The Good Lie by A.R. Torre
CHAPTER 39
Scott Harden stood in the shower and tilted his head up toward the large rain head. Steam rose off his skin as the hot water peppered across his cheeks and shoulders. Pinning his lips together, he closed his eyes and let the tension ease out of him.
For those seven weeks in the attic, he had dreamed about this shower. And now, in the middle of the giant space, his bare feet against the flat pebbles of the floor, he only wanted to be back. Back in the attic. Back in the bed. Back on that metal folding chair where she would run a giant sponge across his naked body. Over his cuts. Along his back. In between his thighs. Thinking about it now, he hardened, but when he reached down and stroked himself, the same thing as before—an instant softening. Like she was the only one with the power to bring him pleasure.
Maybe it was because she was his first. The girls at school had always talked about that—like the guy who took their virginity had some sort of power over them. He’d always laughed at the thought, but maybe they were right. Maybe that was why he had fallen so quickly and so hard. Was that why she wouldn’t leave his mind?
He picked up the shampoo and squirted a glob of the pale-purple liquid into his hand. There hadn’t been an easy way to wash his hair in the attic. And she hadn’t trusted him enough to let him downstairs. He raked his soapy fingers through his hair and remembered her long nails, how they would scratch and massage his scalp. The soft brush of her lips against his forehead.
It was different, being with an older woman. The girls at school all seemed so pointless and immature compared to her. Her confident look as she had straddled his naked body. The seductive purr of her voice in his ear. She had loved him. That’s what she had whispered in his ear as that asshole had watched. She had understood Scott.
And each day, after her husband left for work, she showed him. She kissed and treated the wounds from the previous night. She put on her lace outfit and lay beside him and talked all about the life they would share. Without Jay. Without school. She hadn’t seen him as a kid; she had seen him as a man. She had wanted him.
And he wanted her. Even now, a month later. Especially now.
“Scott?”
He swore at the sound of his mom. She wouldn’t leave him alone. Always hovering. Always watching, a sharp line down the middle of her forehead as if she was trying to figure him out. He wished she would just stop. GO AWAY. Monitoring his phone calls? Didn’t he have privacy anymore?
He put his head under the water, washing away the shampoo, and ignored the second call of his name, this one louder. Closer. Good thing he’d locked the door. She probably had her mouth to the crack, those giant fake boobs pushed against the wood.
Why had she gotten those anyway? Dad hadn’t cared. Dad had barely even noticed.
Brooke’s breasts had been perfect. She had let him spend all day touching them, had let him ask whatever questions he wanted about them. They’d been natural, she’d told him that.
There was a loud crack, and a crash of something right outside the shower door. Scott wiped the condensation off the glass and saw the bathroom door open, both of his parents standing there. What the hell? He reached over and turned off the water.
“Scott?”
Why did his mom keep saying his name? He pulled the towel off the heat rack.
“Scott, the news is showing some sort of room they found. An attic.” His father spoke in a stern tone that Scott hadn’t heard in a long time.
He paused, the towel pressed against his face. An attic. He dabbed the water from his eyes and slowly wrapped it around himself. He opened the shower door and stepped out.
His parents stood side by side, their shoulders touching. His mother in a red blouse and white shorts. His dad, his hair almost fully gray, with hands propped on his hips.
“Can I have some privacy?”
“Did you hear us?” his mother repeated. “They found an attic filled with things, and they are saying it’s where you were kept.”
“And it’s not at Randall Thompson’s house,” his father added grimly.
Of course it wasn’t. Randall Thompson was a pawn, one who deserved to rot away in a jail cell for the rest of his life for what he did to Brooke. Scott tucked the towel around his hips and walked past them and to his walk-in closet.
“Were you kept in an attic?” his mother asked.
He pulled a white T-shirt from the stack and wondered what the police knew. How had they found the attic? If the house was listed for sale, and Brooke and Jay were gone—wouldn’t they have emptied out the attic in their move?
“This is the house it was found in.” His mother held her cell phone up to his face. He tried to turn away, and she moved it closer. “LOOK, Scott. Recognize this house?”
Of course he did. And of course he couldn’t admit that. Because, according to what he’d told the police, he’d been let go a few miles from his house and hadn’t seen wherever he’d been kept.
“I don’t know. No.” He knocked her arm out of the way.
“They found two dead bodies in this house the day you showed up here.” His mother’s voice was steel, her feet firmly planted.
Two dead bodies? His hand, which had been reaching for a pair of shorts, paused in midair. “Who?”
“John and Brooke Abbott.” She swiped the screen on her phone, then held a new image up for him to see.
John and Brooke Abbott
John and Brooke Abbott
John and Brooke Abbott
John and Brooke Abbott
John and Brooke Abbott
Everything in his mind came to a stop at the image of the couple. Brooke was wearing a red sundress, her long hair in wavy curls on her shoulders, a grin across her face. Jay was in a collared shirt and khakis, his dyed black hair swept over his balding forehead. It was them, right under a bold black headline that said, THE BLOODY HEART KILLERS REVEALED.
Jay. Was John his name? No wonder Scott hadn’t found anything about them on the internet, though that had been impossible anyway without knowing their last names. Now, he took the phone from his mom and stared down at the photo of them. The man who had destroyed his life, and the woman who had saved it. Three months, she had said. Wait three months and then call me. She’d tucked a note with her number inside his pocket. Three months. She’d kissed him on the lips. Then we can be together.
But he hadn’t been able to wait three months. He’d gone crazy without her, felt lost in his old life, and had so many questions. What to tell the police, whether she had seen him on television, and if he could see her. Just from afar, at least. If he could just talk to her, then maybe the dull sensation that was sweeping through him would stop.
So, he had called her. Early, he knew. But he had still expected her to answer or at least return his calls. When she hadn’t, he had started texting her. And then her voice mail was full, and he had broken all their rules and traced the path he had run back to their house. He hadn’t had a plan. He was just going to drive by. Maybe park a few houses down and walk by. Maybe wait until she left the house and then follow her.
The day he drove there, it had only been three weeks since his escape, and yet they were gone. Window blinds pulled shut. Car gone. The grass was freshly cut, and there was a FOR SALE sign in the yard. When he called the number on the sign, a lady said no one lived in the house.
Brooke had left him. Abandoned their plans of a happy ever after and left. That’s what he had thought, his heart breaking as he had driven back to his empty life, ignored his parents’ questions, and crawled into bed.
But maybe she hadn’t left. Maybe she had . . .
“Scott, is this who took you?” It was his father’s turn holding up a phone, and his display was now on a photo of Jay’s face, that ugly smirk exposing the crooked top row of his bleached white teeth. He’d had that same smirk when he’d stopped Scott in the school parking lot. Kept that smirk on as he had pinned Scott down to the mattress and spread his legs. Later, Brooke said it was a domination thing. That Jay had been abused as a child, and that something about taking pain and innocence from someone else gave him peace.
Jay had needed a lot of peace. The more Scott had screamed and begged through his gag, the wider that stupid smirk had become. And Brooke had sat there quietly and watched it all happen. Let it happen because if she hadn’t, he would have turned it all on her. She had been a prisoner, just like him. And she had healed him each day while Jay had been at work, and he had healed her, too.
His father shook him so hard that his neck snapped back from the force. “Scott!”
“Who’s dead?” Brooke wasn’t dead. That wasn’t right. That wasn’t why she hadn’t answered.
“John and Brooke Abbott.” His mom moved closer, and he felt trapped in the small space, both of them getting closer and closer, glaring at him as if he’d done something wrong. “Scott, the police are going to be here soon, and they are going to arrest you.”
He looked from her face to his father’s, but he still didn’t understand.
She had been alive. She had pushed him out the door with a kiss, the feel of her lingering on his mouth, and they’d had a future together. Three months. Three months, then forever.