Of course, that might be the least of my problems. I wonder what that detective wants to talk to me about…
“Please don’t do this,” I say. “I swear to you, I wasn’t the one who hurt your daughter. I would never do anything like that. If you go to the media, you’re going to wreck my life.”
“Well, good.” Her blue eyes flash. “Because that’s what you deserve, you… you monster.”
She takes another step toward me, but I don’t flinch. She’s shorter than me and about twenty years older. I suppose it’s possible she has a weapon, but so do I. I’ve got a scalpel in the front pocket of my scrubs.
So I’m not afraid of her.
Maybe she senses that, because she walks right past me, yanks open the door to the examining room, and she storms out.
Once she’s gone, I simply stand there, not sure what to do. I feel like I’ve got about one day left before my entire world explodes. Philip was hoping for publicity, but he has no idea what will happen when everybody knows the truth… because he doesn’t know the truth. If he knew who I really was, he would be doing everything in his power to keep the information from getting out.
But now it’s too late. Mrs. Swanson is going to go to the media, and there’s nothing I can do to stop her.
Chapter 25
26 Years Earlier
I wake up at six the next morning. Everyone in the house is still asleep.
Not that I slept much last night. Mostly, I was tossing and turning. Also, I had to go pee after drinking all that water. But that was not the only reason I couldn’t sleep.
When I get downstairs, the first thing I do is try the door to the basement. But it’s locked. As usual.
I stare at the locked door. Maybe I dreamed it all. Wandering down to the basement. That cage in the corner of the room. The muffled screams from inside the cage. The rotting smell that permeated every crevice of the room.
I press my ear against the door. I don’t hear anything. Even the rotting smell seems to have gone away, and now it’s just lavender again.
I go into the living room and plop down on the sofa. I grab the remote and flick on the television. Usually, when I get up early in the morning, I watch cartoons. But this timeI tune in to the news.
After about twenty minutes, the news story comes on. Twenty-five-year-old Mandy Johansson of Seattle has been missing for the last week and a half. Her boyfriend reported she never returned home after going jogging in the evening. Nobody has heard from her since, but the search is ongoing.
Then the picture of Mandy Johansson flashes on the screen. She’s really beautiful. She has milky white skin with big blue eyes and long dark hair. In the photograph, she’s in the middle of laughing. She looks like a nice person.
I close my eyes. I can still see the blue eye peeking out when I lifted the sheet off that cage in the basement.
It wasn’t a dream, was it?
Mandy Johansson is in our basement.
“Good morning, Nora.”
My father’s voice. I fumble for the remote control with my right hand and quickly jam my thumb against the power button just before he comes into the living room, dressed in the blue scrubs that he always wears to work. “Hi, Dad.”
He ruffles a hand over my hair, which is still messy from sleep. “You’re up early.”
“Yeah,” I mumble.
I crane my neck to watch as he starts the coffee brewing in the kitchen. While he’s waiting, he comes over and sits next to me on the sofa.
“It was nice having you down in the basement last night,” he says.
People always praise my father for having such an even tone in his voice. My mother says it helps calm patients down when they’re about to get their blood drawn.Someone told him once that he could make sleep tapes. He never raises his voice, even when he’s upset.
People say the same thing about me.
“Yes,” I say.
