The Ghostwriter(69)
“Where’s Bethany?” He turns his head toward her door, which stands open, the room still and quiet. Had Bethany been home, she would have heard him come in, squealed with happiness and thundered down the hall. That, I might have heard from the media room. That might have given me time to hide the evidence and return to my office. That might have saved me from whatever terrible plan he is about to come up with. But that would have put her in danger, and I’d rather die than have risked that.
He yanks at my hair and I can’t stop the sob in my throat. My knees hit the floor and part of the pain in my neck ceases. “Where is she?”
I can’t think of a lie quickly enough. “My mom has her.” If he goes to her, I can steal the tapes. I can steal the tapes, and go to the police, and they will hunt him down. He won’t hurt Bethany, and certainly not in the brief time it will take to catch him. And they will catch him. He isn’t smart enough to hide, and is stupid enough to think that he can.
“Did you tell your mother?” He leans down until our faces are just inches apart. He bites his top lip, and I can smell the coffee on his breath. Mr. Parks, Teacher of the Year.
He grabs my face, his thumb and forefinger straddling my mouth, digging painfully into my jaw. “Did you tell her?” He stares into my eyes, and I truly hate this man. It isn’t even about the videos. I think I’ve hated him for years. I used to think him stupid, but he isn’t. He’s evil. He’s manipulative. He’s a liar. He glares at me, and I don’t think there is anything to stop him, right now, from killing me. Has he ever loved me? I look into his eyes and try to find the man—the boy—I fell in love with. The one who had blushed when I called him sexy. The one who had cried when his mother died. The one who held my pregnant belly in his hand and beamed at me as if I was incredible. Somehow that man had filmed all of those tapes. He had whispered in children’s ears. He had pulled up their skirts. If I could kill him right now, if I wasn’t this pathetic, blubbering mess of pain and emotions—I would. I try to pull myself together, I try to look into his eyes and speak, but I can’t. He sees the truth before I even open my mouth to lie.
“You haven’t.” He releases my jaw. “You haven’t told anyone.” He reaches down, his hand rough as it passes over the front pocket of my pajama shirt, then crudely gropes the sides of my pants. There are no pockets on the drawstring pants, no place to put a phone, though I rarely carry mine around. He pinches the back of my thigh and I squeeze my eyes shut from the pain. I can’t cry. I need to pull myself together and reason with him.
“It wouldn’t matter if you had.” He straightens. “No one would believe you. Not without evidence, not with your history.” He reaches for my face and I wince, surprised when his fingers are almost gentle in their caress of my cheek. “My crazy girl,” he says. “That’s what they say.” Something in his eyes spark, as if he has an idea, and my stomach drops. “My depressed, crazy, girl.” He almost whispers the words.
“She’s bringing her back,” I blurt out the lie, my mind frantically trying to work through a scenario where he won’t, right now, hurt me. “They went to a movie. They’ll be back in an hour.” Would an hour be enough time to reason with him? To calm him down until the moment when I could run away? I let out a silent prayer of thanks that my mother never answers her phone, her hearing too eroded to pick up on the tinny chirp of the cell phone she often forgets to charge.
He steps down the first step and then the second, yanking at my hair, my hands scrambling to grip the spindles of the stairs before I am dragged down them.
“Get up.” He orders. “Walk.”
I get up. I get up and allow him to drag me forward, my bare feet stumbling on the steps, the kitchen slowly appearing through the haze of my tears. What is he doing? Where is he taking me? What is his plan?
We make it to the garage, the door shoved open, the concrete cold against my bare feet, and I understand when he reaches the utility room. The panic room. We had laughed when we saw the real estate listing. Who really needed a panic room? And in the garage? Why wouldn’t someone just get in their car and drive away? Also strange was what had been inside the so-called “Panic Room”. The hot water heater, washer and dryer. “It’s a utility room,” Simon had argued with the real estate agent. A utility room with an impossible-to-break-through door. It used to have a code. We used to be able to step into our utility room and arm the door. It would lock, and nothing could get in. Not fire, nor toxic gas, nor an army of home invaders.
But a punch code had been too risky. If Bethany had wandered down there and locked herself in… we would have had to tear down the walls to get her out. So we’d removed the punch code and put a normal lock on the door—one with keyed access on both sides, one impossible for Bethany to accidentally (or purposely) lock. The key is hung on a nail high above the light switches, and we lock and unlock the room when it isn’t in use. The impenetrability of the room has come in handy. We had all of our files inside that room, the left wall a line of cabinets. All of our photos. Our passports and stock certificates—anything deemed irreplaceable. Now, he shoves me inside, and I stagger to my feet, all of my manuscripts coming into focus, the original pages that I sweated and cried over, in neat stacks on the shelves. Will I die in here? The possibility hammers at my subconscious, and all I can think about is Bethany. Growing older and never knowing. Developing curves under his watchful eye. Unprotected. Unaware. Until it is too late. I fling myself at the doorway and collide with steel, Simon slamming the door closed.