Run to Me (4 page)

Even through his panic, Zack felt the stabbing pain of each word. He dug his fingernails into Tragg’s flesh but the man only smiled.

‘So what’s the story, Zacky-boy? She leave you in a dumpster somewhere or sell you for the price of a fix?’

Zack kicked out. The effort was blind but he knew from Tragg’s grunt
and instant release that he’d managed to connect with someplace vital. He slid to the floor, grabbed for the banister and half-fell, half-scrambled down the stairs.

‘What the hell!’ Nolan said, when he landed in a heap at the bottom.

Still gagging from the remnant pressure on his throat, Zack back-pedalled away from the steps as Tragg descended. He managed to scurry around the table in time
to avoid the man’s kick.

‘What’s going on?’ Vanessa demanded.

‘He was listening to you. Little shit heard everything you said.’

With the table between them, Zack got to his feet.

Nolan stepped towards him. ‘What is it you think you heard, son?’

‘Nothing. I didn’t hear anything. I just got up to go to the bathroom.’

‘I know what he heard, ’cause I heard it too.’ Tragg turned his rage on the
pair. ‘Two fuckwits using a name they shouldn’t have!’

The woman came slowly around the table from the other side. ‘Well, that’s nothing to worry about, Zack. Lazaro’s just the man who runs the shelter we’re taking you to.’

He backed away from her. ‘That’s bullshit!
You’re
bullshit! We’re getting outta here!’ In the second it took him to draw breath to shout, Nolan was on him, clamping a rough
hand over his mouth.

Zack bit down. The man yelped and swore. Zack twisted free, dodged a chair. And ran straight into Tragg’s back-handed blow.

His tongue was a ball of cotton in his mouth. He tried to swallow but something was holding his jaws apart, stretching his lips back so far he thought they would tear. He was on the floor but felt it sliding away beneath him – hands under his arms,
dragging him backwards. He opened his eyes.

An unfamiliar kitchen – ceiling beams, copper-bottom pots on butcher hooks, some kind of weird-looking antique stove . . .

And Nolan’s inverted face staring down at him.

Zack gasped and tried to strike out but found his hands bound with electrical tape. The dish towel they had used to gag him muffled his shouts.

‘Put him in there.’ Vanessa’s voice
came from out of sight behind him.

Nolan stopped and swung him around to face a low hearth. A half-sized door stood open before him revealing a small dark space laced in cobwebs. No way in hell were they putting him in there!

Zack shot his legs out, jamming his feet against the door-frame.

Now on his knees, Nolan grunted with the effort of pushing him towards the opening. ‘For Christ’s sake
give me a hand here, would you?’

Zack heard approaching steps. Then a large push-broom swung into view and rammed his feet off the frame. With a final grunt, Nolan shoved him inside.

‘Shit, what’s that?’ The man sat back and swiped at his face. ‘Spiders. Jesus, don’t –’ He sprang to his feet. ‘Where is it? Get it off me!’

As the man danced around, Zack saw Vanessa brushing him down. For a tantalising
moment they were both distracted. They mightn’t even notice if . . .

Another pair of legs appeared in the doorway.

Tragg squatted down to fill the opening. Pulling the Junior Mint box from his pocket, he inspected the cramped dark space.

‘Nice place you got here, Zacky-boy.’ He rolled a mint out onto his tongue and lapped it back, a toad catching flies. ‘Plenty of creepy-crawlies to keep you
company. Hope there’s none of those recluse spiders, they can be nasty. Great big fangs, dripping venom . . .’

Fighting his panic, Zack forced a two-word reply past the gag.

‘Oh now, Zack, that’s not very nice.’ Tragg’s smile vanished. He popped another mint, then rattled the box. ‘One left. You better have it. Wouldn’t want you to get hungry in the night.’

He tossed the box. It hit Zack’s
forehead and dropped to his lap.

‘Oops, can’t eat with your hands tied, can you? Too bad.’

Laughing softly, Tragg got to his feet – ‘Sweet dreams, Zacky’ – and locked the door.

The piece was ruined. With a single careless stroke of the chisel she’d destroyed a solid two days’ work. Shyler set the carving on the workbench and eyed it in hopes of repairing the damage.

From the outset the owl had been slightly lopsided but that never bothered her. More like a living specimen than the soulless symmetry of something manufactured. Now, however, due to her distracted
efforts, an entire inch of the tail had sheered off. There was no way to salvage it. She hurled it onto the kindling pile, then sat back and rubbed her eyes.

It was late; she should quit. She had more than enough pieces for this month’s delivery. Poor old Bill probably hadn’t sold half of the last lot. But at the prospect of going back in the cabin, sitting by the fire, alone with her thoughts
. . .

She reached for another chunk of wood, took up the gouge and began again.

She needed the diversion of work right now, something to keep her mind occupied. Already the nightmares had started again, and while she’d not yet had a panic attack she’d felt the familiar warning signs that one was threatening. With the second
anniversary less than one week away, she was heading into her roughest
time. She would need every crutch, every trick to get through it.

Two years. It didn’t seem right. Had she made no progress in all that time? Despite it being her only option, the cabin was her haven, Deadwater the safest place she knew. Deep in the northern woods of Maine – the last remaining wilderness in the east, home to more moose and bears than people – the vacation home she’d built with
her father had offered the perfect retreat from the endless questions, the doubting looks, the oh-so-carefully-worded suggestions.

The relief she’d experienced in escaping that torment had given her a sense she was moving forward. Now, after ten months on her own, her equanimity once again slipping, she had to wonder if that ‘progress’ had only been an illusion.

Some things you just can’t do
alone.

She gouged a meaty chunk from the wood. ‘And sometimes you don’t have a choice in the matter.’

As bad as the first year had been, people had still believed her story, rallied around her, offered support. But slowly that had come to change.

Considering the detailed description you gave of the men who attacked you, we find it odd no one else remembers seeing them
.

First the police, then
family, then friends. In the end who had there been left to trust? Who trusted her? When even your therapist hints it might not have happened the way you remembered . . .

You said they came up from under the bridge, yet we found no footprints down by the creek
.

She gripped the chisel and closed her eyes as the question she’d asked a thousand times whirred yet again inside her head. Had she suppressed
what really happened?

Had there really been men on the bridge that day? Had one of them actually let Jesse fall? Had she truly risked her life to save him, jumping in after him, nearly drowning? Or had she, as the police came to think but couldn’t prove, invented the story, her heroic acts, just to ease her own guilt? The guilt of a mother too distracted, too self-absorbed to notice her son was
leaning dangerously over the edge?

We found a muddy shoeprint on the north side railing. Size four – that was your son
’
s size, wasn
’
t it?

Just the thought it might have happened the way they implied brought the darkness bearing down on her. She could see why a parent would desperately seek to block such a truth.

But, God help her, it wasn’t the truth! Did they honestly believe anything she
thought or said or did could make the reality any easier to bear?

She took a savage jab at the wood. The blade glanced off and found the soft flesh at the base of her thumb.

With a cry she dropped both wood and chisel and clutched her hand. Beneath the light she surveyed the damage. Not good. Not life-threatening by any stretch, but bad enough it might require a trip to Doc Muir. A trip she
was in no condition to make, either financially or emotionally. Stupid, stupid . . .

Unless she could patch it up herself.

She shut off the light and left the workshop. Wind whipped her hair as she ran the short stretch to the cabin, the dark hissing forest showering her passage in twigs and swirling autumn leaves.

Inside, however, her hoped-for reprieve was not to be had. Closer inspection
revealed a bit of flesh protruding from the wound. Touching it felt like stroking a nerve. Even if she could bring herself to push it back in, it would never stay. And the wound would never heal as it was.

In the pantry she got down the first aid kit and, with trembling fingers, wrapped her hand in a strip of gauze. Doctor Muir’s office. A public place. Filled with patients. Talking, staring,
asking questions.

She shoved the kit back and rested her forehead against the shelf. Trip to the doctor? She’d done it before, back before her medicine had run out. Now? In her current state? Well
that
would be progress – nowhere to hide, no deluding herself.

Clenching her undamaged hand in a fist, she strode from the pantry. She could do it. It wouldn’t be easy, but taking the next step never
was.

And anyway, she had no choice.

Three holes, each as round as his finger, formed a triangle in the top of the door. When Zack saw thin rays of light stabbing through them he knew it was morning.

The fact both heartened and terrified him. Surely they’d be letting him out soon, if only to use the toilet. But the thought of this last stretch of time in the box, when he could actually see what was around him . . . After
all the hours he’d managed to hold himself together, why did that prospect seem so terrible?

The cubicle had been so dark through the night, so utterly can’t-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face lightless, it had actually been a blessing. What he couldn’t see didn’t scare him so much. The problem had been his other senses.

Twice he’d felt something crawling over him, the hair-fine touch of multiple
legs. Once he’d heard something scuttling about – a mouse or rat – perhaps in the walls, perhaps right there in the wood cupboard with him.

Those moments had tested him to the limit, challenged his resolve not to break down into the whimpering baby he knew was hiding beneath the surface. He couldn’t give Tragg the satisfaction.

Unable to stretch out, he hadn’t slept. But using a sharp edge of
rock jutting from the wall he’d finally managed to scrape off his bindings. For all the good it did him. No matter how hard he kicked at the door it didn’t budge. And he could tell from the dead flat sound of his shouts that they never reached beyond the kitchen.

And so he’d waited, using the time to try and come up with some kind of plan for getting them out of here. First he’d have to convince
Reece and Corey there actually was a danger. They were both so smitten with Vanessa that could be difficult.

Then he had to work out how three small boys could outsmart or overpower three adults. Especially when they’d be expecting them to try. In all the hours he’d been stuck in the cupboard he hadn’t come up with a single idea.

From beyond the door came the sound of voices. Scrambling closer,
Zack peered out through one of the holes.

Past the edge of the kitchen table he could just glimpse the dining room. No one in sight. He strained to listen. He could hear voices but nothing distinct. The sounds grew closer. Shadows flickered. At last he caught Vanessa’s words.

‘I’ve got a surprise for you boys this morning. If you can be ready and out in the van in five minutes we’ll stop and
get donuts on the way to the shelter.’

Out in the van? Zack’s hopes dissolved. Tragg must have got the all-clear from his man. They were leaving and he still hadn’t thought of a way to escape.

Movement at the corner of his eye drew his gaze. In the feeble light feeding in through the holes, a spider worked at repairing its web. Zack watched the pea-sized creature thoughtfully, feeling his initial
revulsion give way to speculation. Last night they had driven an hour to get here, which meant they’d be driving an hour back . . .

All at once he was groping around for the mint box Tragg had thrown at him. When his fingers closed on it he opened the lid and, using a stick from the floor, gently scooped the spider into it.

Voices from the dining room.

‘What about Zack?’ Corey sounded anxious.

‘Don’t worry, he’s coming. He’s just in the bathroom,’ Vanessa assured. ‘So what do you say? Can you guys be ready?’

‘We’re ready now!’ Reece shouted.

‘Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go!’

Noises receding.

Zack braced himself. This was when they would come and get him. He wondered if it would be Tragg or Nolan and if they would tie him up again, replace his gag. How would they explain
that to Reece and Corey?

Silent moments. Clutching the mint box, Zack peered out. No more shadows moved in the dining room. The house was still.

Panic washed over him in deepening waves. Had they left without him? Maybe they’d decided they didn’t need him, that the others could tell them what they wanted to know. Once they got Corey and Reece in the car all they had to do was drive away.

The
dam that had served him well through the night began to crack. Left in this hole with no food or water, what would become of him? He flashed on the image of his shrivelled remains, sucked dry by dozens of feasting spiders.

The dam finally burst.

‘Hey! Lemme out! Hey! I’m in here! Hey! Hey!’

He pummelled the door till his hands went numb, then leaned back and had a go with his feet.

Suddenly
a blinding light stabbed his eyes. A hand reached in, took hold of his ankle. He had just enough time to grab the mint box before being hauled out into the room.