Page 76 of The Coworker
It doesn’t turn.
Oh God. It’s locked.
Chapter 42
Tim sent me down here to get wine. He wanted me to see that dead body wrapped in the tarp. And now he has trapped me down here.
“Tim!” I bang on the door to the basement. “Tim!”
Everything makes sense in a horrible sort of way. He’s been toying with me all this time. That sandalwood aftershave—he must have known how I felt about it. What if he was the one who splashed it on that night at the farmhouse, so I would think he was Shane? And then, of course, that damn snowflake necklace. He’s the one who gave it to me. He knew that was the necklace used to choke me that night—because he was the one who did it. He kept it all these years, and he gave it to me just to freak me out.
Why did I trust him? I should have listened to Shane. Hewarnedme. He told me that I couldn’t trust Tim Reese. He begged me not to have anything to do with him. But I didn’t believe him. There were so many signs and I ignored every single one of them because I blindly trusted Tim—the boy I knew since we were babies.
Tim is sick. I never realized it until this moment.
“Tim! Let me out of here!”
He can’t keep me down here, can he? He would never get away with it. Margie knows I’m here and so does Josh. If I didn’t come home, they would know. They would call the police and tell them where I am.
Unless he plans to do something to them too…
I’ve got to get out of here. I can’t let him do to me what he did to Kelli. But how? I brought my phone with me, but it’s in my purse, which I left on his living room sofa.
The knob shakes slightly. I hear Tim grunt, and I take a step back as the door pops open. He is standing in front of me, his eyes looking almost hollow in the light of the hallway.
“Sorry about that,” he says. “Door must have stuck.”
I stare at him. Is he really pretending like I didn’t just see what I saw down there?
He raises his eyebrows. “What wine did you pick out?”
I glance over my shoulder at the bottle of Merlot that is lying shattered on the floor of the basement. “Actually, I’m not feeling so great. I… I think I’ll head out.”
“Seriously?” His jaw tightens. “I just spent the last hour cooking dinner. You’re really going to leave?”
“I…” I press my fingertips against my temple. “I have a migraine.”
“You get migraines? You never mentioned that to me.”
“Well, I do.”
“Because this is the first time you have had a migraine the entire time we’ve been together.”
My temple throbs—in another second or two, I really will have a migraine. “So I’m not allowed to have a goddamn migraine? Is that what you’re saying?”
He jerks his head back. “That’s not what I’m saying. I’m just saying… don’t go. Let’s talk for a minute.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Is this about what I said earlier? I’m sorry I said anything. I didn’t mean to pressure you.”
“I want toleave, Tim.”
I don’t wait for an answer. I push past him to the front door, snatching my purse off the sofa. My phone is in there and so is my pepper spray—I’ll use it if I have to, although I hope I don’t. Tim races to catch up with me. His legs are much longer than mine, and he grabs my arm before I even make it to the living room. His fingers encircle my forearm, digging into my skin.
“Brooke,” he says. There’s a look in his eyes that I barely recognize. This is not the Tim that I know—it’s another side of him I’ve never seen before.
“Let me go,” I hiss at him.
