Hush

As she reached the bottom step she saw that the basement was split in two by the stairs. To the right were a washer and dryer against the wall and a big, stand-alone freezer, the horizontal kind. On the far left she could see the workbench with just a few tools hanging from a pegboard above it. All I have to do, she told herself, is find the flashlights and get out.

She crossed the cement floor and tugged at one of the two drawers. Her arm felt oddly weak, and the drawer refused to budge. She tugged again, harder, and this time the drawer jerked open. Its bottom was scattered with loose nails, nothing more. She tried the other drawer. Two flashlights lay side by side. They were the long heavy- duty kind security cops carried.

She grabbed one, pushed the switch up and to her relief saw that it worked. She blew out the candle and then grabbed the other flashlight. Now get the hell out of here, she told herself. As she turned, a muffled crash sounded directly above her, making her whole body jerk. Something had fallen hard in the kitchen. Had Rory tripped? Had someone gotten into the house? Was it Harry? Or the man from Brooklyn? She had to get back upstairs to help Rory.

Flooded with fear, she lunged through the near-darkness toward the stairs. Suddenly she felt dizzy and disoriented in the near-darkness. She raised her foot to meet the first step but didn’t reach it, and she stumbled, falling. As she landed in a heap, both flashlights bounced from her hands. She heard one roll across the floor to her left. The other, the one she’d been using, was just a few feet away, shooting a beam of light across the hard cement floor. Terrified, she crawled toward it on her knees. Don’t let it go out, she begged.

She reached the flashlight and stuck her arm out feebly to grab it. Then she felt an intense, searing pain in her head. A split second later she slipped into unconsciousness.

Pain woke her, forced open her eyes. She was lying in pitch-black darkness, and her head was throbbing, as if someone had smashed the back of it with a chair. There was a weird taste in her mouth-metallic. I’ve cut the inside of my mouth, she thought. She tried to find the spot with her tongue, but it was too swollen to move.

Where am I? she wondered panic-stricken. Her heart began to pound in time with the throbbing in her head. She tried to shift her body, but she felt paralyzed.

She forced herself to take a breath. I’m in a nightmare, she told herself, one of those nightmares you can dream and see yourself in at the same time. And I’m going to wake up. As she breathed, she smelled something musty, like mildewed clothes. No, this was real. She tried again to shift her body. Her arms didn’t move but she was able to twist her head a little.

A sound slid through the blackness-a long, low groan that she didn’t recognize. Her heart pounded harder. It’s a motor, she thought finally.

She realized at last where she was. But why? Had she fallen? Or had someone hit her? Her mind was so confused, her thoughts choked like a tangle of weeds in a lake. She found the beginning and tried to go step by step from there. The last thing she recalled was trying to reach the flashlight. It must have gone out, though. How long had she been here and why was she alone? And then suddenly she knew. She remembered everything. She let out an anguished sob at the truth.

She realized that the hum of the motor must be from the freezer she’d seen earlier, which meant that the power was back on. She had to get out. She twisted her head back and forth and commanded the rest of her body to move. Her legs felt leaden, like they were metal drums filled to the brim, but she was able to move one of her arms-the right one. She flexed her right hand slowly open and closed, back and forth.

There was another noise-from far above this time. Footsteps. And next a door opening. Terror engulfed her body, squeezing air from her lungs.

The killer was coming to get her.

Lake tried desperately to move again. She managed to drag her hand to her face, but that was it. Suddenly the lightbulb in the ceiling popped on. The light made her head hurt even more but she forced her eyes to stay open. She realized that she was lying just to the left of the bottom of the steps. Raising her pounding head, she saw Rory descending the stairs.

“Rory,” she said weakly as her head fell back onto the hard floor. “I must have passed out.”

“Of course you did,” Rory said, stepping in front of Lake. She smiled down at her.

“What?” Lake asked groggily.

“I know you did. I gave you a little something in your tea.”

Lake felt a sudden urge to vomit, tasting it in her mouth.

“I’m really very angry with you, Lake,” Rory said. “If you must know, I’m in a rage. But I’m too professional to let it show.”

“What…have I done?” Lake asked.

“What have you done? I think you know, Lake. You’re the reason Mark Keaton is dead.”

You must stay calm, Lake commanded herself, you must try to reason with her. “That’s not true,” she said. “I-I had nothing to do with that. I barely knew him.”

“But you knew him well enough to fuck him. You were with him that night, Lake. Don’t lie to me. You gave it away for sure when we were in that stupid piano bar-you knew about his terrace.”

Lake’s heart was pounding so hard she could hear the sound in her head.

“I’d called him that night, you know,” Rory said. “I’d told him before I left that day about our baby. It was a little bit of a shock for him but I knew he was going to be very, very happy. We just needed to talk it through and work out all the details. But as soon as I heard his voice on the phone I knew he was expecting someone. I didn’t have any choice but to go there-and of course, I’d been smart enough to make a copy of the key.”

“And in case you’re thinking the police are going to figure out it was me because they have a record of the call, don’t. I made a point of telling them that I’d spoken to Dr. Keaton that night. I said he’d asked me to call him to follow up about a patient. But as you know very well, Lake, the last thing on his mind that night was a patient. When I walked in his bedroom, it was disgusting. I could tell from the smell he’d had sex with someone. And I was almost positive it was you.”

I have to do something, Lake thought desperately. She raised her head a little, just to see if she could.

“Rory, I-”

“Hush, Lake. I’m not some kind of fool. I’d seen you being super flirty with him for days. One night I’d even thought you might have lured him to your place. Women are such predators-they won’t leave men like Mark alone.”

“But-”

“Don’t you dare give me any buts. I know all about women like you. I knew I’d guessed right when I saw how petrified you looked when the police came to the clinic. I mentioned to the police how upset you were and I could tell they thought you’d been up to no good as well. At that point I had to flush you out and see how you reacted.”

“Did-did you shave Smokey?” Lake asked. She was stalling for time, trying to think.

“Is that what you call that fat ugly cat of yours? You never said a word about it to anyone. That’s when I knew you had something to hide.”

“I-”

“Oh, shut up, Lake. Don’t you see what you’ve done? Because of you, Mark will never see his baby.”

“But why kill him?”

“You’d obviously poisoned his mind against me. He wasn’t going to make any time for me or the baby. I’d be all by myself up here with our son and he’d be busy fucking you in the city.”

“Rory, I did go to Dr. Keaton’s place-but it was only to talk to him,” Lake said. Her words sounded hollow to her, but a lie was all she had left. “It was about the clinic. He’d been in touch with one of the women-one of the women who was given someone else’s embryos. I need your help to expose the clinic. What they’re doing is wrong. No one has to know about Dr. Keaton.”

Rory just stared down at Lake, her face blank. Lake couldn’t even guess what was behind her eyes. Was she possibly considering what Lake had said? she wondered.

“Liar,” Rory spat out. And then before Lake even saw it coming, Rory kicked her hard in the side of the head. She was wearing thin ballet flats, but the blow stung and her head was knocked back to the ground.

Involuntarily Lake moaned. Rory was going to kill her. Lake had to get out of the basement somehow.