He drew in a huge gasp of air, and his eyelids blinked heavily.
“Willa,” he croaked.
I was too overcome with relief even to speak.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “You’re bleeding.”
“So are you.”
He started looking around frantically. “Where is he? We need to get out —”
I was already moving toward the door. “I’ll be right back. I have to get help.”
“Where are you going?” he asked, trying to sit up.
“It’s okay. Don’t move. Wait here.”
I got up and walked over to where Reed lay in the foyer. I thought about checking for a pulse, but decided that could wait. I kicked the knife so it slid under the heavy cabinet by the door and went to the dining room for the roll of tape Reed had used on me all night.
I hesitated before grabbing his hands — what if my touch woke him? What if he was only dazed?
I had a feeling that, if he sprang to life, he would have more than enough fight left to finish me off.
“Is he … dead?”
I jumped at the sound of Jonathan’s voice. He was slowly staggering toward us.
“I don’t know,” I said, and my whole body began to tremble. I honestly didn’t know whether to hope the answer was yes or no.
“Be careful,” he said. “Here … I’ll sit on him. Start with his feet, okay?”
I nodded as Jonathan painfully lowered himself onto Reed’s chest.
I wound the tape around his ankles about fifty times.
“Now his hands,” I said.
“We need to call 9-1-1,” Jonathan said.
“This first,” I said. “Here, watch out.”
Jonathan stiffly climbed off Reed, and together we flipped him over. Jonathan grabbed his wrists and held them tight while I circled them with the tape.
“Hold him down,” I said. “I guess I’ll see if he’s alive.”
I lay my two fingers flat against his neck, under his right ear. I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was going to jump up and attack me.
But he didn’t.
“Is there a pulse?” Jonathan asked.
I felt the faint, slow beat of Reed’s blood under my fingers, and my entire body went cold.
“Yeah,” I whispered. I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t. My eyes felt swollen and painful.
“My phone’s ruined,” Jonathan said, taking it out of his sopping-wet pocket. “Do you have yours?”
“No,” I said. “Reed took it. And the landline is dead. I’ll go outside and flag down a car in a minute, but first … I need the code to get into the garage.”
“Wait … are you okay to walk?” he asked.
I nodded, even though it wasn’t totally true. “What’s the code?”
“It’s four fours. Why?”
I didn’t answer. I left the front door open and staggered over to the garage. Every step hurt, and my head ached from being slammed into the wall. Lights seemed surrounded by halos, and I saw two of everything.
But I managed to type in 4-4-4-4, and the door opened with a rumble. I flipped on the lights and walked over to the corner, where I’d seen the puddle of water that morning.
There was a door in the side wall, behind an old bike. It wasn’t even disguised — it just looked like it hadn’t been used in eons.
The chauffeur’s quarters. That’s where he’d been keeping them, rehearsing with them. Preparing them for their deaths. He had easy access, since he could come and go into and out of the garage as much as he pleased. And it was far enough from the house that no one would hear the girls crying and screaming for help.
I shoved the bike away and pulled the door open.
Stairs.
From the bottom of the stairs came a soft, muffled sound.
“Willa?” Jonathan stood, slightly swaying, in the open garage door. “What are you doing?”
“Marnie?” I called.
The muffled sound stopped, and turned into a muted shriek.
“We’re getting help,” I said. “Sorry I can’t come down for you right this second, I …”
I was so dizzy I could hardly walk. Jonathan slumped against the garage wall like he might collapse at any moment.
“Who’s down there?” he asked.
“His next victim,” I said. “Besides me, I mean. Her name is Marnie.”
The devastated look that came over Jonathan’s face just about broke my heart.
“Could you go down and tell her she’s safe?” I said. “I’m going to get help.”
He nodded and slowly began to descend the steps while I shuffled to the gate. When I pulled it open, I saw headlights approaching from around the corner. They blurred in my vision until they were four bright diamonds of light.
I raised my arms and stepped out into the middle of the street, thinking, Wouldn’t it be just my luck to survive all that and then get run over by some loser checking his text messages?
But the car slowed as it neared me, and then stopped. The driver’s side door opened, and after a few seconds, a woman about my mom’s age got out.
“Could you please — Hey, are you all right?” she asked. “Good God, what happened?”
“Please,” I said. “Call 9-1-1.”
Then I sat down in the middle of the street and passed out.
“Her name is Willa. She’s my stepdaughter. We were attacked in our house by … an intruder.” I heard Jonathan speaking before I forced my eyes open. I was propped up in his arms, on the ground, just inside the gate. He glanced down at me and relief crossed his face. “Hey, try to stay awake, all right?”
“All right,” I said. “I’m okay. I think I was just overwhelmed.”
Jonathan managed a weak smile. “You’re well within your rights on that count. The police are coming. And an ambulance.”
“I don’t need an ambulance,” I said.
“Nice try,” he said. “You’re bleeding from the head. And you’re woozy. Your eyes are bloodshot. Did he give you something?”
I thought of the white pills and nodded.
“Do you know what it was?”
I shook my head. Somebody had covered me with a jacket. “What about you?” I asked. “He hit you, too. And you almost drowned.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m all right. My mother always said I have a thick skull.”
By now there was a small crowd of people around us. And there were a bunch of people in the garage, too — they must have been helping Marnie.
Sirens wailed in the distance. Somewhere in the ravine, a pack of coyotes started howling along with them.
Jonathan kept glancing up at the people around us, and then back down at me. “Are you really okay? Did he hurt you? I can’t believe … all this time, it was … Reed. In our house. In our garage.”
I blinked back my tears. I couldn’t believe it, either.
Jonathan ran his hand over my hair in an awkward, reassuring gesture. “Your mom’s on her way back. She’s going straight to the hospital. Willa, I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”
At the thought of seeing my mother and being wrapped in her arms, I couldn’t hold back my tears any longer. All of the emotions I’d tried to ignore all night — fear, humiliation, anger — burst forth in a tidal wave. I started to cry huge, ugly-cry sobs.
Jonathan hugged me closer, rocking back and forth. “It’s okay,” he said. “We’re safe now, Willa. You saved us.”
When my mother got to the hospital, she came barreling into the room. But she wasn’t hysterical, as I had expected her to be. She was strangely calm as she spoke to the doctors and nurses and police. She seemed so strong.
She hugged me and kissed my forehead and cheeks about a thousand times, and then she took hold of my hand and didn’t let go.
I had a concussion and a cracked rib and we were waiting for the results of my blood tests, since nobody knew exactly what was in the little pills Reed gave me. But I was feeling okay — all things considered.