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I let out a pathetic-sounding groan, and Christopher held me tighter.
“It’s okay,” he whispered. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
But I knew in my heart he was wrong. Nothing
was ever going to be okay again.
The flashing red-and-blue police lights left pulsating blurs across my vision. Christopher kept his gaze straight ahead, his breaths remarkably even as he followed the patrol car down my winding street, his windshield wipers whacking back and forth, too fast for the increasingly light drizzle. He pulled up to a curb near my house, where two dozen police cars were parked and a black van was stationed half on my front lawn, half on the street.
“Whoa,” he said quietly.
Slowly, numbly, I climbed out of the car. All I wanted to do was get in the shower, curl up in a ball on the tiled floor, and stay there until I felt clean again. But I had a feeling these officers had other ideas.
“Rory?” My father strode away from a crowd of uniformed police officers and severe-looking men in trench coats and stormed toward the car. His white button-down shirt was half untucked from his pants, and his threadbare tweed suit jacket flapped open. His eyes looked bloodshot, his nose red, and glistening raindrops dotted his dark hair. When he reached me, he threw his arms around me, his fingers digging into my shoulder blades.
As we stood there, dozens of strangers and neighbors eyeing us, I felt awkward and stiff. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d hugged me. My dad still picked me up from school when I was sick and made our favorite meals whenever he had the time. But ever since my mom died, he’d stopped checking in to see how we were doing or kissing us good night. He’d retreated into himself, developing this angry, simmering outer layer that was constantly set to blow.
A siren blared as another police car pulled up. The hug ended abruptly. Darcy hovered nearby, her slim arms crossed over her Princeton Hills High School Cheerleading sweatshirt, the black hood up over her dark brown hair to shield her from the drizzle. Christopher started to get out of the car, but the second their eyes met, he got back in and stayed there. My dad cleared his throat.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “When the police showed up at my lecture hall, I thought…” His voice trailed off, and he reached out to awkwardly clutch my wrist, as though making sure I was really still there. “If anything ever happened to you…”
“I’m fine,” I assured my dad. “I’m just—”
“What were you thinking?” he asked suddenly, pulling away. I flinched, my heart vaulting into my throat, and I took an instinctive step back. “Cutting through those woods alone? You could have been killed!”
Now this was the dad I knew. Quick to temper, quicker to blame. It was oddly reassuring—a normal thing in a surreal day.
“Dad, lay off!” Darcy snapped.
His face turned red and he looked at the ground, avoiding eye contact with anyone.
“Get inside,” he said quietly but sternly.
I ducked my chin, tears stinging my eyes, and walked shakily toward our house. Darcy fell into step with me, so close our shoulders kept grazing while we walked. One glance back at Christopher was all I could manage. He lifted his hand from the steering wheel in a semblance of a wave, his lips flattened into a tight, encouraging smile. Suddenly, I just wanted to be back in that car, back with him, back where I felt safe. But then he revved the engine, and just like that, he was gone.
Once we were inside, my father slammed the front door behind us. Then he stopped short. Standing near the wall in the living room, next to framed photos of me and Darcy when we were younger, was a slight woman in a dripping black baseball cap and a black overcoat. Several men in blue jumpsuits were sweeping through the downstairs, running mechanical wands along the walls and counters, while another climbed the steps to the second floor.
“Who are you?” my father demanded.
“My name is Sharon Messenger.” She took out a wallet and flashed a badge at us. Three bold, capital letters leaped out at me: FBI.
My heart started to pound painfully.
“Why is the FBI here?” my father asked, his forehead wrinkling.
The agent ignored him and turned to me. “Is this the man who attacked you?” she asked, taking out a smartphone and tapping one of the on-screen keys. Instantly, Mr. Nell’s face appeared on the screen, but he was much younger, with a mustache and square black glasses instead of his gold wire-rimmed frames.
“Yes,” I said, turning away. “That’s him. That’s Mr. Nell.”
Agent Messenger pressed her pale lips together. She slid out of her rain-soaked coat, hung it on the rack, then gestured toward the sitting area. “Why don’t you all have a seat?”
“Why don’t you tell us what’s going on first?” my dad challenged, squaring his shoulders. In his day, my dad was an athlete, a lean cross-country runner like me. But after my mother died, he’d stopped working out, stopped running, and now he just looked tired and weak.
“Dad,” Darcy groused, “can we please not make a fight out of this?”
My dad’s eyes flashed, but he sat down on the old recliner. I sank down on the far end of the couch, pulling my knees up under my chin and hugging myself tightly. Darcy took the opposite end, while Agent Messenger paced over the worn Oriental carpet my parents had bought on their honeymoon.
“The man you know as Steven Nell is actually Roger Krauss,” she said without preamble. “The FBI has been trying to find him for over a decade.” She stopped pacing and looked me directly in the eye. Her drenched black curls stuck to her neck, looking like tattoos against her milky skin. “He’s killed fourteen girls in ten states. First he stalks them. Then he hunts them down and… You’re lucky you got away.”
