As Night Falls Read online

  “You should’ve spent some time considering how to keep the bad guys out,” Nick added.

  “No one’s getting in through one of those windows,” Ivy scoffed.

  She was right. Ivy knew the way this house had been built, its back to a bluff that resisted even Ben’s skilled efforts.

  Nick took a step in Ivy’s direction. “Well, good. Then you’ll be safe up here.” He turned toward Sandy. “Now say goodbye to the princess.”

  Sandy yanked her head up. “What? We’re not splitting up. Remember? One big slumber party, you said.” She and Ivy couldn’t be apart right now. They had to stay close in order to snatch any opportunity for flight that might present itself. And if no opportunity appeared? Then being together would be even more important.

  “I did say that,” Nick agreed. “And I can understand why you’d feel misled.”

  “So why change the plan?” Sandy asked. “Sticking together is safest. And from up here, you can see all the way down to the road at the same time as you keep an eye on the weather—”

  “My turn,” Nick said, his voice a brittle wind.

  Sandy ground to a halt.

  “I want some insurance while we wait.” Nick’s gaze slid past Ivy. “A reason you might choose not to flee this place too quickly.”

  Sandy’s hands folded, nails sharp enough to dig ditches in her palms, and her face went stony, Botoxed with hate. Ivy had taken a step back when Nick ordered the separation. She took another one, and another, until meeting the plane of Harlan’s chest.

  Harlan had been locked up for armed robbery. He wasn’t a killer, Sandy told herself, or someone who had sick predilections better left unnamed. Still, franticness descended upon her at the thought of leaving Ivy alone with him. She felt as if she were on the top floor of a building, looking down as it collapsed beneath.

  Nick studied her with something like understanding. “Harlan’s not going to do a single thing except what I tell him to. And all I’m telling him to do is stay with the princess. If you keep bugging me, though, I might just have to change my directive.”

  Sandy felt her shoulders sag. Two escaped prisoners, and trusting them seemed her only option. Ivy stuck out her hand, and Sandy grabbed it.

  “Mom,” Ivy said softly.

  Sandy’s head snapped up. “Yes,” she hissed. “What, sweetie, tell me!”

  “You’re pressing too hard.”

  Sandy looked down and saw Ivy’s hand flaming red inside hers. She loosened her grip.

  “Please, Ivy,” she said. “Just hold on for a little while longer.” The look in Ivy’s eyes was heartbreaking, the same one she’d worn on the brink of her first day of school.

  Nick clamped his hand around Sandy’s arm, and pulled her into the hall. “No more stalling. You and me downstairs, Harlan and the princess up here.”

  “Okay,” she muttered. She tried to wrench free. “Okay.” She sent a reassuring glance toward Ivy, all the love that could be delivered in a look. “I’m going.”

  Harlan’s hand grazed Ivy’s bedroom door, the lightest of touches on a solid plank of wood. The door swung shut on its hinges before closing with a click.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Ivy was alone again with Harlan. She could smell him, feel heat coming off him. He had lips as thick as sausages, and round, blank eyes. Ivy couldn’t help shrinking away. Then she heard Darcy telling her that was the dumbest thing she could do. Harlan would know that she was scared, and maybe worse, disgusted by his presence. Ivy put her foot down, halting the backward step she had been in the midst of taking.

  “It’s okay,” Harlan said softly.

  Ivy jerked her head up. Waaay up. His big body filled her room like foam. The room she’d only just begun to think of as her own, bestowing on it a handful of personal items: the hopeful, colorful rug she’d made sure came from their old house, a photo that her dad had printed out of her and Melissa on the summit of Mount Marcy.

  Now this room would never be hers. She could never rid it of this intruder’s presence.

  How was Mac doing? Was he okay all by himself? And oh God, what about her dad? But Ivy clamped down on that thought. The world blurred, and she scrubbed at her eyes with the backs of her hands.

  She plunked herself onto her bed. It didn’t matter, standing or sitting, she was still snail-sized in comparison to Harlan. Ivy lowered her head so that he wouldn’t see how close she was to crying.

  He took slow, plodding steps in her direction.

  Ivy scooted backward on the bed. Scooch, she heard her mom say, and then she really did start to cry. How could it have been only a few hours ago that she’d been sitting next to her mother on this bed? And how could Ivy have refused to go down for dinner? If she just got the chance for them all to be together again, Ivy would eat dinner every night with her parents till she was twenty.

  Harlan stood over her, and Ivy waited, as far back on her bed as she could go. If he sat down, Ivy was going to fall off. Try to scrunch underneath. He’d never reach her there—he was too huge. Big balls of his hands hung by his thighs, which were as wide around as silos. Ivy could hardly see past him into the rest of her room.

  She swallowed.

  “Why are you scared of me?” he asked.

  “I’m not,” she said, a stupid response, the first one that came to her lips.

  “Yes, you are,” he said, softly again. His eyes looked a little less empty, more aware.

  He sat down, and the mattress sank almost to the floor.

  Ivy didn’t fall off. She was cemented into place.

  “They’re always scared,” he said. “And they always think I don’t know.”

  A slick of disgust coated Ivy’s tongue. “Who?”

  “Well,” Harlan said at last. “Everyone.” He lifted his arm, and it was long enough that all the way across the bed, his hand landed on hers.

  Ivy muffled a little shriek. “Don’t touch me!”

  He looked down at the offending hand. “I didn’t mean to!”

  Ivy could no longer conceal her revulsion in the hopes of lulling Harlan. Things were colliding in her head with the force of cars piling up. She brought her hands to her ears to try and dull the impact.

  The words she’d said to her mother earlier that night.

  Her stupid, girly attempt to fight Nick in the basement, flailing at him, hurling herself around, and only succeeding in lashing his face.

  How ugly and swollen his foot was. He’d never be able to walk miles into the woods.

  Another memory, from longer ago. When the school year had started, Ivy attended her first boy-girl slumber party. She’d expected an ordinary Saturday night with Melissa and Darcy, plus a few others. Hair, nails, popcorn, a movie. Maybe a few giggly texts to some boys they were crushing on, asking them to come over, accompanied by hoots and hands clapped over mouths, the curtains immediately drawn if anyone was dumb enough to take them up on it.

  But when Ivy arrived, there were boys hanging out in the finished basement, twirling around on bar stools, slouched over on the couch.

  Darcy had laughed at her. “No one has just girls at sleepovers anymore.”

  “Yeah,” another faux friend added. “We’re juniors now, you know.”

  When midnight crept around, they’d started playing a game called Hook Up, which went just about how it sounded. Maybe because Ivy hadn’t been that into it, she was the last one chosen, by a wormy boy named Dave Parks who had a bristle of growth above his lip that he either liked or didn’t know to shave. Ivy had kissed boys before and she wasn’t worried about that part, even though Dave totally icked her out. But after pushing his slimy tongue into her mouth, which she tolerated for a while, Dave went to pull down the zipper on her jeans, and stuck his hand in her waistband. Ivy had begun to twist and turn in some weird dance, finally flinging herself free, and the boy’s laughter had followed her the whole way out.

  Now Harlan’s hand was touching hers, and Ivy had no chance of getting loose. It was like
a tree stump upon her.

  “Please,” Ivy said. The word broke and grated like glass in her mouth. “Please don’t.”

  “Why are you crying?” he asked.

  Ivy looked at him. “I…I don’t know.”

  His big, rolling mouth changed, and after a second, Ivy realized he was trying to smile.

  “I don’t want to hurt you, you know,” he said.

  “What…what do you want, then?” Ivy asked.

  Harlan’s hand plopped down, hitting the mattress with enough force to rock them. “This, I guess.”

  “Our house?” Ivy demanded. Good. Let ’em have it.

  “No.” He looked frustrated. “This,” he repeated. “What we’re doing now.”

  “What are you doing?” Ivy ventured. She felt as perplexed as he did.

  He took a breath, as if relieved to be on surer ground. “Whatever Nick tells me to.”

  Ivy wasn’t sure it was a good idea to say the next thing that came to her mind. “Do you always do what Nick says?”

  Harlan’s face folded. “Nick’s my friend.”

  That was too much. “He’s a jerk!” Ivy burst out. “He grabbed me downstairs—hurt me even—and he did something terrible to—” She swiped at her eyes and nose, both of which were wet. “—to my—”

  “Shh,” he said, reaching out and lowering Ivy’s hand with his own. She couldn’t have resisted if she’d tried. “Don’t do that.”

  Ivy’s face smarted. It was a relief to stop trying to stem her tears and just let them flow.

  “I’ve known Nick a long time,” Harlan said. “You know how someone you know that long can be a friend even if they’re not very nice to you?”

  Ivy was silent. She didn’t know what to say, and anyway, she’d figured something important out. It wasn’t Harlan she had to worry about. It was Nick.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  A solid sentry of wood stood between Sandy and Ivy. The only way Sandy was able to cope with the space splitting them was to listen to the quiet place inside her, the therapist’s assessing instinct, which said that unless ordered otherwise, Harlan didn’t present a danger.

  She felt Nick’s dark presence behind her as they walked down the stairs.

  “The snow really isn’t that big a problem,” Sandy said. “My husband takes groups out in it all the time.”

  “I’m sure he does,” Nick muttered.

  Encouraged, Sandy swung around. “And you seem to be walking just fine. You don’t want to waste these hours while everyone’s occupied clearing the roads.”

  “Of course I’m walking just fine!” Nick roared, and as he stepped, he stumbled. He recovered quickly, grabbing the twisting vine of rail and repositioning himself on a length of level wood. “Save your tricks for Harlan,” he said. “They won’t work on me.”

  Nick shoved her forward, making her lurch. Sandy’s feet found the next stair and she stayed there a moment, waiting for her heart to stop thudding and her breath to return.

  Things were silent as they began again to descend.

  Then Nick spoke. “Come on. How long are we going to keep playing this game?”

  His voice was a flicker, right at the edges of her consciousness. He leered at her like a reflection in a funhouse mirror. Sandy looked away.

  Down below and through the kitchen lay the door to the basement. A few dozen feet, maybe a hundred at most, yet impossible to reach.

  “Suit yourself,” Nick said at last, and Sandy blanched at the lack of life in his tone. It was as if a computer were talking. He extended his arm, indicating that she should go. “After you.”

  Sandy edged around him. This time, Nick checked before shifting on the stair, making sure he had room. He followed a step behind.

  As they reached the bottom, a series of notes sounded.

  —

  “What the hell is that music?”

  Sandy grinned humorlessly. “It’s the phone. They don’t just ring anymore. That’s the landline.”

  Nick pushed past her. “I cut it. Downstairs.”

  Sandy’s smile became a trifle more real. “You need a degree in engineering to be sure you’re cutting the right thing these days. It’s impossible to fix your own car anymore, too. Did you know that?”

  Nick didn’t answer.

  The phone continued to play its lilting, upbeat song, a few bars over and over, interfering with thought. Possibilities burred in Sandy’s mind, most of them stupid, immediately discarded. Nick began to walk forward, but Sandy stayed in place, thinking furiously.

  “There aren’t many people who call on that line,” she said. “It won’t be—it shouldn’t be a problem. But if I don’t pick up…well, it could be.”

  Nick let out an ugly laugh. “You forget I already know what a liar you are. Maybe someone’s calling about the combo to your safe.” He headed for the kitchen again.

  “Please!” Sandy screamed. “I’m telling you the truth!”

  The music abruptly cut off.

  Sandy felt her wrist locked by Nick’s hand, then he dragged her toward the kitchen. Sandy’s feet skidded; she had to skip a step to keep up. Injured or not, Nick pulled her easily across the floor, stopping only when they came to the cordless phone on its section of counter.

  Nick pointed to the green flashing light.

  “Tell me what that means,” he said. He lowered his face to hers and spoke into her ear. “And don’t lie about it. If you do—” A puff of breath. “—I’ll go back upstairs and tell Harlan to throw the princess out her window.”

  Sandy turned to him in horror.

  Nick smiled blandly. “That’d be a fitting exit from the castle, wouldn’t it?” His voice broke into a growl, and he spoke deliberately. “Now. What. Does. That. Light. Mean?”

  Sandy’s tone was brittle. If she allowed any emotion in, she feared she might break down completely. “It means we have a voicemail.”

  Nick swiveled toward the staircase. “Oh, Harlan—” he called in singsong.

  “A message,” Sandy said hurriedly.

  “Fine,” Nick said, turning back. “We had those before I went in. They just looked different. Play it.”

  The hollow, disembodied voice that entered the kitchen was instantly recognizable, even though the caller didn’t identify herself.

  “This time it’s pretty bad, Dr. Tremont.”

  Madeline insisted on calling Sandy doctor even though Sandy had explained many times that she was a social worker, not a psychologist or psychiatrist.

  The message continued. “Gloria says she’s trying to reach you, but your cell must be out. So I decided to try you this way. I hope you can call me back. Here’s my number.”

  The airless voice recited it.

  Sandy lifted a triumphant face to Nick. Never mind that a patient had her home number; she wasn’t even all that surprised by that.

  “See?” Sandy said. “I have to call her back.”

  “Who is it?” Nick asked. He was eyeing the cordless as if it were an infuriating insect. “And how the hell many ways are there to call someone these days?”

  “A patient of mine,” Sandy replied. “I can help her with her problem, and then everything will be fine. But if she doesn’t hear from me…” Sandy let her voice trail off, hoping Nick would envision a scenario.

  He leaned against the counter, arms folded across his chest. “Yeah? If she doesn’t hear from you, what?” His face fractured into a smile. “She comes out here with an arsenal and mows down the criminals to save you?” Nick paused. “What kind of doctor are you anyway?”

  “I’m not a doctor,” Sandy muttered. “I’m a therapist.”

  “Ah,” Nick said. He was sitting on the counter now, regarding her from above. “No wonder you went to work on Harlan. A head shrinker. Why am I not surprised by your choice of career?”

  Sandy took a breath. “She may not send in the cavalry,” she said, choosing words carefully, like stepping over rocks in a creek. “But she could call my boss again at
the hospital.” Gloria wasn’t actually her boss, but that didn’t matter. “And Gloria does know where I live. She might get concerned and drop by. Or send somebody.”

  Sandy closed her mouth and waited. The truth was that if Madeline pestered Gloria with too many more calls, the admin would tell her to scram until her next scheduled appointment. Gloria could keep patients at a distance like a bodyguard held off paparazzi. But again, Nick would have no way of knowing that.

  He eased himself off the counter. Sandy flinched, anticipating a series of blows. Instead, Nick turned and placed the receiver in her quaking hand.

  “Fine,” he said. “Call her back.”

  Sandy looked at him.

  “Go on, do it,” he said. “It’s not a trick. I’m not going to stop you.”

  Further hesitation would only give him the chance to change his mind. Sandy’s fingers skidded over the face of the phone, slap-dash keying in a sequence to call up the number. Sandy hit the wrong one, had to stop and go back. She started over, pressing each button deliberately.

  Nick lowered his hand onto hers. It felt strong enough to crush not only her fingers, but the phone she held too. Dark, inky tattoos began at his wrist, then twined up his forearms before disappearing beneath his sleeves.

  “You’d better not try anything,” he said.

  Sandy nodded. Her mouth was woolly and dry.

  “If you say anything that sounds even a little funny to my ears, the princess vacates the premises without making use of her door.” Nick walked to the wide window above the kitchen sink and gazed out. “Man oh man, was she right.” He whistled loudly. “The second floor must be thirty feet off the ground.” Nick touched the glass with his palm, then gave a mock-shiver before turning around. “Oh, and let me listen in, will you?”

  “I can put it on speaker,” Sandy said faintly.

  But for a few seconds her fingers trembled too hard to press anything. Instead, her gaze was fixed on the black void outside, imagining the sight of her daughter’s body tumbling through all that space before breaking into pieces on the frozen ground.