Nice Girls(87)

“So I filmed her. She got her money, she kept her mouth shut. And I prayed for her to walk away. I gave her so many chances—she was the Willands’ little girl, after all.

“But like most modern-day women, she saw nothing wrong with her actions. She reaped the rewards. She was getting famous on the Internet. I saw her following—thousands of people looked up to her. Online, she was a sweet, worldly girl next door.

“But that was a lie, Mary. That wasn’t the kind of woman she was. And I grew angry. She needed to be vilified, not celebrated.”

John Stack reached out and touched my cheek gently, as if mesmerized. I winced, the tears falling harder, my nose dripping with snot.

“The modern-day woman is a disease,” he murmured. “She’s infectious. She needs to be treated as such. And how do you handle a disease?” he asked, leaning in toward me, his breath hot on my face. “You prevent it from spreading.”

His fingers kept stroking my cheek. I wanted to grow limp, my body devoid of sensation.

“Now that I think about it . . . you are a college girl, Mary. You’re educated. Sexually liberated.”

I was trembling. His lips were next to my ear.

“A real modern-day woman,” he whispered.

I flinched back, but I bumped into the radiator. I screamed, my vision blurring in pain. The radiator burned through my sweater, singed my hands as if they were paper. I tried to squirm away, but I couldn’t move. My body was burning.

I was on fire.

He yanked me back. I could hear the disapproving click of his tongue. The heat was still attached to me like glue, the sweat dripping down my back, my face. John Stack’s hands remained on my body.

“Your kind always want respect,” he said. “But you don’t behave like you do.”

I could hear his thoughts drift back to Olivia, DeMaria, and whoever else he’d brought here. He was wistful about them, how malleable and soft and pretty they all were, like cherubs. But none ever seemed to behave, did they.

His thumb stopped moving, the nail perched on my cheek.

Then he pierced it into me.

I teared up again, my scream stuck in my throat. I blinked and saw his eyes come into focus. There was a gleam in them, little pinpricks of light that focused on my cheek.

In his eyes, I saw myself cut apart in the snow. I saw him scooping me up in his arms and dumping me into the lake—piece by piece. I saw him disappearing into the trees.

John Stack didn’t blink.

I shut my eyes . . .

There was a buzz. The vibration of a cell phone.

My eyes spasmed open. John Stack pulled out his phone from his pocket. He stared at it, frowning.

“Shit,” he muttered. He rushed into the kitchen, murmuring into his cell phone.

I instantly rolled on my side, stiffening up, forcing all my energy into the left side of my body. I wriggled my left arm, trying to pry my wrist out of the rope. I only needed one free arm to have a chance. Just one.

There was a heavy thud from far away. Then the footsteps rushed back.

John Stack was already at my side, scooping me up from the floor. He swung me over his right shoulder as if I weighed nothing. I tried to scream, to thrash out of his grasp. But John Stack carried me farther into the cabin.

I could only move my head. As we entered a bedroom, I rammed the side of my head into his. Our skulls cracked together, my head ringing, sparks in my eyes. John Stack grunted, but he kept moving.

Dazed, I saw a small crucifix on a white wall, a silver Jesus figurine glittering in the dark. St. Rita’s occasionally sold those items after Mass. Mom loved to pore over them while Dad and I waited for her. Back then, I thought that Mom hadn’t noticed us, our impatience to leave and have breakfast. But now I realized that she’d chosen to ignore us.

We were suddenly descending into darkness—John Stack was carrying me down a set of stairs. The little white bedroom grew smaller, distant. I realized we were entering a hatch. The wooden floorboards groaned; the air grew cold and brisk. There was an odor of bleach around us, so potent that I grew light-headed. It was as if John Stack had doused the entire basement in it.

He paused suddenly. His free hand disappeared into the darkness. A light switched on, blinding me. The basement slowly came into focus:

Concrete walls and floor. Wooden tables along the perimeter. A rusty red toolbox on the floor. A rack of saws on one wall and a display of axes on the other. And a large white chest freezer that hummed behind the staircase.

The room was pristine.

John Stack walked around the worktable at the center of the room. Past his head, I saw a table saw on one end. It was heavy-duty equipment.

For a moment, time seemed to stand still. The saw was glinting under the light. I could see how clean and spotless it was, how sharp it looked. John Stack had bleached it along with the rest of the room.

The blood drained out of me. I was frozen over his shoulder.

He suddenly stopped in a corner. I heard the crunch of plastic behind me. Then he lowered me onto the ground. I was lying sideways on a cold pile of blue plastic tarps. They smelled new.

John Stack stayed crouched for a second. He touched my cheek with his thumb.

“This could have been avoided,” he said softly. “But there are consequences.”

John Stack lumbered away, past the table saw and the side tables and the tools on the walls. He stopped at the base of the stairs, flipping off the light switch.