“Baby?” An overwhelming sinking feeling plagues my stomach.
The truth is finally here and it’s truly as dark as she describes, I can feel the shadow overtaking the light and sucking out all the air. My pulse quickens. I brace myself to listen to every word she has to say.
“I should’ve told someone.” She chuckles humorlessly.
“I did once.” Her lips press together in a slight grimace. “He was a police officer, but he didn’t believe me. Corbin and Mom told him I was mentally ill, that I made up stories. Corbin was a respected man. Charming. Everyone loved him. Or they owed him favors.”
From scanning the police report, I remember reading something about mental illness. I just didn’t put two and two together. Without thinking about it, I head to my room for the reports and hand them to Abby.
“Will it make it easier if we read through this together?”
She shakes her head and says, “You do it. I’m not strong enough to read it by myself.”
I arrived home around midnight. I didn’t notice anything different when I drove into the garage, but panicked when I heard the commotion coming from inside the house—the screams, the wailing. My heart beat as I thought of my girls being in danger. They weren’t mine, but I loved them both as if they were. When I came out of the garage, there was a man lying on the ground. Bleeding on the sidewalk. I ran into the house. It was messy. I noticed the lamps were gone. They were expensive antiques that my late wife bought for our anniversary.
Olga, she passed away and now … I didn’t care about the house once I heard the cries. “Ava,” Abigail called her sister’s name. She’s a special kid, but she cared for her little sister. Abigail has problems in the head and makes up shit, but I recognized her tone. It was real pain.
She was in their room, sitting next to Ava crying. My little girl was bleeding. Two gunshot wounds. I just don’t understand why her and not the other one. My Ava was good and pure. So innocent and smart. Abigail said something about three men getting into the house. She was able to hide in the closet, but not my poor Ava. I don’t know if that’s true because she confuses fantasy with reality.
She said that the men, that they abused Ava before killing her. They took our things. Money, computers, and some of my equipment. I guess it was more than one because they were able to make off with almost everything I own. Abigail said more but I can’t believe much of what she told me. As I said, she’s mentally ill and her head is all mixed up.
“He said that?” she howled. “Of course, he did. If I ever talked, it’d be the word of a crazy person against his.”
“There’s more,” I offer.
“It’s all a bunch of lies.” Her nails cut into the back of her neck. I flinch but don’t say a word.
“Did he mention Shaun?”
I scan through the documents for the name without reading the rest. There’s no son or anyone named Shaun mentioned in any of the papers.
“No.”
She breathes deeply, closes her eyes and lets out the words, “I’m going to lose you, and it’s okay.”
“What are you talking about?” I feel as if a steel band cuts through my chest cleaving me open. She’s ready to stab me with a knife.
Her eyes open, her gaze remains fixated on the papers. “This was amazing while it lasted, and whatever happens next will be for the best.”
“I’m not a good person. On the contrary, I have done bad things.” She presses her lips together. “Illegal.”
My heart thunders inside my ribcage waiting for the story.
“Corbin was an entrepreneur. If you asked what he did, he’d say that he was in media and ran a pharmaceutical shop.”
“A pharmacy?” I frown.
“No, that’s the fancy way of saying he was a drug dealer. If you needed a painkiller, he had all kinds. His websites were porn sites.”
— — —
Abby
Abby Age Seventeen
After six months I thought that my life had improved. Mom ignored me for the most part. She never cared about my whereabouts or even acknowledged me. Marriage suited her. At least her relationship agreed with me. I had finally shed the abuse from my life. Although, my house changed a lot during the first few weeks after the Stanley’s moved in with us. We had a daily parade of strangers coming and going into the basement. Some stayed for only minutes and others … I never saw leave.
I didn’t pay much attention because I went to school and worked part time outside of the house. However, the late noise bothered me. Corbin and Shaun watched TV in the basement. It was loud. Women wailed, and men grunted. Cries for more or to take it harder, bitch went on and on. One night, I heard mom complaining.
“Shaun was watching porn,” she whined.
It was troubling to see the mean witch behave like a teenager in love. Corbin had a big hold over her. Had it been anyone else, she’d have yelled until the other person begged for forgiveness.
“He’s an adult and watching adult movies is healthy,” Corbin defended him.
“Fine, but can you ask him to turn it down a little?”
“We’re renovating the place, so you won’t hear much noise in a couple of months.”
“As long as you pay the bills,” she said with disdain. “I don’t care what happens downstairs. But maybe he should look for a woman instead of just watching that trash.”
My ears perked up because that didn’t sound right. Shaun was downstairs watching porn twenty-four-seven? He had too much time on his hands. Either way it didn’t affect me. My life was outside of that house. I could do almost anything I wanted—even run away. I wish I had done that. During the week, I spent all day in school and in the evenings, I was working.
A few weeks later I heard Corbin say, “We’re soundproofing the basement, babe. The construction crew is coming in today to start tearing up the walls and building a couple of rooms. One of them will be my office. They’re replacing the sliding glass doors in the back. Shaun has visitors often, and I don’t want them to intrude.”
True to his word, the noise stopped. The number of visitors however, increased. From my window, I watched as guys came through that new basement door. Ava wandered downstairs too. She’d be gone when I arrived home from work. Around three or four in the morning she’d come back to bed, always crying. I never questioned what was happening until one night when she came upstairs bleeding. Her clothes were torn.
“What happened to you?”
I had a hunch, but didn’t want to assume. I mean, she was with her father. Nothing bad should happen to her. While I helped her into the shower, I studied her body horrified. Her breasts were purple, her wrists red with rope marks, and blood dripped down her thighs.
“We should call the police,” I suggested.
“No, don’t do that. They’ll punish me—or you.”
“Who?”
“Dad.”
I felt sick to my stomach while Ava told me that a man had done this to her with her father’s permission.
“That’s wrong.”
“I’m eighteen,” she said. “A consenting adult. He didn’t do all this until I was old enough. Before it wasn’t as bad.”
“What do you mean?”
She was vague about what happened to Shaun and her, but it was clear to me.
“He’s molested you?” I asked, horrified.
“Something like that.” Her voice was broken and so was she.
My heart broke. This couldn’t be happening. Not in my house. I promised her that I’d take care of her, that I’d make it better. Her father had to be stopped.
“You can’t escape them,” she said. “I already tried, and they beat me. It was so bad that I couldn’t leave the bed or open my eyes for days.”
“Shaun … does he need help too?”
She shrugged. “Dad gives him stuff to keep him happy, and if he wants more, he’d better obey him.”
I couldn’t wrap my head around everything she was telling me.
> “My mother likes you. She might want to help you.”
“I don’t think she likes me as much as you think,” she snarled.
“Well, if no one listens to me, we’ll run away. I have money.”
The next morning, I talked to my mother and told her everything that Ava had said.
“You’re a fucking liar,” she said, pulling my hair.
“Corbin!” she called him desperately.
“Tell him, tell him what you just told me, bitch.” She slammed my head against the wall. “Tonight, you’re not sleeping in your bedroom. In fact, I’ll have them get rid of your bed. From now on, you’ll sleep on the floor.”
“What’s going on?”
His eyes flared with pleasure when he saw the way my mother was treating me. Whatever passed through his mind scared the fuck out of me.
“She says that you’re abusing Ava and that you’re a drug dealer,” Mom explained.
“You bitch,” he roared, with his hand pressed against my neck, choking me. “If you ever repeat that you’re going to pay.”
My eyes stung. He pushed me to the floor and kicked me in the stomach and the head. This couldn’t be happening. Instead of going to school, I went to the police station and reported what was happening at home. Corbin and Mom came to pick me up.
“Sorry. She’s mentally ill,” Corbin explained. Mom nodded in agreement. “She stopped taking her medication. She watched a movie last night, and now she’s starting to mix fantasy with reality. We love her so much.”
Neither one said a word to me, but when I got home, Shaun dragged me to the basement. He kept me there for several days. I understood what Ava had gone through. He filmed everything he did to me. Shaun made me watch every video and look at every picture of myself as he uploaded them to the websites.
“I like it when you beg me to stop.” He palmed his dick, licking his lips.
Since the principal called to ask about my absences, they allowed me to go back to school. Corbin didn’t want to raise any red flags. They made me quit my jobs.
“If you say a word, Ava will pay for it,” Corbin threatened me.
34
Wes
Abby skims through the report and points at the picture of the guy lying on the floor outside her house.
“He was one of his biggest clients,” Abby says letting out a breath. “His business shifted once Mom learned what he was doing. He pimped everyone he could. Shaun, Ava, Mom, the other women he lured to the house …”
Me, she mouths.
Anger spirals in the pit of my stomach as I learn of the hell she lived through. While at the same time I have flashes of my old life, the women crying and the men mounting them.
She sends an indifferent glance around the room. “Some days were worse than others. Mom didn’t care if they killed me or not.”
Not Abby, I repeat in my head. I knew it was bad but this … I’m breaking inside and holding back the tears. How could someone be so evil?
“What happened to your mother?”
“She fell sick and never recovered. Ava swore that Corbin killed her. Not that I care.” She’s cold and distant.
“This guy was a detective,” she continued, completely detached from herself. “He liked to play with Ava and his gun. He did crazy things with both of them, but swore he loved her and was faithful to her—only Ava.”
“Some nights, Corbin made me watch because he knew how much I hated to see them hurt her. She was so tiny and fragile. I was unable to save her.”
Her chin quivers. “I tried so hard to protect her. Sometimes I would bring her food from school knowing she hadn’t eaten for days.”
“And you?”
She shrugs.
“You weren’t eating either, were you?”
“I wanted to die. I was ready for it. We had a plan, Ava and me. She’d help me. We’d take the gun away from the detective, and she’d shoot me.”
“Abby,” I gasp.
“It all went wrong. She fought for the gun; Shaun was armed too. He tried to shoot the guy but instead, he hit his sister.” Abby touches her face. “Right here.”
“Shaun reacted right away and unloaded his gun on the detective.”
My heart thumps fast as I wait for her to continue.
“Where were you?”
“Close to her, frozen.” Her eyes open wide. “Angry because she didn’t deserve to die. It was my bullet. I had wronged her so many times, and I was so tired.”
Her words puncture my heart.
“Corbin ordered Shaun to take the computers and all the equipment to his car. To use the back door. In the meantime, he trashed the house.” She turns the pages, looking at the pictures.
“He stopped right in front of me and ran his gun down my face and my throat. ‘A thief came in and you hid in the closet. You heard Ava crying and then the gunshots. You didn’t see anything,’ he ordered.”
She laughs hysterically. “Kill me,” I begged him. “Finish me now!”
“He laughed at me and then said, ‘If you breathe one word about anything that’s happened in this house, I swear I’ll have Shaun teach you a lesson, and then, I’ll cut every inch of you.’”
I’m speechless, my arms are too heavy to reach out to her and hug her. She needs me, yet, I can’t seem to react.
“Shaun came back to the room wearing a ski mask. He broke the window and threw the body outside. They escaped from the basement. Once they left, I cried and held Ava. After a while, Corbin came back and right behind him, the police. I wished they had left a gun behind, so I could kill myself.”
“Abby,” I say once she’s finished.
“They broke my body and my mind. I still don’t know why he didn’t shoot me. When the police told me they’d put me into foster care I was confused, but relieved. I thought I was free. I’m not. He’s been keeping tabs on me.”
“Are you sure?”
“On graduation day, I saw him. Corbin. He’s watching me. Even now, I think he’s keeping an eye on me. I’m not sure how or why … or maybe he was right and I’m mixing fantasy with reality.”
What she’s telling me sounds scary and more like a horror movie than real life. I’m numbed as I process everything she’s told me.
She stares at the pictures of Ava’s dead body. I wipe the tears tumbling down her cheeks. We don’t say anything for a long time. I’m stunned silent, blinking up at her as I wish I knew what to say.
“What can I do for you?”
“I need a shower,” she says jumping off the bed and closing the bathroom door behind her.
The documents remain on the bed. I pick them up, yet I’m looking away from them. It’s like looking at a fresh crime scene. Carefully, I set them on top of her nightstand and go to my room. I send a message to the private investigator I hired to find the whereabouts of Corbin and any information he could send about his businesses.
I call Mom who picks up right away.
“Did you know?”
“What are you talking about, Weston?”
“Abby, did you know what really happened to her?”
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” she claims innocently, but I know her.
“She was abused,” I grunt.
“She told you?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wasn’t sure,” she says. “She wasn’t my first foster child, Wes. I’ve seen and heard a lot of horror stories. A malnourished girl who wouldn’t talk. Her sister was raped and killed. According to the forensic report, she had been physically abused for a long time. Your dad and I just assumed that the same happened to Abby.”
“What do I do?”
“She needs love, understanding, and support from her family. Everything that we’ve been doing for the past six years. Nothing different, Wes.”
“Everything is different, Mom.” I hang up the phone.
She’s asking me to sit down and do nothing. All I want is to kill the mother fuckers who hurt her. I
let go of all the tears I held in while she told me the story. I cry as if the ferocity of my tears might erase her pain and those horrid memories. As if the sheer force of my grief could undo the past.
How can I save her? Is it too late? I change my clothes and go out for a run, dissolving myself into the night, wanting to disappear because there’s nothing I can do to make this better. I can’t save the woman I love. Even if I find them, whatever I do wouldn’t give her back what she lost. Still, I think about the ways I could kill those sons of bitches. As the sun comes up, my legs start to give out, and I drop to my knees. The sounds echoing across the lake are of birds singing accompanied by my wailing carried in the damp air. Everything is static, frozen. Helpless, just like me.
35
Wes
“Why are you here?” I ask Sterling when I enter the house.
“Mom called a few hours ago saying, ‘your brother needs you,’” He explains, shrugging. “I found myself a private jet, a pilot, and came to check on you.”
He pretends to check his watch and says, “I arrived a couple of hours ago. The door was open, and Abby has been taking a shower since then—or before I arrived. What happened?”
“Nothing.” I walk into the kitchen where I find the scattered police reports. “What are these doing here?”
“Since there was nothing else to do, I decided to entertain myself.” He taps the papers. “Interesting shit. I assume the old wound is open and gushing.”
I nod, flinching at the gory way he said it.
He shakes his head.
That’s all we exchange for several minutes as we both stare at the gruesome pictures and read the testimony of the neighbors.
Nice family, quiet girls.
They kept to themselves.
The Dad’s charming. Poor man. Since he lost his wife he’s been a total mess, still a great father.
There’s no mention of Shaun in any of the papers. Did she make him up?
Fuck, I sound like every other person who has doubted her. No wonder she’s afraid of that.
Begin with You Page 18
