All the Dark Places(87)

I walk back through the squad room, looking for Joe, but I don’t see him. Everyone is hard at work, heads down, and I feel unnerved at my own uselessness, so I go back to my office to read through my notes for the thousandth time.

I settle into my chair, drum the desk with my fingers as I shuffle through my notebook, adding random doodles, trying to think, trying to elicit some overlooked fact that might help. My phone rings on my blotter, startling me. Unknown caller. My heart starts to pound as I answer, “Detective Myers.”

“I’ve got Melinda.” The voice is gravelly, distorted. “She’s back in the cellar where she belongs.” He ends the call, and I jump up from my desk and run down the hall.





CHAPTER 68


Molly


I DRAIN THE WATER BOTTLE BUT LEAVE THE COOKIES. THE WATER sloshes in my stomach, making me feel slightly seasick. My head still throbs, but anger keeps me focused.

I won’t pee myself like I had to when I was six years old, so I use the ancient toilet. It doesn’t flush, so I remove the tank lid and peer inside. There’s a tangle of metal parts, but it doesn’t look as though any of it works. Doesn’t really matter if my urine sits in the bowl. Who cares? At least I’m dry.

I’ve been digging my fingers into the wall along the pipe all day, looking for a weak spot. Luckily, the concrete is old and crumbly. There’s a loose fitting on the pipe, and if I can pull it far enough away from the wall, I might be able to work it free and slip the chain off. My fingertips throb, and my nails have broken off at the quick; blood trickles down my left hand, and I have to keep wiping it on my jeans. But at least my fingers are going numb, and the pain is subsiding.

Then I hear a door from somewhere up above and the creak of floorboards overhead. My heart hammers. He’s back. I sit and slide over so that my back rests against the spot I’ve been digging, and wait.

The ladder scrapes from above, and he’s climbing down.

“Melinda?” he calls, although with less gusto than before. Maybe he’s getting tired. I hope so. Somehow, I’ve got to get the upper hand. It’s just Cal, I say to myself, trying to pump up my courage.

He makes his way across the basement floor. “How’s my girl?” He sits against the wall, a little farther from me than before, as if he’s afraid I’ll punch him again. “I brought you more to drink.” I hear him chuckle in the darkness. He rolls a bottle toward me. It thunks against my leg. “Go on, take a sip. You’ve got to be thirsty.”

I grab the plastic bottle, twist the cap and suck eagerly on the contents, but turn my head and spit. Orange soda. Bile rises in my throat, and Cal laughs.

“Oh, come on, Melinda. You know you like it.”

“What’s the point?” I ask, my throat scratchy with dried tears.

“Just a little joke between friends.” He rubs his hands over his face, and his voice changes timbre, angry now. “Just be fucking grateful I brought you anything, okay? Drink. There’s nothing in it. No sleeping pills. I’ve already got you down here. I didn’t have to resort to anything so prosaic. I’m better than he was.”

“Is that the point, Cal? Be better than my last captor?”

“I’ve always been better. Smarter, that’s for sure.”

“So how did Jay figure out you killed Annalise Robb?”

“He found the necklace. I told you that. But, well, I got the feeling last year that Jay was uncomfortable around me. Like he was analyzing me. After I got diagnosed last spring, all that rage that I’d kept locked away came back. It was all that fucking bitch’s fault.”

“Whose?”

“My lovely mother. She tormented me for years because she was unhappy. Her first husband left her. My brother was gone. My dad apparently cheated on her, and it was all my fault. But then I got away from her. Went to college. Got married. Had a family, career. Everything’s great. Then bam!”

I jump as he smacks the floor with his palm. “Her fucking genes get me.” He tips his head back against the wall and laughs. “She got me in the end. Just like she said she would. Well, Jay noticed I’d changed. He kept asking me if I wanted a referral—you know, after I found out I was going blind. He said it might help to talk to somebody.” He laughs again. “Like a goddamn therapist was going to stop me from losing my sight.” He’s quiet, head down, looking at his hands. “They didn’t help you, did they, Melinda? All those eager therapists prodding you to give up your secrets.”

I shiver and inch farther away from him.

“But I know all about what happened in that cellar.”

“No. You don’t,” I whisper. I don’t even know what happened, not all of it. I’ve blocked it out, Jay said. I was so little and drugged besides. Keith had stolen his aunt’s sleeping pills, crushed them, and put them in our orange soda.

“You killed little India, didn’t you?” Cal says quietly. “Smothered her when she wouldn’t stop crying.”

My breath flies from my chest, as though it’s being sucked out by a demon. “No. That’s a lie,” I mumble, barely able to form words.

“Is it?”

How does he know that Keith tried to blame me? Only the police and our lawyers knew about the accusation when Keith’s lawyer tried to get him out of the murder charge. Thankfully, it didn’t work, and no one ever leaked it to the press, so Corrine told me years later when I heard my parents whispering about it at the kitchen table. But I worried. What if? I was bigger. I was scared. That has been the most hideous monster always lurking in the back of my mind, all these years, all this time.