Chapter 3
The silence after she spoke was worse than the shouting.
I sat on the floor, back pressed to the door, Noah curled in my lap, and tried to think.
Think, Sarah.
Think.
They had the house surrounded.
Phones were dead.
Doors were locked.
Windows—
I looked up.
Noah’s room had two windows.
Both facing the front yard.
Both with screens.
I stood up, Noah still in my arms, and carried him to the nearest one.
I pulled the curtain aside.
The street was empty.
Quiet.
Suburban Dallas at three in the afternoon.
Lawns freshly mowed.
Mailboxes gleaming.
No cars.
No neighbors.
No help.
I tried the window latch.
Stuck.
Painted shut from the last time Megan had the house redone, two years ago. I remembered her complaining about it—saying she’d get around to fixing it, that it was a fire hazard.
She’d never gotten around to it.
Of course she hadn’t.
I put Noah down.
“Stay right here,” I whispered. “By the bed. If anyone comes in, you hide under it. Understand?”
He nodded, eyes huge.
I grabbed the wooden chair from Noah’s desk and jammed it under the doorknob.
Flimsy.
Wouldn’t hold David for more than five seconds if he really wanted in.
But it was something.
Then I went back to the window.
I wrapped my hand in the sleeve of my jacket and punched the glass.
Pain shot up my arm.
The glass cracked.
Spidered.
But didn’t break.
I hit it again.
Harder.
This time, a hole the size of my fist appeared.
I reached through, cleared the shards, and fumbled with the latch from the outside.
It gave.
I pushed the window up.
Cool air rushed in.
The drop to the ground was maybe twelve feet.
Too far to jump with Noah.
Too far to jump at all, without breaking something.
But there was a trellis.
Wooden.
Running up the side of the house, right next to the window.
Ivy-covered.
Wobbly-looking.
But it was something.
“Aunt Sarah?”
Noah was behind me, clutching his favorite stuffed dinosaur—the frayed green T-Rex he’d slept with since he was three. I hadn’t even realized he’d grabbed it.
“Come here, baby,” I said. I knelt down in front of him. “I need you to be very brave for me, okay? We’re going to climb out that window. We’re going to go down that trellis. And then we’re going to run. As fast as we can. To Mrs. Henderson’s house next door. She’ll help us. Okay?”
He looked at the window.
At the trellis swaying slightly in the wind.
“Is it scary?” he whispered.
I lied.
“Not even a little.”
I didn’t tell him I was terrified of heights.
Didn’t tell him the trellis looked like it would collapse if a sparrow landed on it wrong.
Didn’t tell him that every second we spent in that room was a second David and Caroline and whatever was left of my sister were planning how to get in.
I picked him up.
Settled him on my hip.
And climbed onto the windowsill.
The wind hit my face.
The ground looked a lot farther away from up here.
I swung one leg over.
Then the other.
The trellis was within arm’s reach.
I grabbed the nearest slat.
It creaked.
Held.
“Hold on tight,” I said to Noah.
“Okay.”
His arms locked around my neck.
I started down.
One slat at a time.
Slow.
Careful.
My arm was throbbing where I’d punched the glass. Blood was running down my wrist, dripping onto the ivy below.
I didn’t care.
Halfway down.
Almost there.
Then—
“Sarah!”
Megan’s voice.
From above.
From the window.
I looked up.
She was leaning out, hair wild, eyes wide.
“Sarah, don’t! You’ll fall!”
“Go to hell, Megan,” I said.
I kept climbing.
“Sarah, please,” she said. Her voice cracked. “You don’t understand. If you take him, they’ll kill me. Do you hear me? They’ll kill me.”
I froze.
One hand on a slat, one foot searching for the next.
Noah tightened his grip.
“Mom?” he said, small.
Megan’s face crumpled.
“Baby,” she said. “Mommy is so sorry. Mommy is so, so sorry.”
“Then why are you doing this?” I shouted up at her. “Why are you helping them?”
“I had no choice!” she screamed. The words tore out of her, raw and jagged. “David has pictures, Sarah. Pictures of me. Things I did when I was using. Things I can’t take back. He said he’d post them everywhere. To the PTA. To Noah’s school. To everyone I know. He said he’d make sure no one ever let me see my son again. And Caroline—Caroline has money. More money than you or I will ever see. She can make people disappear. She’s done it before, Sarah. She told me. She told me if I didn’t help her get custody of Noah, she’d make sure I ended up in a ditch somewhere. Or in a mental hospital. Drugged up for the rest of my life. I had no choice.”
She was sobbing now.
Full, heaving sobs.
“I’m not the person you think I am anymore, Sarah,” she said. “I haven’t been for a long time. I tried. God knows I tried. But they broke me. They broke me into a million pieces and then they told me exactly how to put myself back together. And if you don’t come back inside right now? They’re going to do the same thing to you. And then to Noah. Please. Just come back. We can figure this out. Together. Like we used to.”
For a second, I almost believed her.
Almost.
I was halfway down that trellis.
The ground was only six feet away.
Six feet to freedom.
Six feet to Mrs. Henderson’s house.
Six feet to a phone that worked, to police, to safety.
And then I heard it.
From the window behind Megan.
Caroline’s voice.
Soft.
Amused.
“Are you quite finished with the performance, Megan?”
Megan froze.
I saw her shoulders stiffen.
“Because it was lovely,” Caroline continued. “Really. Oscar-worthy. But we don’t have time for this. David is already around the side of the house. He’ll be there in ten seconds. And if Sarah so much as touches the ground? Well. You remember what we discussed.”
Megan went white.
“Sarah,” she whispered. “Run. Now.”
I didn’t need to be told twice.
I dropped the last six feet.
Hit the ground running.
Noah bounced against my hip.
I didn’t look back.
I ran for the side gate.
Fifty feet.
Forty.
Thirty.
I could see the gate now.
White picket.
Slightly ajar.
Almost there.
Then David stepped out from behind the oak tree by the driveway.
He was holding something.
Shiny.
Metal.
A gun.
I skidded to a stop.
Ten feet away from him.
Ten feet away from the gate.
Ten feet away from everything I’d been running toward.
He raised the gun.
Pointed it straight at me.
“Nice try, Sarah,” he said. He was breathing a little hard, like he’d run around the house. “But I told you. No one leaves until we say so.”
He nodded at the ground.
“Put the kid down. Slowly. And then put your hands where I can see them.”
I didn’t move.
Noah was shaking so hard I could feel it in my bones.
“David,” I said. My voice was calm. Calmer than I felt. “Put the gun down. You don’t want to do this. There are neighbors. Someone will hear a shot.”
He laughed.
“Neighbors?” he said. “Honey, Caroline bought the houses on both sides six months ago. They’ve been vacant ever since. The nearest actual neighbor is three blocks away. And by the time anyone hears anything? It’ll be too late.”
He took a step toward me.
The gun didn’t waver.
“Last chance,” he said. “Put him down. Or I swear to God, I will shoot you right here. And then I’ll tell the police you kidnapped him. That you were crazy. That you came at me with a knife. Self-defense. Everyone will believe me. You know they will. Megan will back me up. Caroline will pay off whoever needs paying off. And Noah? He’ll go to a nice foster home for a few weeks. And then Caroline and I will adopt him. And he’ll forget all about the crazy aunt who got herself killed because she couldn’t mind her own business.”
He was right.
I knew he was right.
With their money, their connections, Megan’s “history” of mental illness… they could make it stick.
They could make anything stick.
I looked past him.
At the gate.
So close.
And then I looked at Noah.
At his face, pale and streaked with tears, eyes locked on the gun in David’s hand.
I couldn’t let him see me die.
Couldn’t let him grow up with that memory.
With them.
I took a deep breath.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay. Don’t shoot. I’m putting him down.”
I knelt.
Slowly.
Set Noah on his feet.
He grabbed my hand.
Squeezed so hard his fingers went white.
“Stand behind me, baby,” I whispered.
He did.
I stood up.
Hands in the air.
“Good,” David said. He smiled. That reasonable smile again. “Now. We’re going to walk back into the house. Nice and slow. And you’re going to apologize to Caroline for shoving her. And then we’re all going to sit down and have that conversation we were talking about. Understand?”
I nodded.
“Good.”
He gestured with the gun.
“Move.”
I turned.
Noah still clinging to my hand.
And as we walked back toward the house—back toward the open back door, back toward Caroline waiting on the porch, back toward whatever fresh hell they had planned—I heard Megan scream from the upstairs window.
Not my name.
Not Noah’s.
One word.
“RUN!”
I didn’t think.
I reacted.
I shoved Noah as hard as I could toward the gate.
“GO!” I screamed. “RUN, NOAH! RUN TO MRS. HENDERSON’S! DON’T LOOK BACK!”
He stumbled.
Caught himself.
And ran.
David swore.
He swung the gun toward Noah.
I threw myself at him.
We hit the ground together.
The gun went off.
Loud.
Deafening.
May you like
A bird exploded from the oak tree.
And then everything went black.
