He stepped into the house, looking left and right, but there was no sign of Abbey. A dull green telephone on the end table gave him an idea, and he pulled it off the hook and dialed 9-1-1.
"Nine-one-one. What's your emergency?" a voice said.
"Officer Everett has been shot. He needs medical attention. Send a car to—" Shit! Matt didn't know the address.
A muffled cry from somewhere in the house caught his attention. He set the phone's receiver on the table and walked deeper into the house. He might not know the address, but the operator at 911 would. Her voice came through the line asking more questions, sounding tinny and small. When she couldn't get an answer, she'd have to send a car.
Or so he hoped.
Directly in front of him was a large living area, which opened onto a deck on the rear of the place. He knew from his previous visit that the kitchen and dining room stood to his left, while Abbey's bedroom was to his right. He'd spent most of his time here either in the bedroom or in the backyard, and while he hadn't seen any weapons in the bedroom, that didn't mean there weren't any there. Besides, that's probably where Abbey had Annie. He set off down the hallway, keeping his back to the wall and listening for any sound of her presence.
Along the way he noticed more pictures on the wall. Lots more. They had been there the other night, of course, but he hadn't paid any attention to them. Now that he looked, they were all of Abbey and various men. There was one of her and Dale, obviously only a few years old, and one of her and another man that, by their clothes, looked like it was taken in the seventies. Beyond that was another picture of her in front of the old car lot with the man she claimed was her husband, Clark. And beyond that were many more. All of them showed Abbey as one half of a smiling couple through the decades. There was even one done in the very old style, with the man sitting in a chair while Abbey stood behind him with her hand on his shoulder. The clothing looked to be from around the early 1900s.
Jesus. How old was she?
Matt stopped in the middle of the hallway, looking back at the line of pictures. Was that what was in store for him? Would he someday have a hallway full of old photos, too? Not if I let her kill me tonight, he thought, forcing his mind back to the present. The implications of Abbey's pictures would have to wait. First he had to stop her from killing Annie. He walked the rest of the hallway's length. It ended at the bedroom door.
Matt put his hand on the doorknob, then took a deep breath, and turned it. He pushed open the bedroom door a half inch at a time, waiting for the gunshot that would end his life. When it didn't come, he opened the door the whole way.
There was Annie, gagged and tied to the bed but very much alive, despite a few cuts across her chest that oozed blood onto her shredded T-shirt. Matt breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank God you're all right."
Annie's eyes grew wide when she saw Matt, and she tried to mumble something under the gag, but Matt couldn't make it out. He crossed the room and leaned over the bed, putting his finger to his lips.
"She's still here somewhere," Matt whispered. "I'm gonna undo your gag, but you have to keep quiet, okay? Nod if you understand me."
She nodded.
"Good," Matt said, and he reached over and pulled the gag down over her chin. "That better?"
"Yeah," she said. "That bitch is fucking crazy. Get me the hell outta here."
"I will. Just give me a second." Matt tried to undo the knots on the ropes. His wrist flared with pain. He gritted his teeth and tried again but soon realized he couldn't maneuver his fingers while holding the gun, so he set it on the nightstand. "You let me know if you see her, okay?"
"You got it, man."
Matt went to work on the knots, but he couldn't loosen them. Abbey had tied them very tight. He could probably get them if he had an hour to spare, but he didn't. "Shit."
"There's a knife in the top drawer of her nightstand," Annie said. "It's the one she used to cut me."
Matt opened the drawer and grabbed the knife. The smell of decay hung in the room like an invisible fog. Abbey must really be rotting, he thought. I can still smell her in here. He knelt beside the bed and sawed through the rope on Annie's right wrist. Then he went to cut the one at her feet. As he moved, he caught another whiff of the decay. It smelled strong. Too strong.
Annie shifted in the bed and Matt caught a glimpse of the girl's skin beneath her torn pants. He stopped sawing through the rope and stared at the greenish, oozing skin hidden under Annie's clothes. No wonder the smell had been so strong.
"I should have known," he said, just before the gun barrel poked him in the side of the head.
"Finish cutting," Annie instructed, punctuating her words by jabbing the barrel into Matt's temple. Matt resumed sawing the knife through the rope, trying to think of a way to dodge a bullet from point-blank range.
"I got him, Abbey!" Annie yelled.
From somewhere deep in the house, Abbey's voice floated into the bedroom. "I'm coming."
"How long?" Matt asked, still sawing through the rope. "How long have you and Abbey been working together?"
"Since the beginning," she said. "Right after she came down from Kentucky."
"Abbey's not even her real name, is it?"
"Fuck if I know. Fuck if I care. That pussy's so good, she could call herself Fred Flintstone if she wanted. You just get back to cuttin' that rope before I spray your brains all over the wall behind you."
Matt cut through the rope on her right leg and moved to the one tied to her left. "Bitch sure can tie a knot," he muttered.
Annie smiled and ran her tongue across her upper lip. "That ain't all she can do."
Too true, Matt thought.
Abbey stepped into the room carrying Matt's ax. Her face was half eaten away with rot, and Matt could see her lower teeth and part of her jawbone though the dead tissue on her cheek. The smell was overpowering, and he swallowed the urge to vomit. He didn't want to look at her. How had she hidden the decay from him while they were... He couldn't even finish the thought.
"I knew you'd come to save her" Abbey said, pointing at Annie.
"What do you mean?" Matt asked.
"We watched that spineless husband of mine drop you off at the store," she said. "I knew you were there. But I needed you here, out in the country, where no one would hear anything."
So the whole conversation back at Abbey's Antiques was for his benefit. Another trap. "And I fell right into it," he said.
"You sure did," Annie giggled. "She told me you would."
Abbey smiled. "Toss the knife aside, Matt," she said.
"Tell her not to shoot me." Matt glanced at Annie, who was still pointing the gun at Matt's head.
Abbey set the ax in the corner of the room, then walked around the bed, giving Matt a wide berth. She stopped on the other side of the bed and held out her hand to Annie. "Give it to me," she said.
Annie looked disappointed. "But I wanted to do this one."
"He's mine," Abbey said, her face stern. "You can finish off my sorry-ass excuse for a husband. Give me the gun."
Annie handed the pistol over. Abbey took it and pointed it at Matt's chest. "Don't worry, hon," she said to Annie. "You'll get to decide head or gut. I'm just gonna be the one to pull the trigger."
That made Annie smile, and she was about to open her mouth, but Abbey cut her off. "Not yet," she said. "Think about it for a minute."
She nodded and smiled at Matt. Head or gut. If Matt had to choose, he'd rather get shot in the head. It would take less time to die. But one look at Annie's subtle smirk told him the girl from McDonald's had already made up her mind, and it didn't jibe with Matt's preference.