but how much reassurance could I give her when we were both chained to the wall in a house with a serial killer?
But her panic was short-lived. “Alex!” she cried. “Alex, oh my God, oh my God, I thought he killed you!”
I shook my head and spoke loudly enough to be heard over Mr. Grove’s squeals. “No, no, I’m fine. I’m completely fine.” The cuts, burns, and other assorted wounds gave away my lie, but my safety wasn’t the important thing now.
“Tracy! What’s he done with her?”
“Don’t worry about her,” said Darren, coming up the stairs and walking into the room. “How about we keep the noise level down to a dull roar, huh?” he asked, pointing the gun at each of us in turn.
“Where is she?” I demanded.
“Resting. And no, not in the pit, so don’t look at me like that.” He gestured to Mr. Grove. “Is he always this loud?” He set the pistol down on a stool next to the metal table, went over to the shelf, selected a large mallet, and showed it to Mr. Grove. “Don’t make me use this.”
Mr. Grove went silent.
Darren grinned and waved the mallet at me. “See, Alex, if you’d had one of these at work, your problems would have been over.” He surveyed the room. “Looks like everything is all set. I’ll go get Tracy Anne.”
He left and headed back downstairs.
“What’s he going to do?” Melanie asked, desperately.
“I don’t know.” I did know; I knew exactly what he was going to do, but I couldn’t say it out loud. Instead, I said: “I love you.”
“I love you, Alex.”
“We’ll get out of this. I promise. We’ll get out of here, and everything will be back to the way it was…no, it’ll be even better, because we’ll have a book deal and we’ll never have to spend time apart ever again and we’ll…” My voice cracked. “We’ll be fine. We’ll be happy.”
I heard footsteps on the staircase. A moment later, Darren walked back into the room, holding Tracy by the hand. She was looking at the ground, shoulders shaking as she wept.
“Don’t cry,” Darren said, sounding a bit uncomfortable with the task of reassuring a child. “Nothing bad is going to happen to you.”
“You leave her alone!” Melanie screamed.
“I knew I should’ve taped you up,” Darren said, crossing over to the shelf. He retrieved a spool of duct tape and crouched down next to Melanie. She jerked her head around, trying to prevent him from getting the tape over her mouth, but after a few moments of struggle he managed the task.
Tracy stood there, frozen.
Darren turned his attention to me. “I need you to be part of this, and that’ll be a lot more difficult if I have to tape you up, too. Think you can behave?”
I nodded.
“That’s good, because if things go wrong, Melanie is going to be our cutting board.” Darren stood up and returned to the shelf. He selected a scalpel.
Melanie looked at me, pleading with me to help our daughter, but of course there wasn’t a thing I could do.
Darren knelt down in front of Tracy, getting down to her level. “Do you know who I am?” he asked.
Tracy didn’t look up.
“Look at me, Tracy.” He touched her chin, gently lifting her head. “Do you know who I am?”
She shook her head.
“I’m your daddy’s friend. I’ve been his friend for a long time. I’ve known him since before you were even born. In fact, I’ve known him since before he even met your mommy. Isn’t that neat?”
Tracy continued to cry.
Darren patted Mr. Grove’s leg. “Do you know who this is?”
“No.”
“Sure you do. You’ve seen him before, haven’t you?”
“Uh-uh.”
“You’ve just forgotten. That’s okay. I’m sure you’re a little scared, even though there’s no reason to be. You know Mr. Grove, don’t you? You’ve met him a couple of times.”
Tracy nodded.
“And who’s Mr. Grove?”
“Daddy’s boss.”
“That’s right. See, you knew all along. Your daddy hates Mr. Grove. Mr. Grove keeps your daddy away from you. Did you know that?”
Tracy began to cry harder.
“Do you think that people who keep little girls away from their daddies are good people?”
“No.”
“So Mr. Grove is a bad person, isn’t he?”
Tracy Anne looked up at Darren. “You kept me away from Daddy worse.”
“You’re right, I did. But I did it because it was really important.”
“Daddy’s job is important.”
Darren appeared momentarily flustered that he was losing an argument with a terrified five-year-old, but regained his composure. “Is Daddy’s job more important than you?”
“No. Neither are you.”
I didn’t