Once I had silently hauled myself through the window, I dropped into an army crawl and began dragging myself slowly toward my room. Passing by the stairwell, I saw Reed sitting on the step just outside the open front door. He looked composed and relaxed — but there was tension in his posture, and I knew he was keeping close watch on the yard.
I held my breath and kept going. Finally I made it to my bedroom door, which was closed. As quickly as I could, I eased up off my elbows and turned the knob, grasping it with both hands to keep the catch from snapping back after I turned it.
And then I was in the room, closing the door behind me. It slid shut with only the slightest whisper of sound. I reached up and turned the lock — but it wasn’t the kind of lock that would keep someone out. Not if they really wanted to get in.
I ran to the closet and grabbed the old laptop — and a pair of running shoes. I locked myself in the bathroom, to buy some extra time in case Reed figured out where I was. I carried the computer in, set it on the counter, and plugged it in.
The screen slowly lit up.
Then, to my horror, it made that DA-DAAAAAHHH! boot-up sound. I nearly peed my pants in surprise.
It took an eternity for the home screen to load, but there was still no sign of Reed.
I was safe … for the moment.
I loaded up the web browser. I’d deleted all of my social network accounts months ago, so unfortunately, I couldn’t log into Facebook and post HELP HE’S TRYING TO KILL ME! to a concerned group of people who would be able to find me right away.
I searched for contact police online, but the results were useless — a bunch of people complaining about not being able to contact the police online. There were a few police departments’ CONTACT US! forms, which I figured would get me rescued in about a week and a half, if Reed would be kind enough to postpone his serial killing for a while.
I decided to send an email blast to all my contacts, something like SEND THE POLICE TO MY HOUSE ASAP! I opened a new blank message, selected every name in my address book, and in the subject I typed, SEND POLICE IMMEDIATELY 2121 SUNBIRD LANE HOLLYWOOD.
I was about to hit SEND, when I decided to add to the body of the emaiclass="underline" NOT A JOKE ALONE WITH REED THORNTON HOLLYWOOD KILLER PLEASE HELP — WILLA.
I moved the mouse to the SEND button …
And clicked it.
I sat back, watching the little wheel spin — not surprising, considering all the addresses it had to send to —
And then the lights went off.
Reed had cut the power.
Oh, no.
The laptop ran on a battery, so the screen stayed lit. But the spinning wheel stopped. An error message popped up onscreen: Error sending message. No wireless connection detected.
A few seconds later, I heard the approaching clunks of distant footsteps coming up the stairs. After a slight pause and the rattling of the stupid, useless lock on the door, he entered my bedroom.
Oh, no, no, no.
“Hey, Willa.” Reed’s voice had a hollow cheerfulness to it. “It’s me. Are you all right?”
“Um,” I said. “I’m not feeling very well. I’d kind of like to be alone.”
“Is it from your fall?” he asked. “Why don’t you come on out and I can drive you to an urgent care place? You should probably get looked at.”
“No, it’s nothing like that.” I raked a hand through my hair. “It’s kind of embarrassing. Just a stomach thing. I actually called my mom before. She should be here any second. You can go.”
He paused, and for a second I thought I might have fooled him.
There was a soft impact on the door, and I cowered away before realizing that he was leaning against it. “Just out of curiosity,” he said, “what exactly are you typing in there?”
My whole body began to shake. “I already emailed my mom and Jonathan! They’ll be calling the police any second!”
“You’re bluffing,” Reed said in a light, pleasant tone. “I know you’re upset, and I think we should talk. Why don’t you come on out?”
“If you run now, you can get away,” I said. “Before the police get here!”
He shook the door, a sound that made me nearly pass out from fear.
“It’s important that you know that I’ve been through this before,” he said, all the diplomacy gone from his voice. “And I always win.”
I felt a tightening at the base of my throat.
“I can take the door down if I have to,” he said. “But that’s going to make me unhappy. And if I’m unhappy … I can promise you’re going to be even unhappier.”
A sob came from someplace deep down in my body, near my heart. My teeth gritted and my eyes squeezed themselves shut and I forced it back down.
I couldn’t lose control.
“Now,” Reed said, and his voice was perfectly even and pleasant. “Which one of us is going to open the door?”
“What are you going to do to me?” I asked.
“That’s no concern of yours,” he said. “Open the door, Willa.”
“You killed those girls … all of them.” As I spoke, using my own words for cover, I knelt and opened the cabinet under the sink. I reached around in the dark until my hand hit a piece of sharp metal — the towel bar that Paige had so kindly pulled out of the wall. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this, Reed. You’ll get caught. There’s no way they won’t connect you to the other murders if you kill me.”
“If I decide I want your perspective, I’ll ask for it,” he said. “Open the door.”
My hand trembled so badly that it fell away from the lock twice before I could twist it. I had time to think, Is this the worst mistake of my life?
As Reed opened the door, I raised the towel bar and swung it at him, and made contact with the side of his head — hard.
He howled and doubled over.
I rushed past him, scrambling down the stairs so fast I thought I might miss a step and go tumbling head over heels.
“WILLA!” Reed yelled, his voice thick with rage.
I didn’t stop to look back. I ran straight for the front door and reached up to turn the dead bolt.
Only I couldn’t. This was an old-fashioned lock, where you need a key to get through it from either side. You could get locked in just as easily as you could get locked out. I’d never thought about it before, because we always left the key in it.
But now it was gone.
I turned and ran for the double doors to the backyard. I had shoes on now — I could climb over the fence and escape through the ravine.
Reed thundered through the hall as I sprinted across the tile toward the gate down into the citrus orchard.
While I ran, I tried letting out a blood-curdling scream — but screaming used up energy I needed to outrun someone who was stronger and faster than me.
The shaky rock steps leading down to the first terrace wobbled beneath my feet, and I nearly lost my balance. The next terrace was a six-foot drop, so I ran along the edge, toward the stairs on the far side.
I should have jumped.
Reed did.
By the time I got to the stairs, he was already down at my level, only a few yards away. His face and hair were bloody, his eyes lit up with fury.
There wasn’t time to run.
I had to stay and fight.
I raised the towel bar and went to hit him with it again, but he caught my wrist in midair and wrenched my arm behind my back, yanking the towel bar away and tossing it down the hill.
I tried to scream, but he pulled me back against his chest and clapped his hand over my mouth. A bitter, awful scent flooded my nostrils and burned my throat, and I realized he was holding a wet rag over the lower half of my face. I tried to fight him off, but already my arms and legs were quickly growing heavy. I ended up clawing weakly at his wrist with my free hand, drooping back toward him like a rag doll.