Tell Me You're Sorry (44 page)

She just kept walking.

She counted the seconds—wondering how long it would be before he called her name again. After ten seconds, she figured she was safe. A part of her wanted to glance back and see if she recognized anyone in the crowd.

But she just kept walking.

 

 

Ryan's cell phone vibrated again.

It was tucked inside the pocket of his jeans, and he was amazed the phone hadn't been damaged when he'd fallen down the stairs.

At least something had survived that tumble. His leg was killing him. If he didn't move, the pain was constant, but tolerable. However, one little flinch, and he almost went through the roof from the utter agony.

With his hands tied behind him, he was propped up against a support beam in the Metcalfs' utility room. She must have dragged him in here while he'd been out. He wondered just how bad the leg was. He couldn't roll up the cuff of his jeans to assess the damage. Then again, he probably couldn't have done that even if his hands were free. His leg had swollen up, and he would have had to cut open his pants to get a look at it.

He was pretty sure he had a fever, his body's reaction to the pain. Sweat poured off him, and his T-shirt was drenched. All the perspiration had loosened the duct tape around his mouth. He found he could whisper out of the corner of his mouth to the others. While Nicole was upstairs, he'd found out how Alison, her father, and her brother were doing. He'd ask them questions, and they communicated through a series of grunts and groans. He was the only one seriously hurt and immobile. Alison thought she had some slack on the rope around her wrists. At one point, she'd managed to roll over on the floor toward her father. With their backs against each other, she'd tried to untie the rope around his wrists. But Nicole had come into the utility room at just that moment. She'd kicked Mr. Metcalf in the stomach. Grabbing Alison by her hair, she'd dragged her to the other side of the room. Then she'd gone back upstairs.

Despite the intense pain every time he moved, Ryan had squirmed enough to almost dislodge the cell phone from the pocket of his jeans. If he could somehow move it toward his hands, there was a chance he could put in a 9-1-1 call. The vibration from that last missed call helped shake it just enough that the phone was about to fall out of his pocket.

He wiggled a bit, and winced at the jolt that went through his broken leg. The phone slid all the way out of his pocket and clattered onto the cement floor.

He looked over toward the doorway, and saw her standing there.

She must have crept down the basement stairs, because Ryan hadn't heard a thing.

Nicole folded her arms in front of her. She was holding a notebook, with a pen sticking out of the spiral binder. “I can't believe I forgot to go through your pockets! Is that a phone, Ryan?” She walked across the room toward him. “Your family's all dead. Who were you going to call?”

She nudged his broken leg with her foot. “Who?”

He grimaced at the pain.

She bent over him and snatched his cell phone off the floor.

As Ryan caught his breath, it dawned on him that Stephanie had probably been the one leaving him the message. Did Nicole know she was alive?

Nicole frowned at the cell phone in her hand. Then she hurled it against the wall. The phone smashed into bits.

As she turned away, Ryan noticed she had the gun tucked in the back of her slacks. She took a folding chair that was leaning against the wall, and set it up between Alison and her father. She set her notebook on the seat. She looked like a secretary setting up a spot to take dictation.

Marching over to Mr. Metcalf, she grabbed him under the arm, turned him around, and sat him up. She tore the tape off his mouth. Just hearing that noise made Ryan wince. Mr. Metcalf seemed to stifle a scream.

Backing away from him, she grabbed her notebook and sat down in the folding chair. She stared at Mr. Metcalf. “All right, I need your bank PIN number,” she said.

“Not until you take the tape off my kids' mouths,” he said, still gasping for air. “And do it carefully. Slowly.”

“You're not calling the shots here,” she said.

“Danny's been crying. His nose is all stuffed up. He can hardly breathe with that tape over his mouth.”

She didn't move from the chair.

“Boeing Employees Credit Union,” Mr. Metcalf said. “The first two digits are nine, seven. You'll get the other two when you take the damn tape off my children's mouths.”

Ryan was surprised to see her stand up, and walk over to Alison, who was lying on her side. She ripped the tape off her mouth—and wasn't gentle about it at all. Alison screamed from the initial pain. Nicole left a piece of tape dangling from her cheek. Then she went over to Danny. He tried not to cry when she quickly pulled the tape off his mouth. It was heartbreaking to hear him stifle the sobs.

Nicole went back to her chair and sat down again. “Nine-seven what?” she asked.

“Nine-seven-two-two.”

“Your Chase card PIN number?”

“Four-five . . .” He trailed off. “I'll tell you the next two digits if you tell me what happened to Selena.”

“She killed herself the next afternoon. She slashed her wrists in our bathtub at home.”

“You blame me and the others for that?”

“Yes. You raped her . . .”

“What?” Alison murmured.

“She wasn't raped,” Mr. Metcalf told his daughter. He turned to Nicole. “It was a bunch of stupid, drunk teenagers on the beach that night, and she went along with it. Did Selena say she was raped?”

Nicole straightened up in the chair. “Give me your goddamn PIN number for the Chase card.”

“When she fell into the lake, I thought she'd drowned,” Mr. Metcalf said. “You know, not a week has gone by in the twenty-seven years since that I haven't thought about that night, and wished I could take it back. I didn't rape anybody. But I walked away from that beach thinking she'd drowned there—and I didn't call the police. I didn't tell anyone. That's what I'm guilty of.” He shook his head. “And isn't it ironic, Nicole? All that guilt and regret, and then it turned out she walked home that night. Tell me something, why did she go home to kill herself? If she was that traumatized by what happened on the beach, why not just drown herself there? She had that big, beautiful lake—just waiting. What happened when she got home? Did something happen with your father?”

“Shut up!” She jumped to her feet and threw the notebook at him. It hit Mr. Metcalf in the forehead.

Grimacing, he recoiled for a moment. “What happened to Selena's body?”

Enraged, she kicked him in the ribs and hit his face with her fist. Danny and Alison were screaming at her to stop. Mr. Metcalf curled up into a little ball.

Suddenly, she did stop. She reached back and pulled out the gun. She aimed it at him.

“No, please, wait!” Alison screamed.

Danny was shrieking.

“Shut the fuck up!” she growled, suddenly turning toward the boy.

He fell silent.

She seemed to take a deep breath. Then without looking at anyone, she turned and walked out the door.

Ryan heard her footsteps on the stairs a moment later.

He couldn't help thinking she'd gone to fetch a pillow to muffle the sound of the gunshots. Or maybe she'd gone to get a knife from the kitchen.

He couldn't help thinking the killing was about to begin.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY

 

S
tephanie's hands shook as she clutched the steering wheel. She was seven miles west of the airport. At this time of night, there was hardly any traffic along this stretch of I-90. She could see someone's taillights in the distance up ahead, and in the last ten minutes, only a few cars had passed her heading east.

She checked the speedometer: 70
MPH
. She pushed it up to seventy-five.

There was a chance he'd already arrived at the cabin. In the e-mail she'd had Carroll send, she'd lied about where to find the key. But that didn't mean he couldn't break down the door or bash in a window. Then he'd see there wasn't a coin collection or too many valuables. She couldn't help wondering if he'd come and gone already.

At least once she got there, she'd know whether or not she'd missed him.

Stephanie had her cell phone and the pet tracking device on the rental car's passenger seat. Ideally, she should have arrived at Ben and Erica's place an hour ago. She'd have waited until she got a signal on the cat tracker, and then called 9-1-1. She wouldn't have to give the police a lot of details or any long, drawn-out explanations. Someone broke into the cabin and abducted her friend. He took off in a camper or RV. She didn't quite see what it was. He had a gun. Please come at once.

Stephanie had figured that would get a quick response from the police. In all likelihood, Jenny's captor would still be trying to break into the cabin when the first responders arrived. There was only one road going to the cabin. They'd have him trapped there.

The rental car's headlights swept across the milepost sign before the turnoff to Erica and Ben's. Stephanie reached for the pet tracking device to make sure it was on and working. Once off the Interstate, the road to the cabin wound through the woods for nearly a mile.

If he was there now, the device would have started blinking and beeping. Then again, he might have taken off the cat's collar and thrown it away days ago. Or maybe the trees were blocking the reception.

She set the device back on the passenger seat, and grabbed her phone.

If he was there now, what could she do to stop him? How was she going to save Jenny Ballatore? She didn't even have a backup plan—or a gun.

She dialed 9-1-1.

After two rings, the operator answered: “9-1-1 Emergency.”

“Yes, my friend was just abducted,” Stephanie said, keeping her eyes peeled for the turnoff. “We're staying at a cabin, Number One Bonny Trail, Rural Route 37, milepost—”

“9-1-1 Emergency,” the woman repeated.

Stephanie felt a pang in her gut. “Can't you hear me?”

“9—” That was all Stephanie heard on her end. It sounded like they'd been cut off.

“Oh, no, please,” she murmured. She redialed, and listened. There was no ringtone or anything now. She looked at the phone screen: No Service Available.

Up ahead, she spotted the turnoff for Rural Route 37.

Stephanie put the phone back on the passenger seat. She took a few deep breaths, and then turned onto the access road. She reminded herself that nine out of ten times her cell phone had worked fine whenever she'd stayed at Ben and Erica's place. Maybe it was just that one spot that didn't have service. The mountains and trees around here made phone service a little quirky.

Her headlights pierced the darkness as she veered onto the unlit gravel road that wove through the woods. With the trees looming overhead, it was like driving through a dark tunnel. Stephanie slowed down to fifteen miles an hour. She reached over for the pet tracking device again. No blinking light, no beeping. It wasn't picking up anything yet.

Hunched close to the steering wheel, she listened to the gravel crunching under the tires. The drive along the crude one-lane trail was beginning to seem endless. Then she finally spotted a landmark—an old hitching post on the roadside. Bonny Trail and the cabin were just around the bend from here. Stephanie knew where she was now. She went to turn off the headlights, and for a moment, couldn't find where the light controls were on the rental car. At last, she located them and turned off the headlights. Through the darkness, she crawled off the gravel road onto a dirt path that wound around to a clearing behind some bushes. She knew this spot. If she parked the car here, it wouldn't be seen from the road—or the cabin.

Stephanie shut off the engine. All at once, everything seemed so deathly quiet. She tried 9-1-1 again on her cell. Still no service. She stashed the cell in her purse—along with the tracking device. It would have picked up something by now if he was there—and the cat still had its collar on. What had she been thinking with this stupid plan? So far, nothing had gone right. She nervously searched around the car floor for the lever to pop the trunk. She finally found it alongside her seat, and pushed it. Stephanie listened to the trunk hood click open.

Grabbing her purse, she climbed out of the car. She quietly closed the door, and went to the trunk. Peeling back the matting, she found the spare tire—and the tire iron. She wiggled it out of its clip-holder, and stashed it in her purse. Half of it stuck out, but that didn't matter. She pushed down the trunk hood until she heard the lock click.

She crept through the brush, toward the cabin. She heard something rustling in the bushes. Stephanie stopped in her tracks. A twig snapped, and the rustling sound got louder. Then whatever it was seemed to scamper off. Stephanie figured it must have been a raccoon or a possum. She forged on until the cabin came into view. It was a two-story log cottage with a front porch and a stone chimney. A light was on in the front window. Erica and Ben kept it on a timer. The other windows in the cabin were dark. They had some solar-activated lawn lights near the porch and around the clearing, where there was room for several cars to park. Stephanie didn't see a sign of anyone. The front door looked secure, and none of the windows had been smashed in.

She stepped up to the front porch, slightly cluttered with various potted plants and bric-a-brac. She checked under the old butter churn, and found the key.

At that moment, she heard a strange beep.

She realized it was coming from the cat tracker in her purse.

Stephanie looked toward the old gravel road. She spotted a light sweeping over the treetops. She had company.

 

 

There was another loud crash from above.

Ryan flinched at the noise, and the movement sent another jolt of pain through his broken leg.

It sounded like she was going through their cabinets and drawers upstairs. Every once in a while, she broke something—on purpose, it seemed. Maybe those were the items she didn't think worth ripping off. Or maybe she was just doing it to mess with them down here.

Ryan kept rubbing the restraints on his wrists against the support beam behind him. He hoped to wear away at the rope or at least loosen the knot. But even if he got free, he was helpless. He wasn't sure what he could do. Sweat continued to pour off him, and he couldn't stop trembling.

Alison still had a piece of duct tape dangling from her cheek. She'd managed to scoot over to her father once again. For the last fifteen minutes or so, she'd been trying to untie his wrists. They sat with their backs to each other while she blindly tugged and clawed at his ropes. She had tears in her eyes.

She kept glancing over at her kid brother, curled up on the floor.

Danny seemed to be in shock. About a half hour ago, shortly after Nicole had almost shot him, Danny lay down on his side and shrank into a little ball. He hadn't uttered a word or made a sound since. Ryan noticed that most of the time, Danny's eyes were closed, but when he opened them, he had sort of a dead stare. He was the only one who didn't jump a bit with each loud crash upstairs. In fact, he didn't move a muscle.

Considering their chances, Ryan wondered if the boy was better off in this state.

Mr. Metcalf had stopped struggling and squirming. He seemed beaten down. He whispered over his shoulder to Alison: “You were trying to ask me about it last night, weren't you?”

Ryan only caught snippets of the conversation. It sounded like Alison's father was telling her about that night with Selena Jayne and the others twenty-seven years ago. All the while, Alison had tears in her eyes. It looked like she didn't want to hear any of it. She kept picking and pulling at the rope around her father's wrists. But it didn't seem to be doing any good.

Ryan frantically looked around the room—for anything they might use to cut themselves free. Mr. Metcalf had already said all his tools were in the garage. The boxes along the wall contained old clothes and toys. A shard of glass might do the trick, but the windows were too high to reach. Ryan wondered if they could hurl something at the window, break it, and get a piece of glass. But how? Everyone's hands were tied behind them.

He looked over at Mr. Metcalf, still whispering to his daughter. Now both of them were crying. Ryan wanted to scream at them to stop talking and start thinking of some way to get out of there. It seemed odd that Mr. Metcalf had decided now to confess to Alison about his tired old sin.

Then it dawned on Ryan. Mr. Metcalf probably thought none of them were going to live through this. And maybe he just didn't want Alison to die thinking all this was his fault.

 

 

Stephanie watched the eerie light looming over the treetops.

With a shaky hand, she dialed 9-1-1 again, and prayed. She dreaded seeing that damn “No Service Available” message on the phone screen again. She waited. The pet tracking device in her purse let out a steady
beep, beep, beep
.

“9-1-1 Emergency.”

“Oh, thank God,” Stephanie murmured. “My friend was abducted by someone in a camper or trailer—maybe a truck. I didn't get a good look at the vehicle. I'm at number one Bonny Trail, off Rural Route 37. It—it's a cabin . . .”

“May I have your name please?”

Stephanie hesitated. Would they take her seriously if they knew who she was? She took a deep breath. “Stephanie Coburn. I'm staying at my friend's cabin. Did you get the address? I'm worried we might get cut off. I'm not sure about the phone service out here—”

“Stephanie, did you say your friend was abducted?”

The light over the trees seemed to get brighter. The beeping from the tracking device became more rapid—like her heartbeat. Stephanie was afraid if she took a step in either direction, she'd lose phone service. But she took a chance, and ducked around to the side of the cabin.

“Yes,” she said, hiding behind some shrubs. “I didn't get a good look at the man, but he has a gun. He dragged her into a trailer of some kind. I can still see the lights on Rural Route 37—off the Interstate. Please come.”

“Stephanie, could you—” There was a break.

“Hello?” she asked, panicked. “Can you hear me?”

Beep, beep, beep, beep . . .
The tracking device was going crazy. Stephanie figured he'd hear it as soon as he stepped outside. Reaching into her purse to shut it off, she almost dropped her phone. “Are you still there?” she asked the 9-1-1 operator.

“—address again?” was all Stephanie got.

She tried to talk slowly and calmly. “Number One Bonny Trail off Rural Route 37, Milepost 14 off the Interstate,” she said. “Did you get that?”

There was no response on the other end of the line.

Stephanie heard gravel crunching under tires. She saw the headlights through the trees. “9-1-1, are you there?” she said.

No answer.

“If you can hear me, please hurry. I think he's coming back here . . .”

She wondered if he'd seen her car parked in the spot after the hitching post. He must have passed it by now.

The big vehicle was like a monster tank rolling up the narrow little path. Tree branches scraped against its roof. For a second, Stephanie was blinded by the bright headlights as the Winnebago pulled into the clearing. She took a step back and pressed herself against the side of the house. The headlights went off before the Winnebago came to a stop.

“9-1-1, are you there?” she whispered. Again, no response. She clicked off. She put the phone on vibrate—in case they called back. She'd prayed they'd gotten the address.

The RV remained idling for a few moments. Stephanie couldn't get a good look at the driver. The windshield was up high and the lights were off inside the vehicle. He finally switched off the engine.

The driver stepped out of the Winnebago, and left the door open behind him. He tucked a gun in the back of his pants. Then he stood there and stared at the house. From his height and stature, Stephanie was pretty certain the wiry little man was the same one who had tried to break into her hotel room in Lake Forest, and the same one who had been hiding in her basement, ready to set up her “suicide.” He had a bandage on the side of his face, and his receding dark hair was unkempt.

Clutching the phone in her hand, Stephanie remained perfectly still.

He strolled up to the cabin's front porch and peeked into the window. Once he moved toward the door, Stephanie could no longer see him from her vantage point. She heard the doorknob rattle. Then she listened to his footsteps on the porch. There was a shuffling sound—of him shifting around the potted plants. In the e-mail Carroll had sent, she'd said the key was under the third pot to the right of the door.

“Shit!” he muttered.

Stephanie listened to the clanking of pots as he moved them or kicked them aside. The man got noisier and more aggressive with each failed attempt to find a house key.