Panic(77)

“Downstairs.” Heather moved ahead of him. She opened a door just to the right of the living room. A set of unfinished stairs led down into what was obviously a basement. Dodge thought he heard movement, maybe a whisper, but then it stopped.

“Go ahead,” Heather said. He was going to tell her to go first, but he didn’t want her to think he was afraid. Which he was, for whatever reason. Something about this place—the silence, maybe—was freaking him out. As if sensing his hesitation, Heather said, “Look, we’ll be able to talk down there. She’ll tell you everything.” Heather paused. “Nat?” she called out.

“Down here!” Nat’s voice came from the basement.

Reassured, he headed down the stairs, into the musty, humid, underground air. The basement was large and filled with discarded furniture. He had just reached the bottom of the stairs and turned around to look for Nat when the lights went off. He froze, confused.

“What the—” he started to say, but then he felt himself roughly seized, heard an explosion of voices. He thought for one second this must be part of the game, a challenge he hadn’t anticipated.

“Over here, over here!” Nat was saying. Dodge struck out, struggling, but whoever was holding him was big, fleshy, and strong. A guy. Dodge could tell by his size, and by the smell, too—menthol, beer, aftershave. Dodge kicked out; the guy cursed, and something toppled over. There was the sound of breaking glass. Natalie said, “Shit. Here. Here.”

Dodge was forced into a chair. His hands were twisted behind him, tied up with something. Duct tape. His legs, too.

“What the f*ck?” He was yelling now. “Get the f*ck off me.”

“Shhh. Dodge. It’s okay.”

Even now, here, Dodge was paralyzed by the sound of Natalie’s voice. He couldn’t even struggle. “What the hell is this?” he said. “What are you doing?” His eyes were slowly adjusting to the dark. He could just make her out, the wide contours of her eyes, two sad, dark holes.

“It’s for you,” she said. “For your own good.”

“What are you talking about?” He thought, suddenly, of the car parked on Pheasant Lane, the mason jar of gasoline and Styrofoam, nestled in the engine like a secret heart. He strained against the duct tape binding him. “Let me go.”

“Dodge, listen to me.” Nat’s voice broke, and he realized she’d been crying. “I know—I know you blame Luke for what happened to your sister. For the accident, right?”

Dodge felt something ice-cold move through him. He couldn’t speak.

“I don’t know exactly what you’re planning, but I won’t let you go through with it,” Nat said. “This has to stop.”

“Let me go.” His voice was rising. He was fighting a panicked feeling, a sense of dull dread in his whole body, the same feeling he’d had two years earlier, standing on the lawn in front of the Hanrahans’ house, trying to get his feet to move.

“Dodge, listen to me.” Her hands were on his shoulders. He wanted to push her off, but he couldn’t. And another part of him wanted her and hated her at the same time. “This is for you. This is because I care.”

“You don’t know anything,” he said. He could smell her skin, a combination of vanilla and bubblegum, and it made him ache. “Let me go, Natalie. This is insane.”

“No. I’m sorry, but no.” Her fingers grazed his cheek. “I won’t let you do anything stupid. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

She leaned even closer, until her lips were nearly touching his. He thought she might be leaning in to kiss him, and he was unable to turn away, unable to resist. Then he felt her hands moving along his thighs, groping.

“What are you—?” he started to say. But just then she found his pocket and extracted his keys and phone.

“I’m sorry,” she said, straightening up. And she did truly sound sorry. “But believe me, it’s for the best.”

A wave of helplessness overtook him. He made a final, futile attempt to free himself. The chair jumped forward a few inches on the concrete floor. “Please,” he said. “Natalie.”

“I’m sorry, Dodge,” Nat said. “I’ll be back as soon as the challenge is over. I swear.”

She was fumbling with his phone, and the screen lit up temporarily, casting her face in brightness, showing the deep, mournful hollows of her eyes, her expression of pity and regret. And lighting up, too, the guy behind her. The one who’d wrestled Dodge into the chair.

He’d gained weight—at least thirty pounds—and he’d let his hair get long. Fifty grand wasn’t sitting too well on him. But there was no mistaking his eyes, the hard set of his jaw, and the scar, like a small white worm, cutting straight through his left eyebrow.

Dodge felt a fist of shock plunge straight through him. He could no longer speak, or even breathe.

Luke Hanrahan.





heather

HEATHER WAITED IN THE CAR WHILE NATALIE AND LUKE did whatever they had to do. She was trying to breathe normally, but her lungs weren’t obeying and kept fluttering weirdly in her chest. She would have to go up against Ray Hanrahan now. There was no giving in or weaseling out.

She wondered what Dodge had had planned for tonight. Luke hadn’t exactly known either, although he’d shown Nat and Heather some of the threatening messages that had come from Dodge. It was surreal, sitting in Nat’s kitchen with Luke Hanrahan, football star Luke Hanrahan, the homecoming king who’d gotten kicked out of homecoming for smoking weed in the locker room during the announcement of the court. Winner of Panic. Who’d once assaulted a cashier at the 7-Eleven in Hudson when the guy wouldn’t sell him cigarettes.