Chapter Nine SCARLETT

Chapter Nine

S CARLETT

Saturday, July 13, 2024

8:15 a.m.

The gym wasn’t crowded. Not uncommon on a lovely summer Saturday morning. With the days longer and warmer, most skipped the gym workout for runs or bike rides in the parks or the paths along the waterfront or coffees in one of the local cafés. There were so many reasons not to work out. And yet here I was, clinging to a routine that kept me sane.

Dawson’s visit had rattled me. My thoughts kept returning to Sandra Taylor and Della’s old references to the Other Girl. Della had said she’d gone away but never once explained. Dawson had confirmed what I’d suspected. Gone meant dead . But I had no idea when she’d died. Vanished in the spring, according to Dawson, and never found until now.

Tanner had often taken Della from our room and kept her upstairs. Many times, he’d turn up the music, blasting rock that rattled the walls and seeped through the floorboards into the basement. If Della was screaming upstairs, I didn’t hear it. The world ceased to exist beyond my four walls.

Della never fought Tanner and often smiled when he motioned her toward the door. I always was relieved when he didn’t choose me, but as soon as the door closed and I was alone, I worried whether she’d ever return. In the eighty-eight days I was under Tanner’s control, I never left that dark, windowless room until the day he and I went to the diner.

Rolling my head from side to side, I tried to shake off the thoughts, grateful that I would never have to see Tanner Reed again.

Blond hair bound in a ponytail, I was dressed in fitted shorts, a snug T-shirt, and athletic shoes. My muscles were tight. It had been a shit day yesterday when it came to my work. My hands had trembled as I’d etched the final curls of a Kangawa-style wave into a block of wood that would become the stamp anchoring my latest print series. A sailboat on rolling exaggerated waves with clouds dangling above. No matter how hard I concentrated, I couldn’t shake Dawson’s visit. Seeing him had unlocked the jail where my demons resided, and I feared they were now free and circling.

My hands shook only a little when I set my bag down and looked up the climbing wall toward the ceiling, which had always symbolized freedom.

It had been months since I’d had one of the darker nightmares. Those night terrors left me in a pool of sweat and screaming. One had woken me up in the middle of last night, so I spent the rest of the time at my computer searching Sandra Taylor. There were a couple of old short articles mentioning that the teen had vanished. A few weeks later, another recap reported she’d not been found. And then nothing.

Sandra Taylor had been swallowed up and no one had remembered her for a decade. A discovery like that would conjure curiosity for those who might have known her or the others who enjoyed salacious details. There’d be articles, reporters with questions, and there might even be a true crime podcast or television special. And then just like that, Sandra Taylor would be forgotten again.

Sandra’s story could easily have been mine. The girl with a sketchy family life, a loner who dabbled in drugs, no doubt desperate for companionship and acceptance. I tried to remember the girl who’d attended my high school but couldn’t picture her face. Even I’d forgotten her. I’d been too obsessed with Della to remember Tanner’s Other Girl.

Let it go. Let it go.

I swapped athletic sneakers for rock-climbing shoes and reached in a chalk bag and rubbed white powder against my sweaty palms. I looked up the wall stretching one hundred feet into the air, focused on the rocks and the trail they created to the top.

Most of the climbers stuck to the lower levels, but my sights were set on the peak. As the rocks grew slimmer and sparser, my focus narrowed to a fine point, crowding out the past and future. As I clung by my fingertips up in the rafters, my brain couldn’t process anything but the wall in front of me.

I caught the attention of another climber, Jeff, who I’d belayed for a few days ago. He was tall and lean, and his skin was deeply tanned from all the exterior climbs he’d tackled. Word was he had his eye on El Capitan in Yosemite. While he had climbed, I’d worked the safety rope until he’d reached the top. I envied the freedom. I’d never been able to stray too far from Norfolk for more than a day or two. Maybe I was still waiting on Della.

“Help a girl out?” I asked.

“Sure.” He grabbed his bag and moved toward me.

“Did you climb?” I asked.

“Not today. I have a torn calf muscle, so I’m forced to go easy for a few weeks.”

“Sorry to hear that,” I said.

“Par for the course.”

I wrapped a safety harness around my waist, secured it, and locked in the belay rope. The first time he’d touched my shoulder as I secured the harness, I’d flinched as if his fingers had scorched my flesh. He’d backed off, said nothing, but I’m guessing a Google search told him all he needed to understand my quirks. There was plenty to read about me.

After that day, Jeff didn’t press for details and was careful to avoid skin-to-skin contact. I was grateful. There were still people from time to time who asked. A few second-guessed my past decisions, and one or two dug for the lurid details of my captivity. I ignored everyone.

“Going to the top?” Jeff asked.

“Always.”

“Fearless. Adrenaline junkie.”

“Takes one to know one.” I’d rather be scaling real rocks and mountains, but right now there wasn’t time for a three-hour drive west. But soon. Soon.

“Busted.” He shrugged, smiled as he wrapped the belay rope around his waist.

“Can you time me?” I asked.

“Ah, personal best time today?”

“Why not?” I grabbed the first plastic rock and settled my foot on another. The bottom rocks were wide and steady enough. I’d have to reach the halfway point before the rocks grew narrower and farther apart.

Heart beating a little faster, I pulled my body up and began to ascend the wall and out of Tanner’s dark hole. There were times I imagined Della following me up the wall, reaching for my ankles. Sometimes she gripped my foot and tried to pull me down. Other times, I was free and had the strength to extend my fingers and offer a lifeline to Della. Tyrant and redeemer linked forever.

With each new inch now, I gained distance from Della and that dark room. Images of her faded. My focus narrowed. The wall always refused to let my concentration wander.

My muscles felt good, and my fingers were easily finding the grooves and notches in the rocks. My feet were steady and my legs strong. The buzz of the few gym rats grew more distant as I rose, and my focus tapered to my feet and fingers on the slimming rocks.

Sweat gathered at the base of my back, and without looking up I sensed I was close to the top. The air was always warmer, cleaner at the peak. I stole a glance upward and saw the ceiling inches from my head. Fingers strained. My toes cramped. I edged up the last few inches. I touched the ceiling, pressing my fingers against other smudged prints.

“Way to go, Scarlett. Personal best,” Jeff shouted.

I glanced back toward Jeff and caught his smile. As I swung my gaze back to the wall, a woman passed behind him. She paused and stared up at me. She was blond, tall, and in good shape and wore fitted black leggings, an aqua top, and bright neon shoes.

The woman’s gaze pinned me. It wasn’t the first time a gym member had stopped to watch me climb to the peak. But when my gaze locked on this woman’s, I didn’t see idle curiosity. I saw clinical assessment. Della had stared at me like that when Tanner opened our cell door.

The woman’s detachment gave way to curiosity, pity, and sorrow.

I blinked.

Her expression mirrored the Della embedded in my memory.

Della . . .

Merely the idea of Della standing here now and staring at me was enough to break my concentration. My laser focus shattered, and my foot slipped. I immediately struggled to regain my foothold and tightened my grip. But my shoes skimmed over the smallest rock, and my fingers dislodged from the tiny indent above my head. I grabbed for another rock, but my feet slid over it. My body couldn’t recalibrate fast enough.

Della.

My weight tipped backward, and my stomach rose in my chest. In that split second, I knew I was falling. I’d climbed to the top of the black hole, and like always, Della found a way to yank me back. No matter what I did, she always won.

Someone in the gym screamed seconds before my body went airborne.