Page 11 of These Cold Strangers

CHAPTER TWELVE

Ismell broth, and my stomach turns over. I can’t imagine eating. And if Julia’s experience is any indication, it will be drugged. But Todd will not be thwarted. He sits on my legs, facing me, tucking my loose hand under his knee, the small bones grinding into the dirt. When I gasp in pain, he forces the broth inside my open mouth.

“Swallow. This will go easier if you swallow.”

I spit it back at him. He laughs, as if this was expected, and does it again. This time he acts quicker, and I inhale some and swallow some at the same time. The coughing fit is enough to get him off me.

He is not the man I spoke with earlier. Not the man whose bed I shared, who handled me with such gentleness, then unbridled passion. This is an eerie robot, a creepy, terrifyingly empty shell of a person. There is nothing alive inside him.

“If you throw up, you live in it. You live in all your bodily fluids if you don’t cooperate. Be a good girl, and you’ll get your rewards.”

Chills parade across my body. How can this be the same man who helped a stranger? Does he have a split personality? Will he tell me the truth now that he has me captive?

“Why did you really help that man, Todd? Why would you bother?”

A surprised pause. I suppose he was expecting me to beg for my own mercy.

“Oh, Addie. You think you know so much. You think you’re smarter than me. You always did.”

“What are you talking about?” Foreboding builds inside me. I remember my dream. Todd’s bloodred Jeep, pulling away from my house. Julia’s words: “He talks about their murders all the time.” Memories and nightmares collide, crash, sweep away the barriers I’ve erected around my pain.

“You were there that night, weren’t you? When Aaron killed my family.”

A sneering laugh. He drops to his knees in front of me. Runs a finger along my jaw.

“Who do you think gave him the idea?”

Even in the gloom, I can feel the tension coming off him. He is excited to tell me this. To rewrite my life’s story with a single sentence.

“You helped him?”

“Helped him? My God, he was such an idiot. I had to choreograph the whole night, even down to getting you out of the house and to that party. Had a good time while they died, didn’t you?”

Cruel. So cruel. “Why would you do that? And why wouldn’t you kill me too?”

“I never wanted you dead.”

“Why not?”

“I told you earlier, Addie. I always liked you.”

Even drugged, I feel a chill cruise down my spine. That is beyond creepy. “But you wanted my family dead? What did they ever do to you?”

He leans a shoulder against the wall and crosses one ankle over the other. “Your father—” he starts, but abruptly shakes his head like a bee has flown too close to his face.A face that is changing, morphing, elongating. Damn it, the drugs are starting to kick in. I feel a stupid kind of peace crawl through my bones.

“Come on, Todd. I want to know.”

“You do, don’t you?” That eerie laugh echoes through the room. “Greedy girl. You’ll have to wait your turn.”

Weariness is stealing over me. I need to move, I need to fight, but my limbs are growing heavy. I can’t let him win. I have to keep him talking so I can stay focused.

“Tell me. Please?”

“Maybe later.” My pleading bores him. He turns his attention to Julia, voice steel and sickly patronizing. “How is my sweet girl today? Are you going to sleep on the cot tonight?”

“Yes,” she says, voice meek. He moves toward her, and I have a horrible realization of what’s to come. No. God, please, not that.

“Todd. I want to know the rest. If I’m going to die down here, I need to know why you didn’t kill me too. Why would you leave me out of your plan?”

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