“Please, you have to help me,” she croaks out. “He’s wrong. He’s got the wrong girl.”
I take a step toward her. She flinches away, obviously not knowing what to expect from me. She’s got a dusting of freckles across her button nose and plump cheeks.
“He’s never wrong,” I say. My mouth is so dry that my tongue feels like sandpaper.
She must be thirsty too.
“Do you want some water?” I ask.
She nods.
I grab a bottle of water from the mini fridge and bring it to her. She gulps the water down while I do my best to pour it into her mouth. Up close, I can smell her. Lemon-verbena, mint, and dust. She even smells like innocence. This girl is not a threat. She doesn’t deserve to feel excruciating pain.
I look away as a shudder cascades through me. Images flash inside my head like an old slide show. Lazaro’s bliss-filled eyes when they take their last breaths. The way his pants tent at the crotch. The proud look he gives me while I’m shaking on the floor with blood all over my hands.
“Please help me,” she begs.
There’s a dull pain in my throat. “I don’t have a choice.”
I wish I did. I wish I could stop being so afraid.
“There’s always a choice. You can choose to help me.” Another tear spills down her right cheek and drips off her chin onto her shirt. “I can see you’re a good person.”
My teeth dig into my bottom lip. A good person? If I was one, I’d find a way to be brave.
Lazaro told me what he’d do if I stop.
He’ll kill Lorna, and he’ll torture me.
He knows me well enough to know my desire to protect our innocent housekeeper would keep me in line.
But this girl is innocent too.
She holds my gaze, her young eyes shining with desperate determination that feels all too familiar… Cleo. She reminds me of my little sister.
She might be someone’s sister too. A daughter. Maybe a mother one day.
How can I take that away from her?
And that’s when the realization slams into me.
I can’t.
If there’s even a small chance I can get her out of this, I have to take it.
My lungs expand with a deep breath. It’s the first one I’ve taken in weeks.
“You don’t want to hurt me,” the girl says in a hushed voice.
No, I don’t. I think I’ve always known it would come to this one day. I held on for as long as I could, but I can’t do it anymore.
I’m going to get her out of here.
Which means I need a plan, and I need it fast.
My surroundings come into sharper focus as I come to terms with what I’ll have to do.
Lazaro must be neutralized.
I prowl to the drawers along the wall and start flinging them open one by one.
“What are you doing?” the girl asks.
“Helping you. Be quiet.” I find a knife and tuck it into the back of my skirt. It’s not hard to find weapons down here, but it would be nice if there was a…
Gun. I pick it up from the bottom of a drawer and check to see if it’s loaded. I’ve been to the shooting range three times. Papà thinks it is a basic skill everyone in the family should know, even the girls. I thought it was progressive of him, but that was before he married me to a sadistic killer.
“What are you going to do with that?” the girl asks.
“Shoot him.”
She swallows. “And then? How do we get out of here?”
That’s a great question. If we can get past Lazaro, she can escape out the back entrance. It’s never guarded when Lazaro is around. No one is crazy enough to try to attack Garzolo’s main executioner in the comfort of his home. If she runs across the backyard, she can cross through the narrow wooded area and end up outside the neighborhood, on the side of the road.
And then what? No, she needs a car. But Michael, the guard at the entrance of the neighborhood, is on Lazaro’s payroll, and he’ll sound an alert if he sees some unknown woman driving one of our vehicles.
He won’t if it’s me who’s driving. I can say I’m going to the grocery store to pick up something for dinner. That will buy us an hour at least. Is that enough time for me to get the girl to safety?
I swap the knife tucked into my skirt with the gun and rush over to start cutting the rope binding her hands. She’s breathing hard, but there’s a spark in her eyes now.
“Do you have anyone in New York who can help you?” I ask.
“No. My friend was the only one who came with me, but if I get my phone back, I can call someone.”
“They’re going to be after us quickly,” I tell her. “You need to be far away before they realize you’re gone.”
My thoughts race. I’ll put her in the trunk and get as far away as possible, but she needs to flee somewhere farther than where a car can take her.
“I need to get to the airport,” she says, as if sensing my thoughts. “I need to get home to-”
“Don’t tell me,” I interrupt. If I’m caught, it’s better I don’t know where she went. “Do you have your passport?”
“It was in my backpack,” she says. “But I don’t have that anymore.”
The backpack on the counter must be hers. “I know where it is.” I finish cutting through the rope, and the girl staggers into me.
“You’ll be okay,” I mutter, even though I have no idea if that’s true. “I’m going to knock him out when he returns, and then you need to follow me upstairs. We’ll grab your things and take the car out. You’ll get in the trunk. I’ll drive directly to the airport. From the moment I drop you off, you’re on your own.”