“Nope. I mean, he did change his name more than once, which for some reason none of the half dozen colleges he worked for seemed to care about. But Reed Harding is Will Butler thesedays—an assistant professor of English at NYU. Poetry. That seems like an awfully big coincidence.”
The ground shifts underfoot. I grab the counter.
The boy my mom tried to kill isn’t dead after all. He’s a grown man now. A man in my house. He was in my bed.
I cared for him. I trusted him. This is my fault.
I look toward our front door. A way out—to safety, the police. I need to run out that front door while Will—Reed, whoever he is—is still back down the hall.
My mom would want me to do that. To save myself.
But if I run, that will be the last I’ll see of Will. He’ll know that I’ve figured him out. What if he’s holding my mom somewhere right now? She could be running out of time.
I see her face that day on the beach when she taught me how to swim. Afterward when I was racing back toward my dad and Janine and Annie up on the sand.
“Cleo,” she’d called out, and when I turned, she was smiling in the late-day sun. “You did it,” she said, holding a thumb up in the air. “You did it all on your own.”
But so much of it had been her. It always had been. I know that now.
And so I open my eyes, drop my phone. And run.
Toward him.
Run. Keep running.
The hallway telescopes in my vision as I race down it, like the bathroom is getting farther and farther away the faster I run. I can hear the water running, louder and louder as I get closer.
Will is at the sink, washing his shirt. Time slows to a stop as I lunge for the door. He turns. Eyes wide. Mouth open.
“Cleo, wha—”
I slam the door closed and turn the key, yank it out and back away as he tries the knob again and again, slowly realizing that he is trapped inside.
As I back out of the room, the pounding starts. “Cleo! What’s going on? Open the door!”
I turn and run down the hall. This time toward the front door, the way out. I don’t look back, not once. Even as I hear Will start to yell. Especially not then.
“Cleo, what the fuck!”
I can’t feel my legs as I reach the front door. Can’t feel my hand on the knob. But then a gush of fresh air and I’m outside, headed down the front steps.
“What’s going on?” someone shouts.
It’s George, looking alarmed. It’s only then that I realize I’ve left my phone inside, dropped it with Vivienne on the other end. “George, I need you to call the police.”
George scowls at me, looks up the steps toward my front door. “No,” he says, then starts to head back inside his house. “No police.”
“George!” I scream. “What the hell are you—I need to use your phone! It’s an emergency.”
“No. I gave my word.”
“To who?” Did Will see George on his way in and say something? Threaten him? “Who told you not to call the police, George?”
He shakes his head and backs toward his door protectively. “No.”
“Is there somebody in your house?”
“No, no—no one,” he stammers. “She’s not in there.”
