“What does he want with you?” I asked, trying to figure out what to do next.

“I’m not sure. I hired him to help Evan, then we became lovers. But it wasn’t an intense affair. I don’t think he’d kidnap me over that.”

“He kidnapped you?”

“From the hospital.”

“Me, too.”

“You were his lover?” she asked.

“I didn’t even get through dinner with him. Apparently, I’m the person who damned his father’s soul to Hell. We need scissors,” I muttered.

“In the master bath. Top drawer, right of the sink.” I was impressed. Victoria was good under pressure. Then again, given Evan’s history, she’d had lots of practice.

“I’ll be back,” I promised.

“Thank you,” she murmured, and her gratitude grounded me. I wasn’t alone. She wasn’t alone. Together we’d get Evan, escape from the house, and call the police.

I located the bathroom drawer, pulled it out, and awkwardly searched for scissors with two hands bound behind my back.

As a voice suddenly boomed through the house: “Oh Danny girl. My pretty, pretty Danny girl!”

I dropped the scissors, recoiling against the wall. The voice boomed again, loud enough to pound against my skull, echoing so that I couldn’t pinpoint the source. Megaphone, I thought. Somewhere in the house, Andrew was using a megaphone and this was his sick idea of the ten-minute countdown cheer.

“Oh Danny girl. My pretty, pretty Danny girl!” he sang again. “How do I know that song, Danielle? How do I know those are the last words your father spoke to you?”

Because I’d told the police that, I thought resentfully, pushing myself away from the bathroom wall. I’d told Sheriff Wayne.

My mother had called him. The realization stopped me in my tracks. My mother had called Sheriff Wayne. I could hear her voice, a distant memory, talking on the phone:

“I need you, Wayne. I can’t do this anymore. He’s drunk, out of control. And Danielle came to my room tonight. You won’t believe what my little girl told me. It has to be tonight. Please, Wayne. I love you. Please.”

How much time was left? Seven, eight minutes?

I returned to the drawer, finally locating the metal scissors when they pricked my finger. The pain felt good. It cleared the cobwebs from my mind, focused me on matters at hand.

I crept back to the bed.

“What’s he talking about?” Victoria whispered.

“The night my parents died. My father shot everyone to death. Then Andrew’s father, the sheriff, found me.”

“Your father shot everyone but you?”

“Story of my life,” I said, but Andrew did good work because I was already wondering, Or is it?

Victoria rolled onto her stomach, lifting her bound wrists. I wedged my numb fingers into the loops of the scissor handles.