Girls on Film

by Gregg Olsen

  “Ladies of the night, or whatever,” she goes on. “My husband calls them sluts. I saw Alex Rader walk a girl into the house one time late at night. Looked like she’d had a drink or two. I bet poor Marie had to listen to them go at it all night. Frank—that’s my husband—says that I should cut him some slack because he’s married to an invalid and men have needs. That’s bullshit. Excuse me. But it is”

  Finally she’s done.

  I’m not sure if I want to probe for more information or throw up into her fuchsia basket.

  “Like I said, Marie’s lucky you’re here to watch out for her”

  She acknowledges this with a faint smile, which quickly fades with her next words.

  “You can tell I don’t like him,” she says. “But really, Marie’s a doll. She deserves so, so much better”

  I need to get moving. I need to get into that house next door.

  “Do you think it would be all right if I knock on her door and ask about Thor?” I ask.

  She doesn’t hesitate. “Oh yes. By all means. Marie loves animals. She has a big koi pond in the backyard so she’d probably like to know, to make sure Thor doesn’t mess with her finny friends. Be nice for Marie to have some company. I was going to go over later, but I’m running out of time. I’m going on vacation tomorrow. Got to get these plants watered before I leave—don’t trust the kid across the street to do it properly”

  AS I TURN TO LEAVE, the smile that has been plastered on my face evaporates. Fuchsia lady gave me more than I hoped, but honestly, I didn’t think she’d ever shut up. The last thing I need right now is for Alex Rader to come home and find me standing in the neighbor’s yard getting a blow by blow of his sex life. I don’t believe for one minute that he was carrying a prostitute into the house. I have the feeling deep in my bones that the limp girl in his arms was one of his victims. I just don’t know which one.

  Going up to the Raders’ door, I plant my knuckles under an old-fashioned grapevine wreath affixed to the bright white front door and knock four times. In my head I’m thinking of the names of the girls I’m certain Alex Rader has killed. Shannon. Leanne. Megan. The fourth knock is for my mother, whom I pray is still alive. I know that Marie Rader gets around with the aid of a wheelchair so I resist what would be my next inclination. I don’t punch the bell ten times to rouse her.

  The knob finally turns and the door swings wide open. I drop my gaze to meet the woman in a wheelchair in front of me. She has blond hair. Her eyes are blue. I lower my flyer so that it is at her eye level.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” I say. “I’m looking for my cat”

  She eyes me warily.

  “I saw you talking to Rachel,” she says. “I thought you might be selling something and I was going to point to the sign.” She indicates a little wooden placard next to the door.

  no salesPeoPl.

  I shake my head as I acknowledge it. “Sorry. I didn’t see it”

  “Everybody’s always trying to sell me something,” Marie says. “No, I haven’t seen any cat”

  I look past her to see if there’s anything I can glean from her hallway, though it passes through my mind that I might want to just grab the handles of her wheelchair and push her into the nearest chasm. I could so do that. If I thought she knew what her husband had been doing with those girls.

  “How old are you?” Marie asks.

  Her words catch me off guard.

  “I’m eighteen,” I lie. “Why do you ask?.

  She pushes back in her chair. “I was thinking about the time my cat was lost. I was younger than you. At least three years younger. I canvassed all the neighborhoods in the area, carrying a stuffed toy that resembled Abby”

  A sad look overtakes her face.

  “You never found her,” I say, mirroring her expression. “Did you?.

  She shakes her head. “No. She’d crawled into the undercarriage of the neighbor’s car. We found her remains coiled up inside. I think she froze to death”

  Marie had let her guard down and I knew it.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I can tell you really loved Abby. I don’t know what I’ll do if Thor doesn’t come home”

  She nods understandingly. “I was making some ice tea . . . ” she says, leaving a pause at the end, a placeholder for my name.

  “Tracy. Tracy Lee”

  “Would you like to have a glass, Tracy? Hot out there today”

  I suddenly feel sorry for her. Married to a monster. Confined to a wheelchair. Lonely enough to invite a stranger inside for a little company. She spins around and negotiates the living room with a speed and assuredness that I did not expect. Just because she’s in a wheelchair, doesn’t make her a complete invalid. Before I turn my attention to my surroundings I notice two more things. The parallel ruts worn in the carpet from her maneuvering from the living room to the kitchen and the formidable musculature of her arms. Her legs, hidden within dark-dyed jeans, are in comparison a pair of withered saplings, her upper body compensating in that same way a creature in nature adapts to its circumstances. Bats use sonar to fly at night. Cats, like my pretend missing feline, Thor, use their whiskers to negotiate tight spaces.

  Marie Rader uses her arms and shoulders to get around.

  I wonder if her heart and conscience have adapted so that she can ignore her husband’s serial killing. Or if she even has an inkling of the kind of man she married.

  My survival adaptive behavior is my ability to look into another’s eye and flat out lie. No pulse increase. No looking away to the left. Just as bald faced as I can be.

  I do it in her kitchen while she prepares the ice tea.

  “Can I use your restroom?” I ask.

  She looks in my direction and smiles.

  “Certainly.” She points with that muscled arm of hers. “Down the hall by the bedrooms”

  I disappear and start soaking in everything I can as I make my way toward the bathroom. I look for any sign that my mother might have been brought here. I look out the window and see that the yard has an enormous pond, a former swimming pool, and I wonder if there is a trapdoor leading to a space under it. There is but a single photograph on the wall by the window of Mr. and Mrs. Rader, as they stand—or rather he stands—side by side at their wedding. The photo is of poor quality and I only hold it in my sights long enough to see if there is any similarity in his appearance and my own.

  I let out a puff of air. Good. There isn’t. But when I study his face a little closer, I see something very familiar in it. I can’t place it though, and I don’t have time to process this right now.

  Glancing back the way I came, I am glad to see Marie is out of sight, still fixing the drinks, and I hurry down the hall and twist a doorknob. It’s a bedroom. I scan it and it appears to be a guest room with a single bed and a dried floral arrangement on a nightstand. It also appears as if it has seldom, if ever, been used.

  Of course not. They have no children.

  Or at least Mrs. Rader hasn’t had any.

  The next room along, the master bedroom, has two beds. I can tell which one is his and which is hers. The same parallel ruts join the furthest bed near the headboard. It looks so sad, so nothing.

  I tread softly back to the bathroom I am supposed to be using, emerging from it a few moments later to find Marie literally parked by the door.

  Got to admit, what she might know scares the life out of me, but I don’t show it. I smile weakly instead.

  “Are you all right?” she asks.

  I pat my stomach. “I’m fine. Just something I ate”

  She nods and I follow her back to the kitchen where she’s set two glasses of ice tea. I’m touched by her kindness. A lemon slice slinks into the bottom of each glass like a descending moon.

  “Sweet tea,” she says.

  My pulse is racing after that mini tour of the house. My stomach actually is upset now. I don’t know if I should tell Marie what I know or call the police. I decide neither is a good idea. I don’t trust the p
olice. Alex Rader is the police. Marie Rader is trapped in a wheelchair, and I’m afraid if I tell her the truth she’ll have a heart attack or something. Instead, as I figure out what to do, we talk about my missing cat. We talk about her water feature, a swimming pool that apparently made no sense for a paraplegic, but suited her love of koi. She talks about her fine needlework. She tells me that she and her husband own property out in Issaquah. That piques my interest, but when I try to ferret out a few details I feel a wave of nausea flow through me. I shouldn’t have said that something I ate for lunch has made me ill. I just made one of my lies a truth.

  “I need to use your restroom again,” I say, setting down the glass, but missing the table. I see it fall to the floor and shatter.

  Then nothing.

  Blackness drapes over me.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Cash: None.

  Food: None.

  Shelter: None.

  Weapons: None.

  Plan: Stay alive.

  I OPEN MY EYES BUT I can’t see. I want to feel around, but I can’t move my arms and nothing touches my chewed-nail fingertips. I feel a vibration under my back, a kind of rumbling. I feel motion. I have no idea what happened. I play the last moments before everything went black. The lady watering her hanging flower basket. My “missing” cat. The wheelchair. The ice tea.

  I’m in a moving car, I think. Whose car.

  Turning my head to the side, I see that the space is larger. A van. I’m in the van that was in the Raders’ garage. There are no windows, but I notice a sliver of faint light at my feet. The door. The way out. I twist as much as possible but it is of no use. My body is a stiff board.

  Maybe I am dead.

  I take a deep breath and know that I’m alive. I’m also in trouble. Serious trouble. I refuse to panic. I try rocking my body, but I am too weak to do anything. When I try to use my hands to push myself upward, I feel the resistance of tape or ropes that have bound me into a cocoon.

  Behind me I hear a radio.

  The van stops. It lurches. It slows. I feel the sensation of running over a gravel road. I hear the wheels go over a roadway with loose, jagged stone.

  Then it stops.

  The door on the driver’s side opens. Shuts. The crunching of gravel.

  And although it is dark outside, I see things very clearly when the back door slides open. In the moonlight, a face.

  I know that face.

  My father.

  Next to me is Marie’s wheelchair.

  Then his hand reaches for me. It comes for my face like a spear does in some 3D movie. I try to turn away and I scream for him to stop. Then just as blackness comes once more, I hear Marie’s voice. Only this time it isn’t soothing and sweet. It isn’t all kittens and rainbows and water features. There’s a hard edge to it. Also, for the very first time, I hear his voice. For a monster’s voice, it is kind of high pitched.

  “I want her and her mother erased,” Marie says. “Your obsession ends now”

  “Or you’ll do what, Marie?” he says, barely challenging her.

  “I’ll make you pay”

  “I’ve already paid a lifetime over and over by staying with you”

  “You could have left anytime”

  “I couldn’t”

  “Just get it over with”

  I WAKE UP IN A windowless chamber, the humming sounds of a generator and a string of light bulbs glowing above me.

  Someone is stroking my hair, and for a second I wonder if I am in a dream. But then I hear her voice.

  “Honey,” says my mother.

  I’m cradled in her lap like I used to be when we watched crime TV shows together—a long time ago, when I was small. She continues to stroke my dyed and cut hair.

  My first words are not tender or concerned. Ever since I found out the truth, the lies she told me have lined the back of my mind. I can’t just pretend that now that I have found her everything is OK. I’m glad to see her—see her alive—more than anything. But I’ll get to that.

  “Why did you lie to me?” I ask.

  Mom is dirty and her hair is a mess. Her eyes are swimming in tears and she leans close.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “But you were too young to understand the truth”

  “I’m sixteen”

  “Now . . . but you were a kid, Rylee. You were my baby. I wanted to protect you.” She closes her eyes for a second, trying to compose herself, then asks, “Where is Hayden?.

  I open my mouth to reply, but I don’t know how freely I can speak and I indicate so by darting my eyes around the space we’re in, which I assume to be a mine or a cave. “He’s gone,” she whispers, meaning my rapist father. “He’ll be back tomorrow”

  “Hayden’s with Aunt Ginger,” I tell her, still keeping my voice as low as I can. The hum of the generator probably provides some cover for our words, but I don’t trust my mother’s judgement anymore. I love her. I kind of hate her too. I want to ask her a zillion questions but only one seems to matter.

  “Is there a way out of here?.

  Mom strokes my hair some more. She doesn’t say anything for what seems like a very long time so I already know the answer. She knows that I do.

  “There’s only one way out and that’s the way in,” she says.

  I shift my weight and stand. I look to the door she’s indicating. It’s a big steel plate, rusted by the damp air. As I look around, I notice that we aren’t in a mine, at least not like the ones I’ve read about. This isn’t a coal seam. A gold or silver mine. We’re surrounded by the undulating form of metamorphic rock. Granite. We’re in a quarry and it’s a good bet that it’s the one in Issaquah near where Leanne Delmont’s body was found.

  Leaving her there was a taunt. An FU to his fellow law enforcement officials. I am so going to kill him when I get the chance. And when I do, I’m going to enjoy every moment of it. But with none of my weapons and the plan that would go with each, I’m unsure how any of this will go down.

  “I’m sorry,” Mom repeats.

  “It’s okay. It’s not your fault.” When I say that I mean it wasn’t her fault that she was abducted and raped and tortured. Not at all. But she holds some blame for my stepfather’s death and the life we’ve lived.

  “Why didn’t you just call the police on him?” I ask, knowing the answer from Aunt Ginger, but still wanting to hear it from her lips.

  “He was the police,’ she says. And then she looks at me and starts her side of the story.

  COURTNEY SAT IN HER CAR in front of her parents’ house, just outside of the Tacoma city limits. She turned off the ignition and watched as a vehicle crawled behind her. It had been four months since she’d reported her abduction. She was no longer at a regular high school, but attended an alternative school. Most of the kids enrolled were branded creative rebels but that’s not why she was there. Her issues were deep. Counselling eased some of the burden of what she’d been through. But not all of it. She revisited that place where she was held captive every night when she closed her eyes.

  The car parked in the space next to hers.

  The sight of him stunned and silenced her when all her mouth wanted to do was let out a scream. She swung the car door open and started to move as quickly as she could toward the front door of the house.

  “Stop! Courtney!.

  His voice was a command.

  She turned to look at him and opened her mouth to scream but he was already on her with his hand over it.

  His hot breath pulsed on her ear. “Say a word and I’ll kill your sister. Your parents too”

  She relaxed, not because she trusted him, but because she knew that fighting him would only give him more pleasure. That resistance and pain only brought him relief.

  Even joy.

  He caught her full attention and his fingertips slid downward to the gun clipped to his waistband. Previously, his weapons against her had been ropes, wires, and his body.

  “I know what you are,” she said, her voice meek,
subservient— and she hated that as much as she loathed him.

  He touched her cheek and she stood there, frozen in fear.

  “I know what you are,” he said. “You’re mine. I’ve marked you. You belong to me now”

  He was talking about the tattoo, and she reached for her shoulder. She had never shown it to anyone. Not Ginger. Not her folks. By ignoring it and never looking at it when she showered or changed clothes, she willed the tattoo, and the ordeal, away.

  But she couldn’t right then. He was looking at her with those grotesque eyes. They penetrated. They degraded. They reminded her of what she had done to stay alive and how she got away. But mostly they were a reminder that he was out there. Hunting. Killing, probably.

  “I could have killed you when I had you. I picked you on purpose. You were the perfect victim. Couldn’t have been better. The others were collateral. I saw your file. I knew your past. I knew that you were a liar and that no one would ever believe you. I can kill you right now”

  “Then do it,” she said.

  He shook his head. “Not here. Not now. I’ll kill your sister first”

  She wanted to defy him and she tried with a threat. “I will scream right now. Someone will come. I’ll tell them everything”

  “You already have,” he said, laughing. “No one believed you the first time. It’s the definition of mental illness . . . doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different outcome.” He paused and watched her.“Are you crazy, Courtney? If you are, I don’t mind. I like crazy”

  “I will tell,” she sputtered out.

  He shrugged. He knew the threat was an idle one.

  “My word against yours. And if you make me mad, Ginger dies”

  She’d never said her sister’s name to him. Not once. Not when she’d cried in the darkness for help. Not a single time. But he knew Ginger’s name.

  She took a step backwards from the driveway to the lawn. Her heel caught on the rubber landscape-edging and she fell, landing flat on her back. She was wearing a chambray fabric dress, thin and loose.