Page 85 of The Lost Girls of Willowbrook

She picked up the twenty-dollar bill, guilt coiling beneath her ribs. Eddie had done so much for her. And she still needed his help to get justice for Rosemary. But he wanted something she couldn’t give—a true friendship; maybe more. She’d be forever grateful to him, but she had to leave Willowbrook—and everyone associated with it—behind her as soon as she could. There was no other choice. Not that she blamed him for Rosemary being killed or everything that had happened, and was continuing to happen, in Willowbrook, but he would always remind her of that place, no matter what. And somehow, even if she hurt his feelings, she had to move on, to heal and put this part of her life behind her. Willowbrook would not claim her as another victim.

After putting the money in her makeup bag, she went to Alan’s room to look for the spare apartment key so she’d have it when the super showed up. Then she’d pack and leave. She’d go either to Heather’s place or Dawn’s—she hadn’t decided which—tell them the truth about where she’d been and beg to stay with them for a day or two. If they turned her away, she wasn’t sure what she would do, but she had to be gone before Alan came home. She also needed the extra key to get back in while he was at work so she could pick up more of her things.

When she entered the bedroom, she switched on the ceiling light and wrinkled her nose. For some reason, the rank odor that seemed to permeate the rest of the apartment was noticeably stronger inside the room. Had Alan shit the bed in one of his drunken stupors, or puked in a corner and not cleaned it up? Had a rat died inside the walls? Just thinking about it made her queasy. She held a hand over her nose and mouth, stepped around a pile of dirty laundry spilling out of a plastic hamper, and went over to the dresser.

Her mother’s white jewelry box sat on the dresser, along with a bottle of Tylenol, a smudged glass full of hazy water, a dust-caked vase filled with even dustier fake roses, aPlayboymagazine, a pile of unopened bills, and a Zippo lighter. After blowing the dust off of the jewelry box, she opened it and rummaged beneath the hinged upper shelf for the spare key, the slight hint of Chanel No. 5, mixed with a faint metallic aroma, wafting up from the pink fabric interior. The scent reminded her of playing dress-up with Rosemary, how Alan had slapped them for breaking one of their mother’s necklaces and spilling her perfume inside the jewelry box. Even now, with her mother dead and gone and Alan out of the house, looking inside it still felt wrong.

The spare key was beneath a turquoise pendant on a silver chain, the last Christmas gift her father had given her mother before he left. She took out the necklace and put it on, lifting the collar of her sweater and dropping the pendant underneath. Not because it was her mother’s—she’d never worn it, not once—but because Sage and Rosemary had helped their father pick it out. As she’d expected, the diamond earrings and gold chains were gone. Alan had probably sold them years ago.

Stepping on magazines and more dirty clothes, she went around the double bed to check inside the bedside table where Alan kept his drinking money. Searching for cash was probably a waste of time—he’d probably spent it all on the ice-fishing trip—but it couldn’t hurt to check. The dingy bed comforter was partially draped over the bedside table, one corner lying in an ashtray full of cigarette butts. She pulled it aside and stepped forward to open the drawer—then went stiff.

Her foot had landed in something impossibly sticky yet somehow dry. Praying it wasn’t shit or vomit oozing between her toes, she looked down.

A pool of dark blood mottled the beige carpet. More blotches and streaks splattered up the white wall and the yellow bed skirt, the bottom of which looked saturated, as if it’d been dipped in a vat of red paint. She gasped and leapt back, then scraped her foot along a clean section of the rug and the dirty clothes, desperate to get rid of the blood darkening her toes and the creases of her skin. What the hell was going on? Why was there blood on the floor? She hurried around the bed toward the door, her muscles tight, her body ready to run. Another dark puddle of blood stained the rug near the footboard, along with a crumpled blue shirt and a worn pair of pants. It looked like the blood was coming from under the bed.

Someone, or something, was under there. And they had been bleeding. Profusely.

Had Wayne been out in the hall waiting for Eddie to leave? Had he killed Eddie and shoved him under the bed? Was he still in the apartment? She stared at the blood, temporarily paralyzed by panic, then dropped to her knees and reached for the bed skirt to look underneath. But when her fingers touched the fabric, she yanked back her hand.

She couldn’t do it. She had to get the hell out of there. She had to call the cops, get the superintendent. But what would she say? That she wanted to know why there was blood on the floor? It could have been there for any number of reasons. And maybe it was less than it seemed. She’d learned in health class that a tablespoon of menstrual blood could look like a cup; they didn’t want the girls to think they were dying during their periods. Maybe Alan had cut his finger on a beer tab or gotten injured during a drunken brawl. Before she called the cops, she had to know why or if she needed them. Steeling herself, she lifted the bed skirt.

At first she couldn’t tell what she was seeing. Then she noticed a pale hand frozen into a bloody claw. Her eyes followed the hand up a pale arm to a bloody neck, from there to a white face with wide, horror-filled eyes. And a painted-on clown smile.

It was Alan.

She let out a shriek and scrambled backward, hitting her head on the dresser, then got to her feet and bolted out of the bedroom. She ran down the hall to the kitchen, grabbed the phone, and dialed the operator, her hands shaking so hard she could hardly turn the dial. Waiting for the operator to pick up, she felt faint. Dizzy. After what felt like forever, someone answered.

“You need to send the police!” she said, gulping for air. “I found my . . . my stepfather under the bed. He’s dead! Someone killed him!”

“All right,” the operator said. “Calm down and tell me your name and address. I’ll send someone over right away.”

“My name is Sage Winters,” she said. “I’m at the Greenwood Apartments on Dryer Road. Apartment 4C. Mariners Harbor.”

“Okay, I’ve got it,” the operator said. “Are you alone?”

She spun around and scanned the cramped kitchen. “I . . . I think so.”

“Are you safe?”

“I’m not sure.” She moved toward the knife drawer, but the phone cord was too short.

“Can you go to a neighbor’s to wait for the police? Will someone let you in?”

She shook her head. “No. I mean, yes. I can try.”

“All right. You need to go somewhere safe until the police come, okay? A unit is in the area and can be there in just a few minutes.”

“Okay. Tell them to hurry!”

She hung up the receiver, hurried over to the knife drawer, and pulled out a butcher knife, her fist clenched around the handle. Holding her breath, she edged toward the doorway.

“Is someone out there?” she shouted.

No one answered.

“I have a knife and I’m not afraid to use it!”

Still nothing.

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