The Never List

everything was in slow motion for me. Adele didn’t scream. Instead she slowly leaned down and picked up the frying pan she’d left on the floor. She hesitated only a fraction of an instant.
    I could see in her eyes, though, that even after all her years as a dominatrix, Adele was not prepared to inflict actual pain, and maybe even death, on someone else. And I didn’t want that either. I was even afraid for Jennifer at that moment. Even then, I did not want Jennifer to die. Not after I had found her again after all those years. Not even after I was pretty certain she was about to kill me. Not even then.
    Adele suddenly pulled the pan back over her head and in one swift motion brought it down on Jennifer’s hand. The gun fired as it flew across the room. Adele tripped and fell from the weight of the pan, the awkward angle of her swing bringing her crashing to the floor.
    I quickly scanned the room. Ray had been hit in the foot. He was howling, his blood spreading out onto the polished wood floor. Christine looked stunned, paralyzed by fear.
    Tracy and I both jumped up, lunging toward Jennifer. I got there first. Jennifer was already turning, running for the open door, ready to slam it behind her. To leave us trapped again, this time for good.
    This was the moment. I could tell Tracy was not going to reach her in time. I was going to have to do it. To grab not just any body, but the body I had so longed for and yet feared in my memory, from the box. The idea of it made me sick, made my flesh crawl. But I fought it. I fought through.
    I ran as fast as I could and tackled her hard, throwing my arms around her in a sick embrace of reunion. I held her firmly, wrapping my arms far enough around her to clasp my hands together. She twisted around to face me, to push me off. I could feel her breath on my face. No one had been this close to me in years. Her arms flailing, she fought like hell, but this time I was strong. This time I would save us all.
    Tracy was right behind me and helped me pin Jennifer’s arms. Adele had gotten back up, raced out of the room, and come back with the rope from the cellar. Together we tied Jennifer up tightly. Afraid to stay in the house for a second longer, we dragged her out into the yard and stood around her, staring in disbelief.

CHAPTER 39
    No one said anything. While we didn’t understand the full details of the story yet, we understood enough to get a sense of what had happened. We would learn later about Jennifer’s terrible ordeal, the years of torture and manipulation she had spent with Jack at the house and then, later, in Noah Philben’s cult. The way they had passed her around to satisfy their sadistic needs, then used her as a go-between for Jack in prison. The things she had had to do to survive. The pain she had encountered and, worse, been forced to inflict.
    Tracy walked down the hill desperately trying to find cell reception and eventually reached Jim. He arrived with blazes, lights flashing, sirens blaring. It was an echo of that time, ten years ago, when he’d come here to save Tracy and Christine.
    I knew they would take Jennifer away to a hospital, and eventually,I figured, she would end up in a mental institution. When she was fully restrained by the police, I walked over to her.
    It was really her. Older, her face bore the signs of a hard life filled with nothing but tragedy—it was prematurely lined, her skin colorless—but it was still her. After all these years thinking that the cold body in the barn had been my precious Jennifer, it was almost eerie to see her flesh move, alive and real. Like seeing that corpse from my dreams come to life. I wondered fleetingly who could have been in the box with me back then but pushed the thought out of my mind. The important thing now was that I had Jennifer here with me.
    She was strapped down on a gurney, but the restraints hardly seemed necessary, for she didn’t move at all. She didn’t look around. Her eyes were fixed on some remote point in the distance.
    Was she thinking of Jack Derber?
    I didn’t want to ask, and yet I wanted to know how—how could she have gotten to this point? I turned to her.
    “Jennifer.” I could barely speak. “Jennifer, what happened to you?”
    She didn’t look at me for a long time, and then finally she shifted her eyes to me without moving her head. Did her look soften? I wanted to believe I saw a trace of the Jennifer I’d known, somewhere in there, her eyes pleading with