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“Careful now,” he said. “We’ve reached some steps. There’s six of them, going upward.”
I took the steps slowly. On the last one, a wave of warmth hit me, and I saw a faint crack of light at the bottom of the pillowcase. I was inside a building now.
“Did you run into any problems?” a feminine voice said from somewhere to the left.
“No. The ankle monitor is dead, and no one spotted us,” Mr. Blythe replied. “Is everything set up?”
“Yes. You can take her down there now. The key is in the door.”
I frowned, trying to place the woman from her voice. Her imperious tone sounded familiar, but I couldn’t figure out why. Someone I’d only met in passing, perhaps.
“This way, Kinsey.” Mr. Blythe tugged on my arm, leading me to the left. “There’s a staircase coming up. Be careful.”
I thought that meant we were going upstairs, but I found myself stepping downward instead. The sliver of light at the bottom of the pillowcase began to fade when I reached the tenth step, and the air around me grew chilly, making me shiver.
“Stop,” Mr. Blythe commanded.
A door creaked open, and he pushed me forward. Then he yanked the pillowcase off my head and removed the gag.
I looked around with wide eyes. “What is this place?”
We were in a small windowless room with grimy stone walls and a dirt floor. A low cot stood on one side with a dusty toilet beside it. Other than that, the room was empty.
“The previous owner of this house was a Russian mobster,” Mr. Blythe explained as he untied my wrists. “He built this room so he could lock up anyone who got on his bad side.”
“Areyouin the Mafia?”
He laughed, eyes crinkling at the corners. “No, of course not. I said thepreviousowner was a mobster. He’s been in prison since the early nineties, as far as I know,” he said. “The current owners were made aware of this room when they bought the place. They were going to turn it into a wine cellar, but they never got around to it because there’s already a large wine cellar right next to it.”
“So they just left it here?” I said, nose wrinkling. “Old sheets and all?”
“I believe they actually used it as a punishment room for their daughter when she misbehaved as a child. They’d lock her in here until she promised to be good again.” Mr. Blythe looked around, mouth tugging downward. “It’s not a very nice place, is it?”
My upper lip curled with disgust. “So you associate with child abusers. Why am I not surprised?”
“Get over yourself, Kinsey. We all do what we have to in order to make it in this world.”
I perched on the end of the narrow cot, hugging my arms around myself to keep warm. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on now?”
“I suppose we can talk for a minute or two,” Mr. Blythe replied, glancing at his watch. “Like I said earlier, the police will probably start searching for you tomorrow morning. Your last known location will be at your house, so they’ll think you purposely ran the ankle monitor battery down before doing a runner in the middle of the night. Your mother and Jax will be questioned, but it’ll be obvious that they didn’t see anything. It’ll seem like you sneaked off the estate in the middle of the night and found somewhere to hide.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Why the hell would I run away?”
“Because you’re guilty of Cerina’s murder, and you know the trial isn’t going to go in your favor. At least that’s how everyone will see it.” He quirked a brow, lips curving into a smirk. “After all, innocent people don’t run.”
I swallowed hard. “What happens then?”
“We’ll get someone to remove the ankle monitor and dump it in Carrington Park on Saturday morning. The police will eventually find it there,” he said. “To them, it’ll look like you hid somewhere in town for a day or so while you figured out your next move. Then you decided to sneak into Cerina’s memorial service at the park, so you could have one last glimpse of the beautiful girl whose life you so cruelly snatched away. After that, you decided to leave town once and for all. Hitched a ride with a passing truckdriver, perhaps. The police will assume you cut off the dead ankle monitor to avoid rousing suspicions in any people you might come across while you’re on the run.”
“That’s such a stupid plan,” I said with a scowl. “The police will know I couldn’t pull off a vanishing act on my own.”
“I don’t think so.” Mr. Blythe smiled thinly. “I think they’ll buy it. Then they’ll search the whole state for you. But they won’t look right here in Crown Point, will they? Because why would you stay here if you’re trying to run?”
“Right.” My heart began to thud painfully hard. “So what’ll actually happen to me? Are you going to keep me in this room forever?”
“What do you think, Kinsey?”
My blood froze in my veins. “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?” I said in a low voice.
