The front door was locked, but when I lifted the flowerpot, expecting to find an empty space, the spare key glinted in the sunshine, another clear sign Maya thought she’d beaten me. My heart sped up again, fear bubbling inside me, but I was here now. I had the time, the opportunity—and I had to act, do something.
I pushed the key into the lock. The front door groaned as I opened it farther, and I listened for movement. Although everything was quiet, I tiptoed across the hallway, checked all the rooms on both floors before finally believing I was on my own. I opened one of the front windows a little, hoping it would be enough to hear the crunching gravel if a car pulled up. Keeping one eye on the driveway, I searched through the living room and the kitchen, quickly rummaging through the cupboards and the old dresser, coming up with nothing, not even the receipt from the drugstore Ash had mentioned, which would’ve been a start.
One thing was certain. Maya wouldn’t be dumb enough to leave anything implicating her just lying around. I headed back up the stairs to her bedroom, terrified she’d jump out as I stepped in. I needn’t have worried. The only things greeting me were the ticking of a clock and the scent of fresh laundry. I went to her bed and ran my fingers underneath the mattress. No, too easy. Whatever she was hiding had to be somewhere more private. I checked out the obvious places anyway, including the toilet cistern and the bathroom cabinet, but the only things I found were tampons, scissors, nail files, cotton swabs and a couple of bottles of headache pills, which appeared legitimate. So much for hiding things in plain sight.
My impatience grew. I searched through the spare room, and Ash’s, too, but still found nothing. Maya was cunning, had a mind with more twists than a corkscrew...or perhaps I’d become crazier than her.
I stood in the house, trying to think of my next move, and as I looked out of the window, it dawned on me I was in the wrong place. If Maya was hiding something, it had to be in the garage. Excitement fluttered in my belly as I headed out of the house and crossed the driveway. The side door to the garage was unlocked, but I didn’t ponder why for long, because the enormity—the impossibility—of the challenge ahead settled on my shoulders, weighing me down. There were so many places Maya could’ve hidden something. Nooks and crannies, boxes and crates. It would take me days to do a thorough search. Even with them out of town I’d never get it done. I was debating whether to give up and leave when I noticed the old orange rug. It had been shoved to one side, exposing the trapdoor to the old room below. An ideal place to hide if you were a kid, but also to stash something you didn’t want anyone to find.
I pulled the door open, flicked on the light, and with the blood thundering in my ears, put my left foot on the ladder. I counted the steps as I descended, one, two, three, four—ten in total before I reached solid ground, my heart sinking when I saw the shelving units had been taken out, the empty bottles removed. The room was completely empty. Not only that, but I still didn’t know what I was searching for. I was about to climb back up when I heard sounds above me. Footsteps coming closer. There was no time to reach the light switch and pull the trapdoor closed, so I hugged the wall, made myself as small as possible.
“Well, well, well,” Maya said as she approached. “What are you doing, Lily?”
How did she know it was me? I was standing too far back for her to see me.
In a sickly singsong voice she said, “I know you’re down there...” Still, I didn’t move. “My mistake.” She sighed before flicking off the light, plunging me into darkness as she pulled the ladder up two feet.
“Wait,” I shouted, taking a few steps and looking up at her.
She smiled with a coldness I’d never seen before, not in anyone. “There you are... Why don’t you come up so we can have a proper conversation?”
I hesitated, but what choice did I have? “I can explain.” I put my foot on the first rung of the ladder, knowing she’d relish the tremble in my voice I hadn’t been able to hide.
“I’m sure you can. Let’s go to the house and talk things through with Ash.”
Ash was home? I sighed with relief. Although I knew how furious he’d be at my breaking in, at least I wasn’t alone with her. I climbed the ladder faster now, but when I reached the third rung from the top she pulled back and swung something in my direction, aiming straight for the side of my head.
Although I saw the piece of driftwood coming, I had no time to react, not even to put my hands up. My upper body was completely exposed as she brought the makeshift club down onto my skull. I cried out as I lost my grip on the ladder and fell. As I landed with a thud at the bottom, all the air left my lungs in a single whoosh. My head throbbed. My eyes went blurry. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Not even when Maya climbed down and stood over me.
“I warned you,” she said, taking my phone and keys from my pocket. “You should’ve listened. If you’d stayed in Brookmount, none of this would have happened.”
I wanted to get to my feet, but more of my vision faded, softening everything around the edges. As I heard her climb back upstairs, I held up a hand, silently begging her to come back, to not leave me down there. The last thing I saw
