and started back down the hall. “I can’t have both of you,” he muttered. “I’m not allowed.”

“Ryan!” Elissa screamed. She pulled against the twine, but it cut into her skin, holding her down. “Ryan, where are you taking her?”

There was no reply.

* * *

H
e was gone for twenty minutes, maybe more. It was hard to know what was happening upstairs. She thought she heard the garage door opening or the sound of a car trunk slamming shut. She watched the small baby monitor in the corner. It had a screen that showed an interior shot of the living room. She kept her eyes on it, wondering if her mother would come to the door or if he would cut across the shot, but neither of them ever appeared on-screen.

On the wall of the room was another picture of Carrie Anne. She looked older than five. In the photo she must’ve been twelve, at least. Who was that girl, then? Had Ryan lied about when and how she died? The photograph was taken from the side. Carrie Anne’s long blond hair fell in her eyes, half hiding her face. On a mirror on the far wall in the image she could see the tiny silhouette of his parents, the mother holding the camera taking the shot. Mrs. Jacobsen’s face looked strangely distant.

Elissa kept studying the girl’s profile. It felt oddly familiar. She must have been at least twelve, but the math didn’t add up. Ryan had said Carrie Anne had died when she was five and he was seven. Elissa was certain of that.

She looked at the slope of the girl’s nose, the strange way the hair sat on her head, slightly thicker and coarser than what you would imagine for a girl who was that age. The strangest thought came to her then.
Is it possible
—?

Ryan came back. He was calmer, his body relaxed. He went to the table and started fishing through the drawers, looking for something. “What happened, Ryan? Where is she?” Elissa tried. He ignored her, pretending she hadn’t spoken at all.

He was rifling through the drawer when a small, red light flashed above the door. It blinked twice and he turned, starting back out the door.

“It wasn’t your fault she died, Ryan,” Elissa said, trying to engage him in conversation. “It was an accident. You were so young.” If she could just keep him there, she might be able to talk him into letting her go free.

“No, it wasn’t,” Ryan snapped. “It was my fault. That’s why they punished me.”

“What do you mean they punished you?” Elissa tried.

“But then I stopped them.”

“Tell me what you mean, Ryan,” she tried again. “Tell me what happened to your parents. I can keep your secrets.”

Suddenly a voice could be heard through the baby monitor. Elissa saw a figure standing at the front door. It was a police officer—a man about forty years old. “Ryan! Are you there?” he yelled. He pounded several times on the door.

Elissa sucked in her breath, yelling as loud as she possibly could. “Help! I’m down in the basement! Please help me!”

“Ryan Jacobsen!” The officer kept knocking. Ryan
grabbed a handkerchief from the drawer and knotted it around Elissa’s head, tying the end of it in her mouth. She gagged several times as she tried to scream through the cloth. Then Ryan turned to go. He didn’t look back at her as he climbed the ladder, the trapdoor falling shut behind him.

R
yan stood at the top of the basement stairs. He straightened his shirt and made sure there were no blood smears on his clothes. This wasn’t his fault. He had been punished for so long; he was just trying to make everything right. Why couldn’t they all see that he was trying to make it right? He wouldn’t let Officer Weaver take the girl away from him. He’d already lost Carrie Anne once. He wouldn’t let it happen again.

He walked into the kitchen, taking in the silhouette just outside the door. Weaver had his hands cupped over his eyes, trying to see inside the dark kitchen. He’d come to know this man over the years. Weaver said he looked out for him. He was the one who’d come by when people were outside, throwing rocks through the upstairs windows.
Weaver claimed he cared about Ryan—he said he was there if Ryan needed someone to talk to, though they he never had.

“Ryan, I was just at the hospital,” Officer Weaver said as Ryan opened the door and let him in. “I saw what you did to Tyler’s leg. His parents are threatening to sue. Want to tell me what happened?”

Weaver’s eyes scanned the kitchen. Ryan moved in front of the trash can, closing the lid behind him. He blocked it from Weaver’s view. “All I did was fight back.”

Weaver rested his hands on his belt. “Listen, I’m going to do my best to get this to blow over. But I need you to stay out of trouble.”

Nothing is going to blow over
, Ryan thought. It was too late now. Everything was wrong. Any chance he’d had for a normal life had disappeared long ago. Everything was punishment now, punishment for what he’d done to Carrie Anne.

Ryan leveled his eyes at the officer. “You ever get tired of playing tough guy?” he asked. This was always Weaver’s routine, telling Ryan what to do, pretending like he was protecting him. He’d never protected him. No one had.

Weaver let out a long, slow breath. “I’ll call you in the morning so you can give your statement. Elissa’s mom is worried about her. She sent me over here because she thought Elissa was with you. Have you seen her?”

Ryan’s eyes fell somewhere on the floor. He picked at his
fingers, a numbness spreading out inside of him. “I saw her earlier at the Battle of the Bands,” he lied. “Isn’t she there?”

“No. We thought she might be at home, but she’s not there either.” Weaver stared him down. Ryan hated how the officer studied him, his house, as if it were his right to be here.
Get out of my house
, Ryan thought, the rage building inside him.
This is
my
house—the only thing I have left.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” Weaver said. As he walked out, his eyes lingered for a moment on the counter. Then he stepped onto the porch, the door closing behind him.

Ryan turned, noticing the girl’s wallet sitting there in plain view. Weaver had seen it—he knew he had. Ryan threw it in the trash can and went to the door, locking it. He started back toward the basement, when he heard a phone ringing—Elissa’s phone. In the dimly lit kitchen he couldn’t make out exactly where it was. He glanced out onto the front porch, where he saw Weaver, his cell phone pressed to his ear. He had turned back to the house when he’d heard the first ring coming from somewhere inside.

Ryan scurried along the kitchen floor, moving quickly around the middle island, trying to find it. He finally spotted it under the table, the light glowing from the plastic screen. He made a dive for it. When he had it in his hands, he managed to turn it off, but it was too late. Weaver was already at the door. He pounded hard against the glass.

“Ryan—open up!” he yelled. “I know she’s in there.”