House at the End of the Street Read online

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked. She tried to keep her voice calm. She wanted him to believe that he could let her go, that she wouldn’t reveal his secret—that that was still an option.

  He wiped at his bloodshot eyes and took a ragged breath. “Carrie Anne died that day on the swings. It was my fault. She was so small, and I grabbed her hand; I pulled her off the swing and she fell. There was this horrible crunching sound. I didn’t know what had happened, but her eyes went completely cold. It was like she wasn’t there anymore. She was just so little.…” He crumpled against the doorframe, putting his face in his hands. He kept banging his palms against his brow, as if he were trying to get a memory out of his head.

  Elissa slowly processed what he’d said, the fear building inside her. Every hair on the back of her neck was standing up straight. “If she died, then who killed your parents?”

  “I can’t live without her. She was my sister, and it was all my fault. They said it was my fault,” he wailed.

  Elissa let out a slow breath. “You can live without her. You have me now.” She tried to sound sweet and inviting, hoping her voice would calm him down.

  He looked at her, his eyes blurry with tears. He seemed so disoriented. “You’re not Carrie Anne. I can’t have you both—I don’t deserve it. They were trying to punish me. You have to understand. They wanted to punish me for what I did.”

  Elissa tried to contain the terror she felt. She wanted to scream, to try desperately to be heard. How much longer would it be before her mother got home and realized she wasn’t there? Had the call gone through? If Sarah had called her back and hadn’t gotten a response, she would’ve tried again until Elissa picked up. It was possible she knew something was wrong.

  She watched Ryan rock slowly back and forth, his hands still pounding his forehead. If Carrie Anne had died years before, then Ryan must have been the one to murder his parents—there was no one else who could have done it. That seemed plausible now. She’d never seen someone so unhinged. All that time she’d believed he was still recovering from the trauma he suffered as a child, but doing okay. She felt so stupid now, so naïve. But how could she have predicted this—that he was so wildly not okay?

  He stood up straight suddenly. Afraid he might strike her again, she felt her back go rigid. Instead, he moved methodically, untying Rebecca’s restraints. The girl’s body was limp as he scooped her up and started back down the hall. “I can’t have both of you,” he muttered. “I’m not allowed.”

  “Ryan!” Elissa screamed. She pulled against the twine, but it cut into her skin, holding her down. “Ryan, where are you taking her?”

  There was no reply.

  *

  He was gone for twenty minutes, maybe more. It was hard to know what was happening upstairs. She thought she heard the garage door opening or the sound of a car trunk slamming shut. She watched the small baby monitor in the corner. It had a screen that showed an interior shot of the living room. She kept her eyes on it, wondering if her mother would come to the door or if he would cut across the shot, but neither of them ever appeared on-screen.

  On the wall of the room was another picture of Carrie Anne. She looked older than five. In the photo she must’ve been twelve, at least. Who was that girl, then? Had Ryan lied about when and how she died? The photograph was taken from the side. Carrie Anne’s long blond hair fell in her eyes, half hiding her face. On a mirror on the far wall in the image she could see the tiny silhouette of his parents, the mother holding the camera taking the shot. Mrs. Jacobsen’s face looked strangely distant.

  Elissa kept studying the girl’s profile. It felt oddly familiar. She must have been at least twelve, but the math didn’t add up. Ryan had said Carrie Anne had died when she was five and he was seven. Elissa was certain of that.

  She looked at the slope of the girl’s nose, the strange way the hair sat on her head, slightly thicker and coarser than what you would imagine for a girl who was that age. The strangest thought came to her then. Is it possible—?

  Ryan came back. He was calmer, his body relaxed. He went to the table and started fishing through the drawers, looking for something. “What happened, Ryan? Where is she?” Elissa tried. He ignored her, pretending she hadn’t spoken at all.

  He was rifling through the drawer when a small, red light flashed above the door. It blinked twice and he turned, starting back out the door.

  “It wasn’t your fault she died, Ryan,” Elissa said, trying to engage him in conversation. “It was an accident. You were so young.” If she could just keep him there, she might be able to talk him into letting her go free.

  “No, it wasn’t,” Ryan snapped. “It was my fault. That’s why they punished me.”

  “What do you mean they punished you?” Elissa tried.

  “But then I stopped them.”

  “Tell me what you mean, Ryan,” she tried again. “Tell me what happened to your parents. I can keep your secrets.”

  Suddenly a voice could be heard through the baby monitor. Elissa saw a figure standing at the front door. It was a police officer—a man about forty years old. “Ryan! Are you there?” he yelled. He pounded several times on the door.

  Elissa sucked in her breath, yelling as loud as she possibly could. “Help! I’m down in the basement! Please help me!”

  “Ryan Jacobsen!” The officer kept knocking. Ryan grabbed a handkerchief from the drawer and knotted it around Elissa’s head, tying the end of it in her mouth. She gagged several times as she tried to scream through the cloth. Then Ryan turned to go. He didn’t look back at her as he climbed the ladder, the trapdoor falling shut behind him.

  Ryan stood at the top of the basement stairs. He straightened his shirt and made sure there were no blood smears on his clothes. This wasn’t his fault. He had been punished for so long; he was just trying to make everything right. Why couldn’t they all see that he was trying to make it right? He wouldn’t let Officer Weaver take the girl away from him. He’d already lost Carrie Anne once. He wouldn’t let it happen again.

  He walked into the kitchen, taking in the silhouette just outside the door. Weaver had his hands cupped over his eyes, trying to see inside the dark kitchen. He’d come to know this man over the years. Weaver said he looked out for him. He was the one who’d come by when people were outside, throwing rocks through the upstairs windows. Weaver claimed he cared about Ryan—he said he was there if Ryan needed someone to talk to, though they he never had.

  “Ryan, I was just at the hospital,” Officer Weaver said as Ryan opened the door and let him in. “I saw what you did to Tyler’s leg. His parents are threatening to sue. Want to tell me what happened?”

  Weaver’s eyes scanned the kitchen. Ryan moved in front of the trash can, closing the lid behind him. He blocked it from Weaver’s view. “All I did was fight back.”

  Weaver rested his hands on his belt. “Listen, I’m going to do my best to get this to blow over. But I need you to stay out of trouble.”

  Nothing is going to blow over, Ryan thought. It was too late now. Everything was wrong. Any chance he’d had for a normal life had disappeared long ago. Everything was punishment now, punishment for what he’d done to Carrie Anne.

  Ryan leveled his eyes at the officer. “You ever get tired of playing tough guy?” he asked. This was always Weaver’s routine, telling Ryan what to do, pretending like he was protecting him. He’d never protected him. No one had.

  Weaver let out a long, slow breath. “I’ll call you in the morning so you can give your statement. Elissa’s mom is worried about her. She sent me over here because she thought Elissa was with you. Have you seen her?”

  Ryan’s eyes fell somewhere on the floor. He picked at his fingers, a numbness spreading out inside of him. “I saw her earlier at the Battle of the Bands,” he lied. “Isn’t she there?”

  “No. We thought she might be at home, but she’s not there either.” Weaver stared him down. Ryan hated how the officer studied him, his house, as if it were his
right to be here. Get out of my house, Ryan thought, the rage building inside him. This is my house—the only thing I have left.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” Weaver said. As he walked out, his eyes lingered for a moment on the counter. Then he stepped onto the porch, the door closing behind him.

  Ryan turned, noticing the girl’s wallet sitting there in plain view. Weaver had seen it—he knew he had. Ryan threw it in the trash can and went to the door, locking it. He started back toward the basement, when he heard a phone ringing—Elissa’s phone. In the dimly lit kitchen he couldn’t make out exactly where it was. He glanced out onto the front porch, where he saw Weaver, his cell phone pressed to his ear. He had turned back to the house when he’d heard the first ring coming from somewhere inside.

  Ryan scurried along the kitchen floor, moving quickly around the middle island, trying to find it. He finally spotted it under the table, the light glowing from the plastic screen. He made a dive for it. When he had it in his hands, he managed to turn it off, but it was too late. Weaver was already at the door. He pounded hard against the glass.

  “Ryan—open up!” he yelled. “I know she’s in there.”

  From where Ryan was hiding he could see Weaver draw his gun. Weaver broke the pane with the butt of it, then reached inside, unlocking the dead bolt. “Ryan?” he said again, stepping back into the dark kitchen. Ryan slunk deeper into the house, hiding near the pantry.

  Weaver carefully moved around the kitchen, holding his gun in front of him. Ryan watched him, his eyes moving from the officer, back to the open basement door. He wouldn’t let anyone take Elissa from him. She was his now, and she would be here because Carrie Anne couldn’t be. She would stay with him here and he would take care of her, make everything right. Weaver would have to understand that.

  Ryan pressed himself against the pantry as Weaver moved closer to the basement door. Anger pulsed through Ryan’s veins. As soon as Weaver was within striking distance, Ryan kicked him hard in the back, sending him tumbling down the basement stairs.

  Ryan ran after him, watching as Weaver landed with a crack on the cold concrete floor. The man twisted in pain. The memories returned, and Ryan had to blink back tears. He kicked the gun away from them and pressed his knee down into the center of Weaver’s chest. “You could have stopped all this a long time ago. But you didn’t. You let them do what they did. You knew. You were there.”

  His hands were shaking. He rocked back and forth, pressing his knee into Weaver’s chest, and the man winced in pain. Ryan couldn’t stop thinking of that day—the day Carrie Anne had died. His parents had been in their room, the smoke from the drugs drifting out of the window. Their eyes were half closed when they came outside. Weaver had been there—he had watched it all happen. Back then he spent afternoons at their house getting high when he was supposed to be on patrol. You were there, Ryan thought, pressing his knee into Weaver’s chest even harder than before. You saw it all.

  After Carrie Anne had died, Weaver had helped Mr. Jacobsen take the body into the woods. They wrapped her tiny body in a sheet and secured it with duct tape. Then they buried her—his five-year-old sister—in a pit. Ryan still knew the spot. It was just beyond an old elm tree that twisted to the left. There was a dense patch of wildflowers that grew there.

  Ryan remembered how badly he’d shaken with fear and grief. His whole body had been trembling, and he’d been crying. But his mother had been too high to comfort him. She’d seemed catatonic as she sat next to him on the back steps. When his father and Weaver had come back, they’d put the shovel back in the garage, as if it hadn’t happened at all. I don’t think you have much of a choice but to go along with this Bill, his father had said. No one can know what happened. No one can know he killed Carrie Anne.

  Ryan pulled the switchblade from his back pocket. He’d always kept it hidden in the kitchen and had secured it when he’d first entered the house and had heard Elissa inside. He flicked his wrist and the blade came out.

  He buried it in Weaver’s chest, between two of his top ribs. He felt only rage as he drove the blade in. “I protected you,” Weaver said, struggling against it. He reached for his gun, but it was several feet away.

  Ryan’s eyes were full of tears. He couldn’t contain the anger he felt for this man—the man who’d helped bury his sister, who watched for years as his parents abused him. They had wanted to punish him for what happened. No, they’d never admitted it was their fault. They’d never admitted they’d been locked away in their room getting high. It hadn’t been their fault—they’d reminded him of that every day. It was his. “No, you protected yourself. You protected them. Even though you knew what they did to me.”

  He watched as Weaver strained against the blade, then went limp. Blood covered his hands. Ryan hated him—he hated him for letting them do it. He had only been seven years old. They had punished him for what had happened, and they would’ve kept punishing him if he hadn’t stopped it himself.

  When Weaver was completely still, Ryan let go of the blade, falling back on the floor. The smell of blood was in the air. He hated it—he hated them. He took a breath, trying to calm himself as he sat there. It was over—Weaver was dead. They were all dead. He had stopped them.

  When he finally caught his breath, he wiped his hands on his pants, smearing them with blood. The wave of anger subsided for a moment. Then he pulled open the trapdoor, disappearing again below it.

  Ryan had been gone for several minutes. Elissa watched the officer appear and then disappear on the monitor, and now she could hear a scuffle somewhere above. She strained against the rope. She couldn’t move her hands at all, only her ankles. She kicked them away from the chair’s sturdy wooden legs, trying to loosen the bonds.

  A metal lamp was only a few inches away. It was three feet tall, the bulb exposed. She heaved and twisted her entire body, moving the chair just a little bit forward, toward the lamp. She pushed her ankle out, reaching with her toe until she kicked the lamp forward. It wobbled a bit. She kicked it again and again, until it fell toward her.

  The searing hot bulb landed on her forearm. The pain was excruciating. She winced against it, trying hard not to scream. She leaned forward, nudging the bulb a little farther down her arm until it landed on her wrist. The thin rope started to melt. The air filled with the smell of smoking plastic. She moved her wrist up and down, trying not to scream as the rope melted on her skin.

  The cell door had fallen closed. She heard the trapdoor creaking open and the heavy sound of footsteps on the ladder. She moved quickly, freeing her hand, then working at the other wrist, trying to untie the other rope. It took her a minute before she was able to unknot all three restraints. The skin on her arm still burned. It was red and swollen from where the bulb had touched it.

  The footsteps came closer. Elissa darted behind the door, pressing herself against the wall so he wouldn’t see her when he came in. She tried to stay perfectly still, even as the rough concrete dug into her back.

  Slowly, the door opened. She inched toward it, hiding against its cold metal back. Ryan stepped inside the small cell. Every muscle in her body tensed at the sight of him. There was blood all over his hands and on his jeans. He was hunched forward, his fingers gripping a knife. He took in the corners of the room—the twin bed, the chair where Elissa had been, the burnt rope. Before he could turn she darted around the door, pulling it shut behind her. She turned the lock quickly.

  Ryan pounded his fists violently against it. He threw his whole weight into it, shaking the wall. She climbed the ladder as fast as she could and let the trapdoor fall flat. She took in the dank basement. It was then that she saw the officer’s body. Blood pooled around his right side. His eyes were still open. Her fingers tensed in a fist.

  She looked around the room, trying to find something to seal the trapdoor shut. Ryan was screaming in the cell below. Her head still ached. Now that she was standing, dizziness threatened to overtake her. She grabbed the edges of the washing machi
ne, trying to steady herself. She took a deep breath and with a few hard pulls she managed to get it a few feet from the wall. Then she went behind it, toppling it over the trapdoor to weigh it down.

  She darted up the basement stairs, feeling for the knob. She twisted it, but it didn’t give. She tried it again and again but it still wouldn’t open. Her heart was racing, her entire body shaking with the realization: She was completely trapped.

  She went back down the stairs, feeling at the officer’s waist. His gun was gone. He had handcuffs, a few bullets in a leather case, and a flashlight. She tried his pockets, but there wasn’t anything useful. She took the thick metal flashlight, hoping she could use it as a weapon if she needed to.

  Think, Elissa said to herself. Think think think. Far below, she heard the cell door bang open. Ryan was screaming as he climbed the ladder. “You better get back here,” he yelled, his voice filled with fury.

  The washing machine was halfway over the door, but he strained against it, the wood slats creaking as though they might break. She scanned the room, using the flashlight to figure out what was there. Besides the washer and dryer, there was a water heater and a wall of metal pipes with some old cleaning supplies and concrete blocks. In the corner she found another door. She slammed her shoulder into it, bursting into the garage.

  She spun around to try and secure the door, but there was no way to bolt it shut. She darted toward the garage door, yanking up on the handle. It wouldn’t budge. In the dark she could only see flashes of the room. She looked at the edges of the wall, trying to find a button for a garage opener, but there was none in sight.

  She climbed into the car, and sat in the driver’s seat, groping with her fingers, feeling the ignition. No keys. Nothing. The inside of the sedan, looked so different now. This was the car he’d kidnapped Rebecca in. He’d brought her here, possibly giving her a ride the same way he’d given Elissa a ride two weeks before. She tried not to think about it as she rifled through the glove compartment, looking for anything she could use as a weapon. There were only maps and a few old cassette tapes.