He clicked on the exterior camera that faced the Branford house, looked through the same time frame. No one so much as glanced toward the farmhouse.

They don’t know. Your collection is safe and ready to be played with.

He clicked on the feed from Caitlin’s room. She lay on the bed, facing the wall. The floor looked dark, wet. Rain still fell outside but couldn’t have filled the room that fast.

“Not possible.”

He switched the camera to the low-light setting. Caitlin looked normal.

How did the drain fail, and why isn’t the sump pump pulling the water out?

He switched back to the normal exposure.

And why is the water dark?

He rewound the footage. Almost three hours back, the dark stain receded under the table. He hit “Play.”

Caitlin knocked over the toilet, limped to the bed, and got under the covers as filth spread across the floor.

Chapter 80

CHAPTER

80

CAITLIN WATCHED THE alarm clock under the covers. 9:58 PM.

She’d been facing the wall for twenty-eight adrenaline-pumping minutes. Her muscles anxious, she fought the urge to wiggle. Two more minutes and she’d shift slightly to her left. She didn’t need for Embower to believe she was sleeping, but didn’t want to have to rearrange the items hidden in the sheets.

The light above her turned off.

Time to go.

She put her head under the sheets, breathed in deep.

The next sound would decide everything. If the fan turned on and ran smoothly, she’d end up on the torture table, or worse.

She held her breath, started counting.

The fan came to life, but not in a healthy way. A series of clicks ended in a low hum—the sound a motor made when blocked by three tampons, five wet wipes, and the covers of two Tom Clancy thrillers.

She reached for the first of five bottles. At a thirty-eight count, she raised the empty Sprite bottle, twisted the cap off, and shoved the opening against the spread-out cotton of a tampon in her palm.

No way to know if Embower’s gas would get up her nostril faster than the air from the bottle, but she moved the cotton and inhaled.

After five seconds of lemon-lime smell, she set the empty between her legs and held her breath again.

9:59 PM.

She counted seconds in her head. The clock hit 10:00 PM before she reached for her second bottle. So far, the only effects she felt were from holding her breath.

Twenty years ago in her father’s pool, she’d held her breath for more than three minutes. That time, she’d wanted to die. This time, she wanted to live.

Chapter 81

CHAPTER

81

THE TIMER STOPPED. He’d followed the usual math, two minutes of gas, three minutes of dissipation. Embower looked through the window. Caitlin hadn’t moved. He opened the door, smelled the mix of treatment chemical and decay.

“Caitlin.”