Selena!
Even recalling the ghastly revelations Selena had made and what she'd put Teri through during the night didn't make the chore of raising her eyelids any easier. Depression filled her as she realized she'd fallen asleep and could have missed a chance to get away. But as she opened her eyes, she thought it might not be too late after all. It was still dark. She looked toward her wrist, but without light she couldn't see the time on her watch. For once she wished she wore a digital instead of a traditional timepiece.
She blinked several times, expecting her eyes to adjust, and when they didn't, she touched them to make sure they were truly open. It wasn't simply dark, there wasn't even a hint of light. She remembered seeing a window in the bedroom. Surely some bit of moonlight would find its way through the curtains, in spite of the dense woods around the house.
Trying not to let the absence of light frighten her more than she already was, she sat up and moved her hand to the left, where she had seen a lamp on the nightstand next to the bed.
She found a table but nothing on top of it. What she did discover was that the table was pushed into a corner, which didn't jibe with what she recalled seeing. Her fingers examined the two walls the table abutted and, instead of wallpaper, they touched cool, rough stone. From there, she could tell the bed she woke up on was narrow, unlike the one she'd fallen asleep on, and rather than being centered, it was sideways along the wall.
Like a mime, she pressed both palms against what felt like a concrete block wall and inched her way toward the other end of the bed. This wasn't right. And it wasn't a dream. There had been no concrete walls in the bedroom.
At the end of the bed she rose, keeping her hands on the wall. There had to be a light switch or lamp somewhere. But suddenly she reached the end of the stone. Her fingers touched cold metal and quickly examined what she had encountered. Narrow vertical rods, spaced about three inches apart, were lined up at a right angle to the wall. By running her hands up and down, she felt three horizontal metal bars crossing the vertical ones.
Bars?
That's what they felt like, but she couldn't recall seeing any security bars on the windows of the house. Gingerly she continued to follow the row of bars until, about eight feet farther, there was another right angle and more bars.
Her heart picked up speed as she felt her way along. What is this? She estimated she'd gone about ten or twelve feet when something hard blocked her path and she traced its form. With panic slowing her thought processes, it took her a moment to identify a chest of drawers with her two suitcases on top. The chest was in another corner and behind it was a concrete block wall. Next to the chest were the art supplies she had taken from her studio. After a few more groping movements, she was back where she'd started.
Once more she felt her way around the limited space, not willing to believe there was no door or window. Desperately she tried to create a mental picture of what her hands had touched. Was it possible that she was in a jail cell somewhere? Had she reached the police and been arrested, as Selena had said they would be? If that was the case, why didn't she remember it?
Better question—why wasn't there any light? A jail would be well lit, and there would be other people around. Could she have gone blind and deaf, and have amnesia?
"Hello?" she heard herself call in a shaky voice, confirming that at least she wasn't deaf or struck dumb. "Is anybody here?" Trembling from head to toe, she gripped two of the bars and tried futilely to shake them. This wasn't possible! She was in some sort of barred cage.
In total darkness.
Alone.
"Selena!" Teri screamed as loudly as she could. "What have you done to me?"
But no answer came. There was only silence and no way out.
All she could think of to explain how she'd gotten here was that Selena had carried or dragged her to this place from the bed she'd fallen asleep in. When she recalled how quickly she'd gone from wide awake to unconscious, she guessed Selena had drugged her tea.
Everything Selena had said had made Teri believe she had no intention of killing her outright. Otherwise, she'd be dead already. So, what did she intend? Starvation? Slow torture? Driving Teri as insane as Selena already was? No matter how terrifying those thoughts were, Teri knew she could do nothing but wait until Selena decided to let her in on her plans.
She made her way back to the bed and lay down. Somehow, she would remain clear-headed. Somehow, she would fight her way out of this nightmare Selena had drawn her into. If only she knew Drew would be waiting for her, she would have no trouble handling whatever Selena had in store for her.
But he wasn't waiting. Teri knew she had to accept that. It would be pure foolishness to cling to the belief that he was still alive, even if it would give her something to hang onto. Though Selena had said she wasn't sure if he was dead, Teri had every reason to assume that if Selena had cold-bloodedly murdered Rico and Detective Kidder, she would have been no less efficient with Drew.
Hot tears seeped from her eyes as she thought of how little time they'd had together. She could see Drew winking at her and grinning, the way he did when he teased her. She heard his soft drawling "ma'am", and his last "I love you, darlin'", and she cried until her throat ached and the tears would no longer come.
She cried until she heard a noise above her. With the edge of the bed sheet she wiped her face and listened intently. There was a creaking, as if someone was walking on a wooden floor above her head. Quickly she stood on the bed and reached up, thinking she could knock on the ceiling and make herself heard by whomever was there, but again she discovered bars blocking her way.
"Hello!" she yelled upward. "Is somebody there?" She got off the bed and moved to what she assumed was the front of the cage. Her excitement built as she heard the footsteps moving more quickly, followed by the sound of a lock being turned. A second later a burst of light surrounded her and she squeezed her eyes shut against the strain it caused.
"I am so sorry, Teri," Selena whined, her voice coming closer with each word. "I didn't realize it would take me so long to do the shopping, and I'm afraid I forgot about leaving a light on."
Teri slowly raised her eyelids and focused on Selena.
"Oh dear. You've been crying. I used to be afraid of the dark too, but my first daddy wouldn't let me keep a light on at night, so I had to get used to it. Sometimes I forget about that."
Teri couldn't be certain, but Selena's speech seemed more childish than ever before. There was no question the girl was demented. Teri just didn't have any experience that would help her in dealing with such a twisted mind. The only thing that occurred to her was to talk to Selena as if she truly were a little girl. Perhaps she would even obey Teri as an adult authority figure. She stepped closer to the bars and gripped them to help steady herself.
"Selena, let me out of here," she said as firmly as her rattled nerves permitted.
"Oh, no, I can't do that. I have to protect you."
Teri stopped the explosion that threatened to come out of her mouth. Shrieking at a child rarely gained any ground for the adult. As she struggled to compose herself, she surveyed her surroundings. A flight of steep, wooden stairs rose from the center of a fairly large room walled in whitewashed concrete blocks. The concrete floor had also been painted white, although a white woven area rug covered the floor where she was standing. The cage itself took up one corner and reminded Teri of the kind that used to house large animals in a zoo. On the opposite side of the room, she could see a washer, dryer, stationary tub, hot water tank and furnace. The only other thing in the area was a straight-back chair like one she had seen in the kitchen last night. It sat just outside the cage. All of that, plus the fact that there were no windows, told Teri she was in an underground basement.
"Are we still in your mother's house?" Teri asked in a cautious tone.
Selena giggled. "Well, of course we are, silly. This is the safest place I could think for us to go."
All right, Teri thought, at least
she knew where she was... more or less. Now that there was light, she could also see the position of the hands on her wristwatch—quarter to three. She had been asleep for about twelve hours. Through the bars she watched Selena go to the stationary tub and fill up two basins with water. The running water made Teri urgently aware of what was missing in her private cell. "I need to use the bathroom."
"The potty is under your bed," Selena answered as she carried the basins back and placed them on the floor outside the cage.
Teri hoped she was kidding, but Selena's expression told her otherwise. Kneeling down, Teri pulled out an adult version of a child's potty chair. "You can't be serious." Selena looked baffled by her criticism. "This is humiliating. Now let me out of here so that I can go upstairs."
"You're really going to have to get over this shyness around me. I'll tell you what. I'll go make you a nice lunch while you get cleaned up. The water's hot, so be careful. There's a bar of soap, a washcloth, and a towel in the top drawer of the chest. All your things are still in your suitcases. You can arrange them however you'd like." She took a key out of the pocket of her slacks, bent down, and inserted it in a lock at the bottom of the cage.
Teri hadn't discovered it in her blind search, but now she could see the pass-through. Selena slid a small section of bars up, pushed the basins through and relocked the door. All Teri could think of was whether she could squeeze herself through the same space but it looked impossible.
"When you're finished, you'll leave the basins and potty bowl right there for me to take away. Same goes for your meal trays and dirty laundry. You won't have a thing to worry about any more. I'm going to take wonderful care of you." Selena started to walk away, but at the foot of the stairs, she turned and smiled happily. "It will be just like it was before Mommy went away."
Teri had thought she was as terrified as a human could be, but as she gaped at Selena's retreating figure and digested the girl's last few comments, she felt as if she had been pushed off the edge of a cliff.
Selena had matter-of-factly informed her of the procedures to be followed as if Teri was a hotel guest and she was the bellhop. She had also spoken as if it was a previously established routine.
As if Selena was accustomed to keeping someone in this cage.
Teri's knees buckled and she folded to the floor. It will be just like before Mommy went away. Selena's final words registered with chilling alarm. Teri stared at her prison bars, realizing what she had been too frightened to think of before. This cage wasn't thrown together in the hours while she was asleep. And Teri was also certain Selena's decision to bring her here last night had been a last-minute one. She knew with appalling certainty that she was not the first guest in Selena's private hotel.
"Don't dawdle, Teri," Selena called down from the top of the stairs. "I'll only be about twenty minutes. Then we'll have a long talk."
Teri closed her eyes in an attempt to stop the sensation that the room was spinning out of control. In spite of the irrationality of her situation, she had tumbled into a nightmare... one that could only have been conjured up by a sick, deranged mind... one which she had no idea how to awake from.
Sounds of Selena moving about told Teri the door at the top of the stairs had been left open, and she was jolted out of her shocked state by the idea of having to attend to her personal needs in front of Selena if she didn't get to them immediately.
As she forced herself to perform normal functions, she began to think more clearly. There had to be a way out. The bars were solidly cemented into the floor and walls, so shaking them loose was out of the question. The pass-through door didn't look large enough for her to slither through, even if Selena were to leave it unlocked. Teri could now see hinges where a section of bars made up a larger door, but it also had a lock at the top that required a key. She wondered if the same key opened both locks, or if Selena could ever be convinced to open that door.
Thoughts of picking the lock sent Teri rummaging through her suitcases for some sort of tool. The only thing she found was a safety pin, which she put back in her bag for the time being. She had no idea how to pick a lock even with the proper tool, but she figured it was worth a try later, when there was less chance of Selena catching her.
Abruptly, her mind latched onto Selena's comment that they would talk. Teri told herself that although she had never studied psychology, she was a fairly logical person. Surely if she could get Selena to tell her about why she was doing this, she might discover a way to talk her out of it. This helped her to gather some fragments of courage. She prepared herself to encourage Selena to reveal her reasoning and determined not to show any reactions but sympathy and understanding, no matter how atrocious the discovery. Somehow she had to convince Selena that it would be safe to let her out of the cage.
As Selena had promised, she returned to the basement with a tray of food shortly after Teri had washed and dressed. Using the pass-through again, she exchanged the tray for the items Teri left for her to take away. At least she was not to be starved or neglected.
Reminding herself not to let Selena know how upset she was, Teri picked up her tray and set it on the table beside the bed. "Thank you, Selena. This looks great." Teri considered the drugged tea and realized this food could also have something in it. Not wanting Selena to know she was wary of her, though, she sat down and took a bite of the ham and cheese sandwich and washed it down with some iced tea. "Mmmm. Very good. Aren't you having anything?"
Selena smiled and sat down on the chair outside the cage. "I already ate."
Teri noticed a children's storybook in Selena's hand and tried to interpret the look on her face as Selena watched her eat. Contented satisfaction seemed to cover it. The child and the lunatic both had retreated, leaving the young adult Teri was more familiar with. She hoped that was a good sign. After swallowing another bite of sandwich, and using as friendly a voice as she could manage, Teri urged Selena to talk. "Did you grow up in this house?"
Selena shook her head. "Tom, my dear stepfather, moved us here when I was twelve. He bought a gift shop in Kingston right after my mother married him. She still had most of the money from my father's life insurance policy, and Tom convinced her it was a good investment. Of course, he also convinced her to manage it for him so that he had time to pursue other interests."
The smirk on Selena's face told Teri more than her words had, but Teri needed more information if she was going to talk her way out of this. "You didn't like him?"
Selena raised one brow, then gave a dry laugh. "Like? For a while I thought I loved him, but he turned out to be a pig, like my natural father. They just had different... ways of entertaining themselves."
Watching Selena's eyes narrow thoughtfully as she stared at a spot on the wall, Teri urged her on. "You told me you'd explain things to me. I'd really like to understand."
Returning her attention to Teri, Selena sighed. "Good. I want you to understand, then we can both live happily ever after. While you're eating, I'm going to read you a story. It's Juliette's and my favorite." With great care she opened the thin cardboard cover and smoothed the first page in place. "Once upon a time there was a sad princess."
Guessing this story might have more significance than as a mere amusement for her while she ate, Teri listened attentively and smiled when Selena did. The tale began with the princess and her mother, the queen, living in a castle after the good king had died. A wicked magician wanted to steal the queen's jewels and take over the kingdom. He thought because she was only a woman that she would be helpless against his magical powers, and for a time, he was right. But a fairy appeared before the princess and told her how to trick the evil man into leaving the kingdom forever. After the princess got rid of the magician, the people named her Protector of the Kingdom and gave her a golden sword of her own.
Teri watched Selena turn the last two pages without reading them and go directly to "and they lived happily ever after". It occurred to Teri that in this type of fairy tale, a handsome prince would h
ave come along at the end to marry the princess or the queen, and that Selena might have skipped over that part for personal reasons. Rather than mention it, however, Teri only said, "That's a very nice story."
Selena rose from the chair and began to pace in front of the cage, but her gaze stayed on Teri most of the time while she spoke. "My father was what people call a good provider. My mother and I never wanted for anything... except protection from him. He was a respectable businessman during the day and a mean drunk at night. His favorite punching bag was my mother, but occasionally he took his fury out on me too. Tom was just the opposite. He loved women... and young girls, very young girls. When he put his hands on us, it was meant to give pleasure, but in the end it hurt no less than what my father did to us."
Teri didn't need explicit details. She could read the story of an abused child between Selena's sentences. "I'm sorry, Selena. It must have been awful."
Selena stopped in front of Teri. "I survived. And so did my mother... for a while, at least... because of Juliette."
Teri tensed inside, but kept her outward expression one of curiosity. "How did... Juliette help?"
Selena's eyes seemed to glitter with an inner light as she stepped closer to the bars. In a hushed whisper, she said, "She's very smart. She always knows tricks to make things right. When I was too little to stop my father from beating my mother, Juliette kept me from being afraid, but later she told me how to make him go away. You see, it was my duty as The Protector to take care of my mother, but Juliette had to tell me what to do."
One part of Teri's mind noted that Selena was managing to relay her story without slipping completely back into her childish voice. But the other part struggled to hold back the horrifying awareness that Selena might have killed her own father. "How old were you when your father... went away?"
"Eight. You look surprised. Don't be. I told you, Juliette is very smart. It looked like an accident, of course, his being drunk and falling down the stairs and all. No one suspected a thing." Her voice abruptly changed pitch. "Mommy and I were safe and happy for four years. Five, if you count the first year after she married Tom." She frowned and looked away. "It changed after that. And then I had to make him go away too."
Wicked Obsessions Page 24
