And the door… it looked almost brand new.
Hanna’s fingers grasped the iron ring and she pulled. Instead of being greeted by a creak this time, she was struck in the face by warm, foul-smelling air. The reek of shit and death filled her mouth and nostrils.
“Hello? Is there someone there? Please, help me.”
Hanna stared into the basement, her eyes flicking from one rickety wooden step to the next.
This, unfortunately, looked familiar enough to incite terror deep inside her.
“Please.”
Hanna turned her head to the side and inhaled, held her breath, then started to descend.
The first thing she noticed was the workbench, and her stomach did a backflip.
It was just as she remembered it, right down to the presence of a racoon, split belly to sternum, its entrails hanging out like jam from a crushed donut. Flies buzzed about the corpse, and Hanna waved a hand in front of her face to discourage any of the engorged insects from coming near her.
That’s when she saw the cages.
Two of them, side-by-side.
One of which was occupied.
Hanna ran to this cage and dropped to her knees.
Inside was the real Hanna Whitmore.
She was naked, shivering, and pressing her body so hard against the cage that what little skin and meat she had was forced through the openings in a familiar diamond pattern.
“Help me.”
The girl’s eyes were open, but she wasn’t seeing. Hanna pulled the cage door with both hands, but it was securely fastened.
“The key… where’s the fucking key?”
The girl’s eyes started to close.
“No, no, no—stay awake, stay awake. Where’s the key? Tell me where the key is, and I’ll get you out of here.”
Someone answered, but it wasn’t the girl in the cage. It was a man.
The Straw Man.
“It’s right here.”
Hanna whipped around, swinging the gun in the direction of the voice.
Only she didn’t have it anymore. When she’d fallen on all fours to try and open the cage door, it must have slipped from her hand.
And Donnie Duggar had picked it up.
The naked man in the black rubber apron chuckled and when Hanna lunged at him, he swung the butt end of her pistol violently. As the hard metal cracked against the side of her skull, Hanna thought she heard the man utter the words that had given her nightmares for nearly two decades.
“Tell me you love me.”
Chapter 79
Hanna opened her eyes. Her head pounded, and her hair was stuck to her scalp on the left side. It took her several seconds before she remembered where she was.
“No,” Hanna moaned. “Noooo.”
She scampered to the front of her cage, shoved her fingers through the openings, and pulled. She was bigger now than she had been back then, but the cage was built for an animal three or four times her size.
It barely flexed in her hands.
Hanna sobbed and rattled the door as violently as she could. The metal bit into her fingers, drawing blood, and she finally let go.
“Help me.”
Hanna’s eyes went wide, and she looked at the terrified young girl in the adjacent cage who had just spoken. Unlike her, who was still fully dressed, this girl was naked. She was also frail, shivering, and her blond hair was damp with sweat.
The longer she stared, the more uncanny the resemblance became. This wasn’t a nameless girl sharing her fate, but Hanna—Hanna Whitmore. The real Hanna Whitmore was trapped in the cage beside hers. The same girl who told her about being raped and then together they’d robbed a John to make her feel better.
And she was Robin. It’s who she had always been. The abandoned girl, the one whose mother chose drugs over her.
The one who became everything and anything people wanted her to be just so that she could survive.
“Hanna?” Robin whispered. “Hanna, don’t do it. Whatever you do, don’t do it.”
The girl’s eyelids fluttered.
“I’m not—”
“Whatever you do, don’t tell him you love him. Hanna, please, just don’t do it,” Robin begged.
The girl’s eyes opened, and she looked at Robin, her eyebrows, once finely manicured, no doubt, now slightly overgrown.
“My name is—”
Robin shook her head.
“I know your name, Hanna, just don’t tell him—”
Robin fell silent when she heard the sound of the trapdoor opening above them. Both she and Hanna pushed their backs up against the cage.
Creak… creak… creak…
Donnie was wearing his uniform again only this time it came with an accessory: in his left hand, he clutched a long blade that dripped blood. Without so much as glancing in their direction, he went to his workbench. Then he raised the blade and swung it down.
There was a meaty thunk and one of the fox’s legs fell to the dirt ground. Blood followed, eagerly soaked up by a pile of dry straw.
He was muttering as he worked, Robin realized. Soft almost mewing words, something about a business, about how he could run it. And then his tone changed.
“Please, mom, don’t leave me here. Please—mom, Lisa—don’t leave me.”
It was pathetic and disgusting.
Without warning, Donnie Duggar whipped around, blade still in his hand. He took three steps forward and then bent down.
“Tell me you love me,” he growled, his light eyes wild.
“I fucking hate you,” Robin screamed. “I fucking hate you!”
The man recoiled as if he’d been struck.
He pulled away from Robin’s cage and centered himself in front of Hanna’s.
“Tell me you love me.” With Hanna, Donnie’s voice was soft, almost childlike.
“Don’t do it,” Robin warned. “Don’t do it. If you tell him, he’ll kill you. He’ll kill you, then cut off your skin.” Foam formed in the corners of her mouth as she spoke. “He’ll cut off your skin and make a suit out of it.”
Donnie’s eyes darted back to Robin’s cage.
He doesn’t know who I am, she realized. How could he not remember that I was the one who got away?
But she hadn’t gotten away.
Had she?
No, she was still here, still trapped in the cage. As was her friend.
Robin’s mind was broken mess. A schism had ripped through her memories, torn them apart, and then knitted together the old and the new, her past and someone else’s present.
“I know you,” Robin said, unsure of herself. When Donnie looked even more confused than she felt, Robin just ran with it, let what was left of her subconscious take over. “I know who you are, and I know what you did.”
The Straw Man, still brandishing the knife, cocked his head to one side as he looked down at her.
“I know that your father died, and that you were too much of a pussy to take over the family business. That you’re just a fucked-up creep that your mother and sister abandoned.”
Donnie’s face changed.
“I’m good enough—I am good enough,” he repeated as if trying to convince himself. He paused then grinned. “I showed Lisa I was good enough. I made a beautiful display for her at the gallery and another at her rich husband’s store. Did you know she calls him daddy? When they’re alone, she calls him daddy. Daddy, daddy, daddy. That’s not very nice, is it? That man is nothing like our daddy. Our daddy taught me everything—he brought me here, showed me how to cut them and sew them.” Donnie turned the blade over, inspecting the animal blood that continued to drip to the ground. “He taught me everything I know.”
“You’re wrong,” Robin countered. “Lisa hated your little skin dresses. They were terrible.” She forced herself to laugh. “Garbage work. A fucking amateur—ha, ha, ha! A drunken seamstress could have done a better job. You even mixed up the parts just like everyone knew you would!”
“No!” he shouted. Do
nnie started toward her cage, pure rage in his eyes. “It was good work! Great work!”
“You think so? You think it was good work? Would your daddy think it was good work? Or would he put you in this cage because you were always wanking your little pecker when he cut them animals open? Huh? Or was it the girls he was cutting? Would you cry? Would you cry when he—”
The man shrieked and thrust the blade into the cage. Had it been a narrower blade, or if the openings were just a little larger, the machete would have impaled Robin. But it wasn’t and they weren’t, and it caught just inches from her chest.
Donnie pulled the machete back and it made a shrill scraping sound against the metal.
“Tell me you love me!” He was a wild beast now. Inconsolable, recalcitrant. “Tell me you love me!”
Robin spat at the man.
Donnie, perhaps realizing that she wouldn’t break, that she would never submit, moved to his left. When he raised the blade this time, he pointed it at Hanna Whitmore’s naked, shivering body.
“Tell me you love me,” the Straw Man demanded again, his eyes still locked on Robin. “Tell me you love me, or I’ll kill her. I’ll kill her and make a beautiful outfit for Lisa. And then mommy will know that even if I don’t have a pussy to sell, I can still be of value. I can still save the business. You’ll see. Everyone will see.”
Chapter 80
“Answer the fucking phone, Hanna!” Drake screamed. “Answer your phone!”
When it went to machine, like it had the past five times, Drake lost it. He threw his cell phone, aiming for the passenger seat. It slipped from his hand and struck the radio instead, somehow switching it on.
“Jesus!”
Drake reached to turn it off again, but then stopped when he heard the newscaster’s nasally voice.
“Six victims, only three of which have been identified. Right now, the details are sketchy, but here’s what we know: the Straw Man prefers his victims young, in their late-teens to early twenties. Short, thin, and with dark hair.”
“The fuck?”
How did they know this? Who’s feeding them information?
The description reminded him of a younger version of Lisa, which made sense given everything Drake knew now.
“The district attorney claims that an arrest in this case has been made but will not confirm that the Straw Man is behind bars. Our news team has only been able to dig up one charge that has been filed related to this case, however: obstruction of justice. DA Trumbo promises to shed more light on this at a press conference scheduled for tomorrow morning. For now, I bring in our field correspondent who is—”
Drake cursed and switched off the radio.
Someone was leaking information to the press, probably the same person who had mentioned the straw they’d found on the art gallery display, which had spawned the distasteful moniker. Someone had to have revealed the names of the victims as well, which had led to them developing a ‘type’.
Drake’s phone rang a sad, damaged warble.
“Hanna! For Christ’s sake, Hanna, you need—”
“Drake, it’s Screech.”
“Screech! Where’s Hanna?”
“I don’t know, but the cops are looking for her. Did you hear what she pulled at—”
“I’m heading to Suffolk, an hour outside the city. That’s where the unsub’s cabin is. That’s where he was keeping the girls.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
Drake swore again.
“It’s her fucking brother, Screech! The Straw Man is Lisa Fairchild’s brother!”
“Her brother?”
Drake’s frustration came to a head.
“Yeah! Her brother! You found Lisa’s fucking birth certificate, and didn’t know she had a brother?”
“I wasn’t looking for a brother,” Screech shot back.
“Fine, it doesn’t matter. Just get some people up here, to Suffolk—Edgewood Preserve. And keep calling Hanna!”
Drake threw his phone again, this time striking the seat. Then he gunned it.
Just under an hour later, he found Hanna’s car parked on a gravel road bordering the Preserve. The driver’s side door was open, but she wasn’t inside.
The hood was warm to the touch.
Drake raised his eyes and looked around.
“Why did she stop here?” he wondered out loud. He answered his own question moments later when he spotted the gray Chevy half-buried under a pile of straw.
It wasn’t hard to figure out where Hanna gone next: a dirt path leading toward a small forest. It was the logical place to go searching for a hunting cabin. Drake made sure his gun was in his shoulder holster and then started down the path. He walked at first, but this quickly transitioned into a jog. The only thing stopping Drake from breaking into a full-out sprint was the possibility of tripping on a raised root and breaking an ankle.
The forest soon opened onto a field that contained only one feature.
A rundown cabin.
She’s there, Drake knew. And so is he.
Drake stuck to the tree line as he made his way to the dilapidated building, ears perked, eyes peeled.
He saw and heard nothing.
Still, he knew that they were both here.
Slipping his gun out of the holster, he stepped onto the warped porch.
“Please, don’t hurt her.” It was Hanna’s voice, but she sounded distant.
Scared.
“Hanna!” Drake shouted on top of his lungs. “Hanna, I’m coming!”
Chapter 81
“Please, don’t hurt her,” Robin cried. “Don’t hurt her.”
“Tell me you—”
Donnie Duggar stopped mid-sentence and turned his eyes upward as if he’d heard a sound from upstairs.
The only thing Robin could hear were Hanna’s whimpers in the cage beside hers.
Her friend’s pitiful sobs.
This was her fault. If she hadn’t duped Hanna out of her cash that day, she would never have come around again. And Robin wouldn’t have taught her how to scam perverts out of their cash.
If it weren’t for Robin, Hanna would have stayed home, tucked in her expensive bed, wrapped in expensive sheets.
It should have been Robin who had been taken, stripped of swatches of her skin, her hands and feet lopped off, face bashed in. She was supposed to be the one dropped on the grass for her corpse to be discovered by a dog walker.
Nobody cared about Robin.
She blinked twice and Donnie was gone, dissolved into the shadows.
“It’s okay, Hanna,” Robin said. Tears obscured her vision now and she wiped them away. “Just don’t say it. Just don’t give him what he wants. You give any of them what they want, and they have no more use for you.”
Robin needed a nod, some sort of confirmation that Hanna had heard her, that she’d understood, but the other girl just stared straight ahead, her expression waxen.
Every so often, she’d shudder.
“If you say it, he’ll kill you,” Robin whispered.
No reaction.
Robin took a deep breath and turned her gaze upward.
There was only one thing left to do, only one way that Hanna could get out of this alive.
This time.
“I love you,” Robin said.
Please, just take me… leave Hanna. She doesn’t deserve what you’re going to do to her.
When Donnie failed to reappear, Robin raised her voice.
“I love you!” she shouted. “I told you, I love you, now come back here and take me! Take me!”
Chapter 82
Drake flung the cellar door open and rushed inside. He’d expected the steps to be narrow, but they weren’t—they were wider than regular stairs. As a result, he careened forward, saving himself from going head over heels by slamming his palm against the dirt wall.
“Hanna!” he shouted as he caught his balance and continued to descend. “Hanna!”
“I love you!” Drake hea
rd his partner yell. “I told you, I love you, now come back here and take me! Take me!”
Drake realized when he got to the bottom step that he’d made another mistake. He should have stayed up top, given his eyes time to adjust to the dim basement. Now, guided only by a single, dull and dirty bulb running on some unseen generator, he was nearly blind. Once again, Drake stumbled, this time breaking his fall by slamming into a soiled workbench. He grabbed one of the legs and even though the smooth surface was soaked in blood, at least a dozen horizontal notches in the wood kept his grip from sliding as he pushed himself back up.
“Hanna, where are you!”
Too loud; the sound echoed and slapped his ears. Nearly deafened, Drake spun around and then saw it.
A cage.
No, not one, but two cages.
“Hanna?”
But it wasn’t Hanna. Drake’s vision was poor, but not so bad that he couldn’t tell that the naked girl in the closest cage wasn’t Hanna. She was too young, too thin.
“What the fuck?”
Hanna was in a second cage.
She was on all fours, gripping the door as if she intended to choke the metal fence into submission. Her eyes were filled with tears and she was whispering something over and over that Drake couldn’t quite make out.
“Hanna!” he took two steps forward.
This was another mistake. He should have scanned the basement corners. Any good cop—hell, any cop at all would have checked his corners before heading toward the cage.
Drake never saw the blow coming.
Something struck the base of his skull, sending stars shooting across his vision and the ground rushed up to meet him. By some miracle, he didn’t pass out. Drake hovered in the purgatory that existed between consciousness and unconsciousness for several seconds. The only thing that kept him awake was the knowledge that if he did pass out, they’d all be dead, destined to become a deranged skinsuit hanging in some rich bastard’s store window.
Drake grunted and scrambled for his weapon that had gone flying during his fall. It was only a few feet from him, but he never even got close.
A foot came down hard on his fingers, crunching several of the bones. He screamed and turned to look up at his assailant.
Straw Man Page 33
