Chapter 4 - The Hunt in the Dark
I didn't run down the stairs. Running would make noise, and Miles was thirty pounds heavier and faster than me. Instead, I ducked immediately to the right, sliding into the narrow service closet where the upstairs laundry chute dropped directly down into the basement utility room.
The closet door clicked shut just as the study door swung wide.
A beam of light sliced across the hallway floorboards. Heavy, deliberate footsteps approached.
"Laurel?" Miles called out, his voice taking on that sickeningly sweet, patronizing cadence he used when he was setting a trap. "Sweetheart? Is that you? Did you come home to get Sadie’s blanket?"
I stood inside the darkness of the linen closet, pressed flat against the wall between stacks of spare duvets and winter coats, barely daring to draw air into my lungs. The heat from my own skin felt suffocating.
His footsteps stopped right outside the thin wood of the door.
"I know you’re upset about what happened at the clinic," he said, right against the wood. "We can fix this, Laurel. We just need to present a united front to Child Services tomorrow. You need to come out so we can talk about our strategy."
The doorknob rattled. It began to turn.
I reached blindly behind me, my fingers finding the brass latch of the laundry chute. It was a vintage opening, eighteen inches wide, designed for drop-bags of linens to plummet straight down to the basement bin two stories below.
The closet door opened three inches. The yellow hallway light spilled across my shoes.
I didn't hesitate. I dropped through the chute.
The descent was a violent, suffocating blur of polished galvanized tin and rushing air. I hit the canvas collection bin in the basement with a concussive thud that knocked every drop of air from my lungs. The wooden frame of the bin cracked beneath my weight, but the mountains of dirty towels and sheets absorbed the primary shock.
Above me, echoing down the metal pipe like the roar of a furnace, I heard Miles scream: "She’s in the house! She was listening!"
I rolled out of the canvas bin onto the cold concrete floor, ignoring the sharp, throbbing pain in my left wrist. The basement was dark, illuminated only by the tiny red pilot lights of the boiler and water filtration system.
I knew the layout better than either of them. Miles never came down here; he paid a property management firm to service the machinery.
I bolted toward the storm cellar doors that led out into the backyard. They were secured with an iron bolt. I shoved the rusted bolt to the left; it shrieked against the metal sleeve.
Upstairs, the basement access door flew open with a bang, and heavy footfalls came thundering down the wooden stairs.
"Laurel! Stop!" Miles roared, his flashlight beam cutting through the gloom, catching the edge of my sweater.
With a desperate heave, I shoved both storm doors upward. They flew open against the damp grass of the yard, letting in the cool, rain-soaked night air. I scrambled up the concrete steps into the mud just as Miles reached the bottom of the stairs.
I didn't look back. I ran through the rhododendron bushes along the property line, vaulting the low cedar fence into the neighbor's driveway where Elena’s Honda was parked in the shadows.
I threw myself into the driver’s seat, locked the doors, and slammed the key into the ignition. The engine roared to life just as Miles burst through the hedges, his white shirt torn, his hair wild, his face twisted in a snarl of pure rage.
He threw himself against the driver’s side window, his fists hammering the tempered glass. "Give me the phone! Laurel, give me the fucking phone!"
I put the car in reverse, stomped on the gas pedal, and the tires shrieked as the car rocketed backward into the street. Miles stumbled, falling hard onto the asphalt, rolling into the gutter.
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I threw the shifter into drive and sped away, leaving him standing beneath the amber streetlamp, an architect of cruelty left standing in the ruins of his own design.
***
