Her daddy had been good at picking locks once upon a time, hadn’t he? And he was determined. If he wanted in her house, he could easily have found a way.
“Zach!” she called out again, about to turn back down the steps. She should leave. Go somepla—
A hand slammed over Amanda’s mouth, a leather glove onher lips. She could smell it. She could taste it. Her head was jerked back so hard, she thought her neck might snap. Her dad smelled musky. Like an animal.
“Calm down!” A hoarse whisper—her dad disguising his voice. “Calm down. I’m not going to hurt you.”
She tried to pull her head to the side, to get out from under his huge hand, but he yanked her head back even harder this time. She yelped in pain.
This was it. Where all this had been headed. Her dad wasn’t going to let her go this time. This wasn’t just some random burglar who would take off if she only did as she was told. Her dad had come to finish what he’d started—to kill her. She could feel the rage in his grip, too. Amanda needed to make noise. She needed to scream. And so she did. She screamed as loud as she could. She tried to kick and fight. But the sound was muffled under his hand, and he was so strong. She could barely move.
“Hey! Calm down. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m going to let you go.”
But that was a lie. Amanda knew it was. She knew her dad. He had hurt her before, over and over again. He had hurt the only person on earth who had loved her besides her mother: Carolyn. He had done that. He had. It was starting to come back to her.
Amanda tried to bite his fingers. But his hand was clamped over her mouth so hard, she couldn’t even open her lips. There was a taste, too. Blood. Her teeth were tearing at the insides of her cheeks. And she could feel her earring being ripped out as she struggled.
He’d never let her go. She’d have to kill him. She could, too. She’d done it once before, hadn’t she? Yes—she remembered it all now—Carolyn motionless under him in the bathroom. The razor, the blood all over Amanda’s seafoam taffeta dress. How cold and wet it had been when she raced through the woods to Norma’s for help. How the soles of her feet had burned, the branches and rocks slicing into them.
Case.The name hit her like a bolt of electricity. She loved her son more than her own life. She’d survive for him. She’d kill her dadagain now to protect him. She’d kill him as many times as she had to. Anything for Case. Amanda flung an elbow back, whacking into his stomach, soft after all these years.
“Fuck.” He coughed, releasing his grip a little. She kicked him as hard as she could in the knee. “Fuck!”
He released again for a second, and Amanda lunged forward up a few more steps. Her only path was up. He was blocking the way down.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he roared. “All you had to do was listen.”
Heavy feet right behind her. And the sour heat of him. Amanda was almost at the top of the stairs now, almost where she could turn and run down the hall. Lock the bedroom door. Call the police. Scamper out a window. They had that big tree out front. Maybe she could reach it.
But then a thousand needles being driven into her scalp. He’d grabbed her ponytail. She tried once more to get free. He was above her on the stairs now. She jerked to the side and screamed, “Let go of me, you disgusting pig!”
Then, a shove. Hands on her back. Just a little. But enough. And there at the top of the steps, she was suddenly and so unexpectedly free.
In free fall. Picking up speed. Amanda reached out to stop herself, even as she thought,No, don’t.Her arm cracked against the metal handrail, but she did not slow down. And then the wind was knocked hard out of her. Amanda was on the ground. Stars exploding overhead, then blackness.
Light. Amanda was on the ground at the bottom of the stairs. Pain everywhere. But alive. A chance. Her eyes were blurry and wet. Something—or someone—was there near the top of the stairs. All in black, and with the ski mask. So big and tall. Blocking the light the way he always had. Amanda needed to get up. She needed to run. And she could. She had survived all this time. She could survive again. She would. For Case.
Amanda pushed herself to her feet but slipped. What was thatall over the floor? She cracked her head against the railing as she went down again. The floor was wet and warm and so slippery. Her vision was clouded. But she saw red. All over the floor. And him, standing there above.
Amanda pushed herself up a second time. She could see him still at the top of the stairs, through the water in her eyes. It tasted of iron.
Then again she was down. Her head smacking hard against the metal edge of the stairs this time. She needed to stop hitting her head. Or something—more stars. Case. He loved stars. So many, too. Like that night she raced away from St. Colomb Falls, top down, wind in her hair. Alive. Free. The stars. And then the dark.
And then—
Lizzie
JULY 12, SUNDAY
“Was it Amanda,” I asked, “that you heard downstairs while you were in the office closet?”
“No, it was definitely somebody else at first,” Maude said. “Because then I heard a second person come in. That was Amanda. She called out right away for Zach. I thought there was a chance it was Zach who’d come in first, that maybe I’d have to wait there in the closet until they’d gone to bed, and then slip out. To be honest, I was thinking I’d keep looking for the emails maybe, or some other proof of what I was sure Zach had done. I was utterly consumed.” Maude’s voice caught, and then she fell silent.
I tried to be patient, to let her take her time in getting the rest of the story out. But I couldn’t wait any longer. All I could think about was Sam’s face. I needed her to say the words: I did it.
“And then what?” I asked.
Amanda had panicked in the midst of one of her delusions and had fallen down the steps? An awful, tragic accident that—as far as I was concerned—remained Zach’s fault.
