We were best friends. We didn’t want to ruin it.
CHAPTER 85
NAOMI THOUGHT that she was finally losing the last pieces of her sanity. She had just seen Alex kill Casanova, even though she knew it hadn’t really happened. She’d seen the shooting with her own eyes. She was hallucinating, and she couldn’t stop the waves of delusion anymore.
She talked to herself sometimes. The sound of her own voice was comforting.
Naomi became quiet and thoughtful as she sat on an armchair in the darkened prison cell. Her violin was there, but she hadn’t played it in days. She was afraid for a whole new reason now. Maybe he wasn’t coming back again.
Maybe Casanova had been caught, and he wouldn’t tell the police where he kept his captives. That was his ultimate leverage, wasn’t it? That was his diabolical secret. His final edge and bargaining chip.
Maybe he’d already been killed in a shoot-out. How could the police hope to find her and the others if he was dead? Something’s happened, she thought. He hasn’t been here in the last two days. Something has changed.
She desperately wanted to see sunny blue skies, grass, the Gothic spires of the university, the layered terraces at the Sarah Duke Gardens, even the Potomac River in all of its muddy-gray glory back home in Washington.
She finally got up from the easy chair beside her bed. Very, very slowly, Naomi shuffled across the bare wooden floor, and stood by the locked door with her cheek pressed against the cool wood.
Should I do this crazy thing? she wondered. Do I sign my own death warrant?
Naomi could barely catch her breath. She listened for sounds in the mysterious house, any tiny, insignificant sound at all. The rooms had been soundproofed—but if you made enough noise, some sound carried through the eerie building.
She went over what she wanted to say, exactly what she would say.
My name is Naomi Cross. Where are you, Kristen? Green Eyes? I’ve decided that you’re right. We have to do something…. We have to do something together…. He’s not coming back.
Naomi had thought this moment through clearly, intelligently, she hoped—but she couldn’t say the words out loud. She understood that plotting against him could mean her death.
Kristen Miles had called out to her a few times during the past twenty-four hours, but Naomi hadn’t answered back. It was forbidden to talk, and she had seen his warning to them. The hanged woman a few days before. Poor Anna Miller. Another law student.
She couldn’t hear anything, right now. White noise, that was all. The static of silence. The gentle hum of eternity. There was never even the sound of a car. Not a single backfire or a distant horn. Not even the boom of an airplane passing overhead.
Naomi had decided they must be underground, at least a couple of levels down into the earth. Had he built this underground complex, this sinplex? Had he thought it all through, dreamed about it, and then done it in some burst of psychopathic fury and energy? She thought that he had indeed.
She was getting herself ready to break the silence. She had to talk to Kristen, to Green Eyes. Her mouth was so dry. It felt like cotton wool. Naomi finally licked her lips.
“I would kill for a Coke, I would kill him for a Coke,” she, whispered to herself. “I could kill him given the chance.”
I could kill Casanova. I could commit a murder. I’m that far gone, aren’t I? she thought and had to stifle a sob.
Naomi finally called out in a loud, strong voice. “Kristen, can you hear me? Kristen? It’s Naomi Cross!”
She was shivering, and warm tears streamed down her cheeks. She’d gone against him and his shitty, sacred rules.
Green Eyes called back immediately. The other woman’s voice sounded so good. “I can hear you, Naomi! I think I’m only a few doors away from you. I hear you fine. Keep talking, I’m sure he’s not here, Naomi.”
Naomi didn’t think anymore about what she was doing. Maybe he wasn’t there; maybe he was. It didn’t matter now.
“He’s going to kill us,” she called back. “Something’s different about him! He’s going to kill us for sure. If we’re going to do anything, we have to do it the first chance we get.”
“Naomi’s right!” Kristen’s voice was slightly muffled, as if she were talking from the bottom of a well. “Do you all hear Naomi? Of course you do!”
“I have one idea for everyone to consider.” Naomi spoke even more loudly this time. She wanted to keep this communication going now. They all had to hear her, all the trapped women. “The next time he gets us together—we have to go for it. If we rush him all at once, he might hurt some of us. But he can’t stop all of us! What do you think?”
Just then the heavy wooden door to
Naomi’s room opened a crack. Light streamed in.
Naomi watched in stark horror as the door swung open. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak a word.