Chapter 34

THE NAME WAS NOT screamed, nor spoken. It came to me as a kind of whisper. Or maybe it just came to me. Maybe it just happened inside my head.

The cell phone went from vibrate to chime.

I thought I heard movement coming from inside the living room. I sensed movement anyway, the same way an expecting mother might sense baby’s first kick. Heavy booted feet shuffling against the hardwood.

My prone body was bolted to the bed. It wasn’t a bed at all. It was a concrete platform and I was bolted and chained to it.

Heart drummed triplets against my ribcage.

Was my cell phone really ringing? Was this a repeat of two nights ago? Had a voice been spoken? Had it been whispered? Had it all been a dream?

“Rebecca.”

I listened. I must have heard a voice. The voice had personality. It was gruff and low. There were specific details to the voice. There was a smell that went with that voice.

The smell of stale cigarettes. I knew that smell, recognized it. Cigarette butts.

Eyes wide open, unblinking, I swear I saw a shadow. The shadow of a man staring back at me from the open bedroom door, as if someone were standing inside the open frame—a silhouette against the darkness.

Was Whalen standing there, looking back at me? Had he violated his parole by sneaking out of the half-way house to come here?

I swear it’s him.

Footsteps along the bedroom floor. The filthy ashtray smell. The cell phone vibrating and chiming.

If only I could lift my arms. If only I could have reached out and grabbed hold of the phone. If only I could have lifted my arms, reached out and picked it up.

I wanted to scream. But want and desire were meaningless.

I felt the presence of Michael beside me. We were not divorced. We were still married and he was sleeping soundly right next to me, close to me, his body curled into my side, his face facing me. Just like it’s always been.

His sleeping breaths were not the least bit bothered by the sounds, the smells, the sights taking place inside this bedroom in the middle of the deep night.

“Rebecca.”

Every nerve in my body was body tingling, twitching.

I can’t possibly be dreaming. Can’t possibly be dreaming. Can’t possibly be dreaming…

I made a wish. Wished the voice away; wished the smell away; wished the figure of a small, thin man away.

The man who took Molly and me.

I began to drift.

As though by some miracle I started falling.

Faster.

Then faster still…