CHAPTER 70 - Molly

CHAPTER 70MollyIT’S MORNING. DIM LIGHT FROM THE LONE WINDOW ILLUMINATES THE basement in dull gray. My fingers throb; the numbness has worn off, and I’m in a lot of pain. I wonder when Cal will be back, and if Laken is okay. If only there were a way I could warn her, but that’s impossible. All I can do is prepare for Cal to come back for me.I think about Jay. How it would hurt him to see me like this. Fresh tears slip down my cheeks. He was a good person, and he probably wondered about Cal, worried about him, but wanted to talk to him first before going to the police. He would’ve wanted to be sure. He probably held out hope that Cal hadn’t hurt anybody. Annalise was still just a missing person at that point. I heave a deep breath.My thoughts travel back to my family, too. My parents and how totally ineffectual they were at handling a crisis, how they drew back into their routines and careers, even as my life crashed down around me. I think about Corrine and how she was the only one who really had my back, and I start to cry again. I haven’t always been a good sister.I glance up at the window and see snowflakes, fat and delicate, riding the air currents slowly to the ground through the gray dawn. This brings up a memory as well. My Grandpa Wright. Back before Keith Russell, we used to drive out to his farm on Sundays for dinner he cooked himself. Grandma had died years earlier. My parents were always in a rush to go home when we were out there. They didn’t like his little house, which smelled of animals and pipe tobacco. But Corrine and I used to like it there. I don’t remember much about Grandpa, but I do remember one thing he used to say. When Dad would ask him if he was going to clean up the place, or if he’d agree to move into town, he’d always say, “If I winter.” When I asked what he meant, Dad frowned and said that was Grandpa’s way of saying if he lives until spring. Now I understand. There are no guarantees in this life. Who knows if any of us will survive?I draw a deep breath and think about my trip to see Keith Russell. Talking to him at Sing Sing was part of the puzzle that I had to solve, on my own. I came away a stronger person. It’s that strength I tap into now. I’ll put up a fight, just as Cal said about Laken. I won’t go quietly.I hear a door upstairs, the creak of the floorboards overhead. I bite my bottom lip and say a quick prayer.Here we go, Molly.“Melinda?” he calls, his voice hoarse.A shiver runs through me. The ladder scrapes against the floor above and thumps as the bottom lands on the concrete. And he climbs down. His clothes are disheveled, and I can get a better look at him today in the daylight.“Melinda.” He’s standing before me, his glasses bent and hanging precariously on his nose. His bottom lip is swollen, and there’s blood dried on the side of his face.My heart thumps wildly. “Did you hurt her?”“Don’t worry about my sweet wife. Today’s the day, Melinda. The end.” He sits next to me. Cal’s a big man, athletic, and his bulk makes me feel even smaller than I am. He smells sweaty and salty, as if he’s been swimming.I swallow, my throat thick and scratchy. I want to keep him talking. Give the cops more time. “How did you know about me, Cal, really?”He takes a deep breath, winces, and clutches his side. Then his big hands work over his head, stop to finger the blood dried at his temple. “I told you, I talked to Keith. He told me the whole story.”“Why would he do that?”Cal turns toward me, his eyes red and glassy behind his twisted glasses. A slow smile spreads across his face. “Because, dear Melinda, blood is thicker than water, as the old saying goes. Keith is my big brother.”I choke on a breath. My heart pounds. Oh my God. I pull my stiff fingers into fists. Why didn’t I know? Why couldn’t I have felt it, seen it in his face?“We don’t look much alike, do we? Half-brothers. We had different dads. I’m the better looking, though, right? Smarter too. Much smarter.”“You’re Keith’s brother?” My brain tries to make sense of it all. “I didn’t know he had a brother.” But what did I know at six years old about Keith’s family?This seems to anger Cal. “I know. All the focus was on Keith. He was some sort of celebrity. But I hated his fucking guts. He used to torment me when we were little, and I was glad as hell when my mom sent him to Albany that summer.” Cal snorts. “But then she turned on me. Told me I’d never measure up to Keith.” Cal shakes his head. “That idiot? I thought. Even as a kid, I knew he was dumb as a box of rocks. But all she talked about was her sweet oldest son. I guess her first husband was the love of her life, and so his spawn was like a god.”Cal gets slowly to his feet and begins to pace. “They’ll write a book about me, Melinda. That’ll show Keith. I’ll be the most famous brother.” He stops walking and looks at me. “At first, I wanted to be in Jay’s book, but of course that didn’t happen. Jay figured out something was going on with me way too soon.” He grimaces and runs his hand through his dark hair. “He was a better shrink than I gave him credit for. Of course, he didn’t know that I had killed anybody, but he was getting too damn close. Asking too many questions about my feelings.” Cal huffs out a derisive breath.“Were Jay and Annalise your only victims?” I ask, my voice quivering.He heaves a deep breath, shrugs. “Maybe I’m not as accomplished as some, but with all this.” He opens his arms, sweeps the basement. “The girl in the cellar connection. Now that’ll warrant a book, maybe a couple, not just a chapter in Jay’s. I’ll be more famous than my idiot big brother ever was. Too bad my mother isn’t around to see it.”“And that’s important?”His feverish eyes meet mine. “It’s everything. Being acknowledged. That’s what matters, Molly. That’s all that matters. That’s why I couldn’t understand you. Why would you try to hide from the world? You were somebody. At least for a little while. If I were you, I would’ve written a book, a big shiny hardcover. Gone on talk shows. Made lots of money.”“You won’t make any money, Cal. It’s against the law.”Aggravation flits across his face. “I know that,” he snaps. “For me, it’s not about the money.”His phone chimes, a melodious aberration in this decaying cellar, and that throws him off-kilter. He pulls his phone from his pocket and peeks at it like a kid trying to hide from a teacher. The name that has popped up sends a cloud across his face, something vaguely akin to remorse.“I’ve got to take this,” Cal says, as though we’re two people in the midst of a business meeting, and he heads for the ladder, pausing on the first step. “I won’t be long, Melinda.” His gaze flickers up to the high window, where snow continues to whirl. “Then we’ll end this.” He pulls the gun from his waistband, stares at it a moment, then tucks it in his jacket pocket.I hear floorboards creaking, and I picture Cal pacing. That’s what it sounds like, around and around, right over my head. He’s talking in a loud voice, but I can’t make out the words. Then he laughs, a deep throaty chuckle that sends shivers down my back. Who could he be talking to? And I’m amazed at his dexterity, swinging from multiple murderer to nice guy like the opening and shutting of a door. But then, he’d fooled us for years, until Jay.I take a deep breath and reach behind my back to the cement wall. I’ve got to be ready. He’ll kill me when his call ends. My frozen fingers run along the chain and the loose pipe fitting. I work my fingers until I stir up some warmth, enough to do what I have to do when the moment comes. I’ll fight him. I’m not a helpless child anymore. I’m not six-year-old Melinda crying in a dark cellar, soaked in my own urine.I sigh, clear my throat, and think about Jay, try to capture that feeling of being together to keep forever. For the five years he was part of my life, I felt totally loved and protected. If I survive this, what will my new life be like? Jay would want me to be happy, to fight for that happiness. I wipe a tear from my cheek as memories of Jay flood my mind. His laugh, his arms around me, my hand in his as we walked the streets of Paris.The creaking stops. Everything’s quiet. Maybe Cal left. Maybe whoever called changed his mind. But then the floorboards creak again, the sound moving toward the door above the ladder. He’s coming.My teeth chatter with cold and fear and with such force that my head bobs. He’s at the open door, looking down on me.“My sons,” Cal says. “It was sweet of them to call.” He sighs. “But they’re better off without me. You know? This is better.” He closes his eyes momentarily, as if reliving a last lovely memory of family life.Cal turns his back to me and starts down the ladder. He walks quickly, like a man on a mission, to where I huddle against the cold, damp wall. “Little Melinda, you thought you’d escaped the cellar all those years ago.” He chuckles. “But my big brother couldn’t do anything right. Couldn’t finish what he started. But not me.” He shakes his head.I take a deep raspy breath. “Don’t you want to live for your kids, Cal?”He paces away from me, then back again. Beads of sweat cling to his upper lip, despite the cold. The blood, which had started to dry on his temple, now begins to drip along his cheek.I work my fingers behind my back, furiously trying to keep the feeling in them.“Oh, I plan on living, Melinda. How else will I get to appreciate my handiwork?”“But your boys?”He walks away again. “I’ll make them famous, and they can visit me if they want to. They’ll write a book about their dad, what it was like to grow up in the perfect family. How no one had a clue what depraved thoughts swirled through the mind of their handsome, successful, athletic dad.” He turns in my direction, his gaze seeking mine. “All the best serial killers led normal, even exemplary lives, Melinda. That’s the beauty of it, being smarter than everyone else.” He pulls the gun from his pocket and sets it on the floor, too far away for me to reach it.Then he slips his hand into his other pocket and pulls out a knife, clicks a hinge to open it, and I catch my breath. Cal slides down next to me and places the tip against my throat. I go completely still, swallow, sweat dripping along the sides of my face. He lowers the knife, slides back the sleeve on my left arm. I feel the roughness of his fingers as they work their way over my scar.“My brother’s work. His brand,” Cal says and snorts. “Terrible work, as usual.” His eyes meet mine. “But you’ve probably had something done. Laser treatments to try to erase it all?”I can’t move. I can’t breathe.Cal drops my arm and stands. “I had a chance to examine it closely when I first brought you here, unconscious. Really, Melinda, you were always wearing long sleeves, and I’d been dying to get a look at it. Keith told me he’d put his mark on you. Claimed you as his own.” He waves the knife in front of my face. But I’ll do him one better, afterward.” He leans over and places the tip of the blade against my chest. “Right here, over your heart. You’ll be mine at last.”My pulse is beating in thick, heavy thumps as Cal places the knife on the floor next to the gun and grabs the dirty blankets lying next to me. He spreads them out and stands, legs apart, so close I can smell him. He pats the front of his pants. “Let’s do this.”I swallow and clench my trembling jaw. Snot drips down my upper lip. “Please, Cal, don’t.”“Sorry, Melinda. It’s part of it. I need to possess you. Make little Melinda, the girl in the cellar, all mine. So a little interlude before the end.”I glance up at the window and see the pantlegs of people as they stride by. Cops? My heart hammers. Please let them find me. Hurry. Hurry. I open my mouth to scream, but Cal is bending over me, so close he could easily break my neck with his hands before the cops could get down here, so I stay quiet and hope to hold him off until they find me.He pulls a small key from his pocket, reaches for the handcuff. I pull a great breath, as though I’m getting ready to dive into the deep end. This is it. I gather my strength, think of Jay, and bolt to my feet.