Now.
I bolt from the bedroom, cut a hard left in the hall, and splash through the pool of broken glass on my way to the stairs. I fly down the steps so fast my feet barely touch them. I slide to a stop in the living room, which is a sea of shadows undulating in the candlelight. I skip my gaze from corner to corner, doorway to doorway, wondering if I’ve just stepped into a trap.
Len could be anywhere.
In a shadow-filled corner. Or that dark space by the fireplace. Or the gloom of the nook under the stairs.
It’s hard to tell because everything is dark, quiet, still. The only sounds I hear are the rain outside and the grandfather clock. Each tick from it is a reminder that every second I remain in this house is one second more I’ve spent in danger.
I start moving again, eager to leave but unsure of the best way. The French doors lead to the porch, the steps, the dock, the water. I could take the boat and guide it over the rough water to Boone’s dock, assuming he’d give me shelter. Not a guarantee after what I’ve accused him of.
Then there’s the front door, with access to the driveway, the road, and, eventually, the highway. There, someone will surely stop to help me. Getting there won’t be easy in this weather, but it might be my only option.
Mind made up, I shoot toward the foyer, ticking off each room I safely pass.
Living room.
Powder room.
Library.
Den.
As soon as I reach the foyer, power returns. Light floods the house, as sudden and startling as when it went away. The shadows that had a second ago been all around me vanish like ghosts. I halt in the unexpected brightness, aware of something behind me that had once been hidden but is now exposed.
Len.
He leaps from a corner, knife raised, hurtling forward. I drop the lantern and fall to the floor, a move fueled more by surprise than strategy. Taken off guard, Len’s momentum keeps him moving long enough for me to grab one of his ankles. He’s smaller as Katherine, easier to topple than his former self.
He goes down quick.
The knife comes loose.
We both lunge for it, scrambling on top of each other, our limbs tangling. I reach out, and my fingertips brush the knife’s handle. Len claws at my arm, yanking it away. He’s on top of me now, pressing down, Katherine’s body shockingly heavy. Beneath him, I see his arm stretch past mine, reach the knife, grab hold.
Then we’re rolling across the foyer floor.
I’m flipped onto my back.
Len’s on top of me again, straddling my waist, raising the knife.
My entire being clenches as the knife hovers, and I wait for it to drop, hoping it won’t but knowing it will. Fear pins me to the floor. Like I’m already dead, now just a corpse, heavy and motionless.
Above, Len is suddenly jerked backwards.
His arms flap.
His weight lifts.
The knife is wrenched from his grip.
As he’s dragged away from me, I see the person responsible.
Eli.
Behind him, the front door hangs open, letting in a blast of night air and shivery drops of rain. Eli kicks it shut and, with Len writhing in his grip, looks down at me.
“I got your message. Are you okay?”
I remain on the floor, still as heavy as the dead, and nod.
“Good,” Eli says. “Now would you mind telling me what the hell is going on here?”
I agree to start talking after Eli helps me tie Len to a chair in the living room. Since she’s still Katherine in his mind, it takes some convincing. He ultimately goes along with it only because he had just seen her on top of me brandishing a knife.
But now Len is restrained with ropes knotted too tightly for him to get free like he did in the bedroom, and Eli and I are in the den, watched by the moose on the wall as we sit across from each other.
“How much have you had to drink today?” Eli asks.
“A shitload.” I look him in the eyes, waiting until he blinks. “That doesn’t mean any of what I’m about to tell you is a lie.”
“I hope not.”
I proceed to tell him everything.
I start with Len’s crimes, using the driver’s licenses and locks of hair pulled from behind the loose board in the basement as proof. They now sit on the coffee table between us. After taking a single glance, Eli told me he didn’t want to look at them anymore, yet his gaze keeps drifting to the pictures of Megan Keene, Toni Burnett, and Sue Ellen Stryker as I recount how I learned what Len had done.
“Then I killed him,” I say.
Eli, in the midst of sneaking another glance at the IDs, looks up at me, shocked.
“He drowned,” he says.