“God, I love you like this.”
The phone clicked. He’d ended the call.
THIRTEEN
Lydia stared into the darkness of the trunk as she listened to the hum of wheels on the road. She had already run through all the things you were supposed to do if you ever got locked inside a trunk. Obviously, Paul had run through them, too. There were steel plates bolted to the back of the taillights so Lydia couldn’t punch them open and stick out her hand to wave down passing motorists. The emergency release latch had been disabled. There was another thick, steel plate between the trunk and the back seat so she couldn’t kick her way to freedom. She was pretty sure the area was insulated for sound, too. She couldn’t imagine Paul had padded the trunk for her comfort.
Which meant that he had designed this car specifically to hold a prisoner.
Lydia could hear Paul in the front of the car talking on the phone. There were only a few words she could make out, and they were all useless—yes, no, okay. Paul’s tone was brisk, so Lydia assumed he wasn’t talking to Claire. His voice was different when he talked to her sister. It made Lydia ill to think about how different it was, because Claire had been right: Paul made a conscious choice when he showed his dark side.
She had seen it on full display when he’d opened the trunk to take Lydia’s picture. She had watched him turn the darkness on and off like a light bulb. One minute, he was telling Claire to go check Lydia’s phone and the next, his face was so frightening that Lydia was afraid she was going to lose control of her bladder.
He had reached into the trunk and grabbed her face so hard that she felt the bones crushing. “Give me a reason to do to you what my dad did to Julia.”
Lydia had been shaking so hard when he closed the trunk that her teeth were chattering.
She rolled onto her back to relieve some of the pressure in her shoulder. Her arms and legs were zip-tied, but she could still move if she was careful. The blood from the cut in her forehead had dried. Her swollen eye was leaking tears. The drumming in her head had subsided to an occasional dull thud.
Paul had hit her with something heavy and solid back at the Fuller house. Lydia wasn’t sure what he’d used, but it had pounded into her head like a sledgehammer. She hadn’t even heard him coming. One moment, she was standing in the kitchen with her mouth open to give the 911 operator her name, and the next, stars were bursting in front of her eyes. Literally. Lydia had felt like a cartoon character. She tottered back and forth. She tried to brace herself on the kitchen table. And then Paul had punched her again, then again, until she was unconscious on the floor.
Lydia had managed to shout, “No,” before she blacked out. Obviously, that wasn’t enough to warn Claire. Or maybe she’d gotten the warning but didn’t know what to do. Lydia couldn’t imagine her baby sister having the wherewithal to fight off Paul. Then again, she couldn’t imagine her baby sister kneecapping her tennis partner.
She guessed that Claire was asking herself the same questions that were running through Lydia’s mind: Why had Paul faked his death? Why had he taken Lydia? What did he want from them?
She didn’t want to dwell on that last question, because Paul Scott was clearly obsessed with the Carroll sisters. His father had kidnapped and brutally murdered one of them. He had married another. And now he had Lydia in the trunk of his car, a trunk that had obviously been prepared well ahead of time.
Was he really going to do the same thing to Lydia that had been done to Julia? Was he going to murder her and rape her while she died?
Julia. Her vibrant big sister. Her best friend. Screaming as the machete cut through her neck and shoulder. Writhing as Paul’s father ripped her apart.
Bile burned up into Lydia’s mouth. She turned her head and spit as more came up. The smell was noxious in the confined space. She moved closer to the back of the trunk to get away from it. Her stomach felt hollow. She could not clear the image of Julia from her mind.
Lydia heard a whimper come from her mouth. She could handle the sickness, but the grief would kill her before Paul had his chance. Julia. Her innocent, tortured sister. There were six tapes in all, which meant Paul’s father had taken time with her. She had been all alone in that barn, waiting for him, dreading his return, up until the final seconds of her life.
Julia had actually looked at the camera as she was dying. She had stared straight into the lens, straight into Lydia’s heart, and mouthed the word Help.
Lydia squeezed her eyes shut. She let the feelings come uncensored. She should’ve been sweeter to Dee on the phone this morning. She should’ve called Rick to tell him that she loved him instead of texting him that she would explain everything later. And Claire. She should’ve told Claire that she forgave her, because Paul was not a human being. He was some kind of terrifying aberration who was capable of unspeakable deeds.
Lydia fought back another whimper. She couldn’t let herself lose it again. She had to be strong for what was coming next, because Paul had a plan. He always had a plan.
Lydia had a plan, too. She kept flexing her hands and moving her feet to make sure there was enough circulation in her body and clarity in her mind because eventually, Paul would have to open the trunk again. Lydia was heavier than he was. Paul would have to cut the zip ties so she could climb out. That would be the only opportunity she would have to stop him.
She kept going over the steps in her mind: At first, she would act confused. This would buy her eyes time to adjust to the sunlight. Then, she would move slowly and pretend that she was in pain, which wouldn’t be a stretch. She would act like she needed help and Paul, impatiently, would push her or shove her or kick her and then Lydia would throw her weight into her shoulder and hit him as hard as she could in the neck.
She wouldn’t use her fist because the knuckles might glance off. She would stretch open her hand and use the webbing between her thumb and index finger, creating an arc that sliced nicely into the base of his Adam’s apple.
The thought of hearing his windpipe crack was the only thing that kept her going.
Lydia took several deep breaths and let them go. She worked her hands and feet. She pulled up her knees and stretched out her legs. She rolled her shoulders. Having a plan helped the panic die down to a splinter worrying the back of her brain.
The engine changed speed. Paul was taking an off-ramp. She could feel the car slowing. There was a flash of red light around the steel plates, then a yellow pulse as the turning signal was engaged.
Lydia rolled onto her back. She had gone over the plan so many times that she could practically feel Paul’s throat crunching under her hand. There was no telling how much time had passed since he’d put her in the trunk. She had tried to count the minutes from when he took the photo, but she kept losing count. Panic could do that. She knew that the most important thing to do while she waited was to keep her mind engaged with something other than worst-case scenarios.
She grasped for memories that didn’t involve Paul Scott. Or Dee and Rick, because thinking about her child and her lover right now in this dark deathtrap of a space would lead her down a path of no return.
She had to go back several years for a memory that didn’t somehow involve Paul, because even in absence, he had been such a huge part of her life for such a long time. Lydia was twenty-one when Claire met Paul at the math lab. Two months later, he’d managed to tear Lydia from her family. She had always blamed Paul for her darkest days of addiction, but well before meeting him, she was so deep into self-destruction that the only memories she had were bad ones.