Jesus Christ. Bea was, in fact, wearing a white silken spaghetti-strap slip which fit, sure, but was definitely not hers.
A matching nightstand of the same heavy dark wood, though thankfully not carved with...were they angels? Cherubs were different, fat little flying babies; these figures seemed vaguely female. The floor was lighter hardwood, also polished, and the rest of the very large room was empty, nothing but space and light. One wall was made of glass, and that plus two skylights explained the glare. A grey winter afternoon lingered just outside, and at first the glitters were pretty until she realized it was a view of downtown laid underneath a middle-grade skyscraper. Not the shortest, not the tallest, but situated nicely for a good view.
What the hell?
Her legs were a bit unsteady, the floor cool but not quite cold. Bea crept to the window cautiously, and when she realized she was looking at familiar terrain her heart leapt into her throat before embarking on a wild can-can beat through all the rest of her.
Okay, think. You came out of the shower and the monster was sitting on the bed. Or was this a very intense nightmare? The slippery feeling of being unmoored in reality was familiar, and she hated it.
She’d thought Jared was just being dramatic, or at worst getting up his own ass like he used to when they were kids, always swearing he saw things. Well, so did she, but didn’t advertise it; that was a surefire way to make people notice an overactive imagination and mock you into the ground.
Or they’d call the men in the white coats, and she loved her brother too much to consider him fully insane. Or so she thought now, after the fact. At the time she’d been super annoyed at having to drop everything in her own life, again, because Jared was having a crisis.
Bea raised her right hand, stared at her fingers for a moment. Then she reached to pinch her left arm with a savage twist, hissing as her eyelids chopped bright, directionless winter light into manageable strobe-chunks.
Okay. Not dreaming. Maybe dead, we’ll see.
The city sprawled lazily under her perch. There was the Loop in the distance, there the main eastern freeway—yes, looking over downtown from the west. There were the four park blocks, trees both leafless and evergreen crowding walkways and water features turned off for the winter.
Oh, shit. Is this…
It was the Everly building. Had to be. There was the bar across the multiple one-way lanes of Third Street, at the corner where it joined Kinski Avenue. She’d sat near the window watching the facade of this granite-sheathed heap, off and on, for at least three months. Different hours, different conditions, she’d pored over any available blueprints of the place as well, and scoured social media for inside views.
She had to be on a super high floor. Maybe...maybe even the penthouse?
Oh, crap. Not good.
Two doors, one to a bathroom. Hold that thought. She tried the second—a double, looked like solid oak, and locked, of course. So the bathroom got its own inspection. Plain white tile, an antique cast-iron tub, a safety-glass mirror over a pedestal sink, no cabinet. The towels were white as well, big and fluffy, stacked on a thick glass shelf instead of hanging on a metal bar.
And an actual bidet. Wow. It didn’t do her any goddamn good, since there wasn’t a toothbrush or anything resembling personal care items. A shell-shaped bar of soap the exact color of a robin’s egg sat in a sculpted sink-divot. There was no cup, but she gingerly tried a few palmfuls of cold water and decided that was okay.
She might starve to death locked in here, but at least she’d be hydrated.
The quiet was eerie. Bea found warm air issuing from recessed, disguised ceiling vents—too far up for any monkey business, even if she could drag the heavy nightstand over to stand on. Skylights did say top floor, unless there was some kind of architectural wizardry going on. Bea squeezed her eyes shut, calling up the blueprints—why hadn’t she done a more thorough internal study? She’d been so focused on escape routes after the staking.
Clearly you didn’t get it all the way through. So you’re back to square one, or maybe even further back since now he knows you’re gunning for him. How in God’s name had the monster found her? Did he sniff her out like a bloodhound, ha ha, very funny, or had she been followed despite using every trick in the book to clear her backtrail?
Was Don all right?
“Oh, God,” she whispered, creeping to crouch next to the bed, hands sealed over her ears to shut out the deep, soft quiet. Breaking a window would be useless—even with all those blankets, she couldn’t hope to climb down more than a floor or so.
If she managed to crack high-altitude glass and tossed a nightstand out, would that attract some attention? Maybe she could use it as a diversion, and escape in a silk slip?
The skirt was far too short, for God’s sake, though the material was heavy, soft, and clearly expensive. “Should’ve had a gun,” she mumbled, and leaned against the bed’s flank. At least the piece of furniture was solid and reassuring, complete in its own weirdness.
There was plenty of space underneath, antiseptically clean as the rest of this prison. Not a single dust bunny, which was weird as fuck but that was where she lived now, for however much longer. Should she hide? The only other place possible was in the bathtub, and that was just asking to be...what? Trapped like a fish in a barrel? She already was, for Chrissake.
Why hadn’t he simply killed her? That would have been preferable, but maybe she’d pissed him off and the monster was going to watch while his short, swollen-headed green henchmen drove another Dunlevy insane? Peering through the filthy dust-lensed window at her brother’s mangled body in the ancient, falling-down stable, the huge sopping-wet patch of blood, the screams swelling in her throat but unable to break free because of the bastard crouching over what used to be Jare, her Jare…
A click, a slight brushing, both loud in the stillness. Bea was almost too busy hyperventilating to hear, but her body sensed something—a breath of movement, a flickering shadow—and she scrambled under the bed, barking her knees painfully, whapping both elbows for good measure, plus hitting her head on something structural.
Ow. Ow, ow, ow. She got to the middle of the bed’s shadow, its entire bulk crouching protectively over a single very scared mouse, and her nose was full because her eyes had started leaking. The nips and gnawing of small aches had tuned up; her body was an orchestra of ignored pain.
She was glad she’d used the toilet. Maybe running water alerted him the prisoner was up and moving around? She should’ve looked for camera lenses in the ceiling, goddammit.
Black wingtips, polished to a mirror sheen. The soles were funny, thicker than ordinary dress shoes. Almost tactical; Bea’s left hand clamped over her mouth, though her nose was too stuffed to breathe through.
Be vewy vewy quiet, Jared whispered inside her head. He’s hunting Bebes.
