Luke’s jaw drops open. “What? No. I had no idea that—”
“And when we left the house,” Ethan goes on, “you were hoping you could quickly get rid of the body before we came back in.”
Luke looks almost sick. “No. That’s not… look, I didn’t even know the body was here.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I didn’t!” Luke starts to lower his hands, but at the expression on Ethan’s face, he raises them higher. “I had no idea. But when I heard the shouting, I thought… I had to see. Adrienne… She just disappeared. We were supposed to see each other that night. I don’t… She wouldn’t have just left. She wasn’t like that.” He looks down at the floor, his features twisting with anguish. “I loved her. And I never found out what happened to her.”
Tears spring to my eyes. He’s telling the truth—that or his acting skills have improved significantly in the last ten minutes. But my husband’s face remains impassive. “Bullshit. I don’t believe a word of this.”
“Ethan,” I say. “I believe him.”
“Really?” His voice is dripping with condescension. This is the side of my husband that I’ve only seen a few times, and I don’t particularly like it. “So say we fall for his lies. Then what? We just let him wander the house and trust that he’s such a nice guy, he’s not going to murder us while we sleep?”
He has a point. I believe Luke is harmless. But am I willing to bet my life on it?
No. I’m not.
“So what should we do?” I ask.
Ethan’s eyes rake over the man standing in front of us. “We tie him up.”
Luke stumbles backward at this revelation as panic fills his eyes. I wonder if he’s thinking about trying to get away. I don’t think he could. Ethan has the knife, and even if there wasn’t a knife, Ethan could take Luke in a fight. My husband works out. He’s got the big guns, which you can see peeking out under the bottom of the sleeves of that Yankees T-shirt.
“There’s duct tape in the desk,” I recall. “Do you want me to get it?” I don’t want Ethan rifling through the desk and finding the cassette tapes.
“Yes.” Ethan shakes the knife at Luke. “Lie down on the couch. Now.”
A chill goes down my spine at the way my husband is taking charge of this situation. I never imagined how Ethan would react in a high-intensity situation like this. I’m impressed.
Luke can tell Ethan isn’t messing around. He obligingly stumbles over to the sofa and lies down on his back. I grab the duct tape out of the drawer and start by binding his legs. I wrap the duct tape around his ankles, just above his old Nike sneakers, which look like they used to be white and are now a muddy shade of gray.
“Now hold out your arms,” Ethan snaps at him.
Luke’s eyes fill with dread. “Please don’t do this.”
“Hold out your arms.” Ethan nods in my direction. “Tricia, make sure it’s tight enough that he can’t get out.”
I crouch beside Luke as I bind his hands together with the duct tape. I hazard a look at his face, and for a split second, our eyes meet. The shake of his head is barely perceptible. Please don’t do this.
I look away. I don’t have a choice. Ethan is right—we can’t have him wandering around the house while we’re trapped here.
I can breathe easier once Luke is bound on the couch. There won’t be any more mysterious crashes around the house. I won’t have to worry about somebody coming down from the attic to murder us.
“What are you going to do now?” Luke asks. Even though he’s lying down, he looks incredibly uncomfortable—as you would imagine somebody with their wrists and ankles duct taped together would be. He squirms, trying to adjust his position, but it’s difficult for him.
“That’s none of your goddamn business,” Ethan retorts. “Come on, Tricia. Let’s go.”
I follow Ethan out of the office, and he shuts the door behind us. It’s only when the door is closed that he drops the arm holding the knife, which he places on a nearby bookshelf. All the tension seems to drain out of his body at once.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” he says. “Like, tonight. I don’t want to wait until the morning. I don’t want to sleep under the same roof as that guy.”
“Me either.” The thought of a man bound against his will in the room below us is very unsettling. I’ll never be able to sleep. “But what can we do?”