I lightly tug at her forearm, and her eyes snap open, a strangling gasp escaping her throat. A silent desperation crosses her face as she flounders backward in fear.
I was right. The woman is Madison Tory.
“It’s okay, it’s okay! I’m not going to hurt you,” I whisper speedily. “I’m Amelia. Are you Madison Tory?”
I already know the answer, but I need more.
“How do you know my name? What are you doing here?”
“We went to school together. You’ve been missing for a year.” I swallow. “Everybody knows your name.”
Madison swipes a finger under each eye and looks at me with a look of delight and confusion. “AmeliaBly? What are you doing here? Am I being saved?” She scans the room with hope.
My face drops. “No. Not yet. Parker brought me down here. It’s a long story.” I shake my head. “Are you okay? How did you get here?”
Sitting up on the sofa, she sighs. “That’s an even longer story… I… I don’t understand. How do you know Parker?”
I sigh heavily, pinching the bridge of my nose.
Where do I begin…
But she continues. “Wait… are people still looking for me? Where are we?”
We both have too many questions that need immediate answers.
“You’re back in Blair,” I tell her. “And yes—everyone. The police, your family, your friends.” I falter, realizing I don’t know all the details of her investigation, only scraps of what Phoebe told me, andwhat I’ve seen on the news. “I met your sister last week. She misses you so much. Bodhi’s in the third-grade class I teach.”
Madison’s fingertips meet her lips as she begins to cry. “Oh my god. Parker told me we were down in Tacoma.”
I can’t believe their mom was right about someone on Lake Blair being responsible. And the Torys don’t even know it.
“Do you remember what happened to you? How did you get here?” I ask.
I sit cross-legged on the floor while Madison shrugs a blanket tight around her shoulders and unravels the whole story. How she was walking home when Parker, her ex-boyfriend, coaxed her into his car. How he made up a story about his mother dying to gain her sympathy. And when she caught on to his lies, he abducted her.
“The next thing I knew, I was tied up in his bedroom—back in Seattle. He kept me in there for… I don’t even know how long. Maybe months. It was kind of like this,” she says, gesturing to the room. “Except I was always tied up. He would only untie me when his mom and her boyfriend weren’t home. But I’m sure she knew I was there. She’s complicit in all this,” she huffs. “He brought me all my meals, made me go to the bathroom in a bucket. Still does.” She glances at the bucket. “He acted like we were still in a relationship. Like I wasn’t his… hostage.”
I shake my head in silent horror. She’s been alive this entire time, pleading for rescue.
Taken by none other than Parker Lane.
“How did you get here?” I ask. “Whendid you get here?”
She swallows, wiping tears from her chin with the edge of the blanket. “I’ve been trying to keep track of the days based on the meals I get, and when Parker says ‘good night.’ My guess would be… two months. Three?”
“I wonder why he came back to the lake,” I murmur, more to myself than to Madison.
“What do you meanback?”
I sigh. “Did he not tell you when you dated that he lived here, in Blair?” I ask, and her perplexed expression tells me he didn’t. “He and his mom lived across town as a kid. Just for a short time. I never visited, but my mom told me.”
I give her a clipped version of what happened with Imogen when we were seven. I leave out most of the ugliness, but even the sparse details are enough to make Madison’s face harden.
I always wondered what happened to Parker. If he moved away, if he got in trouble. Now I know… nothing happened. He simply moved to a neighboring county. No punishment, no real hitch in his story.
“I want to say I’m surprised,” Madison mutters. “But after all this, I’m not. He’s deranged. Seriously deranged. He told me he grew up in Tacoma. But now that I think of it, he was weirdly curious about Blair when I talked about it. He never once mentioned living here.” She shakes her head in a rageful squirm. “God, I hate him!” she shouts, her voice echoing off the unfinished wood. She must know he can’t hear her. Or she doesn’t care.
All I can do is nod as she pushes on.
