“Ms. Carson, we’re very sorry to hear about your ordeal,” Detective Rivera says. “I know you must be tired, but we’re in charge of the investigation. It’s important that we speak with you.”
Unease clenches inside me. “I already talked with cops. Told them what I remember.”
His expression doesn’t reveal much, but I get the sense that he’s looking at me. Looking into me, like he knows I kept some stuff back. “It helps to hear things in your own words,” he says. “And sometimes you can remember things later that were fuzzy at first.”
“I don’t,” I say, too quickly.
His eyes narrow slightly. Damn it.
I’m messing this up because it feels wrong to lie to the cops. It feels wrong to lie to my parents. I’ve been raised with a lot of luxuries, especially before the construction business started to tank. But I was also raised pretty strict. Brought up to be obedient, to do and say the right thing.
Lying makes me feel like an accomplice to a crime. An accomplice to my own abduction—and to the murder of that man, Madsen. I don’t even know the name of the man who took me, who carried me into the river, but I feel linked to him now. Partners in crime, almost. I hate it, but I can’t tell on him.
I can’t endanger the people I love.
“I just—” I twist my hands together, looking down at the plush blanket over my legs. Even with my mom in the next room, I can’t bring myself to move it. Even sweating, I leave it there. It covers me. I wish I could pull it over my head. “I was wondering about the man who got hurt.”
Now those dark eyebrows rise. “We have an identification on the man who was murdered. His name was Gerald Madsen. He was a guest at the party. Your party.”
I nod, my throat tight, because my mom already told me this. I don’t remember him, which makes me feel horrible. Did he try the foie gras before he drew his last breath? He wasn’t close to my dad, not close enough that I’d met him before, but he was still one of the guests.
Detective Rivera stares at me. Waits.
Worse, I can’t help but feel guilty about the party Mom worked so hard for. All those nights in secret at the bakery, earning nine-fifty an hour so she could pay for caviar and champagne. So she could make the evening a success, but now it’s not.
Because of him. My abductor. It’s a failure, because of him.
Detective Rivera studies me. “Do you remember anything?” he finally asks. “Anything you might have heard? Anything either one of them said? Even if it seems insignificant.”
I take hold of the throw, running my thumbs over the smooth fabric. Mr. Madsen’s face is etched into my mind. The way he looked tied up in the back of the van. “I heard the fight, I guess. I was hiding, trying to call 911, and the man who took me came up behind me. He put something over my head.”
“You told the officers it was a bag.”
“Soft. Like a pillowcase.”
“Are you sure you didn’t get a glimpse of your attacker’s face?” Rivera’s voice has dropped, becoming almost persuasive. That scares me the most, as if he already knows I did see his face and he’s just trying to persuade me to tell.
But I believe that man when he says he would kill me for telling about him.
I believe he’d kill the people on my cell phone, including my parents. My friends. He’d make it hurt, the way he made that man hurt. Gerald Madsen. “The bag was over my face,” I whisper. “And before, it was dark.” I flash on the anger, the fury as he beat Gerald Madsen half to death.
“He made a stop before the river. Do you remember anything about it?”
I’m thinking about the drive-through.
Do they know about the drive-through?
I furrow my brow as if I’m trying to remember things to help him, but inside, my heart is banging out of my chest.
Detective Rivera sits there, watching my eyes. He doesn’t smile, doesn’t bother to put me at ease. He stares for what seems like an impolitely long time. I would never stare at somebody that long. Is this part of what detectives do? Try to make you feel like a bug under a microscope? Like they can see everything?
Of course it is.
I think about that kid at the drive-through, the way he leered at me. I thought my captor was going to reach up through the little window and drag him out and kill him, too. All for looking at me like that. It felt…strange. Like a twist of fear, but something else, too, deep in my chest.
Something wild and raw.
“Is something coming to you?” he asks. “We need you to tell us everything you remember, even if it seems insignificant or…” He glances toward the kitchen, where my mom is, and lowers his voice. “Or embarrassing.”
I shake my head, thinking about the little house in a nowhere suburb. “I didn’t know where we were.”
“What about sounds? Could you hear anything?”
I close my eyes. It’s a welcome break from his scrutiny. “It was quiet,” I say. “I thought about running, but he said he would kill me if I got out or…” I gesture to my head, because supposedly I had a pillowcase on my head. “He said, ‘You want to live, you do not move.’”
This, at least, is true.
“His voice,” the other detective asks. “Young? Old?”
I shake my head, picturing the scar design on his forearm. Like crossed axes. I think about the question. Young. Old. He seemed both. I open my eyes. “I don’t know.”
“Did he have an accent?”
“No.”
“Did he make any calls?”
“No.”
“He said nothing else? In all the time he took to drive around…”
“He told the man—Mr. Madsen—to shut up a few times.”
“Why? Was Madsen saying something?”
“No. More like groaning. In pain. Maybe scared. I don’t know.”
He keeps pushing. “What about at the end? At the river?”
I shudder, remembering the freezing water against my skin, how hard he held onto me as we went deeper. This is my chance. I could tell the full truth right now. Rivera already gave me an out by saying some people remember things later.
But I won’t do that to the people I love.
“I kept my eyes closed. I thought he was going to—” My voice cracks, and a tear runs down my cheek. The emotion is real, but it’s also convenient. I don’t have to talk anymore. I can’t.
“You closed your eyes so you couldn’t see…” He crosses his arms and frowns like he’s confused. “Except you had a pillowcase over your head,” he points out, unmoved by my tears. “Or is that after it was off? That you closed your eyes? Because if you had the pillowcase over your head, it wouldn’t matter if you’d closed your eyes.”
“I don’t know,” I say, feeling the panic rise in my chest. “I don’t remember.”
“Did your abductor take the pillowcase off you at the end, or did you take it off?”
I don’t know what to say. I didn’t work that part out, and the detective knows I’m hiding something—I’m sure of it. Then I remember what he told me—They can’t make you tell something you don’t remember. “I don’t remember,” I say again. No explanations. He can argue anything I tell him, except for that.
“Were you out of the vehicle at that point?”
“I don’t remember.” I cling to it like a lifeline. Don’t remember, don’t remember, even as the crystal-clear vision of blood and violence and unexpected mercy plays in my mind.
“Do you know how you got out? Can you tell me that?”
Just then my mother appears. The glass of water is gone, and her expression hardens when she sees my face. “I’m sorry, detectives, but Brooke needs to rest. You’ll have to come back another time.”
Gratitude overwhelms me. She may have a problem with my posture, but she loves me. She protects me in her own way. Even the lessons on manners and propriety are a form of protection for a girl in our set.
“Of course,” Rivera says easily, standing, his demeanor full of respect a
nd understanding. There’s something in his eyes, though, that tells me he hasn’t given up. A glint of suspicion that makes my stomach clench tight. “I’ll come back another time.”
Chapter 7
Seven months later
Brooke
Chelsea and I step out of the hushed warmth of the Franklin City Natural History Museum into the cool April air. We’ve got tons of notes for our project, which involves making a model of a hunter-gatherer village out of putty and cardboard. Our village shows how people lived before they figured out they could grow crops and settle in one place. Our teacher said that anybody who added museum research would get extra credit, and Chelsea and I are all about the extra credit.
We head to the parking ramp across the street and take the stairwell up. “You need to tell your dad to get one of those 3-D printers,” she says. “Can you imagine how amazing our village would be? If we could make tiny little tools like what was in there?”
“Yeah, I’ll tell him. I’ll get right on that,” I joke. Sometimes I’m surprised that even Chelsea doesn’t realize Dad’s company is doing so poorly.
At least I’m doing better.
It’s been seven months since my abduction. Seven months since my sixteenth birthday party.
Right after it happened, I thought I saw him around every corner. I don’t think I see him around every corner anymore. I still see him beating that poor old guy to death when I close my eyes, though. I still remember the way he held me so tightly. Like we were both in danger of drowning in that river.
We get to the fifth level. She pulls out her keys, and I pull out mine. The lights flash on her white SUV, parked next to my red one.
“Tomorrow? Study hall?” she says. We both have first period free.
“I’m there,” I say. “I promise I’ll remember your blue sweater.” I borrowed it, and I keep forgetting to bring it back.
She narrows her eyes, playful. She always acts like I’m trying to steal it.
“I swear! Unless I decide to wear it. I might wear it. Finders keepers,” I tease.
She snorts and gets in and buckles up. I shut her door for her and thump on the side as she backs up and out, leaving me alone in the parking lot.
I walk around my car and click the fob. It unlocks with a soft squeech.
Just as I open the door, I see a dark form separating from a nearby pillar of concrete. A person, coming toward me, long strides eating up the ground between us.
Him.
I back up, going around my car, keeping it between us. I know not to get in. He’ll shove a fist right through the window, because that’s who he is. He stops at the driver’s side. “You want me to drive? Is that it?”
My heart thumps in my chest. “What are you doing here?”
“Throw me the keys and get in.”
“I didn’t tell,” I say, backing away from him and my car, too, praying for somebody to come. But there are barely any cars on this level. A red exit light in the far corner shines like a beacon in the gray cavern of the parking ramp.
“If you’d told, your people would be dead, wouldn’t they?”
A cold finger trails slowly down my spine. “What do you want?”
“We’re going for a little ride.”
“I need to get home,” I say, voice louder than it needs to be. Bravado. “I’ll be late for dinner.”
“They giving you something more to eat than strawberries these days?”
If that’s some kind of sick joke, I’m not laughing. I’m backing up now, eyes on him.
He comes around the car and moves toward me, green eyes burning, dark hair curling at the ends. His jeans are faded, and his dark green shirt hangs open, revealing a black T-shirt underneath. There are specks of something light clinging to his shirtsleeves. His brown boots, too.
I think maybe it’s flour, but a man like this doesn’t bake things. It’s too coarse for flour anyway.
It doesn’t matter. Getting away, that’s what matters.
I back into something hard—a concrete post. I move around it, trying to put as many solid things between him and me as possible.
He keeps coming.
My pulse whooshes in my ears. The distance between us shrinks. I spin around and run for the exit. “Help!” I yell as I burst through the door to the stairwell. “Help!”
If I can get down to the street, I’m free. There’s life there. Cars, people.
I fly around the first landing and rush down the next set of stairs, footsteps loud behind me. I turn and descend the next flight, and then the next.
Suddenly a dark form hops over the rail.
Him.
He drops down in front of me, wrapping me in a bearhug and hauling me up, just like before, holding me tightly to his chest.
Except this time he has his hand over my mouth, sealing it. He doesn’t like that I yelled. He seems stronger and huger than before. He’s half a year older, so maybe he is stronger and huger. Maybe he spent the past months regretting that he let me go.
His fingers press into my flesh, holding me to the hard planes of his chest.
“I said we’re going for a little ride,” he growls. “What part of that didn’t you understand?”
He carries me back up the steps. I wriggle fiercely. He just tightens his hold, bringing me back up to level five like I weigh nothing—a Neanderthal and his prize.
He carries me across the gloomy parking garage, back to my SUV where the door still stands open. He shoves me into the driver’s side and pulls a gun from out of nowhere.
He has a gun.
“I’ll use it if I have to. Now start ’er up.”
I turn the car on. I’m trapped. Again. How did I end up back here?
The light from the interior of the vehicle illuminates his fierce features, all sharp angles that make me think of a diamond, strangely—how a diamond is formed under huge pressure, and it’s beautiful but incredibly hard. It can cut almost anything because of the way it’s made in nature. Stronger than steel.
He’s a dark diamond. Green eyes bright and hard.
He bends over, nearing me. I suck in a breath and shrink away, thinking he’s going to kiss me.
“Hey,” he says, “you’re okay.” He pulls out my seatbelt and tucks it across me, buckling me in. And for a second, his diamond-hard face seems to soften. “Now I’m going to go around and get in, and we’re going to drive out of here like a happy couple. Got it?”
I can’t take my eyes off his gun.
“Stay buckled in like that and do what I say and I won’t hurt you. Okay?”
I just stare at the gun, frozen. It’s so huge and dark and so…there.
“Say okay,” he says, his green gaze capturing mine.
“Okay.”
He reaches up and touches my hair, just the end, twisting it a little, rubbing the strands between thick fingers. “Your hair is different.”
The words tumble out before I can consider them. “I got blonde highlights.”
“It looks nice.” He shuts the door and comes around to the other side, gets in, and closes the door quietly. “Here’s hoping your driving skills have improved since last time.”
Despite my fear, indignation rises up in me. “What? I didn’t even have my license yet! I was backing up through woods. Running for my life.”
He shrugs.
I clench the wheel and pull out of the spot. I have no idea where we’re going or why he came back. Part of me is terrified. I can’t stop looking at that gun, even out of the corner of my eye.
Another part of me feels a sickening sense of familiarity.
When we hit the pay area, he points to the exact-change line. “I got this.”
He hands me the money, and I throw it into the basket. The black-and-white striped arm rises. I look across at the woman in the credit-card payment booth, but she’s talking to the driver in that car.
“Don’t bother,” he says. “People don’t notice shit. They don’t care.”
Of co
urse he’d say that. But he’s wrong. “Some care.”
“You go on and think so, then.” His voice is unconcerned, easy. His whole body is easy, like we really are a couple on a drive. He tells me to turn left. He directs us toward the highway.
“Did you follow me here?”
“How do you know I don’t just really love museums?” he says. “Maybe I’m a museum lover like you.”
“I don’t love museums,” I whisper.
“Then what were you doing at one?”
“A school project. It’s extra credit if you go to the museum.”
“Aren’t you a good little girl.” He points, directing me to the highway on-ramp. “The hardworking ant.”
I merge in. He said he wouldn’t hurt me if I do what he says. Still, I’m shaking a little. Shaking inside. It’s fear. Mostly. I try for a joke. “Did you just call me an ant?”
“Haven’t you ever heard of that fable? The ant works all summer, preparing stores of food for the coming winter, while the grasshopper lies around and sings and enjoys himself. Then the winter rolls in, and it’s cold and harsh, like a fucking wasteland. And the grasshopper is shivering and starving, and he begs the ant for food and the ant says, ‘You shouldn’t have fucked around all summer.’”
“The ant doesn’t give him food?”
“I don’t know. That’s where it ends. The grasshopper’s sorry for being a fuckup, but it’s too late.”
I check his face to see whether he’s joking. “Did you just make that up?”
“No. It’s a fable. We read it in a musty old book somewhere.”
“You and your parents read it?” I say. Though I can’t imagine him with parents. Or with books.
He shrugs. “Just some old book in a box in a basement somewhere.”
“I guess I am kind of the ant,” I say. “Except I would share.”
He grunts.
“Are you the grasshopper?” I ask. “The one who blows off all the work he’s supposed to do? Just does whatever he wants?”
Need you Now (Top Shelf Romance Book 2) Page 88
