The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die Read online

  “I don’t know. At work?” I tried to gauge how close he was. If I head-butted him the right way, it was possible that I could knock him out and stay conscious myself. But what good would that do me? I could still hear the sounds of people searching behind me.

  He grabbed my ear through the pillowcase and twisted, squeezing it like a lemon. “Don’t play stupid, Cadence. It doesn’t suit you.”

  “I honestly don’t know where they are.” It was the truth, but it felt like a lie.

  For an answer, he grabbed my arm, just above the elbow. His fingers dug in. I could feel my muscles separate. And then he found a nerve bundle. An electric shock jolted up my arm. I let out a yelp.

  I didn’t know this man. I memorized his smooth voice, his faintly perfumed smell, his expensive shoes. I could see them in a gap at the bottom of the pillowcase. I studied them for clues. They were a graduated reddish brown color I thought was called oxblood. They looked like the shoes a successful businessman would wear, not a killer. But I had no doubts that was what he was.

  “Where is the information about the virus and the vaccine?” he said.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” If my parents had told me more, would I have been spilling it? I hoped not.

  He hit me then. Punched me in the jaw. I felt one of my teeth move. My mouth tasted like metal.

  “Stop lying to me! I’ve already had to do bad things today, Cady. Very bad things. I don’t want to have to do any more.”

  Bad things? What did he mean?

  But he didn’t give me time to think about it. His tone changed. It was like he was playing both roles: good cop and bad cop. Only there was no one on the other side of a one-way mirror to stop him from going too far.

  “Where would they hide something? A girl like you, a smart girl, you must know where your parents hide things.”

  “I don’t know.” I tried not to let the strain sound in my voice. “I don’t know anything. If they hid something, I don’t know where it is.”

  “Do they have a safe-deposit box?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Again, he took my left ear in his hand and squeezed it. Then he whispered into it. “Cady.” A pause filled by nothing but his breath. “Pretending you don’t know anything won’t help you.”

  “But I don’t know anything.”

  He sighed as he straightened up. Then he slapped the back of my head. I tried not to make any noise, but a grunt pushed through my teeth.

  I felt him lean closer again. “I’m going to put the gun up against your head again and next time you lie to me I’ll pull the trigger.”

  I was telling the truth, but he thought it was a lie. Should I try to really lie? Should I make up a place my parents might have gone, or a place they would hide things, just to buy myself time? But if I did, it would backfire sooner or later. Probably sooner. And if I sent them running off on a wild-goose chase, how many others might end up tied to a chair with a gun pressed against their heads?

  “Have they told anyone else?”

  I decided not to pretend I didn’t know what he was talking about. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know!”

  “Stop lying,” he said, and cursed me. His slap jerked my head to one side. “Stop lying or the same thing will happen to you that already happened to your little brother.”

  I froze. “What are you talking about?”

  HIs voice was flat. “He’s dead.”

  What? My little brother, dead? It couldn’t be true. Not Max. Not Max with his smile so big that his brown eyes nearly disappeared.

  “What use was a crying child to us? He couldn’t help us. And I’m starting to think you are just as useless. The same thing will happen to you if you don’t tell me something useful. Now!”

  “Max can’t be dead,” I said. Pushing away the thought of how this man had just boxed my ears and slapped and slugged me. Pushing away the memory of the gun pressing between my eyes.

  “You want proof?” the man with the oxblood shoes said roughly. “I’ll give you proof.”

  He walked out of the room. Behind me, he spoke to someone. It sounded like they were arguing. Their words were too low for me to make out, but I memorized the timbre of their voices.

  “They’re bringing his body,” he told me. “So you’ll know I’m telling the truth.”

  I was too stunned to speak. The pillowcase in front of my face was now wet, slimy with tears and snot. How could this be happening to me? Already French class seemed like something that happened in another world, another universe.

  A minute or an hour later, I heard voices. A knife sawed at the tie that held my hands. I could hear it cutting into the wood of the chair. I didn’t care that one more thing in our house was being ruined. I didn’t care that in a few minutes my hands would be free, although my legs were still tied up and at least one man had a gun. I didn’t care that there must be some combination of moves that would leave me able to run and my attackers too disabled to pursue me.

  Max couldn’t be dead. Could he?

  Something heavy and yet somehow soft landed on the table.

  “Touch him,” the man with the oxblood shoes ordered. “Touch your brother.”

  I kept my hands where they were. My whole body was shaking.

  He grabbed my hand and began to force it up. “Max is dead. And you’re next if you don’t tell me what I need to know.”

  I tried to pull away, but he was stronger than me. Through a sheet of plastic my fingers touched something. A leg or an arm. Firm, but yielding. And cool. Then he moved my fingers so that they touched my brother’s hand. His poor little hand, fingers curled and stiff.

  Max was dead. They had killed my brother.

  Max. He weighed thirty-three pounds. You wouldn’t think you could pack so much life into just thirty-three pounds. His giggle, his imagination, his sudden hungers for ice cream or piggyback rides or stories. He bounced rather than walked. He was always waving an imaginary wand and proclaiming he had just turned me into a frog or a butterfly or a witch.

  Max was dead.

  My brother was dead.

  And with my fingertips still touching his cold, dead hand, my mind shut down. Went blank. Went someplace where I wouldn’t have to remember. Even when they pulled out my fingernails, it wouldn’t come back.

  CHAPTER 35

  DAY 2, 6:48 P.M.

  The scream that tears itself from my throat sounds like an animal’s.

  Now I remember everything, but I would rather be dead myself than know that my little brother, Max, is.

  “You killed him!” I scream at Brenner. “You killed Max.” The pieces are falling into place. Brenner and the man with the oxblood shoes were the men who searched my house, the men who took me to the cabin to search there and then tortured me again when they found nothing and I told them nothing. They’re the ones who killed my little brother and stuffed his body in a plastic bag like a piece of garbage.

  With a wordless cry, I launch myself at him.

  He takes a half step back, his eyes uncertain. Flesh-colored makeup doesn’t hide the red scratches running the length of his face or the wine-colored bruises under his eyes.

  I don’t care that Elizabeth has a gun pointed at me. All I care about is getting my hands on one of the men who killed my brother.

  Before he can decide what to do, I grab his wrist and step behind him. In one motion, I pull his arm out and up, rolling the knife edge of my free hand along the nerve bundle just under his biceps. He falls to his knees at the same time as I brace his arm across my thighs.

  Red rage clouds my vision, hums in my ears. He killed Max! I don’t think, I just act. With the heel of my hand, I break his arm, right at the elbow.

  His scream is high-pitched and wordless. I stare down at the back of his head, which has been shaved and covered with a white bandage, and feel … nothing.

  Nothing at all.

  “Let Michael go!” Elizabeth has to yell to be heard over his keening. �
��Or I’ll shoot your friend.” I look up. She’s grabbed Ty’s shoulder and her gun is now pointed at his head.

  As ordered, I stand up and back away. Brenner screams again when his limp hand hits the floor. Then he pulls it to his chest and cradles it, rocking back and forth. “I’m not a killer,” he moans. “I’m a computer scientist.”

  I’m filled with an icy clarity as I look from the man who killed my brother to the woman who brought me here. While her face is still familiar, I know for sure that she’s not my aunt. My mother has only one sibling, her brother. My uncle Joe. He lives in St. Louis.

  “And who are you?”

  “My name is Elizabeth Tanzir,” she says, raising her chin. “I’m Z-Biotech’s senior vice president of marketing. Quinn was your mother’s maiden name.” Now I remember where I’ve seen her before. My mom had let me borrow her car if I took her to work, and I had seen Mom talking with this woman outside the building. “We need to find your parents before they ruin everything. We offered to trade your life for the information they stole, but clearly they thought the information was more important, since they never even bothered to come to the cabin. At that point you were worthless to us.”

  I don’t mean to, but I make a small noise. Something that betrays how much her words hurt. My brother is dead and my parents abandoned me to the mercy of his killers.

  “But the fact that you are some kind of martial arts expert made us realize you might actually know more than you’ve told us. Maybe even more than you thought you knew.”

  As she speaks, out of the corner of my eye, I see Ty slowly beginning to shift his stance. As soon as I notice it, I fasten my gaze on Elizabeth’s face so as not to give him away.

  “After all, if you were just some innocent, how were you able to disable a grown man? Our chief of information technology.” Her lips pull back in disgust as she regards Brenner, who is still on his knees, cradling his broken arm. “Since force hadn’t worked with you, I suggested we try a different approach. If something inside of you had shut down rather than betray your parents, maybe it would open up again if you thought you were really helping them.” She makes a huffing sound. “But it’s clear you really don’t know anything.”

  Just as the words leave her mouth, Ty grabs for her gun. Trying to keep it from him, Elizabeth swings her arm wildly. In the space of a few seconds, it points at Ty, at me, even at Brenner. Ty manages to force her hand up, up, up, and the gun goes off, sounding like a thunderclap. Bits of plaster rain down. But she still won’t let go of it.

  There’s no time to take off my backpack and find my gun. My eyes sweep around the room, looking for something I can smash over her head. On the dining room table, something glints. In two strides I’m standing where the man with the oxblood shoes cut my bonds so he could force me to touch my brother’s dead hand. I snatch up the paring knife he used and run up behind Elizabeth, who is still tussling with Ty. At the touch of the blade on her neck, she freezes.

  “Let Ty have the gun,” I say.

  There’s a long moment where I can feel her weighing what to do.

  “Better do it, Aunty Liz.” I press the knife a fraction of an inch. Her skin dimples, resists, and then finally begins to part just the tiniest bit. But it’s not until a trickle of blood snakes down her neck that she lets go.

  Ty trains the gun on her.

  She steps back, her arms crossed. “So if you know I’m not your aunt, you must remember everything now,” she says.

  “The thing is,” I tell her, “there’s nothing to remember. My parents didn’t tell me anything. They were trying to protect me. So the only things I remember are how you tortured me. And how you killed my brother. How could you kill a three-year-old child?” I resist the urge to push the paring knife to see just how far it will go into her neck. Instead, my voice breaks. “What did Max ever do to you? Couldn’t you have just tied him up or something?”

  “What are you talking about?” Ty’s hand tightens on the grip of the gun. “They killed your little brother?”

  “Everything happened just the way Elizabeth said. Except she left out one little detail. When I was tied up and blindfolded, they brought me my brother’s body and made me touch it. They told me they would kill me just like they had my brother if I didn’t tell them where my parents were or where they had hidden the information. They thought it would get me to talk. Instead, it just made me go into that fugue state.”

  Elizabeth’s laugh sounds like a rusty hinge. “The human mind is very suggestible. Did you ever play that game at Halloween? The one where you put your hand in a bowl of peeled grapes, but you’re told they’re eyes?”

  “What?” The headache is back, full force. Why is she talking about holidays and games?

  “We don’t have your brother. We never did. I have no idea if he’s dead or alive, but if he’s dead, we didn’t do it.”

  “I felt his body!”

  “You had a pillowcase over your head. What you felt was a chimp.”

  I can’t take in what she’s saying. “What?”

  “When it became clear you wouldn’t cooperate, Kirk had me bring one of our dead animal specimens here. He was sure it would break you. All it did was push you over the edge. Even when they yanked your fingernails out at the cabin, you wouldn’t say anything. And after your parents didn’t take Kirk up on a trade, well, at that point you were nothing but a nuisance.”

  To who? I wonder numbly. To my parents as well as the people from Z-Biotech? I can’t pull myself together enough to ask questions. I feel dizzy. Max was dead, and now he is alive again. Or is he? Elizabeth says my parents abandoned me to the thugs from Z-Biotech. Or maybe the reason my parents didn’t come for me is because they couldn’t. Has something bad happened to them, something the Z-Biotech people don’t know about yet?

  “Who’s Kirk?” Ty asks.

  “Kirk Nowell. Our CEO.”

  “She was tortured by the CEO for Z-Biotech?” Ty sounds incredulous.

  Elizabeth shrugs. “The company was going down the tubes when we bought it. It took someone with vision to see what could be done with the raw materials. Kirk was that person. Sometimes the ends do justify the means. And in this case, our end goal is to make a lot of money.”

  “How were you planning on spending it?” Ty asks. “Money’s not all that useful in jail.”

  Her smile is condescending. “Do you know how many countries don’t have an extradition treaty with the United States? There are half a dozen with a low cost of living and beautiful beaches. Places where a little American money would go a long way, and where, if you bribe the right people, they are willing to look the other way.”

  “So where is Kirk?” I ask. “Does he know you’re here?”

  “My job was to find out what you knew and then take care of you. Make it look like you killed the boy you had tricked into helping you and afterward killed yourself.” Despite a gun and a knife pointed in her direction, Elizabeth smiles. “And Kirk will be expecting us to report back soon.”

  CHAPTER 36

  DAY 2, 7:02 P.M.

  I wish I could take back breaking Brenner’s arm. While it’s made him as compliant as a five-foot-nine toddler, he’s also nearly as weepy and whiny as one. Ty says because of all the nerves and veins that run through the joint, a broken elbow is known to be one of the most painful injuries. By the way Brenner’s behaving, I can believe it. He mostly rocks back and forth, moaning “It hurts, it hurts, it hurts,” while Ty and I take turns dealing with Elizabeth. I search her—thoroughly—but she doesn’t have any more weapons. In her purse, I find her keys, cell phone (from which I remove the battery), and a Z-Biotech ID card on a lanyard.

  After a whispered conference with Ty, we decide to tie up the two of them in my parents’ room while we figure out what to do next. We can’t leave them in the living room or they’ll be in view of anyone who comes to the front door. Brenner manages to stagger to his feet and then shuffles down the hall. Elizabeth is quieter—quiet enough t
hat I watch her closely.

  “Take my gun while I tie her up,” Ty says, handing it over. I tuck it in my waistband and never take my eyes off Elizabeth—or my finger off the trigger of the gun I retrieved from my backpack.

  “Why did they say there were human remains in my family’s cabin?” I ask Elizabeth as Ty ties her wrists tight with one of my mom’s scarves.

  She doesn’t answer, so I kick a nerve bundle on her outer thigh. She sees the look on my face and decides it’s not worth not talking.

  “Kirk threw the chimp in the trunk when he and Michael took you out to the cabin to look for your family. He figured it would raise too many questions if it were found at your house. After you assaulted Michael, they decided to burn down the cabin … with the chimp’s body inside. They figured it would make the authorities more eager to find you.”

  “And who shot Officer Dillow?”

  “That security guy?” She shrugs. “Kirk. Kirk said that guy asked way too many questions—especially for a rent-a-cop.”

  I squeeze my eyes closed, but only for a second. Someday I’ll have time to think about Officer Dillow, who died because he tried to help me.

  “Do you have anything else you want to ask her?” Ty says. I can tell he’s tired of listening to her. When I shake my head, he gags her with one of my dad’s ties. “This will keep her from planning anything with Brenner.”

  “Good idea.”

  Even though Brenner, who’s leaning against the wall with his arm cradled against his chest, doesn’t look like he would be capable of planning a walk down the hall, I don’t want Elizabeth to know how much she gets to me. She said my parents didn’t come to the cabin because they didn’t care. That can’t be true, can it? But what if the real reason they didn’t come is even worse?

  With more ties, Ty lashes Elizabeth’s hands to the bedpost. He doesn’t leave her any slack and she doesn’t look very comfortable.

  Which bothers me not one little bit.

  Next, we deal with Brenner, who is panting and pale. When he opens his eyes and sees us regarding him, both of us holding guns, he mumbles again, “I didn’t want to do any of this. I’m a computer scientist, not a killer.”