Sucker Punch (33 page)

Jason shrugged. “How would I know? I’m just a stagehand. He doesn’t confide in me.” Even his voice had changed. It sounded harsh now. Clipped and angry. But he hadn’t completely abandoned his masquerade, and that gave me hope. If I could just get out of this office. If I could just get to the lobby. If I could just get out of the theater, everything would be all right.

“Right,” I said. “Well, then, I should probably get going.”

Jason gave me an odd look, but he nodded and said, “Why are you here, anyway?”

What excuse could I give for sneaking around in the theater in the middle of the night? “I’m helping Paisley,” I said when I couldn’t think of anything else.

Right in front of my eyes, the innocent young man slipped away and someone older and more confident took his place. “With what?”

“This and that.” Something he’d said earlier suddenly snapped into place and my mouth went dry.
Paisley told me that Alexander is the one who attacked you.
But when had Paisley told him that? I’d only told her a few minutes ago. Doing my best to sound normal, I said, “Speaking of Paisley, I’d better find her. I’m sure she’s wondering what happened to me by now.”

Jason’s brows knit and he shook his head sadly. “Oh, I don’t think so. Paisley’s not worried about much of anything right now.”

My blood turned to sludge in my veins. What did that mean? Had he hurt her . . . or worse?

“Did she leave without me?” I started toward the door, praying he wouldn’t stop me.

He stepped into my path and gave me a look filled with sadness. “No, she didn’t leave. She’s in the box office, right where I found her.”

I tried not to panic. “Is she hurt?”

Jason shrugged. “I don’t know. That depends on how much she knows.”

What was I supposed to say to that? I was having trouble breathing, so I concentrated on pulling air into my lungs and pushing it out again. “Paisley doesn’t know anything,” I said when I could speak again. “She’s just making some copies for me.”

“Of Alexander’s pictures? What do you need those for?”

Could I make him think I still suspected Alexander? I doubted it. All of my instincts urged me to stall for time, but I didn’t hold out much hope that anyone would come to help. Liberty might eventually get worried when I didn’t come back to my apartment. She might even call the police, but what would Nate do if she did? Probably nothing. At best, he’d drive by the theater, see that it was dark, and move on. Face it, nobody knew where I was. Nobody was coming to help. I was on my own.

Keeping one eye on me the whole time, Jason backed to the door, opened it, and grabbed a length of rope that he’d probably brought with him. Seeing it made my spirits lift. If he were about to kill me, why tie me up? I had to believe that he intended to keep me around—at least for a little while. There was a chance I could survive.

“Why couldn’t you have left things alone? Why did you have to keep poking around and trying to figure out who killed Laurence?”

I couldn’t see any harm in admitting the truth. “The police suspected a friend of mine, but I knew he didn’t kill Laurence.”

“Richie?” Jason looked almost sorry. “He’s a nice guy. I didn’t want to let him take the blame, but I’m not going to prison. Not for killing Laurence Nichols. I did the world a favor, and anyone who knew that son of a bitch would agree.”

“You’ve hated him for a long time, haven’t you?”

Jason nodded. “You have no idea how much.”

“Who was she? A girlfriend?”

He said nothing for a long time, then finally, “My sister. Tess.”

“And she committed suicide?”

“He lied to her. He used her. He made her believe he loved her, and then he just tossed her away like yesterday’s trash. And for
that
she gave up her life. Hell yes, I hated him. Put your hands out in front of you, please.”

Please?
Hysterical laughter bubbled up in my throat, but I swallowed it and held my hands out as instructed. Some long-forgotten warning shot through my head, and I left some room between my wrists so he couldn’t bind them tight.

He caught on to my trick and forced my wrists together roughly. “I don’t want to do this, Abby. Don’t make it more difficult than it already is.”

Was he serious? What did he want me to do, apologize for the inconvenience? My body ached all over from the attack in the parking lot, and every jerk, every shove, every bite of the rope threatened to bring on the tears.

My mind raced through possibilities as he finished cinching my wrists together and began binding me to the chair with a second piece of rope, but there wasn’t much I could do. Even if there had been a butcher knife sitting right in front of me, I wouldn’t have been able to grab it.

I should never have left home without Max. I should never have come to the Playhouse without letting someone know what I was doing. I’d been
attacked
. Viciously. I should have known better.

Stop it
! I told myself firmly. It didn’t matter how I got here, what mattered was getting away. That’s what I needed to think about.

I searched the foggy recesses of my brain for the last thing Jason had said, and latched onto it. “If you hated Laurence so much, why did you wait so long to come after him?”

Jason pulled the rope around my stomach so tight I thought I might throw up. “I was too young at first. I didn’t think I could do it. But my mom got sick after Tess died, and she just never got better. Depression, they said. They pumped her full of pills for a few years and tried getting her to talk about what bothered her, but none of it did any good. She just wasted away.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, and I genuinely meant it. He’d suffered a double tragedy, and he’d blamed it all on Laurence. “So you found out where he was going to be working, and you applied for a job?”

Satisfied that I wouldn’t be able to move my upper body, Jason moved on to my lower half. He tied a knot around one ankle and lashed my leg to the chair. “Naw. I didn’t go looking for him or anything. I got the job here a couple of months ago. I was trying hard to move on with my life. And then one day, there he was. I couldn’t believe it.”

“Did he know who you were?”

Jason shook his head and yanked the rope hard. “He didn’t even remember my sister. I asked him about her. He couldn’t even remember her name.”

“He was a jerk,” I said. “And he treated women shamefully. He left a path of destruction behind him everywhere he went. But killing him wasn’t the right way to deal with it, Jason. And what about the rest of us? Why did you attack Vonetta? And Colleen? And me?”

He tied the knot tight and stood. “You just got in the way. The others were partly responsible for Tess and my mom.”

“How?”

“Colleen talked Tess into trying out for that part. She’s the one who brought that ass into our lives.”

“And Vonetta?”

Jason turned toward the door. “She told Tess to go out with him. Kept saying what a nice guy Laurence was. Convinced Tess that she’d be all right with him, in spite of their age difference.”

“But she had no way of knowing what Laurence was really like. Not then!”

“Didn’t she?”

I could tell he didn’t believe me. “Neither of them would make the same mistakes now,” I assured him. “Laurence has hurt them both. And what about Alexander? What have you done to him?”

Jason ignored me and disappeared into the shop area and returned with a roll of duct tape and a box cutter. “Now here’s what I want you to do,” he said. “I’m going to put this on your mouth, and then I’m going to leave for a little while.”

He wound the tape around my head, covering my mouth. The bruises from the attack burned as the tape stuck to them, and I cried out in protest. He ignored me and kept wrapping until it felt as if my entire head was on fire.

“I want you to stay right here until I get back,” he said, surveying his handiwork. “If you do, I’ll let you live when I leave here. If you don’t . . .” He held the box cutter to his throat and made a slashing motion, then shut the door and left me alone.

His footsteps faded away almost immediately, and I got to work. He’d left my nose clear, so I could breathe, but the tape around my mouth made me feel as if I’d suffocate any minute. Using every muscle I could, I tried to scoot the chair closer to the desk. I’d noticed a pair of scissors in one of the drawers earlier. I wasn’t naive enough to believe that he’d let me live after all of this. My only hope lay in finding a way to escape.

If I could reach the scissors, and open the blades, and position myself just so, I might be able to cut through the rope. The chair scraped across the floor inch by inch, the noise so loud each time I moved, I was sure Jason would hear it and come back to finish me off. Pain seared my head and neck, and lashed repeatedly through my forehead until I thought I’d pass out from that alone.

At last, I moved close enough to touch the drawer with my fingertips. I struggled for a long time, trying to get a finger under the notch in the drawer long enough to work it open, but my hands were at the wrong angle, and the ropes dug painfully into my wrists when I strained too far in either direction.

Frantic now, I looked around for something else I could use to free myself. I’d been trapped inside a burning building a few months earlier, and the panic of that morning came back to me as I struggled to free myself.

Finally, with no alternative in sight, I shoved the chair backward and rubbed the ropes against the corner of the desk. It wasn’t nearly sharp enough to cut anything, but I had to do something. I couldn’t just sit here and wait for Jason to get back.

After only a few minutes, my shoulders and arms ached from the effort of moving my hands up and down. Sweat trickled down my back and dripped into my eyes. I had no idea whether I was making progress or not, but it didn’t matter. Too soon, I heard footsteps approaching the office again, and I knew my time was up.

I barely had time to register the footsteps when the door flew open and Paisley scurried inside. I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my life. A bright red mark showed on one cheek, and she limped slightly, but she was alive and she’d come back to save me. Every mean thought I’ve ever had about her evaporated.

Putting one finger to her mouth, she closed the door soundlessly and hurried toward me, whispering, “I was afraid you’d be dead! Come on! Let’s get out of here before he gets back.”

She untied my hands and started to work on my feet while I pulled the tape from my mouth and hair, ripping out what felt like a few solid handfuls in the process. I gulped air and rubbed my wrists to get the circulation going, then turned my attention to the rope around my torso. “I was afraid he’d killed you,” I said, keeping my voice low. “Where did he go?”

“Outside somewhere, but I don’t think he’s gone far. We have to get out of here now.” She freed one foot, then another, and I stood shakily. She scowled up at me. “Can you walk?”

“Yes. Let’s go.” I didn’t want to spend one more second in that room.

We slipped out of the office and closed the door behind us, but then we faced a dilemma. If we went to the right, we’d have to cut through the ladies’ dressing room, which would at least give us hiding places if we needed them. But on the other side of that was the long corridor with nowhere to turn until we reached the lobby. If we turned left, we’d go through the rehearsal hall. Fewer places to hide, but it was a shorter run to the front door. Or we could jog a few steps to the right and shoot straight through the auditorium to the outside door.

All three options zipped through my head in about a second and a half. Making a snap decision, I grabbed Paisley’s wrist and tugged her toward the auditorium. We raced up the ramp and into the deserted room. Images of Laurence’s body lying on the stage rose up in front of me, but I pushed them away resolutely. Nothing was going to stop me from getting out of there.

Two minutes later, we pushed out the front doors into the frigid night. The cold had never felt so good. We didn’t take time to lock the door behind us. All that mattered was getting away. We paused for only a second to get our bearings and look for Jason, before plunging off the curb and racing across the street. By unspoken mutual agreement, we headed for Alpine Sports and the obscurity it provided where it blocked the light. It would also provide shelter from the wind that buffeted us as we ran. From there, we’d just have to cross one more street before we reached the safety of the Curl Up & Dye.

The raging storm swept the sound of our footsteps away as we ran, and I hoped that meant that Jason wouldn’t be able to hear us if he was nearby. Just as we slipped into the shadows cast by the sporting goods store, the lights of an approaching car swept over the spot where we’d been just a second before. My heart thumped madly as I glanced over my shoulder. Was it Jason? Had he come back? Had he seen us?