Instead of screaming again, I quietly sob.
I’m going to die down here.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I sit down and watch the sunlight fade through the crack in the door. It’s too dark to read, now; soon, it will be too dark to see anything at all.
I’m hungry, thirsty, and—worst of all—I need to pee.
To stop myself from having a panic attack, I tell myself the same stories again and again. Bradley will find me. Neil will find me. Grace will let me out and tell me it was all a mistake.
Fairy tales. Grace knows that I slept with Bradley, and now she wants me dead. There’s no hope. She could have timed it for when Bradley was away at a conference and she had an alibi in LA. She could say the locked door was an accident, and how could anyone prove otherwise?
I wonder what happened to Caroline Churchwell. Jesse mentioned her when we first met. He called herpoor Caroline. Why was she poor? Was it because she slept with Bradley, and Grace had her killed?
He told me to be careful, too, just like the hermit Don. Why didn’t I listen?
Grace has a notebook about me, just like the one about Caroline. And now I’m about to die. One day, Jesse will talk to another young woman at Pine Ridge and say,Poor Brie.
How many days does it take to die of thirst? Three days? A week?
I don’t want to die. What a stupid and obvious thing to admit. No one wants to die. But I’m not anyone. I’m Brie MacKenzie, and I’m sitting on the floor of a basement in the middle of nowhere, and I don’t want to die.
Please don’t let me die.
I’m sobbing againwhen I hear sounds from the ceiling. Footsteps! I shout as loud as I can. It might be Grace upstairs, but I don’t care. I won’t make it easy for her to leave me here. I shout again, and the footsteps get louder. Someone’s running.
A few seconds later, I hear a voice calling out. A male voice.
“Bradley! Bradley!” I yell his name until I hear him coming down the stairs. I race up to the door and press myself against it.
“Brie?”
“I’m locked inside!” I immediately start to sob. I thought I would die down here, but I’m saved. The relief is intense.
But to my horror, the ordeal isn’t over yet.
“Just wait,” he says through the door. “I’ll go find a key.”
“No!” I can’t bear for him to leave. I can’t stay down here alone, not for another second. “Please don’t leave me!”
“I’ll just be a minute. Wait right there.”
As I hear his footsteps disappear, I feel myself grow more frantic. My chest hurts—am I having a heart attack? I can’t breathe. I feel like I’m underwater and my clothes are weighed down by rocks, and the surface is getting further and further away.
Where is he? It’s been more than a minute. What if he’s not coming back?
No, he’ll come. He’ll smash the door open with an axe if he has to.
But what if Grace didn’t do this on her own? What if Bradley’s in on it? What if this is what they do as a couple to get off? Maybe they play mind games with young women, then lock them up and use them as their playthings. They could leave me down here for weeks, teasing me, hurting me, using me, until they grow bored.
And then what?
I struggle to control my breathing. Bradley is too good to be true. He’s a kind, handsome, sensitive man with a stable job. Why would he go forme? If he wanted a young woman, he could seduce one of the thousands of options on campus. That would be much easier—and much less complicated—than someone who lives on his property, who sees his wife every day.
The more I think about it, the less sense it makes.
He’s using me. There’s no other explanation.
