Like Gravity(97)

I glanced back at the note; it was signed in the bottom right corner with only two initials: E.S.

And then I knew.

There it was, in black and white. Undeniable.

He’d come back for me.

I turned to face the door, to find my phone, to do something, anything, to stop what was about to happen. But I knew, even as I spun and caught sight of him in the doorway – his face, the face of my nightmares, unchanged by time or years behind bars – that it was far too late for that.

The table was set, first course had been served.

Somehow, I didn’t think I’d make it to dessert.





Chapter Nineteen


Revelations



I’d struggled.

He must’ve hit me with something that knocked me out for a time, because when I woke up I was no longer in my bedroom. My arms ached, pins and needles shooting through my fingers due to a lack of circulation.

I thought that was odd, until I realized why the blood wasn’t flowing to those limbs: my hands had been bound together with a thick, coarse rope, and strung up above my head. The rest of my body dangled in the air, with my tiptoes barely grazing the ground and taking a meager fraction of my weight off my wrists.

There was duct tape across my mouth, blocking my airway and my screams for help. Wherever I was, it was completely quiet. I didn’t move for several minutes, hoping that I was alone, and taking stock of my bodily inventory.

I was still wearing my jeans and my dark green sweater from earlier, but my shoes had been removed; my bare toes scraped against the rough, cool cement floor. I could no longer feel the weight of my cell phone in my back pocket. My hair fell like a curtain in front of my face, blocking my view of the room around me. Unable to use my hands to push it out of my eyes, I tilted my head up toward the ceiling and tossed it in either direction until the hair draped back over my shoulders.

“Good, you’re awake.” He’d been here all along, standing on the far side of the room watching me slowly reenter consciousness. His voice may have held the dispassionate courtesy one might use when discussing opposing political views over tea, but his underlying hostility was visible beneath the mask of composure he wore.

Ernest “Ernie” Skinner, in the flesh.

His face had more lines now and his muddy brown hair had some grey strands mixed through it, but the eyes were the same. Dark, fathomless pits of brown-black, they stared back at me, tauntingly victorious. The one difference was that now they weren’t glazed with the aftereffects of too much cocaine – they were completely lucid and full of cool triumph.

I stared at him warily, unresponsive. My mind was reeling as I tried to piece together where I was, and how I was going to get out of here. The alternative, that I wasn’t going to escape, was too terrifying to even consider.

The walls were dull gunmetal gray, and looked to be made of concrete or some other thick material. There was no furniture, with the exception of a set of metal folding chairs and a matching rusted table. Chains hung from steel rafter beams in the ceiling; I had no doubt that my hands were tied to the one running directly above my head. One bare light bulb swung from a wire, illuminating the dark room in a dim yellowish hue.

If I had to guess, I’d say I was in a basement somewhere.

“It’s good to finally see you, Brooklyn. Face to face, that is,” he laughed, a harsh unnatural sound coming from his lips. “Now that you’ve seen my little gallery, we both know I’ve been seeing you for quite a long time.”

He’d been standing about ten feet away from me, but now he began to circle closer with his arms clasped behind his back. I tugged at my wrists, trying to maneuver away from him, but the ropes binding my arms had been tied so tightly I couldn’t swing more than a few inches.

“You know, Brooklyn, you don’t look very comfortable.” He smiled. “I would cut you down, but something tells me you’d be less receptive to our little chat if I did.”

He stopped directly in front of me, an unruffled smile pasted on his lips as he reached up a hand to tenderly stroke the side my face. I tried to jerk my head away from his touch, but his hand clamped around my jaw with a bruising grip, stilling me. His sudden show of violence was at complete odds with his calm demeanor.

Now that he was closer to me, I could see he had a gaping cut on his forehead, just above his right eye. It was scabbed over, as if it had been healing for about a month, and I knew immediately that it had been put there by my stiletto heel that night in the alleyway.

With one hand still wrapped around my jawbone, he brought his other up to savagely rip the duct tape from my mouth. I yelped as the adhesive tore at my lips, splitting the bottom one open and sending a trickle of blood leaking down my chin. As I gasped for air, I watched his pupils dilate in excitement – he definitely enjoyed the sight of me hurt.

His thumb brushed at the wound, smearing the blood all over my chin and lips before he released me and took a step back. He looked down at the bright streaks of red staining his fingers and smiled softly.

I whimpered in fear.

As soon as he backed off, I began screaming for help, praying that someone above ground would hear me and send for help. His smile remained in place as my cries grew desperate, my frantic voice hoarse with use. He was serene – unhurried and unconcerned, as if he had all the time in the world to toy with me. That in itself told me numerous things: either he was crazy enough not to fear discovery by neighbors and passerby, or we were in a spot so isolated, so far removed from civilization, that no one could hear me for miles.