Heartsick

CHAPTER 45

You killed those girls,” Susan said into the darkness.

Reston ’s voice was strangled with sadness. “I’m sorry.”

Susan’s breath felt like the loudest thing in the world to her. Like tiny atom bombs. She willed herself to slow the intake of oxygen, to relax, to make him think that she was not afraid. She had to convince him that she was strong. That she could control the situation. “You’re sorry? Paul, you’re sick. You need help. I can help you.”

“You shouldn’t have left me,” he said, slipping something over her head, around her neck. She could feel the smooth leather strap of it against the skin below her hairline at the base of her scalp, and then in the front, above her clavicle, something cold and hard-a belt buckle. The purple ligature marks around Kristy Mathers’s neck flashed in her mind and she frantically reached up to get her bound hands under the belt, but it snapped tight around her throat. She gasped and grappled with it, but Reston pushed her hands down and pulled the belt tighter. Her head throbbed and filled with fire. He pulled her down so hard that her kneecaps hitting the floor made a crack like an ax hitting wood. She was spinning untethered in space, and then all of sudden she was still. All of her senses slammed to life, and at that moment her eyes adjusted just a bit to the darkness. She could see him in front of her. Not a person, but a dark shape, the shadow of a person. She could feel his thumb on her mouth, tracing her lips. His thumb was ice. Her lips were shaking.

“You have a beautiful mouth,” he said.

Susan’s mind was clarifying, ordering information. Kidnapped. Boat. Paul. Killer. And now: Addy. “Paul,” Susan rasped. “Where’s Addy?”

She felt him hesitate for a moment; then he stepped back and the strap loosened. The lights came on. Susan recoiled and reflexively closed her eyes, overcome by the sudden brightness. When she forced them open again a moment later, Reston was back in front of her and he held a gun pointed at her forehead. Susan steeled herself against a sudden wave of nausea, swallowing the sickly warm saliva that rose in her throat.

She had been right. They were on a boat. In some sort of sleeping quarters. The walls and low ceiling of the room were white. It was a cramped space, only five feet wide at most. Cubbies and drawers filled one wall. Built into the opposite wall was a sturdy wooden bunk bed. On the top bunk, above where Susan herself only moments ago had lain, was Addy Jackson.

She was semiconscious and naked except for a pair of pink underpants, and her forearms and ankles were bound with duct tape. Her eyes were slits, her mouth was wet with saliva, her hair matted with sweat. She stirred and scratched at her tear-stained cheek with her bound hands. And then Susan recognized her. Lee. Dana. Kristy. Addy. The brown hair. The pretty features. She knew then with devastating clarity that it was about her, that it had always been about her. And she knew that he would kill them. Both of them. There was no question now. She looked at Addy, who appeared unfocused and unaware of her surroundings, and she envied her.

“It’s your fault,” Paul explained, running his hand along the back of Susan’s neck. “You shouldn’t have been such a cunt to me.”

It was then that Susan made a silent pledge: She was not going to die. No way. Not at the hands of her fucking drama teacher.