. . . .

The basement door screeched on old hinges as I pushed it open, and I stepped into the musty length of hallway.

There was something spooky about this level of the building—all of the storage and utility rooms, the clunking pipes, the black and green tile adding to the air of “abandoned insane asylum.”

I hated doing laundry here, but it was better than loading my clothes into plastic bags and riding the bus to a laundromat.

Rubbing at my arms, I started toward the laundry room at the far end. I drew in a breath to call out to Jace, but a door opened ahead of me, startling the words back down my throat.

A yellow cleaning bucket rolled into the hall, soapy water splashing over the edges onto the tile. A man followed, his hands gripping the wooden handle of the mop he used to steer the bucket.

The maintenance man lifted his head, staring through me as if I were no more solid than a ghost.

Haunted—that was the look in his eyes, one I had seen reflected back at me enough times to recognize it. What unimaginable horrors had this man experienced?

Without a word, he lifted the mop from the water, squeezed it out, and sponged up the overflow on the tile.

“Are you coming or what?”

I flinched at Jace’s unexpected voice as it bounced down the hallway. She sat in her wheelchair in the doorway of the laundry room, watching with a puzzled expression.

“I’m coming.”

I skirted past the mop bucket, but compassion for the man who had experienced some kind of life-altering trauma tugged me back around. He had already returned the mop to the bucket and was making his way toward the elevator.

“Good night, Spencer,” I said.

He stilled at his name, and I clutched my locket between my fingers as I waited for his response. He gave a curt nod before moving into the elevator.

Air seeped out between my lips. I had hoped he might respond to my greeting with words, but the man had no interest in connecting with other human beings.

You were there once, I reminded myself. Jace practically had to use a crowbar to pry an interaction out of me when we first met.

“Why were you talking to spooky Spencer?” she asked as I approached.

My nose wrinkled. “I hate that everyone calls him that.”

She lifted her eyebrows and rocked back on her hind wheels. “You’re telling me Stone-Cold Steve Eye Sockets doesn’t give you the jeebies?”

“Of course Spencer makes me uneasy. Along with every other man I don’t know and trust. That’s no reason to be unkind.”

Jace’s wheels tapped back down on the tile, guilt creasing her face. “You’re right, it’s not. I guess I’m still a little punchy from the thing with my mother.”

“Understandable. So what did you need help with?”

Jace rolled over to the top-load washer, which was level with her eyebrows, and grabbed the long grippers she used to grab items that were out of her reach. She squeezed the button, but nothing happened. “The spring broke, and I have a washer full of bras and underwear.”

Oh, that would explain why she didn’t ask one of the neighbors to help her. I walked over to the washer, the bane of my laundry existence, and peered into its depths. The machine was nearly four feet tall, and I was barely five. I practically had to crawl inside to drag my clothes out twice a week.

“I don’t have my stool.”

“You could stand on my lap.”

I shot her an incredulous look.

“Seriously.” Jace snapped her brakes into place and patted her legs. “Let’s do this. I’ll hug you like a teddy bear so you don’t fall.”

“I am not standing on you.”

“Fine.” She stared at the floor in thought and then snapped her fingers. “Oh, I have an idea. I’ll be back in like three, maybe five minutes.” Jace disengaged her brakes and wheeled out before I could ask her for specifics.

I puffed out a breath and unzipped my rain-slicked jacket, tossing it on the wall-length counter before hopping up beside it to wait for Jace’s return.

The clouds visible through the basement windows ignited with blue light, and a few seconds later, thunder rumbled overhead. The basement lights flickered, and my fingernails dug into the underside of the counter as anxiety sparked in my stomach.

I didn’t want to be down here in the dark.

Old hinges screeched, and I watched the doorway, expecting someone to appear with a basket of laundry. Seconds ticked by. Maybe they went back up to grab something they forgot, like quarters for the machines.

Except . . .

Was that a whisper of footsteps?

The lights flickered again as thunder cracked overhead, so violent that I could feel it vibrate through my body.

I flexed my fingers on the edge of the counter and called out, “Hello?”

When no one responded, I scooted off the counter and padded to the doorway, peering into the hall. The eerie corridor stretched in both directions, but the only sign of life was a confused fly buzzing around an exposed ceiling bulb.

“Spencer?”

He must’ve returned to one of the storage rooms for more cleaning supplies. That would explain why no one responded when I called out.

An unexpected sound came from behind me, and I flinched, belatedly realizing it was my phone. I rolled my eyes—what was wrong with me today?—and returned to the counter to check it.

There was a text from Jace, informing me that she’d found tongs and would be back in a couple of minutes.

She had to be joking.

I was not hauling her clothes out of the washer one item at a time with hot dog tongs. My hand cramped just thinking about it.

I surveyed the room for something to stand on, but the counters were bolted to the wall, Jace’s “clothes basket” was a bag she slung over her handlebars, and I didn’t feel like sprinting back and forth through a storm to grab my stool.

“Old school it is.”

Setting my phone on the counter, I planted my hands on the washer and bounced on my toes. With a grunt, I heaved myself up onto the machine, grabbing the far edge to keep from toppling into the drum headfirst.

I missed Marx’s front-load washer. It didn’t try to eat me.

I grabbed what I could in one hand and dropped back to the floor, transferring the clothes to the dryer. I climbed up for another handful, but the strap of one of Jace’s bras snagged, tangled with two other pieces of clothing around the agitator in the center. Aptly named, because it left me feeling deeply agitated as I tried to untangle three different straps without losing my balance.

“Oh come on, how does this even happen?” I squeezed out, my breath labored as the washer dug into my midsection.

Rubber squeaked in the hall.

Jace must be back with her oh-so-helpful cookout utensils. But then a disconcerting question whispered through my mind. Why didn’t the elevator ding?

And why did I smell Froot Loops?

Before I could lift my head to investigate, something pressed against the backs of my legs, and a hard hand wrapped around the nape of my neck, shoving my head deeper into the washing machine. The force sent a bolt of pain across my shoulders and down my spine into my legs.

I yelped and twisted, trying to kick the person behind me, but my legs were trapped between the front of the machine and a solid body.

Fear punched against my ribs, and I groped desperately at the wet drum, the agitator, anything I could use to push myself up and away from whoever was behind me.

“Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” the man whispered. He leaned more weight against me, pinning my hips.

I screamed, my terror reverberating around the metal drum. I pushed at the edge of the opening with both hands, but I wasn’t strong enough to lift his weight off me.

“Get off!” I cried out. I tugged and raked at the fingers squeezing my neck, but I couldn’t peel them away.

“Stop screaming.” He pushed down while keeping my hips pinned.

My body cried out from the overstretched position, but his weight forced the edge of the washing machine deeper into my stomach, and the only sound that escaped my throat was a wheezy whimper.

Tears trickled into my hair as I hung suspended, unable to see anything but the tangles of clothes at the bottom of the washer, unable to do anything to defend myself.

What was he going to do?

God, please don’t let him hurt me.

“Listen carefully,” he said, his whisper growing muffled with the building pressure in my head. “You need to stay . . .” He stiffened at the distant ding of the elevator, then released my neck and stepped away.

I gripped the edge of the washer to keep from falling in and sucked in a desperate breath. I dropped onto trembling legs and stumbled into the corner.

The hooded man turned out of the room and out of sight without a backward glance.

I slid down the wall to the floor and tried to breathe as panic burned a path through my body.